Do not do business with John Smith with American Consulting Practice. He has 20 websites for sale on bizquest.com.
I saw his listing for Movableadnetwork.com in mid August which is a website that was advertised to have $201,000 in revenue and $186,000 in cash flow, asking price $288,000.
If the business had $186k in cashflow then $288K is a good price.
I inquired about the listing and John Smith was very friendly, very helpful, very sincere sounding. He is not a broker, he stated that he owned this website and over 300 others, and that he was trying to sell off some of them to simplify his life.
He was willling to take a 15% down payment and finance the rest at 5% interest. Right here I should have known it was too good to be true. But I trusted what he told me, and decided to make a good faith deposit of 5%, or $14,400 in order to do the due diligence on the business. This was my first mistake.
He sent me wiring instructions to an "escrow" account at Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco. I was anxious to get going and believed him that this was an escrow account that required both of our signatures for him to get the money. I signed his "offer to purchase" contract without consulting an attorney and wired the money. This was my second mistake.
The documentation he provided for the traffic, customers and revenue of the business was very flimsey and didn't prove anything. For instance the income statements were just reports of revenue and expenses from a spreadsheet.
When I asked for real proof of the revenue like bank account statements, tax returns, etc. He said he would have his accountant send them to me in 1 or 2 days. After waiting 4 days with no response I emailed him and let him know I was pulling out of the offer and wanted my deposit refunded. No response.
I left messages and sent emails, and got no reply. I knew I was in trouble. I hired an attorney who sent a demand letter. The letter was delivered by certified mail and was signed for by someone at the business address, which surprised the attorney, who figured "John Smith" and his business were fake.
I finally got an email after a week from John Smith, stating that I had "failed to perform" according to the offer to purchase, and had forfeited my $14,400 deposit. He stated he had fulfilled all of his obligations according to the contract.
This is so adsurd I just can't believe the gall! First, the contract says that the seller will provide documentation of the business revenue, profits, customers, etc. To the buyer's satisfaction. But the contract also says that if all contingencies are met and the buyer doesn't buy, the the buyer will forfeit the deposit. I wrote in by hand on the contract that one of the contingencies is a satisfactory due diligence.
So, now I have to file a lawsuit in San Francisco (I live in Dallas) IF I can find an attorney there to take the case. So far no lawyer is interested in a civil suit over $14,400. That's a lot to me but not to them.
So, John Smith lied about this bank account being an escrow account. Yes, I was naive.
He also apparently is lying about the revenue of this website, since he could not document it. I would extend this lie to all 20 of the sites he has for sale on Bizquest.com. Just look up movableadnetwork.com, then click on the seller's other listings. Now that I know he is a crook the listings are claiming revenue that is very suspect.
But, he had me sign a contract that does have a clause about forfeiting the deposit, so even if he blatantly breached the contract I will have to go to court to prove it. And this is very hard to do. And he knows this.
I hope anyone interest in these websites for sale will google John Smith American Consulting Practice and find this report before they do anything else.
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