We (Consolidated Investment Group - thier Local Partner for Alameda County) are writing to express our continued dissatisfaction with the service we have received from Rehablist, and to request the refund that we were promised by both Mike Collins and our original salesperson.
We spoke with Mike Collins approximately 4 weeks ago, where we communicated to him that the products and services we had received to that point were not what we had been promised by your salesperson. We had, among other things, been told that:
1. We would be receiving many "built in" listings per week from wholesalers, and that due to the fact that Rehablist in Alameda County had been built up somewhat already that we "couldn't help but make money".
2. We would receive the contact information for "over 1400 investors" who had signed up on Rehablist for Alameda County.
3. We would receive support from the Rehablist staff to network with these 1400 investors in our county to "whittle down the list of 1400 to the most active investors and lenders"
4. If we didn't make money, and were not happy with the service for whatever reason, we would be given a full refund.
After signing up and spending $5100.00 ($1700.00 a month for 3 months up front), we discovered that our county did not have over 1400 people who signed up, but actually had 1089. We also found out that we would not be given the contact information for these people but would only be able to send email to them through the Rehablist email system. This was not what we were sold and we were very disappointed at the deception, but we decided to forge ahead and try to make it work anyway.
We asked Mike Collins (our listing coordinator) for help "working the list" to help put our short list of active investors in our area together, and we were told to just use the email system to contact them and ask them to send us their buying criteria. Again this was less service than what we were sold, but we had never sent an email and had faith that people would respond and we would be on our way to building our business and team of investors. However, when we sent out our first email through Rehablist to the 1089 investors, the Rehablist staff re-wrote our email and removed all our contact information except our email address. We had built a Web form to capture people's buying criteria and Rehablist staff removed the paragraph that asked people to fill it out. We were not informed in advance that your company censors communications and as a result our strategy to use Rehablist to network with other local people in the industry failed.
At this point we were very upset and wondering what it was we were getting for $1700.00 a month. All the reasons we signed up and all the things we were told up to this point had all been falsely represented. We started calling our sales representative, to try to get to the bottom of things and pursue a refund. We also left numerous messages for Mike Collins, and were not called back for weeks. During this time the front desk transferred me all over the office. I would ask to talk to our salesperson and would end up getting someone else's voicemail. I would leave a message and call back. However no salesperson or staff member (other than the receptionist) ever answered the phone or called back. One day however, I was transferred in error to Scotty LaBelle and I left a message saying that we wanted our money back as we were promised when we signed up. He actually called us back and setup a call with Mike Collins.
During that conversation, Mike Collins said that you were willing to give us our money back and part ways amicably right then, but you asked us to give Rehablist another chance, which we agreed to. To prove that Rehablist was worthwhile for us to partner with in Alameda county, and worthy of $1700.00 a month, He asked us to send in the telephone numbers from local wholesalers advertising in the local papers and real estate investor meetings, and he would ask his team (e.G. "the girls") to contact them all and help us to increase the volume of listings in our area (which at this point were few and far between except for 1 batch of 45 that all came in within 30 mins. Or so from what appeared to be a lead service of some sort).in addition you would speak to Amy and the rest of your staff regarding the lack of return phone calls and poor communication with us, and be sure they were on the lookout for our calls and emails.
We thought we were spending a lot of money to be building the listings from scratch, but we accepted this and went to work gathering numbers and names of wholesalers in our County. We were assuming based on our call with Mike Collins that the staff at Rehablist was committed to assisting us and would respond to us in a timely fashion. We submitted 10 phone numbers to Mike Collins of wholesalers, including 1 number that belonged to one of our partners, within 48 hours of our call with Mike. When our partner's phone number wasn't called within a few days we sent an email to Mike. No response was received for days. We then started leaving voice messages for Mike Collins. He called us back a few days after the phone messages and assured us he would be contacting the people on the list we sent. We finally received a call 2 weeks later (3 weeks after first emailing them to Mike) on 9/17 from Rehablist. This turn around time was unacceptable. For $1700.00 dollars (that month) we had a mere 10 phone numbers called that WE provided to you.
Also, during all this time we spent numerous hours on the phone following up on the listings that actually were posted on Rehablist for Alameda County. From doing this we came to learn that all but a few of the 100 listings that were posted over the course of 2.5 months came directly off of the MLS (which as a realtor, we already have access to). None of the people that are presently posting on the site are wholesalers, which is what we were told we were getting "access" to when we bought the service. Other than the listings we were working to bring in, the rest were merely potential leads that were being generated from a retail listing service. This again was unacceptable to us.
We called to again ask for our money back. When I called Scotty his voicemail was replaced with a man named Lauren Smedge (sp?). That same day I received a message another man trying to get a hold of me. I assumed they were calling me back to process my refund, but instead found that someone had given my name to a local investor who was looking to become the local partner for Alameda County. Mike was trying to sell him San Joaquin County and wanted me to help him. I told him how I was not happy. He said (like everyone before him) that he would help me out. What he offered was to put me in touch with local partners for nearby counties that were successfully working the business to help to mentor our group. I thought this was actually a great idea and worth pursuing. What he wanted in return was for me to sell the other local investor on San Joaquin valley. I told Mike I would call him, but that I couldn't promise anything since I had never made money with Rehablist yet. I did my best to illustrate all the things that I thought were potentially good about the service. But ultimately the investor didn't want San Joaquin. He wanted Alameda. And that was that. I received a call from someone the next day saying how I blew his sale but that he would stick to his word and connect me with a local partner in the Bay Area that was doing well. I never heard from them again. I left them a few messages, but got nothing in return.
At this point I left messages for Dave, and a woman (I believe her name was Susan) all saying that I wanted a refund immediately. I also asked the receptionist to connect me to anyone that was actually at his or her desk and would pick up the phone. Again I got someone's voicemail.
Given that:
1. We did not receive ANY of the services originally promised to us by your sales person;
2. The communication from Rehablist staff has been very poor;
3. The lead times to make the phone calls we were promised by you to help build the listings was almost a whole month after they were sent in;
4. That we were never given a name and number of anyone in our area that was successful that we could talk to;
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