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Friday, April 17, 2015
Friday, April 10, 2015
THE UPFRONT FEE SCAM
There have been many business people, entrepreneurs and dreamers been caught with their wallet open by the UPFRONT FEE SCAM. It is rampant on the internet and propagated to a large degree by business websites such as LinkedIn who do not monitor their service as well as they should. However, that is not the point of this post.
The upfront fee for financing is nothing but a big, fat scam. I have never heard of any upfront business financing deal that has ever been legitimate. I have heard of and heard from a number of people who have been taken in by this fraud.
Many of the financing terrorists (this is what they are far as I am concerned) are very, very professional. Some piggy back on the backs of legitimate companies even using cloned email addresses. Some of them are as dumb as a sack of hammers with terrible spelling, amateurish documents and idiotic presentations. In spite of this, they still manage to reel in a few suckers. The problem lies with people believing what they want to hear. If a business person is desperate for financing and does not have the wherewithal to raise funds from conventional sources, they will grasp at straws. These upfront fee scammers know this and bait their hooks accordingly.
We live in an electronic age. The internet is a tool, a business tool that has trillions of bytes of information at ones fingertips. Why don't people use it to carry out due diligence? A very easy way to start is to type into a search engine the name of the individual or the company offering the financing followed by the word "scam". And don't just look at the first page that comes up. Often a website with some relevant information will show up on the subsequent pages. Also, check out scam websites. There are many out there and often or not, a name will pop up. Of course many of these scammers change identities often. If there are no hits in a search, the next best means of testing the validity of a financing offer with upfront fees required is to advise the lender / investor you will place the required upfront fees in trust with your lawyer. Advise the lender / investor to deposit the investment / loan funds in trust with his lawyer and let the two lawyers handle the transaction. If the investor / lender balks at this and advises that is not the way he does business, ITS A SCAM!! No if's, and's or buts. Run for your life.
If anyone who reads this post can provide 100% concrete evidence that an upfront fee financing has been successfully completed, I would be interested in hearing about it. To date I have never seen one or heard of one that has been nothing but a scam.
Caveat Emptor. Or as P.T Barnum said; "There's a sucker born every minute" Don't let yourself be one.
The upfront fee for financing is nothing but a big, fat scam. I have never heard of any upfront business financing deal that has ever been legitimate. I have heard of and heard from a number of people who have been taken in by this fraud.
Many of the financing terrorists (this is what they are far as I am concerned) are very, very professional. Some piggy back on the backs of legitimate companies even using cloned email addresses. Some of them are as dumb as a sack of hammers with terrible spelling, amateurish documents and idiotic presentations. In spite of this, they still manage to reel in a few suckers. The problem lies with people believing what they want to hear. If a business person is desperate for financing and does not have the wherewithal to raise funds from conventional sources, they will grasp at straws. These upfront fee scammers know this and bait their hooks accordingly.
We live in an electronic age. The internet is a tool, a business tool that has trillions of bytes of information at ones fingertips. Why don't people use it to carry out due diligence? A very easy way to start is to type into a search engine the name of the individual or the company offering the financing followed by the word "scam". And don't just look at the first page that comes up. Often a website with some relevant information will show up on the subsequent pages. Also, check out scam websites. There are many out there and often or not, a name will pop up. Of course many of these scammers change identities often. If there are no hits in a search, the next best means of testing the validity of a financing offer with upfront fees required is to advise the lender / investor you will place the required upfront fees in trust with your lawyer. Advise the lender / investor to deposit the investment / loan funds in trust with his lawyer and let the two lawyers handle the transaction. If the investor / lender balks at this and advises that is not the way he does business, ITS A SCAM!! No if's, and's or buts. Run for your life.
If anyone who reads this post can provide 100% concrete evidence that an upfront fee financing has been successfully completed, I would be interested in hearing about it. To date I have never seen one or heard of one that has been nothing but a scam.
Caveat Emptor. Or as P.T Barnum said; "There's a sucker born every minute" Don't let yourself be one.
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