All Forum Posts by: Ike Ikokwu

2late,

I know we may be frustrated with the events of Pinnacle. However, we all owe a big debt of gratitude for the work the receiver and his team has done. To have received 30% of what we invested in the amount of time we did with the prospects of receiving up to an additional 20% is simply amazing. Having been down this road before, I can tell you that as an investor we are seldom this lucky to be in such a position.

At this point, I believe the receiver should have earned our trust and respect and should be given the benefit of the doubt for whatever line of questioning you may receive from his office. If they are asking, there must be a reason. He didn't earn the position of being able to be a receiver in cases like these over night. Also, his record speaks for itself - especially just on this Pinnacle case itself.

Mr. Receiver - I just want to say thanks for your hardwork on this case. We will patiently wait for any updates you can provide on the status of any potential future distributions.

When I try to access the report off your website, it says the file is damaged and can't be repaired - are you aware of this?

Can we please get back to posting relevant information about the status of Pinnacle as it relates to investors that have lost money.

Paul - You obviously have a viable alternative for those looking to make a career out of real estate investing. However, the vast majority of us here were not - hence the investment in Pinnacle i.e. I put up some money, you do the work and pay me a nice return on my capital. It's as simple as that. If you want to promote what you have to offer, I suggest doing so on another thread as it apperas you have overstayed your welcome here. No offense here buddy but just calling it like it is and thanks for understanding.

Ciao!

Scout,

Hays and his staff are professionals. Let's not forget that Pinnacle was under investigation by the SEC for several weeks before they came in and froze assets. You have to assume that during the weeks prior to them coming in, they had done enough due diligence to warrant a formal investigation and freezing of any assets of Pinnacle to avoid investors from any further harm.

Hays and his staff didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday and start fraud investigations. Look at their website, they've done this a number of times. While we would all like to make assertions that all might be well had they let Pinnacle continue on the course they were on, I would beg to differ (I already addressed my reasons in a prior post so you can reference that post).

Bottom line - Hays and his staff are professionals. This is NOW officially out of our hands. Let's let the professionals do what the professionals do and try to aid in their efforts by cooperating as best as we can instead of 2nd guessing every step they or the SEC have taken.

As difficult as it may be, we need to give them time to complete their work. We've all waited a while for promised returns from Pinnacle. Let's give Hays and his staff 45 days to complete their work and file the necessary papers with the courts that will answer many questions we have.

I personally am getting tired of everyone hinting or trying to blame Hays or the SEC for their involvement. As someone else said, neither Gene nor Kunkel nor anyone else held a gun to our heads and said invest. Irrespective of their 3rd party involvment in various phases of this at the end of the day, we need to hold ourselves responsible for what's taken place.

Part of the problem is we most likely were being scammed by Gene and participating in a ponzi scheme - time will tell on this point. The other problem is let's face it, we let greed get the best of us and failed to exercise sound money management principles by investing more than we would have cared to have lost. I know I certainly did!

By the way, it is standard operating procedure to freeze assets while conducting further investigation to protect investors. I unfortunately have experienced that before.

Listen folks,

As an unfortunate member of the Six Figure Club, I am highly pissed at the delays being caused by the SEC involvement as well as the potential reduction in potential payout to investors as a result of fees to be paid to the Legal team etc. However, I am shocked that given as much information as has been provided by the receiver, ex-employees etc that anyone here still believes they would have been paid out just fine had the SEC not stepped in. Granted those who just got checks during the week the SEC stepped in might be an exception but common folks, please disregard some of the emotion associated with your loss, take blinders off and see this thing for what it is.

It is unrealistic to pay 150% per annum on the cost of funds and sustain a realistic business model. I've worked with private investors who lend money and they only get 12% to 18% on their money. Heck even a hard money lender for rehabbing does not get 150% per year on his money.

Consider the market Gene was investing in. I have a home north of Atlanta and I can tell you that even in the nice areas like Alpharetta, we've not been seeing 30% per annum appreciation much less 150% to sustain his business model.

It has not been determined if the properties Gene was purchasing in and around metro Atlanta were actually being sold to legitimate 3rd parties in arm lengths transactions.

The oldest game in the book as far as investing in the heart of Atlanta is to buy properties in regentrified neighborhoods at discounts and sell them at huge markups that have been inflated. There are only 101 ways to make an appraisal come out at a value that you would like. Try then selling that inflated home to an objective, non-biased 3rd party in an arms length transaction and see if that would fly. There are properties that appraise for $350,000 in certain parts of Atlanta that are in these regentrified neighborhoods that you couldn't pay me $500,000 per year to live in.

We have had a few ex-employees blew the whistle on what was really going on inside Pinnacle.

After a year plus stellar record of making payments on time, someone questions the legitimacy of Pinnacle and they conveniently "speed up" the launch of Pinnacle Consulting. To claim this is a coincidence is simply ridiculous.

Come on folks, how long does it take to compute how much your are due, figure out GA state tax at 6%, take a rubber stamp of Gene's signature to imprint on checks, FedEx/UPS/USPS said check to your address? I mean what could actually be causing them to be 3 to 4 weeks behind on "processing" these payments other than they don't have sufficient funds to process these payments? Give me a break!

As much as I would like to believe that we would have been paid out had the SEC not stepped in, that is simply a wet dream!! - It's not real.

Please guys, let's refrain from blowing off steam that the SEC is involved. Like taxum or someone else said, if Gene's business is in fact legit and he has sufficient funds, then he can certainly pay his legal fees, as well as pay off investors as the SEC finds out that they were wrong in their assumptions about Pinnacle and issues a formal apology - However, that too is a dream at this point b/cos the evidence thus far points to the fact that there was something sinister about their operations.

The best thing you can do now is pray and hope that you get as much of your principal back as possible. You may also want to read the book Failing Forward by John Maxwell. The true test of wealth is if it is in fact all stripped away from you as has been the case with this Pinnacle debacle, can you recreate it even if it means starting back out with nothing. We should learn more from our failures than from our sucesses and hopefully we will all be better as a result of this experience with Pinnacle.

I challenge everyone one to make a list of at least 7 things they are thankful for and then go a step further and identify someone who is less fortunate than you are (I know you think such a person does not exist but they do) and sow a seed in their life - it does not have to be financial, it could be a compliment, it could be a listening ear, you are only limited by your imagination. But, sow something positive into their life. I'm a big believer that you reap what you sow.

Irrespective of how things turn out with this investigation, Gene will reap what he has sown. Whether it is here or in the afterlife, he'll reap what he's sown and I don't have to be the judge of when, where and how that takes place. I'll leave that to my Maker to do.

Blessings everyone!

P.S. - Pardon any grammar or spelling errors.

:protest:

We are doing a lot of speculating here as to what the receiver's fees might be and what we might end up with etc. This is very understandable given the predicament we are all in.

I would like to pose a thought that perhaps we might be in for a favorable surprise as to what % of our loss we actually recoup. The reason I say this is because I don't think the vast majority of us actually rolled over our payments each time. So in coming up with a net loss figure per investor, I think it may be a lot less than maybe we think. I know of one investor who had multiple (several) six figures invested with Pinnacle but because he had been with them since late last year, had actually received almost 100% of his principal invested. In his case, say he had $500,000 expected back in payments from Pinnacle but had already received $450,000 in returns over the past year, his net loss would only be $50,000 - a lot less than we might think if you thought he was expecting $500,000 back from Pinnacle. There may be several investors out there like him not to mention others that may actually have been already paid back in full.

I challenge everyone on this site to simply go through the math and figure out what their TRUE NET LOSS is and post here. We can have RDC, REMY or OOKEVIN tabulate this to give us a rough estimate of what we think that number is while we wait on final calculations from the receiver. To make it easy, I suggest the Subject header simply say: My net loss is $XXXX and have nothing in the body of the post that way the leaders on this board could easily scan through the posts and come up with a rough estimate. See next post for an example.

FYI to calculate your net loss:

(1) Determine how much in principal (that is your own money not your original money plus any earnings/payments you might have received from Pinnacle) you have with Pinnacle.
(2) Calcuate the sum of the total return payments you may have received
(3) Subtract #2 above from #1. However see #4 below if it applies to you.
(4) If you for instance invested $5K, recived two payments of $1,250 each and then cashed out your account at $7,500 but later reinvested $7,500 in another contract, then your net loss here would be - $5,000 of your money invested less $2,500 in return payments you received which equals $2,500 Net Loss - I hope this makes sense

Thanks for your cooperation

Berkeleyguy - I totally agree.

asdjfkl - you don't have a sensitive bone in you and clearly you don't belong here.

Bigman,

That has to be the funniest post I've seen on this forum so far.

To the Receiver - I appreciate your post and you obviously working on the case. However, you did point out how "expensive" you and your legal team's efforts would be on this case.

My question is where is the justice in attorney's and other legal professionals profiting from the finanical demise and disaster that investors are faced with? What ever happened to the day when attorney's did pro-bono work?

It just does not seem fair or even close to equitable that you and your legal team would be compensated first for what already seems apparent (albeit with hindsight) and further jeopardize any financial return that investors could hope for. Forget returns but just a return of principal would suffice at this point.

I'm sure you are yet to hear the true horror stories of what people are faced with (divorce, homes probably being foreclosed on etc) and yet you make it very clear that your team will be paid first from what little funds may be left at Pinnacle.

While I welcome the work your team will do in getting to the bottom of this, I just don't see the justice to us as investors. It would seem there would be a fairer, more equitable solution to how your legal team should be paid for their services.

Just Another Freaking Pissed Off Investor!!!!