Get ready, this is juicy!
I was approached by a gentlemen that called himself "James Grant" saying he was a private lender from CA (I'm in TX).
After jumping on a call to ask him of his terms and rates I decided to go with him, after all his lending rates were very competitive.
I then met up his trusted "contractor" to ask him how his professional relationship with James was and if he was a good lender, and this contractor spoke very very highly of him saying that he has deep pockets and have funded 10-12 deals for him this past year, and how this contractor would be willing to work on all my projects.
I then asked for a POF letter (proof of funds) from James so I can get my agents/wholesalers to look for properties and he gave me this letter (attached). My broker noticed that there is no mention of my presence in this "document", so I inquired of James to see if it'll be possible to include me in the letter somehow, just so our offers would be taken more serious... and that is when it ALL started getting strange!!
After a severe scolding from this James guy on how that is illegal, he then asked me to wire him $10K as a "security measure" just in case I get this POF letter with my name on it and run... After denying to wire him money, he called me greedy with my $10K and that I would be greedy with his $12M too. Then he proceeded to give me an alternative, to wire his "trusted" contractor the 10K and let him "hold it", just in case. I was shocked.
I said no of course and he call me more bad names and said how I was wasting his time by "asking too many questions" and not wiring him and/or his contractor the money.
After more heated back and forth he agreed to have me wire him $8K to cover the legal costs to have my name added to his POF (by this point, I didn't even want to be added to this stupid document EVER), James said that "too many people has taken my money and ran, so this would legally cover him".
I was living and jumped on the phone with this so called "contractor" that I met earlier in the week asking him "OK FOR REAL, WHO IN THE WORLD IS JAMES!!?" and sure enough, the contractor confessed that this James guy has already taken some of this contractors money on a deal-gone-sour earlier that month and told him if he were just to lie to me on his behalf he would get to do all my contract work. (WOOOOOWWWW am I living a soap opera of what!)
While I was on the phone getting the truth out of this contractor, James send me an invoice for the 8K (attached) with a completely different name, bank name, routing numbers etc..
I then had enough and called him out on his scam and have law enforcements involved!
People, SPREAD THE WORD!!
