Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:10/02/2023

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  This is the scam I fell for. I had currently been engaged in a marketing campaign with a company in New York, who, as part of their marketing strategy, emailed a known book reviewer to ask him to write a review of my new book that was coming out. He agreed.
  
  Next thing I knew he was calling me to let me know that he had read my book and absolutely loved it, and that his father had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and much of what I had written in the book resonated with his experience. He went onto tell me that I was an excellent writer and asked me if I was happy with the services I was paying for with the current company. I told him I was. He then proceeded to tell me that he thought they were horrible, unprofessional, and did not know what they were doing and asked me if I would like a referral to a marketing company who was known for being very successful at marketing, especially for authors. I told him that since my agreement was ending with the current company anyway, that I would be interested in hearing what they would do for me, so he arranged for me to have a **** call with them. **** and ***** ***** *******, of DM Productions, LLC. He also told me that he had referred a few other “specially gifted” authors to them that he had written book reviews for and that they had done right by them, then assured me that I would be in the best hands possible to successfully market my book and see the return I was looking for.
  
  During the consultation call, they asked me what my objective was for hiring a marketing firm to promote my book, and I stated at that time that I needed to monetize the book but did not know how to go about doing that. They assured me that is what they specialized in and that they had successfully accomplished that for several well-known authors to date. They gave me a few examples of what they had done to market their books and that they would do the same for me, such as a virtual world book tour that ***** ***** had done for another author client that was hugely successful for her and that was one of the things that they would do for me, too. I said that since my service agreement was up with the New York company anyway, that I would try them out for a few months. They told me that it would take at least 4-6 months before we would start to see the impact of their marketing efforts and see revenue coming in because of what they were going to do for me. I agreed. We agreed on $2475.00 per month, and an additional $3400.00 to cover any expenses that they might incur. I sent them the $3400.00, the first payment of $2475.00, and signed the agreement for a 4-6 month period of time. To date, I have never received an accounting of what they spent the $3400.00 expenses retainer on, although I do know they purchased a new laptop computer.
  We began the 1st of the next month following my signing the agreement. Some of the marketing efforts they promised to do for me included building me a website, and doing a virtual world book tour that ***** ***** had done for another one of her author clients that was extremely successful, so they would do the same for me. (they never did one for me). **** also told me that he worked with a doctor who had been doing stem cell research on finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease for the past 30 years, and that he would ask him to write a foreword for the book. He sent the book to Dr. **********, whom **** told me loved the book, and would be honored to write the foreword for the book, and he also told me that Dr. ********** had told him that he was so impressed with the book, that he would like me to join him when he spoke at medical conferences and events. I would speak about the psychosocial aspect of living with Alzheimer’s disease while he spoke about the medical, stem-cell research, and scientific aspects of it. He also told me that Dr. ********** wanted to customize my book for his company and order thousands of them to give to his patients in his many clinics that were all over the world. (Neither one of these things happened; although, he continued to talk about them for months after he initially told me that they were part of the marketing plan. “They are in the works,” he’d say. You must be patient.” Dr. ********** did, however, write the foreword for the book, as promised, and **** told me that never would have happened if he hadn’t already had a relationship with Dr. ***********, as he was world-renowned for his stem-cell research work, and was untouchable for anyone else.
  Then he told me that if I made him co-author of the book, he would do everything humanly possible to make sure our marketing campaign was successful because he would also be invested in the project. He said he had already helped me write the workbook to accompany the training program I was working on, as well as finalizing the editing of the book, and that he contributed the Alice in Wonderland quotes to it, and arranged for his good friend, country music artist, **** ******, to contribute a chapter to the book since his mother had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and that the family made their care decision for her based on the COVID-19 pandemic that we were right in the throes of at that time. He also suggested that we include a chapter on how the COVID-19 pandemic had a huge impact on the care options for seniors and people living with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia since, at the time, most of the care facilities had been shut down to visitors and so many of the residents were dying of isolation and loneliness. I told him that I had already written that chapter, so we would add it to the book, along with ****** personal story about his mom.
  **** also told me that he, too, loved the book, that ***** ******* father had also suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, so it was an experience they were familiar with, and that he absolutely loved this project and wanted to be more involved in raising awareness about it since they had just been through it themselves. I agreed to make him co-author, because I, too, believed that if I did, he would be invested in the project and do whatever he could to make the campaign successful and that they wanted to support this very important cause. However, even though I was making him co-author of the book, I was still going to have to pay the $2475.00 per month for his work on the project. Shortly after that, **** arranged for us to interview **** ****** to tell the story of how his mother came to live with him because of her Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis during the COVID-19 pandemic. I wrote all the notes and asked all the questions during the 2-hour interview, then transposed the notes into the story that sits today as the “******** *** ****” story in the book. I had no help in creating that chapter from ****.
  Additionally, in the marketing agreement I entered into with DM Productions, LLC, other than the few promises they made to me, they really did not specifically identify exactly what they were planning to do to promote the book, other then telling me that I needed to trust them, that they had been doing this for over 30 years, and that ***** ***** had successfully represented many well-known authors. Some of whom they were sure I had heard of and had monetized their books for them, too. They insisted they knew what they were doing, and they’d do the same for “our” book, too. Then they began name dropping the authors they succeeded in marketing their books, and I did recognize some of them. We then discussed a few of the ideas I had to market the book. They included,
  1) A virtual store to sell implements that were available to make caregiving for people living with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia easier and would include a payment center and links to the products through ******.
  2) A membership site that would include a support group where the members could have access to me once a month for my expert advice. A one-stop shop resource center that the members would have access to eldercare attorneys, hospice experts, end of life advice, veterinarians for advice about doggie dementia, etc., as well as creating our own podcast that we would air to establish ourselves as experts in the field and so people would get to know me and the book.
  They loved that idea, so we decided that the top priority would be to build the membership site because everything else we discussed was dependent on that site being built. He said that the podcast would be right up his ally to produce it for us because he owned and managed a production studio for five years when they lived in Arizona, so he was very experienced at doing that type of work. He told me that it would take him 30-60 days to build out a membership site once we identified which platform we wanted to use. We agreed to purchase a membership platform called ****** and I gave him my credit card to sign us up for a site. The cost would be $339.00 per month, and he said he would own that part of the project since he was the one experienced at building websites and I was not, so I delegated that responsibility to him. He told me he would work directly with the ****** people to get the site up and running, especially since ****** was a new platform and he understood the language and the site building process, so I agreed to that. (He never built out the site for us). Then he told me that the ****** people asked for his help in working out some of their snags, so he was helping them with that, which would delay him building out our site for another month or so. I called him out on that because I was already paying the $339.00 per month, but not getting anything for my money while he was being paid to help them enhance their platform. He said he would arrange for me to get credit for the time I had already paid since he was helping them. (I never received a credit for the time I paid with no benefit of the site). Then I asked him for the contact information for the person he was working with at ****** so I could talk with him myself about this situation, and he informed me that I couldn’t, because the guy was on vacation, and he would take care of it when the guy returned from his vacation. That never happened. I also reminded him that we desperately needed that site built out, since everything else we planned to do to monetize the marketing campaign was contingent on being able to upload the other moving parts to the membership site. He assured me at that time that it was almost ready to launch and told me it would be ready in a matter of a few weeks, and that I should just worry about getting the training program finished and ready to launch. He did, however, create a website, as promised called ***************************; however, he would never give me access to it, nor to my assistant, *******, so we could post things on it, too, even though I was paying him the agreed upon amount of $2475.00 per month to deliver on his marketing promises to me.
  
  To this day, I still do not have access to the site that I paid him to build for me, and I even called ** ***** to ask if the site could be transferred to me since it belonged to me. They called him to discuss it with him. I have no idea what he said to them, but they did not call me back to let me know the resolution to the situation. He claimed that website was a $50,000 website that he had built for me. I doubted that inflated claim.
  At one point, they also invited me to join them in Nashville to meet **** ****** personally after writing his personal story and to meet some of their other colleagues, so I flew out there from California to meet up with them. We did go to ****** house and then he treated us to the concert he was performing at in Nashville.
  We also met with ****** ******, who is an actress and writer and producer to talk with her about her experience taking care of both her parents who also suffer from Alzheimer’s disease and that we would like for her to be a guest on our upcoming podcast series to share her personal experience with our audience. She said she’d love to.
  Then we met with another friend of theirs, Mr. **** ******, owner of a book publishing company called *************** to discuss possibly having him sign the book on with his publishing company. He agreed that he would be willing to represent the book, and that he loved it, so we agreed to move forward with that plan. Now I am paying him a percentage, as well as **** as co-author and anything left over for myself. The pie keeps getting smaller and smaller. The other caveat is that **** told us that he does no marketing for his authors so that would have to be our responsibility to continue marketing the book for his publishing company. Subsequently, **** signed us on, finalized the editing and production of the book and set up an account with ****** and the other fine book sellers that he would manage for us. Then uploaded the book to the ****** platform. **** has religiously sent me an accounting of the book sales every month since signing us on with a breakdown of the book sales and how much he has directly deposited into my bank account. No issues here.
  When we were in Nashville, I asked to have a marketing meeting so we could prioritize all the ideas that we had been discussing and table them into 30, 60, 90, 120 day priorities of what we wanted to focus on over that period of time, so we listed all the marketing ideas, I took notes, then created a calendar with the priorities listed as we agreed were top to last priorities. We agreed that the membership site had to be the top priority as everything else depended on that site existing. **** again told me that it was close to being finished and that we could launch it within the next 30 days. And, not only did I believe him, but counted on it being true since we were relying on having that site to launch the rest of our marketing campaign. (Still never happened) The 4-6 months that I was told it would take to monetize these marketing efforts turned into 6 months, 12 months, then 1 ½ years with no end in sight. It was one excuse after another.
  Every time I turned around, they were off taking another trip somewhere on my dime. Ireland, Panama, Cruises, etc. and telling me that they were business opportunities to promote the book, etc. He even told me that he discussed with one of the cruise ship representatives about us doing a presentation aboard their cruise lines and that the guy loved that idea and as soon as they got back from that cruise, he’d make the arrangements for us to do that and be able to sell the books on board. I asked him about it when they got back, and then he told me that you must go through an audition process to be approved to be invited onto their cruises as a vendor, which he failed to tell me originally.
  When they went to Ireland, they took some of the books that I had paid for so we would both have copies for marketing purposes. I paid $1500 to have those books printed and had half of the order shipped to him and the other half shipped to me. Since I paid in advance for the books, I thought if he sold any of them, he would give me half the proceeds from the sale.
  He did admit to me that he sold books to someone at the Ireland Alzheimer’s Association; however, he never offered to send me my half of the money from the sales. I also paid for the marketing postcards and most of the meals while we were in Nashville. Then they went on a trip to Panama and told me they had met a University Professor who said she would love to have me give one of her classes a presentation on my book and on living with Alzheimer’s disease and that I would be streamed into her classroom remotely through ****. He said he had a message out to her for a date to do the presentation. I never heard another word about it.
  Also, in Panama, **** claimed that he had two colleagues who were very interested in both selling the book and promoting the training program in the Spanish-speaking countries down there since Latino’s were at an unusually higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease than some of the other ethnic groups. But first we were going to need to have the book translated into Spanish.
  Next thing I know he is telling me that I owed one of those gentlemen $775.00 for translating the content of the book from English to Spanish, and never asked me for my approval to do that, then just expected me to pay him. I did. Then we had a **** call with the two men from Panama who wanted to represent the book and the training program. I do remember one of the names was ****.
  I was told by **** that the purpose of the call was for me to train the trainers and teach them how to present the course materials to train family members and caregivers on my methodologies. When I brought up on the call that I was there to train them how to teach the course principals, they had no idea what I was talking about and thought that I was just going to send them pre-recorded videos that they could sell over there with me teaching the principals and strategies that I offer.
  Needless to say, I was completely shocked and taken aback that I had been misled into thinking I was there to train them. I asked **** about it and said it was obvious to me they knew nothing about this being a training call and then he back pedaled on that and offered up some flimsy excuse. On that same call, the two men mentioned to me that they had reserved an exhibit booth at a book fair that was coming up in a few months and that they had planned to not only sell my books at that book fair but to also market them.
  
  **** and ***** ***** went to that bookfair and when I asked him how things went and if any sales were made, he changed the subject and refused to answer my question directly, so once again, did they make sales and pocket the money? After the **** call, I asked **** what arrangements he had made with them to sell the books and training programs for us in the Spanish speaking countries. Once again, he refused to give me a straight answer, although the two men did tell me on the call how committed they were to raising awareness of the disease in their countries and couldn’t wait to get the program going. They also said they had been introducing the idea to many of their colleagues and had very positive responses from their people over there that such a program was desperately needed. I asked **** about it several time over the next few months as to where things stood with that marketing campaign and he raised his voice to me and replied, “there’s absolutely no money in book sales!” I never heard another word about it.
  
  Moving right along, at my insistence, we held a few more marketing meetings so I could be apprised as to what they were doing, what was being put into place, what was not going to happen, what was realistic and feasible and what was not. He gave me a song and dance about that subject too and nothing ever came to fruition. At that time, I reiterated that I was continuing to work on the training program, and that it was a lot of work to write all the segments of the program, but that I was plugging away at it piece by piece. Again, I stressed that we needed the ****** site up and running to put the training program in place in order to offer it to the public. Once again, he assured me that it was ready to go.
  Previously, I had my assistant, *******, create an account through ****** and create a product list of all the products that we were planning to offer through the ****** Site. **** refused to give ******* access to the ****** site so she could upload the products, etc., to it, so she created it through her own platform and told me **** could transfer the information to the ****** site. He never did. ******* advised us on a call that when she set up the ****** contract to sell these products, that we had 6 months to sell 3 products, or they would remove our ability to sell the products. **** said no worries, but six months came and went, no sales, and we lost the privilege to sell the products through ****** because we did not meet their minimum requirements of 3 sales in that 6-month period. He could care less.
  Another thing he did that I was quite upset about after making him co-author of the book, was to represent himself to the world and through his ******** page that he was a best-selling author. I called him out on that telling him he could not do that since the book had not gone on the best seller status list. His response was, “But it will eventually, and besides, your first book went best seller and it’s practically the same book, so it qualifies.” I just said, “I don’t thing that logic will fly.” And asked him to stop representing himself as a best-selling author because it simply was not true. He refused – he loved the attention it was getting him. He told me how different people treated him after finding out he was a best-selling author and that he loved it. His wife, ***** ***** even made a comment one time on her ******** page that she was now living with a famous best-selling author and that the attention had gone to his head! LOL!
  Finally, he had engaged with a business owner whom he met on ******** who was in the process of opening the Alzheimer’s and had gone to work for him to do marketing and computer work for him. He got that position because he represented himself as an expert on Alzheimer’s disease and had written a book about it. He told me that there was an amazing opportunity for us to sell our books to **** who wanted to offer it to the patients at his clinics and that **** also wanted to have a customized version of the book made with ****** name on it.
  Additionally, he said there was going to be a role for me in the business, as **** told **** that he wanted me to run the training program based on my methodologies for the company. I was thrilled. He invited me to come to Atlanta in a few months to give the staff a presentation about the book and what I taught people and to train them. I even booked my airline ticket and booked a room, then the date for the presentation was cancelled and I was told that **** was not yet ready to open their first clinic and that it would be a few more months but that they would reschedule the date. He told me that they needed to raise $5 million dollars from investors and sell stocks to them in order to be able to open their doors and that had not happened yet. Then he asked me if he and **** could practice their stock purchase presentation on me and my husband so they could get our feedback on the presentation and make any suggested edits or changes before they rolled the presentation out the public, so I agreed to listen to their presentation.
  I was also told by **** that **** was really excited about me running their training program and that I would be given stock options as part of a package to join their team. I was thrilled.
  Unbeknownst to me and my husband, **** told **** that we had asked for the stock presentation because we were interested in investing with them, which was not what he told us. Anyway, I asked **** before the presentation what the minimum investment was, and he told me that it was $25,000 and that only accredited investors could invest. I disclosed to him at that time that we were accredited investors so that would not be a problem for us.
  We were given the presentation by **** and ****, believing that we were just there to critique the presentation before they started sharing it with potential investors on the outside. Shortly before the presentation, **** emailed me to let me know that I’d be very happy to hear that **** lowered the minimum investment to $10,000. I said great. Anyway, after listening to the presentation, I emailed both **** and **** that we were planning to purchase some of the stocks but were going to start at the $10k level instead of the $25k level since this was a personal investment that we would be making into the company, especially since I was being offered stock options for joining their team. I received emails from both **** and **** pressuring us to set up an account through the investment platform asap. I told them both that we were told we needed a letter from our CPA confirming that we were accredited investors and that we were waiting for the acknowledgement letter, then we would proceed. They both independently insisted that we could create our account, transfer our money, and then the SEC would confirm our qualifications, so go ahead and do that.
  The next day, my husband and I got a phone call from **** accusing us of reneging on our commitment to invest $25k to purchase their stocks and then proceeded to tell me that if I did not go through with the investment of $25k, that I would not be offered a spot on the team. The stock purchase was going to be looked at as a commitment on my part that I had skin in the game. I said to him, “wait a minute, am I hearing you correctly, that if I don’t hand over $25k to you guys, the offer for me to be part of the company is off the table?” He said not exactly, but that I would no longer be part of the *********** ********* ******* ** ********* umbrella and I would have to participate as an independent contractor and be solely responsible for all the costs of running that part of the business. I respectfully declined their offer.
  After all this was said and done, I discovered that **** was using marketing materials that I paid him to create to promote *********** ********* ******* ** *******.
  For example, he used several of the podcast episodes that we recorded to promote *********** ********* ******* ** ******* and changed the sponsorship from *** ****** ***** * *********** Show to the *********** ********* ******* ** ******* and then changed the name of the show host from my name to his name as the representative of the ****; however, I paid him to produce those shows for me.
  He also stole the URL that I paid for named ********************. It’s listed on his ******** page, but I used my credit card to pay for it through ** *****.
  Then I see that he is using it. He also hijacked a couple of my guests who were on my show and used them to market ****; although I paid for ****** ******* services who booked them on my show.
  He also had ****** book himself and asked her to book a friend of his named ****** **** ******* on that same show so they could promote their movie script called “*********” on that show. They told him that they did not have a spot for ******. I had to find out about his from ******, as I was paying her bills for marketing us and to book me as a guest on a variety of shows.
  Then he also had ****** book **** ****** for a live interview on a show, as well as have him do a written interview for a reporter behind my back, and I paid that bill, too. I also ended up doing the interview with him over the phone, gathering up all the info that he recited to me, and then writing out the answers to the reporter’s questions for ****. I sent it to **** for his input and he immediately sent it over to **** ****** and taking credit for writing it.
  Finally, after I severed my relationship with ****, ***** ***** and DM Productions in December, 2022, after we had completed recording approximately ten podcast interviews for *** ****** ***** * *********** Show with **** **** ******** **** *** (me),
  I was led to believe that by the end of the month (November/December), all of the podcasts that we recorded and that I paid him to produce had been completed. I then received an email from one of my guests letting me know that she never received a copy of her interview and asked me to check with **** to find out where it was, so I did. That’s when I found out that he had not edited about 7 of the episodes that he claimed were done and was holding onto them to finish them. He also then claimed that I still owed him money to finish editing the remaining episodes that he led me to believe had already been completed and uploaded to our *** **** Channel, which they had not, and that he had already paid his interns to work on, which did not happen.
  
  Boy, did they see me coming or what? I actually do believe that the first party I told you about, **** ****, was part of this scheme. I think he is the look out point person to find suckers like me through his book review business, then turns the victims like me over to **** and ***** *****. I think they are all in it together.
  Believe me, they are all smooth operators and I admit that I fell for the scheme, hook, line and sinker for a year and a half. They will lie and manipulate and twist the story around to their favor just like they did with the ** ***** representative. Because that’s what they do. They are masters at it! They would tell me things like I was now part of their family, and they had my back and all sorts of terms of endearment to convince me that their lies and cons were all just in my head. But you don’t have to take my word for it. They did it to a colleague of mine, too. It was a woman who owns a radio station network for the past seventeen years. She read one of my press releases and contacted me to ask if she could interview me on her radio program, and then she asked me if I would be a show host for her on her network and I accepted her invitation. This is how she met **** and asked him what he was doing for me. He said I had hired him to monetize my book and she said she’d like him to do the same for her radio station. He first quoted her $5k per month as his fee, and she told him that was never going to happen, so he agreed to $500 a month as a token payment to help her out and that he didn’t really need the money anyway. However, he made that offer contingent on her featuring ***** ***** *******, his wife, and her ** **** tv show on her network which she agreed to do. She paid him the $500 per month for one entire year – and like me, no delivery, no results. You can talk with her as well if you’d like. Once we compared notes, we realized that we had both been conned and scammed out of our money. Me much worse than her.
  
  My goal would be to recoup the monies that I have paid to these scam artists and cons and to alert others to their unethical business practices so no one else will end up as one of their victims like me and ******* have. We are ashamed and embarrassed that we both fell for this scam and have both dearly paid the price for being so gullible. We would very much appreciate your help in finding a resolution to this situation. Thank you in advance for your attention and for looking into this matter. I also think there is something to be said for people who are sued by their own father for fraud. ***** ***** confessed this to me in Nashville after way too much to drink. Her own father sued them before he died. I don’t know under what circumstances. She alluded to it being due to his Alzheimer’s disease. Who knows? Not surprising at all, now. I guess I should have taken it as a Big Red Flag! Sincerely, **** ******** **** *** ****** ** ****** ***** * *********** * **** ****** ******