This past week there was more information concerning the case of Kris Roglieri and the Prime Capital. As I mentioned last week Roglieri was arrested and charged with wire fraud in a case where tens of millions of dollars of investor and business owner money are missing. Roglieri promised many businesses owners funding but required them to make an initial deposit with him before he could secure their needed capital. In many cases Roglieri used this money for personal use. When Roglieri was arrested two weeks ago he was ordered held by the judge which is unusual for a first-time offender with no criminal history. Text messages have recently come out where Roglieri was making threats to a cooperating witness telling the witness that he would harm the receiver, the judge and the FBI agents that were investigating his case. In one text Roglieri told the cooperating witness that he knew where one of the FBI agents lived and he would go to their house and kill them before he let anybody take him down. In a separate sequence of text messages Roglieri texted a friend and admitting his guilt in misappropriating investor funds for personal use, and to pay back other investors. In some of these text messages he tells his friend that once the feds get involved, I am going to prison. It looks like a long road ahead to Roglieri and with tens of millions of dollars involved he faces potential decades in prison. If you are in the business lending industry do not commit fraud as the feds are watching. Do not traffic people’s personal information. do not take funds in advance for securing loans, and do not raise money to lend out in the form of unregistered securities. These are all fraud and could put you in a position to be arrested.
This past week I received an email from a competitor who has recently started selling MCA leads. The email read I am a newly formed Merchant cash advance lead company looking for business. I am willing to give concessions, discounts and special deals for first time clients. I think working with these new companies can be costly in a couple different ways. Most companies that just pop up do not have trusted sources and have not formed long-term relationships with legitimate publishers. In most cases new lead companies are buying their leads in full packages from overseas sources in the Philippines and India. These are leads to have been sold over and over hundreds of times, and do not perform. More importantly in the case of this lead provider, most new companies lack the financial means to secure the proper technology to TCPA clean the data. When the data is not cleaned, you risk purchasing and calling professional litigators. As a reminder every phone call or text to a person on the national do not call list is a potential $1500 fine. If you text someone 15 times that $15,000. I spend thousands of dollars monthly to TCPA litigator check, verify active cell phones, and if the requested a DNC. Most providers cannot or will not spend that type of capital to provide compliant legal data. When someone announces they are a new lead company and they’re offering free data, extra leads or discounts understand working with a new company that is unproven may come with a large price.