Roglieri Update
This week more news was released about former prime capital CEO Chris Roglieri..The Prime CEO was arrested on wire fraud charges in connection with the participation in an advanced fee scheme where he required up front deposits to secure funding for real estate investors and merchants. It is alleged that Roglieri never delivered the funding that was promised, kept the advanced fees that were paid out and used them for personal use. It is alleged that he used the money to fund luxury automobiles, homes, lavish vacations, and an extensive gun collection. More news came out about Roglieri this week. The trustee in the Prime matter is accusing Roglieri of transferring assets including cash, data, and other properties that were contained in his various businesses to personal friends, hiding those assets from bankruptcy proceedings. This could potentially generate another federal charge for Roglieri as lying and hiding assets in a bankruptcy proceeding, could result in another federal indictment. Prior to being arrested Roglieris business and home were raided by the FBI. He was arrested several months later. At Roglieris initial appearance he was detained and has remained in custody for several months. Prosecutors argued felt he was a flight risk any potential danger to the law enforcement and prosecutors who were investigating him. Several text messages were uncovered with Roglieri stating he would kill anyone who threatened his freedom.
Brooklyn Boiler Room
This week a client of mine visited an office in Brooklyn. The office was occupied by several funders, as well as multiple teams of ISOs operating under the same roof. These teams are funding a tremendous number of deals by purchasing back doors from multiple funding companies. As the merchant is funded, they simply pass the merchant over to the next cubicle to another ISO who is set up under the same roof for multiple stacks. This practice is leading to a significant number of defaults, MCA debt settlement enrollments and merchants ultimately declaring bankruptcy. All of these scenarios are bad for the industry. I have limited knowledge of this operation, but I have heard of these in the past and all of these types are bad for the MCA industry.
It Only Takes One
A short time ago one of my clients made a purchase of $400 worth of age data. The list was a 12-month-old bulk data list that he purchased for emailing and texting purposes only. The broker called me a short time later to report that he funded a $400,000 deal from the list with 10 points netting $40,000 on a $400 investment. It only takes one conversion to pay for the investment and realize a profit. Most returns are this not this big but if our lists are worked properly more times than not, we are seeing brokers come back reporting funded deals and profits. Texting an email data is an investment, although a small investment, these leads are typically not as expensive as a 30, 60,90 higher-level calling leads. I have many brokers who call me asking about this type of data and what the pricing is and then say they need to think about it or speak with your partners. These are small investments in your business but if they are approached properly, they can easily net 5 to 10 times returns or in some cases 100 like my client last week. If you have the proper texting an email platform in place you should be investing on a regular basis on your email and SMS data