Post A Scam
Scam: #517

Scam Alert

Business

 Share

International Finance and Trust

Alleged Fraud and Misrepresentation

Ft Meyers, Florida

International Finance and Trust LLC has a SINGLE Director (or shareholder) left in it's company by the name of Julie Holden. The other 3 shareholders have either sold or given their shares to Julie Holden. To our knowledge it has NEVER completed a trade of any kind yet it continues to solicit Investments for various platforms and Commercial Real Estate Deals. There are no employees or any bricks and mortar office. The physical address listed is for a condo either owned or rented by Kurt Hamilton (an original shareholder who has since given us his shares in Feb 2010)
If you are an Investor looking for a valid Investment, a company with one remaining shareholder, 0 employees, and no physical bricks and mortar address is probably a risk that may not be worth taking.

We learned our lesson the hard way, all communication has ceased and as of 5 weeks ago, the money was supposedly at the Paymaster ready to be disbursed in 24 - 48 hours. We have ongoing communications with dozens of other Investors and they have all verified the same story.

Comments

Add Comment
  • abigby
  • Submitted: 04/02/2010
I am an attorney in Seattle. I have a client who is attempting to get his money back after he invested with this company. We are looking for information from other investors. Please give me a call or send me an email. There is certainly an opportunity for everyone to band together and try and recover these funds. Please give me a call.

Aaron Bigby
(206) 623-0229
aaron_bigby@northcraft.com
  • Floyd
  • Submitted: 04/03/2010
The statements made here are incorrect and I will address just some of them. You are wrong to say that they have never completed trades because I have introduced two individuals to them who went into trade and have received proceeds and am aware of others who have done the same. These individuals, I must add, are very pleased. The problem is that these trades do not pay out on a regular basis and some individuals, who have not yet received any proceeds, have asked for their money back, even though they entered into written agreements saying they would keep their funds in place for 13-months. Although the company is under no obligation to return the funds before that time it has liquidated a trade that I understand will be enough to pay off those that want to get out early while protecting those that want to stay in. This has certainly been a long and complex process but updates have been posted on an almost daily basis and so it is ridiculous to say that all communication ceased. It is also incorrect to say that the company is continuing to solicit these investments. The individuals who wanted to break their contracts and get their money back early caused the company to shut down this program to new applicants because having to deal with a number of people who cannot stay the course of their 13-month agreements is more trouble than it is worth. This is a real pity because there are plenty of other people who would have been happy to keep their money in place for the full 13-months, who could have really benefitted over this term and who I would have been happy to introduce.
I find it interesting that you have two clients that have received payouts. Perhaps you have. All I can verify is when we entered into a JV Agreement in Sep 09, we were referred to as Trade 2, Trade 1 was receiving (at that time) occasional emails on the message referring to all of the problems that trade was having and how they were hoping to get their JV Partners Investment back. It was even stated on the message board in October that IF&T could excercise the Insurance Bond if they needed to but they didn't think they had to at that point. We have since confirmed that the Insurance Policy can not be used in that manner. The only way the Policy can be excercised is if the Investors sue International Finance and Trust and can prove someone within IF&T stole the money. That is a far cry from "excercising the bond". Their correspondance and excuses have always been questionable, their "updates" were never confirmed with any back up documentation. Any requests for documentation went unanswered. We have personally spoken with potential new Investors that were thinking about doing business with IF&T on their Commercial Real Estate funding side. The concept is similar...give us your money and trust us. Do you really believe any Investors still want to be involved with a company that hasn't performed on one committed payout in eight months? All hope for our Investment back has been forgotten. For others it has been over a year.
My suspicion is you are another IF&T insider trying to justify and buy a little more time.
I also forgot to mention that all correspondance stopped Mar 4 and that email stated the money had arrived at the Paymaster and would be disbursed within 24 to 48 hours. (we had already heard that numerous times before with no results) Needless to say not only did we not hear another word after that but we didn't get our payouts. This has been confirmed with other Investors we have since spoken to. They quit receiving any updates the first of March. Of course the updates are completely useless and unreliable. Why have an update when the information always proves to be EITHER erroneous or untruthful.
This response is for Floyd:

Perhaps you should go to http://www.complaintsboard.com/ and survey the number of responses from investers having dealings with this company from around the US and you will think differently Floyd

Add Comment