Wilkinson Peabody & Company - Dr. Allan B. Asseo Fraud! Wilkinson Peabody & Company is an advanced broker group with an office, and a few people on staff. They do not have the ability not financial strength of funding anything other than traditional real estate. DO NOT, and I repeat, DO NOT FALL into the long, drawn out stories of Dr. Allen Asseo - as they are far from true. Consumers, I advise you to not establish a relatioship with Wilkson Peabody. Québec, Canada

Consider the clients that WP did fund or had a part in funding it then ask yourself; is it possible that not all lenders can please all borrowers all the time?

How many projects have you come across and not all the elements were as they are presented at first?

This is the same with KFI, you do not use KFI because you feel, based on what your ears hear in broker world about their so called tactics of collecting fees and not closing. Yet, you gave no credence to the deals they did fund: over $750M last year.

That is because borrowers / developers believe their properties are worth”X” amount of dollars or that their project will produce “X” in revenues, in spite of the market and in spite of feasibility valuations. Their high hopes and expectations all hinge on their own perceptions and dreams as opposed to the facts produced by third party reports and the merits of the deal.

If you read carefully and prudently, we have a disgruntled developer, for whatever reason, DID NOT RECIEVE theirs cherished Letter of Intent. Which means he sent forth NO FUNDS which one must ask the question, at what point was he ripped off if he did not send any funds? I did not see anywhere in his puerile complaint that WP absconded with his funds. Did you?

This developer complained about being placed on hold? Join the thousands of developers on hold because of the market, the economy and the credit freeze. Nothing new here; a highly leveraged project with no additional cash from the developer to make the deal happen, and he feels ripped off because his project is stalled and we won't agree to participate in a dead project? Again, NO contract, NO money, No foul.

I pulled up a Rip Off report on B of A, that's right, B of A, and does that mean they are not a bank with satisfied clients although they have several complaints?

HSBC has too much to name. Now, if you can go and ask these guys to proof up funds will they do it? Have they ever?

Understand that money to fund projects are not in banks per se, but are drawn on lines of credit from foreign and sometimes domestic warehouse lines providers, like Fortis, who at one point funded Bear Sterns and Lehman deals; and look at what happened to them

Bottom line is that not everyone will be comfortable with us, not every borrower will be satisfied. This is why we do not issue LOI's as fast as you may want us to because we want to make sure we can get the deal done before we commit to it. This means having the right financial partners included on the deal to mitigate the risk. This developer, if that's what he calls himself, clearly does not understand the concept of brokering and the difference from that of syndication.

He stated these are not real “tombstones” yet offers no evidence of his own to support his allegation. Why I think if someone pick up the phone and call Donald Trump and ask him, or call the developer for the project in Belize and ask them, or ask Dr. Asseo for references and discuss their experience with WP, they will soon find that what I say is true; we cannot please all borrowers all the time. But we also have some that are very satisfied and send their referrals to us.

For this reason we place upfront funds in escrow with a sub escrow account so borrowers can track how the money is used and in most cases offers refunds in the event we do not go any further in the process.

In the case of this disgruntled developer, we simply read over his executive summary and decided we did not want to participate. No money, no contract, no foul.

Next time, send me 10 complaints, then we may have a cause to be concerned, but to send me one cowboy out of the many that are satisfied is hardly enough to lose sleep over; especially when it is written with such emotion with no facts on the ground and they did not lose a dime in the process.

Better to have an understanding of our methodology and circumspect approach to the types of projects we do like; then you will know that we are not quick to produce written LOI's where due diligence did not warrant one. Because we like to make sure it can be done before we commit, unlike others. When we issue an LOI we are 85% sure the deal is doable.

I encourage you to consider the trusted names in banking with more complaints than the devil himself. Heck, Lehman Brother was an industry name respected, honored and trusted. Look how many deals went belly up because of them. Tex Fin is another great name, now developers are scrambling. I encourage you to pull them up on the site where this nonsense was originated; I did and that is why I speak with such authority on the matter.

You will not find one bank where there is not at least one complaint from a dissatisfied client, in this case, he did not even execute a contract, so why all the beef?

In the know -

Alan Asseo and his ilk are nothing more than brokers.  They charge up front fees and claim they are a lender and that they'll syndicate your loan.  That's just broker talk for we're not a lender, we have no money, but we'll shop your deal around.  Well anyone can do that!  IMHO, stay away!