Business Value Builders/ Freedom Equity Group Complete Scam: Bilked dozens of insurance agents out of hundreds of dollars Solomons Maryland

....is tell me (and the world) ONE thing Jim Bland did for you throughout this process that justified you paying him $600. Just one. Everything that I've heard from you and any positive results you may have achieved, or in the process of achieving, was done completely on your own.

You've read the contract, and you've read parts of the contract I posted on here. Can you honestly say that BVB has lived up to that contract? We both know the answer, but I want to hear it from you.

The bottom line is when you say you're going to do something, particularly in a written contract, then you should live up to that. BVB has not done that, and you've all but acknowledged that yourself on here.  The man has had several opportunities to rectify this situation with me privately, and he refused to even call me. I contacted both him and Al Carti from FEG, and received no response. You might think this is acceptable, but I don't. And I'm going to expose this scam as much and as often as I can.

To the original poster, I am sure of your pain and dissatisfaction. Please don't get me wrong -- I am not defending BVB. What I said overall was that your experience is not everybody's. Mine was just different and more positive, that's all. It has not been a scam for me, or for many others who are reporting in.

I want to address your reply to my posting, just to clarify. And I hope you'll see that what I said is not full of contradictions unless it's misunderstood, so my bad if I didn't write clearly enough.

Okay, here it goes:

1.

I said: "What is being described in the original report is unfortunate and indicative of some individuals having a need to work things out, and is undoubtedly a result of errors or omissions in communications, understanding, explanations, assumptions, etc."

I also said: "I hope Jim and others will step up and work with the writer of the report, and I hope things go well with this opportunity for as many people as possible who accepted it."

You said: "However, if you read my post, you'd have seen that I clearly showed that this was not about not willing to take a risk, it's about one party not honoring its contractual obligations. Period."

I was illustrating that I understood that there was a party not doing its job, honoring its obligations.

2.

I said: "I represent both myself (via my own company entity) and the programs, products, and services offered via FEG and BVB. These are value-adding contributions to the work of assisting people in the area who are trying to, or thinking about, starting businesses or augmenting what they are doing."

You said: "I also find it interesting that you said you built relationship with the centers on your own, and are marketing your own products, along with BVB/FEG products. Based on what BVB has contributed to your efforts, I don't blame you for leveraging the relationship that YOU built to build your business, with or without BVB/FEG,..."

I never intended to imply that I was doing my own thing (...on my own, marketing my own products to these folks, etc...); I am not. I reached out to the local partner and banks using BVB's offerings and have tried what I've been advised by BVB and FEG to do. When I say I represent myself, I only mean that I run the business (for tax purposes) through my own company, the same as I do with other companies I represent as an agent. My customers all come to know that I have my own business name, and they also know that I am the local representative for BVB. However, for the entities I reach out to about BVB's programs, I only present FEG's/BVB's suite of services. So I do "represent" both (myself and FEG/BVB) but am careful with whom I discuss what.

3.

Even though Ripoff Report probably calls any response to an original post a rebuttal, my only intent in responding was to say that my experience is different, not to excuse your experience. I just thought that another perspective ought to also be offered because many people read these reports. I'm not at all happy about what you've experienced. So I'm definitely not trying to defend the actions (or inactions) of any others. I just haven't had the problem you describe. You mentioned that maybe I wasn't getting anything out of BVB so I'm leveraging it for my own purpose, but that hasn't been true. I am sure that I would not have contacted any of the local organizations if it hadn't been for the assignment as the local BVB rep, because it just had never crossed my mind to try to build those relationships for any purpose. What I've had instead is a reason to reach out to them, with a product/service they have found very useful. It's also opened some other doors because of the local organizations' connections. So it's been good so far.

...that you're willing to accept the scam and I'm not. Yes, investing is a business is a risk you take, so you are correct about that. However, if you read my post, you'd have seen that I clearly showed that this was not about not willing to take a risk, it's about one party not honoring its contractual obligations. Period.

I also find it interesting that you said you built relationship with the centers on your own, and are marketing your own products, along with BVB/FEG products. Based on what BVB has contributed to your efforts, I don't blame you for leveraging the relationship that YOU built to build your business, with or without BVB/FEG, but aren't you violating the contract that stipulates you can only sell BVB/FEG products at those centers?

Your rebuttal is full of contradictions. All you said is that you weren't getting anything out of BVB, so u decided to leverage it for your own purposes, which, like I said, I salute you for doing that. But you could have done that yourself WITHOUT paying BVB $600. If you were trying to defend BVB, you've done a very poor job.

I believe I have been involved in scams before, as a "victim" of many ways to make money and make life easier, and this is not at all like that. After 21 years with large corporations as an employee, I have spent the last 10 years independently occupied with business ownership, contract work, and as an insurance agent for the last 6 years. Anyone who knows the life of insurance agents knows that one of the biggest successful users of "upline" and "downline" marketing structures is the life/health insurance industry. (I don't know if the same applies to property and casualty insurance or not.)

All this background is just to say that I've tried many different things, and what I've embraced and been challenged by more than anything else in my post-"employee" career is that, as an independent self-employed person, I am accountable to myself for the risks I take. It's the nature of the beast and every entrepreneur knows it. There are no guarantees of success or of not losing money. That's just the way it is. If that's not palatable, then I should do what people do when they buy insurance -- assign the risk elsewhere, lessen it, share it, dilute it -- by working for someone else, and be an employee of someone or something else rather than be on my own.

I am affiliated as an independent contractor with Freedom Equity Group (FEG) and Business Value Builders (BVB), not as an employee, but as a self-employed agent/advisor. My experience is no different with these organizations from what it has been with any other insurance company or business affiliation with which I have had an agent relationship.

What is being described in the original report is unfortunate and indicative of some individuals having a need to work things out, and is undoubtedly a result of errors or omissions in communications, understanding, explanations, assumptions, etc.

But I have been busy with FEG's and BVB's work, have met with banks now participating in the process, and have built a relationship with the local partner, offering FEG's and BVB's products. I represent both myself (via my own company entity) and the programs, products, and services offered via FEG and BVB. These are value-adding contributions to the work of assisting people in the area who are trying to, or thinking about, starting businesses or augmenting what they are doing.

So this is not a scam at all for me, and the work is what I expected and what was described. I've had to work at it to be that way, just as I would if I had opened a storefront offering monogrammed handkerchiefs or something else. Because I was only promised that this was an opportunity, I have not treated it like, nor expected it to be, a gift in exchange for the fees I paid upfront.

And by the way, I'm absolutely not trying to say here that nothing is wrong, or that I have all the answers, nor am I blanketly (is that a word?) making assumptions about the mindset or behavior of anyone in particular.

I have been on the complaining end of many ventures gone wrong in the past, as well as simple bad experiences as a consumer, and one thing I know for sure is that when you get sour on something or somebody because of a dispute, or a company or organization has not behaved as you would like, it is difficult to know where to turn and what to do. It becomes emotional for many reasons, not the least of which is that there may be a monetary, time, or other loss.

Because there is then a resulting impact from these losses, we can feel like someone should pay. Unfortunately, that "someone" is often ubiquitous or nowhere to be found, because it may be the result of just the way things turned out. If a true culprit can be identified and action taken or the issue resolved, that is one thing. But it's another thing entirely to make a broad generalization about the personal experience that doesn't really apply to others whose experiences may be entirely different. Other people's mindsets might be different going into or emerging from such events. Of course, what transpires day after day in individual transactions between individuals is about as unique as it gets, especially in the ways people perceive various outcomes.

So I am sorry to hear about what the writer reports. I was prepared for the possibility that my State would not open up, or it might take a very long time to hear of the go-ahead to reach out and be welcomed by the local partner. But I also had to accept that it was part of the risk I embraced when I responded to the opportunity. I've spent a lot of money on a lot of things over the years, and this investment was small in comparison to many of them, and compared to the potential that it could become something big. I think a product of my own experience is to be willing to try some things, spend some money, and have it either pay off or not. I accept it because of the way I think about stuff like this. No promises, no guarantees, no real certainty. ...Classic risk.

Yes, I want things to move faster and in a positive direction as I labor to build this thing I bought into. Things may or may not turn out that way. That's what I responded to and paid for from the very beginning. It was clear to me. I hope Jim and others will step up and work with the writer of the report, and I hope things go well with this opportunity for as many people as possible who accepted it. I also hope those who remain and are successful with this venture will treat it like their very own enterprise, with its associated randomness and the unpredictable behavior of others, but whose ultimate success or failure largely depends on their own efforts.

Best wishes to all.