BBK Financial ripoff Failed to perform to contract, lied in sales presentation and promises, refuses to honor performance guarantee and refund policy. Encino California

It was disappointing to read you were refusing our request for a return of the $10,000 performance deposit. Your reasoning was that you feel there was adequate communications with BBK representatives and that you did in fact deliver an offer that you felt would have materialized into a loan commitment and subsequent funding.

So you understand our position, let's review how we got to this position.

After numerous conversations with your broker representative and yourself, we were sold on the facts that BBK had a large number of non-standard lender contacts that specialized in difficult loans. We had already shared with you our company financials and personal credit histories and we were assured (in writing) that they had been reviewed by a lender representative and were told that they saw no problems with our loan request and were anxious to move forward. BBK provided us with a 'worst case scenario' term sheet, which we approved. You also told us that the normal time frame to complete funding for a loan of this type was 6-8 weeks.

With this as our understanding we initiated the process and sent you the performance deposit and all of our company, and personal, data and financials.

It was at this time that the process dragged down considerably. We would go weeks at a time without hearing from Mr. Hoser in any form. We asked repeatedly for a summary of the analysis of our data and financials and we never did receive it. We still have no idea what was actually presented to the lender and can only assume our data was accurately interpreted and presented. There were no identified problems or issues and Mr. Hoser only came back twice after to request further clarification on a previous bankruptcy.

As the time dragged by, we repeatedly asked for updates from Mr. Hoser via voice message and e-mail. It always took multiple attempts before he would respond and his responses were always very short and he would provide no details at all. We were always told that everything was going fine and to expect a positive response very shortly.

We finally received a term sheet from CIT twelve (12) weeks after we started the process, which is well past your initial estimates. And by Mr. Hoser's and CIT's estimate, we still had at least another 4-6 weeks minimum before any closing could happen. I had also discussed the situation with another CIT Regional Account Manager who assured me that this situation did not fit CIT's published procedures.

I had reviewed the case with him and he assured me that we should have received the pre-qualified term sheet within 2-3 days, with underwriting and credit approval to follow and closing typically completed within 6 weeks. In fact, CIT had already turned our loan application down prior to your submission because of the bankruptcy issue and lack of hard assets. We were told that there was no way CIT, or SBA, would approve a loan under those circumstances as it was against their corporate and underwriting policies.

Even the term sheet we finally received from CIT was not close to the 'worst case' terms we had initially agreed to with BBK and your term sheet. The loan request amount was cut in half, the interest rate was considerably higher, we were being asked to pay an additional $10,495 in closing payments on top of BBK's consultation fees, and we had no commitment from CIT with at least another 4-6 weeks before any possible closing. I

had asked for a direct conversation with CIT's Ms. Murphey for clarification of their approval process to date, and to better understand what their underwriter and loan committee process entailed but she never responded. We were being asked to approve an inferior loan proposal that was open ended and subject to additional terms and conditions, commit additional funds to proceed with the approval process, and with no idea of where we stood with the lender or what their concerns were.

Call it what you will, but when we sent you our $10,000 in good faith, and then nothing happened, including any type of customer service or follow up updates, what is a person to begin to think? It begins to feel like a long distance hustle. The facts as we interpret them are still the same.

Our points of contention are as follows:
BBK sold us on the fact that you had a long list of non-standard lenders who specialized in difficult loans. You only presented us to one lender (CIT) who is the largest standardized SBA lender in the U.S. We had already spoken to a local CIT Regional Account Manager and knew that CIT had problems dealing with bankruptcy issues and had in fact refused our application.
The level of communications has been terrible. Please don't confuse the number of communications with their actual content. There have been only a handful of communications initiated by Mr. Hoser himself. We have had to attempt to call and leave multiple voice messages and e-mails to ever get him to respond. He would give us only minimal information and time frames estimates, which he never would keep. After each time estimate was surpassed, we started the communication process over again because Mr. Hoser would rarely call us directly with a status or update. As further example, I reviewed every e-mail that was received from Mr. Hoser and there were only two (2) that contained more than 3-4 sentences. His voice communications were much the same. He would offer no substantial information and if pressed on specific issues or questions, he would always dance around the issue and end up saying nothing.
We have asked on multiple occasions for an analysis summary discussion of our loan request data, which was promised at the outset but has never been delivered. We have also asked, verbally and in writing, to have specific questions answered concerning status and issues but have always been refused and were only given generic 'everything is fine' responses.
The Term Sheet that was finally delivered was not even close to the original terms that we had agreed upon with BBK at the outset. The BBK terms were said to have been 'worst case' scenarios.
We were told in writing before we presented you with the performance deposit that your lender of choice in our situation had already seen our company and personal data and financials, and we were assured that there were no problems or issues concerning our request. This obviously never happened.
You originally had estimated that it normally took 6-7 weeks to complete loan requests like ours. Yet it was over 12 weeks before we were presented with a term sheet from your lender and by their estimate we had at least another 4-6 weeks before any possible close.
No loan offer or commitment was ever presented by a lender as you state in your last letter. The term sheet that was presented states in the first paragraph that the proposal offered was for discussion purposes only and did not constitute an agreement, an offer to enter an agreement, or a commitment to lend. As past experience dictates, getting a term sheet from a lender is the easy part and is as much of a commitment to loan as was the term sheet we received from BBK Financial. Getting a loan request through the underwriters and loan committees is the hard part. Based on Mr. Hoser's and CIT's track record to that point, we had no assurance or comfort level in CIT actually completing the loan.
We had raised all of the above questions and concerns on multiple occasions with Mr. Hoser, Ms. Asher, and yourself. Mr. Hoser never responded to any of the specific requests, and Ms. Ahser and yourself completely ignored the requests. We had requested procedures from yourself and Ms. Asher back in October 2004 on multiple occasions on how to terminate our relationship with BBK. All of those requests were ignored also. We feel that twelve (12) weeks should have been long enough to come up with something more tangible than you did.

Based on the issues and conditions stated above, and on the terms agreed upon in the initial BBK Financial Term Sheet, we are demanding a full refund of the $10,000 performance deposit and will expect the refund within fourteen (14) days.

If you choose to refuse the refund, we will have no alternative but to proceed with contacting and filing formal complaints with the District Attorney offices, Better Business Bureaus, and Consumer Affairs in each state and city you do business in. We will also pursue all available legal action at our disposal to recoup what is rightfully due us.

John
Allen, Texas
U.S.A.

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