Icon Acadamy David Fagan Teen Entrepreneur camp Icon Acadamy was not as advertised Oceanside California

What we got though was a huge disappointment.  The housing was a joke...20 teens in one dark, dirty home with 1 working bathroom and bedrooms off limits.  It was bug infested as well.   There wasn't enough food, they kept running out.   We didn't even received a binder or notebook with an itinerary.   We asked for one (Liz and I) so we could know when we could meet up with the kids, but we were told each year plans change.  There was no itinerary. 

 

 There was a presentation by David on how you need to have a website and be the master of illusion (like a Tiffany box vs a paper bag).  That was when the red flags started going off for me.  

 

One mother (Liz Johnson) that brought her 15 year old daughter pulled out the first day after about 6 hours because she could see we clearly had been scammed.  She is now fighting to get her money back.  

 

We decided to stick the week out  (mostly my husband decided) because I had my other 3 kids at Grandmas house, we invested in the plane tickets, our hotel, my husband was with me. I thought maybe it would get better.  I was planning on being with the kids because parents were invited to do so. But on day 1 I was advised to leave.  I was told that because I was there my kids were not bonding with the other teens (who were much older) so I took the advice and left.  I did not want to be a hovering mom.  And we were only 5 min away from the headquarters.   

 

In the house the kids were not allowed to be in bedrooms, they all slept in one open area (boys on one side...girls on the other) on air beds.  My 10 year old took the couch.  Wednesday night her bedding that we brought was covered by hundreds of thousands of ants.  She had to find herself a airbed after 2 of the staff (there were only 3 adults at the house) sprayed the bedding down.  She woke up all night cold and itchy because there was no other blanket. 

 

2 of the teens told me the house manager came out naked one night around 1 am.   

 

We were told the adult supervision would be 1 adult per 2 children.  I have email proof.   That was not what happened.  Most parents put their teens on the airplane and did not attend.  So they did not know and they were not able to rescue their kids.

 

  Tammy Ward, a parent I know from Garland UT (who has invested $37,000 in a book cover and website by DavidFagan)  was told the kids (she sent 3 teens) were in a nice beach house, that the boys were sleeping outside in a tent.    I never saw a tent.  One of the boys was taken to David Fagans house and he slept in a tent, but the other boys were not supervised in the night.  Tammy Wards daughter came home with hickies on her neck.  And they are not that type of girls.  They have documented what happened.   Tammy is not wanting to make these things public though because of how much money she has given David and he has still not delivered on the product he promised he would.  Her daughter is also very embarrassed.  She had them record a 10 min commentary on what happened.  

 

The things we were told that the kids were  going to learn were not taught during the week.  Liz Jonson dowloaded the website halfway through the week.  The next day she noticed the website had been changed and no longer promised the things that we were told.  

 

Liz has documentation of the old website.

 

Liz also contacted some of Davids "faculty" he listed on his website.  The people she contacted were not aware that David was using their names.  Here is an email from one of them.