Matt Carfaro Fortress Forest International Fortress Modern Perrousa (possible Affiliate - Tradewinds International -2019 company) Looc Studio Ava Custom American Furniture Perrousa is a Franchise business that Matt Cafaro created while president of Fortress Forest International. The Franchise business was posted on Franchise Gator and other Franchise websites. The objective is to sell a franchised businesses. Conover NC - North Carolina

I was hired by Matt Carfaro in July of 2017. I was hired for Logistics at Fortress Forest International. They had a partner - Yildiz which is a highly reputable business based in Turkey. Everything was great when I started. Mike Menz was the Vice president to the President - Matt Carfaro. They had a sales team of 2 men.

Mike Frick and Mike Menz, they sold the Yildiz products throught the USA. Business was ok and then Yildiz started to make it very clear that we were not a TRUSTED partner. When we would setup trucks to pickup in Wilmington at the Yildiz wearhouse - they would reject the trucks, claiming that Matt and Mike owed them money for previous MDF wood products and they would not release any product until they paid. It was clear that Yildiz didn't want to do business with Fortress anymore.

I'm sure that the reasons we were told and the reasons that Yildiz actaully quit working with Matt (and even later sued him, and Mike) were different reasons. When they parted ways Matt then decided to focus on rebranding Ohio Pet foods and marketing his own - PERROUSA which is an online FRANCHISE business. This focus on the petfood franchise business started when freight companies - Freightquote and JB Hunt cut off services due to non payment.

With that being said - there is no established customer base for PERROUSA-as promised in the Franchise Disclosure Document. The FDD is designed and written to trap potential Franchise Business owners into a debt with him. There is a franchise fee - and royalities. If you do not meet the sales quota - you are in jeopardy of losing your franchise business without any refund and sever penalities. I did not know it at the time -SCAM!!!

There is virtually NO customer base - there is a website and a facebook page. You can actually place orders online and you get free home delivery with every purchase! The franchise is his insurance on a bad business. He is selling a falling business and there are people inquiring! After Yilidz argeement fell apart - he had me FOCUS on the petfood business while the wearhouse crew worked and made pallets for Ashley furniture - another stream of revenue for the Fortress Forest company.

The only honest scheme maybe- I say maybe because the entire warehouse crew is hispanic and I know for a fact that some of them do not have proper documents to obtain legal employment - I learned this when he authorize office assistant Pam McDonald to write a check for a hispanic man whose name was Rolando -to make it out to the person that Rollando instructed (some womans name that he knew cause he didn't have a checking account).

Anywho, I digress, I was focused on Perrousa which involved me researching successful petfoood franchise companies and rewording their findings and using their sales data to apply to his own research for Perrousa. He laid me off in April of 2018 and encouraged me to get unemployment because I would be rehired as soon as the rough patch was over. He told me that he would have me work part time and not to report it because it was to supplement the unemployment.

I worked several hours for course of 2 months PROBONO for this man because he never fulfilled his promises of payment. At the time - I was very unfamiliar with unemployment and small business practices of a crooked man. - I should have done my research sooner. While I was working there he had other businesses that he would refrence - Fortress Modern - which was a furniture company of his that he was continually re-branding. I never heard that word used so much in my life.

Now, more than 6 months after he laid me off, awaiting for my 2018 W-2's, and doing some research it hits me that this is a scam and a very wrongful business man. After I began employment with a far more reputable - and legitimate business, he still continued to reach out to me with false promises of payment, he even wanted to me to stop by sometime on my lunch so we could catch up! As we were now 'friends'. He would ask more questions about the logistics company that I now work for -which I never gave any detail and kept things very simple.

I see that Fortress Forest is no longer the active business at 1808 Emmanuel Church Road Conover NC 28613. Google states that is the headquarters for the leading premuim petfood company - PERROUSA. It's not what it seems and if I can offer any information that could help any person or persons before they sign a 10 year franchise agreement for a phony business. - then I will certainly share my knowledge.

He has his personal belongings in his "ex- wife's" name and even his daughters name- they still reside together and have an active relationship but he only has businesses in his name - clearly for business reasons, that I am now keen to. He makes alot of false promises and given his history of bad business practices - I felt I needed to share.