THE VELD GROUP THE VELD GROUP ARE A BUNCH OF CON ARTIST!! THEY LIE CHEAT AND STEAL FROM BOTH SELLERS AND BUYERS OF BUSINESSES!! LOS ANGELES California

The Veld Group are brokers who assist business owners (the seller) with selling their business and assist people (the buyer) who want to buy a business amongst other things. But this is where both the seller and buyer need to beware when dealing with this unscrupulous company!!

First, I am going to tell you what had transpired between The Veld Group and myself. The Veld Group was representing a seller of a business that the company that I work for became interested in buying.

The typical procedure in locating and researching businesses for sale off the internet basically goes like this:
1. a buyer finds a business that he is interested in possibly buying
2. buyer sends email to the broker requesting a nondisclosure agreement (NDA)
3. broker sends buyer the NDA
4. buyer reads and then signs the NDA and faxes it back to the broker along
with the buyer's financials so the broker can see that the buyer is capable
of buying the business
5. the next thing experienced buyers request to see is the last several years
of the business' tax returns to verify the business is truly netting the
amount of money the broker was advertising the business to be earning.

This is where The Veld Group is different than 99% of all other broker companies. The Veld Group demands that the buyer commits to a purchase price and then also demands that some up front monies be put down on the business (usually $10k to $20k) as a show of good faith money before they will release any other documents of the business history.

An experienced broker in any brokerage company would be trying this approach but it is only The Veld Group that will not negotiate these two requirements and lie and cheat in the process in order to try and secure the two requirements. This is done also by brokers so they lock in a buyer for the business. Now, if the buyer finds out later that the business information is not correct and in turn the buyer now knows that the business is not worth what the seller is selling the business for, he can not just pull out. The broker has leverage on the buyer with the Purchase Agreement Contract as well as the up front money so the buyer understandably is in a complete losing situation and the seller gets the up front money at the bare minimum.

An experienced buyer's response to a broker when they request these two things is simply that with out seeing the tax returns then it is impossible for the buyer to be at least 85% certain as to what the business is truly making and if the business is not what they are advertising the business to be netting yearly then the buyer does not want anything to do with the business. So the broker's requests for a Purchase Price Agreement and up front monies is totally out of the question in any situation and especially in the case when the buyer can not verify the true net value of the business.

It is at this time that 99% of all brokers remove the silly demand of a purchase price agreement as well as the down payment of good faith money. The broker now usually would submit the tax returns to the buyer so they could possibly move forward and sell the business but also because the buyer's response is fair and really the correct thing to do. Not The Veld Group though!

After I faxed to the broker the signed NDA and my financials and the broker had sent me the first round of information on the business, I asked for the tax returns. The broker whose name is Ryan Clark called me up and over a series of conversations over the next week as we went back and fourth over Ryan wanting us to submit the Purchase Agreement and up front money and me defending my position as to why it was not only impossible but it was just not fair for us to commit to his request, I began to believe in, "The information is 100% good" or "I believe in being 100% honest" or "who needs bad Carma" and "we have been in business for 8 years now and do you think that we could get away that long if we burned our clients" and things of that nature spoken by Ryan.

Anyways, during these conversations Ryan kept stating that all the information was absolutley correct and that he himself had seen all the tax returns as well as documentation from the business' accountant such as the Profit & Loss statements and other documents of this nature which verified that the business was once again honestly netting what they had advertised.

After the week and several of these conversations with Ryan had past, Ryan convinced me that the information was at the very worst not more than 5% off of the advertised net listing and really 100% correct. If only we just submitted the Purchase Price Agreement with $10k as good faith money then we would be provided any documentation of the business and see it for ourselves. He kept saying for me to remember that this was just really a formality as Ryan was certain that we would buy the business because the business was everything they claimed it to be.

By now we agreed and submitted the $10k and a Purchase Agreement which was written where we could get out if the business was not as advertised but nothing could protect the money. We finished submitting everything and I again requested to see the tax returns and any other financial documentation they had in which they gave it all to me, I thought.

Over the next couple of days, we decided to pursue the purchase of the business. after three more weeks, we had did our due diligence of thoroughly checking out the business and we were in the process of buying the business.

In order to move forward with the purchase of the business, The Veld Group and Ryan now requested that they wanted $120k put into escrow so we could then finalize the purchase. I am not going into all the negotiations and the final structure of the deal we negotiated but basically we had 130K total in escrow which was going directly to the seller upon the sale of the business.

It was during these final stages of the purchase of the business was when one of our investigators realized that the figures on the tax returns were not correct. That started the domino affect on the rest of the financial numbers and actually made us realize that we should have realized that someone was out right lying earlier and taught another way on how to analyze certain aspects of a business financial information but for this deal it was to little to late.

Upon our discovery, we requested a sit down meeting with the seller and the broker which they scheduled with us. On the day of the meeting, we presented the information to them. We then notified them of our decision that due to the new information that we no longer were going to be buying the business and we would appreciate that they just return our money since the information was all falsified!!

And this is when I became extremely shocked. The broker started claiming that they ( the broker and the broker's company) had no responsibility to us with regards to the verification of any information of the business they were selling and that once again there was absolutely nothing wrong with the business' financials. I replied, "It is true that on the contract you are not liable for the verification of any information but remember Ryan all your swearing up and down how great the financials truly are and that you, yourself had verified the financial information and that we were going to be very happy with this business because everything was on the up and up!!"

Ryan acquired amnesia and the sellers were also totally denying everything.

This is where we are now. When buying businesses through a broker, the contracts usually require any dispute must go through mediation and not through a court proceeding. It is a common procedure.

After hiring an attorney and to get to the first meeting of the mediation cost us a little over $10k. We were informed at the mediation that if we did not come to some form of an agreement now of how to split my $130k in escrow with the seller and a second meeting was required so the mediation could make its final decision as to how to split the money or if one side was deserving verses the other side the mediation would be charging $25k for that next meeting.

Now, our company is out $10k in legal fees so far, $130k tied up in escrow due to all lies and the misrepresentation of the business presented by The Veld Group and the seller. They now are fighting me over the money put into escrow to purchase a completely false business which is built on lies, and lastly we will possibly have to pay another 25k just so we can listen to a mediation representative make a decision as to how much money we might get back out of the $130k if the seller, broker, and myself are unable to come up with an agreement as to how we should split the $130k.

The seller and broker wanted $80k and for us to take $50k and I do not know if we had the same thought process or what but that was exactly what we came up with except for we were to receive the $80k and they would get $50K. Regardless, it is more cost effective for us to to come to some sort of an arrangement with the broker and seller before we have to schedule the second mediation and pay an additional $25k on top of everything else.

Looking over everything that has transpired up until know and reviewing not only the attitudes but the behavior of not only the broker and the seller but also the mediation group. We truly thought that with all the information and proof that we had that we would be awarded all of the $130k at the first meeting but it did not workout like that. This is our assessment as to what is transpiring and truly happening with this whole ordeal.

First, The Veld Group and this whole deal is not an isolated incident. We have located at least two other buyers that have similar experiences with The Veld Group and they to ended up in mediation and paying them for their services besides having to pay The Veld Group. The buyers of those two different incidences decided like us that it would be cheapest by agreeing to give The Veld Group an agreed upon split of all the money in escrow or face having to pay additional mediation charges and also having to put all your chances of every getting any of your money back in the hands of a mediation group that seems to have some type of understanding with your/the opponent (The Veld Group)! Remember, The Veld Group does bring in large sums of revenue to the mediation group. The old say,"Don't bite the hand that feeds you." That just did not originate out of thin air but there is a lot of truth behind that saying and it could not be more prevalent than with these two groups!!

Secondly, The Veld Group should at least make $50k if not more by the time we are finally done with all the mediation and everything is over. REMEMBER THAT THEY MAKE MONEY LITERALLY FOR ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!! Now if you times that by 5 to 10 companies every 4 months you come up with that The Veld Group makes some where from $250k to $500k at the bare minimum every quarter and once again that is acquired by listing businesses in which their financials are a complete lie and then misrepresenting those businesses to some unsuspecting buyer whose best bet is to give The Veld Group at least half of the money that the buyer put into escrow to start the buying procedure if they are ever lucky to uncover the lies before buying the business.

Another thing to remember is that The Veld Group probably makes much more on these falsified businesses because if the buyer is not fortunate enough to uncover the lies until they own the business out right. Then the buyer not only got scammed hundreds of thousands of dollars for a bad business but then the buyer better hope that he is creative enough to turn the bad business around if he is lucky and if not then the buyer is out thousands of dollars more trying to make a bad thing from the start into a salvageable thing!! And on the other side, The Veld Group goes off laughing all the way to the bank!!

This is completely B.S. The mediation does not care about getting to the truth as much as they seem to be more interested in trying to get us committed to the second part of the mediation and collect the $25k (the mediation's behavior I will file a report on them on another day).

PJ
Los Angeles, California
U.S.A.