Robert Schwartz DBA: Take or Bake Pizza My wife and I were scammed by franchise owner and lost our life savings. Brick New Jersey

My wife and I purchased a pizza franchise called Take or Bake Pizza in 2013. We gave the owner $20,000 for franchise fee and another $20,000 for our oven hood with installation and pizza shop supplies and tables. Robert Schwartz said in contract he would help get us open in 3 months after we found a location.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         He lied to us every day about installing our oven hood and it took him 1 year to get us open. The hood install was $8,000 which he still has not paid. We paid rent and utility bills this whole time without making any pizza. We got a cheap $500 oven hood and a few old tables he had from another store he closed up and never gave us any money back. We lost the business after 4 months because we had no money left for advertising.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     In addition to the $40,000 we gave him we lost our life savings, money we had set aside for a wedding, money for a car when our daughter turned 16, we lost everything. He said he felt bad for us and would give us our $40,000 back and he has told us every day for 2 years he was coming here with the money and we have not seen him yet. We feel we were scammed, lied to and he is a thief.