Protection 1 & Brett Kesler & Reuel Christensen Protection One, Brett Kesler & Reuel Christensen REUEL CHRISTENSEN & BRETT KESLER SCAM FOR PROTECTION 1-REXBURG, Idaho & OREM, Utah Rexburg Idaho

REUEL CHRISTENSEN & BRETT KESLER SCAM FOR PROTECTION 1-REXBURG, ID & OREM, UT

I am writing this novella to protect you or a business partner from Reuel Christensen and his company “Protection 1” or “Protection One” managed by Brett Kesler out of Rexburg Idaho and Orem UT.  My emphasis is more on Reuel Christensen because we’ve had more dealings with him.  But as you will see Brett Kesler is not innocent here.  Others who may be involved that we are still investigating are Daniel Chiddix and Mikayla Bowman of Protection 1 for their dealings with our office post-breakup. 

SUMMARY

Let me share the overview of this elaborate scam with Brett Kesler and Reuel Christensen in case you don’t feel like reading the 22 paragraphs of detail below.  We own a small call center in Phoenix, AZ.  Reuel Christensen lives in Utah and is a Sales Manager for Brett Kesler out of the Protection 1 office in Rexburg Idaho.  Reuel flew down to our office in Phoenix and bathed us in praise, stroked our egos, and held out a big carrot of “millions of dollars” and claimed he wanted to partner with us to make us successful.  He said he and Brett Kesler struck a deal with Protection 1 that literally had never been done before in the entire history of Protection 1, and our little call center would be the lucky recipients of this deal!  Believing all of their lies, we converted our 3-year old CenturyLink call center business to door knocking and/or making up to 150 calls a day selling security systems for Reuel and Brett at Protection 1.  We were promised bonuses and crazy commissions which were never delivered.  We were also told that Protection 1 had taken over our office and all expenses would be covered directly by Protection 1.  Who could resist such a deal?  We couldn’t.  After four months of and sending them nearly 200 referrals for sales and making these guys tens of thousands of dollars, we were paid ZERO.  Our small company fronted the commissions and office expenses that Brett and Reuel were supposed to cover for four months!  As a small 3-year old company the financial blow was so devastating that on July 3^rd, 2015 we went out of business and closed our doors. 

WHO IS THE AUTHOR?

I am nearing 50 years of age and have owned and managed businesses most of my life and have held director or C-level titles at these businesses.  Despite my experience, I can say unequivocally this was the most elaborate scam I had ever been a part of.  I feel before you read anything else you need to know something about me.  I am not one to complain about anything, and it drives my wife crazy.  For example, I ordered a rare steak on my birthday but instead was served an over-cooked leather shoe—I still did not complain to the waiter!  The reason is it takes a lot to really bother me.  I have been to hell and back literally in my business and personal life, so I get along with pretty much everyone and can handle pretty much anything. I have been cheated out of tens of thousands of dollars over the many years I have been alive, and it has only garnished my attention for a few minutes. I am telling you…I am easy going!

But what happens when you take this easy going, passive guy and scam him, and all of his friends, business partners, and members of his church out of tens of thousands of dollars, cause his company to go completely belly up resulting in nearly a dozen friends and family members losing their jobs, and all of their hard earned money invested? 

You would get my attention that’s what! 

And in this case you would be describing what Brett Kesler and Reuel Christensen did to our company, and right now they have earned ALL MY ATTENTION with an endless endurance and passion for righteous vengeance!

But I am not alone here thank God.  I have a team of people who are witness to all of this madness and they will be part of the letter moving forward.

WHY ARE WE WRITING THIS LETTER?

Vengeance.  Let’s be real.  We are pissed and want our commissions, bonuses, and expenses covered that were promised to us, and we want bad people to be punished for doing wrong!  But please understand that this letter is not just about righteous vengeance.  Truly I tell you, we are also here to defend the innocent and sometimes the helpless, so that we may be of service to someone else--some poor, unsuspecting, innocent person who doesn't see Brett Kesler and Reuel Christensen coming!  Maybe because of our letters they will now see him coming, and in clear conscience we can say, “We warned you about those guys!”. 

ARE YOU READY FOR THE DETAILS OF THE SCAM?

I will let you know what happened to us in an overview here, but for more detail about what Reuel Christensen and Protection 1 did please feel free to contact me directly.  In summary here’s where Brett Kesler and Reul Christensen scammed us:

1. 1.   COMMISSION SCAM!

• We were promised commissions ranging from $500 to $850 for any sales made.  
• After four months and dozens of sales closed, we have NEVER been paid!

1. 2.   BONUS SCAM!

• Everyone was promised a signing bonus. 
• These ranged from $500 to $20,000.
• No signing bonus was EVER paid!

1. 3.   EMPLOYEE POACHING SCAM!

• We were promised they would never “poach” our employees.  That was not true either, as our sales manager was hired away from us. 
• We have many affidavits proving that reps were romanced to go to Protection 1 directly. 
• We still have access to our emails that shows even to this day Reuel and Brett are working with our X-employees!  So we are out of business, and Brett and Reuel are profiting still from working with our people!??

1. 4.   HOURLY WAGES SCAM!

• All our employees were promised their hourly wages were covered during the two-month ramp up period. 
• Brett & Reuel said, "Protection 1 is taking over all your wages as well." 
• Reuel actually stood in front of our entire office and told everyone that wages were now his (Protection 1) issue. 
• Reuel even apologized for our checks being late on July 3^rd and promised they would be deposited on the next Monday July 6^th!  This was never done, as Reuel Christensen never paid a single dime to our employees.

1. 5.   OFFICE TAKE-OVER SCAM!

• We were promised that Protection 1 would cover all the office expenses too. 
• Reuel had us put together a list of all office expenses for Brett to approve covering, which he supposedly did. 
• We had asked what expenses would be covered and Reuel said, “All of them” from the rent to the cost of our admin to paper and staplers even! 
• We waited weeks and weeks for this to get covered as we fell deeper in the hole working with these guys.  In the end, this was another promise NEVER fulfilled!

1. 6.   OVERRIDE SCAM!

• Some of us were told we would personally get $80 per sale that came through our office just because of our position in the company. 
• To date we have NEVER received a penny! 

YES BUT MAYBE WE DIDN’T FULFILL OUR END OF THE CONTRACT?

Sometimes when I read these reports I wonder if the party complaining didn’t get paid, because they did not fulfill their end of the contract.  Over the years I have worked with some really bad employees as well as contractors, and I understand what many people miss--contracts are BI-lateral--they are two-sided.  There is a promise to pay from one party but also from the other party is the expected work ethic to receive that pay!  Let’s entertain the question:

Is it possible that we didn’t fulfill our end of the agreement to receive just pay?  Maybe we sucked and cost Protection 1 a bunch of money versus profiting them?

These are valid questions, right?  Well, as you will soon read that is not the case with our particular office but nice try.

SO…DID WE PERFORM?

Reuel claimed our referrals were so good, better than any other business he had ever worked with in his entire life.  He bragged to many (affidavits a plenty) that we were hands down the best call center he had ever worked with, and he said he’s been around the country working with hundreds of partners over the last decade or so.  He also said he was closing 80% of our leads!  Really?  That’s a crazy high impossible sounding percentage, but this is from the horse’s mouth!  In fact, Reuel said he was making so many sales that he could not keep up with us and needed to hire help!  

Over time Reuel kept driving and flying down to Phoenix several times to praise us.  He said we had done so well and “have been noticed by Protection 1” to the point he said we were approved for over $500,000 to draw from to keep our office afloat.  We literally celebrated!  This $500,000 number was based on us selling over 100 deals a month.  That number seemed high for us only averaging maybe 40 deals a month.  It scared us so we had asked, “What if we don’t perform to this level for the entire year” to which Reuel replied (in front of all our managers--see affidavits) that “he would cover it”.  He went on to explain that his pedigree was such that this deal is already done and we couldn’t fail.  To us it sounded risky, but Reuel assured us we could take the full amount of the money upfront, but since his name was on the line not ours he would rather pull it out “as needed” (see affidavits) like a line of credit.  So Reuel promised us various installments over the course of the next 12 months (see letter from attorney with Calendar of Events from January to present) to not only keep our office afloat but to profit us wildly!  In front of all our office managers he charted this on our white board in Phoenix, and got us really pumped!  We had done it!  After 3 plus years of toiling in this business we started to feel like we made it!  We had finally broken through and were successful in the eyes of Protection 1! 

Or so we had thought. 

REUEL KEPT PRETENDING LIKE HE WAS PAYING US

Seven (7) times over text, email, and with key witness testimony (on different dates by the way spanning a 6 to 8 week period please see Calendar of Events) Reuel Christensen lied and said he was wiring money into our account.  He had all of our account numbers and he also got all the account numbers from all of our reps, sales managers, etc.  We put together a “Calendar of Lies for Reuel Christensen of Protection 1” that details the many days Reuel said, “I just sent the money by wire did you not get this?”  We have DOZENS OF DOCUMENTS from recordings, emails, text messages to key witnesses galore all testifying of Reuel’s intent in paying us—yet we’ve NEVER received a single penny! 

THAT’S A LIE—HE PAID US!

Wait…that’s not entirely true that Reuel paid us nothing.  One day instead of wiring us $20,000 Reuel wired us $1.  Yes...one dollar.  Why $1 you might ask?  Maybe that's all he and Brett had who knows?  Maybe it was so they could legally say, “We sent them money”???  We are still curious about this one and still have no clue the purpose of having sent us one dollar.

WHAT DOES REUEL CHRISTENSEN HAVE TO SAY?

Come on…aren’t you curious what Reuel might have to say in his defense?  We flat out asked Reuel why he refused to pay us the tens of thousands of dollars he owed our company and our reps.  He answered, "It just didn’t feel right".  

Reuel, you say, “It didn’t feel right”???

May I ask you a question, Reuel? 

What “feels right” to you? 

Let’s get this straight.  It does not “feel right” to pay us what you owe us?  But what “feels right” is taking our sales and pocketing OUR money for four months? 

What feels right to you is scamming poor unsuspecting church folks bilking them out of over $50,000 and keeping that money for yourself? 

What feels right to you is lying to us over and over about how you wired the money when all along you never had no intentions of paying us because it “didn’t feel right”???

Does it feel right to promise a small business all of these amazing things only to rip the rug out from under them and put them out of business? 

This “feels right” to you, Reuel?  This feels good? 

I am curious.  Did it “feel right” when you sat in our office countless times and lied to good and honest people who believed you?  Who trusted you?  Who said they loved you?  Did it “feel right” to lie, cheat and scam them?

So if all that feels right to you, Reuel Christensen, may I ask one more question:

Does any part of this “feel wrong” to you?

Needless to say, you have now earned our attention--ALL OF IT!

WHAT DOES BRETT KESLER HAVE TO SAY?

Per Reuel Christensen our special deal was made through Brett Kesler of Protection 1 out of Rexburg Idaho/Orem Utah.  We did have some face-to-face time with Brett when our sales manager was flown to the Rexburg office to finalize “the deal”, but most of our interaction was with Reuel who works for Brett.  Yes, Brett knows what’s going on, and even recently he foolishly sent an email to one of our reps (email is forwarded to us!) and has no clue that I can see all emails.  Nevertheless, I always like to give someone the benefit of the doubt in being innocent.  Maybe Sales Manager Reuel has been hiding all of this from Brett?  Maybe Reuel snuck into Brett’s office to generate all of our contracts, all the while Brett had no clue?  You never know, right? 

To give Brett the benefit of the doubt, before posting this, we reached out to Brett personally to hear his side of the story and so that me may hear ours. Since then we have sent Brett several emails asking him to please come to the table to discuss this matter, and we even invited his legal team if that made him more comfortable.  We have nothing to hide.  Brett may still be innocent in this matter, but I feel he lost his innocence when he refused to get on a call with us and over the last week or so has been completely unresponsive via email. 

Let me ask you the reader a question about how you would judge Brett Kesler:

Question: 

If someone called you claiming charges, judgments, and fraud against your good business, and you were truly innocent of these charges, would you A or B:

A).  Ignore all emails and phone calls having to do with the folks claiming fraud? 

B).  Or in the name of good customer service to your client and/or agent would you move heaven and earth to get on a call to resolve things? 

Brett chose option A!

BRETT KESLER VERDICT: 

GUILTY

Brett does not seem to care that we were scammed, and in fact we have proof that he is still communicating with our employees who lost their jobs (contractually this was not allowed), so at this point we have to assume he is 100% guilty and in on the scam with Reuel. 

Brett, we are still willing to have this call to hear your side of the story. 

WE ARE DONE!

We have tried to reason with Reuel and Brett for weeks on end, and this letter is the result of us throwing our hands up and giving up trying to reason with unreasonable people.  We are done!  We submitted all documents, recordings, text messages, emails, and affidavits to our attorney and today begins the beginning of a lot of hard days of making sure Reuel and Brett do not cheat anyone else.  

We are currently open to resolution if that is possible, but Reuel made it very clear that he doesn't feel comfortable paying us...he only feels comfortable closing our deals/sales and taking innocent people's money…and Brett Kesler is 100% unresponsive.  

So resolution beyond our full on frontal assault seems impossible at this point. 

HOW DO WE STOP BRETT & REUEL FROM SCAMMING OTHERS?

I am only one of maybe a dozen authors who will be posting on here over the next few months as the truth comes to life for others.  Our business partners, employees, and some contractors in our company are writing to Rip Off Report as well as talking to the agencies below.  Not to mention we have an aggressive plan of interviewing businesses who may know Brett & Reuel and who may have been affected by their ruthless business practices and scams:

• • AZ Department of Labor
    • These guys violated AZ Labor Laws when we were told that Protection “took over hourly wages”. 
    • The AZ Department of Labor is reviewing our documents, and will go after Protection 1/Rexburg for the hourly wages promised. 
    • Every salesperson filled out a form, and we are assisting in submitting these this week.
  • Attorney General’s Office
    • The AG was very interested in this scam, because they said it fell into their jurisdiction of FRAUD. 
    • The AG has always helped us in the past when going after large carriers such as ATT, CenturyLink and Verizon who have cheated our clients.  “Fraudulent business schemes” fall right in line with this.  We already have the forms filled out and just need to hit “submit”.    
  • Better Business Bureau
    • This was our classic first step and has always been very effective in the past. 
    • The BBB said they would help mediate between the parties engaged. 
    • We are still finishing our claim, but we should have this submitted by next week.    
    • When going after ATT, CenturyLink and Verizon in our past business dealings, the BBB was very effective at helping us get our money.
  • Protection 1 Legal Department
    • We have had many conversations with Protection 1 Legal, Betsy Scott, Michelle Wickham, Nicole Green, etc.  We have some follow-ups today to provide them with more documents.  Protection 1 needs to know how Brett Kesler & Reuel Christensen are using fraudulent means to acquire new business and are improperly representing the fine name of Protection 1!
  • Our Attorneys
    • With all of our contacts we have 3 attorneys reviewing the matter at no charge.  One of my best friends is a local attorney here in Arizona and has chosen to take the case on at no fee to us.  It’s wonderful having friends who are willing to help a brother and stand for Truth!
  • National White Collar Crime Center
    • We have spoken to the NW3C and they were most interested in this case.  There were items about the case that potentially made it their Federal jurisdiction such as crossing state line and using the internet to “dangle the carrot” (their words not mine). 
  • Corporation Commission
    • We have spoken to the CC about the Protection 1 corporation based in Rexburg Idaho that Brett Kesler manages.  Brett is authorizing Reuel Christensen to scam businesses. 
  • Websites
    • There are three truth-filled websites going up that fall under “free speech”. 
    • We are not allowed to post them here but if you are creative and add the word “scam” or “ripoff” or “con-artist” to Reul’s and Brett’s names you can figure it out. 
    • We checked with proper our attorneys and as long as the website is factual we can post virtually anything we want.  We have plenty of implicating facts to post!
  • Other Sites Like Rip Off Report
    • Most of the folks in our office are now unemployed so they have plenty of time to report Brett & Reuel. 
    • Can you believe we have found 52 other sites similar to Rip Off Report that we will all be reporting to such as:
      • Consumer Fraud Reporting
      • National Fraud Information Center
      • Consumer Affairs, the FTC
      • The Gripe
      • Complaints
      • Bad Business Bureau
      • Rip Off Revenge. 
      • Facebook
      • Linkedin
      • Etcetera

DO WE HAVE ANY EVIDENCE?

Surely this is all heresy, right?  Surely Brett and Reuel weren’t so foolish to put things in writing, right?  Here’s the crazy part.  We have so much evidence it’s incredible!!!  We have everything from contracts signed by Reuel, text messages, emails, and over a dozen eye witnesses who are willing to either testify in court or give us legal signed statements/affidavits against Brett & Reuel.  All evidence points to their INTENT and that BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT they made oral and written contracts giving us these financial promises I have mentioned above.  By the way, all of our phones automatically call record, so almost every Reuel conversation was recorded.  And when Reuel came into our office some of us made it a habit to record his every word!  Our attorney let us know that in Arizona verbal contracts are legal and binding up to 3 years and are AS VALID as a written contract.  But we have written contracts too! In other words, if this goes to court our lawyers are going to have a field day! 

OUR HONEST CONFESSION!

Here’s our humble confession for you the reader.  We should have been less trusting.  We also should have trusted the people who told us that Reuel was not a good man to work with nor anyone working with Reuel could be trusted (Brett).  We should have listened to Reuel’s X-business partners who said, RUN!  You put us out of business, Brett.  You put us out of business, Reuel.  Touche, guys!  We were wooed by your kind words especially, Reuel, and your claims that you were a "man of faith".  With our office full of church folks I suppose we were easy prey for you “dark prince” riding in on your black horse like a knight in shining armor with fists full of "fake" hundred dollar bills.  Yes we are naïve.  Yes we are gullible.  Yes we are overly trusting trusting people.  But does that make scamming us right, Reuel?!!  Brett???!

WHY DID YOU SCAM US, BRETT KESLER & REUEL CHRISTENSEN?

Brett…Reuel…was it your plan all along to scam innocent people?  If so you guys are AMAZING ACTORS!  You might be the best scam artists we had ever encountered!  I will admit we were so gullible you had us wrapped around your fingers, guys!  Touche!!!  Or did your lavish lifestyles of big boats, big parties and many big homes just cost more than you had originally thought and you ran out of money?  But if you truly ran out of money why didn’t you make payment arrangements with us?  As foolish as this may sound to the world, we are still willing to work something out.  We are not going to treat you as you treated us—we will communicate, we will respect, we will be nice, we will love. 

AND TO BRETT AND REUEL, THIS MESSAGE IS TO YOU:

What you intended for our demise will end up being for our good.  In Romans 8:28 it says:

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose”.

Your evil scams taking advantage of our employees, business partners, friends, our family and members of our church—they will not go unpunished!  There is a Higher Power you all will eventually answer to.  Resolution for your crimes will ultimately be between you and God or you and nature whatever you believe I don’t know. 

THANK YOU!!!

Anytime we have been scammed in the past we have tried to look at the positive side of the scam.  I call it “TUITION” to lessen the financial blow (we all know how expensive school is!). 

So let’s look at the positive side of things and say, “Thank you, Brett!  Thank you, Reuel!”

For what you ask?

• TRAINING!
  • Brett & Reuel, thank you for the training you provided us!  It was extremely informative and you really are good salespeople! 
• NEW CAREER!
  • Brett & Reuel, thank you for getting us into the security business.  Our management team has a combined experience of over 200 years in telecom!  Up to January we knew NOTHING about security and the business.  I am thankful you introduced us to a new business path that is soooooo lucrative!
• FAST SCAM!
  • Brett & Reuel, thank you for showing your cards so early on.  Maybe we lost $50,000 or so.  That’s a lot of money to us, but I keep thinking, “What if we had been working with Brett and Reuel 5 years before they showed their true colors?  We could have been scammed of millions of dollars not just tens of thousands!  Thank you for scamming us so EARLY in your game!!!
• APPRECIATION
  • Brett & Reuel, thank you for pushing us away, so we can someday do business and appreciate a legitimate partner!  Some of us are divorced and remarried and can appreciate divorce on some level, as it can make you also appreciate your new partner.  So thank you for screwing us over and divorcing us, so we can be the best “partner” for the next security company.
• PASSION
  • Let me thank you for one other thing—PASSION!!!  You have given us a passion to not only make sure the world knows who you both are (the TRUE you) but you have given us a passion to succeed in an industry that seems to be made up of scam artists such as yourselves.  You see, we feel we have turned telecom around single handedly and made an honest business of it!  We became famous in three years by doing the right thing in an industry where everyone did wrong.  We hear the security industry is full of scammers like you guys.  In fact, after this whole event all we’ve heard over and over has been, “Yeah, that’s the security business for sure.  Scammers like Brett and Reuel are very common in that industry.”

So our new goal is to compete well in the security world and do it honestly and justly.  Can you guys imagine that?  In other words, our goal is to conduct 

WE FORGIVE YOU!

Losing all that money hurts.  All of my friends losing their jobs really hurt!  Closing down our call center hurt mightily!  But we will use that pain to dig deep and become better people.  Despite the many lies, tricks, lies and scams you have committed here, “illegal revenge” will never be our thought nor will cheating the next guy be a thought because someone as ruthless as you cheated us.  We will not return an eye for an eye and will instead lovingly turn our cheek (as we write these letters) towards you and others.  We will move forward like real businessmen and woman and build a business that uses these incidences for good not bad.  We will continue to be Good Guys and treat others with respect, integrity and honesty.  We are Christians.  That’s who we are.  We believe God will deal with you better than we could ever (yes better than this silly letter could ever!).   Even now after you've scammed and cheated us from our income and our company is now BUST completely out of business because of you, we would still consider you with respect, compassion and even sympathy—we could still open the door for conversation and reconciliation!  We still care about you despite who you are and what you have done to us.

We are Good Guys and your evils can’t change that, my friends! 

We forgive you guys. 

May God bless you regardless!