Complaint Review: Global Equity Alliance

I WOULD STRONGLY ADVISE AGAINST DOING BUSINESS WITH GLOBAL EQUITY ALLIANCE.  Last August, I engaged the company to assist in sourcing hard money loans for single family home and agency REO properties. In connection with the engagement, I submitted to GEA a $1,000 deposit.  During the first month, our contact, Kim Riddle was responsive and followed through on a few properties for which we conducted an initial review. After that point, however, I have received effectively no response to any of my communication, included a completed submissions per their instructions. An investor's ability to source and execute deals quickly is critical to any investment strategy.  Due to their lack of perfomance, we were forced to cancel a property under contract and nearly lost our earnest money. 

Based on this experience, we lost faith in the ability of the company to execute and cancelled the contract, requesting a return or our deposit. After requesting return of the deposit, which we were told we would receive in 30-45 days, the company has stopped responding completely. It has now been over 90 days since our notice, and over the last 30-60 days, I have left numerous voicemails and sent many emails all of which have gone unreturned.  We have even sent a certified letter to the two addresses listed with the Ohio Secretary of State's company database (you will not find any address on GEA's website or correspondence), which has gone undelivered.

At this point, my opinion is that the company has no intention of returning any deposits, and we were scammed.  Search the internet, and you will find many similar complaints.  I am currently in the process of filing a suit with the small claims court in Ohio to attempt to recover my deposit. In addition we are filing complaints with the Ohio Attorney General's Office, the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Ohio Better Business Bureau in order to try to prevent this from happening with other investors. 

I am not a transient or amateur investor. I have an MBA in real estate from a highly regarded business school and am an asset manager for one of the largest institutional real estate investors in the U.S.  At this point, we have lost more in time and energy than we could hope to recover and are pursing this matter solely out of principle. If you are an investor looking for a reliable partner for real estate funding, look elsewhere.