Complaint Review: Global Venture Summit (Parkpine Capital)

As a winner of the 2017 Global Venture Summit here in Los Angeles, it has come to my attention there's another event coming up inside the downtown convention center. The award, a $50,000 prize, was highlighted on the GVS website and to date I've never received a dime of the money promised. They also charged each startup $100 to sign up to pitch and promised to refund it. No one was EVER refunded.

 I know my information is listed on a few of these emails, but i have nothing to hide.

My linkedin is posted here if you wish to contact me to speak in detail

The individual responsible for these events (Ahmed Shabana), has routinley promised winners that "the prize money will be paid within three months."

I contacted the 2016 winners (Octagon Studio) and they informed me they were NEVER paid their prize money. The co-founders linkedin is provided here.  After I mentioned this to Ahmed as well as people associated with the event he replied:

"Please let us know if the prize terms are not acceptable from your side and that RecordGram, the second runner up should be offered the title."

Subsequenlty down the timeline, the runner up RecordGram, co-founded by an associate of mine, never recieved any prize money.

I persued the matter further to get down to the bottom of it eventually mentioning legal action if the prize money was not paid.

I also spoke with the VC who judged my pitch competiton and I was told that Ahmed promised to pay for his flight and accomodations down to LA and never did so.

 As a result of Ahmed’s actions: 

1. He has been banned from promoting his event at USC (He's a USC alum)

2. VC firms have pulled out of his events