Complaint Review: Golden Gate Funding LLC

I am the original filer of the rip-off report.  However, I am not the only one who has filed a report on this forum.  I so far have not seen I rebuttal to the other report that was filed prior to mine, so I would be curious to see one, considering that I agree 100% with what the other report filed on Sept. 20.  This person appears to have a lot more deals at stake & perhaps even more reason than I to be filing a complaint and requesting a refund. 

In any case, here is my response to the rebuttal from company owner:

The real issue here is how the program was presented to affiliates who started in the early phases of this program back in late 2011 & early 2012.  The promotional materials used to do so appear to have been replaced or updated to reflect the current strategies being implemented, which have changed significantly in scope since it's inception.  The methods used in the early phases of marketing the program to affiliates were over-hyped to the point of a huge gap between what was presented to a target affiliate vs. the reality of what the program was capable of.  The impression given to someone before paying & entering in as an affiliate was that Golden Gate Funding has been doing this, they have the contacts, the system, everything needed for success down already, all you need to do is plug in get going on marketing & start making money fast!!  Of course now the original web links used to lure affiliates have different information than before, I'm sure in order to avoid a potential lawsuit.  At best the info presented to early affiliates was extremely exaggerated, & unrealistically optimistic, at worst it was fraud in the form of false advertising.  In any case, not presented & transacted in such a way that was ethical or honest.

When the program was first launched in late 2011 & 2012 in the early months.  The message was "short sales are dead" they are too difficult, banks are not approving enough of them, that's why we started doing the note buying program because it's much better & chances of success are much greater.  Initial marketing messages given had messages of "easier than short sale"  "faster than short sale" , no deficiency, no huge amt of paperwork, no tax liability, to where it was meant to show a homeowner that the note purchase program was more to their advantage.  Now almost a year later things have changed to emphasis on 1 core lender for bulk purchase (BofA) & High end luxury one-offs or short sales with Chase.  It appears a few high end Chase deals have been successful, although now they are saying affiliate finders fee is less than originally agreed for those. 

And now they have gone back to introducing short sales as the "first option" to give the homeowner.  This is in stark contrast to what early affiliates in the program were told before they forked over their money to sign up.  Short sales were only supposed to be used as a last resort if the property had a looming auction sale date.  Now the message is totally different, what a major adjustment from what we were told, why?  In addition, they had to change from saying no tax liability, to now a possible tax liability.  Hmmmm.....much longer timelines than a short sale, now you have tax liability.....why the hell would anyone want to do this program, they are better off with a short sale....but wait!  Now Golden Gate turned on a dime & reintroduced the "dead" type of deals they said they were moving away from, short sales again!  Consistency in the message seems to be at issue here.

Also an expectation was planted in the brains of prospective affiliates, in order to get them to join, that these bulk packages would not take that long to compile, submit, & close, 90-120 days from start to finish.  I was told directly by Lenny, the go to person to get signed up, that I could expect to see a first paycheck 60-90 days after a package submission.  This was because they can flip wholesale to 'investor buyers'.  Of course, later I find out, this does not apply to Hawaii, although Lenny stated "anywhere in the country".  I guess I thought Hawaii was another country?  The problem was that Golden Gate had never really done these before, although the presentation given made seem as if they did.  Claiming that the attorneys you work with do, or said they do, does not cut it.  Having the actual experience of closing these deals using your attorneys would be a more ethical representation of what was first claimed in the original sales pitch given to affiliates.   Needing to fire & switch attorneys mid stream also does not cut it.  That is just evidence that GGFD never had this model down to begin with, they are learning as they go while burning through all the affiliate money being collected.

So what was reality?
The first package submitted was with BoA, which took forever, went through changing attorneys, and from what I understand still has not closed 9 - 12 months after submission, and oh by the way, now 100's more notes than originally stated are required in the pool for it to be negotiated, again, more changes from what was originally stated.  Huge, huge, gap between what affiliates were made to believe, and reality of what is occurring.  Meanwhile come to find out all the so-called other lenders GGFD works with (Chase, Wells, Citi, etc.) that we are told to hunt notes for bulk package negotiation they don't even have the necessary contacts or relationships to effectively do these deals and close.  They are basically doing the work of establishing contacts & building relationships on the fly, as first time packages get collected & submitted, from what it appears.  Meanwhile expectations on timelines keep getting pushed further, and further, and further.......affiliates keep getting fed more optimism on the future, even though some have submitted multiple deals almost a year ago & still have not been paid.

For the record, I have never, ever, made promises or guarantees to any homeowner on any option to avoid foreclosure.  I repeatedly set them up to expect the worst case, and I made sure they were aware of other options first.  And all the contractual language stated the same. I am not disputing that.  What I am disputing is that affiliates were fed over-hyped, borderline false information in order to get them signed up, then strung along & have never paid been yet, except for the few doing Chase luxury sales more recently, and at a lower finder's fee % than first stated.  It was also deceptive to initially present to affiliates the note buying option as more appealing than a short sale for the homeowner when in in fact Golden Gate could not perform.  Only recently they are now changing their tune & of course took down all the old promotional & training material that had such an emphasis.

Your program was misleading to money paying affiliates from the start.  You also encouraged affiliates to pay more money into marketing materials, some of whom have paid thousands of dollars on leads, mailers, etc. & never have yet to receive a finder's fee.  As I said before, I am not the only one to submit a complaint against your company, and I am certain I will not be the last.  I still demand to get my refund.  However at this point it's more important to me to have you exposed and let others know to stay away from dealing with your company.

I do not actually believe you planned on your program failing or vastly under performing to the point you are at now.  I realize the success of your operation is something you probably have intended and perhaps need to survive economically.  However, it's not OK to have collected all that affiliate $$ and gamble it on what was a weak and questionable business model from the start, while at the same time not being fully honest about GGFD's capabilities to perform. Regardless of what I've said and others will say, as I believe they will , I do know that your lack of integrity will finally catch up to you....

The attorney firm that we signed on for the bulk trade has made and continues to make claims they are closing in bulk. Program updates are given on our training calls every single week and as is openly disclosed there - the legal team that is part of our network and the attorney firm they used in the past have closed bulk which is where that verification comes from. It has taken considerable time to get enough files to be able to make the submissions.

There are bulk submissions with BOA, WELLS, Chase, Ocwen, and INDYMAC. We do continue to submit every 60 days, adding new files to the existing trade or submitting to a different contact. We are in the process of working with the bulk trades to get the terms of what the notes will be traded or settlement reached. Also as we have presented on the training calls, we moved from the old attorney group to a new firm because of faster service and better communication. We are still waiting to close those pools. Yes, it has taken much longer than expected which is why we have told everyone many times to make sure and keep the short sale moving and in place.

This is also the reason our team provides access to a complete short sale staff and attorney based group that is capable of processing 800-900 short sales at any given time. As you know, even the agreement that we present to the homeowner states to keep all other options moving and notify us of cancelation of agreement if choosing to go another direction.   We also ask repeatedly in our trainings that our affiliates not oversell the bulk trade and not make any promises to the homeowner. This was repeatedly asked on our live training calls that occur 4 times each week. As with all people that are in foreclosure we always state that they should pursue all other options including a short sale, modification or deed in lieu. There is no cost for the homeowner, and no penalty to vacate the agreement and we encourage all homeowners to seek every option available.

Unfortunately we have come to realize that certain affiliates dont think they can land a deal without making guarantees and promises. We have always been full disclosure and everyone who participates in at least some of the 15 plus live training calls that we provide each month understands where we are. We are all accessible and you even have my personal cell phone number from the call we had where you agreed that we would continue to train you and accept your deals for notes and short sales. We also make it our policy to personally handle issues with open communication. I wish we were banking huge sums of money from affiliate fees, this is not the case at all we have and continue to advance personal money into the program and training platforms to make them better. Every member has the ability to call our office anytime. All questions are always answered within 24 business hours. Having a processing staff and 8 employees and customer service people all requires substantial overhead to provide the high level of training and service that we offer.