Complaint Review: Greg Vendeland

Myself and my business partner began working with Gregory I. Vendeland in October of 2008.  We found him online and he presented himself as a consultant.  At the time we were looking for help on launching a new online web project.  Greg seemed very nice and began spending time consulting with us without compensation.  He is a very good communicator and says all the right things.  In fact we were so pleased we told him that we were willing to offer him a % of the company profits once we launch for continued consulting.  He accepted and we continued working with him.  Shortly after he offered us an opportunity to buy 25 Billion banner impressions on Yahoo through him.  He claimed he was setting up a co-op buy with numerous clients of his and thanks to this leverage we would get this amount of impressions for only 50k.  We had our concerns, but he was very convincing.  He likes to play on your emotions and get to the root of why you are doing what your doing so he can then target these emotions.

At the time we got a rough agreement from him for this ad purchase and sent him 50k.  Our consulting relationship continued from there for about 6 months and was full of good advice.  In March of 2009 he presented us with yet another amazing ad purchasing opportunity that would help majorly launch our website.  For 100k we would be part of another media co-op buy that would get us TV, radio, magazine and other advertising, the street value of which was almost 1 million.  He sent us emails detailing what we'd get and even signed and rough agreement for us.  Foolishly, we sent him 100k.

Consulting continued from there for another 6 months and then we were ready to launch our business.  At this point he began delaying things.  At first the reasons for delay sounded acceptable however over the next 4 months the delays became less believable.  Finally, we presented Greg with an ultimatum.  He needed to either provide us proof our advertising existed and tender it to our use/posession or face a lawsuit.  He never responded.  Finally, after several warning emails to him he finally responded with "Thanks for the heads up".

So here we are left with 150k stolen from us, with 100k of that being on a loan that we need to pay back in 5 years.  We are still launching our business but are severly strapped and unable to launch in the way we wanted due to all our money being siphoned from us.

We forewarned whoever reads this and is either working or considering working with Greg.  He is a professional, able to read people and feed on emotions to get what he wants.  Never send him a dime of your money as you will never see anything for it!  Even if you are working with him and have not sent him money we would recommend still running.  Looking back on our experience with him it is obvious he is learning as he goes along just as you are, he just tells you things to sound like he already has experience and knows what to do.

While we are in the process of filing suit against him and a criminal report, I suspect he will be out of the country before anything can be enforced.  However due to the online nature of his business I'm sure he will be out there and stealing from people no matter where he is.

Hopefully this report helps you decide to not work with him!