Complaint Review: Jolee Tibbitts JMT Concepts

Hello,

I write this letter on my own behalf but many other people have invested their money with Jolee Tibbits and have also not been paid out. Many of these people are my family members. I am the first (or one of the first) to speak out publicly.

Jolee Tibbitts is a real estate investor and has been in the real estate seminar business. My father-in-law worked for her for a year or two and trusted her implicitly.

Jolee Tibbitts presented an opportunity to invest in raw land in Molokai, Hawaii. The story she told was that she was passing on to us a great deal she had received. Supposedly she had a very large plot of land and would be selling us parts of that plot in 5 acre increments.

The price was amazing, only $15,000 per 5 acre parcel. My wife and I bought(or thought we bought) 2 parcels. Many, many parcels were supposedly sold-I do not know the exact number but I believe it to be over 30. These lots were supposedly sold to her friends, employees, and the families of employees.

She sent us an escrow statement and execution agreement showing our "purchase date" as 04/26/07 (although we actually wired the money to her in February--it took 2 months to get this document). We of course wanted documentation of the sale from the beginning and she promised that we'd get it but she was just extremely busy. Later we were told that there were no additional papers to be had, as the lots were being transfered to us through a land trust.

She said that the 5 acre parcels would later be sold to an end buyer and we would make a $30,000 profit on each $15,000 investment. She supposedly had buyers lined up and ready to buy.

We were told in the beginning that we'd have our initial investment paid back to us by May or June and the profit by the end of July. These months passed with nothing but excuses--she claimed that real estate transactions just took longer in Hawaii.

On more than one occasion she gave us specific closing and funding dates and promised that we would have our money. Finally after one of these funding dates in late August, we received a $15k cashier's check (we requested a cashier's check so that she couldn't blame the bank wire for not working properly as she had done before). We were owed $45k on this transaction and her excuse for not paying in full was that the money was slowly coming in and not all at once. This seemed very unusual to me as I had never heard of a "trickle in" closing. A few weeks later we were given the remaining $30k for our first parcel in the form of a personal check which (not surprisingly) bounced.

By now, we were beyond skeptical and doubted that she actually purchased land with our money. A relative of ours called the state of Hawaii to verify the parcel numbers that Jolee had given us were legitimate. They were not. Jolee continued to stand by the fact that in deed the lots had been purchased and sold and kept blaming the delays on everyone but herself. She always left every conversation promising to have the money very soon.

Being skeptical, I asked for the telephone number of someone who could verify these transactions. She gave me the number of a woman who never answered or returned my calls--many calls (hmmm).

On another note--she had previously led my father-in-law to believe that she owned a luxurious vacation home in Hawaii. Earlier in the year she gave us (my in-laws) permission to use her beach house in Hawaii for a family vacation this fall. She gave us a website to see the home and allowed us to believe she owned this location. My father-in-law purchased airplane tickets for the whole family to go there and we scheduled a family trip. You guessed it--this was a lie too.

In early September, after the delays had gone on for a few months, I was finally able to get a hold of Jolee (minor miracle in and of itself). I confronted her on many issues and she admitted that she had deceived us. As the facts came out, we learned:

*Jolee had not purchased the lots--possibly due to estate issues of the past owner.

*She used our money that we believed was going towards these lots for her own corporate purposes.

*She did not in fact own the vacation home in Hawaii and had blatantly lied to us and allowed us to buy plane tickets with that knowledge.

*She knowingly deceived us for the past several months.

Since the truth came out we have been working with Jolee's attorney to resolve the issue and get paid back. Our only desire has been to receive the money we invested as well as the profit promised (you better believe we are fighting for the profit after the mess she has made). We have signed a new contract with Jolee through her attorney that states as much. If she were 1/10th as prosperous as she claimed she would have no problem paying us back.

She is now behind on her payments on the new contract (I know, it's surprising to me too) and all we hear is story after story about how it will be next week--then next week, then next week that we will finally receive the money. According to our contract, all payments are accelerated and due immediately.

I am tired of the chase. I hope to be able to update this site later and say that although she had acted with deception, that she has left us whole and fulfilled her contract with us. We will see.

Matt
American Fork, Utah
U.S.A.