Complaint Review: Neal Ong

Neal was an acquaintance I knew through some personal development classes I took. He presented himself as a man of integrity who really cared about my goals and dreams so I trusted him much too easily.

He helped me find an investment property in Denver, so he was acting as my realtor. I was under the impression that the property was listed for $105,000, and I asked him to offer $70,000 to negotiate on my behalf. He replied stating that the lowest the seller would go was $105,000.

Two years after this deal was done, The Denver realtor who was the selling agent had taken a liking to me. She told me that he lied to me about the purchase price and that the actual sale price was $80,000. Neal added $25,000 to the purchase price and then sold it to me. 

While I thought he was acting as my realtor (realtors get 2.5% typically), he wasn't even licensed to do business in Colorado. What was really happening was that he acted an an "assigner" and took an "assignment fee" of over $20,000. When I found out this information I confronted him about it.

He admitted that it was shady behavior, but acted like it was a normal occurrence in the real estate industry. He acted like I was just new to the game and I didn't understand how things went. I later did my own research and learned that this was textbook fraud, and a serious offense.

I had a talk with him (because we were allegedly friends). He tried to act like my friend who cared and used personal growth talk on me and said, "What can I do to get back into agreement with you?" I told him he could pay me a mere $5000 to just move on and call it even. He then replied asking me to invest in a property in Nevada and based off of the money I made I would be a happy camper.

I told him this seemed ridiculous because again all the risk on me and wasn't HE supposed to be
the one making it right? He then replied saying that he "could not satisfy our friendship." This was when I knew he didn't care about my friendship or making anything right he was literally just trying to get
me to spend more money with him, and had no concern for actually righting his wrong.

This is when I hired a lawyer in Nevada (Neal works in Ca & NV), and the case was an obvious slam dunk. Problem was that when it came judgement time, he filed bankruptcy which meant that I couldn't go after him anymore or collect anything. I was so frustrated. This report is my best attempt at saving anyone else from trusting someone who does not have your best interest in mind.

Please do not ever do business with him, he has zero integrity and is a shady character.