Second Wind Consultants, Inc REVIEW: Customer Satisfaction Commitment: Second Wind Consultants, Inc is dedicated to customer satisfaction, Second Wind Consultants committed to small business clients seeing them succeed in working out and settling debts, avoiding bankruptcy. Offering free consultation.
I found this company online and hired them to help me write an Offer of Compromise for an SBA loan on which I had defaulted.
I subsequently signed a contract and gave them $1000 to start working on my case. They spent more than 2 weeks gathering my financial information, personal information, business information, etc. Then 8 days before my Offer was due, they sent me a terse email stating that they could not help me, and were severing the contract. When I phoned them, their explanation was that I did not meet the criteria for assistance. No where on the website or in the contract was any mention made that clients needed to meet certain criteria in order to be eligible for services.
The contract did state that no outcome could be guaranteed, and also stated that the contract could be severed at any time for any reason. I do not have an issue with this. The issue, is had I known that I needed to meet certain criteria (which to this day, I don't know what they are) in order to have them continue my case, I would not have wasted the more than 2 weeks that it cost me to be told this drivel. I would have immediately went with a firm that would deliver services without criteria.
The other bad thing about this situation, is that they terminated the agreement 8 days before the due date, and if the Offer is not received by that due date, the loan is turned over to the United States Treasury. The Treasury, not only will not compromise, but it will add a 28% penalty onto the total loan amount. The time I spent fooling around with this firm cost me very dearly.
In addition, they never offered any suggestions on where I might go for help, or what things I could do on my own to get things done. I have never seen such a blatant lack of customer service or business accountability in my life. I have received a huge penalty because they misrepresentated their services in the first place. They did return the initial $1000 that I gave them, but only after a very angry and threatening phone call, otherwise they had not planned on returning anything because they "already did a great deal of work".
Anyone who has any business issues, corporate crisis, business indebtedness, SBA loans, etc. BEWARE of this company. They misrepresent their services, and then dump you and leave you without recourse to pick of the fallout that they helped to create.
4 Updates & Rebuttals
Anonymous
Bloomington,Indiana,
No Truth in Advertising/Second Wind Consultants
#5Author of original report
Sat, June 22, 2013
You know very well that you have made the situation worse and I explained exactly why. That 2 weeks that you took for "due diligence" was 2 weeks I could have been consulting with a competent firm that actually knows how to help people with a work out. Your firm may not have the skills, but there certainly are others. You keep remarking about the "free advice" you offered me. Why would I want free advice from a firm that did not have the skills to help me in the first place? why did you not offer me any options when you dropped me as a client without notice. That is what I mean by creating a worsening situation. Please do not pretend that you do not know what I am talking about. Additionally, shame on you for using this website to continue to advertise your subpar services.
Make the changes on your website. We do not accept clients that have any assets to pay their debts. Make sure you advertise, it takes us 2 weeks to perform "due diligence", so if you do not want to risk that kind of time in a 60 day time frame, do not come to us. You keep going on about refunding the $1000. You do not get special kudos for that. I actually had to argue with Don Todrin to get that back, and certainly would have brought legal action had I not.
I was not in default for 2 years. You don't even have a clue about the reality of my situation, other than trying to paint me as the bad guy. Blame the client for your professional inabilities and poor business practice. Put these disclosures on your website and in your contract and I want to see it. You are like a poor surgeon afraid to take a difficult case because you don't have the skills to do a good job and don't want to mess up your numbers, yet you don't even refer the poor stupid patient to a more skilled physician. Again, shame on you. and take the advertising about not turning anyone away who needs help, and wanting to help military families. Its' called truth in advertising, Second Wind. Get someone to show you how it means, and stop trying to make me look like the bad guy when you KNOW YOU'VE DONE WRONG! I will shout it from the rooftops. There are certainly better firms than yours that can and do handle difficult cases, but most importantly, TELL THE TRUTH.
SWCaccountadmin
Northampton,Massachusetts,
Changes to our services contract
#5UPDATE Employee
Fri, June 14, 2013
In our previous post, we recognized that our services contract may not have been clear enough and we apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you.
I wanted to update you on what we have done to rectify this issue to avoid any future misunderstanding.
Since we received your feedback, our legal counsel has been vigorously reviewing and rewriting our services contract and all other client disclosures within our sales material and marketing pieces.
The reviewed and updated document now includes a much clearer explanation of our due diligence period and what it might mean for prospective customers.
We take feedback from our customers very seriously and trust that our immediate implementation of changes to our contract will prevent this issue from happening in the future.
Our business is in helping people move on after a business failure. It is truly difficult when we cannot help those who request our help, but this is the reality that we sometimes have to deal with in the best manner possible.
For those clients who do qualify, we have a track record of success, hundreds of references of clients and banks we work with, and an array of free resources for business owners on our website secondwindconsultants.net.
Indiana,
Second Wind Consultants
#5Author of original report
Fri, June 07, 2013
Again, as I stated in my original report, your period of "due diligence" was neither indicated nor was it stated in the contract. Had I known that I needed to "qualify" for assistance, I would have gone to someone else and not wasted the time. That is the first thing.
I do not deny that my problems are of my own making even if they are no fault of my own. But you did contribute to the problem by dropping my case without notice, 8 days before it was turned over to the treasury. You did not offer to even make any contact them to prevent this from happening. So, as I have sent you a copy of the treasury demand, you know that I have to pay an additional penalty of 28%.
As I stated, I was completely up front about everything, as there is no point in holding back information if you truly want help. I gave information within 24 hours concerning my assessts and liabilities, etc. Income tax forms, etc within 24-48 hours. The decision should have been made then so I could have moved on. I did not deny that you returne the $1000, but again, I had to actually argue with Don Todrin to get that.
Offering me consulting services after the fact is not helpful. If you could do nothing for me before, of what help could you possibly be now? I never wanted to "get over" on the government. That is why I was honest about everything. My impression was that the firm would help me write an offer in comporomise. It's an offer that can be rejected. Still done see wha the problem was if it was rejected an the full payment required. I thought you firm was to help people. But you helped me do nothing but get more money added onto my debt.
Maybe you pick and choose your clients so that you can only get astronomical outcomes to make yourselves look good. It is not for the help of the clients. You make these claims on your website about no one needing help being turned away. That is obviously not true. You make claims about helping militariy families. My husband is in the military. So that, too, is untrue.
Consumers just beware. Take the references from any company with a grain of salt, as no company is likely to provide you with a reference from the patient's they dumped, and then said "sorry, too bad"
Shame on you, Second Wind Consultants
SWCaccountadmin
Northampton,Massachusetts,
About our "due diligence period"
#5UPDATE Employee
Tue, June 04, 2013
Thank you for taking the time to write this review. SWC values all feedback on our work as we are always trying to improve our services and deliver a better experience to clients.
No doubt we were extremely concerned about this review and have conducted a full audit of the incident as well as a full review of our contract and client disclosures. We believe we do a good job of explaining to clients that "not everyone qualifies" for a workout, but we are taking further measures to ensure everyone understands the process better.
We help hundreds of people per year and this is the first negative review of this type we have received. However, one is too many and we have taken this incident seriously with the goal of it never occurring again. Bottom line is that we cannot help everyone and we always review your tax returns, financial statements and other relevant documentation to be certain we can do as we say. This is known as our "due diligence period". If there is any doubt about the viability of our strategy, we explain in full detail to the client, and unfortunately we must send them away sometimes.
The logic behind the "due diligence period" is as follows. Often we receive inquiries from people who have the ability to pay their loans but attempt to utilize our services to "get out of a loan" and we turn these people away. There is no other way to filter these people other than with a full review of relevant financial documentation at the onset of our engagement. Additionally, after conducting a full financial review we often discover new information, which changes what we believe the likely results of the workout will be. We review the information and realign expectations if necessary.
I also want to respond to the accusation that SWC "helped to create" the problem. We help people who are already in default or have closed their business and cannot pay their outstanding loans. Unless a bankruptcy is filed or payments are being made, it's impossible to have the issue exacerbated by our engagement. We never make the matter worse by attempting to settle with a creditor. Often we engage new clients who have been in payment default for years. Our services can only help the situation, while continuing to do nothing only makes things worse.
In this case, after our due diligence period revealed a poor wellness of fit, we refunded the clients money and notified them that we could not help. We tried to then offer free counsel, which was refused. I understand they are in a difficult situation and wish them the best in resolving their issues.
Other borrowers in a similar situation should not be discouraged to call us for a free consultation to see if we could help them. As mentioned, this is a very unusual incident and we do not expect it will happen again.