Complaint Review: Jeremiah Rauwolf & Richard Burgess - West Chicago ILLINOIS (IL)

I contacted this supposed "SEC" register fund called Prime Short Term Credit Fund LP. It’s referred to the owners as PrimeSTC. I had the liberty to speak with one of the owner's Jeremiah Rauwolf as he was the person who picked up the phone. That should have been a sign of things to come. I mean think about it, would an owner of  “multimillion dollar” and “direct lender” actually pick up their own receptionist number? Again, something I realized looking back at the whole situation.

He assured me on our introductory call that him and his partner had world class banking experience in the real estate; especially in financing investment properties. They have closed $50MM worth of deals each themselves over the last 3-months. I find that to be hard to believe, please read on it gets better.

To start, Jeremiah was very nice to speak with and I felt as though he didn't have your typical hard money pushy hard pressure sales tactic, so I was presented with the normal process of filling out an initial application and after 2 days I received an LOI. Normally, their deals close within a 2-3 weeks timeframe. Perfect, I had 60 days to close so it wasn’t a problem. Jeremiah told me their transaction are contingent on receiving an appraisal but then they can close 1 day after receiving a full report because they had 20 million dollars to deploy.

Their original conditional approval letter seemed a bit higher than some other competitors but Jeremiah assured me things could be workout further down the road when they had all their underwriting done. So, I went ahead since I was told they could have a quick closing and there was NO money out of my pocket due from any borrowers until closing. As soon as I hung up the phone within about a half hour, I received an email with a link to a third-party vendor for $100 in order to run my credit ad background credit!

When I called Jeremiah and told him that I received a link asking for $100 to run my credit, he said that if I paid it and my credit was higher then 620, I would be reimbursed immediately for my initial $100 fee. Well, asked my better judgement I paid the $100 and had my tri-merge credit score run; it was a 708 and I had no negative background items come up. So of course, I asked about the $100 refund for my credit report that I paid for and Jeremiah Rauwolf said, “He received the same report and my check was mailed out.”

Next, an appraisal would need to be ordered in order to ensure the value of the property was either equal to or greater than my purchase price. Guess what happened next, I received a link to pay for an appraised of $895 for an appraisal for a 1-bedroom condo! That is EXTREMELY high for an appraisal but again Jeremiah assured me that if my appraisal came back as with a good value my initial appraisal fee it would be reimbursed to me for the full $895. At this point, I was feeling a little taken back since I was still waiting for my original $100 to be credited back to me for running my credit.

When I told him I would wait for my credit fee of $100 to be refunded, he immediately went into a long and drawn-out answer that ALL lenders make their prospects pay for their own appraisals and it would only hold up the deal. Honestly, it was only $100, so it’s not like I couldn’t afford the cost but it was the point that I was lied to; the first of many to come. Yet again, I paid for the overpriced appraisal and after 2 weeks the appraiser showed up to the property. I assume the appraiser performed his service on the condo as I was not there.

Finally, after a week of the appraiser’s visit, the appraisal came back with a value that matched my purchase price for the condo ($215,000). That was a slight relief on my end and I thought great news! However, now it’s been over 3 weeks since I paid to run my credit and yet I never received my refund of $100. So, I went ahead an called Jeremiah and this is where he got caught in his second lie, he told me the check for $100 was returned to their office because he made a mistake on my address… I knew then it was a lie but I played along and told him to resent the check and if he could send me a picture via email of the check.

He assured me he would but I never received any email with  copy of the check! Jeremiah, even went as far as to say that both checks would be in the mail and should arrive at the same time! That’s when I questioned Jeremiah since he had already told me the $100 credit check was already sent. That’s where Jeremiah started stumbling on his words. This is when the red flags started going off in my head.

When I started to question him harder about my reimbursement, Jeremiah explained that he was in Italy for many years and spent that time with the Catholic church to become a priest but then left right before he was going to become a full priest and he wouldn’t lie about sending a check! This is when I asked to speak to someone else because I couldn’t hear any more lies. At this point I was contacted by his ‘partner” Mr. Richard Burgess who got on the phone and reassured me that my funds were already sent.

Here’s when things got very suspicious and the true thieves tried their shady business practices of the old bait and switch. When I asked Mr. Burgess of his experience in banking, he went on a tangent of how he worked on the commodities exchange and for a large bank in their corporate headquarters.

While I had him speak in the background, I looked up their information on file with the SEC only to find out Mr. Burgess did in fact work for a bank, in a  branch ( not corporate headquarters) as a glorified teller. Now, I have no issues with tellers but it’s a big difference to claim to be a director in a bank’s headquarters. The best part is when I looked up the address of the fund on file with the SEC it turned out that on google maps, the fund was based in the basement of a house! This is when things got interesting.

When I questioned Richard Burgess and explained my findings, Mr. Burgess tried to spin his explanation that the fund had a shared office and mailbox. But that was all a lie because this information would have to be filed with the SEC! The cherry on top was when both Mr. Burgess and Jeremiah Rauwolf were now on the line together and both told me (with a stern voice) they held “millions” under management and held just over $20 million in real estate within their fund.

Again, they must think I can’t read. Lol! Right on the SEC website it tells you everything, even how much the fund has under management which to my amazement was just under $350K; that’s it! Here’s the link to the SEC (https://sec.report/Document/0001783397-19-000002/).

Moreover, after another 2 of having received the appraisal back, I started to become impatient because my file was still in “underwriting”. Finally, almost after a month into the deal Jeremiah called me out of the blue with what he claimed was great news! His call was to tell me that the terms had changed and they wanted to charge me 2% per month (24% a year) and 4 points due at closing but don’t worry the points would come from the loan proceeds. I thought wow, this isn’t not even on the same planet as their original offer which was originally quoted at 7.99% fixed for 1 year with no fees. Talk about a bait and switch, all this came about after over a month’s time has gone by, $1,000 in costs I incurred, lied about their experience (Jeremiah Rauwolf has NO experience whatsoever in banking), and having both “partners” lie about the money they held under their “direct” management.

Oh, I almost forgot the bets part they not only wanted me to take the deal but then sign over the ownership of the property to them at closing!?!? Are you kidding me, these guys should be arrested! STAY AWAY FROM THESE CONARTISTS!!! I’m glad this wasn’t my first time and when I started feeling doubt, I reached out to a backup firm to have my transaction funded!

I almost lost the property as my original purchase and sales agreement would have expired. I’m just glad that this whole fiasco only costs me about $1,000 and a huge wasted of my time. I could only imagine if I didn’t take the initiative to contact another lender, I would have lost a great rental opportunity. Ultimately, I would have rather lost the property to the owner then have these guys steal it from me. THEY ARE THIEVES AND MY ADVICE IS TO STEER CLEAR OF THESE CRIMINALS. I may have ignored some earlier signs but to have them steal my property; there was no way that was happening to me. So, if you want to waste your time, energy, and money these are your guys!

By the way, after contacting the Illinois State Banking regulators I was informed that Prime Short-Term Credit Fund does not have any state or federal licenses to originate or services any mortgages. Hopefully, the state shuts these clowns down before they really cause some injury or steal someone’s money! JEREMIAH RAUWOLF & RICHARD BURGESS ARE THIEVES THAT MISLED CLIENTSTO STEAL THEIR PROPERTIES; STEER CLEAR OF THESE CROOKS. THEY BELONG IN JAIL!!!