Complaint Review: Cor Development Group Inc. - Chicago Area Illinois

COR Development Group, Inc or (Commercial or Residential Development Group, Inc Incorporated in the great state of Illinois) is running a business that can be called nothing other than a scam.  Although they will surely disagree with that label, since they dont actually steal anyones money (to my knowledge), they just hold it without providing any service or funding.  Before I go into the details of their scheme, let me take a moment to list everyone (that I know of) that is involved.

Alberto B Colon

Artemio Rivera

Judith JR Robinson

Pete Gianokos

Curtis Walton

Michelle Parizon

Dale Zuhle

Bill Grveles

Tommie Dorsey  - Gary,  Indiana

Ross Haugen Minnesota (Pelican Resources)

Jim Charles

Rev. Charles Mann

In June of 2009, a company I had connections with was approached by a Jim Charles and Charles Mann out of Chicago and we were told there is a VC company based locally that is specializing in socially conscience businesses, our project being focused on education, it sounded like a match. So, we submitted a business plan and were approved for an astronomical (too good to be true) amount of money to start our company. Everything was great. We then moved on to the contract stage, where the headaches usually ensue.  To our shock, everything went smooth, contract was incredibly short for that amount of money (smaller than most credit card agreements) and basically stated that we would be provided start-up capital in exchange for 50% of the equity in our firm and 50% of profits until such time that we were able to buy them out (valuation would be provided by a neutral third party). Great Deal, right?. So, we decided we had nothing to lose and signed the contract. We were in constant communication with them and then came time for us to put in our 20K intake fee. Something that is not all that uncommon dealing with legitimate VC firms. We transferred our 20K to them with the promise that within 120 days we would get our money to begin operations. Low and behold, all direct communication was cut and the never ending excuses began.

The next 15 months are filled with almost weekly promises of we are almost there or we are done all together, but funding never happens.  On top of this, their stories are completely unbelievable. Everything from mergers and acquisitions with other shady companies (Le Bon Table Brand Foods), to commodity speculation, to they had to wait for the Iraqi parliament to convene because they were so heavily invested in the Dinar, all of it BS. According to the information that I have, they have over 475 projects that are to be funded to the tune of 100-200M each. Now, either they are the largest VC fund on the planet, that nobody has ever heard of or they are full of s**t. I tend to believe the latter. In addition, they no longer speak directly to projects, they have intermediaries called rangers, poor souls (some who have invested their life savings) who are counting on this to happen and will tow the company line to the end.  These gentlemen essentially have no more information than do the projects. At the end of the day, nobody has ever seen a dime from these people, nobody has ever seen any evidence that they can fulfill their contractual obligations and while our project did get is money back, there was certainly an element of fraud to the whole situation.  We have contacted the authorities and are awaiting more information as of this post.

If anyone would like additional information, I would be happy help in any way I can.  I have copies of contracts, hundreds of emails and contact information for most of the people involved.  My sincere recommendation would be to stay far away from these people.