Complaint Review: David M. Levine - houston Texas

Mr. Levine was introduced to me by a business consultant, with claims that he worked for his dads law firm and could help to expedite the process of getting my liquor license. The first filing Mr. Levine swore to me that monies were paid to TABC and other parties during the process, while TABC and the other parties were telling me that no monies were giving to them. 

After preasure from me toward Mr. Levine and more time, the monies finally made it to the proper place and the liquor license were granted.  I found out during this period that Mr. Levine, was well conected in the system and even had people at TABC (friends) that were willing to use stall tactics for him. I allowed Mr. Levine to convience me that this is how the system worked, and I was happy that the license were cleared and approved.

  Once it came time for license renewal, that was due in April, I  submitted all monies and docs to Mr. Levine by Feb.  He assured me everything was filed and submitted.  My licenses expired in May, but due to him having submitted some information, it continued to show in the system as pending. Unitl in August it finailly showd my license had expired.

Once I started to communicate with the offices from Houston and Austin, the picture begin to become very clear.  I was also informed that I was not his only client that were expericing these issues, part of the reason that they would not even consider reinstating my license at that point, is because they were issued some bogus bond documents on top of never getting full payment.  They told me tha the monies paid would be reimbursed. 

Mr. Levine assured me it was a mistake, and it could be fixed.  This was right at the point that my struggling buisness had made it's turnaround and begain to be profitable. Mr. Levine lied to me for over a month about the reinstatment, and finally said the best route was to reaply to a license.  That meant more monies from my for filing and bonds.  He also assured me that it would be offset my the reimbursement.

So after creating a new company and submitting new docs, 3 months later I was issued a liquor license.  After talking to TABC, i was informed that my refund was sent to David.  I have yet to recieve these thousands of dollars back.  About 30 days after the license were issued, I recieved a call from TABC stating that the bonds that were submitted during the second filing were no good either. 

I had to hire another company to submit new bonds to save that license.  So at this point, I was out of all filing money for the renewel, and double bond money for the new license.  Needless to say I was livid. I had to pay rent to keep my buisness in mid town Houston, and cover all bills, while he lied and strung me along for months.  I can not even calculated the estimated loss, due to his fraudulent activity and lies.

I will just say it was life changing and 2 years later, I am still paying out of pocket, event thought my buiness is closed.  Even after all of this, I gave Mr. Levinie the chance to save face and make things partially right, by at least paying what he stole from me.  He admitted to recieving the refund, and that he owed me for the other monies that he lied about, and promised to pay it back. 

He then sent me emails of bogus transactions, showing money sent to my account, that never took place.  After more preasure, he finaly sent $1500 to my account, and promise to send more the next week.  I have all of this documented in txt messages.  I have not heard from Mr. Levine since it has been well over a year.  This man is not a good business man. 

I came to the conclusion that he was taking money from clients and using toward that debt that he had occured with other clients, in hopes that he would have new  buisness when the next deadline hit.  Well i got caught during the no new buiness stage.  I writing this, only to inform other consumers, not to get sucked up into his lies...