- Report: #1380969
Complaint Review: Groundfloor Finance - Atlanta Georgia
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Groundfloor Finance
75 5th St NW STE 214 Atlanta, 30308 Georgia, USA
Phone:
(404) 594-7873
Web:
www.groundfloor.us
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Groundfloor Finance Tried to Not Pay a Promised Bonus for an IRA Investment. Originally said NO! Atlanta Georgia
The owner Brian Dally referred to me in an email as a "MONSTER" because I requested that he pay me a $500 bonus that was promised in writing in a promotion as well as additional compensation for being the "guinie pig" in their new IRA accounts. It took me weeks and many hours of my time for the account to be opened, money transferred, and finally sent to Groundfloor. When the money was finally at Groundfloor, they barely had any investments and finally totally ran out of any loans. Many loans take many days or even weeks to even fully fund, and you are not making anything during that period, either. All the while, my money was sitting making nothing. You don't have the benefit of monthly or quarterly compounding either because they don't pay until the loan is paid off. The owner not only initially refused to pay my promotion because it was an IRA account, but he admitted that the IRA accounts were not excluded from the bonus and ask an employee to change the language of the offer to now exclude bonuses for IRA's. I invested $10,000 to get the bonus, but he did not care., The owner finally grudgingly paid my $500 bonus weeks past when it was due and only after I had to email back and forth with his attorney to complain about Brian Dally's (CEO) behavior. He refuses to pay me anything else despite his appalling comments about me and my troubles with my IRA investments and delay in getting my bonus. I would be very careful investing with Groundfloor and I plan to file complaints with the SEC, BBB, and other regulatory agencies. I also plan to warn people using the internet and social media because I believe he could care less about his investors based on his words and actions and may treat other investors the same way. I will be withdrawing all my investments as they mature and are paid and will no longer do business with Groundfloor.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
MISREPRENTATION ONCE AGAIN BY GROUNDFLOOR FINANCE
#2Author of original report
Mon, June 26, 2017
I will not waste my time with a long response to CEO Brian Dally's misrepresented rebuttal. I will though say that is once again not accepting responsibility for his attempt at not paying me a bonus I qualified for on JUNE 1, 2017 when I invested the required $10,000, not June 16 as falsely clained by Groundfloor. He refused to pay the bonus for 19 days after I qualified, not 3 days. I have a copy of my investment records to prove such. In addition, GROUNDFLOOR IS LYING ABOUT ME AND HARMING MY REPUTATION BY CLAIMING I TRIED TO EXTORT THEM AND RUIN THEIR REPUTATION! That is false and fraudulent claim that I take legal exception to. My full intent is to protect others from experiencing the same fate and hopefully hold Groundfloor responsible for my financial losses, embarrassment, loss time, frustration, and poor treatment. Anyone that would refer to an investor as a "MONSTER" behind their back is not someone I would do business with again. I will continue to file my posts and complaints because Mr. Dally obviously still feels that he is not responsible for the hell I went through just to get my bonus and investments making some income.
Brian Dally
Atlanta,Georgia,
USA
Groundfloor Response to Marcy
#3UPDATE Employee
Sun, June 25, 2017
Groundfloor is a four year-old technology startup with 24 employees, not an investment broker. We are qualified by the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission as an issuer of securities. Through our website (groundfloor.com), these securities offer everyone the opportunity to participate in real estate investments that were previously available only to the wealthy and well-connected. Thousands of investors have used our product to participate in real estate development loans, starting with as little as $10 per loan. The loans, which are backed by real estate collateral, pay back in 6-12 months. On average, investors have earned annualized interest of over 12% on their portfolios.
Presumably, Marcy like many people was attracted to this opportunity. She does not say she lost money on her investments, or that we cheated her out of returns -- because she hasn't and we haven't. Her statement that our investors do not earn interest while a loan if funding is factually incorrect. Sometimes, it does take up to 30 days or more for a loan to fund. And yes, sometimes our inventory of loans can run low due to popular demand. We work hard to ensure our loans fund quickly, and to always have a broad selection available.
Unfortunately, we invited Marcy to participate as a "beta" user of a new program to allow investing through an Individual Retirement Account (IRA). The program is fully up and running now but at first, as with any new program, there were some kinks to be worked out. Marcy did experience delays and some difficulties in transferring money into the program. What she does not report here is that to compensate her, we actually advanced her with a $5,000 account credit to start investing even before her money had been received. This is not a standard practice, but we were trying to respond to her frustration.
Marcy's anger with us appears to have been exacerbated by two factors. First, she demanded that we pay a "new account bonus" of $500 as per the terms of our offer. This offer was never intended to apply to IRA accounts because IRA accounts are expensive to maintain. We pay significant fees to our third party custodian on behalf of our IRA customers. Paying account bonuses on top of covering those fees is not economically feasible for us. Marcy was very upset that we initially declined to pay the bonus on her IRA account. She pointed out that the terms of our offer did not explicitly exclude IRA accounts. We disagreed (and have since clarified the terms of the promotion), but indicated on multiple occasions that we would pay the bonus. She threatened legal action and demanded to communicate only with our attorney. We did as she asked, including paying her the bonus in due course. By the terms of our offer, the bonus was due June 16th. It was paid June 19th -- three days late.
Second, via email to our investor care department Marcy demanded that, "In addition, since I have not complained publicly or online about the fiasco I experienced, I would appreciate it if you sweetened the bonus with an additional $500.00 as a gesture of good will." In an email that was only intended for our internal team but was inadvertently copied to her as well, I unfortunately said, "find a way to tell her no nicely. This is an outrageous request. I'm afraid we have created a monster!" We have apologized to Marcy publicly and privately for this slight. She appears intent upon not accepting the apology. Instead, she is waging a campaign to sully our reputation online, and is threatening to file a range of legal complaints. This, over a $500 bonus she has already received, an extortive payment we declined to add on top, and a mild slight. It is purportedly to protect the public from us.
Groundfloor is proud of our record and our reputation. While we aren't perfect, we have a track record of owning up to our mistakes and dealing with them forthrightly. We have nothing to hide.
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