Complaint Review: Hooch.co - Nationwide

CEO of Hooch once again misleads the public.  Lin Dai's history of making false claims on investments, productivity, consumer growth goes back to his days at Kiwibox.com.   He bilked millions from investors on Kiwibox.com and then he claimed to have successfully taken the company public.   It wasn't an IPO ... it was a reverse merger.  He then claimed to have successfully taken the company public.  What!!

Investors lost $15+ million lost in a corrupt company that claimed to be the third largest social media network in the world.  If they were so large, why didn't they have the revenue to back it up?  Huge losses.  Now it trades for less than 1/100th of a penny.  With the SEC not paying too much attention to OTCBB stocks, Lin Dai seemingly disappeared for a little while.

This same CEO is at it again at his Cocktail Society called Hooch.   This company is no cocktail society.  It's a scam that uses bars like personal vending machines.  There aren't too many bars that are happy with them ... want to find out?  Go to a few of the bars and find out for yourself like me!  More on that later ...

Back in March 2016, the company claimed to raise $1 million. Then another 950k in May, 2016. Suddenly the May money disappeared on Crunchbase and they didn't have this investment.  Hmm, did it disappear?  Of course not.  Now the money has been recycled into a brand new investment in October.  Sound fishy?  Yes, of course it is.

http://www.jcount.com/hooch-raises-950k/

How much Hooch was funded?

The company raised $950k on May 31, 2016 from Blue Scorpion Investments.

Previous funding

$1M  on  March 7, 2016 from  Jay Rosenzweig

But wait, according to Crunchbase, the investment rounds look like this:

What???  Yes read on ...

Looks like Jay Roseznwig is now part of the March investment with Blue Scorpion for 1.25m, not 1mm in March as was previous on Crunchbase or this article on jcount.com.  So if he invested 1mm in March and 950k came from Blue Scorpion in May, then how did the $950k investment disappear in Crunchbase and why did March become 1.25 million?   Suddenly March goes up, May disappears altogether, and October becomes a brand new investment.

Here's what's really going on here:  This company is clearly lying about its investments and misleading other investors. This is NOT an accident.  This is willing and purposeful deceit.  The articles on the web prove it.  Unfortunately, a few celebrities jumped on the bandwagon (according to Hooch) and have thrown some money in.

Hooch than misleads the public and investors on memberships.  

70,000 members ... how is that possible?  Most of them aren't paying consumers.  Most bars I've seen report less than 5 bar visitors per week using Hooch on a given day.  They also report it's usually the same suspects.  That means there are 350 bars and maybe 2k of the same users going in for free drinks.  MORE THAN 80% of these customers don't buy anything else except the free drink.  When they do buy, they don't spend much. 

But let me not convince you.  If you are a bar, before you sign, call up some other bars in the New York area and ask them for their experience.  Don't ask Hooch for references.  Just randomly call some of the bars on their network.

If you are an investor, look up Lin Dai from Hooch.   He has been involved with two penny stocks of which he claims to have successfully taken companies public.  This man drove two companies into pennyland and called them successful companies.  They were never listed on any major exchange (NASDAQ, NYSE, AMEX)

Most recently, the fake memberships align well with the fake traffic that Hooch is receiving:

Alexa Traffic Ranks

How is this site ranked relative to other sites?

 

Global Rank 

 527,177 591,757

Rank in United States 

 128,342  

Country	Percent of Visitors	Rank in Country
United States	35.2%	128,342
India	20.3%	108,050

Wow!!!  So Hooch has zero bars in India, but they get more than 20% of their traffic from India.  Think that's strange?  All of the sudden they have traffic going thru the roof, but they are an app so how are they getting all of these page views?   People must like Hooch.co - yes, that one page is killing it!!

These guys are spin doctors ... the whole thing is FAKE!! 

Now look at KIWIBOX's traffic (Lin Dai's previous venture)

Alexa Traffic Ranks

How is this site ranked relative to other sites?

 

Global Rank 

 64,135 2,255

Rank in India 

 8,139  

Visitors by Country

Country	Percent of Visitors	Rank in Country
India	51.9%	8,139
United States	6.7%	105,919
Pakistan	6.7%	9,149
Indonesia	5.8%	15,630
Bangladesh	2.9%	8,673

So they too get lots of traffic from India ... this is because the company has used similar ALEXA services to get traffic.    

See the common trend:  These are both Lin Dai companies ... both took investors for their money, both faked their true growth, both reported numbers that didn't line up to their claims.  

I am merely reporting the facts.  Data tells a totally different story to what is actually happening.  Reports aren't matching up to their claims.  And bars aren't collectively benefitting from their service.

I would like to believe that Blue Scorpion isn't involved in this, but if they are backdating an investment I would think the IRS should be aware.