After speaking with her for a short while and asking her questions she couldn't answer she advised me that she wasn't actually buying the property, somebody she knew was buying it for her to use because he wanted to help her improve her current living conditions which were not healthy. Ok, I thought no problem, so I suggested that she speak with her benefactor and get back to me with some answers. Next thing I knew I was on a conference call with lets call him John. John introduced himself to me and said that Jane had nothing but nice things to say about me (stroke, stroke). Of course I was flattered ( I am a professional thank you) and appreciative they appreciated my candor. So anyway John jumped right into the Frey and advised he wanted to buy something for Jane to use because of her problematic living arrangements. Without asking I figured Jane was in a bad marriage, or bad relationship, maybe physical and or mental abuse, in any case I wanted to help them both out.
Now the conversation moved quickly and decisively, we went from moving a 20MPH to 100MPH , John tells me he wants to spend between 500- 1 Million dollars, monthly expenses were of no concerns because they were business deductions. John tells me how busy he is, that he expected me to do the research and get back to them like yesterday. I'm like no problem, will hop to it. So our conversation ends with me telling Jane and John they will hear from me within very soon. To which John says just talk with Jane, you know what I want so no need to speak with him again because he is a busy busy man.
Within a matter of hours I find three rare Palm Beach Town Homes for sale in one small community that fit their every need. So I called Jane, who liked the properties I found so she calls John who tells her to set up appointments to see them all ASAP. Within 24 hrs. Jane and I are touring all three properties, and within one hour Jane had her favorite of the three. (Yes) Then Jane calls John, John calls me, John tells me to send him the comparable info to justify the values and help him establish which one represents the best value. Ok now Im excited, this deal is moving fast, we have a serious buyer that wants the bottom line to determine if he will make an offer or not. Its does happen :)
The next day I'm working up a complete value analysis, and because I'm thorough I really work my magic to show John he is dealing with a professional. I email my analysis to Jane who emails it to John, John then calls me the next day and tells me, great job his team reviewed my numbers and their numbers concurred with mine (stroke, stroke Im so smart). So the next step was to get a contract offer in the works, so I tell John are we going to make an offer. To which he responds Yes. Not wanting to show my excitement I calmly explain the process that would follow. This is when John starts to open up to me, you know because we are friends now. John begins to tell me about the businesses that he is involved in over seas from his home base in Monaco. How he moved there for reasons he could not get into but drops high profile politically connected names to impress me which I was. Yet I was for the first some what uneasy about this because, in my experience most high profile business men keep quite about such things, but I just figured he felt comfortable and safe talking with me so. In any case the next day I get instructions from the buyer how to prepare the contract, Johns corporation would be the buyer and he would be the authorized agent of the corporation to execute the contract. So I prepare all the contract documents and email it to John and I wait. After about 24 hours I call him, Oh I forgot to tell you he felt so at ease with me that he gave me his direct email and cell number, (stroke, stroke). Now when I speak with John he tells me to send the contract to Jane to give to his people for legal review. I thought it was strange he didn't forward the contract himself but I did it because you know I didn't want to upset the apple cart. yes we were friends now but not yet BFF.
Now a couple days go by and I find out my contract did past legal review ? and was ok, only problem was my contract had already expired so I had to resend which I did with new dates. Then John started traveling for business, always flying here and there and so the new contract expired as well which required I send another. However the third time was a charm, he signed it and got it back to me in time to submit it to the seller for review. Unfortunately the deal was rejected and John put it on the back burner. In the mean time John has now taken me into his confidence and advises he needs to get some properties lined up for his staff and executive people to use. You know when they come to Palm Beach to conduct business on the Island. John explains that the cost of staying in the best hotels on the Island was crazy and it was better for them to own something rather then rent in high season. So John instructs me to find other properties for him to review. I'm secretly over joyed but John never knew because I was calm cool and collected, I'm a professional Realtor who knows how to conduct business without showing emotion :).
So Im looking through my Palm Beach listings for suitable properties for my high profile businessman, who BTW is now calling me and texting me multiple times a day. With each passing day the price of the homes I'm researching is growing and the explanations provide by John made sense. After all these people, his executives he tells me make many millions a year and were used to living life large and so he was instructed to locate properties befitting their professional stature in life.
Before I knew it I was looking at properties in Miami Beach, now I'm not talking small places I'm talking big expensive high profile properties. Ok so I know what I know about Miami can fit in a thimble but I'm thinking to earn the kind of money I was looking at I can sure learn and so I take up the responsibility. Now Im working from morning to night researching, analyzing Miami real estate, and talking to John via texting on a regular daily basis. I'm making calls to Miami agents, getting info, working on putting together a multiple unit package of properties. Before I know it I working on deals I would have never thought were possible, in amounts that didn't seem real.
As excited as I was working on this I was concerned I never was able to get any real info from John as it related to his place of business. Normally when working on large deals I would have asked for the pertinent info upfront but since this started out as a regular small deal I fell into a trap of not feeling comfortable after working with John for so long. What corporate info. he did give me I couldn't verify and when I mentioned this subtly he didn't respond he just went on to discuss other things about other properties.
Going into my second week of working nothing by John deals I did start to wonder what I was doing because when you step back and look at it from a distance what I was doing it really didn't make sense, in pieces it looked OK but in total it didn't add up. To make it even more troubling we never are inking and deals, we get close but then John has me looking at new properties. But then I would rationalize because I wanted it to be true, Ive been working so had and long on this and I knew of stranger things that have happened, people do win the lottery, movie stars are discovered in fast food restaurants, so why cant my deal be real.
As I talked more and more to the Realtors I was working with in Miami a few started to ask me some pointed questions which I didn't have answers to and BTW I felt like an idiot because I knew I should have had the answers. Yet I was still in denial, what if there was one glimmer of hope this was real, I couldn't just let it go, so I hung in but I was beginning to frey around the edges and my confidence was cracking.To try and recover I started to advise John how things would be need to be in order to move forward on any of these transactions (escrows, proof of funds) to which he didn't respond directly. He did slowly move more in the direction I needed as it related to making offers so I hung in and hoped for the best, John seemed to be coming around, I thought.
With each passing hour I grew more and more skeptical, and was trying to figure out how to finally determine if John was who he proclaimed himself to be. Normally this wouldn't be so hard to do from the onset but considering I was two weeks into this it was nothing less then very awkward. To make matter worse some of the Miami Realtors I was talking with advised how they have been involved in similar situations and ended up just wasting there time. So knowing I was not the only one who may have been snookered and knowing in my heart no matter how much I wanted to believe this was real it was probably not, see not a true believer yet :)
So I decided to try to some how smoke him out, enough was enough and to that end I sent him an email that was IMO soft, requesting only the smallest of information to set my mind at ease. See my email below with some personal info removed
"I need your help. If you recall I advised that I had to go to
meetings/drama the past couple days the concern how I was spending my time doing
business the past couple weeks. Of which my primary focus has been working with
you, providing you with information on high end properties in Miami as well as
Palm Beach. Resulting inquiries have become quite pointed requiring that I
verify your LLC as a registered U.S corporate entity, which I have not been able to do using the information that I have. As a result I need you to confirm
and or provide revised corporate information to verify this LLC is
registered in USA as well as that you are the authorized agent to sign for
transactions exercised in its name. I really need to verify your corporate
information through whatever state government site is required. Verification of
this information would only take me a few minutes and that would go a long way
to solve this matter, allowing me to move forward.
As somebody that conducts the types of business transactions that you do I
know you understand because you would and do require the same proper due
diligence be performed on any entity or person you would deal with.
Thank you in advance for your help in this matter."
Ok I tried to be as nice as I could but guess what that was all it took to shut this entire process down in a matter of minutes. His response was quick and direct resulting in his cutting off all business ties with me as a result of what he proclaimed was my unprofessional conduct. All I can say to that is Dear John, Thank you
So there you have my cautionary tale. "If its sound to good to be true, your probably right" Dont let yourself get sucked in like I did, one bit at a time because before you know it you will be up to your eyeballs in Horse shit and expecting to find a pony somewhere under neath it all.
To all the Realtors I worked with during this time I want to say I'm sorry I wasted your time, you were all very professional and very helpful and that was the one good thing that I got out of this entire crazy experience knowing how professional and helpful you all were.
In the end I have no idea why anybody would do what my Dear John with me but it wont happen again because as Mark Twain once said " If a cat sits on a hot stove it wont sit on a hot stove again but it wont sit on a cold one because its over learned from its bad experience"
This whole experience brings to mind Cuba Goodings demands of Jerry Mcquire
"SHOW ME THE MONEY"
