What We Can Do To Help
Client First LLC. is dedicated to advocating for investors and consumers scammed or defrauded. We have pursued many cases across the United States of America and in various countries of South and Central America as well as overseas. No matter where the situation occurred our world-wide net of contacts are available to help. The number one difficulty we have in our goals is overcoming potential clients' depression or hopelessness about the situation. The system is often so ineffective that it puts many victims into a state of defeatist thinking. We urge everyone who has been a victim and meets our minimum case requirements to submit a case to us. It can take approximately one to two hours to fill out our paperwork, write a case statement and gather up the necessary documents. While this may seem to be lengthy, consider the potential outcome of a successful case resolution! Our process has built-in checks to assure we're giving everyone an opportunity to be fair and balanced. So please submit your case, we will review it and let you know if we are able to help you. You have nothing to loose by allowing us to recover your money so it is definitely worth the time to submit your case.
One thing we do wish to warn clients about ahead of time is the mimicry effect we occasionally see. Once in a while a client wishes to attempt a recovery on his or her own. Let us be clear that we have absolutely no qualms with any client who wishes to do so, but having said that, there are a few things that should be brought to attention. We may not be 'cheap', but the quality of our work isn't either. Many victims fail to realize the potential costs, the emotional strain and the overwhelming amount of time that is often spent in these endeavors. Most individuals are unable to keep pace with the rigors of an investigation and its pitfalls, all while remaining emotionally impartial. What nearly invariably occurs is a mess of a case that has very little hope of any recovery. At this point, should an individual wish to become a client of ours, he or she has made their case exponentially more difficult and reduced the chance of success. It is for this reason that we do not share our methods and warn people not to take matters into their own hands. As a business, we certainly appreciate new clients, but more importantly we dislike seeing individuals who have already lost much end up ruining their chances for a successful recovery.
Please keep in mind that we take most cases involving monetary or fiscal loss. We have a few examples that follow of the types of cases we commonly investigate, but do not take this as an exhaustive list! We determine each case's merits on an individual basis. If you have a case that does not fit into one of the categories listed below, by all means submit it to us! There are limitations to our capabilities, far-reaching though they are, but it can't hurt to see what we can do.
We also may be able to help you if you need a mediator or negotiation specialist. If this is the case, contact us directly for more information about how we can assist you.
The Modus Operandi of a Scam
Promises, guarantees and endless reassurances. Fraudsters know that as soon as you begin asking for your money back, the game is up. Often, on closer inspection of the scam, the methods and sources the 'investment' uses are dubious, at best. They have no intention of giving you any sort of reasonable return on your investment, so they will give you all sorts of promises, guarantees and reassurances to get you in, and once in, to keep the scam going. Like a casino, the longer you're in, the more money they hope you'll spend.
Long and convoluted contracts. Don't be fooled by long contracts. Contracts exist to protect the signers, but unless all signers have had input on the contract, you can only be sure that the author is the being protected. Complex contracts that the author isn't willing to explain in detail and to your satisfaction should raise an enormous red flag. Even then, don't rely on the obligatory contract. In the end, there is no state or federal agency to enforce civil contracts. It is up to the individuals to know what their rights and obligations are should someone simply refuse to honor a contract.
Claims of limited opportunities and urgent or time sensitive investments are almost always a sure sign of a scam. Any con depends on getting a 'mark' to act as quickly as possible on uninformed decisions before the investor gets a chance to see what is really going on. Being pressured into anything is a sure way to get the short end of the stick. Also, keep in mind that scam artists read up on current news and trends, too. During times of high oil demand you will often see MANY opportunities pop up to invest in oil ventures. Scammers are effectively able to create a false sense of urgency and make the scam appear legitimate.
Why do they need your investment? If you ask yourself this question and there isn't a sure answer, this should be a warning. If it's an investment opportunity, you should ask yourself where they make their money. Are they making their money off of the sales of a good or product or are they making their money off of the investors? Many MLM or Ponzi schemes don't actually offer any legitimate product or service while the scam generates income solely from it's investors.
Regardless of the type of scam, many follow the same patterns. If you've become involved in an investment showing many of these 'symptoms', you should carefully consider that investment. If you've already been caught in a scammer's web, please submit a case to us or contact our offices for more information on what the next step should be.
Types of Cases We Typically Accept
Internet Scams or Biz-Op Scams
Promises of a wonderful web site business opportunity or other similar internet business opportunity often in terrible losses. These types of scams are extremely prevalent in the the current age of communication. These scams can be extended to promises for providing business leads or additional traffic to the web site. Most of these 'programs' are scams. Generally there is some sign-up cost or fee associated with getting involved. Commonly, they offer their 'marketing services' to you for an 'investment' which is supposedly for the creation of marketing materials to sell their own products. When they make a sale, they're supposed to give you your investment plus half of the sale price. Months later you may or may not hear back from them, but if you do hear back it is likely to claim that the marketing wasn't successful and to ask you to invest even more money.
Oil Investment or Natural Gas Scams
99% of these are scams. Any person can claim themselves an expert on oil. In most cases, regardless of performance, they turn a profit. Similar to a person that drills water wells, if you hire someone to drill a well and it never hits water, you still have to pay the man the same as if you had. Likewise, someone claiming to have an oil well surveying operation selling 'can't miss' drilling opportunities still gets paid at the end of a non-operating well. And this is what the scammers rely on. Promises often include guarantees of high-yield. They will often claim that there are limited opportunities to entice you into handing over your money right away without doing any investigative work on the opportunity in question. Typically, what ends up occurring is they gladly accept your money and soon after you receive a response informing you that they didn't hit anything. They often offer excuses as to why and suggest that they should give it another try in a similar location that is also 'guaranteed' to have loads of deposits. Most of the time they never drilled a well to begin with. For those few that do, their vested interest is in the over-priced cost they bill up from their supposed drilling procedure. Even if they do strike oil (an extremely unlikely occurrence as often they don't even drill or drill in locations well known for their lack of deposits, even within reaching distance of other failed wells) they still make money on it! Oil and gas investment scams are alive and well and, as oil and other energy-based ventures currently have a heightened interest due to the increased cost of oil, many of these scams are proliferating.
Mortage and Investment Capital Scams
These scams generally ask for a large fee upfront. The money they promise to get you just never comes through for some reason. These upfront fee programs are dangerous as the agent explaining about the deal may not know it’s a scam himself, but sometimes thinks he will get a commission from your fee. Then he sends it off someplace and the deal 'falls through' or just plain never happens. He exclaims, "It’s not my fault! I sent the money and did everything I was supposed to!" The bottom line is that there never was any intention of making any 'deal'.
Ponzi Schemes
With the discovery of recent Ponzi schemes, the public's attention has been focused on these scams, but that doesn't prevent scam artists from taking up the torch where others left off. If anything, this has increased the number of Ponzi schemes being touted as 'different' or 'legitimate'. In their simplest form, they work by taking in money from investors and paying off older investors from the proceeds of newer investors. Often, victims will see a few months worth of returns to get you to 'play again'. He also knows that you will likely tell friends and family about your incredible discovery and bring new marks for him to prey on. Once he's happy with what he's got, the doors will close and the scam will start up somewhere else under a different name.
MLM, Pyramid or One Up and Two Up Scams
Some Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) and direct sales companies are legitimate. However, many are nothing shy of pyramid schemes. These types of scams involve signing up and paying a fee to become a member of a 'service'. This service generally offers to pay you commission on sales you make and puts you in a matrix to allow you to make a commission on the sales of those you entice into the program underneath you in the matrix. Often, it functions much like a Ponzi scheme in the sense that there is usually no actual commodity being sold. The system feeds off of itself and those victims it entices into the program (who are often required to make regular purchases of the product they are 'selling'). This type of scam affects thousands of people annually due to it's seemingly legitimacy and the convoluted way it is often explained.