#NerdsUnite: Ask That Nerdy Chick (exposing investor fraud)
It is my goal for 2013 to take a lot of my weird and wonky experiences as a lifecaster and help nerdy peeps out by providing a frank (not shirley) and honest answer to some weird and potentially random questions you may have about life.
Here's a question I got on Facebook this morning ...
Wow, first of all thanks for reading and thanks for reaching out.
Second of all, what a gnarly story. (Even gnarlier that this dude and I are friends on twitter.)
Alrite, here's my advice ...
I've been dealing with potential investors (and now finally have an investor) for the last year and a half. Every meeting that I went to, every time I had to travel for a meeting WHATEVER the case was - I was 100% taken care of. I never bought a meal, or paid my way in any manner. All my flights, hotels, food, anything I needed was covered. Period end of sentence. The purpose of an investor is to invest. For them to ask you to front ANY money (no matter how big or small) in any regard is complete bullshit and sounds like one of those Nigerian scams.
I give you my cut of 45 million if you only give me 10K right now.
Doesn't make sense does it?
Albeit, this guy only asked you for $20 here and $35 there, that shiznat adds up!! An investor should NEEEVVVVVEEEEERRRRRRRRRRR ask you for a dime, let alone some "hanger on" that claims this other person is worth a ton of money.
Furthermore, the MOST successful people I have ever met never talk a big game. They are on the quieter side mostly, and are EXTREMELY practical. Even my investor will sit there and tell me about this super expensive Prada bag his wife wanted and how excited he was when he got it for like 1/3 of the price on ebay. This guy has more money (and continues to make more every day) than he could possibly spend in his lifetime and he is paying someone to sit there on ebay just for the sake of capturing the deal. It totally cracks me up.
The SECOND someone talks up a game like that though at a party or wherever, I'll walk away. It's bullshit. If he really did do all of the things he was saying he did, his reputation would precede him and a LOT of other people would be around him. The tech scene is a SUPPPEERRRRR small world (much like high school) and we're all up in each other's game. We're nerds, and SUPER competitive. If someone really was that good at monetization and was responsible for that much at iTunes, don't you think other people would know it? Wouldn't someone, SOMEWHERE, have written an article on him or something about him?
Also, credit limit? Come on. You think someone who has the kinda dough to invest actually has a credit limit? The most that should have had to happen in that situation was for the guy to get on the phone, talk to his credit card company, give him all of his financial deets (last tax return, social, etc), and they would have unlocked anything he needed.
This guy is totally full of it, and his friend I'm sure is involved somehow as well. As far as what they were looking for with you? I'm not sure. Obvi you have a great product and a great start up, I'm sure he was just trying to come in and work with you to say (when you guys do get funding) that he did that and he was responsible for it. There are a TON of shiesty people out there, but on an energetic level you just have to let it all go. People like that will hang themselves. It's not your responsibility to "out them" and if anything I would MASSIVELY advise against it. In doing so, you're involving yourself deeper with this person and you're taking on a degree of their karma. Let this dude hang himself. He sounds like he's giving himself plenty of enough rope.
Consider this a lesson learned and keep moving on your path. Don't gossip or speak ill of this person but SHOULD anyone ask you about him for sure tell them. (However, again, don't go and freely offer that info for karmic purposes.)
Let this be a lesson though to everyone else that an investor or potential investor should NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER ask for ANY sort of money from you. Again, THEY take you to dinner, THEY take you out to whatever. I even had a potential investor cut me a check once at lunch because he knew I was going to be traveling filming this TV show on a super limited budget and he wanted to make sure I came back alive. (I had confessed one night I was going to sleep in an airport.)
Best of luck on your own journey, but I'd advise staying as far away from this dude as possible.
Thanks for reading and please keep me posted. xx
Got a question? Drop me an email! JenFriel at TalkNerdyToMeLover dot com
ORRRRR you can message me on Facebook and if it's within 140 characters on the twitter!
Best of luck out there nerds!!
xoxo <3 @JenFriel
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