It has been a while since I have put any thought into this manner, since it upset me so much during the time I was going through this nightmare. So I decided to google the company on a whim and see if they were still around. To my satisfaction, this website popped up with stories of other people with my same experience. I am not surprised, since it is apparant that this company has an elaborate scheme to bilk hard working businesses out of money, with little or no recourse.
Being a small business owner, I was spending a lot of time tracking down one customer who owed our company around $20k when I received a call from August Investments soliciting their services. Since I had exhausted all my efforts, and they offered a "no cost" option to recover this debt, I gave them the job.
It started out seeming like they were really making some head way, then Steve Michaels informed me that he had them dead in the water and assured me that all we have to do is threaten court and they would pay up. Thats when he asked me for @ $1600.00 to process court papers in my local market of Tampa, FL. Unfortunately, I sent him a check for this amount, at which time they cut off contact from me and gave me the run around for weeks and weeks. Once I finally got Mr. Michaels on the phone and questioned his validity and demanded the name of the local attorney who took my case he gave me this elaborate story about the attorney and how he got him to take the case for me. He said he would set up a conference call later that week with myself, him and the local attorney. Once I hung up, I did my research and found a number for this local attorney. I was able to make contact with him, and explain who I was and how I got him name-and he started laughing. He said that the people Mr. Michaels had mentioned had not worked for his (the local attorney's) office for over 20 years and that he never received any calls about my case nor any letters etc. He told me that it was likely that Mr. Michaels pulled a Kiser Sose act and just grabbed a name of an attorney off the internet and spewed it to me to get off the phone with him.
Well, from that point forward, I was never able to get that scumbag, Steve Michaels on the phone again, and after months of trying, gave up. Obviously, this is their market plan, and know that eventually the victim will eventually give up because they have a legitimate life to live and will go back to work to earn an honest living, while they just continue their scams. It is evident that this is the approach they take and their sole purpose of being in business is to steal money from hard working business owners and their clients who rightfully owe those businesses money.
Not for anything else, it feels good to be able to get my story out there to hopefully stop others in our situationfrom falling for the same crap we did.
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