| Members Alliance |
| Marketing Machine pretending to be a Financial Advisor |
| 17th of Aug, 2012 by RTO scams |
Members Alliance is first and foremost just another property marketing company based on the Gold Coast Queensland Australia, but they have offices in most other states as well. They pretend to be expert financial advisers who look carefully after their clients' interests. That may be so if you understand that their real clients are the developers they sell property on behalf of!
In the usual way that we see from property marketing companies these days, they introduce themselves via telemarketing calls and as financial experts advising on tax effective strategies. They will even imply to naive investors that they are part of the Tax Department. They will seek an in home appointment. The in home appointment is essentially to establish exactly how much equity you have in your home to borrow against, but they will extract all sorts of other information from you as well which they will use against you later. Next step will be an appointment at their offices to speak to one of their "financial expert". That's right a 'loan shark".
This is where the real crunching will be done. They will try all sorts of psychological sales techniques to convince you to sign a contract on the day. They don't want you having any second thoughts and their carefully polished sales process will ensure you are locked into an unconditional contract by the time you walk out of heir building. Bingo! "Another sucker" they chuckle as they gather around the water cooler after you leave! Everything will appear to be legitimate. They will make all sorts of promises, claims and concentrate on wearing you down to the point where you sign. BUYERS BEWARE. This has become the standard practice of rogue property marketing companies!
A look behind the facade of the company: One of it's directors is a Richard Malborough. Malborough was the Western Australian CEO of the failed Westpoint company which sent hundreds of Mum and Dad investors into financial meltdown. He escaped relative unscathed from that and set up Members Alliance doing exactly the same thing.
They are very sensitive to negative press. They will spend a lot of time and money trying to hide postings like this from rating too highly on the google search engines. They get their staff to constantly troll the property forums and other places where they are being exposed by unhappy clients. These people will pretend to be happy clients and make all sorts of false claims about their critics in a bid to discredit them, for instance, they will claim that the critic is simply a disgruntled ex-emloyee or some other such nonsense.
The General Manager is a man called David Domingo. He is one of the most arrogant abusive and greed driven people you could meet. He is only interested in himself and encourages his staff to lie, browbeat and bully clients into signing into property contracts. He doesn't care what they say as long as the client signs a contract to purchase a property before they leave the office. These are just some of his underhand tactics! Once again, in a cunning bid to hide the negative press that is slowly appearing all over the internet about their company, Domingo has his PR experts write and publish articles like this http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/8/prweb9780202.htm
In these articles he pretends to be an expert and advising consumers of how to protect themselves from the very same scams they are running themselves. This behavior has become the norm with these con men. They point to other scammers (in this case Storm Financial) and pretend to be one of the good guys that can be trusted. It is truly unbelievable the lengths that these rogues will go to to squash negative press and set themselves up an entirely false public profile, designed to make themselves appear legitimate and safe for consumers to deal with.
Be very very careful having anything at all to do with this company. They are truly wolves dressed up in sheepskins.
What I have described here about Members Alliance at the same tactics being used by a multitude of Property Marketing companies. Don't be fooled by their lying cheating and conniving sales tactics. |
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I was contacted by this company and ended up with a home interview. From here they managed to get me another interview at there head office in Perth. Once there I was told of how and why and what the benefits are. Half way through one of the consultants came in and mentioned a property that had just come available. With a lot of push and insurance of the deal I finally decided to sign based on finance.
From here they managed to get finance through but it was completely unaffordable for me. They made many phone calls to me and when I told them I would not go ahead I was threatened with legal action. I was bullied and convinced that I had to go ahead and was also contacted by the president who offered a money back guarantee to assist both them and me. So I went ahead. Too good to be true ended up being true.
I didn't receive the money back for 12 months and much chasing. I was also charged 80k extra for the this property. Now three years later the property is nearly 100k less value than I paid. The rent return is terrible and I am being constantly mucked around.
Buyer beware. Stay well away from this scam company. You will go bankrupt!! How they get finance for you is a miracle to start with. |
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Went to Member’s Alliance on the Gold Coast in January 2013 to take advantage of being able to purchase a home with zero deposit. Despite having no choice over location or floor plan we were pleasantly surprised when we were offered a house that appealed to us in a nearby suburb to where we currently reside. Signed a 94 day Construction Contract with Image Building Group Queensland Pty Ltd (which we now know is owned by Member’s Alliance) to build the home and that’s where it has gone downhill. Almost 600 days later the new home is only partially completed. Each weather event results in internal damage as the uncompleted exterior walls allow water to enter between the internal walls & ceilings, soaking the insulation which in turn causes the plasterboard to collapse under the weight. House is not yet at lock up stage with missing windows, doors, scaffolding intruding through open windows etc yet they recently took another payment for “enclosed stage”.
Our legal advice to date has suggested that we wait until the property is completed to accurately account for what the delay in construction has cost us (rent, interest etc) & then file a damages claim as the contract has “NIL damages per day” included in the Delays clause. Have today spoken with both the QLD Fair Trading & the QLD Building and Construction Commission for advice and have subsequently written to Members Alliance/Image Building Group to formally request the property be completed (thought that was implied by the Contract but apparently not!). They have 14 days to respond then the QLD BCC step in to attempt to mediate. |
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David Domingo, the Chief Executive Officer at Members Alliance, made contact with me & is now personally managing the build of our new home. He met with me on the building site to ensure he had a complete picture of the project and has since provided an updated build schedule and arranged reimbursement of the expenses that have occurred due to the delays.
His customer service and professionalism to date have been commendable. |
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| David Domingo would only do that to stop you going further with legal action |
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| Is there any good in these investments or am I just crazy for signing this contract. Seriously thinking of cancelling |
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Hi everybody,
My wife and I attended the presentation in their Perth office last Saturday. Similar story as mentioned by a few people on here. Investment apartment in QLD between Brisbane and Gold Coast. High growth area etc etc sign today. We pretty much didn't get past the first person because I was uncomfortable with what I was being presented with and having to sign purchase agreements before getting the whole picture.
They paid for a baby sitter so we could meet them and were really nice but to me it just didn't feel right and i had red flags popping up in my head with how it all felt. I wouldn't sign so we didn't get the whole presentation like we were told before the in office meeting. The apartment they were talking about was 309 k already treated for only 285pw I did a little reseated myself and found cheaper appartments yielding more rent so I think their appartment was over priced. I kept thinking if this apartment was so good why wasn't it being sold locally l??
Has anyone had any recent exp in Perth? |
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