I get calls every day from business owners who have experienced the same cycle of scams in their quest to fund their business. Let’s see there’s the shelf corporation scam where one buys an old corporation and believes they fraudulently purchase by adding verifiable lines of credit a bank will bypass all logic and give them $100,000 in non-recourse loans and lines of credit regardless of your sub 500 FICO score.
There is the platform scam where an individual, business or non-profit organization gives a modest deposit to an unlicensed stock broker and this broker has a unique relationship with a leading MTN, BG, T -Strip or commodities in Europe and in a matter of a few weeks this trader is supposed to be able to take your $100k deposit (which secured an instrument from a top tier bank and then monetized it and took your money on the trade) and turn it into millions and millions of dollars that you’ll never have to pay back and abracadabra, you’re an instant millionaire. He soon discovers that his contact’s phone number no longer works and that the bank account he transferred the money to has been closed for weeks.
There is the reverse merger in a public front scam where small business owners unknowingly see an AdWords ad in an ad that reads something like “Public housing for sale with $10 million line of credit attached” and the customer buys this carcass that has liens, open lawsuits. and a group of investors who hold onto 20% of the stock so they can pump out the stock and leave you curled up on your kitchen floor calling mommy.
And finally, there is the virtually mandatory Pink Sheet scam where, for a great price, you can take your company public with virtually no interaction from the fussy SEC and a group of market makers will even sell your stock for you and guarantee 400% raises. %. in the share price. And he soon finds out that this market maker was a boiler room who makes his living manipulating stocks and in a matter of a few weeks his stock deflates to the point where he can’t even give it away as an employee incentive.
Listen, if you want to raise capital and/or go public, there’s a much easier way. If you are looking for legitimate options to raise capital, you can opt for a Private Placement Memorandum that uses the Regulation D Rule 504, 505 or 506 Exemption to raise fast cash from investors in a strong SEC regulated structure. If you are a real estate investor, start-up or small to medium sized business, you can quickly and affordably take your business public via OTCBB (Over the Counter Bulletin Boards) and if you have a lot of money and time, you can do everything possible. IPO The reality is that you can even take your company public for minimal out-of-pocket expense by starting with an initial round of fundraising using a 504 Private Placement Memorandum and then taking the capital from that initial raise and paying for your OTCBB offering. . It’s incredibly simple and you don’t have any out-of-pocket costs (with the exception of PPM documents).
When you hear the terms Platform, Pink Sheets, Shelf Corp, or reverse merger on a public frontage, hang up the phone, or walk away from the meeting, you’re just going to get burned. A PPM and OTCBB are real, viable options if you’re trying to raise real money, fast.