Hi,
It’s Gekko Boy here.
While we are all waiting for Judith to respond to whether or not she; ‘received a refund’ from us when we ‘failed to deliver’, I thought I would explain a little of the background;
1) We have been in property for 36 years.
2) A little over a year ago we were receiving so many calls and enquiries from investors - of all levels of experience from ‘newbies’ to
seasoned veterans – a great many of them who, it transpired took up a great deal of our time and resources yet failed to subsequently
do any type of business with us, that we decided to charge a ‘nominal’ joining fee of £500 for our BMV property sourcing and
‘mentoring’ service. This was purely to separate serious enquirers from the merely curious. The ‘joining fee’ was deducted from the
sourcing fee of the first actual Below Market Value deals which we subsequently found for our subscribers, so in reality, joining our
service was free. Please compare this with the thousand to ten thousands of pounds demanded upfront by other property
sourcing/mentoring companies – some of who are still with us, but many of whom have gone bankrupt or ceased trading, losing their
clients many thousands of pounds in the process.
3) At the time, over 100 investors joined us, and of that original number, 93 are still with us – though, obviously, we have hundreds of
active clients more than this figure.
4) Among those original clients, in less than 12 months or so we had built up portfolios of above £1.5 million pounds worth for 5 clients,
Portfolios of between £700,000 to £1 million pounds for 6 clients and scores of portfolios for other clients which had asset values of
over £400,000 plus. All these were on a No Money Down basis or Money In, Refurbish and Remortgage basis to recover original outlay
with additional capital release. Further, our acquisitions were not ‘High End’ properties in the South, where just one solitary transaction
can exceed £1.5 million, but carefully sourced, low end properties averaging £80,000 on RICS values and bought well below that
figure.
5) In addition to sourcing those properties, and renovating those which required it, we also sourced tenants, let the properties and
managed them – thus delivering a true ‘Turn-Key’ service for our clients. With the exception of 3 clients, we still manage all those
original clients properties to this day – along with many more.
6) In the case of Judith, she was – admittedly – and for some still unknown reason ‘overlooked’ after joining us and paying her £500 fee.
As we stated to her at the time, this was inexcusable, but in mitigation, we were frantically busy, undergoing business ‘expansion’
difficulties and a lot of the criteria which is mandatory with BMV/NMD acquisition was changing on a daily basis leaving us, often
struggling to familiarise ourselves with new ‘legalities, despite our experience in property.
7) Did she receive the service promised to her? No.
8) Did we apologise and offer to make it up to her? Yes.
9) Did she receive a refund of her £500 joining fee? Yes.
10.) It is a sad fact that in business we are all victims of our own success; the better we are at what we do, the busier we get. The busier
we get, the harder it becomes to maintain the level of excellence which caused us to be successful in the first place. Despite this,
and despite the problem with delivering a satisfactory service for Judith, we have delivered for our clients, still do deliver for our
clients, and will always continue to deliver for our clients.
11) In 36 years of dealing in property not one solitary adverse word has been said about Gekko Properties and this despite the very real
fact that in business there will always be certain people with ‘their own axe to grind’ who will – unfairly - defame an individual or a
company for no good reason.
12) There have only been an handful of instances where Gekko Properties have had to refund upfront fees to clients and in every
instance, without fail, we have made those refunds. We have even made refunds when we had no moral or legal obligation to do so.
Morals or integrity do not even enter into the reasons for this – it is simply sound, business sense. Satisfied clients are clients for
life. Genuinely disgruntled ones are not. We are not in business to make a quick £1,000 by ripping someone off, we are in business
to make hundreds of thousands of pounds from each client in repeat sourcing fees by giving the client what he wants – sound
properties in the right locations acquired for No Money Down at a good Below Market Value price and for fair Finders Fees.
13) Anyone who knows us recognises that we are among the leaders in property sourcing - as a scan through the Leads Exchange will
attest. Anyone who knows us also knows that we do not sell ‘Leads’ and that we only sell ‘Done Deals’. We do not rate Leads as in
our opinion 99% of them are a waste of good money. Despite the fact that with Done Deals the investor knows in advance what he
is paying for – meaning that most of the unknown variables are taken out of the equation, unlike leads – we still always make it very
clear that any upfront fee is: ‘fully refundable should the deal fail through no fault of the buyer’. Compare this with most lead sellers
who will not usually refund fees for any reason, even if;
1) The property is no longer for sale.
2) The property has been sold to someone else.
4) The so-called ‘motivated seller’ has told a pack of lies and the property very obviously is not worth anywhere near the value
advertised in the lead.
5) The so-called ‘motivated seller’ has told a pack of lies and the property is very obviously not anywhere near the ‘good’
Condition stated in the lead advert.
6) They will not even refund the lead fee if the ‘motivated vendor’ has just picked up the phone to tell you any of the above. As long
as the motivated seller answers the phone – even just to grunt (as happened to me) – this invalidates any refund.
14) So, No, we don’t ‘rook’ people and our deals are the very best and the terms of our deals are the very fairest.
15) Finally, thousands of people have dealt with us over the years but you may only be interested in currently active investors who
are very respected names in the property community. Names like Shane Pavitt who we sourced a lucrative deal for without any form
of contract or ‘Finder’s Fee’ agreement – a deal which justified the mutual trust and completed. I even made 2 X 300 mile round
trips to ‘prep’ the vendor and meet the valuer to ensure success – services I didn’t even charge for. Or maybe Ashwin Gandhi who
became a client at the same time as Judith and for whom we have added multi million pounds worth of BMV/NMD acquisitions to his
already substantial portfolio. Or there’s; Rich Wilson, Ady Smith, Mark Clegg, etc etc all ditto.
Those of you who belong to Deep’s Forums might know investors such as Valentine Varga or Winnie Alhassan, among many others, who have never bought property
through me but whom I was glad to help at my own expense. You may even know Ian Brinkley who started a thread very similar to this one enquiring who Gekko
Properties were and if anyone had dealt with us - Ian is now a client and we have just let his acquisition to a tenant at far above the expected market rent.
I’m sorry that this is a long post but better to pre-empt later questions and though I detest posting on open forums where any (official) Tom *** or Harry can snoop to
their heart’s content, I do like to respond as quickly as possible to stimuli – having learnt a hard lesson with Judith when I inadvertently overlooked her all that time ago.
Regards
Gekko Boy
PS
We have most certainly had access problems with some of the properties which we have sold for Chris Long of Long Holdings but I am assured by him that these problems were resolved by a meeting of liquidators and solicitors yesterday and that the green light has now been given for access.
Bearing in mind that each portfolio has hundreds of properties and that, due to being repossessed stock, bankrupt stock or distressed landlord disposals, each portfolio has its own intrinsic legal complexities and unique procedures to be observed, delays and problems can reasonably be expected. That said, I understand our clients concerns and am working tirelessly to ensure that the acquisition process progresses free from further impediment.