Dear Investors,
I deeply apologize for the delay in getting my update to you. The past few months have taken a toll on me as I honestly tried to do way too much with my businesses. I started the USA TOMORROW newspaper to create a vehicle for change and I didn't realize the response to the project to be as enormous as it has become. On the advice of a very smart friend of mine I have decided to set the paper aside, in part, for the next few months and take care of my financial responsibilities to each and every one of you. I have lost money over the past few months on some investments, not unlike almost every major bank in the world. I can't touch my main investment fund until January 5, 2009. At that time I plan to close the fund and return investors their money in full. Also, I am going to be restructuring the interest rates that we have been paying out to clients. Please watch for an update about that subject to come out soon. I have struggled recently, however. I am not tucking my tail, but I am communicating with all of you simply because I'm a man of my word and each of you will be paid in full. I don't need to spend pages here informing you of my various problems, both physically and time wise; I just need to inform you that I am working religiously on your behalf and you will be taken care of. I will be updating you by email at least every 4 weeks until I access our fund. I sincerely wish that I could talk with everyone but that is impossible for me - I need to work. I thank you for your patience.
Sincerely,
Jeff Lowrance
First Capital S&L
Dear, Jeff Lowrance. You are a liar.
15 years ago
30 comments:
I for one want to know exactly what he invested our money in. If it wasn't FOREX like the website states he has some explaining to do and it better be good. We all invested that money with the clear understanding that FCSL invests in FOREX Trading and that's it. January? He knew he had interest payments to make and money would be transferred out every month. He knew he had clients coming up on their 6 months and many well past the six months. I am outraged.
Is it a possibility that we can create enough pressure to get at least one payment out sooner? Or do we just have to wait. Tell me he is not so hard up as to not be able to afford one payment.
Clearly he has his business dealings crossed, just like AIG and the other bigs. We don't know what are money is in and we will never know, other than the paper. I say wait if we all get one payment to show good faith.
I cannot believe so many people are willing to just wait on this based on the explanation given. It is time to put the pressure on. We must at least know the details of what is going on with the money...
1. How much is left?
2. Why is it tied up until Jan. 5?
3. Could we opt out now for a reduced amount of money?
We can't sit back and take this!
I agree with others regarding the 'bank' comment. That comment seems like a smoke screen, the implication is "see, other banks are losing money, so that means its OK for FCSL to." That is nonsense. It is not really a bank. Its a fund he trades. He was suppose to be doing his system of forex trading, ONLY. It was clear. Also agree that he should make at least one payment in good faith.
This is the second time he has admitted to using our funds for something other than Forex trading. What is he cooking up now? How much will it cost me? This guy is a first class clown and a con-artist to boot. I'm all about pressure.
So Jeff threw us a bone. No doubt some will be distracted chewing on it for the next 3.5 months. He claims to have an “a very smart friend”, I would agree “lost money on some investments” but certainly not on the trades I’ve been watching over the past few months. Which indicates either the trades are fraudulent and/or he is (as I agree with the other blogger) using our money to experiment with other endeavors.
We trusted Jeff because of his unique proprietary system with a track record to prove it. What Jeff said “every major bank in the world” is confusing. One, his is not a major bank to compare with theirs and two; his losses are for entirely different (and less ethical) reasons. Obviously the plan is to withhold due and payable monies, let them instead compound, and scale up production. Has his system ever traded this much size before? Will the market stop swinging just for Jeff? The strategy would however explain why he can’t “touch my main investment fund until then.” 3.5 months. Even if he can pull it off within that time frame the real time question is this. Come January 5th will he be able to conjure up enough character to say goodbye to all that revenue generating capital and possibly vehicle (six traders)? We can count on him at least wanting to keep enough capital to use to further his agenda/lifestyle. I pray the spirit of God convict him to keep his word. Proverbs 6:10 “a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and your poverty will come in like a vagabond and your need like an armed man. “ As much as I want to believe Jeff “got religion” I personally think the “very smart man” named “ill repute” slapped him in the face and said a whole lot of highly compelled people will make sure it is next to impossible to move anything forward unless he fixes his wrongdoing before trying to move forward. With that in view it behooves us to be not in slumber but in action during this lag time, formulating a strategy to come out with our proverbial guns blazing on our super Tuesday January 6th. By then, already having established contingent strategies’ to use truth to annihilate and all influences he may wish to exert for any purpose/cause. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. Pressure will get our monies back, retribution won’t. P.S. He accuses Jay and Associates of arrogance at their departure – how’s this for blind arrogance. I doubt any client would be upset at all if our accounts were current but we received no communication. However his apology was instead for the update delay? His updates don’t pay bills, money does. I believe Jeff has a good heart, he just let today trip up tomorrow.
Signed, Diligent
Jeff needs to agree to an auditor, a third party, to be involved, for our good AND his own good. If not, whatever he comes up with will never be acceptable to the investors because he has created such an air of suspicion. The 'smart person' needs to be put in a position of having access to the books, the trades, everything. Words from Jeff are not credible at this point. He needs back up.
The best case scenario is that Jeff took trading profits, and blew them on a newspaper that will never generate any income or pay back the money he took. He got his butt kicked, and now goes back to work actively managing the principal, can grow it over the next few months, and pay us all back our principal plus some profit for our pain and suffering. That is what we hope is the truth. I do know that Jeff can make money trading, and, if the whole email trading blasts are not total BS, whoever is doing those trades can do alright, too, so there is hope that he can deliver. In this scenario he is buying time for the right reason.
The worst scenario is that he is just buying time to further milk cash away from trusting investors, and essentially, plan his escape.
He absolutely needs to provide substantiated details from a third party at this point. Investors have the right to know where the money is, how much is left, exactly why it is tied up until Jan 5th, and who it is owed to.
Again, I would love information but all I have is Jeff's word anyway, so what good is explanation if he can just make stuff up?
Can we get a payment, one payment, to show that he is serious? This is not a matter of "taking this", this is a matter of making the smartest possible decision. Legal action is on the table only as the last option. I don't want to wait until Jan either if we have no proof that Jeff is up to his word.
What does everyone think--can we demand one payment in order to get everyone to wait and not take legal action until after the January deadline? That seems reasonable to me, and might be possible if we all demand it as a show of good faith on his part.
I agree with pushing for a third-party to audit. That would settle everything as we would really know where things stand and wouldn't hang in limbo for 3+ months.
Question is, how do we get that to happen. I know that more than one investor has been directly threatened with a loss of their investment if they don't stop their own threats of action.
I agree with Steve. We need to put pressure and demand at least one payment as a show of good faith on his part. What will be the next step to get all of us organized and demand one payment from Jeff?
10 comments? Where are the hundreds of other investors? Everybody has to join and help with ideas and suggestions. 10 comments to Jeff's update? Please!!! We need to stay together and take action.
Lots of good ideas,investors, but how do you plan to implement any of them? I don't know about you but Jeff has not even acknowledged any of our emails let alone answer them! Just how do you think you're going to contact him? Talking to each other doesn't get us anywhere and our home will be long gone by January. The mortgage company doesn't want to hear "nothing now but MAYBE something in January". If you can get a third person in there that we can believe go for it! and THANKS!
Jeff specifically said he will be adjusting the dividend rate he already paid out. Of course, if he back-dates all transactions to knock a couple % off the dividends, it adversely affects those that compounded as the others already got the higher payment that he says he is going to cut.
I'm one of Jeff's biggest supporters, but agree with much of what is being discussed here.
I support a better explanation of how he screwed this whole thing up, let us know exactly where we stand now and how he plans to get to the finish line.
Considering the risks involved, I doubt any of us would be "disappointed" if we got the balance of our account as of July or August, even if we didn't actually get the money until Jan, Feb or March. To have him back-date promised dividends doesn't look to be a good approach.
We all pray for good wisdom to guide him and patiently let him follow through on his promise to take care of everybody. Frankly, there is nothing else that could be more productive to do. Jeff calls the shot and knows the score. We are not going to "pressure" him into doing anything that he cannot do.
Transperancy and honest communication go a long ways in this world. He could come out of this with a better managed fund that still helps everyone achieve their goals.
I'm wondering how I can avoid an audit if a large sum of money suddenly shows up in my US account from an overseas bank? Any ideas there????
I think Jeff has a good heart but by being so secretive he has eroded my trust. It troubles me that he needed a "very smart friend" to make him do the right thing....what if the friend hadn't been there?
I agree with the idea of pressuring him to give us a taste NOW and to
have our legal ducks in a row if Jeff
doesn't follow thru on the 5th....although I don't have a clue what our legal options, if any, are. AND
his comment that "just like the other banks, I've lost money" I fear is him setting us up when he informs us about the loss of our money. DO THE MONTHLY INCREASES IN MY ACCOUNT ON THE WEBSITE MEAN ANYTHING? I would like Jeff to tell me that. Does he mean to return simply our original investment or that plus June to January earnings?
Where has he put our money and how safe is it? What is he hiding that he can't have a heart to heart with us? Those who have written in earlier blogs that they have a personal relationhip with Jeff...
would you be willing to pull out the main questions in these pages and ask Jeff to address them one by one on this blog? Would that be possible?
ADVICE FOR FELLOW FIRST CAPITAL INVESTORS.
If you have not already done so, you may want to consider making a current copy of your accounts and account transactions from the website.
Thanks for the suggestion of running the account report. So angry that I didnt even think of that.
I did find out from one of the contributing editors of USA Tomorrow that Jeff has been in Oregon "taking care of some business" but that is all I could find out.
There has to be a way to get to him and discuss this as a group. Let's all put our heads together and work towards that and pushing for an audit and accounting of what the situation is. I do agree that any rash legal action is only going to waste time and money right now. I for one want to at least get my principle back in a timely manner.
I think that Jeff is a professional con artist. He has hidden behind his religious cloak to get us to invest our money with him. If he was really the man of faith he claims to be, he would have been honest with us from the beginning rather than stringing us along. He had no right to use our money for other investments without our knowlege. I believe this is the same old song and dance for more time. I hope I am wrong but I have seen this before. We have to hope that he will step up and make it right with us. Tying it up will only delay the process but needs to be in place just in case Jan 5th is BS.
I am an investor that trusted a friend who referred me. I'm not an experienced investor to know exactly what is the right direction to take at this time. I might speak for some others too. I'm following the blog and the emails. Please keep sending information. Thank you.
Is there any way for us to get organized as investors? Or are the only client and e-mail address lists in Jeff's hands? For now I suppose this blog is the best form of communication, but for coordinated action, after deliberation and consideration, we’ll need more than this.
If we could communicate en masse, maybe we can determine who would best be qualified to coordinate a January plan in the event that no money is forthcoming and it will begin to be pretty undeniable that we've been conned.
We should know what legal recourse we have, what regulatory agencies we might be able to sic on him, and how we can saturate his newspaper with the truth about what Jeff is really about. None of his black helicopter type notions are any more malicious than the widespread distress he has caused by his own conscious decisions and actions.
It would be easy to set up a free conference call where everyone could discuss this real time. I would suggest one to three moderators that are fairly in the know on all this, and we could talk this over.
That gets me thinking that we could set up a conference call and invite Jeff--of course he wouldn't come because he would likely get yelled at by a lot of angry investors, and I don't blame him--but perhaps if we promised to keep it civil....
Can we send him an email as a group demanding one payment as a show of faith??? Blog moderator, can you do that please?
If we pick one strategy and keep harping on it, he might even notice.
How many of you have recieved payments? My guess is all of you
I have spoken to 2 people that invested and only compounded and had no idea what the heck i was talking about. They had no idea about any date of Jan 5, any interest reduction.
so what do we make of this.
As another poster stated, and i think it is a fair question to ask, who stated this blog? who is the moderater and how many are actually on this. My guess is less than 15 of the 500 plus investors
I started this blog and moderate all comments. I will not be putting my name out there. There are about 50 members of the blog in a little over two weeks. I deleted only two comments regarding Mack, because he asked me to. The author of a comment can also delete their own comment, and that has happened.
That is utter BS that you removed a post. Mack is very much part of this and so is Ben. If things do go bad they will be named in any legal action. I am not to sure that you as the started of this blog and i still think it was at Mack's request should have any say at distorting the facts and make an attempt to steer the blame one way or another.
I still believe that Jeff will come through and in fact that most of the clients have no clue what is going on.
Ben has my email address and he did not respond and Mack does also. the only way things can get sorted out it to put the pressure on them first.
As the moderator you may not like this but it is a very necessary start, so here is the next topic for you to have comments on, do we pressure ex-employees to help us?
I don't think that is a good idea at this time to pressure former employees. It looks like they are the victims of this as well. Unless there is something concrete that they can otherwise bring to the table, I don't want to go there at this time
Jumbo why not, they both worked for Jeff they would know the one answer to the BIG question
DID TRADES REALLY HAPPEN?
As for them being victems, give me a break if they are involved in selling something and it is not legit they are a big part of it.
Jumbo i will give you the benefit of the doubt and ask you a question. What is a course of action or should we just wait?
Does Jeff know that we are talking to each other...or is he taking strength from presuming that we are 500+ isolated individuals scattered across the country with little power
on our own? Would it help our cause if he knew that...and if he understood our resolve to really bring him down if he doesn't come thru for us as promised?
If he is passing off the Investors Update as the one promised us on September 19, it is insulting. I like Bruces idea of finding the one or ones amongst most talented to lead the charge when and if it becomes necessary...of using our names, of having a private site required a password. Perhaps at some point a conference call would be a good idea. Jeff's insensitivity to us and how the disappearance of this money might be affecting our lives is sickening. How many of our dreams have been put on hold or worse so he can pursue his dream?
Once again, would it help our cause
if he knew we were getting organized with plans to expose him to the world if he lets us down? Perhaps help to keep him a "man of his word"? What do y'all think?
DEAR BRUCE,
Your rant of October 15 makes the most overall sense to me of anything I have thought of or read....since, like you I am TRYING to keep a "glass is half-full" attitude as much as I can. You said you would set up a secure website if enough were interested. It appears enough of us are ...so I strongly encourage you to do it.
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