Victim Location 77339
Total money lost $10,000
Type of a scam Advance Fee Loan
I was introduced to Clarence ‘Ed’ Franklin of Churchill & Forrester, LLC by a third party that said they had worked with him for years, so I did not vet Clarence ‘Ed’ Franklin or his company because I did not feel like I needed to. In the beginning I was given a pre-approval letter to present to the sellers of the commercial property I was planning on purchasing. The agreed upon closing date was 9/15/19. Prior to that date I was asked to send in several documents and complete paperwork for the loan. Additionally, I was asked to wire $4,485 to cover the appraisal and various underwriting fees. It still took weeks for the appraisal to happen and even when it did happen he did not want to give over the information from the appraisal. His excuse, that information is with underwriting and it could take a week to 10 business days to be able to see the appraisal and for the loan to close.A few weeks after missing the original closing date, I was asked for some additional documents. While gathering the documents (which I know now was just busy work) Ed, said that he would be going out for a few days to have a medical procedure completed, but the work on my loan would not stop. I finished gathering the documents and sent them to him so they would still be received and could be processed by the others in his office as he claimed in his absence. On the day that he was supposed to return to the office I sent a follow-up email confirming that he had received all of the items that he had requested. Only to receive a auto-reply that he would not be back in the office for a few more days. I followed-up again in a few more days and again received another auto-reply that he would not return until the following week. At this point it has been sixty plus days since I signed the contract with the sellers and more than a month after the original closing date. When he did finally return, I spoke with him on the phone and he told me everything was with underwriting and that he would have an answer for me in the next day or so. He called the next day and said the same thing and made mention of how bad his health had been. That evening, I sent him an email telling him that I had spoken with an attorney and that this has the signs of possible wire fraud and that I was going to file charges against him if he did not send the funding information over to the title company or refund me all of the monies that he had been paid to him within 48 hours. His response was he would refund the money and that he could not get me funded. I asked him for a letter to give to the seller that stated that I had been unable to obtain financing and he refused to do so, saying that I was not being patient and had not given him a chance to finance the loan. He then cost me the earnest money and to date I still have not received a refund from him or his company. He has not returned any of my emails and I have not been able to get him on the phone. He never answered when I called anyway, I always had to wait on a call back, so that does not surprise me. Please do not get involved with this company. Clarence ‘Ed’ Franklin is probably not even his name.