[NYCTuga]

Hello everyone,

I haven’t been on this site very long but it's been a great resource for information regarding different methods of funding. I thought I was going to simply use this site as a source of information but given my recent experience with a funder, I wanted to make sure everyone here was aware of his actions and to be careful if working with him.

I own a few small businesses here in NYC. Covid was one hell of a ride and despite having to close a few locations, I was able to keep my business alive. Part of the help came from alternate lending, of which i'm grateful for.

Back in 2020 I was able to secure an EIDL loan , which helped immensely. A few months later I secured the increase to 500k which was great. All of this on my own without assistance. Fast forward to early January of 2022. I was having a difficult time getting the 3rd increase. After I chatted with a friend of mine, he recommended Michael Lavolpe at Foxheart Funding. My friend confirmed that Mike has assisted his other friends in receiving the 2 million increase and with that referral I was comfortable contacting Mike.

Mike was cool at first but eventually turned a little condescending(Like bad car salesmen your dad tells you about) but I didn’t think much of it at the time. I was asking questions and he made it sound like I should just send him money and he will do his thing. But how would a normal person NOT want to do their due diligence? Of course I’m going to ask questions. Who just sends money out without some assurances?? He even asked me if I was going to be "that guy" who bugs him with questions.

I was hesitant with Mike because of his attitude. I was not comfortable at all so I didn’t move forward with him just yet. This was in January of 2022.

Fast forward to early May, I was frustrated with delays from SBA I decided to give his services a shot. He had me send documents and a payment of ($3,500) on May 5th over Zelle to his funding account.

He very confidently confirmed that I would get AT LEAST an extra $70k based on my revenue.


Fast forward to May 23rd. Mike says he took the initiative to submit my documents into the PRO PORTAL which, according to him, meant I was eligible for FULL FORGIVENESS of my EIDL loan. He tells me this is only eligible for people who used funders like himself and that it would cost $15k up front to receive the full forgiveness. He kept pushing me to send him that 15k and that I was foolish if I hadn’t. I mean cmon! He hadn’t done anything for me on the increase that I had already sent him money for and he's now asking for more money.

Thankfully I DID NOT send him the $15k so that part of this never ended up happening.

For the next couple months he just kept giving me excuses about the increase. Nothing happened. Until about late August. I asked for a refund and Mike says no problem. That he was sending THEM an email right now. I have no idea who THEM is. Maybe the SBA?? I wasn’t sure.

Nothing but excuses came from here on, and I stopped texting for a bit until this past month. I told him that this entire experience was unacceptable and that I just wanted my money back. I also told him I learned about Daily Funder and that I would be posting my experience here to protect others from have the same issue.

He got very defensive BUT I feel I gave him plenty of time (8 months) to correct the situation for me. I mean, What did I actually pay for?? There are no updates, no dashboard I can login showing a status of any kind. Tell me exactly how this is reasonable or fair?

So I figure if I’m not getting my money back, I might as well share this with all of you. I’ve borrowed money many times via MCAs over the last 3 years and always paid it back, even during covid!

The thing is, I know what it’s like to be in a tough spot. He could have simply said; I'm going through a tough time, can i give it back to you in installments?? But nope. He takes no blame and simply turns it on the SBA or ME? How the hell is any of this my fault? Accountability is something he needs to learn more about.

Anyways I hope this information can serve some of you when dealing with him. Be cautious!

I have my entire text thread with Michael if anyone needs to see proof of his messages. Just PM with any questions

Thanks,

NYC Biz owner

[NYCTuga]

ADMINS,
I was told this belonged here since it related to MCAs. My apologies. You can delete the other post in the "Everything Else" forum.

Thanks!

[SuperFastJoe]

To all on DF, before you start to try and hammer away with criticism. I know the person above and the story is 100 percent correct. Michael Lavolpe from Foxheart funding must be stopped. He takes $ up front, claims he gets these EIDL loans in a few weeks, etc. It's been over a year for the client above and no response from Lavolpe. He is a straight up con artist.

[Olderguy]

Complete con...you can't forgive an EIDL loan. Only the PPP offered that. You can report the fraud to the SBA though. Call them.

You can call the SBA and ask for loan payment reduction due to financial stress with the payments. Go into the payment system and get a 6 months payment reduction for 10% of the monthly payment.

Keep in mind I hear from brokers all the time who charge merchants up front fees as a secure funding charge or somesuch nonsense.

[American Choice Cap]

There's way too much of this going on. This behavior is appalling. As Steve said above, report that company ASAP! People like that are one of the biggest reasons alternative financing gets a bad rap.

[NYCTuga]

Complete con...you can't forgive an EIDL loan. Only the PPP offered that. You can report the fraud to the SBA though. Call them.

You can call the SBA and ask for loan payment reduction due to financial stress with the payments.

Keep in mind I hear from brokers all the time who charge merchants up front fees as a secure funding charge or somesuch nonsense.

Thanks!

Where would I report him and if you don't mind, I'd love to know the best number to call to ask for some help with temporarily reducing the eidl payments. Slow season :-)

[NYCTuga]

There's way too much of this going on. This behavior is appalling. As Steve said above, report that company ASAP! People like that are one of the biggest reasons alternative financing gets a bad rap.

I couldn't agree more! I've heard many negative comments from banks about MCAs but I always tell them that I wouldn't have been able to grow so fast if it wasn't for them!

Luckily have Joe as a resource to guide to guide me. Unfortunately Michael has shown me the bad side of this industry but lesson learned for me.

[Olderguy]

Thanks!

Where would I report him and if you don't mind, I'd love to know the best number to call to ask for some help with temporarily reducing the eidl payments. Slow season :-)

Go into your loan on the website there is a place where you can request 6 month hardship payment reduction. 10i% of your normal monthly payment.

SBA numbers:

833.853.5638 •
800.659.2955 •
also: 800-487-6019

[NYCTuga]

Go into your loan on the website there is a place where you can request 6 month hardship payment reduction.

SBA numbers:

833.853.5638 •
800.659.2955 •
also: 800-487-6019

I'll check it out thanks!!

[SKITTLES]

Sorry to hear about the EIDL issue. Not sure where your file was with SBA for the increase but I THINK the funding ran out around May 5th. Even if you had a file in to SBA even before that I would say you were SOL. There may have been a chance for the increase if it was approved. SBA got really weird about that time. You have to call SBA about that but it sounds like he intentionally collected money from you knowing you would never be successful but I can't say for sure. Good luck going forward.

[NYCTuga]

Sorry to hear about the EIDL issue. Not sure where your file was with SBA for the increase but I THINK the funding ran out around May 5th. Even if you had a file in to SBA even before that I would say you were SOL. There may have been a chance for the increase if it was approved. SBA got really weird about that time. You have to call SBA about that but it sounds like he intentionally collected money from you knowing you would never be successful but I can't say for sure. Good luck going forward.

Exactly right and thank you. My increase request was in months before they decided to stop the program. However, that didn't stop Michael from lying to me about it. Not only that but he bullied me. Kept saying I'd be foolish not to get in on the EIDL forgiveness. He was such an ass about too. But I relented thankfully. It would be great to just get that 3500 back but I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon.

[SKITTLES]

Exactly right and thank you. My increase request was in months before they decided to stop the program. However, that didn't stop Michael from lying to me about it. Not only that but he bullied me. Kept saying I'd be foolish not to get in on the EIDL forgiveness. He was such an ass about too. But I relented thankfully. It would be great to just get that 3500 back but I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon.

Yeah, sounds like the guy you were working with knew EIDL was over and on a mission to scam one more merchant (my opinion) before the door closed on EIDL. The part about the forgiveness was a total inducement to reel you in (sorry) because I don't recall forgiveness for EIDL but that's not to say the gooberment won't forgive in the future. Some politician down the road may come up with the idea to offer forgiveness to EIDL loans in order to "buy votes" to get elected. (sorry to go down the political road) I've been getting calls from PPP recipients looking to refinance their PPP loan after it WASN'T forgiven because a "sales person" told them that 1099 employees counted as an employee for the calculation on the PPP application and now the gooberment has disallowed that and their loan payments are beyond their means. I do not get think you will get your money back unless you sue the guy and that may cost more than you spent. Good luck going forward.

[ihniwtw]

I couldn't agree more! I've heard many negative comments from banks about MCAs but I always tell them that I wouldn't have been able to grow so fast if it wasn't for them!

Luckily have Joe as a resource to guide to guide me. Unfortunately Michael has shown me the bad side of this industry but lesson learned for me.

I am very sorry about your experience with this particular situation. I have been in this industry for over a decade and I must say that its enlightening to get feedback from merchants like you. The MCA space became 1 big ponzi scheme the last few years. The ponzi involves ISO's funders and of course the biggest players are the merchants as well. What I am happy to see in your post is that you actually have a positive image on using MCA which proves that the industry once upon served a good cause and this product is legitimate for the right candidate. There are still honest people out there and hopefully normalcy will be reintroduced once the whole deck of cards of the ponzi folds.

[SuperFastJoe]

Lavolpe, nothing to say? Stealing people's money is cool by you?

[NYCTuga]

I am very sorry about your experience with this particular situation. I have been in this industry for over a decade and I must say that its enlightening to get feedback from merchants like you. The MCA space became 1 big ponzi scheme the last few years. The ponzi involves ISO's funders and of course the biggest players are the merchants as well. What I am happy to see in your post is that you actually have a positive image on using MCA which proves that the industry once upon served a good cause and this product is legitimate for the right candidate. There are still honest people out there and hopefully normalcy will be reintroduced once the whole deck of cards of the ponzi folds.

Thank you!

[abfunders]

Just to add to the conversation, upfront fees are not unheard of, but they should definitely not come without a crystal clear LOI first. Aside from the dozens of real estate deals that have appraisals, the deals I've done with upfront fees were SBA, a hotel deal and an ABL facility. They all were basically also appraisals, but they included much higher than average appraisal fees (site visits and much deeper underwriting). They also were commitment fees to prevent the client from going off and taking the lender's offer, all of their DD, and wasting everybody's time, and the balance what wasn't used (itemized) was credited out of the closing points. As a broker I try to stay away from these things, but upfront fees do have their place.

NYCTuga, you got robbed, and you should definitely report on whatever other online resources (Ripoff Report etc), you can find. Also call the police, they might be interested.

But that's what these crooks do. Take a fee slightly smaller than it makes sense for the merchant to chase after or be worth hiring a lawyer.

[reversefunder]

Lavolpe would try to intimidate us to fund his deals and then we'd find out he promised they'd be consolidated after 20 days etc...

[NYCTuga]

Lavolpe would try to intimidate us to fund his deals and then we'd find out he promised they'd be consolidated after 20 days etc...

Thanks for sharing. Intimidate resonates with me. He was gaslighting me during my text convo in the beginning. He kept making me feel like I'm crazy for doing my due diligence or asking questions. CRAZY!

Look at this text from Michael trying to convince me about the forgiveness of my EIDL loan:

Screen Shot 2023-02-10 at 2.42.48 PM.png

[BR-Nightmare]

Thanks for sharing. Intimidate resonates with me. He was gaslighting me during my text convo in the beginning. He kept making me feel like I'm crazy for doing my due diligence or asking questions. CRAZY!

Look at this text from Michael trying to convince me about the forgiveness of my EIDL loan:

Screen Shot 2023-02-10 at 2.42.48 PM.png

The slang in his texts. Jeez

Such a professional in the financial sector

[SuperFastJoe]

Does anyone have any more info on this guy?