Corporate Law Seeking help in this living nightmare, please...

[sistegraf]

Hello,
I ask you to please advice me about my situation.
I'm from Mexico legally leaving in south Texas.
Last November (2009) I bought 50% of a retail store so I could apply for a L1A visa, which was granted in February.

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At the first meeting with my current associate-partner, back in September 2009, he said he didn't want to run this business anymore that he was planning to close the store and take the inventory to a warehouse and eventually hire someone to sell these items on eBay.

As he explained and showed sales for past years, if someone got in the business again the store could again have profits. Based on the documents and numbers he showed me I saw the possibility that it was truly possible to make the business work again.

So I made him an offer. We agreed to set the price based on an inventory valued of 160K (that number was taken from a Quickbooks report which I later found was not very 'accurate'). Because the majority of inventory items where kind of obsolete the sale value was cut, by him, to 80K. Also he stated that there was a 5K debt with some of the suppliers. So I thought this could be a good deal and made the following offer:

1. Pay him 5K when he passed the corresponding shares to me so I can apply for the visa.
2. Pay him another 5K when the visa was granted.
3. The remaining 30K was going to be paid in 2 or 3 years according to how the business developed.

He and I agreed to those terms so I gave him the 5K in October. He went with me to a meeting with my immigration lawyer and signed the shares passing 50% to me.

I went through a 3 month visa application process in which I made a very detailed business plan and gathered a ton of paperwork and finally the visa was granted in February. I should say that during this time my associate ask me several times to come to work to the store without having the visa to which I always responded no, since I didn't want to compromise the visa.

In March my wife began to work half day in the store while I kept our business in Mexico running. She began noticing that every day there was between 5 and 15 phone calls from collection firms asking the store to pay acquired debts, so we got suspicious and began investigating. We found out that the store owes more than 30K and the credit is closed everywhere.

Also, he took the money product of sales that were made from the day I was part of the business until April from the store bank account.

When we stared asking him about that, he got into this negative-aggressive mode, transforming himself into an impossible person to negotiate anything.

He started teasing and threatening me and my wife about the visa. He even sent a withdrawal form to the INS trying to get us off the country so he can go on with his lie. None of that worked for him.

We sought the help from local lawyers and even tough some of them talked about a 'fraud', none of them wanted to take the case because the amount involved was not enough to go on with a lawsuit.

I have almost proof of everything specially in e-mail messages from my associate.

Please advice on to what I can do. Small claims court? Could be but tops at 10. Can I go to a police station and report this?

Thanks for your time.

 

[army judge]

Hello,
I ask you to please advice me about my situation.
I'm from Mexico legally leaving in south Texas.
Last November (2009) I bought 50% of a retail store so I could apply for a L1A visa, which was granted in February.

--------

At the first meeting with my current associate-partner, back in September 2009, he said he didn't want to run this business anymore that he was planning to close the store and take the inventory to a warehouse and eventually hire someone to sell these items on eBay.

As he explained and showed sales for past years, if someone got in the business again the store could again have profits. Based on the documents and numbers he showed me I saw the possibility that it was truly possible to make the business work again.

So I made him an offer. We agreed to set the price based on an inventory valued of 160K (that number was taken from a Quickbooks report which I later found was not very 'accurate'). Because the majority of inventory items where kind of obsolete the sale value was cut, by him, to 80K. Also he stated that there was a 5K debt with some of the suppliers. So I thought this could be a good deal and made the following offer:

1. Pay him 5K when he passed the corresponding shares to me so I can apply for the visa.
2. Pay him another 5K when the visa was granted.
3. The remaining 30K was going to be paid in 2 or 3 years according to how the business developed.

He and I agreed to those terms so I gave him the 5K in October. He went with me to a meeting with my immigration lawyer and signed the shares passing 50% to me.

I went through a 3 month visa application process in which I made a very detailed business plan and gathered a ton of paperwork and finally the visa was granted in February. I should say that during this time my associate ask me several times to come to work to the store without having the visa to which I always responded no, since I didn't want to compromise the visa.

In March my wife began to work half day in the store while I kept our business in Mexico running. She began noticing that every day there was between 5 and 15 phone calls from collection firms asking the store to pay acquired debts, so we got suspicious and began investigating. We found out that the store owes more than 30K and the credit is closed everywhere.

Also, he took the money product of sales that were made from the day I was part of the business until April from the store bank account.

When we stared asking him about that, he got into this negative-aggressive mode, transforming himself into an impossible person to negotiate anything.

He started teasing and threatening me and my wife about the visa. He even sent a withdrawal form to the INS trying to get us off the country so he can go on with his lie. None of that worked for him.

We sought the help from local lawyers and even tough some of them talked about a 'fraud', none of them wanted to take the case because the amount involved was not enough to go on with a lawsuit.

I have almost proof of everything specially in e-mail messages from my associate.

Please advice on to what I can do. Small claims court? Could be but tops at 10. Can I go to a police station and report this?

Thanks for your time.

If you prove fraud, it might also prove that the visa you obtained was also by fraud.


You can sue him, but as you said, the claim isn't large enough for a lawyer to become involved.

The police won't get your money back for you, so that won't help.

You failed to do proper due diligence, because you wanted a visa.

You suspected that things weren't proper, but you persisted because you wanted the visa.

This might not be true, but this is how it will look.

If the business isn't incorporated, you don't owe the previous owners's debts, anyway.

You bought his inventory, not his debt.

He owes the debts he made.

Talk to a lawyer about the debts to see if you acquired them somehow.

I don't see how, but just be thorough.

When you KNOW the debts are his and not yours, all you have to do is get a new telephone number and a new name for the business.

If anyone calls, tell them this is a new business.

Then tell them how and where they can reach the old owner, because you bought the business (inventory) from him, not his debt.

Or, you can forget the whole deal and return to your native country, if it's not worth the hassle.

Next time, don't believe what someone tells you before you verify it.

Many people in business are crooks and liars.