Fake Lender: this guy is a fraud!

Private Lending & Conventional Mortgage Advice

Fake Lender: this guy is a fraud!

Business Manager · Newberry, FL · Member since 2015 · 5 posts · 6 votes

Dear members: This post is to warn you. Do not do business with an individual by the name "Trex Samson" or his company "Trex Samson LLC". If you see this individual around, he is a fraudulent lender. I had been working with him, trying to get a $60,000 loan to acquire and flip a property. After sending several payments for taxes and miscellaneous fees, totaling US$17,180, and after having gotten a written guarantee that the loan was approved and that I would not need to submit any additional payments or else he would reimburse me all of my money within 48 hours, he came back to me asking for an additional $6,000 payment. I enforced the reimbursement clause, needing to pay an additional $1,500 in "legal fees". That was back in November 16. I still have yet to hear or read back from him. He is supposed to be a "Licensed Lender". Beware; he just wants to steal from you the same way he stole from me.

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Engineer · Leander, TX · Member since 2015 · 38 posts · 19 votes

Sorry for the ignorance here but does a legit company ask for fees and upfront monies to borrow from them? Just me but I would surely be very leery of this.

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Darren Eady
Rental Property Investor · Lindon, UT · Member since 2015 · 862 posts · 438 votes
10y
What a nightmare. So sorry you have this situation with this loser.
1 Reply
Kortez Walker
Real Estate Agent · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2011 · 214 posts · 22 votes
10y
I'm very sorry to hear this. This is going on a lot . On connected investors as well. The main thing is too research these guys the way they will want to research you. To make sure that you're dealing with a legit private investor. Everything happens for a reason and I'm sure you'll have a better story in the future about your trials to success. Best of luck to you.
1 Reply
Jeff Pancone
Engineer · Leander, TX · Member since 2015 · 38 posts · 19 votes
10y
Sorry for the ignorance here but does a legit company ask for fees and upfront monies to borrow from them? Just me but I would surely be very leery of this.
3 Reply
John Thedford
Real Estate Broker · Naples, FL · Member since 2013 · 9k+ posts · 6k+ votes
10y
IMO, NEVER NEVER NEVER pay fees in advance. Reputable lenders may have fees at closing, but in advance? I don't want to ruin your hopes, but you may have little chance of ever getting your money back. I would talk to the authorities immediately.
2 Reply
Wayne Brooks
Real Estate Professional · West Palm Beach, FL · Member since 2012 · 23k+ posts · 13k+ votes
10y
One thing you can do, other than checking for state licenses, incorporations, etc. is to check the public records to see how many mortgages are recorded in their name. This will tell how many they have actually written in that county.
2 Reply
Ivory Hayes
Investor · Lancaster, CA · Member since 2015 · 111 posts · 38 votes
10y
@ Wayne Brooks by public records do you mean county records office? I have a suppose to be all in one lender/investor in Saint Louis, Missouri telling me he can refinance my properties. I inquired with another agent and he revealed that this particular guy has taken one of his listing and listed it as his own, basically stole a listing. So when you say public records I wonder by that do you mean county assessors office or county hall of records..?
0 Reply
Rob Hood
Investor · Saint Louis, MO · Member since 2012 · 3 posts · 0 votes
10y
@IvoryHayes I'm in STL. What's this guys name? We may need to warn others. That's what Bigger Pockets is about
0 Reply
Ryan Dossey
Real Estate Broker · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2014 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes
10y
I commend you for having the brass to post his name.
However you should NOT have given the lender money outside of a title company. There's a reason they utilize escrow accounts.
2 Reply
Kelli Fenley
Real Estate Agent · Buda, TX · Member since 2015 · 8 posts · 3 votes
10y
Thank you for warning us Manuel. I do hope you get your money back!
0 Reply
Frank Uzzi
Real Estate Attorney · Montvale, NJ · Member since 2014 · 37 posts · 12 votes
10y
I would immediately consult an attorney in your area to explore filing a suit to try and recoup those funds. You may be able to have the attorney work on a contingent fee which means that you don't need to pay a retainer as the attorney gets paid based on the amount of money collected.
0 Reply
Wayne Brooks
Real Estate Professional · West Palm Beach, FL · Member since 2012 · 23k+ posts · 13k+ votes
10y
@Ivory Hayes However you find recorded mortgages in your county. You can search by Mortgagee name as well as the Mortgagors name in most areas online.
0 Reply
Maggie L.
Property Manager · Saint Louis, MO · Member since 2015 · 186 posts · 76 votes
10y
So sorry to hear that this happened to you. Unfortunately there are a lot of people out there pretending to be someone that they are not or otherwise looking to steal others money. Hopefully you've already spoken to an attorney and have reported this individual to the proper authorities. I often find paper trails like a complaint the BBB get a business to start behaving on small items, though I've luckily not had to deal with an amount that large.
1 Reply
Ivory Hayes
Investor · Lancaster, CA · Member since 2015 · 111 posts · 38 votes
10y
@Rob Hood his name is Ron James Jr, aka Ray James Enterprise. Have you heard of this guy or his entity? I would love to spread positivity if you have a positive perspective to add..?
0 Reply
Chet Mazur
Flipper · Cupertino, CA · Member since 2015 · 265 posts · 27 votes
10y
Checks the county records and (here in Santa clara county) the Assessor's file looking for the lender in question. basic a search as follows:
show all transaction in the last 12 months where lender=billy-bob. I use a service for this, but you should be able to do the search at the county recorders.
If the search return 2 refi's or purchase money transactions I would say the person is a flake. Similarly if it comes back at 10,000, they might be a scam too.
1 Reply
Leigh C
Brooksville, FL · Member since 2012 · 429 posts · 220 votes
10y
https://angel.co/trex-samson
Shows trex signing in from Nigeria. That was within 30 seconds on google.
Look on the somewhat bright side, you got a little lesson from the school of hard knocks. In return this person in Nigeria just got something like 90 years of income based on the min. wage rate of 185/month.
I'd feel bad for you, but sending 17k for a 60k loan doesn't make any sense.
3 Reply
Account Closed
Investor · Las Vegas, NV · Member since 2015 · 101 posts · 40 votes
10y
@Manuel Fuentes
Use that frustration! Go the FTC, your state consumer agency, your senator or representative, or post something on his Facebook page. Shame him (if that's possible).
I hope it works out.
0 Reply
Innocent Davis Bamurike
Investor · Kampala, Uganda · Member since 2015 · 9 posts · 1 vote
10y
Originally posted by @Manuel Fuentes:

Dear members: This post is to warn you. Do not do business with an individual by the name "Trex Samson" or his company "Trex Samson LLC". If you see this individual around, he is a fraudulent lender. I had been working with him, trying to get a $60,000 loan to acquire and flip a property. After sending several payments for taxes and miscellaneous fees, totaling US$17,180, and after having gotten a written guarantee that the loan was approved and that I would not need to submit any additional payments or else he would reimburse me all of my money within 48 hours, he came back to me asking for an additional $6,000 payment. I enforced the reimbursement clause, needing to pay an additional $1,500 in "legal fees". That was back in November 16. I still have yet to hear or read back from him. He is supposed to be a "Licensed Lender". Beware; he just wants to steal from you the same way he stole from me.
I am sorry that you got conned. I have been on BP for less than a month but I am already convinced that extra caution is required doing any business here.

I almost got conned too but the mention of sending 1% Insurance fees via Western Union or MoneyGram confirmed my suspicions that I was dealing with potential fraudsters. The few people I have met here so far also advised me to walk away.

17K is a lot of money in this business. I beg you to be a little more cautious.
0 Reply
George C.
Rental Property Investor · My City, NY · Member since 2012 · 51 posts · 32 votes
10y
Manuel, so sorry to hear about this. Thank you for posting about it. You have contacted and made a report of it the police, right?
0 Reply
Jay HinrichsBusiness Member
Real Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes
10y
post this guys name and company on the rip off report.. he will then go to number one on a google search.
This speaks to the power of BP these days were all these fraudsters have found a target rich environment.. IE lots of fairly new to naïve real estate investors who should know better but do not know any better.. And they want in the worse way to get these kind of funding's.. Lender scam's have been going on for decades by the way so don't feel bad on that score.
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1 Reply
Daria B.
Rental Property Investor · Gainesville, FL · Member since 2015 · 1k+ posts · 432 votes
10y
@Manuel Fuentes
I'm so, so, so sorry to hear this. I was wondering how your deal was going....thinking you should have closed by now and on your way to fixing your flip. Others here have posted already some things to try to get some remediation on this so I do hope you can get this money back in some way.
1 Reply
Mel Jeffrey
Developer · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2012 · 132 posts · 32 votes
10y
What a nightmare I'm so sorry you are in this situation. You should never pay a lender upfront fees. Always do your due diligence.
1 Reply
Xai XiongPro Member
Flipper · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2015 · 33 posts · 9 votes
10y
I almost believed someone on BP too who seemed too good to be true. We exchanged some emails and his responses were odd. So I did some research on his so called website, turns out he copied and paste most info of my questions from there and this made me suspicious. I decided to ask BP and someone told me they copied websites of other lender company websites and scam people so BEWARE! I decided to email the lender to ask for Facetime on my phone and never got an answer back. Either way I would've never sent any money to anyone, rather put it with an attorney or escrow to hold until the deal is closed. Good luck to you and I hope no one else gets scammed. Just do your due diligence and never send money for any lenders for any reason directly.
0 Reply
Gene Livingston
Investor · Kyle, TX · Member since 2015 · 113 posts · 102 votes
10y
Local lender = building a healthy and profitable relationship over the long term. Short cuts and magical thinking = sadness. It's not that complicated.
3 Reply
Stephen Nicholson
Investor · Lafayette, LA · Member since 2015 · 152 posts · 50 votes
10y
@Manuel Fuentes
Interesting that the scammer appears to be from Nigeria. How did you contact each other? Only via email? How did you send then money? Transfer to a US based account?
0 Reply
Jay HinrichsBusiness Member
Real Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes
10y
@Gene Livingston excellent advice especially for newer investors.. LOCAL lender will generally keep you out of trouble as well by being your backstop or second opinion.
Podcast Guest on Show #222
JLH Capital Partners51 Review
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1 Reply

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