During the fall of 2008, my partner and I attended a seminar titled the “Money Hunt” given by Mr. Mark Gray of Gray Capital. The goal of the seminar was to give the participants ideas, strategies, etc. on how to present their interests to Angel Investor, Venture Capitalists and alike for funding. It was a very informative seminar, but it was also a lead in to another business of Mr. Gray’s, mentoring.
During the seminar Mr. Gray mentioned an coming event “The Great American Money Machine” (I believe that was the title). The goal would be to teach average people how to buy great revenue producing small companies for a small multiple of their net revenues. My partner and I were hooked. We had been wanting to buy streams of income with commercial properties, but this way would be cheaper and the income streams much larger.
So I put up the $7, 000.00, the fee Mr. Gray requested for helping us close our first deal, with a credit card and we were “off to the races.” After a few personal consulting sessions, my partner found a company that would fit the bill for our first acquisition. Mr. Gray agreed that the company was a great fit and negotiations began for the purchase. During the negotiations, Mr. Gray promised that no matter what he could get the funding to purchase the company, or arrange to buy it himself. Since my partner and I developed a need for immediate cash, we decided to sell our position for a modest fee to Mr. Gray once the deal closed. He did insist on a small retainer ($5, 000.00 which I again put on another credit card) to get the paperwork done. This did sound a little suspicious, but everything had been moving so well, we thought nothing of it. Now, everyone was in agreement on our side and the owners of the company were happy with the purchase arrangements.
That’s when it happened; Mr. Gray just suddenly “flaked” out. He missed several appointments with the owners of the company to make some last minute arrangements and was out of communication for a week or two. I mean no return calls, emails, nothing. Once he “resurfaced”, he apologized to everyone and salvaged the deal, but then more problems. His funding suddenly disappeared and other “associates” who would buy the company were now not interested. (He had assured us that his sources were solid, even though the market was floundering and he had the track record to prove it.) Long story short, the deal fell through, the owners of the company and their broker were extremely angry with Mr. Gray and I was out $12, 000.00.
I did attempt to get some sort of refund from Mr. Gray since he had made all of these promises and guarantees along the way, but he didn’t respond to my request. I did get an email from him about 3 months ago where he was announcing the close of some multimillion dollar deal he was involved and was paid a large sum of money. Bottom line, I would avoid this guy like a plague, or at best be on your guard. Mark Gray has only one interest in mind, his own.