Joker Brokers and The Upfront Fee Scam - Busted by Escrow Instruction Due Diligence

What a weasel! We were dealing with a joker broker that said he represented a well known, wealthy individual. There were red flags from the beginning, but I'll share with you how we immediately knew this was fraud:
We received the escrow instructions and found three companies we had never heard of. We found that all three were either illegitimately doing business or were not real businesses at all. A simple search at the secretary of state in the respective states showed that they were not registered. Additionally, the physical address were either COMPLETELY fictitious or a mail drop. Would a $50M investor operate out of a mailbox? Not be registered in the state where the SBLC was located? C'mon, Mr. joker broker!

When confronted, the joker broker said, "I can take care of that, I'll just take them out of the transaction."

Yeah, right. That makes it all better.

Moral to the story: be sure to do background checks on all companies that are on the contract and escrow instructions. Clearly this was set up so that after the transaction fails, and the money in escrow is gone ...the poor client wouldn't even have a door to knock on. Yup. Shell companies playing the classic shell game. It's awful that weasels and joker brokers like this exist...but they do. Caveat Emptor!