Shane T.

Bought a niche site that selling between $125,000 - $150,000. My broker was originally Salvador Vassallo, then Ryan Lane. The seller's name is Vinod Kumar, from India. Phone number (probably fake): +91 ******* *******.

Latona's says the site generates about $5,000 - 7,000 a month. Long story short, I followed my practice of having an inspection period of 10 days. But, it was close to year-end, so everyone - the broker, the seller, and the Escrow.com agent wanted to close as soon as they could. I have pushed back and didn't close on Christmas in 2019 like we have planned.

During the process, I have received some fake customers inquiries about banner ads, so everything seemed normal. Some even emailed me asking how to pay me.

Taking a leap of faith, I have released the escrow 100% as promised in exchange for the negotiated price. It didn't take long for all customers to disappear. Some customers even paid without sending me their banner ad image to be uploaded to the site.

I guess the seller got what he wanted, and he no longer has to have fake customers approaching or paying me.

Bottonline: Latona's don't sell money-making businesses. At least, they haven't in my case.

Advice #1. Next time you look at a Latona's listing, assume everything is fake and that the Latona's haven't done anything at all to validate the seller's profile, contact, financial information, anything at all.

Advice #2. When you see a seemingly good site / business from India, either just run away or do more background checks than necessary. They are capable of fabricating 5-year worth of customer record in PayPal, though many duplicated.

Advice #3. Either prepare how you will execute on legal actions or don't bother. Be prepared that brokers and sellers are ready to ignore any legal clauses. They will do anything and agree to everything you say to get you release the funding. Then, forget about warranty. They will be gone along with the money.

Why I write this review:

I thought of just accepting this as a reality without saying anything about it because I am obviously most responsible for this fiasco. And, instead of crying about this, I would rather make this work with what's left in the site (of course, we are talking about a high ROI vs. a single-digit ROI case).

So this review is more about others. I want to share my experience with people dealing with brokers and assets from owners from India. This is obviously just my experience.