Here's the catch: Financial Plus Investment snags investors by promising attractive returns.  But payments soon fizzle and investors soon sizzle as their plans, goals and dreams vanish along with their money and the company itself.  Everything about the company seems to be minus; the only plus is the one in its name.

Financial Plus does business in Mission Hills under a variety of names, including Financial Plus Mortgage, Eagle Funding, Phoenix Realty, and Rockwell Financial Network.  Jose de Jesus Lopez, a principal of the companies, also goes by a number of other, in his case similar, names.  The company advertises on Spanish-speaking radio and TV, and our files contain some printed materials in Spanish.  All complaints we’ve received so far are from complainants with Hispanic surnames.

All but one of these 16 complaints indicates that the company borrows investors’ money by issuing promissory notes.  According to a desist and refrain order issued by the California Corporations Commissioner against the company late last month, its purpose for borrowing the money is to build properties such as town homes.

Whatever the purpose, complainants seem to have fallen for such promises as four percent profit per month and, as in one print ad, from 18 to 36 percent annual earnings.

In some cases, complainants did receive a substantial gain on their investment--at least at first.  For example, a Los Angeles man received $5,000 in the first three months on a $30,000 investment, even though a year later he’d received nothing further.  And an El Monte investor of $60,000 last February says the company fulfilled its promise to pay $1,400 a month, until his sixth check bounced last month.  Other investors report returned checks as well.

A number of investors also report encountering unexpected roadblocks when they try to withdraw their investment.  A South Gate complainant who invested $25,000 was told she’d have to allow 90 days for her money to be returned, but she was offered an additional one percent if she left it in for another six months.  A Los Angeles investor of $10,000 says he was asked to relinquish his old agreement and sign a new one, and to accept only a partial payment--and that over a period of time.  Still another complainant gave the 30 days’ notice his contract required for the return of his investment.  After waiting longer than that, he’d received only a third of it.  Later he was told he’d need to sign another agreement and surrender the former one before they’d give him another payment.

Several complainants say that the company’s website is no longer active, that their doors are closed, and that no one answers the phone.

Complaints to the Bureau are recent--all filed in 2008.  Amounts invested range from $1,500 to $300,000.  Although three of the earlier complainants have gotten their money back, the two other complaints that have been closed so far have not been responded to by the company.  Most complaints are still open.

The sums of money these people invested were not easy to come by, and the losses are not easy to take.  One woman who put the entire $20,000 from a matured CD into Financial Plus and expected the return to help with food, utilities, and her daughter’s schooling simply says, "I was counting on that money."

Kim’s advice:  Don’t get caught. Keep these points in mind before putting money into an investment like this one:

• Get a Better Business Bureau report first.  You’ve probably guessed by now that Financial Plus, by any name, gets an “F” rating from us.
  
• Also remember that you shouldn’t assume that a statement in an ad or from a representative that the company is a Bureau member is necessarily true.  Get a current report from us.  In this case, one of Financial Plus’s printed materials included a false claim of Bureau membership; we had rejected their request for membership.
  
• Although it’s good advice to get all verbal promises in writing, even that doesn’t guarantee that the company will perform according to its contract.  Consider everything about the transaction, including the company’s track record.
  
• Don’t make your decision on the basis of promises of returns you should know are too good to be true.
  
• Find out whether what you’re investing in is a security that requires registration with the Department of Corporations.  The Department determined that these promissory notes did constitute a security requiring registration, but the company was not registered and thus was not authorized to sell them. 

Our report on this company includes information to help you find out whether a security is registered or is exempt from registration.

Kim Burge is the Better Business Bureau's Director of Trade Practices.