8189096800

Did any kind of lawsuit by investors come to pass
still waiting!!
Rick

oh my • 6 months ago
The Producers? Really?
Americans are dumb.
Nuff said.
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caty • 7 months ago
This is nearly, EXACTLY what happened to Disney's 1985 film 'Return to Oz'....hmmmm :/
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Andrew Nelson • 7 months ago
Traditionally, a bank issuing a credit card, like a producer green-lighting a movie production, has always been a risk. In the early 90's as I walked for the first time as a freshman on a university campus lined with beer kegs, bank lackeys handed out credit card applications to jobless students with free beer bongs. Banks had figured out by adding fees and penalty percentage rates they could make huge profits even if card holders failed to live up to the financial trust that was placed in them. This freed the banks from risk and in turn the need for any thought to be expended in a vetting process. They made millions. Seems the Carrolls brothers have applied this same thinking to movie production.

The lesson to be learned is that when you venture a risk make sure your partners are also at risk. Sort of like getting in a plane piloted by someone with the wrong stuff, at least you know if you go down he's going down with you.
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LickitySplit • 7 months ago
I was exposed to the fundraising for this film and as someone that has been involved with fundraising for both small indie films and feature films, the whole thing looked fishy from the beginning. They didn't want professional investors (whenever someone tells you that, it means that they'd rather take the money from people who don't understand the business because they don't really know what they are doing), had a [***] financial model (non-existent really outside of the article's aforementioned plugged-in numbers) and a whole lot of previous lawsuits brought against them (easily discoverable through a quick Google search). People who argue that the animation was good, obviously haven't seen an animated feature in a decade - not to mention that the script was probably the worst part. Somewhere along the way, they managed to add some credibility to this project by recruiting some voice actors but let's be honest - if everything else sucks, no one is going to go watch a film because Lea Michelle's voice is in it. The people who are saying they were investors in the film and are posting positive comments are either part/friends of the scam team or severely brainwashed real investors who have been made to believe that somehow this project will make its money back in the long run through merch, DVD, music, and other secondary revenue streams. When a film's only made $8M a month after a US wide release and 'worldwide' release, trust me, you're not making your money back!
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whodatwhodatwhodat • 7 months ago
Soliciting people to transfer qualified 401k type assets is absolutely unsuitable and completely unethical. The issue for these guys is going after unaccredited investors to fund this film. Accredited folks should have known better
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SECvillain • 7 months ago
Its illegal to promise returns to investors. And its illegal to solicit invedtors without being registered with the state. Also companies are required to repay their investments before executives get compensated. These men belong in jail.
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steve • 7 months ago
$2.04 billion expected gross lol . that means it made 0.4% of its expected gross lol.
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The Great and Powerful Turtle • 7 months ago
total scam if more than 20/30 mil was spent of this i would be shocked to hell ...
the animation was a mess and looked awful,the script and dialogue were bad and the worse crime i can see is the voice acting,why oh why would you hire great talented actors to do the voice work then make them sound nothing like they usually do ..they were so unrecognizable that they could have just used anyone for the voices
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Frank Vivaldi • 7 months ago
Alpine was always a boiler room operation, a scam. Why these people get away with their criminal activity as the Wall Street pirates is why America is on the decline as he who hath the best scam wins.
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reducer • on Jun 17, 2011 1:45 pm
These guys burned a few hundred.
Alpine Pictures has burned tens of thousands in the last 20 years. In the US and Overseas. They should really be taken down but no one seems to be able to nail them. They have the classic boiler room callers. Now they have changed their name again and they are ripping off more folks on the pretense of making kids entertainment. THey are the scum of the earth. The friggin Carroll brothers.

PDATE: The feds released info today that FBI and IRS agents this week arrested and charged 18 people who now face fraud and money laundering charges relating to a telemarketing “boiler room” scam that solicited $25 million in so-called investments in indie films with false promises of up to 1,000% returns. The scam was run in Southern California and Florida. While some of the movies were actually produced, the indictments allege that the defendants lied, gave half-truths and concealed material facts from investors around the nation

66 Firms Accused of Telemarketing Fraud
Finance: Regulators say companies bilked $43 million from investors in bogus entertainment-oriented ventures.
August 12, 1998|JEFF LEEDS and AMANDA ELK | TIMES STAFF WRITERS
Federal and state regulators Tuesday accused 66 investment firms of defrauding investors nationwide out of more than $43 million by marketing bogus movie productions, cable programming, infomercials and other entertainment-related ventures.

The largest swindle, according to officials at the Federal Trade Commission, appeared to be My Pet TV, an animal-themed cable channel promoted by Los Angeles-based telemarketers who raised $16.5 million from about 1,200 unwitting investors but failed to air any programming. The enterprise was first publicly exposed by an article in The Times in May.

Regulators also moved against a Southern California firm that allegedly lured hundreds of investors with slick pitches for an infomercial selling a package of Elvis Presley memorabilia, including a previously unreleased recording. In fact, the FTC said in court documents, the package did not include the promised recording, and the infomercial did not air as scheduled.

"Show biz schemes have enormous appeal," said Jodie Bernstein, director of consumer protection for the FTC, at a Washington news conference. "They play on the glitz of Hollywood. They are touted with fabulous earnings claims, promoted with deceptions, and virtually all the investors end up losing their money."

Among those is Dean Cooke of Vienna, Va., a 57-year-old retired aerospace engineer who said Tuesday that he lost $20,000 invested in "Operation: Desert Gold," a treasure hunt movie starring Erik Estrada ostensibly being produced by Rynell & Associates and Van Nuys-based Alpine Pictures.

"The pull was that it was going to be a wholesome movie," Cooke said. "I'm disappointed I was so gullible. It's a hard lesson."

While "get rich quick" telemarketing schemes have recently begun featuring Hollywood themes, fraud investigators say they follow the pattern of traditional "boiler room" scams, in which naive investors receive high-pressure telephone sales pitches offering stratospheric investment returns.

Such telemarketing fraud has turned into a $40-billion-a-year business involving solicitations for investment schemes based on oil and gas wells, precious metals, computer software and other products.

Tuesday's crackdown, dubbed Operation Risky Business, was mounted by the FTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The federal agencies joined with securities regulators from 20 states who issued cease-and-desist orders against many of the targeted firms and obtained restraining orders against those and others.

The investment schemes at issue included not only film and television productions, but online casinos, themed restaurants featuring laser shows or psychics, and a microbrewery.

No criminal charges have been filed at the federal level.

The top-selling investment scheme involved in Tuesday's action was My Pet TV, offered by two firms with offices in Los Angeles and Studio City.

The FTC charged the venture's alleged principals, cable-TV promoters Michael Marcovsky and Sheldon Altfeld, with defrauding investors by telling them that My Pet TV, which ostensibly aired pet-themed programming, was already broadcasting on the Oasis TV network, according to a lawsuit filed by the FTC in Los Angeles.

A Los Angeles judge has frozen the company's assets and issued a restraining order to prevent it from making more calls, and has appointed a receiver to oversee what remains of the firm, authorities said. Investors in the company have filed their own lawsuit to recover their money and punitive damages.

The investors were originally enticed into placing $10,000 or more each into a scheme to provide nonviolent children's programming to cable television systems around the country.

In fact, as the investors' lawsuit and The Times' investigation disclosed, most of that money was lost to exceptionally high sales commissions, and little was left over to buy programming.

Eventually, the FTC charged, Altfeld and Marcovsky diverted the remaining $650,000 in investors' funds to My Pet TV, which was operated by Marcovsky. My Pet TV never broadcast the programming it claimed, the FTC said.

FTC officials said they consulted an FBI library of secretly tape-recorded conversations between telemarketers and elderly volunteers posing as potential investors. Regulators also used their own investigators to surreptitiously record telemarketing calls and catch salesmen allegedly misrepresenting the truth.

The FTC alleged that another firm, Automated Systems and Concepts International Inc. of Los Angeles and Las Vegas, fooled investors by claiming they could reap a 50% return on their money in four months if they sent in $10,000 to help produce an infomercial promoting a package of Elvis Presley memorabilia to air on the 20th anniversary of the singer's death--Aug. 16, 1997.

The above was interesting reading.  Too bad it is from 1998.  Almost 20 years ago.  Obviously a slap on the hands was not enough of a deterence for Alpine.  As someone said,  when your W-2 has millions on it you don't worry about things.

Where do you get your information, "they travel all over the world"? Just because you spew a lie doesn't make it rue.

My husband and I are among the 2 nd group of investors. We weren't even aware of the fact that we weren't qualified investors. We bought into the project through a trusted friend.  Is there any talk of a class action lawsuit?

How do you feel about the movie now??

How do you feel about the project now?

Why was he fired?

How is that first position payback working out for you now?

How is that first position payback working out for you now?

how is your math working for you now?

Do you feel you made an investment mistake? Maybe the next one will be better, just takes $50K to find out.

How did your investment work out? I imagine you just went to the beach to chill out. Pretty expensive beach trip.

How do you feel now? still positive?

How is your Sterling Account?

Greg is Co-Chairman of Tradition Studios

BUSINESS MAN OF THE YEAR AWARD!!

K1's have been received and it's official, this whole project is a POS. The equity value on my K1 went "poof"  , but to make this worse, investors can't write the loss off yet as officially ECOZ is still a going concern. I truly feel sorry for those of you who put in retirement money , college funds or money you couldn't afford to lose. The bashers and negative posters turned out to be right.