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`Flip This House' star accused of fraud

9K views 28 replies 21 participants last post by  Teetorbilt 
#1 ·
`Flip This House' star accused of fraud
By DOUG GROSS, Associated Press Writer 42 minutes ago


On an episode of A&E's popular reality series "Flip This House," Atlanta businessman Sam Leccima sits in front of a run-down house and calls buying and selling real estate his passion.
Now authorities and legal filings claim that Leccima's true passion was a series of scams that included faking the home renovations shown on the cable TV show and claiming to have sold houses he never owned.
"This is, indeed, a con artist," said Sonya McGee, an Atlanta pharmaceutical representative who says Leccima took $4,000 from her in an investment scheme.
McGee and others say Leccima's episodes of "Flip This House," A&E's most popular show, were elaborate hoaxes. His friends and family were presented as potential homebuyers and "sold" signs were slapped in front of unsold houses. They say the home repairs — the lynchpin of the show — were actually quick or temporary patch jobs designed to look good on camera.
Leccima says he never claimed to own the homes. While not acknowledging his televised renovations were staged, he didn't deny it and suggested that A&E and Departure Films, the production company that makes the show, knew exactly what he was doing.
"Ask anybody who works in television how a reality show is made and you'll find that ours was a very typical approach," Leccima said in a telephone interview.
When it recently learned of the claims against Leccima, the cable network pulled reruns of his episodes off the air and wiped his mentions from its Web site.
Leccima, 36, presented himself as a successful real estate investor during the 2006 season of the cable show, which depicted him buying, refurbishing and reselling Atlanta-area homes for profits of $77,000 and more. But Leccima doesn't have a real estate license — it was revoked by the Georgia Real Estate Commission in 2005, with the panel ruling he "does not bear a good reputation for honesty, trustworthiness, integrity, and competence." Now he's under investigation by the Georgia Secretary of State's office for securities fraud.
Leccima said his lawyer advised him against talking about the investigation or the claims made by McGee and others. He did say that some of the criticism stems from his high profile.
"I'm a business person and I think I have as many people that like me as don't like me," he said. "Anyone who puts their face on national television should realize they've signed a Faustian deal of sorts."
However, Atlanta-area real estate records show Leccima never owned several of the homes he's been shown fixing up on television.
WAGA-TV in Atlanta, which first aired the claims against Leccima, has shown footage from inside one of the homes, which had mismatched wooden floors and unpainted patched walls that were out of the view of TV cameras on "Flip This House."
McGee said she attended what was billed as a wrap party at one home. But when the party was shown on "Flip This House," it was presented as an open house at which someone expresses interest in buying the property.
New York-based Departure Films did not return repeated telephone calls to its offices by The Associated Press. A&E spokesman Dan Silberman said the network has stopped working with Leccima, who doesn't appear in this season's episodes.
"We are dismayed to learn of these allegations," read a statement issued by the network. "A&E Television Networks is not a party to any of the transactions shown in Flip This House and has not received any formal complaints about the properties or sales."
Silberman said the network — a joint venture of Hearst Corp., Walt Disney Co. and General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal — doesn't investigate claims made by people on the show, opting to take them at their word.
The Better Business Bureau gives Leccima's company, Leccima Capital Partners, LLP, an "unsatisfactory" rating, saying four complaints have been filed against it in three years.

One of the complaint was from McGee, who said she considered Leccima a friend — even vacationing in Brazil with him and his wife. She said the Leccimas stopped returning her calls once she started asking for her money back.
Dan Ward, an Atlanta-area youth minister, said he told state investigators that Leccima took about $100,000 from him to invest in real estate, but, as far as he knows, Leccima never developed anything with it. He hasn't received his money back. McGee said appearing on the TV show made it easier for Leccima to find such investors: "As soon as that first episode aired, he got phone calls from people saying, 'I love you. Where can I send you some money?'"
 
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#3 ·
LOL!

Yet another of the cards pulled from the phony house of cards of real estate flipping!

I'd love to see that brought to a rah-rah real estate guru's meeting. The guru would have you thrown out.

Actually even the people in the audience would boo you for being their buzz kill with you trying to bring some dose of the real world to their fantasy world.
 
#10 ·
I'm (yawn) appalled.

Who would have ever guessed that something that looked so easy would turn out to be a scam?

Wow, what are the odds?...

Lucky for me I just won $8,000,000 from the Nigerian lottery so I don't have to worry about it anyway...

Hey, wait a second now, how did we both win it? Now I'm getting suspicious!

Did you send them your 10% processing fee in already?
 
#14 · (Edited)
I read about that guy over a year ago. I thought everyone already knew he was a scam.
I read at least a year ago that the homes that they claim to have sold were never sold and were still sitting there. And this was by people who had actually seen the houses in person. They also said the same things about the work done to the homes was terrible.
 
#17 ·
Yeah ditto on the tie. It's like on a worksite, you automatically know the guy who owns the company, or the head of the GC company building the structure. They always come in with shiny yellow or white hard heads, button up shirt, tie, dress pants, and fancy shoes. Oh yeah and that expensive cologne they paid some $$ on, and they didn't know I had the same stuff at home for only a couple bucks at Wal Mart. Whoops, i forgot that was a four letter word here:laughing: . My nigerian aunt works for them and she told me to put a word in. :w00t: What a goon:no: .
 
#18 ·
Notice the guys dressed up pin-strip suit and tie screws the little guy, you and I work like the rest of the world and we get the bad rap as contractor cheats!!! How do I get in on the Nigerian thing? I keep getting offers to increase the size of my member, I want to know who's peeking thru my bedroom window
 
#20 ·
WOW. Just between you and me, don't tell anyone - this CEO was killed by rebels and had 14000000000000.00 and change sitting in a bank account, he had no heirs, so if I don't tell anyone I can get 30% of this by supplying some personal info to help the bank officer transfer the money into the US - This is a great deal - Can someone loan me there SSN abd Bank Info and I will let them have this once in a lifetime oppourtinity, it's not fair I get all this money while everyone else has to keep working
 
#23 ·
Their show is more of a comedy than a reality show. Some of the things they do, I'm surprised they hold together long enough to even get them filmed!! LOL

What really cracks me on these shows is i.e. ... redo hardwood .... cost $2500.00 .... increased value ... $10,000.00!! New shingles on roof.... $5,000.00 increased value .... $25,000.00!! How does that work????
 
#25 ·
Works for me!:clap: I have never been able to sit through more than 10 minutes of this show. It is nothing but clowns perpetuating a fast money in real estate scam on the viewers, from the ridiculously phony owners and real estate agents, to the endless stream of scum bag contractors and subs they find. The sad part of these kind of shows is that many viewers believe this crap, go out any buy some trashy property, start finding absolute cheapest price bottom feeder workers, then trash "contractors" in general when they get burned.
 
#27 ·
is this the guy that i am seeing on the tv? he runs a property firm, has that chick with the little dog running around bidding on abandoned homes etc... and he never answers his phone so that when his workers have to make a judgement call - he gets mad at them - this show doesn' work for me.
Recently my Fiance' and I were looking for a house - with a nice basement suite for her dad. One that I viewed -wow- all I could think of was 'flipper" the owners had the place for two months- re-did all the floors in a cheap snap together hardwood- forget the trim, it was a joke- handrail joint mis-matched- kitchen? I can't even talk about it-downstairs, they put in a kitchen etc.. but it sure had the signs of a homeowner reno- exposed pipes, heavy mud buildup on corners...
they put the place on for 870k.... 100 k higher than they paid for it - then dropped it 20k before we saw it- I said NO!
I guess my point is that if you are gonna fix a place up, do a good job!

we recently found another place = guy is a contractor- now he did a great job. I gotta pack! :D
 
#28 ·
I got this yesterday - Guess I'll be rollin' in cash by the end of next week...

Hi,

My name is Edi Boo.I am in my early age of 50s and I am an european . I come to the states often mostly for business purposes because I deal mostly in Furniture. I furniture to stores in the states and europe . Infact that is my family business cos we are from france. I bought a house last year in the states cos i love it there .It is peaceful and with a loving neighbourhood. Unfortunately my Mother passed away on the 7th of May 2006 and as the only son in my family i have to go and take care of the family business back in France and i realised that it will be very difficult to supply goods to my clients again in the United states while am away and it will definitely cost me alot to come over to receive payments cos they pay mostly in checks and money orders . Running the business from there it will be difficult and will be impossible especially the aspect of payment and i dont also want to lose my clients or customers there . So what i intend doing is that i am looking for some one to stay at my house free of charge. I dont want to sell the house cos i just bought it and i will have all the rest papers by August but i have ALL the keys now. I am simply looking for someone that is honest and trustworthy and clean for two reasons:
1. to maintain the house when i am away and
2. To help me receive payments from my clients within the USA on my behalf in his/her name and have it cashed cos they pay mostly checks and money orders and have the funds wired to me here in France thru money gram transfer/western union transfer . You dont have to pay me for the accommodation. its just for the purpose of keeping my business going on in the United state.and if you wanna keep this assignment as a job let me know so i can allocate 10% on each payment that you receive if at all you dont wanna live in the house or if you are far from the house. The house is a great one,living room, bedrooms, bathroom, parking space e.tc furnished as well . If you want i can email you more pictures and if you are interested i will send the keys to you via courier so you can go and see the house. It is a very lovely house and there is no way you wont like it. If you are interested in handling my business in the state and keeping the house neat, please send me your full name and address with your phone number and also for me to be able to no how far the place is from your present residential place.I am back in France.
you send back your response to my personal email:ediboo111@yahoo.com
I've been hard hearing for 4 yrs so i won't be able to make phone conversations but i can always email you anytime. Thanks
Edi
 
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