This is a standard ad for NZ Sleepouts, with the text written by Grant King, the Principal of NZ Sleepouts.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=430951962

Now, here is how the system seems to work:

Buyer B sees the ad, and purchases the Sleepout. The money paid by Buyer B doesn’t however actually fund Buyer B’s Sleepout – no, the money paid by Buyer B goes to fund the Sleepout of Buyer A (Buyer B: you weren’t aware there was a Buyer A? Who knew? Grant King knew, that’s who).

Buyer C then sees the same ad, and purchases a Sleepout – yes, you’re on board now: the money paid by Buyer C goes to fund Buyer B’s Sleepout, and so on.

One great big Ponzi Scheme, and utterly fraudulent in its execution – you see, when someone buys a product or service, they naturally and legally expect that their money will be used to fund their product or service, not pay for someone elses product or service.

I discovered that NZ Sleepouts and Grant King were engaging in this practice when in November 2011, Grant King asked me for a specific payment of $3500.00 to pay for labour to complete the off-site build of my Sleepout, by 1/12/11. I even have on record an email from Grant King whereby he confirms the start date of not one, but two additional staff for this purpose. However, Grant King used my $3500.00 payment to build another clients’ Sleepout.

When I confronted Grant King about this issue, he remonstrated with me that he had a “priority job” to complete another clients sleepout, before building mine. However, in all of the time leading up to me making the $3500.00 payment, Grant King NEVER mentioned this “priority job”. His appeal to me at the time was that he “needed some help” to build my Sleepout, and Grant King nominated 1/12/11 as being the completion date for the build if I would extend him the $3500.00 for labour costs. Once I paid him the money – he promptly went and used my money to go and build another clients Sleepout.

Dodgy much?