Since I started this thread, I never imagined what was going on in the background with ZNM Performance.
It begs the question of how did this happen and how could someone scam so many of us? I am thousands deep in this and continue to ask myself how I got here. I have 20+ years of successful business acumen and experience. I have dealt with plenty of scammers, liars, and all types of fraud over the years. I have seen it all and have never been scammed by anyone…until now.
When you first meet Matt, he represents himself very well. He is very polished and offers a sense of trust and transparency about his business. Take a look at how well written the link below is. This will give you an idea on how well Matt portrays himself and his business when you first meet him.
http://znmperformance.com/about-znm/
My wife and I even had a nice chat with Matt and his girlfriend Elyse during a visit when we were wrapping up all the details before starting.
It seemed very legit at this point. It was a few weeks later that I would receive the B.S. call about needing a new head. Matt is a good planner and waited until I was working out of the country to pull it off. Matt is a particularly cunning liar/scammer. He is a master at stall tactic lies and will look you right in the eye as he scams you with no regret whatsoever.
Matt is especially tactful in how he controls customer communication and reviews, both online and on social media. I researched him quite thoroughly end of last year on the forums. There was no negative feedback or reviews that I could find at all. When I started to suspect he was lying to me, I started searching deeper outside the forums. I came across a few negative stories on Yelp reviews that put me in contact with a previous customer of Matt’s who tipped me off. Matt immediately contacted that customer trying everything he could to have him take the review off of Yelp which the customer did not.
When you finally have enough and you confront Matt, he will apologize and he will try to make you think your incident is isolated. He will promise to fix it and make it right for you no matter what it takes. This usually encompasses something very big for free that you did not pay for; or he will tell you he is not charging you any labor for the inconvenience. Big promises! These deals are very attractive, but in the end will only lead to more excuses and deeper bullshit. Eventually his communication will fade. Excuses like “I will send it as soon as I land” or “Sorry I just saw this text” 3 days later will become the norm. His plan is to string you along until the situation just fades away and you give up or you are too embarrassed to post, or just want to move on.
As I said, Matt is very keen and will go to great lengths to keep any negative information from spreading, especially online. When I created the thread, Matt contacted me within hours by sending me the compensation email I referred to in my original post. Funny how he claims he sent it twice over several days and I have received nothing. Funny how this email offer arrived within hours of creating this thread and the first two never were to found. See below.
I’ve sent this twice from my work email to you. Alternatively you could’ve called me saying you haven’t received anything. In any event I have no issue proceeding with this, but not in a manner of having our entire correspondence online. If you’d like to remove it and sign/date the attachment I sent to you and send back to me so we both have copies, I’ll happily proceed with having the form notarized.
According to Matt, once he has the letter notarized, and sends it to me, he will then be forced to pay me back. LOL!!
Interestingly enough, we now jumped from a 3k refund on the turbo kit to $8,900 according to the letter??? Again, Matt is going to take this letter, with my copied signature, to a notary to be notarized, and then send me a copy? I can get $8,900 as long as I sign it, take our correspondence offline, and send it to Matt!!! Well I didn’t bite and we are now up to 15k in restitution per Matt. All I need to do is sign, send the letter to Matt, and remove the thread!!!!
As I said before, great lengths to control online damage. He keeps you on the hook with apologies and promises.....It all seems so genuine. Matt will make this right for me!! 15k!!!!!!
That is how Matt kept feeding the scheme. Madoff style.