In May 2010 I was approached by an "entrepreneur" who was putting together a fundraising concert to benefit a nonprofit. He wanted to hire my company to secure sponsorships and handle press and media relations for the event.
Even though I signed a contract and agreed to work with him, there were tons of red flags that caught my attention. At our first meeting, he wanted to meet at a hotel instead of his office. He also acted like he had so much money and was constantly name-dropping. Then he took the train when he left. And he never wanted to pay a deposit to rent a facility for the concert. In fact, he tried to get me to put money down on a venue. I declined.
I signed a contract for $15,000 to be paid over three months. When he missed the first $5,000 payment, I should have stopped my services; but I wanted to give him a chance. The second month, he didn't pay again.
He stopped taking my phone calls and pretty much fell off the face of the earth. When I drove past his address, I saw that it was an abandoned building. Needless to say, I never saw a dime of the $15,000. There was actually some sponsorship interest from several companies but, without a date and venue for the event, everything fell apart.
I wanted to pursue him, but the cost of doing that outweighed the benefit. Moving forward, I am always more careful with whom I do business. And I conduct thorough background checks. But my best advice to other small business owners is to go with your gut. If it doesn't seem right, it's probably not.
Diann Cattani's embezzlement of a small business started off as an innocent mistake and then quickly got out of control.
