In a criticism filed on March thirtieth, journey service provider Viva Voyage has accused WorldVentures of “unlawful conduct (that) enormously endangers the general public”.
Viva Voyage describes itself as a “Nevada Restricted Legal responsibility Firm” run by three members; Geoffrey Silvers, Scott Silvers, and Walter Silvers.
Though the corporate is a Nevada Restricted Legal responsibility Firm, little or no of the corporate’s operations happen in Nevada, and the corporate’s principal office is in Palm Seaside County, Florida.
Pursuant to WorldVentures being a pyramid scheme, Viva Voyage reveals that previous to signing a three-year contract with the corporate;
Rovia was promoting a excessive quantity of cruise packages the place the overwhelming majority of the packages that they bought have been at a loss.
To put this in perspective, which means every cruise bundle bought by Rovia, the only supply of earnings for the corporate, positioned the corporate additional into debt.
Rovia is the journey arm of WorldVentures. Each corporations are operated underneath the umbrella of Spherature Investments.
Spherature Investments is owned by Wayne Nugent, Daniel Stammen, Michael A. Azcue and Kenneth J. Doherty.
Viva Voyage claims that since taking
management of Rovia’s cruise ship bookings, practically each cruise booked by Viva Voyage on behalf of Rovia prospects has been worthwhile.
Viva Voyage’s beef with WorldVentures pertains to “steady and systematic violations” of the contract between the 2 corporations.
Rovia’s recalcitrant perspective towards holding its shoppers’ funds in a belief account which necessitated the submitting of an preliminary motion and in search of injunctive reduction from the Courtroom to be able to defend the general public from Rovia’s conduct.
Citing “Vendor of Journey” legal guidelines within the US, Viva Voyage states that WorldVentures is required to keep up buyer funds used to e book journeys in a belief account.
The aim of those legal guidelines is to guard the general public from fraudulent and negligent conduct.
Viva Voyage alleges that
as an alternative of Rovia setting apart consumer funds which were paid for a visit … Rovia makes use of the funds from new prospects to pay for the working bills of its guardian firm, WorldVentures Holdings, or to pay for the journeys of earlier prospects.
This allegation relies on correspondence with Maria Kozova, Rovia’s former Chief Monetary officer.
Viva Voyage discovered of this conduct when Viva Voyage reached out to her to find out the rationale that funds for journeys have been being delayed by Rovia and since Rovia staff have been telling Viva Voyage that Rovia didn’t have any cash to pay Viva Voyage.
Viva Voyage couldn’t perceive how Rovia didn’t have cash to pay Viva Voyage on condition that all the journeys it booked have been paid for by a buyer upfront.
Viva Voyage claims at occasions WorldVentures had owed them in extra of $100,000, which they themselves have needed to cowl to pay for booked buyer journeys.
Though it’s extensively identified amongst the staff at Rovia that the corporate engages on this unlawful conduct, (Jerre) Fuqua, a former Senior Vice President for Journey Merchandise at Rovia, acknowledged to Viva on quite a few events that Rovia engages on this exercise, that it’s unlawful underneath quite a few state and federal laws for Rovia to interact on this exercise, and that Rovia will stop from persevering with to interact within the conduct.
Nevertheless, regardless of these assurances from Fuqua, Rovia continued to make use of consumer funds for unauthorized functions.
The people participating on this unlawful conduct have been Rovia, WorldVentures Advertising, and WorldVentures Holdings, Wayne Nugent, and Jerre Fuqua.
Nugent, who sits on the board of all three corporations, and is one in every of two homeowners of the guardian WorldVentures Holdings, is the person who directed Rovia, by Fuqua, to interact on this improper conduct of transferring the cash to WorldVentures Advertising or WorldVentures Holdings as an alternative of getting the cash stay in a belief account.
On the specific course of Nugent; Fuqua, figuring out that the conduct violates Vendor of Journey legal guidelines, refused to adjust to the Vendor of Journey legal guidelines and personally engaged within the torts in his particular person capability by transferring the cash coming into Rovia to different WorldVentures corporations as an alternative of right into a belief account as mandated by the Vendor of Journey legal guidelines.
Each Nugent and Fuqua personally profit from this observe financially since this exercise helped maintain the varied WorldVentures corporations afloat, and thus, each Fuqua and Nugent continued to derive earnings from the respective entities.
Along with the conduct described above being unlawful, it additionally violates Part 10.2.2 of the Grasp Providers Settlement.
Previous to being “managed” by Wayne Nugent, WorldVentures COO Michael Poates was reportedly operating round telling individuals he had incriminating filth on Nugent.
Whether or not Poates was referring to the conduct alleged above or one thing else stays unclear.
Nugent and Poates are nonetheless working side-by-side at what’s left of WorldVentures.
In line with his LinkedIn profile, Jerre Fuqua (proper) left Rovia in July 2020.
Along with misappropriating buyer funds, Viva Voyage additionally claims that WorldVentures has impersonated them.
Since June, 2020, in an effort to achieve details about refunds Viva Voyage has obtained, in addition to to acquire details about cruise bookings, Rovia has impersonated Viva Voyage by calling quite a lot of cruise traces and misinforming the cruise firm that the person calling is from Viva Voyage when in fact the person is an worker of Rovia.
These ongoing calls have been made to – no less than – Royal Caribbean Cruise Traces and Norwegian Cruise Traces. In every occasion, a person named Christine known as Norwegian Cruise Traces and Carnival Cruise Traces to acquire info regarding cruise bookings and refunds.
Christine recognized herself as an worker of Viva Voyage to be able to acquire the knowledge. Christine misidentified herself as a consequence of the truth that Royal Caribbean Cruise Traces and Norwegian Cruise Traces wouldn’t have supplied the knowledge she sought as the knowledge would solely be disseminated to a person employed by Viva Voyage.
In all of those situations, which have occurred since June, 2020 and proceed by the current, Christine known as Norwegian or Royal Caribbean at their Miami, Florida headquarters and supplied the false info to be able to acquire info regarding cruise bookings and refunds.
When confronted, Rovia doubled down on the fraud.
Extremely, Rovia has such a cavalier perspective towards this conduct that emails from counsel on this case have indicated the Rovia will proceed to confirm refunds that Viva Voyage has obtained from cruise traces.
That is although the cruise traces wouldn’t present the knowledge with out Rovia falsely stating that they’re calling on behalf of Viva Voyage.
On the behest of Jerre Fuqua, Rovia sought to terminate its contract with Viva Voyage in early 2020.
In line with Fuqua, Rovia was having monetary hassle as a consequence of COVID-19 and that they wanted to make some “tough choices”.
Fuqua went on to state that the corporate might not pay for the contract with Viva Voyage.
Because of this, he requested that Viva Voyage be a “crew participant” and settle for a 91% low cost on the worth that it’s paid on a month-to-month foundation underneath the Contract.
Viva Voyage declined Rovia’s request.
Throughout 5 counts, Viva Voyage is suing WorldVentures for
- willful damage;
- cash obtained by false pretenses, false representations, or precise fraud;
- fraud or defalcation whereas appearing in a fiduciary capability;
- embezzlement; and
- larceny.
Keep tuned for updates as we proceed to trace the case.