Samuel Gompers
Elio Addict
1) I believe that there should be a lawsuit to require Elio to issue full refunds of all of the refundable deposits. Elio did not put the refundable money into an escrow account until they were forced to do so, but it appears that the money was eventually escrowed. Any reservationist who still wanted Elio to keep the money should be given the option to refuse the refund. Any uncashed refunds would be escheated.Although I’d personally love to see Paul and Hari’s ‘feet be held to the [class action] fire,’ not only is it unlikely but even if it happened it wouldn’t gain the aggrieved much: the darn lawyers get all the money and the Elio boys did too great a job squirreling it away.
The best we can do, going forward, is to constantly monitor what Paul Elio, Hari S. Iyer, Connie Gresham, and Joel Sheltrown are ‘up to.‘ When they pop their heads up seeking new investors and/or subscribers or ‘reservationists,’ we need to remind the unwary of their dubious histories, and allow the inexperienced to make a proper decision.
Capes might get some ‘traction’ by contacting that Phoenix (Paul’s home town) Investigative Reporter that got some ‘mileage’ earlier with EM failing to make obligated refunds.
AND, just for the record: All you that think by signing an agreement for a ‘spot in line’ results in absolutely sufficient ‘consideration’ to make a legally binding and enforceable contract have no idea what you’re talking about. It remains to be seen if ‘spots’ in no line, but for the Principals possible malfeasance and definite incompetence is sufficient consideration for the $100 to $1000 RESERVATIONS. Surrounding it all, there will always be questions of ‘where all our money went,’ and more importantly when did Hari and Co. know or reasonably could be expected to know when ‘the game’ is up?’ They took reservations for a very long time and, under one of their shells, enticed more suckers with that bogus 65,000 reservationist threshold they claimed they needed: That alone says it all about what they were scheming.
Here’s a basic ‘primer’ on the consideration element of a Contract:
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/consideration-every-contract-needs-33361.html
2) There is no lawsuit to recover non-refundable reservations because there is nothing left to recover.
3) The only lawsuit that would make sense would be to go after the Elio principals personally based on invalid or fraudulent contracts. The non-refundable reservation contract was invalid because of the lack of consideration as noted above. The production line never existed, so a spot in that line was and is meaningless. Elio never offered consideration because they specifically exempted themselves from any obligation, ie invalidating any consideration. The question of the contract being fraudulent would be harder to prove in court, but there is quite a lot of evidence that the Elio principles knew, or should have known, that their advertising was false, and that their claims of possible production were impossible to meet. Even with lack of consideration being easy to prove, and stipulating that fraud existed, it is uncertain that sufficient assets remain personally (excepting for Lichtner) to satisfy the claims.
TLDR > It's unlikely that the Elio principles will be held to account in the U.S. court system for the losses incurred by those who fell for their sales pitches.