West One International
Reviews and Complaints

Does anyone know the age of Adam Cohen and his Father Ivan Cohen. I found a picture off Facebook of Adam Cohen, he is young approximately 27 years old. I have enclosed a picture of the one I found from Delray Beach, Fl. Can anyone recognize this guy. It may be the scammer on Real Estate that your mentioning that won't return earnest monies or deposits on apartments.

Thx,

The author of this posting who elected to remain anonymous has written a very harsh and biased account of the relationship between his company and West One. After considerable thought I have decided to not name the author as it will neither add nor subtract from his comment or my subsequent response. That said I find his comments to be highly ignorant of the facts and negated to mention his own shortcomings in the proposed transaction which is still an active file in our pipeline. The true purpose of this complaint is to force my company into an awkward position and was largely intended as leverage. As any information posted on this site will never be removed except via court order the cost of which being in excess of $15, 000 that leverage if any is having the reverse effect. Despite all of the above on July 20th (literally six days after posting this complaint) this very same client actually signed a new fee agreement with West One in anticipation of a potential offer to fund the entire proposed transaction in the area of $150, 000, 000.

The author addresses me as the “apparent C.E.O. of a fraudulent company”. I, Adam Cohen am the President and C.E.O. of West One International.; the company was conceived in 2010 and incorporated in May 2011. The company has been visibly active in business for 6 years serving over one thousand satisfied clients and verifiably closing multi-million dollar transactions. I personally have over 30, 000 followers on social media. It is not possible to satisfy every client and from time to time a dissatisfied client will post detrimental information online. While I do make every effort to find common ground to prevent such from occurring it is not possible in every instance. After six years in business, if the company was actively involved in such unethical behavior there would be dozens of online complaints. We always offer new clients professional references including attorneys, title companies and past clients with whom we have closed multiple transactions. The author’s obnoxious opening comment is uncalled for and totally ridiculous.

The author’s company retained West One in March 2016 to secure financing in the sum of $150, 000, 000 for the acquisition of an assemblage of seven commercial properties located in Downtown Los Angeles for the purpose of developing a five-star hotel property just a few minutes’ walk from the convention center. At that time the author claimed he had on the table from a nationally recognized hotel corporation an offer of equity in the sum $70, 000, 000 plus available tax credits that would be applied to the transaction and could be used at the authors’ discretion towards the purchase of the real estate assemblage, future soft costs and construction. Taking into consideration the available equity we presented a proposal that allowed for funding the acquisition of the assemblage and the future construction loan which would satisfy short term funding and provide for the development of the entire property. Despite multiple requests the author has declined to produce any document evidencing his claims of the equity participation from the nationally recognized hotel corporation claiming that such request would demonstrate his lack of investiture in the project and weaken his negotiating position with said group.

Subsequently, the author looked to West One to provide 100% of the acquisition capital, closing, carry and soft costs by way of straight debt and emphasized firm hesitation in providing any evidence of the potential equity that could be used to incentivize a potential investor and further refused to provide any pertinent financial information referred to as “Get to know your client”. Regardless of the breakdown in cooperation, seeing the big picture and believing in the project I have continued to seek potential joint venture solutions being the only realistic method remaining by which the proposed transaction may advance. At this time West One has presented a credible solution to the extent that the author agreed to sign a new fee agreement thus contradicting everything he claimed in his post. I cannot guarantee the transaction will fund; moving forward that will be based on negotiations between the parties of which I have no influence over, the feasibility of the project to be developed as planned and the anticipated profitability once completed. Transactions like this frequently do not go as planned and I constantly remind people with such ambitious endeavors that this is very much a trial and error business. Such does not give the author the right to publish such egregious and damaging statements about myself and my company.

The remainder of the authors’ claims are total nonsense. The $20, 000 paid was a retainer for consulting services. The reason it has taken longer than expected is because the author is not bringing any money to the table on a $47, 000, 000 purchase of seven commercial properties and cannot independently demonstrate their ability to service the debt nor did they provide evidence of the $70, 000, 000 equity investment they claimed would be applied per their discretion from nationally recognized hotel corporation. My capital partners would have provided conditional commitments and were ready do so, the author claimed he would produce evidence of the $70, 000, 000 equity commitment from the nationally recognized hotel corporation but failed to do so again claiming such would be detrimental in negotiations thus demonstrating the author have no investiture in the project. Had the author produced this document he would have received a conditional loan commitment. Initially we had focused on the primary asset of the assemblage, later I did confirm the additional properties in the package to ensure correct representations were being made to investors. I did present this project to an investment bank, they felt the author had no skin in the game, were not willing to fund 100% of the transaction; overall they liked the opportunity but the bank was not going to provide a loan where there was no evidence of financial reserves to support the debt, they also felt the project was still too premature for their taste. I never claimed said bank had approved the loan, I represented they had interest. The author did request a proof of funds to negotiate with the Seller, I did claim that this would be made available however the investor declined to produce this information for all the reasons stated above.

The author did request to terminate our relationship and a refund of the consulting fee. As this is still an ongoing file with a plausible solution on the table; further, taking into consideration the author did not deliver pertinent documentation that was instrumental to the transaction and that such information was represented on multiple occasions would be made available when required; at this time, I am not willing to issue that refund. Further, having published this very damaging post and the loss of revenue that will be caused, I will be discussing with legal before any refund may be issued.

I just want to add that I have attempted to take the diplomatic approach, not named any party in the transaction, the project or the nationally recognized hotel corporation. As this is still an ongoing transaction I do not want to cause any upset that may hurt the transaction despite the damaging allegations made by the author. That said, if the author feels compelled to write any further negative comments about myself or West One, any future post I have to make will list all of their information, company name, partners, contact information, website, project, nationally recognized hotel corporation, every little detail pertaining to the entire project. From personal experience, no one wants to have their name on this site which is why even the people complaining use false names and aliases.

Please take into consideration the following:
1. There are two sides to every story
2. Many pertinent facts are withheld to make their plight seem more desperate and the actions of the offending party more severe
3. People who post on these sites like to use eye catching harsh words such as “scam” and “fraud” to maximize the future damage caused including damage to reputation and loss of revenue
4. People only see their own point of view
5. When posting on these sites people generally exaggerate every issue out of proportion
6. People use these complaint websites as a form of extortion stating that unless their demands are satisfied they will post negative comments online. This is considered a form of harassment and is also a felony.

The author of this posting under a false alias has posted negative information about myself and West One International. The facts of this posting are as follows:

In January of this year I hired several new sales representatives. Sales representatives generally handle all matters relating to their clients and in this particular case the sales rep had specifically requested that he alone will handle all client communication. All loans are processed by back of the house operations and I personally have virtually no involvement with third party sales rep files except for approving the initial term sheet and final review of the file prior to closing. In this case the applicant had applied for a Hard Money Loan and was made aware of the applicable costs thereto. Our term sheet expressly states that a refund may be offered unless expenses have been incurred. There had been incurred expenses and no refund was available. Unfortunately, we were not able to close a loan for this person as the loan failed to meet the necessary requirements. Both the sales representative and the underwriter have been terminated for poor conduct and failing to keep clients apprised. The author claims she wired money to me personally. This is not true; all client funds are received by the company via an escrow account. The author alleges multiple complaints of fraud have been made against the company; this also is untrue, there are no past or present fraud complaints that have ever been made against the company.

I started West One International in 2010. The company has been visibly active in business for 6 years. I personally have over 30, 000 followers on social media. It is not possible to satisfy every client and from time to time a dissatisfied client will post detrimental information online. While I do make every effort to find common ground to prevent such from occurring it is not possible in every instance. After six years in business, if the company was actively involved in such unethical behavior there would be dozens of online complaints. We always offer new clients professional references including attorneys, title companies and past clients with whom we have closed multiple transactions. In this instance I terminated our relationship with the applicable team members as they were not representing the company to an acceptable standard.

Please take into consideration the following:
1. There are two sides to every story
2. Many pertinent facts are withheld to make their plight seem more desperate and the actions of the offending party more severe
3. People who post on these sites like to use eye catching harsh words such as “scam” and “fraud” to maximize the future damage caused including damage to reputation and loss of revenue
4. People only see their own point of view
5. When posting on these sites people generally exaggerate every issue out of proportion
6. People use these complaint websites as a form of extortion stating that unless their demands are satisfied they will post negative comments online. This is considered a form of harassment and is also a felony.

He was active in NYC and NJ in 2008. Complaints have been filed with the FBI and DA's office to start a criminal case, so please report your case to these agencies as well.