Billionaire Blind Spot
A failed entrepreneur fleeced the super rich. His bankruptcy records were public.
This Week In Blunders – March 1-7
“Trust me, Wilbur. People are very gullible. They'll believe anything they see in print.” – E.B. White.
All anyone needed to know about Josh S. Verne was that he blew up the decades-old furniture company his daddy left him.
Creditors forced Home Line Furniture Industries into bankruptcy liquidation in 2011. And he did not get $80 million out of the deal.
But Verne, 48, was Philadelphia Main Line bred, living in a mansion in Gladwyne, making political donations, and glad-handing the elite at country clubs. So he moved on to the next venture. And the next flop.
First there was Workpays.me, a digital platform that allowed people to buy stuff through payroll deductions. Verne told investors he’d sold it for somewhere between $30 million to $100 million. In reality, it sold for about $4 million, of which Verne only received a fraction.
Then there was FlockU, a social media platform for college students. Verne told investors it sold for $60 million to $500 million, depending on the audience. In reality, it shut down, and its website and domain were sold for $1.
So then comes his really big idea. It’s called Ownable. It’s going to sell consumer electronics – like laptops and smartphones – to people with weak credit on a rent-to-own basis.
He raised $31 million from more than 110 investors, selling stakes in Ownable to friends, family and even a few billionaires.
How could a fumbling nepo baby pull off all that? One of his tricks was an account statement from Goldman Sachs showing $50 million in assets. It was fake. Verne didn’t even have an account at Goldman Sachs, but who’s going to question Mr. Blue Blood?
