Complaint Review: Ascend Capventures - Santa Monica California

Ascend E-Com, Ascend Capventures Scam The following personal experience is a warning to all that would do business with Will Basta, Jeremy Leung, Ascend E-Com, or Ascend Capventures.

Over the last 10 years, I've operated a succesful retail business with my wife in Orlando, FL. We're constantly being told that given the uprise in online shopping, we should really invest in selling on Amazon or Walmart. During the pandemic, I tried my hand at it a bit with some products we sell in our store and had some success! Folks were right, Amazon was a great tool to help reach more customers. 

As I became more familiar with this platform, I began to get targeted on Instagram by multiple e-commerce companies claiming to "Build an Automated Store." This was so interesting to me that I started telling my wife, we need to find one of these comapnies to invest with and grow our Amazon store! Most of these ad's seemed too good to be true, showing massive profits and unrealistic testimonials. Their websites were poorly designed and there wasn't much info about them online. 

Then I got an ad from Ascend. 

"Wow." I thought... here's a company who has it figured out. Their website was beautifully designed, they had really worked on their brand awareness and had features with Forbes List, Market Watch, and Yahoo! They claimed to have an actual warehouse you could visit where your products would be stored, they said their entire team was in-house and we were contractually guaranteed to get our investment back in 2 years if the store failed to produce profit. 

It seemed like the right company to start working with...

Boy. Was I wrong. 

Truly I couldn't imagine the lengths to which this scam was orchestrated to harm the investor. Every step, down to the signing of the contract, is designed in a way to make you feel at peace before your slaughter. I felt like a cow on the conveyor belt, slowly awaiting my demise with no recourse. 

I will get to my experience soon, but first I want you to see how well they've done to conceal their intentions. 

Their Instagram page is beautiful designed, but all the comment sections for any photo or video are disabled. 

When you Google search the CEO or COO, they have carefully curated paid publications in major websites so these hits come up first. 

YouTube shows videos of Will polished up in front of fancy backdrops, attending podcasts, doing interviews... all to wrap you up in "this guy is an authority and intelligent figure on Ecommerce!" 

I mean they really sell it to you. Conversations about how he and his partner built an "8-Figure Supplement Biz" and how they've now turned that attention towards their investors, opening the flood gates of all their combined knowledge to help you succeed! 

All they do is lie, cheat, and steal from you. 

One YEAR of broken promises 

Since starting the business, here's the run down of my "partnership" investment with Ascend: 

-$40,000 to purchase the partnership. 

-$30,000 to purchase products. 

Over the lifetime of this investment here is what I've received: 

-$0 in gross revenue

-$0 in profit

-0 products listed on my store 

-2 closed Amazon stores 

-Countless hours of frustration 

Let's break down their claims one by one: 

Hands-Off Investment: 

Ascend claims that after your investment is made, and a bit of your information is entered into their system, everything else is smooth sailling! 

So far, I've had to open 2 different LLC's. Apply for licenses in Texas (where their warehouse is) and reseller certificates. I've signed up for 3 different messaging platforms to try and stay in touch with their team. I've been on a number of Zoom calls with "VIP Account Reps" to try and get the store underway. 

If you don't stay messasging them everyday, you will recieve no updates, no information as to what's happeing with your orders... nothing. Radio silence. 

Even when I did message them almost daily, it would take days or weeks even to recieve a response. 

Nothing about this is hands off. 

Profits

Ascend claims that you will make incredible profits within the first year of your store being opened. Your only limiting factor is the amount of working capital you can provide. 

After my initial sales call, the rep sent me a spreadsheet of expected store performance based on others results. His exact words were "this is pretty much what you can expect within the first year, you'll see the numbers are fantastic." 

Indeed they were. The spreadsheet showed a modest but impressive return on investment as the months compounded your working capital to allow larger product orders, resulting in more returns.

That was a lie. 

I have yet to see ONE sale. One. After a year. I will provide screenshots to back this up. 

Dedicated Customer Service Team

Ascend has a local service team, dedicated to your stores performance. We don't outsource any of our labor! 

This was actually the first thing I noticed during this scam because I use a virtual assistant team in the Philippines to help complete admin tasks with my small business. So you can imagine my reaction when they were blatantly lying about not "outsourcing labor" when their ENTIRE support team is based in the Philippines. 

Their hours are completley backwards from ours in the USA, which makes sense as to why most questions took days or weeks to respond to. 

Add to that, their team is poorly trained. They're only capable of copying and pasting prompts that have been given to them, they have no critical thought skills and make you do the most mundane tasks to get anything done. If I could only tell you the number of times they've asked me to repeat the same task over and over again because someone on their team hasn't checked the chat in weeks... 

My Attempts To Reconcile

Now as a small business owner myself, I believe that most businesses attempt to do the right thing when faced with customer complaints. Businesses have a reputation to protect and given the opportunity, they will want to protect that. I gave Ascend that same chance. 

It took many months of complaining and begging for answers, but I finally made my way up to the king scam artist himself, Will Basta. We started an email chain in October of 2022. 

I've attached screenshots of him admitting that his company failed me in so many ways. He ensured me this was a "rare and unheard of occurance" but that he and his team would make it right. 

Various discounts, additional stores, and VIP level services were promised. We were to review a few months later to check up on the progress. I felt good, I calmed my wife down... things were looking up. 

At the end of January 2023, none of the promises had been fulfilled. We still had $0 in sales, 0 products listed, and now the store was being deactivated for reasons unknown to us. 

Will offered to get on a Zoom call ASAP with his partner to sort things out. Weeks went by, no response. 

When I finally snapped off an email explaining that if I didn't recieve a respone soon, I would begin to file a lawsuit... Will suddenly reappeared and blamed me for not setting a date or time in specific with him. What a surprise. 

Zoom Call, Feb. 2023 

I finally got Will on a Zoom call in February. He was very empathetic, playing the "wolf in sheeps clothing" up to a whole new level. He explained that the company had made some major investments in new software, opening up new warehouses, and hiring a new staff. These were essentially his reasoning for failing me as an investor. 

His exacts words were "I know there's no way to earn your trust back through words, we'll just have to show you that we care about your business. Our actions will prove it." 

I was promised within 3 months the store would be up and making money, paying back my investment in no time. 

Today, May 5th. 

As I write this lengthly report, we still have not had any products delivered. We still have made $0 in sales. And now Will Basta and Jeremy Leung will no longer respond to any emails. 

I am left attempting to dispute the product purchases on my credit cards, and potentially retaining a lawyer to file suit against them. 

If anyone has experience filing suit against an online company like this, please contact me.