Complaint Review: James Recchia - mesa Arizona

In February of 2010, my husband was looking for a career change. After surfing through craigslist, he found a restaurant for sale in east Mesa. James Recchia was the seller, and although he had a listing agent, he convinced my husband it would be best for everyone to do a private sale. (turns out he wanted to cut the listing agent out to make a bigger profit for himself) My husband inquired, liked the place, thought it was a fair price and made the deal.

After a month of negotiations, contract signing, and other miscellaneous agreements, my husband became the owner of Bella Pizza in Mesa, on March 8th, 2010. Part of the purchase contract included all assets (inventory) all recipes, slogans, and the corporation name. My husband, got his own tax id numbers, removed James from the corporation, started a new merchant account, and new surety bonds. Also included in the selling contract, was a signed form, stating that James would be financialy responsible for any and all debt accrued by Bella Pizza prior to March 8, 2010. 

James did have a co-owner for Bella Pizza, this person Juan Riccelli was lied to by James about the final sale price of the business. I personally witnessed this lie, and know for a fact that the co-owner was given less than $5,000, for his share of the sale, when in fact he should have been given more than $15,000.00.

This is where the fun begins. About two weeks after my husband took over Bella Pizza, we started receiving phone call from debt collectors. We explained to each and every one where James new business location was, stated he was no longer the owner of Bella Pizza and so on. We also received debt collector calls for money Juan still owed.  After a call from the City of Mesa tax department, we contacted James due to the fact that at the request of the city, he had to sign a document stating he was responsible for taxes due January 2010 - March  2010.  He willingly signed the form, and said don't worry about the other phone calls, he was taking care of his debt.

After requesting a new copy of the lease from the property manager, for the property Bella Pizza was located on, we discovered, that although the original copy of the lease provided by James, had numbered pages, subpages, and appeared intact, the last page was actually missing. The last page was an inventory list, that had equipment owned by the property manager and was part of the lease. We discovered a point of sale system, a meat slicer, and various miscellaneous items were in fact missing from the premises.  (the missing inventory still holds a value of over $3,000.00, that according to the lease my husband is now responsible for) One of our employess, who was also employed my James prior to the sale of the business signed a notorized statement stating she witnessed James remove the items from the property, and proceed to sell them on craigslist.

Through the missing inventory discovery, we were still receiving debt collector calls. Most collectors worked with us, and simply stated they just wanted their money. After giving James location and phone number, they left us alone. There were a few vendors that James owed money to, that would not do business with us, due to the debt  James accrued, and the fear that we were not being honest that he was no longer a part of the business. We even had customers state that they only started coming in after hearing there were new owners, and that James was no longer around. After a year and a half we have doubled our business due to good customer service, good food, and the fact that James is longer a part of Bella Pizza. 

On September 23, 2010, after checking our business bank account, my husband discovered that the account was almost $700.00 negative. Wondering why, he called the bank and was told they could not help us, there was a legal issue with the account. The account was frozen, and he was instructed to call the lawyer that placed the hold on the account. After a lengthy conversation, and numerous phone calls to the lawyer, we found out that James had racked up more than $4,000.00 worth of service, from a food vendor called Sysco.  The law firm in charge of collecting the debt for Sysco, filed judgement on Bella Pizza for the outstanding debt. At some point James was served with judgement papers, and although he was no longer the owner of Bella Pizza, and had no affiliation whatsoever, signed for the documents, hence "being served". Of course my husband and I had no knowledge of this judgment as we the true owners, were never served. Due to non payment of the outstanding debt, a freeze/garnishment was placed on our account. 

Within 24 hours the freeze has caused  $100 in insufficient funds fees, $125.00 was taken out for processing fees, by the lawyer who placed the freeze, and numerous auto payments, have hit the account, bringing the negative balance to over $1,000.00. The freeze began on Friday which is also payday. Employees have not been paid, food vendors have payment checks, that will bounce on Monday, and my husband is not able to cash his paycheck as well which means, we will not be able to pay our mortgage for our house this month. There is no money to put gas in our cars, and the list goes on.

I personally have received phone calls on my personal cell phone from debt collectors, stating that James gave them my number to set up payment arrangements. I am not listed on the business, and have no financial authority . The debts the phone calls are about, are all prior to the sale of the business, as many phone calls as I get I feel I am being harrassed.

James fraudulently signed a bill of sale, knowing he would never pay his debt. He has since opened another pizza place in Phoenix, called Slice of Bella, using the corporation name he sold to my husband, and then with in months failed and had to close the business. He proceeded to open another business called Jimmy J's, which also failed, and went out of business. He is now at a new business in Mesa called 99 cent pizza place, which I am sure will also fail, and close within a few months. I have personal knowledge of a company that does direct mail, that James attempted to do advertising business with, but had excuse after excuse as to why he had not made the initial payment for service. So he is in business less than a month, and is already trying to rack up debt, that he has no intentions on paying for. 

Each business that James has had, he had a "partner". New person every business. I now refer to these people as his "victims", because James will destroy their credit , and they will never be able to go into business for themselves, because of the bad reputation they will end up with. James is a snake, trying any get rich quick scheme he can come up with, but due to his lack of talent in the food industry, he will never be successful. 

As of today, my husband and I are seeking legal counsel in consideration of the fact, that James voided his contract with my husband, because of the lies, and the outstanding debt. He therefore owes my husband the full purchase price of Bella Pizza. Anyone else who has been burnt by him should contact an attorney as soon as possible. The more people come out and tell their story, the less likely James will be able to continue his long line of Fraud!