Wow, that's crazy. Sorry to hear that you lost that much dough. They are sleazy and people like this make me sick!!!! Anyway to shut them down?
I couldn't live with myself if things went down like that. Even if I went into lifelong debt, I'd make sure people who were involved with my venture got paid!
You are right. There are countless losers and predators out there. I'm lucky I made my mistakes very young in life when I didn't have much money to lose! I got involved with one of those MLM scams. Never again! And being I work in the computer field, I can spot scams and BS-artists a mile away!