Is Consolidated Solutions Group Now HomeownerMedia.com?
I was cleaning off my desk this morning and came across that check I got from CSG. I’m sort of afraid to cash it because I don’t want it to bounce and cost me money. I thought I would take a quick visit to their site to check out the backoffice and see if anything new was happening. The link didn’t seem to work. What the…? I figured they were all done, but then a new website appeared. It is something called HomeownerMedia.com.
I can’t get over how many companies these guys have going on. I will see about putting together a list some day but suffice it to say, they have a lot of companies floating around the web all interlinked and referring to each other as “Strategic Partners” or some other term that implies they are not owned by the same company.
So I poked around the new site and found a way to log into th backoffice. There are some new things, some of the same things, different pay plans and still no way to contact them. So I opened a ticket asking what is going on. We’ll see if I get a reply. They haven’t sent an email out to anyone in months so I seriously doubt they plan to respond to anyone.Â
There are no doubt some very upset people who paid for the $997 (or whatever) upgrade and now are sitting there with nothing. If this describes you, I recommend contacting your State’s Attorney General, Department of Consumer Protection and/or Department of Banking. The BBB is pretty much a useless organization but you can complain there as well if you want. If you have an attorney friend, maybe you can have him/her write a letter demanding a refund since the company seems to have changed their business from what you paid for. If you don’t ask for what you want you will never get it. SPEAK UP!!!
Anyway, I thought I would continue following this company as they try to figure out how many more people they can make money off without providing any sort of customer service at all. I guess they never heard of the term “outsourcing.”
Filed under: Consolidated Solutions Group
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
Steve,
For some reason I woke up this morning wondering what ever happened to Tom Tsilionis. I haven’t had anything to do with him for a long time, but I was thinking about bad business experiences I have had online.
I Googled Tom Tsilionis today and that lead me to your blog.
I was involved with Tom and Pam Bennet a few years ago. A number of us paid $5000 for search engine portals, along with tons of traffic that Tom had access to. We never got our portals, and never got our traffic. Then Tom and Pam blamed each other for the mis-management/loss/theft of money we all gave them.
Since then I have learned to have nothing to do with either one. Because of the bad experience I recall that Tom tried to make it right by giving us free membership in CSG. I think I took him up on the offer but never put effort into it because I didn’t think it would last long term due to Tom being in charge.
I have seen partnerships, with other businesses, created by Tom suddenly separate. I think Tom has a problem with honesty and has a tendency to destroy business relationships.
In fact I remember a time when I was waiting and waiting on my portal and I emailed he and support asking what the delay in getting things setup was. I stated that I was starting to wonder if I would ever get what I paid for. Tom sent me a nasty email referring me to the contract I had signed. There was a stipulation in the contract stating that criticizing the company could result in my termination from the program with no refund of the money I had spent. Since I didn’t want to lose my money, I backed off, and ended up losing it anyway.
That’s one way Tom keeps people in line – intimidation and threats.
Tom reminds me of a snake oils salesman and the sleaziest “used car salesman” you could deal with.
So, I am not surprised you are having problems with CSG.
To any an all I would say stay away from Tom Tsilionis.
Mike
Good info. Thanks for sharing your experiences. I see they have a new website up for CSG. Anyone who is considering it as a business, watch yourselves.
I wish I had found this information sooner. I joined HomeOwner Media back in October 2007. I have never experienced anything like it. They withdrew 4 times the amount of money I authorized out of my checking account. They agreed to send it back, but as you probably guessed they lied. The lies were very elaborate.
Of course what I purchased never worked and I never received my money. Then they switched everything over to Consolidated Solutions Group and that never worked either. I literally have hundreds of emails from them and not one promise was ever delivered. They stated that HomeOwner
Media and Consolidated Solutions were 2 different companies, but they are all Tom Tsilionis. He is bad news.
@Jennifer, I agree that Tom Tsilionis is bad news. I believe he also runs a bulk email (SPAM) company that charges companies for leads and to send out their mass emails. As for Homeowner Media and Consolidated Solutions Group, my advice is to STAY AWAY! People keep stopping by to tell their story and they are all bad. What else needs to be said?
Very similar situation here. Los of promises, no delivery. Upgraded to LM2 at CSG over 2 months ago and still not completed. Always a systems issue. Then they put out an e mail looking for people to be National Account Managers. Build a team. Inherit existing people. I figure what the heck, see what happens since there is no cost. But with the lack of CSG ability to complete my upgrade, I can’t imagine this thing working. Now they say they are merging with another company in July so look forward to the announcement.
Like others have said, the programs appear to be good. But the devil is in the details and the details so far aren’t good.
I think I’m going to make a new post about CSG and Homeowner Media. I am getting a lot more emails and blog comments recently and I need to be back at the top of the SERPs for those who are searching for feedback on Consolidated Solutions Group.
Once again, here is my advice… STAY AWAY from CSG and Homeowner Media.
The guy is more than bad news. I bought his house over four years ago during the housing boom and at first glance it was a nice buy. But the work we had to do to repair all the hidden problems within the house were pretty hefty. We tried to get some restitution from him for one hidden mess and his lawyer threatened a suit. Our fault we didnt get a better inspector or lawyer at the time. So I started googling this guy. He has been a part of more companies than GE is comprised of.
A spam king is one thing he is most known for. I am surprised to see people still falling victim to him with all the bad publicity this guy gets on the net.
He has quite a snazy home which he funds with clients(victims)money….and mine from the house sale.:) I have heard other pretty nasty things about him 3rd party but I wont say what they are as I did not witness them. Plus this guy can get litigious. The big boy could read this and want to sue for slander. We still get mail for this guy’s companies 4 years later! The combined value of them all will buy you a cup of cold coffee. Lastly, he would drink Dunkin Doughnuts coffee everyday in his home office in the basement. Now our children’s playroom. Upon completion of the renovation we found in excess of 60 empty cups in a wall behind an access panel. 60 cups! He got so lazy that he couldnt even go up a half flight of stairs! He is unique, I will give him that.
Do what we did. Walk away from him. People like this, without a moral compass are capabale of much worse when backed into a corner. They honestly dont believe they have done anything wrong.
@JT – Thanks for the interesting comments. Yeah, I don’t think Tom could ever figure out who you are from this post. Not a chance. Lol.
Listen, even a rip off artist has to work hard to be good at what he does. I give Tom credit in some ways for his dedication and hard work, though I do not agree with his methods or business choices. He is ripping people off and that is not right. Getting into questionable markets, such a spamming, is one thing. Selling people something, taking their money and then not delivering is fraud and that needs to be addressed.
As far as you finding things wrong with your house after you bought it – welcome to the world of real estate. But, if you were given false information on a disclosure or were lied to about things you asked about, you may have legal options. Have you contacted an attorney, or did you just run scared when you got a threatening letter? Don’t be a pushover, call a lawyer for (free) advice.
Anybody hearing anything about the new company? Supposed to have done some type of merger. Like many, I paid my fee but never really got what was promised. Now nothing works.
I am not writing this post as a rebuttal to claims made on this blog against Tom Tsilionis. I have never been a part of CSG or HomeownerMEDIA and based on the number of claims in this post I am sure you all have a valid gripe.
The reason I am writing this post is to strictly rebuttal 1 post which is wrong and inaccurate. The post is listed above by someone named Mike and is wrong to the point where I doubt he had a portal to begin with. The only place he could of got information to blame Tom Tsilionis for the SGA portals is in a Rip Off Report which was slightly inaccurate. The person who filed that report did not know Thomas Khalsa’s last name and assumed it was Tom Tsilionis. Later on it was rebuttled correctly but Mike did not do his reading correctly.
I found this post because I found the name Pam Bennett when I did a search on google. This lady owned the company named Strategic Global Alliance with Thomas Sonar Khalsa. (After we tried to issue a lawsuit against this company the only names on the ledger were Pamela Bennett of Liberty Lake, WA and Thomas Sonar Khalsa of Arizona which you can easily find in Incorporation data online.) Thomas Tsilionis was the owner of a software firm hired by the group to fix a broken promise from Pam Bennett from a previous business she failed in called One Up Automated. 13 of the people who got ripped off on this project got money back strictly because Tom Tsilionis provided us with information to submit to Credit Card companies and form a Class Action Lawsuit which he was not named in. Thomas Tsilionis spend 3 months on conference calls with large groups of portal owners and even spoke to our attorneys to help support us.
As for anything to do with the other companies I have no clue and wish you all the best of luck. I got burned 3 times personally with Pam Bennett and never touched MLM programs again.
David Ronin
Portal: homebusinessconnect.com (2001)
I have had the same bad experience with CSG. Paid them money for LM2 level. Nothing. No response. Now I can’t get to the website. Has anyone filed any fraud actions with the government? I want to recover my money. thanks for this blog.
Can anyone confirm for me if this guy Tom is running a mass mailing company based in Phoenix, AZ? The company is called CSG, but I’m not sure if it is one and the same. They advertise a “Work From Home” program to stuff and mail envelopes from home, but they charge a processing fee of $42.00 to get started.
I knew Tom pretty well. Actually knew him by “Sotuntar” though. He signed me up to a MLM business in 1998 and worked with me diligently. I actually made headway. True, he is a smooth talker. But he attended meetings and guided us through pitfalls with favorable results. One gal in our group made a concerted effort by setting up a phone room to reach many people. The product was a great one and Sotuntar helped us learn phone scripts and helped us with rebuttals. He was knowledgeable about the product and so did we become. That business fell through the cracks but not because of Sotuntar. He came through for me. I’ve moved on to start a successful publishing company. If I could find Sotuntar I’d hire him in a heartbeat.
@Jeff – Interesting story. I agree that Tom did a great job for CSG and is certainly a hard worker if nothing else. If I had a company that needed a front man to BS all my agents/members/clients I would hire him too.