7:00 AM B-17 to Augusta
March 4, 20193-D instrument approaches
April 25, 2019I just got this from a customer named Adrian Clayton recently regarding FlyThisSim:
Dear Austin,
I hope you are well. Your name is ubiquitous with flying and simulation and I could think of no better person to ask about sim construction.
I am a PPL from South Africa that has been looking to improve my flying and for years researched flight simulators – I am too busy at my normal job and not technical enough to build my own, so I finally decided to purchase a Flythissim sim in November 2018. Unfortunately they have not delivered the product and neither have they refunded my purchase price, Flythissim seem to be defrauding other pilots too. I expect to never recover my $13500.
Thanks for your time,
Best, Adrian
Normally, I wouldn’t bat an eye at this type of thing, because who knows what the other side of the story is, but then I took a quick glance that the letter from this guys’ lawyer, and a few things started to sound enragingly familiar to me:
To:
FlythisSIm Technologies Inc
3534 Empleo, Suite B
San Luis, CA93401
PER EMAIL: revenueservices@flythissim.com // sales@flythissim.com
Dear Sirs
NON-DELIVERY OF PRODUCT: YOUR INVOICE #3563 – 11/27/2018
- We represent Mr. Adrian Clayton, a businessman of the City.
- Our client instructs that:
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- Commencing 23rd November 2018 he engaged in correspondence with you in regard to the purchase of a TouchTrainer TTVISMOTION.
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- Following your confirmation of price and a production time of 8 (eight) weeks you, on the 27th November 2018, issued to our client invoice number 3563 for payment of the sum of USD13 375.00.
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- He, on the 28th November 2018, effected payment to you of the said amount.
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- Following further correspondence relating to cost of delivery and other aspects our client on the 11th January 2019 wrote to you reminding you that the agreed delivery date was two weeks hence and requesting collection point information for the upliftment of the simulator.
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- A day later you responded apologizing for shipping “delays” in respect of the delivery and advising that delivery to you of parts of the product had been delayed but would be arriving “any day now”.
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- Two weeks later on the 28th January 2019 our client requested a status report and again wrote to you on the 16th February detailing concerns as to your ability or intention to honour your obligation to deliver the simulator to him, such concerns being based on information available to our client regarding customers of yours who were having similar experiences. Our client requested a refund of the purchase price and provided his bank details.
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- Despite further correspondence including promises by you that the simulator was close to completion, you have neither shipped the simulator to our client nor effected payment;
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- The last correspondence from you was on the 22 March 2019 where you indicated that a refund request had been given to your accounting department and, from your head of sales this vague statement “I am working on getting some information so that I can let you know when you can expect a refund”.
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- Our client telephoned on the 26th March 2019 when he spoke to a Michael who directed him to your CEO Roland Pinto, who has not responded to any of our client’s messages.
- As you will note from the above and a reading of your own correspondence our client’s experience with you has been one of “here any day” and “any day now” excuses and a failure to honour any of your promises.
This is familiar to me because last year FlyThisSim, apparently headed by Roland Pinto, bought $18,800 of X-Plane from us on 30-day payment terms, and though we shipped them the inventory upon receipt of order, we never got any payment.
Instead, we got… this from Gabe Kaufman and then Roland Pinto of FlyThisSim:
And then this from Roland Pinto of FlyThisSim:
I NOW KNOW THAT THESE ARE THE TEXTS OF A PERSON THAT IS CONSISTENTL LYING:
And that is where Roland stopped communicating.
As of May 20, 2019, about 6 months after the text string above stopped, payment has not arrived.
Then I was shown these over at a Cirrus message board:
And it continues. I recently got a phone call from someone who knows Roland claiming that Roland Pinto does this type of thing over and over and over again. Here are just a few cases that this person found:
Mr. Pinto was involved with a company called Abzoo.com that was publicized as having scammed people as far back as 2009.
A posting on the ScamBook.com website details a complaint as follows:
Complaint 303326 Details
Date Occurred: 02/16/2009 Reported Damages: $60,000.00 Username: Roland Pinto
Email: rolandpinto@gmail.comLocation: who knows !
Unfortunately we have all been a victim of a scam from someone named Roland Pinto. He goes around the country opening up businesses and stealing money from people.
Just google his name and you will see how many law suites there are against him, but he just runs from state to state.
Someone sent the following to me, asking for anonymity:
Mr. Pinto purchased a previously reputable flight simulator company called “FlyThisSim” (FTS) when the original owners of the company were seeking investors in order to improve their capitalization and expand their product line.
- Mr. Pinto made empty promises to FTS employees that all of them would be allowed to enroll in flight training to be paid by The Meiya Group, and made promises to the original owners they would remain the operational leaders of the company.
- When the original owners of FTS were awaiting payment for the portion of the company sold to Roland Pinto, Mr. Pinto insisted that those owners open bank accounts in Singaporein order to make the transfer of the acquisition funds “easier”. The original FTS owners didas they were told, but full payment did not arrive even after numerous conversations and demands for payment.
- Mr. Pinto took possession of FTS company assets before the full sale price was ever paid to the original owners of the company, then he drained the FlyThisSim bank account leaving the company unable to fulfill orders that were already in their production pipeline.
- Mr. Pinto continued to accept down-payments from customers for new FTS simulators, despite the fact that the production of new simulators had been halted due to lack of available funds for purchasing parts and supplies.
- Numerous complaints can be found on the FlyThisSim Facebook page from customers who have paid money and either not received their simulators, or received inoperable devices.
- In May of 2019, the Cirrus Owners and Pilots Association (COPA) released an advisory to all existing and potential customers of FlyThisSim that any dealings with this company should be consider a high-risk endeavor.
Mr. Pinto purchased a previously reputable organization named AV-ED Flight School from Dr. Donald Robb when Dr. Robb sought to retire due to his advanced age. AV-ED Flight School operated two airport locations, one in Leesburg Virginia, and another in Winchester Virginia.
- From the earliest days of Pinto’s takeover of AV-ED Flight School, the owners of leaseback aircraft started to complain that leaseback payments were either arriving months late, or not arriving at all. In the years when Dr. Don Robb operated the school, the leasebackpayments were exactly on time, and exactly correct, over a period of decades. After Pinto’stakeover, through direct observations from inside the AV-ED operation, it was noted that Pinto refused to allow any employees other than himself to validate and approve leaseback payments. But at the same time, Pinto refused to make time to perform this work. The result is leaseback payments were, in some cases, 12 months late, and even then – only partially paid. Over that period of time, many aircraft owners removed their aircraft from the AV-ED leaseback fleet, but many conceded that the cost of any legal action against Pinto would exceed the amounts owed, so they simply walked away without their money.
- Under Mr. Pinto’s guidance, AV-ED Flight School engaged in the practice of purchasing fuel on credit from the ProJet FBO at Leesburg Airport, but then allowed the bill to accumulate over many months to the point that the ProJet refused to sell any more fuel to the school until the existing debt was resolved. Mr. Pinto reacted by directing flight instructors to fly (with their students) to nearby airports in order to purchase fuel there (also on credit).
- Mr. Pinto failed to pay rent for the AV-ED office space inside the Leesburg airport for an extended period of time (estimates are that the time was between 12-24 months of unpaid rent, totaling over $100,000 for one office alone). Despite repeated demands for payment, the Town of Leesburg had to resort to extraordinary measures by issuing a draft out of the AV-ED bank account in order to resolve part of the debt. The amount that the town drafted was not sufficient to cover the entire debt, so additional extraordinary measures were employed so that all credit card transactions initiated by the flight school were garnished via an arrangement with the school’s credit card processor, and proceeds were sent directly to the Town of Leesburg.
- As a result of the bank draft described above, many AV-ED employee paychecks bounced in the spring of 2019. Mr. Pinto sent out a company-wide email claiming that there had been fraud in the bank account. It is potentially possible that the bounced paychecks were the result of the bank draft coordinated by the Town of Leesburg, and possibly the moment Mr. Pinto came to the realization that the bank draft had occurred.
- In April of 2019, the Leesburg Airport Commission held a public meeting to discuss how to proceed regarding the upcoming expiration of leases held by AV-ED Flight School and The Meiya Group for office space inside the Leesburg airport. The airport Commissioner openly revealed the extraordinary methods employed by the town of Leesburg to recover unpaid rent from Pinto, and generally discussed the amounts of money owed. In response, Pinto (present at the meeting) claimed that the unpaid rent was the result of “checks going to the wrong place”, although the commission challenged Pinto that this explanation could notaccount for 12-24 months of unpaid rent despite numerous attempts at collection.
- Mr. Pinto convinced the owner of a company named “Cycle Aviation”, located at Leesburg Airport, to allow one of Pinto’s companies in California to become its parts supplier.
- Mr. Pinto claimed that his maintenance organization named “Sterling Aviation” operating out of Buchannan Field in Concord California was an already established business that was fully capable of acting as a parts supplier. However, in a well-publicized video found on YouTube from an aircraft owner in Concord California named Dennis Noble, numerous problems with the parts and workmanship performed by Sterling Aviation are described in great detail and with extensive documentation.
- Many aircraft started to languish while in the care of Cycle Aviation at Leesburg Airport because parts were not arriving quickly enough from Sterling Aviation. Aircraft were frequently stuck in the repair hangar in various states of disassembly awaiting parts on order from Sterling Aviation. In statements from a former employee, it was discovered that Sterling Aviation often had no wholesale agreements with manufacturers, and were obtaining parts at retail prices from vendors around the country, then marking them up for re-sale to Cycle Aviation, who then passed the inflated cost on to customers in the their repair invoices. Consequently, Cycle Aviation’s prices were rising in comparison to othermaintenance shops in the region.
- Other flight schools at Leesburg Airport were finding it increasingly difficult to get repairs done at Cycle Aviation because the repair hangar was filled with partially disassembledaircraft from Pinto’s AV-ED Flight School, all awaiting parts from Pinto’s Sterling Aviation“parts supplier” business in California.
- The long lead times for parts, and the inability of other aircraft owners to get into the repair queue at Cycle Aviation started to cause financial distress for the owner of Cycle Aviation. Mr. Pinto offered to resolve the financial distress by buying Cycle Aviation from the owner. The owner agreed to the sale for an undisclosed amount. Subsequently, Mr. Pinto changed the name of Cycle Aviation to Sterling Aviation, and purchased a large illuminated sign for the outside of the maintenance hangar.
And it goes on. I just got these emails from people that read this post:
I recently bought the software Simavio Pro ($1.500). I’ve been trying contact with FlyThisSim, but I didn’t get any answer. After reading all the text written above, I can see I won’t receive the product. Am I right?
Regards;
Guilherme
Austin, has anyone done any more research on this? I too have been frustrated with Roland’s non response responses to issues I am having?
I am wondering if COPA or AOPA should be advocating for its members in this regard. The product seems good, the ownership dismal.
Any suggestions for those of us unfortunate enough to be in this situation?
And it continues. I just got this from someone asking for anonymity:
“General statement by me:
Roland is unethical, dishonest, a pathological liar and a narcissist. Do not be threatened by him. He will not follow through on any threats made by him. He proved this time and time again. His criminal report shows him as the defendant on all cases. If ihe ever attempts to sue anyone or file any report against someone else, he will have to reveal himself to the justice system that has attempted to track him down on about $500,000 in judgements over the previous 20 years.
He never filed tax returns for FlyThisSim Technologies, excusing himself for this because “we won’t be reporting profit anyway”. He collected California sales tax, but never remitted this to the state of California. I reminded him many times of his obligations to so.
Here are some other examples of his actions:
Feb 13th, 2018 The name Freeman H Welch was listed on Roland’s criminal record. He won a case for $32,000. I found his phone number with a Google search. He is a senior VP Wells Fargo advisors in Long Beach. Freeman’s son was Roland’s right hand man in a computer business call Flybook. He loaned his son the money. His son loaned the money to Roland. Roland never paid him back, so Freeman sued. Freeman never received the money that is still owed to him. Freeman said he his shady, slippery, intelligent, a con man… etc.. If Roland ever buys a house, gets a job, or tried to get a loan, the judgment will automatically garnish money from him to pay the lawsuit. Freeman almost lost his marriage over the ordeal. His son is now doing well, still working with computers. I told Freeman all about my troubles with Roland. We shared condolences.
Feb 8th, 2018 Roland transfers $150,000 mysteriously out of the FTST bank account into a Meiya “holding” account due to Roland’s claim that the accounts were altered by an unknown source. No more detail was provided. He then froze all debit cards except for Teri’s. All of this was done without warning or informing anyone prior. Further note added later (The 150k was never returned to the FTST account)
May 24th, 2018
4pm Roland shows up at the office in total surprise and with no warning with a letter that he accepts my resignation. we go around and around the block talking. I press him with many questions, what are you trying to do? Why not pay vendors? Why not give returns to customers? He says that he only sees the finances on a very high level and does not make the payments.”
And it goes on.
I have info from about 3 more people beyond those mentioned here that have been defrauded by Roland Pinto that do not want to make any public mention of their loss.
And someone set up a fake linked in page for him, outlining what they have apparently observed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roland-pinto-54770b1b3
austin