While a reader asked us to post about an upcoming local event, which we do as a community courtesy when asked, another reader alerted us that this seemed sketchy and predatory, which after closer inspection, seems to be the case.
So we took the post down, and instead are doing this post and article as a disclaimer.
The initial reader called it a “Life changing event,” in her email header, included her phone number as well as several photos, one a flyer for “Heroes of America,” to be held at the Peppermill from January 27th to the 30th.
The main speaker, who initially caught our attention as random enough, is promised to be “former mob boss” Michael Franzese. According to Wikipedia, he was a caporegime in the Colombo crime family, before serving time and then after his release, becoming a motivational speaker and writer.
The initial reader also sent us the logo of the PHP Agency, which has hands reaching for each other in a red circle and the line an Integrity Company underneath. PHP is an acronym for People Helping People.
A search for the event leads to an Instagram post from the upgrade_mcg page which calls itself “Team Monsoon.”
The intent is vague. The post reads: “We’re bringing the energy, the passion, and the thunder to Heroes of America 2025!”
That account links back to Antonio McGowan, who has mostly tacky memes, AI generated content and inspirational posts. He lists himself as an entrepreneur and “a agent [sic]” with @PHP.
The PHP Agency Facebook, which has a tag line of “fastest growing financial services marketing organization” has posts such as one celebrating a man and woman from Van Nuys becoming $100,000 “ring earners.”
Its page exclusively features people of color.
Going to the Internet at large, a Glassdoor review that comes up indicates: “They target college students and low income families who they know will buy into the scam. They are dishonest and charge your card without asking you…”
A recent reddit poster wrote in ALL CAPS: “PHP AGENCY PREYS ON YOUNG MINORITIES CLAIMING THEY ARE HELPING THEM!! RUN AND DON'T LOOK BACK!!”
On social media and YouTube, the agency hypes up its events to the nth degree. “Biggest event,” “turning dreams into reality,” “historical big event,” “the new force awakens,” “the financial industry will never be the same” are some of the words used in its headlines.
Its website has three categories: About Us, Become an Agent and Get Life Insurance.
A Wikipedia search traces the founding of the PHP agency to 2009, describing it as a multi-level marketing company selling life insurance and financial services.
Its founder is Iranian-American businessman Patrick Bet-David. His Wikipedia page indicates PHP Agency was acquired by Integrity, another so-called MLM company in 2022.
The related PHP Debt Solutions company also seems to focus less on the services offered and more on PHP agents, who according to their website “are helping families get out of debt faster and getting their new agents paid before they are licensed.” Videos linked on the front page focus on agent techniques rather than debt repayments.
Detailed analysis of PHP by other journalists has revealed profits are more reliant on recruitment fees of new agents promising them high earnings, than actually selling insurance and debt related products, which is mostly done to the close friends and families of the agents themselves.
A post on Reddit was extremely revealing as to their tactics, recounting in detail how they got recruited to a meeting where they were asked to go dressed business casual.
“One person at the door asked me who invited me then gave me a name-tag, then after everyone got checked in and settled down, hype man came to the front of the room snd started hyping everyone one up, bunch of people on their phones recording as if he was a celebrity. They did this weird as cheer where they hold their hand up in the air and yell at the top of their lungs then pull their hand down and yell BOOM! Then they yell PHP Million Point Base Shop (all of this at the top of their lungs while recording on their phones) then each little section of the room yells out PHP and their little team name all loud at once, so it's a cacophony of sound. Then a senior "agent" does a little presentation and say how they work with many of the big insurance companies (nationwide, foresters, etc...) and they start naming CEO of Starbucks and Walmart and say that we can be the CEO of our own business. Afterwards, the main hype man takes the people who were invited into a separate room and sit us down (about 20-30 people) all facing him where he pulls down a projector screen and gives us the speech and his story. Said that he was a working as a bartender, living paycheck to paycheck, stressed out about money, partying everyday, until he found PHP and now he's more financially independent, has a big house, a corvette and the big rings that PHP gives after you hit a certain money in sales and. a rolex as well for the same things all from the company and that he's been in paid vacations all paid by PHP. He says that the real scam is a 9-5 working 40 hours a week for 40 years, and you can't be the CEO of the company you work with, but if you join PHP you can make all this money part time (big emphasis on part time) and you can be the "owner" of your own business and make as much income as you want! Never talked about the product, jut that they sell insurance and how everyone NEEDS it and that the company is on a "crusade" (yes, he used that word) to get as many people insured as possible because 'it's not about the money," but about educating people and getting them more financially literate. Then when the little sales pitch is over they send us to the up-line of the person who invited up to "interview" us. Told me the price of $150 and that it's a huge opportunity and that I was selected out of many people for a chance to work with them, even though everyone who was in the room was told the same thing cause they interviewed us in the courtyard of the office building so I can hear the other conversations. I told her I didn't have any money to pay and they asked if I can borrow cause this opportunity will pay back. The person who invited me came to talk to me and said she'll pay for it if I paid her back then I agreed cause I was desperate to make money. Then they give you forms to get your welcome package in the mail which is what the $150 is for. The welcome package is a small booklet with graphics of the pitch that was given to us, basically a sales pitch to give other people to join, and a cheap little usb drive that was branded PHP with "training material" which was just a couple of audio files of people high in the company talking about PHP and giving us a script to use on people to get them to buy or join (all those audio files are on youtube for free). There's a lot more, I still have the usb drive sand some videos recorded of their "meetings" which were mandatory to attend every thursday. There is more they pressure you to do and buy, like $250 for big event, which they hype up so much and basically tell you that if you don't go, you don't care about your business and won't get the "valuable training" from the top people in the company.”