Published on November, 2021 | Updated on regular basis | Google Analytics shows traffic growth
Glenn LaFaye, a poker player (LinkedIn) and Frank Rosenberg, two friends and business partners, hired our agency to do a WallStreetNFTs project (later was rebranded to DA CHAMPS and on OpenSea they have two collections DA CHAMPS and SYMBOL TREASURES), and after almost 4 months of hard work and numerous jumping and changing business ideas and directions, and when project was practically ready to go live, they decided not to pay us and abandoned us. Looks like from their last messages, they will never pay and to help other agencies and freelancers getting scammed by Glenn and Frank, publishing our story online.
Hopefully someone will find this page and will decide not to work with these dishonest and fraudulent people!
Reasons we are publishing this scam story:
So, here is a long story...
It all started in May 2021 when friend of mine contacted me and asked if we are interested in a new project related to recent craze with NFTs, and he introduced me to Frank Rosenberg and his business partner Glenn LaFaye. And after a long Zoom call with them, they told me that they don't know for sure what they want, but after some brainstorming, we agreed that they want to have white label NFT marketplace, something similar to OpenSea, and the name of their project was WallStreetNFTs, and they registered a domain name https://wallstreetnfts.io for this project (it is getting forwarded to https://dachamps.com/ now, and looks like they changed the name).
Glenn and Frank are not very technical, but Glenn said that he wants to have Amazon AWS as a hosting provider, because it is biggest and strongest cloud provider on the planet, and he asked us to setup backend on AWS. Main reason why he wanted AWS is to impress investors and he wanted that project would look strong under Technical Due Diligence. He created AWS account and gave access and we set up EC2 instances with production and development environments, monitoring tools, backup, and other AWS services.
When we were done with Amazon AWS setup, Glenn asked us to start working on the logo for the WallStreetNFTs project. We made some initial versions, to try to get a feel and direction, hoping that some of them Glenn and Frank would like, and here are some of them (we made many more versions later):
Glenn asked to create a landing page with a countdown without giving much graphics nor text, so landing page was created with countdown as Glenn asked.
After going live with a landing page, it was clear that project needs a logo, and there was none.
Again Zoom call we collected requirements for the WallStreetNFTs logo, Glenn wanted metal, bold text, picture frame, shadow, painted NFTs... We said that this is too much for a logo, but he insisted and we started to make and show different prototypes, and hoped that by looking at them they would realize that to have so many things in a logo, would be too much.
And some of his responses:
Glenn sent link to NBA Top Shot, said that he likes this site and wants site which we are building to "have look and feel of NBA Top Shot site with the wallstreetnfts spin".
New business requirements from Glenn -- having fake transactions. He explained that in order for new NFT project to take off, there needs to be fake NFT transactions, so that users see that people buy their stuff. Explained to him that he can make as many ETH wallets as he wants/needs and buy all his NFTs if he wants to.
We demoed admin and frontend of the white label NFT store, showed how to add products, and how to set prices, upload images, select which NFTs are shown to the world. He checked and came back with long list of text and design improvements and changes.
Glenn sent first Apple, Tesla WallStreetNFTs NFT, asked to take a look and give feedback.
We went over existing site, and we came up with a plan and list of changes. Glenn added a page which will show your NFTs which you currently own, integration with Metamask, and support for editions, we agreed that all these changes to implement and check and fix bugs will take few weeks.
More issues and questions from artists about sizes and resolutions and format, we discuss, we have a call about this, made a table, we explained as we could. We went over video transcoding, video resizing and video conversions for some time.
In our Telegram chat, out of the blue Tim Mesker was invited to our Telegram chat groups, who said that he is a tech advisor for the project, and asked many questions about how are we building and what are we using. We explained technicalities, strange that this 'tech advisor' was silent for 2 months while we were building stuff, and now all of the sudden he wanted to know how are we building it.
We demoed a new version with new features and abilities, showed backend admin and frontend, we asked for testing everything and get with a feedback. And after some time, we got from them list of bugs with mobile layout, which we fixed and asked to test again. Glenn tried to buy NFTs but run into problems, because we were using Ethereum Rinkeby testnet, and he was using a real Ethereum network.
We went over recent demo, Glenn still had trouble connecting to test network and we helped him to get to the right network and get test Ethereum for test purchases.
New functionality comes in from Glenn - he asks for ability to sell your NFTs. We tell him that adding new features slows down the release, he understands this, but still wants new features to be implemented, with addition to changes to existing features and abilities.
Glenn told that we have a new team member, she will go over the project, analyze it and gets back with visual changes and improvements. We have a call with her where we answered bunch of questions to her about the projects, tell her how things were built and how they supposed to work. We agreed that she will use Figma to make design changes.
All of the sudden, Glenn tells that someone told him that Amazon AWS is too expensive and that we should host everything on Digital Ocean. He asked to compare prices and get back to him with real numbers. After some research, got back to him with prices and EC2 instance which we were using on AWS was cheaper than instance on Digital Ocean, and Glenn said that we shouldn't move to Digital Ocean then.
For some days, nothing from Sam with Figma like we discussed, asked or corrections, Glenn tells they are not ready and they are rethinking the strategy, asked to keep whatever we can improve. Glenn tells that 'Sam is giving us a presentation on strategy and look tomorrow', so very soon we should get something specific.
Glenn:
Spoke with Sam for a while yesterday. She strongly suggest we use OpenSea for the original launch and continue building site on backend as you are doing now next stage. Can we chat about this later today? Suggestion is build site....and for launch have people "mint" on our site and then the nfts show up in their opensea account. Continue to build back end as we are doing now and then move to our own martetplace second stage
We have a long call about this, we were trying to understand the logic, and Glenn tells:
The main reason is that initial launches are all happening on OpenSea. Opensea is not the same as it was 3 months ago massive volume. Want to continue to build our own marketplace as planned....
Reminded Glenn that we have and never had anything against using OpenSea store, but Glenn's original business requirements were:
Told him that if his business goals/rules have changed, no problem, let’s open OpenSea store, and he can do it any day and he desn’t need much development for this. And his reply was:
We still want our own site as planned... just the initial launch on OpenSea!
Sam told Glenn about rarity.tools website where one can see upcoming and all currently active NFT projects, and said that most of them just have Mint button and nothing else.
Glenn tells that Sam is working on new logo, that our current logo is bad and she will give us new logo soon:
She showed us multiple logo's yesterday... we choose a style we liked and now she is having another version made. For launch we thinking 40 ART PIECES TO START... ABOUT 2000-2400 for sale on initial launch. say .09 per piece....users hit mint and get a piece randomly. Then site has road map on it so collectors can see what is coming next. Site has 3d gallery which is being worked on here....then when backend is working we can have our own marketplace on second launch of next batch
We agree that current NFT store we put aside and we working on new site, with completely new set of goals and requirements.
Frank wrote:
Our launch technique is being tweaked to take advantage of current situation. Often when you set put to hours somewhere you end up someplace else. Reference Mr Columbus! This is a good thing we stay flexible as we learn much better than being stubborn! We will together get to a good place and give ourselves a chance for success. LOL!! Worms in the can are indeed around every corner!
Glenn sent bunch of links, and different projects, asks to make research and come up with the plan and start working on the new site asap.
So, we spent bunch of time on a weekend going over rarity.tools projects, and links Glenn sent, we asked when Sam will make Figma files with look and feel and new logo, so we can make new website, Glenn said 'soon, soon...'
Glenn sent Mad Banana project, and asked to take it apart, see how it is working, what smart contract is behind this project. We said that we will work on taking Mad Banana apart and will wait for Sam's Figma files and designs.
Told Glenn that we will do the website and smart contract and integration with Metamask, but someone will need to make all these NFTs, this is huge work and they all should be in the same style. Glenn said not to worry about this:
We will take care of the art.... art is on our shoulders! don't give it a second thought
We started developing new website, took something from previous project, started playing with Minting and smart contracts, kept Glenn and Frank in the loop.
Asked Glenn when we can expect Figma files from Sam, and he said:
Sam can have a zoom tomorrow 8am nyc time to share design layouts. Does that work for you?
Then next day Glenn wrote that:
Sam pushed it back to later today...sorry for not sending this sooner. So spoke with same and she is 100% confirmed for 8am Friday NYC time,,,, please let me know if that works and we will send zoom invite.. spoke with Sam.
Sam finally showed her designs and new logo, explained how everything should work together. We asked questions, got all the info we needed and told that we will be implementing given designs.
Glenn wrote that he wants to have a call again and go over everything they sent us:
Can we have a call tomorrow to discuss what we sent today? 8am nyc time?
Glenn sent over bunch of files of NTFs to take a look and give feedback.
We were able to get Minting to work on testnet, updated Glenn about our progress, told him that he can test this as well. Glenn was able to Mint as well. Tim helped to test minting as well, asked for test eth to do more testing:
Tim: Can you send me enough to test with here? I'll do some debugging myself too..
After some time playing with the Minting, Tim had no issues with minting:
Tim: I got apple #2, worked perfectly for me. OpenSea is being a little strange, it displays the video in the collection view but not in the individual asset view
Glenn notices after minting that some NTFs have black lines around them, we investigated and found that they do exist only in certain resolutions. And Glenn wrote that more changes are coming to the site:
Glenn: Sam is sending website design stuff this morning....we are going to be making changes to the copy
Glenn promises to send more changes and asking about the verdict of testing:
Glenn: Sam sending over within the hour, so what is the verdict of this mornings testing? are we close?
Tim: I'll work with Glenn over the weekend to get various github repos setup, will circle back about it Monday
Strange communication with Tim about deployment and CDN and other technicalities:
Tim: We have spoken before. I apologize that it was not made clear my role in the project. I am the technical advisor for Glenn and Frank. I have been advising the requirements they have been giving you since the beginning. I've been hands off because you guys are doing a good job with the requirements I have been giving to Glenn and Frank. I'm not trying to be hostile here or interrupt any existing processes. I'm simply trying to lay out the production requirement for having the final launch be on our CDN, since it is difficult for Glenn and Frank to relay these details in a way that won't cause confusion. I'm very straight forward in how I write, please don't take it as hostility. We're all on the same team, working towards the same goal.
Glenn was happy with the result:
Glenn: yes... good start.... first glance.... need to raise the wallst sign to block out the new you stock exchange on building also want the carousel of artwork visible on front page
Glenn sends bunch of changes and text corrections.
Previously Glenn said that all graphics is on them and not to worry about it, but now he wants us to generate NFTs from files they are sending us. Told him that we will need to have a script that will generate whatever is needed, but we need to have all right graphics and elements.
We were testing with storing NFTs and metadata on IPFS, but Tim wrote:
Tim: Just a thought on the NFT file quality: since they will not be on IPFS, you could serve a GIF version with OpenSea metadata and the full quality MP4 version on the site itself. People won't notice on OpenSea and they will appreciate the quality increase.
Us: why do you think they shouldn't be on IPFS?
Tim: Philosophically, I would love for them to be on IPFS. But I don't see a simple way to structure the metadata return function that lets that work without huge gas fees. All the new launches I see are just pointing to Google CDN for the most part. I think we could launch on our servers or a CDN or whatever, then once all of the NFTs are minted, do a single update URI transaction pointing to a pinned IPFS directory containing the same metadata. Just suggestions to consider.
So, new features are come in again. This time Glenn wanted to have a Withdraw function from smart contract to get profits, which would automatically split according to the profit sharing table.
Glenn changed texts again, header and footer changes. We demo profit sharing function, gave all instructions to Glenn how to test it out.
You have 8 chose 3=56 possible stamp combination 8 chose 2 = 28 8 chose 1= 8 8 chose 0= 1 total 84 produces 93 possible combinations 17 color possibilities 93X17=1581 possibilities 5 possible frames 4 colors and one with none 5X1581=7905 Stamps can be black or white but let’s not consider that a trait at this point. We will need 400 random choices from 7905 possibilities for now on each of 25 different images. 25 is simply working number for now. Am I being clear?
Frank sends more images "just for reference" and tells to go and search for images using Google Images.
TRAITS Art Type Collage Still Life Animation VIgnette Symbol Color 1 2-17 Number of Stamps 3 2 1 NONE Stamp Type Disrupter Iconic Big tech Blue chip Cult Preferred Buyback DAO SPACE FAANG MEME EXHIBITION FRAME COLOR WOOD GOLD SILVER NONE Audio Sound No Sound Symbol Full list. Only the 3 frames gold silver and wood frame should be thin strip around image unobtrusive. Do you need me to send photos of gold Etc. It is only important that they look different than one another
He wrote:
Only the 3 frames gold silver and wood frame should be thin strip around image unobtrusive. Do you need me to send photos of gold Etc. It is only important that they look different than one another
This is Mona without frame and with frame it is a small detail. We can just make them 3 different colors I thought a bit of texture would be interesting. Just there to help with unique iterations
Wood, silver, Gold a little thicker than Monas but not much. That will be it.
Wrote to them:
We are still waiting for border images from you. And since I can't give to my team tasks on this project, switching to a different project for now.
Glenn and Frank told that they they are hiring someone else who will work on the project. Told them we have no problem, offered transition of all our work to the new team, and Glenn said he doesn't need anything, new person will do everything from scratch.
We wrote Glenn that we would like to get paid for all these work, which we did for the last 4 months, asked for $16K. And in response got:
Glenn: We think the price is high considering the fact you are getting 2.5% of profits..... we will pay you an negotiated amount in 30 days, lets discuss this further.
Reminded them that originally they offered 7.5% of profits, and they changed it after months of working together, because their words mean nothing, and Glenn and Frank can not be trusted, was told by Frank:
Frank: You are wrong to accuse us of falsely motivating you with offer of 7.5 % and changing to 2.5% this change was after we determined that you could not get the project done in a reasonable time and had to end our arrangement. Most people would have given you no interest at that time. You don’t want any percentage that is fine. Let’s discuss our “debt” without getting into pointing fingers and crapping on your work, we were able to complete with friends from IBM the project in days rather then months. That’s OK it was learning process for you and you did try hard. 16,000 additional dollars for what you did and delivered to us it outrageous. We offer you 2 more Eth to end our relationship. I must receive a FINAL BILL from you for 2 Eth stating that all responsibilities between our companies are complete and ended. In view of the time and failure for us to receive a completed project we feel this is a very fair offer and should satisfy you completely. Thanks. Let me know if you accept this resolution and send properly stated final invoice. Thank you.
... Spent some time thinking, decided to accept offer from Frank, wrote them that we accept the offer and Frank wrote:
Frank: Good deal. Send the invoice to WALLSTREETNFTS LLC. We will look it over and process within 15 days or so. Thank you for your cooperation and efforts.
Asked if I should use glennslafaye@gmail.com email, was told to use:
Glenn: No. wallstreetnfts@gmail.com
Sent them our invoice and as we agreed, gave them time to pay...
Wrote them asking what is the status of the payment, and after few days of not responding Glenn wrote:
Glenn: Im away right now and will not be back for another week.
Wrote them again:
I will wait for another week, however if my invoice isn't settled by then, i will assume you have no intention of paying it
Glenn wrote strange things back:
Glenn: We waited months of you attempting things that we then had done by someone else in hours. Hours! We paid you 1 eth and never received 1 deliverable. No code no anything. Then we offered you a small piece out of respect and you decline and you sent us an 18,000 bill which was absurd. Since we never received anything. Listen, I know you have a lot of clients so you couldn’t give us your full attention but the facts are the facts. We didn’t receive anything from you. You should have told us that you were too busy for this and it wasn’t what you do. Plus the distance made things difficult. That’s we we tried to motivate you with a piece. But when we received nothing and somebody else delivers everything in hours that we were still waiting months for and still hadn’t received? I genuinely like you and respect your ability but you were too busy with your regular business to learn this in a reasonable amount of time. We got it from someone else, you never sent us any deliverable so what is right here?
Then added after some time:
Glenn: Why don’t we figure out a way to still work together Somehow.
Then later...
Glenn: If you feel like you made progress and created some value let’s perhaps try to do something with it. Imagine my surprise when someone did all these things in hours. I like you. I am in Vegas now. Playing the main event. Let’s have a call and figure some way to keep working together when I get back. I meant it when I said we can do a lot of projects together. But you just have to let us know what your bandwidth is. If you overloaded with other work we need to know. Tons of things in this space to do. Maybe revisit the exchange marketplace. I don’t know but I am open to things.
Glenn: Let’s touch base later. I sitting down to play right now.
Asked Glenn when we will be paid, was told:
Glenn: We waited months of you attempting things that we then had done by someone else in hours. Hours! We paid you 1 eth and never received 1 deliverable. No code no anything. Then we offered you a small piece out of respect and you decline and you sent us an 18,000 bill which was absurd. Since we never received anything. Listen, I know you have a lot of clients so you couldn’t give us your full attention but the facts are the facts. We didn’t receive anything from you. You should have told us that you were too busy for this and it wasn’t what you do. Plus the distance made things difficult. That’s we we tried to motivate you with a piece. But when we received nothing and somebody else delivers everything in hours that we were still waiting months for and still hadn’t received? I genuinely like you and respect your ability but you were too busy with your regular business to learn this in a reasonable amount of time. We got it from someone else, you never sent us any deliverable so what is right here?
We asked if Frank stands by his words, when he made an offer and asked to send an invoice, he replied:
Frank: Although we did not use any deliverable from you in the project, I respect you and your efforts. When the project takes off I will revisit this situation with you. Root for us.