Realtors who are looking for Alan Isabelle, former president of Informedia Group, Inc., can find him at a company called Mortgage Loan Specialists, aka Homeloandesk.com, where he may be engaged in building a new company to sell leads and transaction management platforms to mortgage brokers.

Isabelle had burned his bridges with the real estate industry by stranding hundreds of Realtors who had made advance payments to him to create Websites and lead generation programs for them, but he allowed Informedia Group to go out of business and failed to give many their domain name transfers before disappearing somewhere in New Jersey, according to continuing complaints by former customes.

Now he is resurfacing.

The receptionist, who answers the phone with a harried hello, instead of the company name, put Realty Times' call right through to Isabelle.

"I'm no longer with the company (Informedia)," said Isabelle. "I shouldn't make any comment, there is litigation pending, there has been a lot of false information put out there, and I won't add to that."

Isabelle had promised Realty Times' readers that Informedia Group customers could get their domain names transferred by contacting him. His company had improperly registered customers' domain names to Informedia Group, Inc, instead of to the domain name owners. Immediately after telling Realty Times that he would transfer the names upon request, Realty Times was unable to contact Isabelle further and numerous complaints continued that the company phone was disconnected, the Website had gone black, and that Isabelle was nowhere to be found.

Asked about his new company, and if he was employed by Homeloandesk.com or Mortgage Loan Specialists, or both, or was starting either company, he said, "I'm not employed here."

The receptionist certainly knew where to find him....

He repeated his mantra, "I don't feel at this point that I should say anything, there is a lot of misinformation in these stories, and if I have any information that is factual and correct, I will let you know."

A competitor was happy to explain that Zamkoff owns Homeloandesk, and that Isabelle might be a partner, but the competitor wasn't sure of the relationship. All he was sure of, he said, was that Zamkoff knows about Isabelle's role with Informedia.

"Zamkoff is a branch manager for Mortgage Loan Specialists, and now he is going to be a branch manager for The New York Mortgage Company," said the competitor.

The business plan, according to the competitor, is for Homeloandesk to provide Internet leads to be forwarded to participating mortgage lenders, such as The New York Mortgage Company.

Just before publication, Mark Zamkoff contacted Realty Times with answers.

"Alan is consulting for me but he does not work for me," explains Zamkoff. "Alan misrepresented quite a few things as far as his financial status, he's brilliant but as a businessman he leaves something to be desired. He had Websites for Realtors, and I thought they need a referral base for loans, so I said I'll sponsor some of your events, seminars. I paid for a bunch of them. I was expecting to get business back, and it never came to fruition to get any where near my money back.

"He had some good people working for him," says Zamkoff. "'I could put together some software for you,' he said. So his team is building out the IT part of it (homeloandesk.com) and he has the people who can make it happen, so what he was doing is subcontracting his people to me, and I gave him some more money and I found out that he wasn't solvent. I had two choices - sue him, or have him consult for me and finish the project. He's working for nothing, and he has finished the project. He means well, but he got caught up in something that got out of hand and didn't know how to stop it, and he got behind on a bunch of bills. I know he has issues, and I can't afford to be dragged into this situation. I'm out the most money of anyone."

Many of the wrongs committed by Isabelle can't be redressed except in a court of law or through repayment, but helping former customers to transfer their domain names wouldn't cost him a dime.

Agrees Zamkoff. "If there are certain things that need to be corrected, these names, then I'll speak to Alan about why he hasn't done it, and tell him he needs to make this right. This wasn't a grand scheme - it put a big dent in my business."

Zamkoff offers this email for Realtors who wish to get their domain names changed. Write to golfermz@aol.com, and Zamkoff promises to forward the email to Alan Isabelle to be addressed.

Published: July 16, 2004

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