Lawsuit launched against Front Sight by members

[Preacherman]

From KLAS-TV (http://www.klastv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4085044):

Colleen McCarty, Investigative Reporter

A Gun And a Dream

Nov 8, 2005, 0-1:00 AM

Its founder billed it as a Disneyland for gun enthusiasts, a 550-acre master planned community with a shooting range as the draw. The concept was unveiled in the late 1990s, complete with artist renderings and a miniature model. Today, the model remains on site but so far it’s the only house there.

"The safest community in America," that was the pitch to people seeking a home at the Front Sight Firearms Training Institute. For upwards of $200,000 members were promised a one-acre luxury home site in an exclusive resort. Instead they got a thank you letter, a baseball hat and a map of a lot they don't own.

The Front Sight Firearms Training Institute bills itself as the world’s premier resort for self defense training. Offering “skill at arms” to students of all levels.

Student Erik Johnson says, "It’s kind of like swimming. It’s fun to do but along the way you're learning a skill that might save your life someday."

Johnson finds happiness, down range. A veteran of 70 classes he hopes to one day make his hobby his home. In 2001, he purchased a platinum membership entitling him to a one acre lot in the future Front Sight master planned community.

Front Sight President Ignatius Piazza says, "At some point there will be a thousand homes out here, commercial center, community center, and it will be a resort that instead of having a golf course as the anchor will have world class adventure training."

Front Sight’s founder, former chiropractor Dr. Ignatius Piazza has been touting his vision for “the safest community in America” for six years. Boasting a completion date that seems to change with each interview. Initially scheduled to open in winter of 2001, Piazza now says the project is on hold, indefinitely.

Piazza says, "The timeline now really has to do with how soon we match up with the right joint venture developer. We've been in negotiations with a number of them; we've turned down a few. We would like to find the right fit."

Johnson says he'll wait and spend his weekends on the firing line. But not all platinum members have holstered their frustrations. Bill Haag has hired an attorney to protect his investment.

Attorney Keith Greer says, "All the platinum member knows is they cut a big check and they got one sentence on the bottom of their membership that you got this parcel."

For $175,000, Haag got a thank you letter complete with a parcel number and a map showing its location. Believing construction was imminent; Greer says his client relocated to southern Nevada in preparation for the move.

Greer says, "The big issue is what does he have now? He has the same piece of desert land that he first looked at before he cut that check. There’s been no water, no roads, no grading, no electricity."

A piece of undeveloped desert that at this point Haag doesn't own. Piazza acknowledges no deeds were issued, not to Haag or to any of the platinum members. Front Sight owns the land, all 550 acres of it.

Piazza says, "The people have not purchased a lot out here, what they've purchased is a membership and at some point in the future when the development is completed they'll have access to a one acre home site and we'll deed it out to them."

In the meantime, Front Sight has mortgaged the land promised to the platinum members. A $6 million dollar interest only loan taken out on the residential portion of the property.

Greer says, "We're waiting to see is it going into infrastructure, is he going to make good on his promise to the platinum members and just get a road out to their property and some water so they can build."

Instead of putting the $6 million into the housing development, Piazza tells the Eyewitness News I-team he used the money to fund a promotional video and several reality TV shows currently in production. Programs to promote Front Sight and to attract another long line of pilgrims to the desert.

Late this afternoon, attorney Keith Greer filed a class action lawsuit against Front Sight and Ignatius Piazza. It alleges Piazza used the Front Sight organization to de-fraud members out of money for his own personal gain. We'll hear from one of those members Tuesday at 5 p.m.


For those interested in more information, the litigation is documented here, with pictures, etc.

[Justin]

Must be Xenu, getting in the way of all that development.

[bigjim]

Anybody that did not see this coming really must have worked very hard at it.

What was it Pt Barnum said? Man what a bad deal all around.

[Double Naught Spy]

Safest Community in America? With just one house, I guess that could be safe, but no more safe than any other one house community.

You have to wonder about the lack of common sense of so many people who get into this sort of thing. Take Erik Johnson and Bill Haag. They are out $175,000 that they paid for a range membership that was supposed to come with benefits that were not already in place. How can people be so naive to shell out that kind of money for something so flaky? For that kind of money, folks could buy land in the remote desert, put in their own private range, and have space left over onto which to place a house, but instead opted to pay for somebody else's range and land.

Front Sight President Ignatius Piazza isn't without controversy. There was that whole bizarre Dianetics thing a few years ago and then his conflict with the NRA. He proposed to offer free classes to folks who purchased a life membership to the NRA and he said he would do it for free. All he asked was for a bunch of free advertising in the NRA's publications. They turned him down and he made a big stink out of how the NRA was not proceeding in a gun friendly manner and did not have its members at heart. Of course, what the NRA knew was that while the free classes were nifty, they came with Piazza's mandatory sales campaign. In other words, the life members would not just get to shoot, but have to be subjected to unwanted sales attempts that were part of the class packages.

[Janitor]

Ok now ... let's see ...

For upwards of $200,000 members were promised a one-acre luxury home site

"At some point there will be a thousand homes out here"

Front Sight owns the land, all 550 acres of it

Hmm.

1,000 X 1 = 550?

-

[Werewolf]

Wasn't there another thread a while back where someone who lived in Alaska and was a Frontsight member couldn't get into the Alaska FS range?

I seem to remember that a lot of people blasted the THR member who wondered what the heck was going on with that by saying that FS was on the up and up and defending that Piazza guy.

Hmmm....

Maybe that THR member is seeing some vindication for his POV?

This whole situation kinda reminds me of the scientologists and the way they do bidness...

[geekWithA.45]

I wonder if Piazza has contemplated the relative lack of wisdom involved in (my lawyer sez I gotta say allegedly) bilking a group of heavily armed, highly trained and motivated people.

[Fly320s]

It's too bad, really. I like the idea of a gun-community, much like a golf-community.

I attended one class out there back in '01. The training was excellent and Piazza definitly had big ideas. It would be nice if he could get it together. I didn't care for the location, though. I'm not much of a desert guy. If Piazza had opened a Front Sight Texas or Tennessee or even Florida, then I could get on board.

Too bad Piazza had to go Hollywood. He was always talking about how Hollywood is the place to win the hearts and minds of the public.

[Fly320s]

Janitor,

I don't think all home sites are one acre. Probably just the top-tier members get the full acre. Others get smaller plots and I remember something about townhomes being built. I guess that could add up to 1,000 home on 550 acres.

[bigjim]

Originally Posted by Fly320s

Janitor,

I don't think all home sites are one acre. Probably just the top-tier members get the full acre. Others get smaller plots and I remember something about townhomes being built. I guess that could add up to 1,000 home on 550 acres.

The point seems to be that nobody is getting anything. Seems like a scam.

[bg]

W.C.Fields might be shaking his head right about now.."Never give a
sucker an even break"

[Lone_Gunman]

Another junk lawsuit. We need tort reform.

[hillbilly]

I reckon this here is how that whole "Exchange in abundance" thing works, right?

You pony up $175K and you get an abundant membership in a community that might exist, possibly, someday?

hillbilly

[Spreadfire Arms]

it doesnt appear a whole lot of internet "white knights" will be coming forward to defend Dr. Piazza.

like i said in a previous thread awhile back, i had a friend who applied for a job there. he went over the offer with me, and it was very strange. he was hired as "maintenance" and "security." he was supposed to work 12 hour days as a single parent. he was offered $7-8 per hour. he was not allowed to carry a firearm at a "pro-gun" community unless he took their Front Sight classes which he would have to pay for out of his pay.

i told him it sounded like a scam. they were going to get him to work for free in exchange for firearms classes that cost them probably about 30-40% of what they charge for tuition.

needless to say he got a job as a job site supervisor for a construction firm in Las Vegas instead.

when i moved to Las Vegas (now back in TX) i had contacted Front Sight about having a Class III Dealer out there to help out with renting C3 weapons to people coming in from out of town who wanted to shoot on their ranges.

Dr. Piazza's reply was basically in a nutshell that he was interested in me coming out if it was for free (meaning i would bring my guns out and people would pay Front Sight and not me, not an arrangement where both of us could profit instead).

needless to say, i wasn't interested. but i am sorry to hear people were getting scammed.

and this press does make pro-2A people look bad

[JohnBT]

I predict he will soon threaten a to bring a lawsuit against THR because of this thread. It happened at GlockTalk.

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-...

John

P.S. - And for goodness sakes don't mention Scientology.

[pax]

This makes the whole community look bad.

pax

Naish Piazza a Con Man? A Megalomaniac? Willing to use "Firearms Training" to feather his own nest? Heavy handed to his Staff? Selling worthless desert at "A Piece of Utopia" prices? A "Front"? Nah, it can't be so. -- Rich Lucibella

[tommytrauma]

Originally Posted by Fly320s

It's too bad, really. I like the idea of a gun-community, much like a golf-community.

I attended one class out there back in '01. The training was excellent and Piazza definitly had big ideas. It would be nice if he could get it together. I didn't care for the location, though. I'm not much of a desert guy. If Piazza had opened a Front Sight Texas or Tennessee or even Florida, then I could get on board.

Too bad Piazza had to go Hollywood. He was always talking about how Hollywood is the place to win the hearts and minds of the public.

Fly, I'm in the final stages of plans to open a gun community in Texas, or Florida, or Tennessee. It's going to be the absolute best in adventure training community living. Once it opens, (somewhere...) memberships are going to be $250,000. But, since you're THR, I can offer you a special deal; I'll give you the promise of a one acre lot, free access to all the rides, err... I mean ranges, and all the beer you can drink for a mere two hundred grand.

How 'bout it??

[Rockstar]

It was Scientology, and the scamster used typical Scientology heavy-handed threats of legal action against the owner of GT, because there were some negative Scientology-related threads on GT.

Obvious scam. Good luck with the lawsuits. Maybe a weekly flyover by John Travolta or some tapdancing by Tom Cruise will be part of the deal!

[Joejojoba111]

Originally Posted by geekWithA.45

I wonder if Piazza has contemplated the relative lack of wisdom involved in (my lawyer sez I gotta say allegedly) bilking a group of heavily armed, highly trained and motivated people.

LOL good point.

[spacemanspiff]

two of us up here contacted front sight to see if we could take classes at their supposed facility on the kenai peninsula. neither of us are members, and we were both told that 'only members with special privileges can use the front sight facility in alaska'.

i dont think the place even exists. maybe they have property, but i doubt they have brought anyone up here to shoot.

for a place that wants to make money hand over fist, there is no reason why they shouldnt open to the public and instruct non-members.

[ElTacoGrande]

The training there is excellent. I have always had questions about the finances. If you look on Ebay you'll see limitless amounts of certificates, so you can get the $1200 classes at a tenth of the cost (there are different levels of certs at different prices but you get the idea). Also they have kept on introducing new lifetime membership programs (at ever-decreasing prices for the same level of access), and over the years they have continuously said that they are an "investment" and will go up in value, they are going to stop selling them, etc. Well if they sell enough of them, and if they have enough certificates out there, they will have a huge number of people who can take classes but they will have no positive cashflow because no one will be paying cash for classes. They have done this so they could avoid getting traditional investment sources. Traditional investors would have taken control of the business in the process of investing that much money. People buying mermberships or certificates don't have any say over the business and have very limited rights from their purchase.

I wish they had kept it simple (borrowing other ranges instead of owning their own mega-facility). I hope Naish can get through this in a way that lets him keep on training. As for the platinum members, well, there's a simple rule of life and investment: Never put your fate in someone else's hands.

As for this worker who showed up and was told he would need to pay for his own training: He should have just got on Ebay and he could have got a certificate good for a four-day class for $100, which would even be a tax-deductible expense for him.

As I said, I hope Naish gets through this, and Front Sight gets through this, and at the other side we'll have more transparency and a great shooting school.

[Justin]

He also threatened Rich Lucibella of TFL with legal action, too.

I have no use for sue-happy scamsters like Piazza.

[Art Eatman]

This is just a variation on a bunch of stuff that went on in the 1960s. Folks bought desert land after having seen only the brochures showing paved streets, streetlights, fountains, etc. When they finally saw what they'd bought into, reality hit just very, very hard: Nothing there except some grader trails in the desert. In Florida, several feet of water over their lots.

SFAIK, the 200,000-acre Terlingua Ranch is the only real deal from back in that era. Nothing promised except a 20-or 40-acre patch of dirt on which to hunt or camp. And the jeep trails are still graded, 35 years later.

Ponzi schemes and land scams will always be with us...

Art

[jfruser]

Front Sight’s founder, former chiropractor Dr. Ignatius Piazza...

We have physical quackery (chiropractics) and existential quackery (Xenu fun & games).

Man, you just can't make this stuff up.

-----------

I feel for the hopeful, trusting, & naive folks who shelled out big bucks for their acre of...nothing.

[Old NFO]

Originally Posted by bg

W.C.Fields might be shaking his head right about now.."Never give a
sucker an even break"

Ahhhh. actually it was P.T. Barnum...