'Tech entrepreneur took our money but failed to deliver our start-up dreams'

Former clients of a Canadian tech entrepreneur say they were let down after they paid his company tens of thousands of dollars to help launch their start-ups.

People across the world - from Scotland to the southern states of the US - have told the BBC they paid Josh Adler's software company ConvrtX up to $245,000 (£184,000) but did not receive the websites and apps they expected.

We spoke to more than 20 former employees and customers who say that Mr Adler continued to sell services and ask for more money, despite repeatedly not delivering everything customers paid for.

In a letter to the BBC, Mr Adler's lawyers say the allegations are false and have been incited by one former client who they are suing.

They add that although Mr Adler was "inexperienced" when he founded his business, aged 21, his company became very successful in a short period of time and "the vast majority of clients were happy with their work".

Launched in 2019, ConvrtX claims to be a "world-leading venture studio" that has helped more than 700 aspiring entrepreneurs start companies by developing business plans, making pitch documents for potential investors, and building custom websites and apps.

In pitches to clients, the company claims it has a five-star satisfaction rating. It also says it has 70 staff worldwide and operates from the UK, US and Canada. Mr Adler runs the company from Dubai.

Leaked internal documents suggest ConvrtX billed more than $5m (£3.8m) in sales to more than 280 customers between 2019 and 2023 alone, but senior insiders say there were few success stories.

Our investigation found:

• Customers who say they spent their life savings without receiving a viable product - they told the BBC they received products from ConvrtX which didn't work or match what they had paid for

• Clients who received legal or financial threats after complaining, including one woman who was sent inappropriate, flirtatious emails from a lawyer working for the company

• Fake positive website testimonials - one attributed to a complainant who had in fact requested a refund of $18,000 (£13,600)

• ConvrtX said on its now-disabled website that it had been featured in Forbes Magazine and had a working relationship with Harvard Business Review - both publications have denied this was the case

In response, Mr Adler's legal team say ConvrtX had only received about 12-15 complaints out of about 340 customers - adding that after the incident of the sexually inappropriate emails, the company immediately terminated its contract with the lawyer.

Amy (not her real name), a 37-year-old single mother from the UK, says she was "led down the garden path" after paying $53,000 (£40,000) in 2021 for a website and an app for her non-profit organisation, which aims to match people with fertility issues to potential surrogates.

She says she was strung along for two years, only ever receiving a basic website and no working app, while Mr Adler continued to ask for more funds.

Josh Adler's LinkedIn page describes him as a "builder/investor"

Amy was particularly annoyed by a text she says Mr Adler sent to her, featuring a picture of him celebrating New Year's Eve on a tropical beach in Bali.

"Why flaunt your money to me? It's disgraceful," says Amy, who had funded the project by remortgaging her home and using credit cards.

Eventually, she requested a refund through her bank and complained to the UK's Financial Ombudsman Service. A senior investigator there has provisionally recommended that the bank return $39,000 (£30,000) to Amy, according to documents seen by the BBC. She is still waiting for her bank to agree to the recommendation.

As part of the process, two expert software developers reviewed the app developed by ConvrtX. According to the senior investigator, the evidence supported Amy's claim that the company had breached their contract by failing to provide the service she paid for.

"I think it's fair to say ConvrtX failed to exercise reasonable care and skill when they were providing the service," the investigator said. "It seems the work completed by ConvrtX cannot be salvaged and the entire process would need to be completed again if [Amy] wanted a working app to be developed."

In response, lawyers for Mr Adler say that the client had "received a website, clickable prototype and a fully developed mobile app from ConvrtX".

Former senior staff say that Josh Adler - the son of Kerry Adler, a wealthy Canadian businessman - presided over a culture of instability, resulting in high turnover of staff and errors due to "cutting corners" and hiring and firing inexperienced contractors.

On his Facebook profile, Mr Adler described himself as #YoungAndReckless and #LivingTheDream. We spoke to a number of former employees who described him as immature and a poor leader.

In company meetings, they say he "bragged" about living at the Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Abu Dhabi, boasted about renting a villa in Bali, and showed off a newly purchased Porsche 911 and multiple speeding fines.

He cared about "his rich kid, bling-bling lifestyle," says a former senior employee speaking on the condition of anonymity. "When you have that many unhappy clients, it can't be a coincidence."

Mr Adler's lawyers describe him as "highly ambitious" and say he sought to build a world-leading business, but that not all staff lived up to his high standards and would be "let go" if they under-delivered. "Young and Reckless" is a clothing brand he likes, they add.

But several senior ex-staff told us they had concerns about how Mr Adler ran his company, saying he continued to take on new clients even after being warned that some business and app ideas were unviable or impossible to make. They say he requested payments from clients in advance, sometimes as much as $53,000 (£40,000), though the company had a no-refund policy.

Two senior ex-employees claim that when Mr Adler was informed that some apps were not working, he would subsequently tell customers - against the advice of the development team - that he could fix the problem if they paid more money, or their outstanding balance.

"So don't tell the client that it cannot be done because we'll find [a contractor] that can do it when they've paid," one ex-staff member recalls Mr Adler repeatedly telling them. "He's a good talker, he's good at sales… but he gives a lot of false promises."

DeShawn Womack says he feels "lied to" by ConvrtX

A former customer, DeShawn Womack, says he felt "lied to" after he hired ConvrtX in 2021. He says he paid more than $50,000 (£37,750) for a mobile app that would allow users to remotely access their phone and all its data from another device if it was lost, stolen or damaged.

He says he received a design prototype, but not a finished working app.

After making payments over two years, Mr Womack - a truck driver from the US state of Georgia - messaged a senior ConvrtX employee for clarity about whether his app would be able to sync missed calls and voicemails. He also asked if it would allow users to make phone calls from a different device using their same number - a specific feature he said Mr Adler had told him was possible and was referenced in his contract with ConvrtX.

"This is impossible, your app was never ever possible in the first place," the employee responded in messages seen by the BBC. "Did someone tell you this was possible?"

Mr Womack replied: "Yes, Josh [Adler] did and plus it's in my project sign-off."

The 40-year-old, who says he spent his life savings on the project, told the BBC he stopped making additional payments after he believed his app was not being properly worked on.

"He [Josh Adler] sold me a dream and this is frustrating," he says.

Lawyers for Mr Adler say he denies telling customers that their ideas were viable when they were not. They say ConvrtX was always clear about the difficulty of developing an app, but if the client wanted to proceed it would usually take on the project.

Gemma Martin went to ConvrtX for help developing her tarot-card-reading business

Gemma Martin from Dundee, who runs a tarot-card-reading business, says ConvrtX failed to deliver after she paid more than $35,000 (£26,000) for services including a working interactive website and mobile app that would let users request readings and subscribe to her services.

After she wrote negative reviews online, the 33-year-old says ConvrtX refused to release her website unless she signed a non-disclosure agreement stopping her from criticising the company - which she declined.

In emails seen by the BBC, a company lawyer then made sexually inappropriate remarks to Ms Martin while trying to resolve the dispute, writing that he had researched her online and her "professional profile" did not "match [her] beauty".

Lawyers for ConvrtX say the emails were sent by a part-time third-party contractor who was terminated immediately once Mr Adler, who also apologised to Ms Martin, learned of the incident.

Ms Martin says she received a business plan from ConvrtX and eventually raw source codes for her website and app, though she says these were unusable and incomplete.

Lawyers for ConvrtX say it delivered Ms Martin a fully developed mobile app and source code, despite her having failed to pay her remaining balance. The company has since taken legal action against her for defamation, which she is contesting.

Steven Marshall, 53, says he was also threatened with legal action by ConvrtX when he asked for a full refund. He says he was "thoroughly disappointed" with work he had paid $5,183 (£3,920) for to help launch his business supporting independent filmmakers.

In emails seen by the BBC, ConvrtX's compliance officer told Mr Marshall that if he publicly shared his "baseless allegations" it would be "criminal and civil libel" and the company would seek a "criminal charge" against him.

The compliance officer also said that Mr Marshall had "signed away" his right to post negative reviews online about ConvrtX because of a non-disclosure agreement signed prior to the work starting.

Steven Marshall says he felt "depressed" after his experience with ConvrtX

Other former customers say they also faced threats - including Ayesha Imran, who told the BBC she had requested a refund of $18,000 (£13,500) when she did not receive an app and a privacy policy for her website, after hiring ConvrtX in 2021.

In March 2023, she complained to Mr Adler for what she described as a breach of contract because of ConvrtX's failure to deliver.

In her complaint, she wrote she had been informed that Mr Adler was not paying his development team the appropriate amount for the work that needed to be done, causing several delays because of staff turnover, and resulting in insufficient product delivery.

The company's compliance officer responded that Ms Imran would face damages of at least $60,000 (£47,000) if she publicly shared negative comments about ConvrtX or attempted to contact any of its employees. She says she viewed this as an attempt to intimidate and scare her.

Despite her experience, Ms Imran was being featured - until last month - as a false testimonial on the company's website.

"ConvrtX has helped us go from vision, to launch and supported with everything in between. They are really quite holisitc [sic], in what they do!" the post read.

"Those words never left my mouth," says Ms Imran, who tells us she had previously asked Mr Adler to remove it.

This testimonial from Ayesha Imran appeared on the ConvrtX website, but she denies ever having given it

Alongside Ms Imran's fake testimonial, the BBC has found that Mr Adler also used an image of Jen Selter, a lifestyle and fashion influencer with more than 13 million followers on social media. Ms Selter confirmed she had never used ConvrtX's services, and that the image had been used without her consent.

Mr Adler's lawyers say these testimonials were on a "dummy site" that was "not intended by ConvrtX to be publicly available".

However, they were publicly available as recently as last month and some date back to August 2020, according to website archives and screengrabs taken by the BBC.

Earlier this year, Mr Adler rebranded ConvrtX and, until being contacted by the BBC, was selling eight-week "bootcamps" for $159 (£124). In a promotional video, he claimed to have helped "founders raise capital - six, eight, nine figures and the like" and to have "positively impacted 10,000 lives".

The BBC wrote to Mr Adler asking what these numbers were based on, but his lawyers did not answer our question.

In a letter, lawyers for Josh Adler say he "unequivocally" denies the allegations. They say that Mr Adler and his business are the "victims" and that, until Gemma Martin made defamatory statements about it, ConvrtX had received very few, if any, complaints from its clients.

Additional reporting by William Dahlgreen and Tom Beal