Barry Gabster – Is He Hiding the Shady Past? Exposed! (Update 2024)
Barry Gabster is the CEO of InitiateU and was notorious for being a part of a mortgage scam.
While he may have become a marketing expert, he wasn’t a marketer before launching InitiateU.
Before, he was a mortgage broker who received complaints for lying to clients and taking advantage of gullible victims.
Barry Gabster used to work with the notorious scammer Frank Barilla, who has received a lot of complaints over the last few years.
Before you consider doing business with Barry Gabster and InitiateU, it would be best for you to check out the shady past of this ‘marketer’.
Lying to Clients About Loan Modification
Currently, Barry Gabster promotes himself as the owner of InitiateU. However, before this, he used to work at the National Advocacy Law Center.
The law firm used to scam consumers by trapping them in unfavorable agreements.
Below is a complaint posted by one of Barry’s ex-colleagues.
Here, the person shares that Barry is a con artist. They used to work at National Advocacy Law Center which changed its name from Fieldstone Law.
Before that, its name was the Law Office of Frank Barilla.
The reviewer shares that the firm fired them after they disagreed with lying to their clients. Barry Gabster had told them to lie to their clients about their loan modification.
Due to the disagreement, Barry complained about the reviewer to the higher-ups. The reviewer lost their job as a result.
Apart from that, I found another complaint pointing out the connection between Barry Gabster and Frank Barilla.
Another Victim Speaks Out:
Here, the reviewer hired the Law Office of Frank Barilla to buy a loan modification program. They sent their paperwork to the firm and after 2 weeks, received a package containing tons of errors.
When the reviewer submitted the new paperwork to the bank, the bank denied their file saying there were too many errors.
So, the reviewer contacted Barry’s firm to get a refund. But the firm denied it.
Instead, the firm asked the reviewer to buy their services again if they want them to review the paperwork.
Another reviewer pointed out in the comment section of this complaint that Frank Barilla and Barry Gabster, along with their partners are all liars.
He highlights that the firm solicits homeowners after buying their data from marketing firms. The reviewer says they look for people who are significantly behind in their payments so they would readily buy their loan modification services.
Moreover, Barry Gabster and Frank mainly targeted people from poor backgrounds.
A Victim of Barry Gabster and Frank Barilla Shares Her Experience
Here, a single mother shares how Frank and Barry’s firm scammed her.
Her house went into foreclosure and her mortgage firm denied her loan remodification 3 times.
Then, Frank’s firm contacted her promising to fix the issue. They told her they follow a different approach so they can get her a loan remodification easily.
She told them she might not be able to pay them unless she gets a guaranteed remodification.
The case manager told her she only needs to pay them an advance fee of $2000 to begin the process.
So, the reviewer borrowed money, took out her savings, and paid the fees.
Once Barry Gabster and Frank Barilla received their money, the firm stopped calling the victim.
They didn’t try to get any loan remodification.
The reviewer sent multiple emails to their processing department. However, she didn’t receive any response.
Then, a day before the sale date, someone from the firm contacted her telling her they weren’t able to get a loan modification. So, she had to hurriedly file Chapter 13 Bankruptcy.
Afterward, she tried contacting the firm to get some response or update on the process.
But they didn’t respond.
Later, she added an update sharing that her home has been foreclosed. Barry Gabster and his team didn’t do anything to help their client.
Barry Gabster Likes Defending Loan Modification Scams in Forums:
While looking up the professional history of Barry Gabster, I came across a forum discussion on the lawsuit against a California law firm in 2011.
The California Department of Justice had filed a lawsuit against Kramer and Kaslow and over 20 other defendants for scamming 2,500 homeowners in the state.
They convinced their victims to add their names to a phony “Mass Joinder” lawsuit.
They made false promises to the victims, claiming to help them with their mortgage troubles. However, no lawyer was talking to those distressed homeowners.
Instead, the law firm had hired “sales representatives” who were making $1000+ per sale, according to a job description posted on their website.
The fraudulent law firm was asking people to pay $4,000 to $10,000 to get “immediate immunity from foreclosure”. Certainly, this scam was quite similar to what Frank Barilla was running when Barry Gabster worked.
Over 20 lawyers were disbarred because of their involvement in the scam.
In the comment section of the news article, I saw a response by Barry Gabster himself. He was defending Kramer and Kaslow, claiming they were going to help those homeowners but the politicians didn’t want that to happen.
Surely, he was trying to salvage anything out of the discourse.
After all, the scam he had been a part of was exposed.
Conclusion
Now, Barry Gabster claims to be a marketing expert and runs InitiateU, which he founded in 2018.
He claims he stopped working as a mortgage broker in 2008 and joined a direct mail marketing agency as VP of Business Development.
Maybe, he is talking about the Law Office of Frank Barilla as various complaints mention his name alongside Frank’s.
However, you should be extremely cautious while dealing with Barry.
There are many examples of scammers with a history of running fraudulent schemes and launching new ventures to target more people.
For example, Brook Lang (Seattle) markets himself as a GTM specialist to bury the news articles exposing his past of domestic violence and abuse.
Avoid dealing with Barry.
This needs to be ended…the world’s progress is set back just because of such corrupt assholes
These scammers should be paying the penalty for their false promises and the lifelong trauma they give to the scammed
Total liars and frauds… victims need to file cases in the consumer court against them
Totally untrustworthy…proper reports need to be made against them so no more such cases can happen…lol I too have the same name
How they entice simple people with their false marketing tactics…its such a black hole…are any of them reliable
This a very good article…gripeo always comes up with factual information after doing proper research…I can see that in these articles
These people need to be reported and written on so to spread awareness about them
These people need to be reported and written on so to spread awareness about them
IDK how liars like him are carrying on with their corrupt works…what is the government doing…has it forgotten its responsibilities against us or what
Scammers like him are so smooth and already stay ready with foolproof plans to hide their shady past and continue fooling innocent men
These fraudsters need to be stopped else they would harm more people with their schemes and conning tactics
The man scammed so many people and never went to jail? Horrible