Original subtitles

In this episode of American Greed, car trouble.

It's an urgent letter telling you your factory warranty has expired.

It looks legit, as if coming from Toyota, Subaru, BMW.

But this pitch comes from Darren Atkinson and his brother, Corey, and

multimillion -dollar business built on fear and lies.

I'm telling customers, oh, we're just like the warranty you bought at the

dealer. And I'm like, no, we're not.

They promised to take care of their customers' cars.

Where are they going to be there when you need us, when that vehicle breaks

down?

But what they take is their hard -earned cash.

There's a money grab, and they were going to get it as fast as they could,

they were going to get as much as they could.

Leaving them stranded.

The sales calls, the pressure is high, and we get sucked in.

Any one of us can be a victim of this.

In a suburb of St. Louis, neighbors watch an extravagant construction

and wonder, is it a medieval castle?

A French chateau?

Just a few years ago, the owner, Daring Atkinson, was selling used cars.

And now he's building a showcase mansion.

But he's also drawing the kind of attention he does not want to have.

Because a house like this raises the question,

How did a guy with little college education from a small town in Kansas

hands on so much money?

The answer begins in that small town.

About 200 miles due west from Wichita, Garden City, Kansas is chock full of

feedlots and grain elevators.

It's where Darren Atkinson grows up with three brothers.

After high school, he puts in some time at the community college.

But it's clear Darren wants out of Garden City.

Former St. Louis Post -Dispatch reporter Matthew Hathaway is one of the first to

make Darren's name news.

Very little of Darren's early life was known in St. Louis.

And as we dug into his background, you definitely get the sense that he was

maybe too big for Garden City.

But to escape Garden City, Darren needs to make some money, literally print his

own currency.

The counterfeit presses are in a back room of a storefront building on Main

Street.

There he prints sheets of cash.

It's a limited operation.

He had $40 ,000 in cash, and there were four serial numbers on four different

notes.

You wouldn't be able to spend a lot of money anywhere without using identical

bills.

But Darren, who will earn a reputation for being reckless, goes for it.

In May 1987, he heads to Wichita with a stash of phony money and a one -way

plane ticket to California.

He makes it as far as the bar at the airport hotel.

The money was noticed by, you know, somebody working at the bar.

They called the local police. They brought in the Secret Service.

Within 24 hours, Darren's behind bars, and they found his printing equipment

back in Garden City.

At age 23 in prison, Darren writes to a judge saying he has learned his lesson.

He is ready to live a crime -free life.

It's a theme he repeats later in an interview with Matthew Hathaway.

What he told me is that when the bars closed behind him on his release, he was

transformed man and that he found Jesus in prison and that everything was

different.

Now, as a born -again Christian, Darren moves to St. Louis, where he and his

younger brother Corey open a business selling vehicle service contracts that

promise to cover the cost of repairs on a used car.

Setting up shop in a small suburban office, they called the company National

Auto Warranty Services and later changed the name to U .S. Fidelis.

Attorney David Warfield will represent Darren's victims in bankruptcy court.

U .S. Fidelis is just a marketing agent. It doesn't actually write the contract

itself. There are a number of other companies that do that. U .S. Fidelis

really a broker.

What Darren and Corey were doing is they were buying these contracts for

anywhere from $500 to $1 ,600.

As senior counsel for the Washington State Attorney General, Mary Lobdell is

fierce consumer advocate.

Then they turned around and marked it up two, three, four times and marketed it

to the consumer.

At first, consumers are carefully selected.

I think they bought lists.

A list of people who bought cars on particular dates, a list of people who

bought particular brands of cars so they could tailor their solicitations to

those folks.

And they offer the right product at the right time.

Everyone's worried about their car breaking down.

It's an expense you don't want to think about.

FBI Special Agent Kerry Carlson knows how effective the U .S. Fidelis pitch

So when you think you're buying something that's going to protect that

money for you, why wouldn't you do it?

In two years, the company is exploding, bringing in millions of dollars in

sales.

Outgrowing his office space and determined to make his company a

in the industry, Darren buys an abandoned mall west of town.

He pays close to $6 million in cash and creates a state -of -the -art call

center with more than 1 ,000 employees.

NBC News national investigative correspondent Jeff Rossen goes inside

company for the Today Show.

What struck me most was how sprawling it is, how big it is. I've been to a lot

of major company headquarters before.

This was nothing like that. This was huge and beautiful.

In building the U .S. Fidelis compound, Darren offers space to the Evangelical

Element Church.

He wants it known that his Christian values define the operation of U .S.

Fidelis. The company's logo even includes a heavenly accent.

When you hear a company is faith -based, when there's a halo, an angel's halo

actually in the logo, what do you think to yourself?

Maybe they're doing God's work. They're at least being honest with me. I mean,

they're not going to defraud me. They're faith -based.

But is there faith in Almighty God or the Almighty Dollar?

Next on American Greed, it's brother against brother. Who can spend the most?

If Darren pulled up with a brand new Ferrari, Corey would go get, you know, a

Lamborghini.

In Everett, Washington, Buzz Rodland's car dealership is a family -owned

business that has been selling cars for more than 100 years.

They believe its success is based on one thing, a customer's trust.

So when Buzz gets a call from a long -standing customer, he sees him

immediately. His demeanor was very sober, and he said, you know, I bought a

from you with all the trust in the world.

And then he leans over, and he hands me the letter, puts it in front of me, and

he says, now explain this.

And he was mad.

This is what the letter looks like.

Toyota's name is prominent, and the message is clear.

The car owner's factory warranty has expired.

But it is not from Toyota.

It is from Darren Atkinson's warranty company.

If this gentleman would believe it, anybody would believe it.

He just thought that the factory...

was telling him he no longer had a warranty and he had a brand new car.

And that is the key to the success of Darren's business.

Deceit. Exploiting the reputations of brands like Toyota, BMW, Subaru, and

Chrysler, the company implies a relationship it does not have.

Even using the term warranty is misleading.

Only a manufacturer can offer a warranty. It's like a term of art.

Darren Corey would do is create confusion by calling the product they

selling a warranty.

And one more thing to know.

It's against the law to sell something as a warranty if it's a service

But the Atkinson brothers appear to be above the law.

And because the deception is so effective, Darren goes big.

plastering the country with his misleading notices.

This mailing part of the business became so important that U .S. Fidelis

actually built its own printing plant in the back of its office and created tens

of millions of individual mailers that went to consumers.

Potential consumers get the letter and fall easily for Darren's trick.

They call the U .S. Fidelis call center where the tricks keep coming.

Many of the calls are recorded.

The voices have been altered to protect identities.

The salespeople work in teams, passing callers around in

a choreographed charade.

Our cutoff is typically 36 ,000 miles for the bumper to bumper.

So what I'm going to do is grab a manager because you're only at 40 ,000.

They'd put them on hold and everybody would laugh and tell stories about what

they did that weekend.

Come back on the line and say, I just talked to my supervisor.

We can fudge it just this one time.

That's okay.

That's fine. Yeah, I got my manager to prove it.

In interviews with former employees, Jeff Rossin hears what really drives

Darren's faith -based business.

It was get the money, get the money, get the money.

This is all about the sales.

Sales, sales, sales.

That's how I made my money, was selling.

They said they wouldn't get paid unless they billed consumers out of money. So

really there was this massive pressure on them that if they want to pay their

own bills, they need to defraud you and they need to defraud me.

And so they don't give up.

This call takes almost two hours of unrelenting pressure.

The contract starts at $2 ,675 and quickly drops to $2 ,475.

It is obvious the caller cannot afford the contract,

but the salesman pushes on.

Let me just check with my manager.

It doesn't matter if they have the money or not. You get the dollar now.

Beat them up a little bit.

You know, paint pictures. Build value.

Put them on the long side of the road with their kids.

Let's go with a breakdown.

Bam. Clump, clump. You cut down. You're on the highway.

And just keep the cost moving down.

At $1 ,675, sold.

I mean, we had one complaint come in where they sold it to an elderly woman

had no vehicle.

And they knew she had no vehicle, but they sold it to her.

And what are the consumers buying?

If you open up the manual, it has a section that regards the factory

All we're doing is extending that warranty.

So it's a bumper -to -bumper policy.

Well, not exactly.

Adam and Ingrid Sasse get the letter from Darren's company just as the

on their 2001 Saab is about to expire.

And so they take the bait and call.

It wasn't a hard sell. We knew our warranty was expiring.

Her words were, it was bumper to bumper coverage.

Adam is a mechanic, and he's also in the Navy.

He worries their car will break down while he is on deployment.

So even though it is a stretch for their budget, he pays almost $2 ,500 for a U

.S. Fidelis contract.

So our expectation was to be able to, you know, spend a very large chunk of

money and get that peace of mind that we had already had with the factory

warranty.

But when a problem comes up with the turbocharger and the dealer tells the

Sassy's that their new warranty won't cover the repair, they look closer at

contract.

Here, it says that leaking seals or gaskets are not covered. So much for

to bumper.

The list of components actually covered is limited. Even the cost of diagnosing

a problem will not be paid.

It makes no sense to me that somebody, if they really knew what they were

buying, that they would purchase the product that was being sold by U .S.

Fidelity.

But in 2006, the sales force is on a roll.

Did you want to do that with a Visa or MasterCard?

The company is bringing in an average of $10 million in revenue each month.

And Darren and Corey Atkinson are spending it as fast as it comes in the

IRS criminal agent Jennifer Dreyer will eventually track the money.

Anytime they wanted something, they just went to the controller and asked for a

check. I need $1 million.

I need $250 ,000. Cut a check to whoever it might be.

And what do they spend it on? The usual items.

Cars. I recall at one point, Corey bought two Lamborghinis in less than two

weeks.

And boats.

One of the large purchases that they did buy was a bat boat. And it was a large

cigar boat that they put on the Lake of the Ozarks. And it looked like Gotham

City on the side. It was a million dollar.

They were absolutely kids in a candy store. It was almost to the point they

so much money they didn't know what to do with it.

Darren actually wanted to build a garage under his house

that was sort of like the Batcave, so that when the brush parted and the doors

came up, he would drive out from underneath, much like Batman did in the

television shows.

Fueling the spending spree seems to be sibling rivalry.

It just seems like each brother was trying to one -up each other. If Corey

in and asked for $25 ,000 from the company just for a check, Darren would

three hours a day later, I want my $25 ,000. If Darren pulled up with a brand

-new Ferrari, Corey would go get, you know, a Lamborghini.

Up next, the hell of trying to cancel a U .S. Fidelis contract.

I'm going to let him know.

I don't want his warranty.

I get off my charge now.

Well, there's nothing I can do about that, ma 'am.

In 2006 in St. Louis at the U .S. Fidelis Call Center, employees are

thousands of deals a month.

You can do Visa or MasterCard, or we do take American Express or Discover.

Making sales no matter what.

I sold a lady a policy thinking she was buying car insurance.

And she had Alzheimer's.

But across town, another call center is also busy.

Registering thousands of complaints against U .S. Fidelis.

This is the St. Louis office for the Better Business Bureau.

Michelle Corey is the president.

We only received at the Better Business Bureau a small percentage of customers

that had complaints.

And we received thousands.

The complaints all tell the same story.

Misleading mailings, high -pressure sales, and broken promises.

We found some consumers purchasing coverage for $2 ,000 and their vehicle

have only been valued at $1 ,500.

Ingrid and Adam Sasse spent almost $2 ,500 on an extended service contract

to find out it is virtually worthless.

Once we realized, well, it didn't cover electrical and it didn't cover turbos

and it didn't cover...

Pretty much a lot of the car.

We realized, well, this isn't a very good fit for us.

Let's get our money back.

And right there on the contract is the clause, the right to cancel, which is

mandated by state law.

The reason for this is otherwise the product would be insurance and it would

have been regulated by the insurance divisions of each of the states.

The sellers of vehicle service contracts did not want that to be the case, so

they made the product cancelable.

Or supposedly cancelable.

In practice, U .S. Fidelis makes it nearly impossible for the customers to

out of their contracts.

Free service. Thank you for holding.

This caller wants to cancel a contract she never authorized.

I asked him not to bill me, so I called him back.

But the salesman goes ahead and charges the card.

But

this

woman can't cancel because her husband's name is also on the credit card.

For half an hour, she gets tossed from one salesperson to another.

In an exercise of complete frustration.

In some cases, I really believe people gave up. Like, fine, just keep my money

for this month. It wasn't worth the hassle of trying to get the cancel.

Ingrid and Adam Sasse are given a relatively easy time of it.

We were told that we needed to mail in a written letter requesting cancellation

with a notarized odometer reading.

That wasn't a problem for us.

But when they finally get their money back, it is $732 short.

The amount was one -third of the whole cost of the policy, and that is a

significant portion of money to us. We did not have...

$700 laying around that we could just throw away because they couldn't give us

good answer as to why we couldn't have our money back.

The real reason the Sazzy's can't get their money back is that defrauding

customers is Darren's company policy.

The policy was no refunds.

No refunds. We're not, you know, we're not quitters. We're not going to let

happen. We don't want to give refunds. That was the whole goal is not to give

refunds. I mean, in the end, you know, it was a... Well, we'll give refunds,

we're holding 40 % of it.

The policy is so well established at U .S. Fidelis, it doesn't even bother to

save money for refunds. Had U .S. Fidelis been managed correctly, they

have maintained a reserve for future cancellations. In fact, no significant

reserve was ever maintained.

The brothers just took the cash out of the company, regardless of the fact that

the consumer had the right to cancel.

By 2007, Darren and Corey have taken more than $13 million each from the

company, and that is causing a serious cash shortage each month.

Here's why.

Most consumers make a down payment over the phone and then finance the rest.

They make their monthly payments to a separate independent

finance company called MEPCO.

But what becomes a problem is that once MEPCO gets its first payment, it

advances U .S. Fidelis all of its commission up front.

But the consumer still had the right to cancel that contract for the next 23

months. And if the consumer canceled the contract, then the consumer did not

have to pay anything more to MEPCO.

Now, MEPCO needs to be reimbursed for the advance it gave to U .S. Fidelis.

so each month, as new customers buy contracts, MEPCO deducts the money it is

owed from the commission it sends U .S. Fidelis.

This is where it kind of took the terms of the Ponzi scheme. So yesterday's

cancellations were paid for by tomorrow's sales.

That works, as long as sales outnumber cancellations.

But by the spring of 2007, cancellations begin to rise and the company's monthly

income starts to fall.

In May, the company's CFO warns, our cash position is getting very thin.

In September, he projects, we won't have enough cash to make payroll postage

this week.

And where is the company's money?

Well, Corey has been building a multi -million dollar house in one suburb.

And Darren's is under construction not far away.

And let's not forget the vacation houses.

Darren's is in the Cayman Islands.

Corey's is near Lake Tahoe.

It was a cash grab. It was a money grab, and they were going to get it as fast

as they could, and they were going to get as much as they could.

When it first started, it grew so fast that I think their mentality was, the

money's never going to run out. We're always going to be able to make sales.

And if making more sales means breaking a few more laws, so be it.

Next on American Greed, burning through millions on a mansion.

This house was built on the backs of the American people, driving a used

vehicle, trying to keep their car on the road.

By 2008, U .S. Fidelis is desperate to reach new customers and dramatically

increase sales to offset an ever -increasing rate of cancellations.

Taking heat from consumers, angry at the misleading letters they have been

sending out, they come up with a new plan of attack, utilizing one of the

annoying inventions of modern communication, the robocall.

It's been estimated that they made over 1 billion robocalls throughout the

United States and parts of Canada.

The incessant calls trigger a flood of complaints.

This is someone who said they received hundreds and possibly thousands of

harassing and threatening phone calls, 50 to 100 calls a day. The language was

abusive. It was terrorism.

No, please make it stop.

And once again, U .S. Fidelis is breaking the law.

Reputable telemarketers have to use a do not call list, right? They totally

ignored that.

Under law, you're not allowed to robodial or telemarket to a cell phone.

They totally ignored that.

The law didn't mean anything to them. It just was a matter of getting the money

in the door.

And the U .S. Fidelity sales team looks for money in every remote corner of the

country.

Eventually, they make their way to Windyville, Missouri.

At the end of a long country road miles out of town,

Frances Tindall takes the call.

I almost felt like it was a godsend.

If I make this monthly payment, then if anything goes wrong with the van, then I

can get it fixed.

Frances lives 16 miles from the closest grocery store, 25 miles from the closest

hospital. These days, her 1999 Chevy van is the only mode of transportation for

her and her best friend, who needs to be driven to dialysis.

For the U .S. Fidelis salesman, that information is the perfect opening.

He played that to the hilt.

We'll take care of your vehicle no matter what.

You won't have to worry about it. You've got a lot of other things to worry

about.

She signs up because with the U .S. Fidelis sales team, it's always now or

never.

And with your vehicle being over 10 years old, we won't be able to offer the

coverage on the vehicle again.

It was like, if you want this 25 % discount, then we need to get you signed

just as soon as we possibly can.

The contract costs more than $2 ,000.

Each month, just over $80 will be withdrawn from her bank account.

more than 10 % of her $800 a month disability income.

A few weeks later, she gets a letter and a card.

It says, congratulations on the purchase of your extended warranty for your

Chevy Ventura. But U .S. Fidelis does not include the actual contract, which

not unusual.

They often didn't send the contract to the consumer after they did the deal, so

the consumer never really knew what they got.

And so Frances has no idea that she is actually buying a new product Darren is

using to exploit people just like her.

Usually, a service contract won't cover a vehicle that has more than 100 ,000

miles on it.

So if somebody's got a junk car, you're talking to the person on the phone, you

want to be able to sell them something.

And so they sell the consumer an actual product, what they call an engine

additive. Chemical analysis reveals the product is really just a bottle of soap

water worth about $2.

The consumer was supposed to put the soap water into the automobile.

And U .S. Fidelis then warranted that nothing would go wrong with the car.

The advantage for Darren is that product warranties don't have to include an

unrestricted right to cancel.

They can be full of exclusions, and the consumer is stuck.

In just a few years, U .S. Fidelis sells more than 100 ,000 additive warranties

to people like Francis Tindall.

For two years, she scrimps and saves and makes all her monthly payments.

I made the last payment the first part of November.

My van went into the shop on the 10th, 15th of November.

She needs a new radiator.

She tells the mechanic to go ahead and fix the car because she has a warranty.

That's when the mechanic called them to get verification on it.

And he called me and said, they're not covering any of this.

She asked U .S. Fidelis for a copy of her contract and finally sees what they

say she bought.

I never even seen this paper until the contract was paid for.

And I had no clue as to what they were even talking about when I got this.

It is one of the additive warranties, but she never received the additive.

And she was never told that she is required to keep records of her oil

She has five receipts out of seven.

Claim denied.

I felt like U .S. Fidelis just stripped me of all my freedom.

If they took care of that, I'd still have a vehicle.

I wouldn't be dependent on anybody.

And now I'm dependent on everybody.

Some of these victims, their lives were ruined by this. This wasn't just a

matter of, oh, I have a nice car and I can't get my turbocharged engine back in

it. These are people who thought they were keeping themselves safe and lost

everything in the process.

And where did Francis Tindall's precious $2 ,000 end up?

It is entirely possible that it was thrown into the personal spending kitty

Darren Atkinson, who uses $26 million to build his extraordinary house.

It's more than 20 ,000 square feet with a bowling alley, a movie theater, two

swimming pools, and 14 bathrooms.

Some of the construction bills were just staggering.

You know, hundreds of thousands of dollars to a blacksmith to make, you

wrought iron fences and millions of dollars in custom cabinetry.

In some rooms, the floors are made of leather. The marble extends to the

ceiling. The staircase alone cost $1 million.

The house is set in a neighborhood where there is little pretense. It is

entirely out of place, and to many, it represents only one thing.

Greed. Unbridled greed.

This house was built on the backs of the American people, of middle -class

America driving a used vehicle, trying to keep their car on the road.

This house was built.

Next on American Greed, questions about Darren make national news.

The hypocrisy of this really got my attention. You know, a faith -based

the owner was living in this $26 million mansion complete with a bowling alley.

Where is this money coming from?

Take a tour of extravagance inside Darren's castle on AmericanGreed .CNBC

Feeling greedy?

Want more than your share of behind -the -scenes dirt?

Follow us at AmericanGreedTV on Twitter. We'll be right back.

Six years after it opens for business, U .S. Fidelis is a national leader in the

vehicle service contract industry, now sponsoring a NASCAR race team. It looks

like the picture of success.

But for every five contracts sold, three are canceled.

For years, consumers have been catching on to the deceitful game Darren Atkinson

and his brother are playing.

We were getting off -the -chart complaints from consumers and from the

dealers. And then we send out an email notice to other states saying, I'm going

to open an investigation.

Do you want to join us?

42 states say yes.

U .S. Fidelis is also facing criminal charges in Missouri, lawsuits from

consumers, and from Verizon over the robocall, and from BMW for trademark

violations.

The company needs a game plan.

They hire a new CEO, Chris Riley, to straighten out the mess.

This was a crisis. This was crazy.

Every day, I never knew what was going to walk into my office.

We were the ones negotiating.

Riley works to clean up the company, but he has a powerful opponent in the

Better Business Bureau.

The Better Business Bureau decided to really go out on a crusade to denounce U

.S. Fidelis' business practices to expose their fraudulent activities.

We reached out to local media, national media, asking that they join us in

exposing this company.

Matthew Hathaway at the St. Louis Post -Dispatch gives it front -page coverage.

Then NBC's Jeff Rossen is drawn to the story.

The hypocrisy of this really got my attention. You know, a faith -based

accused of defrauding customers.

The fact that the owner was living in this $26 million mansion complete with a

bowling alley. Where is this money coming from?

Rossen's story on the Today Show airs in April.

When her car overheated last month, her warranty was useless.

If anything is going to kick off a rash of cancellations, it's a story like this

one on national television.

The Better Business Bureau already has 1 ,100 complaints against U .S. Fidelity.

At that point, people really had an idea that this company was not all that it

was cracked up to be. These vehicle service contracts were not worth the

they were written on, and people started canceling and really screaming.

In response, U .S. Fidelis ramps up its advertising on television.

This is not the same warranty car dealers offer. It's better. Some of the

advertising took place on late night television and they reached out to

basically anybody who they could get to put that down payment and make that

first payment was kind of their focus. Get that funding from MEPCO up front and

keep the company cash flush.

But the strategy backfired.

In July, we receive our cancellation bill for June.

And instead of the 29 % that it was for the first five months of the year,

it was 57%. Double.

Riley discovers the TV ads are the problem.

We were capturing a completely different customer. And the cancellations, when

we did our audit, were primarily people who couldn't afford this contract any

longer.

And now, because so many customers have canceled, U .S. Fidelis owes the finance

company MEPCO twice as much as it anticipated.

How much can you save? It's important to remember U .S. Fidelis really didn't

have a source of income other than the amounts that MEPCO advanced to them. So

by September or October of 2009, U .S. Fidelis had no cash flow coming in from

MEPCO whatsoever.

And there is no money in reserve. To keep the business operating, U .S.

offers the deed to its headquarters as collateral to MEPCO.

But by December, MEPCO has had enough.

I received the email.

I think it was Pearl Harbor Day, December 7th. And MEPCO

made a decision. We're not going to give you your current funding. We're

anticipating cancellations.

That meant I could not pay advertising. That meant that we had to stop selling.

U .S. Fidelis is out of money and out of business.

And while it is easy to blame the bad publicity and poor marketing, the

problem is that the owner spent all the money.

As everybody says, they were like kids in a candy store.

MEPCO was the parent, and Darren and Corey were the teenagers.

You don't tell your child at age 14, I'm going to give you $1 ,000 a month.

Now, make sure that you save enough for college.

That's not what parents do.

And so what happened? The parents gave them $100 million, and the teenagers

spent it.

Next on American Green, one more little lie from the Atkinson boys.

On the 2006 tax return they filed, they reported taxable income of zero.

In early 2010, seven years after it opened for business, U .S. Fidelis has

from boom to bust.

In March, when the company files for bankruptcy, an independent financial

analysis adds up Darren and Corey's personal withdrawals. The grand total?

More than $101 million.

And now they owe tens of millions to MEPCO and consumers.

The brothers surrender their assets.

We took back yachts, boats, cars, go -karts.

Darren and Corey were go -kart aficionados. There were go -karts

the U .S. Fidelis headquarters.

Later, when the toys are put on the auction block, almost 5 ,000 people show

It's been a real big crowd today. I've been to a lot of state sales, and this

has been just huge. Bidding was very spirited. We actually received more for

cars than their Blue Book value would indicate.

Because Darren and Corey had become so notorious, and there was a certain

of buying some of the assets that were taken back.

As the spending habits of Darren and Corey become legend, they inevitably

attract an investigation by the IRS, and another secret comes out.

They both received millions and millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars

every year out of the company, but it never showed up on their tax returns.

For example.

Here is the tax return from 2006 when they both are building multi -million

dollar houses.

The 2006 tax return they filed, they reported taxable income of zero.

What they received in distributions from the company was over $13 million.

To a grand jury, it sounds like tax evasion.

Darren and Corey are indicted by both federal and state of Missouri

They plead guilty to charges of filing false tax returns, stealing from

consumers, and consumer fraud.

Darren is sentenced to eight years, Corey, four years.

Meanwhile, Darren's mega mansion sits on the market for months.

Eventually, it sells for over $4 million.

The money goes into the pot to be divided among those on a long list of

creditors.

That includes almost 20 ,000 U .S. Fidelis customers who divvy up $13

Our goal would have been to give them every dime back, every consumer get

money back, but there wasn't enough money at the end of the day.

After their lawyers send threatening letters...

Ingrid and Adam Sasse get all of their money back.

Metco, which is still owed millions of dollars, is given Darren's Cayman Island

house as part of its settlement.

And Frances Tindall receives $251 from the restitution fund.

Today, she looks back on her experience and knows she has learned a lesson about

life outside of Windyville.

Living out in the country, you never really realize how...

greedy people get or how many greedy people there are because this is my

I don't need a lot of money to live in my world.

I don't need fancy clothes and a big house and a fancy car and I'm happy.

But so many people think that if they don't have that almighty dollar, they're

not happy.

So they will stomp all over anybody that

gets in their way of that dollar.

Ironically, as he heads off to prison, Darren Atkinson might agree with her.

At his sentencing hearing, he says, I was greedy and selfish about how I run

business. Living in a mansion and having everything money could buy did not make

me happy.

To the contrary, I was more miserable than ever before.

I think of Darren Atkinson as somebody who was trying to reinvent himself. He

was trying to reinvent himself in Kansas.

He was trying to reinvent himself in prison when he found Christianity.

To simply be very wealthy and successful in a slimy industry wasn't good enough.

He wanted to be well -known, and he wanted to be famous, and he wanted to be

thought of as a business leader.

In 2019, Darren will be released from federal prison and will have another

chance at reinvention.

If history is any indication, he may have big plans.

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