In March of 2004, Steve Morris proposed a scheme to me to raise a large amount of cash. (Click here to read more about me). We were having lunch at the Sonny's Barbeque restaurant on North Dale Mabry in Carrollwood, a subdivision of Tampa, Florida. At the time, we had around 4000 customers who were being billed $5.95 monthly for a subscription to the website Steve Morris and I were partners in; www.amerigreet.com.

Steve wanted to raise a lot of money, and fast. He proposed billing all of the customers for 3 months at once. Instead of billing the customers the original $5.95 on their monthly subscription anniversary date, Steve Morris wanted to bill all of the customers $17.85 at one time. This would have generated approximately $71,000 in sales. 

Well, this is not what we had told the customers and it is not what they agreed to. I told Steve Morris in very strong language that I didn't want to do that. Since I was the programmer and his partner in the Amerigreet website, it would have required my cooperation to perform this (in my opinion) illegal act.

If there's one thing that I can't say about Steve E. Morris is that he's easily dissuaded, because he isn't, especially when it comes to making a quick buck. Since Steve Morris couldn't do this with me in the picture, he decided to take me out of the picture. Well, I had supplied all of the desks, computers (work stations and servers), software (off the shelf and custom written), labor (thousands of hours) and cash to get this venture going. All told, I probably had around $40,000 invested in equipment and software and another $100,000 in time and services of a professional computer programmer.  The lease on the office was strictly in Steve Morris's name. This would haunt me on Memorial Day weekend of 2004.

On the Friday before the long Memorial Day weekend in 2004, I indulged in a weekly pizza ritual with Steve Morris, Luis (Tony) Acevedo (Amerigreet designer) and myself at Ledo's Pizza in Carrollwood, Tampa, Florida. I was heading to Orlando to take my family on vacation that weekend. Everything seemed normal, we were all buddy-buddy. Steve Morris did not let on one tiny bit that he was about to sink a knife into my back. He had no problems looking me in the face and smiling.

So, I was stuck, the lease was in his name and there was nothing I could do. Steve had been planning this little stunt apparently for weeks, if not months. In the mean-time, the company that my wife owned 50% in (see stock certificate here), was shut down and all of the customers (over 4000 monthly subscriptions at $5.95 each) were moved to a completely new company owned by Mr. C. This company had the same address and basically the same company name. It's clear that these two thieves were deceiving the customers by creating a like-sounding company and then inappropriately transferring the receivables from one company to the other without alerting the customers too much. Here are the monthly rebill reports for Amerigreet. Basically, these two thieves stole the customers from the website company that I built and my wife owned half of and moved them to an entirely different company. But that's not all.

As soon as these frauds and charlatans could, they billed as many customers as they could 3 MONTHS IN ADVANCE! Charging customers $5.95 x 3 = $17.85 (Click here for emails from customers who were over-billed as described).

So, Steve did what he's done time and again, he leaves one business with lot's of bills and someone else holding the bag, then starts another company, this time with a fresh list of 4000 monthly paying customers. This is how Steve Morris operates and its not the first time. For example, in another court case, a Federal court in Tampa found that Steve Morris had:

J. Defendant Morris incorporated Oasis with the intent to defraud its
creditors.
K. Defendant Morris failed to observe the corporate formalities in operating
Oasis.

Click here to read the entire filing.

The situation was maddening. Steve had lied to the police when they first arrived and told them he was leasing the computers and other items that were my property. When the police asked him to produce the lease, he lied again and told them he left it at home. After that, there was nothing the police could do...I would have to take legal action to force Steve Morris to turn over my equipment. In the mean time, he kept using all of my equipment, which he abused very badly...for example, when he did finally return my laser printer, it had an empty toner cartridge and a burned out drum, that was among many other injustices done to my property...thanks guys. Anyway, Steve was counting on this delay caused by the courts. He knew he could force me to go through the courts and that would allow him to continue to use my property to run a business he basically stole from me.

So, in order to recover my equipment, I had to take legal action...since it was a civil matter. I had to hire a lawyer and spend about $1300 to recover my computers, desks and servers, etc. The day before it was supposed to go before a judge, Steve Morris had my stuff returned...but the only items I listed were the ones that I had receipts for. So I still had lots of other equipment and software and personal items that Steve didn't bother to return. Of course, this guy is a total thief. He used to have a room full of construction equipment, such as an air compressor, nail gun, table saw and a bunch of other assorted tools. They were all stolen.

At any rate, can you imagine someone who was your business partner and pretending to be your friend, silently plotting to stab you in the back...and steal everything you had worked so hard for? That's Steve Morris.

I didn't see it coming...I mean...around Christmas time, I had signed up for a cell phone contract under my name and credit so Steve Morris could give his wife, Sarah a cell phone for Christmas. Steve's credit wasn't good enough to get one himself. But I think this is a prime example of how Steve Morris uses people. He get's them to do him favors and then he usually ends up screwing them over.

I think it may be a fatal character flaw. For example, he was writing a book called 'Scammed!'. The book was about this sharp 'hustler' that goes around scamming everybody (Of course this character was based on Steve himself). In the end, he hoped to somehow 'scam' the reader.

He was being helped on this by one of his telemarketing managers, Jason Trottman. Jason was going to USF at the time.

But based on my knowledge of how Steve truly is, he thinks he's this really smooth operator that can scam and manipulate just about anyone. Instead of creating values, all Steve Morris does is steal and pillage...And I've got the proof here on this website.

Anyway, even after I got my computers back, these jerks sabotaged the servers so they wouldn't work. For example, there was a Dell Poweredge 4300 server that the Amerigreet website was running on. I have not been able to get the server to power up since it's been returned. It's probably permanently damaged and is completely useless now. My other server, a Dell Poweredge 1600 sc wouldn't start when they returned it too. It took me about two days to find this - a bent pin in the un-terminated connection of the SCSI cable.

At any rate, if you are a current or previous customer of Amerigreet.com, and if you have been ripped off in any way, such as multiple or unexplained charges to your accounts, please either contact me privately using the link at the very bottom of this page or by posting your comments/questions to the web page using the form directly below.