(Opinion/Editorial)
Ohio Dawg writes about his experience with Ty Gonty & Hell House –
I’ve downright demanded to be paid what I’m owed, and was just palmed off to another department in this so called ‘company’ (a few guys in their mom’s basement is my guess at what this operation really is), who then try to make me fill out endless forms, waivers and agreements of questionable legality. The contract I signed states they must pay out my revenue share within 10 days of them receiving it. It’s been over 1.5 years since I’ve seen a single check, and even those aren’t worth the trouble of cashing.
As it turns out, Ty Gonty got himself a brand new house in early 09. Where’s that cash coming from, bud? That’s right, myself and other ‘investors’ (scam victims). I’ll see this scammer squirm when he tries to explain this in the courtroom. If the company has any assets left (doubtful) I’ll get something back, if not I’ll send him a postcard in jail 
who says four figures?
Ty is a complete loser that needs to be back selling door to door out of a car trunk just as he was before he started scamming people with his fraud.
“a few guys in the basement” is an over statement of 2. his wife stays upstairs.
you wanna get paid you’re gonna need the ole lady to start hitting those phones real hard; maybe get ty to sell the wifes shoe collection, the bedroom sets, entertainment systems, computers, etc.
http://blog.madamesindi.com/
I understand it’s hard, unfair and unfortunate to deal with scum like Ty Gunty; almost every producer including myself have been ripped off by shady distributers and/or vendors at least once in their career. But the truth is when they don’t pay, there’s really not much you can do. You can keep calling them and going to their office, they’ll give you more of more-of-the-same excuses. You can sue them, but then you have to pay thousands of dollars, sometimes more than what you’re owed, and spend months to get a judgement against them. However, even the judgement won’t guarantee you’ll get paid and eventually you might end up selling the case to a collection agency for a lump sum payment which is usally less than half of what’s determined in the judgement.
The point is producers should be aware. If you see a new kid on the block starting a distribution company or a store, don’t rush in to sign a distribution contract with him and give him your product. Do some research about him, talk to some other producers who had dealt with him, and know what and who you’re dealing with before getting yourself in trouble and losing your investment.
Good luck to you, Ohio Dawg.
AL: Isn’t 4 figures a common expression? Anyway, ‘in the thousands’ will do just as well.
Colonel: Thanks for the thoughts and well wishes, as you’ve said I’ve only learnt the worst from the email contacts I’ve already had from users of this site. There isn’t anything left to get back, so I’ll just have to try to forget about this whole thing and get some satisfaction when he goes to jail, assuming he doesn’t weasel his way out of this somehow. Hopefully enough people will spread the word so he can’t show his face in the industry again..
If anyone else wants to contact me you’re quite welcome to via Cindi.
I know 5 or 6 figures is common for someone who doesn’t want to give a specific on a larger amount, but I don’t think I have ever heard someone say 4 figures. Kind of hard to be coy with that expression.
Ty Gonty / Rex Mundi.. this guy is plain and simply a scammer. I invested 10k+ in his startup company ‘Hellhouse Media’ (yes, I know, I was stupid to think this could ever be legit), and the company appears to be failing while he lives the high life and makes excuses that I’ll get paid what I’m owed ‘soon’. It’s been ‘soon’ for 2 years, and I’ve been in contact with other investors in exactly the same situation, some who have put in even more than me, others who are just kids who didn’t know what they were getting themselves into :(. He seems to have swindled over $100k out of investors, and will write paragraphs in emails and on message boards when called out, trying to explain it all away. ‘Our company is overcoming hurdles’, ‘Mail has been delayed so you will see your check shortly’, ‘We have restructured our company so delays won’t happen in the future’.. I’ve heard every excuse in the book and still have an empty mailbox and bank account.
Avoid this guy and his shady group of companies because he is quite happy to break every promise he makes.
Back in mid 2007, I was surfing a popular internet forum where I found a topic offering the sale of equity in adult (porn) movies. The investor would buy a share of a particular movie, and in turn receive a portion of the film’s revenue for life. The idea was both hilarious and potentially lucrative, so being fairly cashed up at the time I did some further research.
Was it something I should have seen as being ‘too good to be true’? Looking back I’d still say ‘not really’, because the adult industry is quite huge, the company was already having some success and the movies they had already made were of good enough quality. So I put in $4000USD over 3 separate wire transfers, which was a $1000 stake in one movie, and $3000 in another. The percentage of each movie I was then theoretically an owner of was fairly significant.
So what went wrong? Well, despite the claimed success by the company of almost all movies they made, I hardly saw anything back. I originally got checks for tiny amounts like $5 per month, and being in Australia it would have cost me $10 to cash each one. Naturally, I didn’t bother.
The first excuse of many as to why the return was so low was that the movies had been delayed and this was only the online ‘video-on-demand’ revenue. Actual physical dvds weren’t out yet. That was a good enough excuse for me; I forgot about it for a while and filed away the tiny checks.
Eventually, the company offered a digital form of payment, and I was repaid the total value of checks I had received so far. There were maybe 2 more payments after that, then nothing. $164.13 is the total of all payments I have ever received from Hellhouse Media / T&H Northwest, from an original sum of $4000. Others have not been so ‘lucky’!
I recently stopped believing the endless excuses Ty Gonty / Rex Mundi (this is one of his porn industry aliases) was feeding me, and looking back I was stupid to put up with it for as long as I did. Bank errors, bank delays, changing banks, accounting audit, the weather (!?), checks getting lost in the mail, distributor delays, these are just some. I stopped being polite when they tried to make me sign an agreement that an arbitrary figure of around $700 was true, correct and all I was owed before they would pay it to me. Naturally I refused as I would need to be an accountant to diligently sign it, and that’s what their accountant is employed by them for.
After outing the company’s tactics on the internet forum where I originally read about the ‘investment’, Ty Gonty tried to save face by claiming the waiver form mentioned above was completely optional.. And here I am, still waiting for the wire transfer. No, I’m not going to delude myself into thinking they really intend to send it to me.
After posting my story on a popular website, many people came forward and contacted me. It was then I realised this situation was much, much deeper than my ‘measly’ $4000. They were in identical situations, only most of them hadn’t seen a single cent, let alone the 4.1% of the initial investment that I had. Without going into too many specifics, the amount of money taken from investors totals well into 6 figures (probably close to half a million), and as things proceed, it is almost certain that none of us will receive anything more. Anyone who actually received a check and cashed it had it bounce.
An asset check has revealed the company has very little in the way of assets remaining, nowhere near the years of backdated payments the company owes to investors.
I have already been threatened with legal action for what they call ‘defamation’ and ‘completely untrue and off base’ comments, but I’m not at all scared of this company or the people running it. Nothing in this entry is at all incorrect, and I’m quite happy to discuss it with anyone. I know I’ve lost my money, but I need to warn everyone I can who might have otherwise been suckered in by this company’s false promises and lies. Ty Gonty / Hellhouse Media are completely incapable of directly answering questions about their actions, and to this day continue to churn out press releases with empty marketing buzzwords like ‘restructuring’, ‘moving forward’, and ‘overcoming hurdles’ as well as bignoting their own success, while investors are still left with nothing. They basically refuse to even return any contact now other than a new CEO. Presumably Ty Gonty can’t take the heat any more and is making a quiet exit.
I am certainly not disputing the original ‘success’ of the company or the movies it has made. I am disputing that there was ever any intention to repay investors what they were owed, or otherwise do what was promised or strongly implied from the start.
http://www.ripoffreport.com/Adult-Web-Sites/Hellhouse-Media/hellhouse-media-ty-gonty-rex-b96e4.htm