A business which claimed to have raised £466,000 via a dodgy crowdfunder says all investors have been paid back.
Grant MacCusker and his son Jamie Stewart have been threatened with legal action, after a fundraiser on the Crowdcube website for their Student Rents firm was alleged to have made false claims, reports the Daily Record.
It comes after MacCusker was exposed for concocting a story about another company, Letting Cloud, being bought over by home and room rental online platform Airbnb.
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The 38-year-old has faced demands for refunds after it emerged he used photographs from the internet to depict fake execs at Student Rents.
Previously MacCusker put out a press release about a bogus Airbnb takeover and spoke about it in a TV interview. Airbnb was notified and said it had never heard of MacCusker or Letting Cloud.
One source said: “MacCusker has gone to great lengths to make his businesses look cutting edge and market leaders but there’s no evidence for any of it. He even went on STV to talk about it.
“It’s unclear what he had to gain, but any crowdfunder could be boosted if an entrepreneur was involved in big deals with a worldwide brand and talking about it on TV.”
The Student Rents page on Crowdcube stated the company raised £466,000 from 179 investors after a crowdfunder was launched last October. The firm was touted as a new “Uber” for the rental market, linking students and landlords via a portal.
However, Crowdcube later revealed £443,000 had been declared by Student Rents, which said unverified funds came from outside investors.
Crowdcube claims at least some of this extra investment was fabricated and will “form part of the legal case against Student Rents”.
In an email to the Record, Stewart, who was a finalist for the Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Scotland award last year, said: “All investors have been paid.”
MacCusker recently resigned as a director of LettingLord, the parent company of Student Rents, but remains majority shareholder. Stewart is now the sole director.
MacCusker didn’t return the Record’s calls. Crowdcube didn’t comment on how much had been repaid to investors.
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