On Dec. 31, 2021, I got a phone call from Stevie Compagno Jr. He runs a company called “Upscale Trainer”, which books sales meetings for personal trainers looking for more clients.

I spoke to him, and he had a compelling offer: in 125 hours of using his services, he guaranteed that he’ll book a minimum of 15 sales meetings. This cost $1250 USD up front.

The guarantee, is that if he doesn’t meet the quota of 15 sales meetings over 125 hours of work, he will either:

A) Refund the money; or

B) Keep working for free until he hits the 15 sales meetings.

This was all in the contract.

He actually had 2 people working on his behalf, which I was fine with.

At the conclusion of 125 hours, his team was able to book 2 sales meetings. He didn’t let me know that the hours were up, and his team kept working on it. I noticed 2 credit card charges, one on March 7 for $170 USD, and one on March 14, for $150 USD.

I did not approve either transaction.

What should have happened is at the conclusion of 125 hours, he should have told me that the hours were up, and he can either refund me the full amount ($1250 USD), or keep working for free until he gets to 15 sales meetings per month… as stated in the contract.

Instead, he processed my credit card 2 more times.

When I messaged his team on Facebook messenger (which is how we’ve been communicating all this time), one of the people he was working with (her name is Mae) said that no refund was coming.

I decided to message Stevie directly. This was on a Sunday. He said he’s speak to Mae on Monday, and get back to me.

He didn’t get back to me, so I messaged him on Tuesday. He said that Mae told him that I wanted to pause the campaign for now, and resume it later. This was the wrong message. I explained to him that I wanted a refund.

He didn’t respond.

Two more days passed by, and I messaged him again. One more time, no response.

Another day passes by, and I email him. Still no response.

Eventually, I told him that I’d be filing a credit card dispute later that day. That finally got his attention, and he decided to email me.

He explained that the salary of the person working on my account was $8/hour (USD). I was paying him $10/hour. So he could refund me the difference between $8 and $10, saying that his staff member still needs to get paid.

That’s fine and all, but his staff member is not my responsibility. It’s his. If he didn’t want to get into this situation, he shouldn’t have offered a refund or a guarantee.

What else makes his entire operation look very suspicious is that:

  1. He was very hungry to get the money, even making multiple calls to me on New Year’s Eve, up until past 7PM. When it came time to respond to me about the work that hasn’t been done, he completely stopped responding.
  2. It seems like he thought that if he didn’t respond, the problem would simply go away. I had to tell him that I’d be filing a dispute, in order for him to respond.
  3. He said that he’d periodically check on the success of the campaign, and if it wasn’t going according to plan, he’d change the strategy. After the first day, I never heard from him again.

This whole matter was reported to my Visa, who investigated the matter, and did see that Stevie Compagno Jr. was conducting some fraudulent activity, so they refunded me the charges that Compagno Jr. put on there.

If you’re getting approached by Stevie Compagno Jr., be glad that you’re reading this experience. Run the other way.