Sydney PR mogul Roxy Jacenko says she is still committed to personally refunding the 7,489 people who signed up for her much-publicised brand boot camp after a bitter dispute with her former business partners.
Jacenko teamed up with entrepreneurs Youssef Tleis and Kassim Alaouie to launch a promotion offering new customers to their Brand Bootcamp online business course the chance to win three epic prizes.
However, the partnership came to a sudden halt last month when Jacenko took to social media to claim he was leaving after discovering a “shortfall” in prize money and insisted he would offer customers refunds out of his own pocket.
“I stand by my offer to refund clients and as a result of this, $684,000 of my personal funds remain in my solicitor’s trust account,” he told Daily Mail Australia on Friday.
The promotion, which touted prizes including a $10 million beachfront home, a Birkin bag and a Rolex watch, was due to be drawn today, and the announcement is now scheduled for Saturday.
Roxy Jacenko teamed up with Sydney entrepreneurs Youssef Tleis (right) and Kassim Alaouie (left) to launch a promotion where people were entered into a draw that would give one of them the chance to win a luxury home in Cronulla .
Roxy Jacenko says she has personally been left out of money and would refund customers.
“The company’s account did not have enough to pay the first prize winner, so I personally lent money to the company so that it could pay important creditors and so that there were sufficient funds in the company’s accounts to pay the prize of 250,000 dollars,” he said. saying.
“I lent the company more than $100,000 to ensure that the company had sufficient funds.”
Jacenko resigned as a director last month and Tleis is the sole director of Roxy’s Bootcamp Pty Ltd.
“I was unable to issue refunds from Shopify because Mr. Tleis is the only one with access to the NAB account containing funds; he revoked my access to the company bank account.” she said.
The admission comes after Jacenko launched legal proceedings in the New South Wales Supreme Court. in relation to competition and to allow an orderly means of reimbursing customers.’
The court heard that Ms Jacenko applied for the appointment of provisional liquidators due, among other reasons, to allegations that Mr Tleis and Mr Alaouie had engaged in “misleading conduct” in their management of the promotion due to a sub-clause which stated That prizes will only be awarded if the competition achieves more than $11.5 million in revenue.
The luxury beachfront home is one of the prizes up for grabs for people who sign up for Jacenko’s online business course, Brand Bootcamp.
Punters who pay for the course, which starts at $29, will be entered into a drawing to win the house and other luxury prizes.
However, the conditions were never made public by Ms Jacenko during a whirlwind of publicity and the clause was also missing from the competition’s formal terms and conditions on Roxy’s Bootcamp website.
“The court was brought to documents that indicated that as soon as I understood the situation, I wanted the promotion to stop and finally deposit money into my attorney’s trust account,” he explained.
“I initiated the procedure also because Mr. Alaouie and Mr. Tleis were planning to continue with the promotion; this was unrealistic given that the terms stated that the house would ONLY be available if the income reached at least $11.5 million plus costs, this never happened.”
Judge McGrath agreed to appoint a provisional liquidator, Cathro & Partners, for the company, regretting the unfortunate situation which brought the matter to court.
“The concurrent interlocutory claims arise in the extraordinary circumstances of the rapid creation and almost equally rapid deterioration of the relations between Ms. Jacenko, Mr. Tleis and Mr. Alaouie in relation to a company involving the promotion of training courses offered by Ms. Jacenko to the public through a very questionable promotion plan,” he said.
“By any measure, the promotion has attracted significant adverse publicity… this has led to online comments that have been extremely disparaging about the promotion itself and those involved in it.”
The matter will return to court later this month.