Romio / 99vine / Homepeople / Tarik Sansal Files Form D with SEC -
Ever wonder how much money Tarik Sansal has raised from investors while still not managing to launch a web site? According to documents filed with the SEC, it’s at least $721,739, from a total of 8 investors. The document, filed four years after the original offering closed, also lists the current officers of Homepeople (Tarik Sansal, Virender Ahluwalia, and James Pantelidis.) The current address is listed as 100 Pine Street, 10th Floor, San Francisco, 9411 — also the address for Acteva, where Virender is the COO.
Romio trademark registered by Homepeople Corp / 99vine -
Romio / romio.com has been registered as a trademark by Homepeople Corporation, the same company that previously did business as 99vine. If you’re looking for information on them or their lawyers, it’s available in the trademark registration.
Virender Ahluwalia Joins Romio.Com -
According to the Romio.Com web site, Virender Ahluwalia has joined the management team as CFO and they are now operating out of San Francisco. Given Tarik Sansal’s extensive history of ending up in litigation with his business partners at OnTargetJobs, 99vine and Romio (well over a half dozen lawsuits in total), Virender’s legal team may want to start preparing now. One place to start: diligence on the current capitalization and outstanding liabilities of Romio.com / 99vine.
Tarik Sansal of Romio.Com Sues On Target Jobs Founder/CEO Allen Paschal -
Public records indicate that lawyers representing Tarik Sansal has recently filed a suit in federal court claiming $75,000 in damages (and asking for additional punitive compensation) against Allen Paschal, founder and CEO of On Target Jobs, citing breach of contract. This adds Paschal to the long list of past “colleagues” that have found their association with Sansal ending in litigation.
Romio.com moves to Weebly Free Web Hosting -
Presumably because the Romio.com / 99vine.com site isn’t done yet (4 years after the company was started), Tarik Sansal has moved the Romio home page to a free web page hosted at Weebly. The old search page from 99vine, now rebranded as Romio.com, is still visible at http://99vine.com
99vine has changed its domain name over to Romio (at http://romio.com) - the old 99vine blog now points to the Romio Blog, and the two domains both point to the same IP address. If you are trying to locate 99vine or Tarik Sansal, you should contact Romio.
For now, it looks like the site is incomplete - most of the links are broken and the search result pages don’t show up properly at times.
Unclear why they changed names, although they did allow the 99vine trademark to lapse early in 2009. They have not yet registered the Romio trademark.
It’s been months since they updated the site or Tarik Sansal’s blog (last post: August 6). They’ve never updated the Twitter account since removing their one tweet about the “coming soon” Facebook app.
Doesn’t seem like they’re doing anything any more. The listings on the site are way out of date (some from 2003) and a lot of the default suggested searches are now broken.
Anyone know if they’re still active, or are they dead? If they are, that’s a real shame - so much time, effort and investor money wasted on a company that never managed to even launch its web site.
Contacting Your Local IRS Office -
If you were paid by 99vine in a prior tax year, but did not receive a proper 1099 form from them to report your taxable income, you may want to consult with your accountant, an tax lawyer or your local IRS office.
Basic NYS Small Claims Court Info -
This is the first document to read if you want to file a small claims case in New York county for $5,000 or less in unpaid wages or billings. It is not necessary to file the claim in person - for a moderate fee, TurboCourt (http://www.turbocourt.com/) will allow you to complete the filing process online, and will let you track the progress of your case via their web site.
This site has been created to provide information for ex-employees of 99vine (previously know as Homepeople Corporation) and Tarik Sansal. It will collect and categorize publicly available information that may be helpful to employees, contractors and vendors who have worked for 99vine between 2006 and 2009.