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‘Flip This House’ Star Armando Montelongo Speaks out Against Charges (EXCLUSIVE)
Flip or Flop’s Tarek El Moussa and Christina El Moussa aren’t the only house-flipping reality TV stars making headlines. In Touch has learned another wealthy TV real estate personality with a similar business model — former A&E Flip This House star Armando Montelongo — is being sued in Texas by nearly 200 plaintiffs who allege his company’s $1,500 seminars were simply ruses to sell more classes that cost as much as $54,000.
In the latest issue of In Touch, Armando speaks out telling the mag exclusively, “We’ve always been very transparent about our business model. We’ve even showed it on Undercover Boss.”
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Those suing Armando feel “they’ve been cheated,” attorney Christopher Wimmer, who’s spearheading the class-action lawsuit against Armando and his company, reveals. Wimmer alleges that the company has “a plan to defraud all of these individuals because they’re not offering genuine education services — just an opportunity to buy more products.” In the docs, obtained by In Touch exclusively, the class-action lawsuit claims Armando’s company’s “scheme has destroyed livelihoods, wrecked marriages, driven students into clinical depression and even resulted in suicide.”
In March, Armando’s company issued a statement calling those suing him a small group of people who simply “decided that continuous hard work is not for them.” To those who feel his system doesn’t work in the current financial and real estate climate, Armando, whose new show, Flipping Nightmares, debuts on streaming platforms in February, says, “You would have a tough time telling that to my students who are actually doing deals right now.”
In an unusual twist, lawyers are using federal RICO laws, which are often used in organized crime cases, to go after Armando’s company for racketeering, among other things. “These plaintiffs are reaching,” says Armando, who also asserts that “a number of these individuals that I’ve taught how to be successful have opened up a competitive seminar company or a competitive educational online company and — are colluding to come together to try to bring down No. 1.”
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