I hired Focus for Design at one of the Most important times in my career. I was throwing the first symposium series for medical cannabis and so many people were moving to Colorado to help their children who were having hundreds of seizures. We were finding that this is this was one thing that would stop them. I am a single women minority business owner who is pioneering the industry. I had just received approval from the Department of Higher Education for my university. Pretty impressive for a single woman. I was working so hard on my own budget, understaffed, but wanted to document the historic work that I was doing.
I didn't charge for the series I provided it free for an industry that wanted to pioneer healthcare and help patients who had been having hundreds of seizures a day. I funded it series myself. It was just a couple years earlier that my little brother of 14 years old died in my arms of cancer. I was working so hard after that trauma to make this world a better place.
I hired Focus for Design to record our two hour symposium series for $600 total. They would record the entire symposiym and then create a smaller video reel of the event for an additional $300. I would receive both videos including all of the original footage. I bought them a hard drive with my money (so the hard drive is my personal property) and they would store the footage there at the studio on my hard drive. The relationship went on from 2012-2014. Then they started displaying some very weird behavior. One day Gabe asked me if he could pull me aside and talk to me at my own event. He told me that his team had been caught with cocaine and that he needed a referral for an attorney. He had also been asking me earlier than normal if he could get his payments and in cash. This is when I noticed things started getting weird. He seemed really jacked up at the time. I had no problem helping him.
Shortly after Gabe had asked me if I could pay him early for an event he had done because he was short on funds and wondering if he could come by and get the money since he was leaving town. I said sure! I have all of these text messages that showed he came by for the money but he said if he didn't sign a paper saying he took the money that that wasn't relevant. I paid him $600 cash that day. He never invoiced me properly or kept proper records of what payments I had made. I would get one every 3 to 6 times I made a payment. I kept great records though. I normally made him sign for these payments but I couldn't find my book that day and he told me he wouldn't forget.
I sent him these text messages showing he came by and thanked me for the payment but he never acknowledged them. Anytime I would dig up records or send them to him he would say that they were inaccurate or just not respond. He dropped by often to get cash payments for me and I would make him sign a sheet. Shortly after he filmed another event and then I had asked him if I could have all my past footage from the prievious events he was storing at his facility. He sent me a demand letter that included additional payments I had already made. It had only been a little over a month since I made my last payment so this demand letter was very weird behavior and caught me very offguard. He told me that I have a balance of 2700.00. He said that I owed him for shirts I had printed that I paid him for (by check) and then asked me to provide all of those records where he signed for the payment after I had given him a check. He told me to dig up all the checks instead of checking his own accounting. It was nonsense!
Then said he never received the 600 cash which at the time was a lot of money to me. He had recorded a sponsorship video which I could never use and I asked for a few changes before I made the final payment. He refused to make any changes until I had paid him for all of the work he done but I couldn't use that video and would love to pay for the final once it was fixed. He started treating me abusive and putting my back up against the wall putting me in a lose lose situations where he wouldn't help me move forward or work with me at all. It was very sexist abusive behavior. He wouldn't even acknowledge or hear my side of the story and I had paid him over 10,000 before this. Shouldn't I have been considered a good client? That sponsorship video was such terrible quality. It was only the last two symposiums that I owed him for And this was sabotaging my symposium series and this was the very end of them.
I had terrible anxiety and my sponsors or any income that I had coming in wanted to see the events and he was making it so hard it was hurting my business. I had just moved. I tried gathering all the documents that I could crying many tears and anything I gathered wasn't even acknowledged or viewed. I spent hours and made him a spreadsheet and took a lot of time out of my life to go through all of this. He demanded more records and checks when he should have his own record straight and just put me through hell in a time when I was so busy trying to build my business. There were so many nights that I just cried in bed because of my dealings with this man. I believe I owed him $1200 final payment. He believe that I owed him 2700 which was devastating on my pocket and he was wrong. Again I had already paid over 10k for this series. These were the last to symposiums of the event series. The spreadsheets nothing worked. He wanted to see where he had signed for payments instead of keeping track of them otherwise he treated me like I had no right to even question anything.
He never was kind to me or tried to work with me or anything. He never gave me the original footage for anything he filmed for me even for the thousands of dollars I had paid him for before this last invoice. When I requested that footage I had originally paid (over 10K) he refused to give me anything. I explained him that was an incorrect balance and I'd be happy to pay the correct balance. He never properly invoiced me or sent receipts. Instead it was just some pocket cash to go buy drugs. I couldn't believe this guy was trying to embezzle money out of me like this and holding my footage hostage. To this day six years later I have never received any of the footage that I paid over $10,000 for just because of that last balance. I paid event by event and I should've received what I had already paid for before we worked out the last payment.
He stole everything I had paid him for which is actually a felony. You can't pay somebody for something and then destroy it. I have been working so hard I knew that I did not have time or money to go to court and fight him and he knew that too. This was 2014 and he has never responded to me asking him for my footage or to my attorney and I paid him over $10,000 time for the original footage I never received. Who did he held on a hard drive that I paid for and bought that is my personal property . After multiple letters and years and even hiring attorneys he doesn't give a sh*t that he stole over $10,000 from me. I have a mutual friends and they all tell me that he still uses cocaine all the time and he is always jacked up. Even if I owed a balance you can't steal something I already paid for.
Maybe you can keep the new footage but not the old footage. It didn't matter to him because I was a woman who should've never argued or questioned him in the first place. I only have a few small video reels he uploaded into my YouTube channel and not the full videos. He even kept MY hard drive. My property. It has been so many years and I still every couple years send him an email because that was historical footage. The sexist behavior where you don't have to respond to a female client who has paid that much money to you is sexism and it is as bad as racism. He is a terrible human being. I've even offered to pay it all or make payments (on the false balance) with zero response. I ran into him at an event he was filming a few years back that JJ Walker was throwing backstage at a creative space venue in Denver. This was a gig Gabe landed because of me introducing him to JJ and went on to make thousands of dollars off of that venture. I walked backstage looking for someone and I walked right in the vip room right as Gabriel Rovick was snorting a huge line of cocaine and he literally looked up at me and sniffled and look like he had seen a ghost. I watched the whole thing and it made me sick. That's the only time I've met face-to-face again with this thieving a*s drug addict sexist thief since. All I did was keep walking and thought to myself how did I ever get in contact with such a horrible person.
I have hired attorneys to send letters with no response. He never could even comprehend the idea that he might be possibly wrong. I had paid him so much money and been such a good customer and introduced him to other big accounts and I wasn't even worth a conversation or him trying to get through this with me. It was just you're wrong and I'm right pay me. I have done my extensive accounting over the years and keep track of every payment that I give. I have lost so much sleep over this. I was so stressed about this for so long and cried so many tears. I want to warn people not to get involved with or support corrupt sexist male owned companies like this. I have all the proof.
I did not deserve to pay that much money for footage I would never see again. After all that business I have never received any files from him on any of the footage I ever paid him for. For being a young start up that's a lot of money. Don't ever trust this company. Even this past year I tried to reach out again because this is the last thing I wanted to do was come on here and say anything bad about another human being. Stealing from your own clients is so unacceptable much less treating them that terrible. The work and the footage that they do isn't even that good. Be very careful for focus for design, Gabriel Gabe Rovick and Tyler Vitello (check the drug records). Drug addict thieving unprofessional sexist company and bullies. Don't trust them.
F4d Studio Reviews
I hired Focus for Design at one of the Most important times in my career. I was throwing the first symposium series for medical cannabis and so many people were moving to Colorado to help their children who were having hundreds of seizures. We were finding that this is this was one thing that would stop them. I am a single women minority business owner who is pioneering the industry. I had just received approval from the Department of Higher Education for my university. Pretty impressive for a single woman. I was working so hard on my own budget, understaffed, but wanted to document the historic work that I was doing.
I didn't charge for the series I provided it free for an industry that wanted to pioneer healthcare and help patients who had been having hundreds of seizures a day. I funded it series myself. It was just a couple years earlier that my little brother of 14 years old died in my arms of cancer. I was working so hard after that trauma to make this world a better place.
I hired Focus for Design to record our two hour symposium series for $600 total. They would record the entire symposiym and then create a smaller video reel of the event for an additional $300. I would receive both videos including all of the original footage. I bought them a hard drive with my money (so the hard drive is my personal property) and they would store the footage there at the studio on my hard drive. The relationship went on from 2012-2014. Then they started displaying some very weird behavior. One day Gabe asked me if he could pull me aside and talk to me at my own event. He told me that his team had been caught with cocaine and that he needed a referral for an attorney. He had also been asking me earlier than normal if he could get his payments and in cash. This is when I noticed things started getting weird. He seemed really jacked up at the time. I had no problem helping him.
Shortly after Gabe had asked me if I could pay him early for an event he had done because he was short on funds and wondering if he could come by and get the money since he was leaving town. I said sure! I have all of these text messages that showed he came by for the money but he said if he didn't sign a paper saying he took the money that that wasn't relevant. I paid him $600 cash that day. He never invoiced me properly or kept proper records of what payments I had made. I would get one every 3 to 6 times I made a payment. I kept great records though. I normally made him sign for these payments but I couldn't find my book that day and he told me he wouldn't forget.
I sent him these text messages showing he came by and thanked me for the payment but he never acknowledged them. Anytime I would dig up records or send them to him he would say that they were inaccurate or just not respond. He dropped by often to get cash payments for me and I would make him sign a sheet. Shortly after he filmed another event and then I had asked him if I could have all my past footage from the prievious events he was storing at his facility. He sent me a demand letter that included additional payments I had already made. It had only been a little over a month since I made my last payment so this demand letter was very weird behavior and caught me very offguard. He told me that I have a balance of 2700.00. He said that I owed him for shirts I had printed that I paid him for (by check) and then asked me to provide all of those records where he signed for the payment after I had given him a check. He told me to dig up all the checks instead of checking his own accounting. It was nonsense!
Then said he never received the 600 cash which at the time was a lot of money to me. He had recorded a sponsorship video which I could never use and I asked for a few changes before I made the final payment. He refused to make any changes until I had paid him for all of the work he done but I couldn't use that video and would love to pay for the final once it was fixed. He started treating me abusive and putting my back up against the wall putting me in a lose lose situations where he wouldn't help me move forward or work with me at all. It was very sexist abusive behavior. He wouldn't even acknowledge or hear my side of the story and I had paid him over 10,000 before this. Shouldn't I have been considered a good client? That sponsorship video was such terrible quality. It was only the last two symposiums that I owed him for And this was sabotaging my symposium series and this was the very end of them.
I had terrible anxiety and my sponsors or any income that I had coming in wanted to see the events and he was making it so hard it was hurting my business. I had just moved. I tried gathering all the documents that I could crying many tears and anything I gathered wasn't even acknowledged or viewed. I spent hours and made him a spreadsheet and took a lot of time out of my life to go through all of this. He demanded more records and checks when he should have his own record straight and just put me through hell in a time when I was so busy trying to build my business. There were so many nights that I just cried in bed because of my dealings with this man. I believe I owed him $1200 final payment. He believe that I owed him 2700 which was devastating on my pocket and he was wrong. Again I had already paid over 10k for this series. These were the last to symposiums of the event series. The spreadsheets nothing worked. He wanted to see where he had signed for payments instead of keeping track of them otherwise he treated me like I had no right to even question anything.
He never was kind to me or tried to work with me or anything. He never gave me the original footage for anything he filmed for me even for the thousands of dollars I had paid him for before this last invoice. When I requested that footage I had originally paid (over 10K) he refused to give me anything. I explained him that was an incorrect balance and I'd be happy to pay the correct balance. He never properly invoiced me or sent receipts. Instead it was just some pocket cash to go buy drugs. I couldn't believe this guy was trying to embezzle money out of me like this and holding my footage hostage. To this day six years later I have never received any of the footage that I paid over $10,000 for just because of that last balance. I paid event by event and I should've received what I had already paid for before we worked out the last payment.
He stole everything I had paid him for which is actually a felony. You can't pay somebody for something and then destroy it. I have been working so hard I knew that I did not have time or money to go to court and fight him and he knew that too. This was 2014 and he has never responded to me asking him for my footage or to my attorney and I paid him over $10,000 time for the original footage I never received. Who did he held on a hard drive that I paid for and bought that is my personal property . After multiple letters and years and even hiring attorneys he doesn't give a sh*t that he stole over $10,000 from me. I have a mutual friends and they all tell me that he still uses cocaine all the time and he is always jacked up. Even if I owed a balance you can't steal something I already paid for.
Maybe you can keep the new footage but not the old footage. It didn't matter to him because I was a woman who should've never argued or questioned him in the first place. I only have a few small video reels he uploaded into my YouTube channel and not the full videos. He even kept MY hard drive. My property. It has been so many years and I still every couple years send him an email because that was historical footage. The sexist behavior where you don't have to respond to a female client who has paid that much money to you is sexism and it is as bad as racism. He is a terrible human being. I've even offered to pay it all or make payments (on the false balance) with zero response. I ran into him at an event he was filming a few years back that JJ Walker was throwing backstage at a creative space venue in Denver. This was a gig Gabe landed because of me introducing him to JJ and went on to make thousands of dollars off of that venture. I walked backstage looking for someone and I walked right in the vip room right as Gabriel Rovick was snorting a huge line of cocaine and he literally looked up at me and sniffled and look like he had seen a ghost. I watched the whole thing and it made me sick. That's the only time I've met face-to-face again with this thieving a*s drug addict sexist thief since. All I did was keep walking and thought to myself how did I ever get in contact with such a horrible person.
I have hired attorneys to send letters with no response. He never could even comprehend the idea that he might be possibly wrong. I had paid him so much money and been such a good customer and introduced him to other big accounts and I wasn't even worth a conversation or him trying to get through this with me. It was just you're wrong and I'm right pay me. I have done my extensive accounting over the years and keep track of every payment that I give. I have lost so much sleep over this. I was so stressed about this for so long and cried so many tears. I want to warn people not to get involved with or support corrupt sexist male owned companies like this. I have all the proof.
I did not deserve to pay that much money for footage I would never see again. After all that business I have never received any files from him on any of the footage I ever paid him for. For being a young start up that's a lot of money. Don't ever trust this company. Even this past year I tried to reach out again because this is the last thing I wanted to do was come on here and say anything bad about another human being. Stealing from your own clients is so unacceptable much less treating them that terrible. The work and the footage that they do isn't even that good. Be very careful for focus for design, Gabriel Gabe Rovick and Tyler Vitello (check the drug records). Drug addict thieving unprofessional sexist company and bullies. Don't trust them.