PR mogul Roxy Jacenko says she is still committed to personally refunding all 7,489 people who signed up to her highly publicised brand boot camp after a bitter dispute with her former business partners.
Jacenko partnered with businessmen Youssef Tleis and Kassim Alaouie to launch a promotion which offered new customers her Brand Bootcamp online business course the chance to win three epic prizes.
However, the partnership came to a sudden halt last month with Jacenko taking to social media to claim she was leaving after discovering a ‘shortfall’ in the prize money pool and insisted she would offer customers refunds out of her own pocket.
‘I stand by my offer to refund customers and as a result of this, $684,000 of my own personal funds remain in my solicitor’s trust account,’ she told Daily Mail Australia on Friday.
The promotion, which touted prizes including a $10million waterfront home, a Birkin bag and a Rolex timepiece, was due to be drawn on Friday, with the announcement now slated for Saturday.
‘The company account did not have enough to pay the First Prize winner, so I personally loaned the company money so that it could pay off substantial creditors and so that sufficient funds were held in the company’s accounts to pay out the $250,000 prize,’ she said.
‘I loaned the company in excess of $100,000 in order to ensure that sufficient funds were available to the company.’
Jacenko resigned as a director last month and Mr Tleis is the sole director of Roxy’s Bootcamp Pty Ltd.
‘I could not issue refunds from Shopify as Mr Tleis is the only one with access to the NAB account which holds funds – he revoked my access to the company bank account,’ she said.
The admission comes after Jacenko commenced legal proceedings in the Supreme Court of New South Wales in relation to the competition and to allow an orderly means of refunding customers.’
The court heard Jacenko sought the appointment of provisional liquidators due to, among other reasons, allegations that Mr Tleis and Mr Alaouie had engaged in ‘misleading conduct’ over their handling of the promotion due to a sub-clause which stated the prizes would only be delivered if the competition achieved more than $11.5million in revenue.
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However, the conditions were never made public by Jacenko during a whirlwind of publicity and the clause was also missing from the competition’s formal terms and conditions on the Roxy’s Bootcamp website.
‘The court was taken to documents which indicated that as soon as I understood the situation, I wanted the promotion to stop and then ultimately put money into my solicitor’s trust account,’ she explained.
‘I brought the proceeding also because Mr Alaouie and Mr Tleis planned to continue on with the promotion – this was unrealistic given the terms stated that the house would ONLY be made available if the revenue reached at least $11.5million plus costs, this was never going to happen.’
Justice McGrath agreed to appoint a provisional liquidator Cathro & Partners to the company, lamenting the sorry state of affairs that brought the matter before the court.
‘The competing interlocutory applications arise in the extraordinary circumstances of the rapid creation and almost equally rapid deterioration in the relationships between Ms Jacenko, Mr Tleis and Mr Alaouie over a business venture involving the promoting of training courses offered by Ms Jacenko to the public using a highly questionable promotion scheme,’ he said.
‘On any view, the promotion has attracted significant adverse publicity … this has led to online commentary which has been extremely derogatory about the promotion itself and those involved in it.’
The matter will return to court later this month.