He Started a Group Where Dreams Could Be Realized. Now Some Members Claim They’ve Been Scammed.

Jenkins said that the whole idea to run the giveaways came from Freeman initially. Inspired by a group running giveaways in the Honda tuner scene, Freeman approached Jenkins with the plan. Once it was researched and cleared through a lawyer and tax professional, they were ready to start. Laws surrounding raffles and sweepstakes can get a little murky, and they vary state-by-state, but the pair found a system that worked.

“So basically what I’m selling is a seat to a webinar and an online video of me basically doing an online course of said product, like how the product works. Basically going over the wheels, the coilovers, the car. I can show exactly how they work, how to install them, that sort of thing. And then to basically show an appreciation of like, you know, you bought a spot to watch this online webinar, we’re going to turn around and give away this product that we were doing the video on for free to one of the winners. And then every 90 days a completely free giveaway,” said Jenkins.

He explained that this is different from how other “giveaway” groups function, as you often have to buy a sticker, shirt, or digital download to secure a spot with them. In his and Freeman’s model, you’d purchase one or multiple “seats” from a limited list. From there, a winner was determined using sites like wheelofnames.com and online-stopwatch.com. Early on, things were running smoothly for both the organizers and the participants. The group Jenkins and Freeman started was growing at a decent pace and the good news was starting to spread. 

It didn’t take long, though, for the operation to run into its first stumbling blocks. Freeman, allegedly struggling with sobriety, entered rehab on and off multiple times over the course of a few years. Court records show multiple instances of substance-related charges ranging from Public Intoxication in 2019 to Possession of Controlled Substances, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia and Driving Under The Influence in 2020.

“The original plan with this was we were just doing one car at a time. We would wash it, detail it, fix it, do upgrades to whatever, do the thing on the car, and then boom, it's gone. Shipped to the winner. Then we'll find another one. You know what I mean? It was never supposed to be multiples, any of that, right?” Jenkins said. “Well, then it turned into, ‘well, business has got to grow. The business has got to grow’.”

He said that at that point, he invested in another shop, using somewhere between $20,000 and $50,000 of his own capital, all while Freeman was allegedly beginning to slip in his pursuit of sobriety.

“Then I find out he's just using the [business] bank card. He just used it like a fucking regular debit card. And then we would have to go through and sort it all out,” Jenkins said.

“So, long story short, he's been going out drinking with people, hanging out with people doing whatever, probably doing drugs, who the fuck knows. I got a call from his wife that he was out drinking and broke his leg, and he's at the emergency room, and supposedly he was in one of the giveaway cars or something,” Jenkins said.

He pointed to that night as the turning point in their business partnership. Jenkins alleged that Freeman took a car slated for a giveaway out for a night on the town with other friends of his. At some point in the evening, Freeman broke his leg and was rushed to the emergency room. Jenkins clarified that, while the giveaway car wasn’t damaged, Freeman never recovered from that night. From then on, Freeman’s business dealings became erratic, with payments owed not being resolved according to their agreement and his buying and selling of cars occurring at an accelerated rate.

“And then it turned into, ‘I'm going to do one car to pay for the other car because I want to keep it,’ so he ran both of those cars enough to pay for both of them, and then he was going to keep the other one. Well, he spent all the fucking money, and I don't remember how much it was, but it was a lot of money,” Jenkins said.

Freeman’s lifestyle creep began to explode, with him allegedly buying and hoarding cars, car parts, shoes, jewelry, and drugs. Traveling to purchase vehicles for the giveaway group became an excuse for luxury.

“We had a friend that lived in the same town, and we made a deal, and I gave Heath my Silvia. It was an S13 coupe, my full race car, all the shit for it, $20,000 worth of stuff. I gave him all that for him flying out there and making the deal and we bought some other cars while we were there and did giveaways on them to pay for everything,” Jenkins said. “And he had to vacation the whole time. He ate at a five star restaurant every night. Pretty sure he went to a fucking strip club in a bar, because I have the receipts for it on the thing, you know what I'm saying? It was like it was literally a strip club/bar, you know? It's like they're living it up, having a vacation.”

While the money was flowing, it never seemed to stay in Freeman’s hands for very long.

“He was messaging people on the page, getting them to send money, like, ‘Hey, man, I need to borrow $50.’ ‘For $20. I'll get you back on the next car’. I never knew any of this. I didn't know this till after I left. What he was doing was having them Cash App his drug dealer,” Jenkins said.

Chris Burgunder was involved in Freeman’s operation quite early on as a silent partner. Their arrangement was a simple one: In exchange for the capital to purchase a vehicle destined for the giveaway page, Freeman would give Burgunder a 10% return on his investment. This was detailed to consist of many 30-day contracts over the course of two years. Burgunder said that, in the beginning, things worked out great.

“I saw the page two years ago, and while I went kind of back and forth with the guys, one of the bigger cars that they'd ever done at the time was one of the most expensive cars, my Toyota Chaser, and that was how we started, was a business transaction. And, we just kind of drew up some contracts to where it was, whatever I put out, I got a certain amount back within, you know, basically my interest on some of these private loans.”

After the initial deal to sell his Chaser, Burgunder said that the agreements on his loans were solely through Freeman, never Jenkins. Jenkins would remain involved in name and through his parts giveaways. It didn’t take long for Burgunder to get roped into Freeman’s antics with contracts not being honored.

“He would see a silver lining in that and say, well, okay, I bought the car. I can flip this car within a week and then use that money to go buy another car and then do that one, and I'll make twice the money. So I started putting, you know, like what the VIN was for the car,” Burgunder said. “He was in breach of almost every single contract. But I was just trying to be nice and lenient, and then he would send like, partial payments and then give excuses of why he doesn't have the full payment, and, you know, I started to see the greed happen.”

Burgunder started to get fed up at that point, and began to pull back somewhat from the arrangement. He said, however, that the scale of this was “unmanageable,” and as such, a few more deals had to occur to get things square. Jenkins allegedly had to sell one of his personal cars to tamp down the debt Freeman had accrued, which Burgunder claims was over $40,000. Burgunder said that he also had to provide additional money to assist Freeman in squaring things up. Burgunder claims their last deal is why he’s still owed $25,000.

Freeman had allegedly worked on a side deal taking custody of a third party’s car to give away. Months passed after Freeman took responsibility for this car, but the original owner still hadn’t been paid. Burgunder said he offered to bail Freeman out of this predicament by paying the other party directly in exchange for ownership of Freeman’s truck, should he default on repayment.

“I think the loan was for like $30,000 or $35,000 or whatever. But I was like, ‘I'll do this, but what I'm doing is I'm buying your truck, and you have 60 days to buy it back from me for the exact same amount. So in this loan, you pay me back, I get nothing back on profit. I don't want 10% or 5%. Nothing. You pay me back, and then what my reward was for bailing you out is you raffle two of my vehicles for a fair market value,” Burgunder said. “We put a market value of $25,000 on my S14 Silvia, and then we did, like, $30,000 on a Z06, a 40,000-mile yellow Corvette C6. I was like, ‘just do both of those by the end of the year. You sell both of those, I don't have to deal with Marketplace, I don't have to deal with a bunch of people, you can make as much money on it as you want.”

Freeman, however, did not honor all the terms of this deal, only paying back the initial loan and selling one of the two vehicles. Burgunder claimed that while the S14 was sold through a giveaway, the Corvette was not, so, per the terms of their contract, he’s still owed money.