This article originally appeared on VICE US.
To senior citizen investors around the country, Isaac Grossman may have came off as the second coming of Larry Page.
According to federal prosecutors, Grossman promised his nascent South Florida-based tech firm, Dragon-Click, was going to revolutionize the way people shopped online. He allegedly told one of his money backers that one day, people would no longer be saying, "just Google it," but instead, "just Dragon-Click it."
One investor, a 78-year-old retired lumber industry executive residing in Temple, Texas, named Ronald Nedry, threw $271,000 at Dragon-Click during a two-year period beginning in 2015. Grossman, whose company was based from his home in the affluent Broward County suburb Parkland, allegedly told Nedry his funds would be used to cover costs for developing Dragon-Click's technology and securing patents.
In a recent phone interview, Nedry said Grossman pitched him on a concept that sounded simple enough: a web application that allowed users to click on a picture of something and instantly find websites that sell the product. After making an initial investment of $62,500 for 2,500 shares of Dragon-Click stock, Nedry said, Grossman would call and text him with updates while hitting him up for more cash.
"He last texted me that he had half-a-million dollars headed my way, but that he just needed $5,000 to complete a transaction," Nedry said. "It was all BS.
Nedry isn't the only person who feels that way.
According to a bevy of federal civil and criminal allegations against him, Grossman turned out to be more like a low-level version of Jordan ..
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