The Journal. - An Influencer's False Promise To Make His Followers Rich

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

Get your tickets to our L.A. live show here! In 2019, influencer Tai Lopez made a pitch to his social media followers: by buying up distressed retail brands like Radio Shack and Pier 1 out of bankruptcy, they could all get rich. But as WSJ’s Suzanne Kapner reports, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Lopez of running a “Ponzi-like scheme” through his company, Retail Ecommerce Ventures. Ryan Knutson hosts. Further Listening/Viewing: - Influencer Arielle Charnas’s Fashion Fail - How a Miami Couple Used Empty Mansions to Pocket Millions Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everyone, it's Jess. And Ryan, we have a live event coming up that you do not want to miss. It's in Los Angeles, on Tuesday, April 28th at the L. Ray Theater. We'll have Emmy winner and Oscar-nominated actor Riz Ahmed. Who was in the Star Wars movie Rogue One. And TV and film producer Franklin Leonard. We'll be talking about the future of Hollywood, and we'll have a few other surprises. Tickets are still available.

Grab yours now via the link in our show notes. See you, April 28th. Our colleague Suzanne Kappner covers the retail industry. And in 2021, a new company wanted to picture a story. The company was called Rev, which stood for retail, e-commerce ventures. And they had reached out to me saying, hey, you know, talk to us. We have this great business model. This company was buying up all these, defunct retailers who had filed for bankruptcy, who were struggling to survive, Radio Shack, peer one. The list goes on.

Rest Bar and Modell's sporting goods. As you were listing off those names, I can just, like, see myself walking down a mall in, like, 1997, and, like, I can see the logos. There's just, like, a who's who of 90s mall brands. It was a who's who of dead mall brands, really. Their idea was to buy these well-known but failing brands and turn them into digital juggernauts. We're getting them on the cheap. It won't be so hard to turn them around.

We're going to close all their brick-and-mortar stores. We're going to turn them into online players. and it's going to be so easy to make this successful. To learn more, Suzanne hopped on a Zoom call with the company's founders. One of them was an online influencer named Ty Lopez. He was very smooth. He's a good-looking guy. He's well-spoken. He's a consummate salesman. And so he does make a nice presentation. But after hearing Lopez's pitch, Suzanne ended up passing on the story.

I just really didn't buy into what they were doing. It just didn't say, sound. It sounded a little bit too much like smoke and mirrors and not enough like a real business plan. Like it didn't really pass the sniff test for you as a Wall Street Journal reporter. It did not pass the sniff test, exactly. You know, I'm used to talking to people who have been in this business a long time who kind of know the ins and outs of retailing, and he is not that. He doesn't have those chops. But Lopez's idea did pass the sniff test for some of his online followers. In fact, 660, mostly small investors, provided Rev with over $230 million. Lopez told these investors that they were getting in on the ground floor of something really exciting,

with a promise of big financial returns. But that success would never come. And a few years later, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit, alleging that Tai Lopez was running a massive Ponzi scheme. You know what my takeaway is? What? Is that Suzanne Kappner has a good nose. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power.

I'm Ryan Knudsen. It's Friday, April 17th. Coming up on the show, an influencer's retail empire that never was. This episode is brought to you by Volkswagen. Need a vehicle that isn't afraid to make a splash? That's the Volkswagen. Tows, capable and confident, it's fit for everyday life, nimble in traffic, agile and tight spots, and still spacious enough for weekend getaways. While available, 4-motion all-wheel drive gives

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It's called Here in My Garage. Here in my garage, just bought this new Lamborghini here. It's fun to drive up here in the Hollywood Hills. But you know what I like a lot more than materialistic things? Knowledge. And then the camera pans over to this wall filled with books, bookshelves. It's like the billionaire Warren Buffett says, the more you learn, the more you earn.

He talks about how he reads all these books, And there's like a simplicity about it that was just genius. Here in my garage was all over YouTube in the mid-2010s. And it spawned a whole genre of videos that poked fun at Lopez's humble brag. Here in my garage just bought this new Honda Civic here. Had all these bookshelves installed out in my garage like a crazy person so I could show you the Lamborghini and the books at the same time. But you know what I like a lot more than materialistic things?

materialistic things. Lopez used his videos to promote his online business courses. One of them was called 67 steps, where for $67 a month, Lopez promised a step-by-step guide to the, quote, good life. Lopez also sold in-person seminars where he shared his secrets for getting rich. What was the story that he was telling about himself and who he was?

Well, he is very open about the fact that he's a college dropout and that his father was in prison for selling cocaine and he was raised in a mobile home by his mom. So humble beginnings. It wasn't that long ago that I was in a little town across the country sleeping on a couch in a mobile home with only $47 in my bank account. I didn't have a college degree. I had no opportunities. Lopez said he got his start at an insurance company where he cold-called potential clients. He said his breakthrough came when he figured out how to write snappy copy for Google ads, which generated better leads, and eventually solid sales commissions. He used that as a launching pad to kind of reframe himself as, you know,

this kind of up from the bootstraps, businessman, learn how to get rich quick. How can you achieve financial freedom? It's one of the most common questions I get. Lopez's videos gave off an air of luxury. They were set in extravagant mansions with pristine. pools. They promoted parties promising encounters with fashion models, and he showed off his connections with prominent businessmen. All right, guess who stopped by the house today? What's up, Ty? I'm Mr. Mark Cuban. At one point, Lopez filmed the video with former Shark Tank star Mark Cuban. And they're shooting hoops together

on his private basketball court, and they're talking about, you know, what it's like to make your first million, first billion. People ask me, what do billioners do when their downtime? We're sitting here, sweaty from playing basketball, catching up on email. You always work? This isn't work. That's what I like to do. What he loves to do. And I did reach out to Mark Cuban, and I said, you know, are you friends with this guy?

And he said, look, I'm not friends with him. I filmed this video kind of at the request of a mutual friend. And, you know, I regret having done this. Then in 2019, Lopez announced his biggest business idea yet. retail e-commerce ventures, or Rev. Lopez partnered with a mechanical engineer named Alex Mayer, who had made his fortune after selling a dating app for $255 million. Retail e-commerce ventures, the idea was a lot of traditional retailers

with household brand names like Radio Shack, Pier 1, Dressparne, were failing. They were filing for bankruptcy, and Lopez got the idea of buying them on the cheap in bankruptcy. and turning them into e-commerce companies that you could save a lot of money if you close the brick-and-mortar stores, you would just, you know, run them as e-commerce players. This concept, though, of the, like, run them as an online retailer.

Like, was it a crazy idea? It was not a crazy idea. And, in fact, Lord and Taylor is now online only. They closed all their brick-and-mortar stores. They exist online on the web, bed-bath-and-beyond, same thing. Rev's first notable acquisition was DressBarn, the decades-old women's fashion retailer. DressBarn had shut down its 544 stores, and Rev bought its e-commerce rights for a mere $5 million. Then COVID hit, and more brick-and-mortar stores went belly up.

And Rev went on a shopping spree. This morning's retail e-commerce ventures is announcing the completed acquisition of distressed sports brand Models. This is the third major retailer along with Pier 1. With all of their acquisitions, Rev started to get a lot of attention. Joining us for this segment, we have Alex Merr of retail e-commerce ventures to discuss e-commerce turning distressed brands into e-commerce powerhouses as well as... To help finance these acquisitions, Lopez asked his millions of followers if they would consider becoming investors. I'm working on buying a massive global brand.

If you have at least $10 million, this is a big deal. 10 million, DM me 10M. In one pitch deck, Suzanne reviewed, Lopez told people that if it invested $1 million, they'd receive $200,000 after the first year, a 20% return. And, you know, to the average layperson, it makes perfect sense. You know, Radio Shack is a good brand. Let's cut the costs of all the physical stores and just put it online. And you can make money that way. I mean, it seems very plausible. One of the people who bought in was John Melton. And he's talking these big percentages and he's talking about it being a billion dollar brand and, you know, building up these companies and then selling them and making 10x, 20x. Like he was talking such a big game. When you trust someone and you're getting returns, that's how you get sucked in.

How it all came crashing down is next. When I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids and I want to give back to the kids. community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my out of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth Advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. When a country's productivity cycle is broken, people feel it in their paychecks, their communities, their futures. What does this mean for individuals, communities,

and businesses across the country? Join business leaders, policymakers, and influencers for CG's national series on the Canadian Standard of Living, Productivity, and Innovation. Learn what's driving Canada's productivity decline and discover actionable solutions to reverse it. John Melton lives in Maryland. He and his wife Nadia have two kids. John says he's been an entrepreneur for 25 years. And he's something of an influencer himself, posting videos giving business advice. His Instagram bio says he's, quote,

slightly addicted to winning. Sometime around 2020, John and his wife came across Ty Lopez's pitch online. Ty was promoting how he's starting this company with Alex Mayer. I remember them saying, like, you know, Ty's this online marketing genius. And of course, again, because we were in that space too, like we were very familiar with him.

and they're talking about how he has a few money. John started watching more of Lopez's webinars. I think his concept made sense, and I actually think in the beginning he had good intentions. I really do. I think it was initially like, hey, you can buy these businesses, these brands for pennies on the dollar,

and not take on the debt, but you could take on the database. You could go out there and promote and sell through their email list, through social media, through Twitter, you know, now X, whatever. So, again, the concept made sense. John was sold.

In the first two years, he and his wife invested around $900,000 into Rev. And in the beginning, it was great. We were getting returns every month. I want to say it was about 17% returns this first couple years. Through weekly Zoom webinars, Lopez kept investors updated on Rev's business.

During those updates, Lopez also pitched new ideas. One of those ideas was for a new real estate investment. He's going to start doing real estate syndications where you buy these apartment buildings, you fix them up, you raise the rent, and then you refinance get your cash back, and then you just, you know, you get cash flow from the renters.

In late October 2022, the day after hearing about the real estate venture, the mountains wired Lopez $500,000. Less than a month later, John got an email with some unsettling news. Everything was grinding to a halt. No more weekly zooms, no more monthly, deposits, and no explanation.

And it's not from Thai, it's from some attorney we've never heard of. John started freaking out. By now, he'd invested over $1.4 million with Rev, and he wanted answers. He started sending Lopez a slew of text messages. I follow up with him on the 27th. Hey, bro, is everything okay with Rev?

With us recently investing 500K in your new real estate arm, obviously I'm a little concerned. No response. John messaged again on November 30th. I said, hey, bro, this is not okay and I need to get my 500K back that I wired you ASAP. He showed me the text chain on his iPhone. It's a wall of blue bubbles, a one-sided conversation. More blue, more blue, more blue. Finally, about a month later, John got a one-line text that read simply,

This week we'll have some more updates. But then nothing. And the wall of one-sided messages continued. And then question marks, question marks, question marks, question marks. I mean, it's just blue for the last few years. It finally hid John that all of his money was gone. And not just his money. A lot of the people who had invested with Rev were out.

One investor said that he lost most of the $175,000 he'd put into Rev, money he'd planned to use to pay for college for his two sons. Another investor is out about $300,000 and now has to delay his retirement. You know what's so frustrating about the whole thing is he never even mentioned one time that business was, like any of the companies were in trouble, I mean, everything was just so great. In December 2020, a group of Rev's debt holders foreclosed on some of the brands that Rev had acquired. Pier 1, Models, and Dress Barn are now operated by a new entity called Omni Retail Enterprises.

These brands still exist as online-only retailers, just without Lopez and his partners. In the fall of 2025, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit against Ty Lopez, Alex Mayer, and Lopez's cousin, Maya Birken Road, who is the company's C-O-O-O. The SEC accused the trio of, quote, making Ponzi-like payments to investors. According to former employees in the SEC, none of the companies Rev owned were profitable. The SEC says to keep the businesses going and to buy even more brands, they would raise even more money from new investors, and then they would use that money to pay out to their old investors. So a lot of the money that the original investors received, because some of them did, in fact, receive money, it was coming from new investors, so, you know, a classic Ponzi scheme.

Lopez, Berkenrode, and their lawyer, Marty Reddy, did not respond to requests for comment. The SEC also declined to comment. Court filings indicate that both sides are in active settlement talks. Ty Lopez hasn't admitted to wrongdoing. A spokesman for mayor said he believed in Rev's business model, and that he put over $5 million of his own money into the company and suffered substantial losses, when the business was hit by what he called, quote, severe post-pandemic macroeconomic headwinds.

According to people familiar with the matter, the FBI is also investigating. No charges have been filed. So what ultimately happened at Rev? Like, what went wrong? What went wrong was they raised money and made promises that they couldn't keep. They did not have the skills

to turn these businesses into profitable ventures and even let's just, you know, put the caveat in there that even if they had done everything perfectly, it was still a long shot. You know, this is still a gamble. I think sometimes people think retailing is an easy business because these are brands we're familiar with, but I think it's a little bit of a misunderstood industry and it is incredibly difficult. The margins are thin, the competition is fierce, the barrier to entry is low, and it is very difficult to run a successful retailer. You know, anytime someone says, look, this is easy, this is a home run, you should think twice and say maybe that's not true. You know, sometimes something sounds legitimate, but it can be hard for the average person to really vet that and know for sure. As for the Melton's, John says his family will be fine financially, but the whole thing still stings. If those businesses would have just gone belly up and he would have been honest about it, we probably would have been like, hey, you chop it up as a loss, that sucks. Lesson learned, we just paid our stupid tax.

There's a thing I heard a long time ago, they said there's really smart people out there, and they're spending all day, every day, trying to figure out how to get your stupid money. And that's true. That's what Ty did. If you could talk to Ty Lopez, what would you say to him? I mean, dude, make it right. Just do the right thing. I mean, that or you're going to go to jail.

At some point, if it's not jail, it's something else. Like karma's at your door, homie. As for Ty Lopez, he's still putting out content. He currently has around 3 million followers on Instagram. So the best way to make mega money in the next two years is to copy any corporate non-AI product. He's been a featured guest on YouTube shows with hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

I've been teaching people, SMMA, social media marketing agency. I own the trademark for it. I've taught, you know, I launched a generation of entrepreneurs off that one concept. And Lopez has his own podcast. The latest episode of the Thai Lopez show

was published in March. Book a call free. We can talk. You got to be doing least. seven, eight figures. For everybody else, follow my free stuff. All right, talk soon. That's all for today. Friday, April 17th.

Additional reporting this episode by Alexander Gladstone. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. The show is made by Laura Benchoff, Catherine Brewer, Pia Gadkari, Max Green, Isabella Japal, Sophie Kodner, Matt Kwan, Colin McNulty, Jessica Mendoza, Annie Minnuff, Laura Morris, Enrique Perez de La Rosa, Sarah Platt, Alan Rodriguez-Espinoza, Heather Rogers, Piercinge, Jivica Verma, Catherine Whalen, Tatiana Zamiz, and me, Ryan Knudsen. Today is Annie Minov's last day. Thank you so much with your time with us, Annie.

We know you'll continue to do amazing things. Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapok, and Peter Leonard. Our theme music is by So Wiley. Additional music this week from Catherine Anderson, Peter Leonard, Bobby Lorde, Emma Munger, Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapok, So Wiley, and Blue Dot Sessions. Fact-checking this week by Mary Mathis and Kate Gallagher. Thanks for listening. See you Monday. The Madamy Holmes bike for Brain Health supporting Baycrest returns on May 31st for its fifth anniversary

with a new start and finish at the Aga Khan Museum. Join thousands of cyclists as we take over the DVP and Gardner Expressway in support of dementia research and brain health. Riders of all abilities are welcome, and both regular bikes and e-bikes can participate. Bring your friends, family, or corporate team, and make an impact. Register today at fight for brainhealth.ca.