Veloce Group/ Philip Ho review: Fake Company/ Scam Artist

I am writing this review to let people know that Philip Ho, who claims he owns or works for three Public Relations firms (the Veloce Group, Philip Ho & Associates and HS3), is either the world’s worst P.R. person or a world class prevaricator.
After I fired Philip Ho, I started doing my own research and this is what I discovered about him and his companies. Philip Ho claims that he is one of Kobe Bryant’s P.R. agents and will show you a portfolio of his work and photographs of him and Kobe Bryant. When I did my own research after firing Philip Ho, I found that he only worked one event for Kobe Bryant and was subsequently fired after doing this one event for Mr. Bryant. Although again it is not clear what capacity his work with Kobe Bryant was.
The business card that he gave me for Veloce Group had his office listed in Porter Ranch and that is where Philip Ho said his office was. It turns out this is NOT an office but a P.O. Box in a strip mall postal center. Then he gave me another business card that had a different company name altogether, HS3. This card listed Philip Ho as President of that company with the office in Marina Del Rey. So I called him at the new number on his card but there was no reply, (this was after finding out Philip Ho’s other office suite was a Post Office box). I discovered that the address and suite number of the company he gave as HS3 was an apartment building in Marina Del Rey, NOT an office. Then Philip Ho gave me yet another business card that had an entirely different company name, this company was called “Philip Ho & Associates” and was located in Sunnyvale, California. I googled this address and it was not an office as he asserted, but a small house in a neighborhood. Philip Ho does not have an office anywhere, but has at least three different companies with three different addresses. Not that some people don’t have many different companies, as I do, but I one P.O. Box for all my companies. People who usually have more than one company address all over the place are usually running some sort of scam and trying to not have people able to find them easily. Plus these were all locations that he didn’t even live in as I did my research.
Since Philip Ho had no office, he came to mine. But when he came over all he did was talk about other clients and what he was doing for them (sort of showing off or trying to make himself look important which didn’t impress me). So he really wasn’t concentrating on what he was doing for me which was of course the point of the meeting. When I addressed this fact with Philip Ho he came back to me (please note that I am a small business) with unrealistic career moves. For example, he wanted me to put out a T-shirt line which made no sense and no correlation to my company and its needs. And I told him this but he just never seemed to listen to what I was saying.
When I asked Philip Ho to write a press release for something that was coming up he wrote the worst press release and the worst writing I’ve ever seen. A 4th grader could write something better, more organized and something that made sense. I was not the only one that thought this as I showed it to many people and they all concurred. So I spent the weekend writing my own press release, even though I’m the one paying him to do this for me. I wrote it then sent it to him to send out. But a week went by and I checked the internet to see if there was anything out there but he never sent it. Then when I asked him he said he did. So I asked him for a list of the people he sent my press release too and he gave me a short list of three people. So I emailed and called all the three people on the list, as I knew them personally, and they said he never sent them anything. So again I spent the rest of the week sending my press release even though I paid him to do this.
After two months I fired him. I was going to fire him the first month as so many red flags were going up but I told myself maybe he just needs another month to pull it together but after I saw that press release and him lying to me about it I knew it was time to let him go.
I tried to google Philip Ho before I hired him and there was nothing listed (which I found odd and should have been another red flag for me, since any credible Public Relations expert should be able to place his name very easily in a google search for people to view and read about). When I asked Philip Ho to refund my money since services were not rendered, he refused and would not return calls but did write in an e-mail that he had fulfilled his obligation, how I do not know. Again most legitimate companies will try to work with you and come to some sort of compromise but that was not the case with Philip Ho. I knew he had already spent my money and there was little action I could take against him if he didn’t have it so this is why I’m writing this review to warn others so they are not scammed or cheated out of their hard earned money.