Wade Jones Monitoring and Reporting Systems LLC. MARS review: Conman 2

Businesses beware Wade Jones “Wade Hampton Jones” of Parks, Arkansas. He is a conman and scam artist. He runs a company called Mars, short for Monitoring and Reporting Systems. It is now WGMARS. If you get the chance to become a business partner with them, RUN! He has some good ideas and good designs and pitches a great partnership that seems like it will make you a lot of money. It won’t. You will end up broke. He insists on running the business his way. If you give him control, he will bankrupt you. If you don’t give him control, you will make decent money until he finds someone new who will let him have his way. He will then rob you blind and threaten to sue you. He is good at two things, spending other people’s money then leaving them to settle the debt, and keeping his lazy family members employed. He convinces each company to keep his son in law Jeremy Pennington and son Jonathon Jones on the payroll. They are two of the laziest people I have ever met. All they want to do is sit around and draw a check.
His business history:
He and his brother started Weigh Systems South “WSS” in Waldron, AR in the 90’s. After a couple of years, WSS was making millions. They started a new company WeighTech. The brother took the startup in exchange for giving Wade full ownership of WSS. Within a couple of years, WSS was on the verge of bankruptcy. He found 2 business partners. They pumped millions into the business. In 2003 it was on the verge of bankruptcy again. The investors jumped ship. Wade sold the majority of the business to Bettcher Industries and it became Gainco. He filed bankruptcy on the remaining portion and sued the investors.
After a several year hiatus, he convinced his lawyer to provide the financing to start Mars. He had them hire his son, son in law, software designer, and another service guy. After 2 years of Wade running it, it was in a crisis as well and the lawyer wanted out before he bankrupted. This is where Wade started his scam. They made the company look profitable on paper so they could find investors.
He found a company HS Innovations in Fayetteville, AR who was willing to buy half the company and all the company’s assets from the lawyer on a note. They took control of the company and started turning a profit. Wade however, wasn’t content not being in control. He started looking for another company to partner with. Once he found one, he convinced HSI to stop paying the note payments for a couple of months due to a discrepancy. When they complied, he had the lawyer call the full balance of the note due and threatened to sue them if they didn’t release Wade from the contract. They complied to avoid being sued. Wade went back and stole all of the inventory that HSI had purchased and claimed it was compensation owed to him.
Next, he found Guntersville Sheet Metal “GSM” in Guntersville, Al. Again, he spun a story of how profitable the company could be if run properly and claimed it was only doing poorly due to poor management by HSI. The owner of GSM thought it could be a good investment. GSM partnered with Wade. GSM was paying for Wade’s salary as well as all expenses for the business. Within 6 months, they had already lost around $500, 000 with Wade running it. Wade decided he could make more money by collaborating with a second company, Mattco Industrial Products in Denver, NC. He struck a deal with them as well and didn’t tell GSM. Wade was having GSM pay his salary and travel expenses while he was selling and doing installation work for Mattco and claiming he was making sales calls for GSM. When GSM found out about MATTCO they terminated their relationship with MARS.
Wade has since acquired a silent partner Greg Vise and became WGMARS. Greg is a maintenance manager for Pilgrims Pride. Because Greg works for Pilgrims he helps get WGMARS work with pilgrims and gets half the profit. Greg’s wife Melanie does all of their billing and paperwork. They also convince the companies to hire and pay the salaries and expenses for his software designer, son in law, and son. They all draw salaries and make money while the investors go broke.
WGMARS is still working with Mattco. Wade has already found a new company to do work with on the side and promote his products, and continues to look for new companies to sell through. The only sales reps and service techs I have seen recently are Mattco employees. I don’t know what became of his son, son in law, or programmer. Maybe they all grew a conscience and left because they know in a couple of months, he will find a new primary company, leave Mattco holding the bag, and threaten to sue them also.
He has pitched his idea to several of the big name companies and they want no part of it. Therefore, he continues to screw over the small companies for millions then moves on to the next one. If Wade Jones or Greg Vise contact you and pitch the idea of partnering with WGMARS, know you have been warned. Also know that Greg is pitching the idea since he is co-owner, not because he is just a maintenance manager who is very pleased with the WGMARS products.
Feel free to contact Kustom Machine in Forest, MS, HS Innovations in Fayetteville, AR, Guntersville Sheet Metal in Guntersville, AL, WeighTech Inc in Waldron, AR, or any of the other companies or metal shops that have done business with Wade to get a reference before doing any kind of business with him.