Amy was particularly annoyed by a text she says Mr Adler sent to her, featuring a picture of him celebrating New Year’s Eve on a tropical beach in Bali.
“Why flaunt your money to me? It’s disgraceful,” says Amy, who had funded the project by remortgaging her home and using credit cards.
Eventually, she requested a refund through her bank and complained to the UK’s Financial Ombudsman Service. A senior investigator there has provisionally recommended that the bank return $39,000 (£30,000) to Amy, according to documents seen by the BBC. She is still waiting for her bank to agree to the recommendation.
As part of the process, two expert software developers reviewed the app developed by ConvrtX. According to the senior investigator, the evidence supported Amy’s claim that the company had breached their contract by failing to provide the service she paid for.
“I think it’s fair to say ConvrtX failed to exercise reasonable care and skill when they were providing the service,” the investigator said. “It seems the work completed by ConvrtX cannot be salvaged and the entire process would need to be completed again if [Amy] wanted a working app to be developed.”
In response, lawyers for Mr Adler say that the client had “received a website, clickable prototype and a fully developed mobile app from ConvrtX”.
Former senior staff say that Josh Adler – the son of Kerry Adler, a wealthy Canadian businessman – presided over a culture of instability, resulting in high turnover of staff and errors due to “cutting corners” and hiring and firing inexperienced contractors.
On his Facebook profile, Mr Adler described himself as #YoungAndReckless and #LivingTheDream. We spoke to a number of former employees who described him as immature and a poor leader.
In company meetings, they say he “bragged” about living at the Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Abu Dhabi, boasted about renting a villa in Bali, and showed off a newly purchased Porsche 911 and multiple speeding fines.
He cared about “his rich kid, bling-bling lifestyle,” says a former senior employee speaking on the condition of anonymity. “When you have that many unhappy clients, it can’t be a coincidence.”
Mr Adler’s lawyers describe him as “highly ambitious” and say he sought to build a world-leading business, but that not all staff lived up to his high standards and would be “let go” if they under-delivered. “Young and Reckless” is a clothing brand he likes, they add.
But several senior ex-staff told us they had concerns about how Mr Adler ran his company, saying he continued to take on new clients even after being warned that some business and app ideas were unviable or impossible to make. They say he requested payments from clients in advance, sometimes as much as $53,000 (£40,000), though the company had a no-refund policy.
Two senior ex-employees claim that when Mr Adler was informed that some apps were not working, he would subsequently tell customers – against the advice of the development team – that he could fix the problem if they paid more money, or their outstanding balance.
“So don’t tell the client that it cannot be done because we’ll find [a contractor] that can do it when they’ve paid,” one ex-staff member recalls Mr Adler repeatedly telling them. “He’s a good talker, he’s good at sales… but he gives a lot of false promises.”
