Problems at Platinum redux

I wrote last week about Platinum Protection suddenly laying off most of its employees. I'm still gathering information about what led to that abrupt Feb. 2 action by the summer model sales company based in American Fork, Utah, and want to make sure I have as many facts as possible before publishing a story.

I've yet to hear from anyone at Platinum in response to requests for comment. I'm told by a knowledgeable company insider—an employee who was among some 600 corporate, sales, technical and other staff let go last week—that the company kept on five or six employees to try to figure out what to with about 6,000 accounts that Platinum kept in house.

However, this person said the company at this point doesn't have the finances or personnel to continue with its plans to bring on about 25,000 accounts this summer, as it did last summer. “You lose your sales force, you lose your entire company,” the employee told me. Other summer sales companies are busy signing up some of Platinum's former sales reps and technicians, the person said.

The person said a company owner announced to employees last Thursday, “I'm sorry to tell you this, but Platinum is closing its doors and all employees are terminated effective immediately and I'm really sorry this happened.”

The employee said: “People were bawling. They had never been through something like this before. They didn't know you could have a job for years and all of a sudden they tell you, 'Sorry, you're done.' … There's no severance, no nothing.”

I'm still digging into whether this had anything to do with a recent lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, charging that the two men who provided the start-up capital for Platinum six years ago have been running a $220 million Ponzi scheme.

Platinum has stressed that Utah real estate magnate Wendell Jacobson and his son, Allen Jacobson, are no longer owners of the company, which was founded in 2006.

But what I'm hearing is that negative publicity generated by the lawsuit, filed this past December, did nothing to help Platinum financially.

I'll continue to report on this story. Stay tuned.