Lloyd Miller thought it was a pretty good deal. The company was offering a nearly unheard of return on investment, and he saw it as a quick way to turn a profit on some of his money.
So in 2003, Miller, now 88 years old, decided to give Budget Finance Company a shot. The New Martinsville resident put tens of thousands of dollars in the local consumer lending company. Many of his neighbors were already praising how much money they had been making.
"I had heard through word of mouth that they were paying good interest, good dividends," Miller said.
Almost immediately, Miller started recognizing the benefits of that investment, and for more than a decade he continued to profit from the 10 percent monthly interest payments he received in the mail.
"You can't get anything like that from the banks," Miller said. "I have a checking account and I am getting zilch for it. You can buy a certificate of deposit and you are lucky to get half a percent over three years."
But last month, Miller's string of success with the company came to a screeching halt. News began to circulate through the small community that Budget Finance had closed its doors. With more than $100,000 still invested in the company, Miller heard in late November that federal agents had raided the now-defunct investment and lending company, seizing computers and boxes of financial records.
"I don't know if I am going to get any of it back or not," Miller said.
While Miller and several hundred other estimated victims have been left to wonder what has become of their money, officials with the Wetzel County Prosecuting Attorney's office, the West Virginia State Auditor's Office Securities Division and the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Northern District of West Virginia are trying to piece together the puzzle that is Budget Finance.
"Each day for the past two weeks, we have received new information from potential victims that we're processing and analyzing," said U.S. Attorney William Ihlenfeld II, whose office is leading an investigation into the company.
Budget Finance Company, Ihlenfeld said, is now suspected of operating a "Ponzi scheme of great magnitude" that may have bilked its customers out of "millions of dollars."
Sources familiar with the ongoing investigation believe the scheme could involve more than 450 people. Ihlenfeld said it could be the largest financial case of its kind in his office's history, affecting investors living in New Martinsville and various corners of the country.
The federal probe, while in its infancy, marks a confusing and, for some, devastating end to a company that has been a part of New Martinsville, a small city located on the Ohio River between Wheeling and Parkersburg, for decades.
Many of the company's investors, contacted for this story, said Budget Finance had been a well-respected operation, with people from all walks of life trusting their money to the business. Even some local leaders have found themselves personally blindsided by the company's sudden demise.
"It wasn't a fly-by-night company," Jeff Wright, a New Martinsville City Council member and an investor in the company, said. "It has been in business since the '70s."
Budget Finance, according to people familiar with its operations, offered 10 percent returns and allowed investors to either roll over their earnings or receive a monthly payment on the accrued interest. Many of the investors say they had tens of thousands of dollars tied up in the business, and they know of others who had entrusted hundreds of thousands of dollars to Budget Finance's employees.
At the same time, the company reportedly operated as a high-interest lender. Several investors and state regulators said the company offered up to $2,000 loans with interest rates around 30 percent to anyone who applied, even without the borrowers posting collateral or having a credit check.
When state and federal investigators held meetings in the New Martinsville area, including one at the City Hall, hundreds of investors from the city and the surrounding region showed up to fill out victim questionnaires. The meetings were the first time investigators realized the possible scope of the suspected scheme.
Many of the people who attended those meetings said a large portion of the crowd was made up of retirees who had invested all or part of their life savings into the company, with the hope of supplementing their incomes with monthly interest payments.
"Looking around the room, there were some pretty distraught people, and rightfully so," Wright said. "For me it was easier to lose a little bit, compared to those people on fixed incomes. It's a shame."
Some of the investors spoke of Donna Brown, the president of the company, as a personal acquaintance, someone they could easily call up and meet to discuss their finances.
"I thought I knew Donna pretty well," Miller said. "I had a lot of faith in her."
Brown could not be reached for comment for this story, but Bryan Faller, Brown's attorney, said he would be handling any questions about the investigation.
"Ms. Brown is cooperating with the federal officials who are conducting the investigation," Faller, an attorney with Porter Wright, in Columbus, Ohio, wrote in an email response. "We have no further comment at this time."
One of the first official signs that Budget Finance was in trouble came the week before Thanksgiving, when investors and Tim Haught, the Wetzel County Prosecuting Attorney, contacted the West Virginia Division of Financial Institutions. They were concerned that nobody could reach Brown or anyone else at the Budget Finance office.
Officials with the Division of Financial Institutions tried to contact Brown to inform her that the lending company was required to stay open at least fours days a week under state law.
But when they called the office they got the same recorded message that the worried investors had received, informing them that the company was "closed indefinitely."
"They didn't respond," said Loren Allen, deputy general counsel at the Division of Financial Institutions.
Later in the day, however, Faller contacted the division. He made it clear that he represented Brown, but not Budget Finance. Faller confirmed that the company had shut its doors, and told state officials that he had advised Brown to "cease all communications with the Division of Financial Institutions," according to an order drafted by the division on Nov. 18.
Darlene Haught Cross, an investor from Pine Grove, said she only became aware of problems with Budget Finance when she didn't get her monthly check from the company.
So when she and her husband traveled to New Martinsville for a doctor's appointment, she swung by the Budget Finance's office, located in a small building behind the post office in town. She found a sign on the door notifying passersby that the office was closed.
"Everything was locked up tight," Cross said. "The blinds were closed to where you couldn't even tell if there was a light on."
She called the office's phone number, but all she got was the same recorded message.
"Everybody in this end of the country was putting money in Budget Finance. What she has done with the money, nobody seems to know," Cross said, referring to Brown. "I know there are a lot of business people, including lawyers, doctors and businessmen that have lots of money, and they invested in it. When you see people like that, it doesn't make you feel too bad. I don't know what people are going to do because that was their retirement and everything else."
Not everyone was caught off guard by the announcement that there were problems at the company.
Patricia Fluharty, a former investor from Pine Grove, said she pulled her money out of Budget Finance earlier this year. She had been an investor for more than four years.
Fluharty wouldn't specify what caused her to flee the company, only that she "heard that things didn't look good there." She advised other people she knew to pull their money, too.
Federal investigators are also exploring how River Rentals Inc., a separate real estate business operated by Brown, might be connected to the consumer lending company.
The U.S. Attorney's Office and investors in Budget Finance estimated River Rentals Inc. owned dozens of properties in the New Martinsville area and possibly more across the state line in Ohio.
That separate business has only confused and infuriated Budget Finance's customers even more. When the small office in New Martinsville was shut down, Wright, the city council member, said the company left a drop box outside, where people leasing property from River Rentals could continue to pay Brown for their monthly rent.
Several of the people who are anxiously awaiting the outcome of the federal investigation said there has not been much information available from local, state or federal officials.
"I am concerned that I am not going to get any money back, and as I said our prosecuting attorney is mum," said Karl Brookover, a recent retiree from New Martinsville.
Brookover, who retired from a 31-year career as a computer analyst, said he always knew that the investment carried some risk. He understood that Budget Finance wasn't a federally guaranteed financial institution, like most banks that are guarded by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. But it was offering a 10 percent return on his investment, which was hard to pass up, he said.
The business's long history in the community made him feel secure, Brookover said. He can remember listening to the company's advertising jingles on the radio for decades.
"We sit around talking, wondering what could have went wrong," he said.
There is still much that is unknown, and for now the New Martinsville community and investors in other parts of the country are forced to wait.
"I have no idea what is going to become of this. This is where we are standing, nobody really knows anything," Miller, the 88-year-old investor, said. "A hell of a lot of people had their nest egg in there. If I would have had my nest egg in there, I would be crying. But when you're doing this thing you have to realize you can lose it."
Anyone who may have lost money can fill out a victim questionnaire at justice.gov/ndwv. Anyone who has questions about a loan from the company is advised to call the Division of Financial Institutions at 304-558-2294.
Reach Andrew Brown at andrew.brown@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4814 or follow @Andy_Ed_Brown on Twitter. Reach Eric Eyre at ericeyre@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4869 or follow @ericeyre on Twitter.