A father-son team behind a hops wholesale company has faced tough years recently: first falling prey to a foreign scam, then grappling with legal action against two corporate giants. Now, Randall and Tase Flores, the pair behind US Hop Source in Englewood, Colo., fear bankruptcy is their only way forward, the Denver Post reported. The trouble started in the fall of 2020 when US Hop Source received a request for a price quote on 1,100 pounds of hops from a so-called Marcos Estrada of Estrada and Sons for a new brewery being built in Panama City, Panama. The Floreses’ company buys and sells hops around the world. “It wasn’t out of the ordinary,” said father Randall Flores pointing to deals they’ve done with a Swedish merchant and a craft brewery in Palau. First, it was business as usual: providing prices, chatting over the phone, starting the invoice process and taking a credit card payment for about $19,000, which initially posted, he said. A follow-up email from Estrada prompted US Hop Source to hold those hops, as he placed an additional order valued at $31,000. Another credit card payment was issued, but this time, online payments company Paysafe flagged it for further investigation. Later, it was determined that both major payments were fraudulent. “We fell prey to a very sophisticated, international business scam,” the elder Flores said. However, for the Floreses, the financial situation is worse. After receiving the first payment of around $19,000, the team at US Hop Source had already begun buying related supplies and shipping, not realizing “the card number that was used was a JPMorgan Chase bank card number that does not nor has never existed,” Randall Flores said. Tase Flores said, after it dawned on them, they tried to contact Estrada and Sons to no avail. They filed police reports and met with the Department of Homeland Security. Paysafe soon came calling for its money back, although “it was more than two weeks before they realized that they had paid out $19,000 on a credit card number that never existed,” Randall Flores said. The Floreses allege that Paysafe terminated US Hop Source’s account in December 2020, and tried to withdraw money from the company’s bank account several times.
