Nomad internet claims to be the nation's largest wireless internet service provider promising the
ultimate mobile internet solution but emerging in recent days is only a trail of frustrated
customers and disillusioned influencers join us as we dive deep into the murky world of
third-party resellers unraveling the deceptions and revealing the truth behind a company that's
not at all what it seems welcome to RV miles I'm Jason Epperson and here we share the latest in
RV and camping news travel info and more today we're exploring the story of nomad internet a
provider of unlimited cellular data plans at the center of a major controversy we've spoken with
dozens of customers influencers and victims and we've scoured years worth of Message Board posts
public documents and business registrations to bring you the full story that's been alluded
to by others but the pieces are being put together here for the first time for the last several years
the nomadic lifestyle has been growing and home replacement type internet offering large amounts
or even unlimited data has been crucial for many living full or part-time on the road major cell
companies have offered unlimited hotspot data only to pull it back due to overwhelming demand and
strain on their networks the cellular carrier seem to underestimate the number of people who would
be interested in such plans and their networks just can't handle the traffic there was the Togo
Road Link in the ZTE Mobley for instance offering unlimited 4G at T internet access directly through
at T both were discontinued rather quickly companies offer data on iPads or for business
plans or for restricted residential use but have stopped short of offering unlimited data to the
general public anymore that left a void that third-party resellers could fill third-party
resellers like Nomad internet claim to offer cellular data plans that seem too good to be true
and as with any deal that seems too perfect there's often more to the story Chris Dunphy and
Cherie viard from the mobile internet Resource Center cautioned that quote many resellers are
just marking up business plans that any informed consumer can get directly usually cheaper or
they're offering plans that metaphorically fell off the back of a truck essentially plans that
aren't supposed to be resold or that are only supposed to be used on certain devices but behind
the scenes these plans are usually nothing special Chris and Sheree told me that these reseller plans
can work great until they don't eventually the carriers catch on hundreds or thousands
of reseller customer lines end up getting disconnected overnight without warning we see
it all the time the biggest excuse is usually the SIM card stopped working and we had to send a new
one out when in reality the SIM card wasn't broken the carrier just canceled it even resellers with
legitimate contracts from the cell carrier can get the rug pulled out from under them according
to Chris and shree after all the reseller is not the carrier and they don't call the shots Nomad
internet has marketed itself as the largest of these third-party resellers recently the company
launched a marketing Blitz advertising their Nomad air kit all over social media the company hired
dozens of influencers providing them with review units plus a commission on referrals or a flat
fee for sharing info about it in videos and on social media posts however as customers began to
share negative experiences with Nomad in comments on those posts and in emails to influencers some
started to question their association with the company Robin Barrett of creativityrv kicked off a
Cascade of influence or Fallout by posting a video revoking her endorsement of nomad Eric Jacobs
known on YouTube as nomadic fanatic followed suit sharing his interactions with Nomad internet
CEO Jaden Garza revealing that Garza said he was stepping down as CEO and revoking Jacob's contract
other YouTube channels followed recounting various stories of promises made and Promises
broken charity and Ben are threat grateful glamper detailed to us their experience with
Nomad internet charity said the product always worked but discovered what they received was
not actually what customers were getting in fact what they reviewed would be a 200 upgrade she also
said the company led her to believe that service could be paused when people aren't traveling a
feature that was overstated they received a flood of negative comments on both their video and blog
posts Nomad agreed to provide a dedicated customer service rep to moderate all the comments a rep was
made available for a brief amount of time and then the company said it was too expensive she went on
to claim that Jaden Garza refused to sign their advertising agreement assisting in working in a
referral marketing platform where charity says the terms were changed on them without notice
they approached Nomad about making things right for their customers and nomad's response was just
to sever the relationship charity says that they had no choice but to de-list their video and pull
down their blog post influencers like grateful glamper had only begun a relationship with Nomad
internet but others like nomadic fanatic had been with them for years we've now spoken with dozens
of current and former customers of nomad internet Who provided evidence of customer service calls
and emails going unanswered along with months of attempts to repair or cancel service or to fix a
double billing problem issue a very common theme with the company in some instances Nomad resolved
the issues other customers are still attempting to seek answers in December of 2022 Nomad initiated
a partnership with Verizon that was intended to solve some of the disconnect issues but a large
number of their plans stopped working without warning when that changeover happened now there's
much more to this story than just poor customer service and broken promises many YouTubers said
it was Their audience that pointed them to a shady past involving prison time for nomad's CEO Jaden
Garza as we delve deeper into the Nomad internet story it'll become clear that this company's
rise and fall goes beyond just a cautionary tale about the influencer marketer relationship [Music]
so who is Nomad internet CEO Jaden Garza founded Nomad internet in 2017. it has been promoting
himself as a tech entrepreneur since there are dozens of pay to play and self-published sort of
articles about him on the internet sharing things like his favorite entrepreneurial tips and why we
crashed the documentary on the wework Scandal is must-see TV along with his wife Jessica they
have a company called hxo which seems to be an umbrella for many of their companies they describe
it as a community of brands of people and shared stories and ideas however information about Jaden
David Garza free 2017 is really scarce raising questions about his true identity could Jaden
Garza be living as someone else a closer look reveals a striking resemblance between Jaden
Garza and homero Joshua Garza the former CEO of a vermont-based company called gaw high-speed
internet gaw high-speed internet was essential actually an ISP on autopilot but it touted 3
000 subscribers according to news reports from the time when thousands of subscribers lost internet
and even their email addresses that were sold to them through gaw officials couldn't even figure
out how to reach an owner what's more gaw was also a recipient of government grant money to provide
rural internet Joshua Garza eventually returned the grant money to the Vermont telecommunications
Authority as part of a settlement but had already moved on to something much bigger
between 2014 and 2015 Joshua Garza founded and operated several connecticut-based businesses
gaw minors Zen minor and Zen Cloud they sold Bitcoin mining Hardware none of these businesses
would have been illegal if it hadn't been for a series of misleading and false statements about
the company's capabilities Partnerships and financial backing according to the FBI they
say Garza fraudulently Drew investors to his Enterprises and eventually resorted to Ponzi
scheme tactics to delay detection of his fraud quote Garza got into this Market at the right
time said Special Agent Mark Munster the interest and enthusiasm for these currencies was high and
he was able to Market himself in the business very effectively the problem was that much of
what Garza was marketing was a lie the FBI and court records say that the first iteration of
Garza's companies sold the computer equipment used to mine or solve the complex equations required to
attain a Bitcoin or other virtual currency Munster said that Garza's business started as a legitimate
operation with a clever hook he wanted to make it easier for people who didn't have a technical
background to access cryptocurrencies the initial business turned into one that offered to purchase
a currency Miner on the customer's behalf and set it up at gawminers data center the customer
could then direct the miners activities and reap its profits Garza then moved into selling shares
or hashlets that represented a percentage of the profits being made by his company's
purportedly robust Bitcoin mining efforts these hashlets Garza assured investors would always be
profitable the FBI says that mining bitcoins at the volume needed to generate the type of value
Garza was promising requires a staggering amount of computing power these powerful computers are
expensive as is the electricity required to run them there were data centers said Munster but
not nearly the capacity they were representing without the actual infrastructure to support the
shares he was selling returns fell far short of what he was promising investors and Garza began
using new investments in the company to pay returns to others during this time Garza also
created and began selling his own virtual currency called paycoin which the SEC says he failed to
properly register before offering to the investing public to encourage investors to purchase this new
currency Garza said his company had a financial reserve of 100 million dollars that they would
use to prop up the price of paycoin to ensure it would never fall below 20 per unit the FBI says he
also claimed Partnerships with major corporations like Target and Amazon in truth the corporate
Partnerships didn't exist there was no 100 million dollar reserve and the value of paycoin quickly
plummeted between selling nearly worthless hashlets and the tanking value of paycoin
Garza defrauded people worldwide of millions of dollars Munster said it was easy to see where some
of the money was going quote Garza had a Ferrari a Lamborghini and a Maserati it went to Las Vegas
in a private jet and took his employees out on the Vegas Strip he was definitely caught up in
the lifestyle of being a startup Mogul Garza's virtual currency scam caused losses over nine
million dollars after pleading guilty to one count of wire fraud Garza was sentenced to 21 months in
prison and three years of supervised release he was also ordered to pay restitution to his victims
since his release from prison in 2020 Joshua Garza has seemingly disappeared however an
online trail of connection suggests that Jaden Garza May indeed be Joshua Garza
foreign there's an army of people who were scammed by Joshua Garza in crypto forums
and on Reddit we've been trying to figure out what Joshua Garza has been up to since he was
released from prison in 2020 with three years of supervise released ahead of him
we've been able to uncover several connections between Jaden Garza and the Joshua Garza of gaw
wireless internet and gaw minors infamy now hang on because the Garza's have a lot of companies
gev i-o-l-l-c is the name of the company that the influencers we talked to receive payments from and
is a trademark holder for nomad Internet devices like The Nomad Arc opencorporates.com links gev I
O with the alternate name of geniuses at work Corp or another gaw even though the first gaw
wireless internet stood for great awk Wireless Garza confirmed in interviews that gaw minors
was short for geniuses at work minors but more concretely a public FCC notice lists a license
transfer from Joshua Garza's gaw high-speed internet to geviolc the same company that's
listed publicly under Jessica Garza's name that makes payments for nomad internet and owned its
trademarks so if Jaden Garza is Joshua Garza so what can't the next Khan re-enter Society after
paying his debts and lead a normal life has Garza paid his debts He was ordered to pay 9 million
dollars in restitution as a part of his conviction his victims from the scam tell us that he's barely
made a dent the question then arises is Jaden Garza hiding his true identity to conceal assets
it goes a lot further than that he's leading an extravagant lifestyle letting his companies
own a home for him and hire household staff the Garza's live in a Texas Hill Country home which
according to Zillow is valued at over 1.1 million dollars they don't own the home it was sold to an
LLC we found the address through Jessica Garza's director listing for the Garza's hxo company in
2022. I want to be extra careful here because there's another entrepreneurial Jessica Garza
who lives in the same town and owns multiple llc's we located the house and confirmed it was
sold in June 2021 to a company called japa and Jaga Management LLC japa and Jaga management is
register in Wyoming but with a mailing address at the same Mailbox Store Nomad internet uses in New
Braunfels Texas we found Jessica Garza's name as a signator on a filing for the LLC and we matched
photos with the Zillow listing with a photo on a Facebook page for a Jaden and Jessica Garza
that page was highly locked down but the one photo visible was of the front entry of their house so
the Garza's while providing poor customer service to thousands of customers through Nomad internet
and owing millions of dollars to past victims are living a life of luxury the Garza's advertised on
ZipRecruiter for a housekeeper for the quote Garza estate under their hxo LLC a job that
frankly sounds like much more than a housekeeper with responsibilities such as managing retail
accounts and supplies for the estate grocery shopping chauffeuring the family working with the
butler to always keep shoes from dirt and grime they've also advertised for a personal assistant
for Mr Garza who is tasked with booking travel chauffeuring planning parties and mixing cocktails
we've spoken directly with Mr Garza in the past or at least someone from Nomad internet writing under
Garza's name we've received press releases from Nomad the most recent being for their internet kit
vending machines which will allow you to check out an internet kit for up to a week will it come to
fruition or is it like The Nomad Arc modem that was announced back in January and hasn't been
released it was supposed to revolutionize mobile internet it's now listed as archived on their site
in fact all the equipment on Nomad Internet site is just stuff from other companies with
Nomad sticker on it I've contacted Mr Garza twice for a response to the allegations in the story the
responses I received were from a criminal defense attorney declining to comment shortly after that
exchange the team page was taken down from the company's website the Garza's joint Facebook
account with the photo of their home's entryway was immediately deleted the content creators I
spoke to for this story were all angry that they and Their audience had been taken advantage of
most had only recently begun working with Nomad internet and either just accepted the equipment
and shared that it worked well for them or they had heard about past issues with the company and
were sold a bill of goods about how they'd changed using the claim that they're becoming the largest
wireless service provider in the U.S and official partners with Verizon to drive home the point
still most creators made a mistake and they realize it it's not enough to try a company's
product and tell your audience it works or Worse assert that it's the best option available Nomad
internet is not special it's just one in a line of many third-party resellers we've made mistakes
in the past as well so I don't want to sound above anyone in this situation it absolutely could have
been us deleting a video and making mayakopa's but the main reason we've never worked with Nomad
internet wasn't even because of the customer service issues which we didn't really know
much about yet it was because their upfront fees were exorbitant we've worked with a third party
provider in the past called travel data which worked well for us we recommended them because
the upfront fee was relatively low and most importantly it included the router with Nomad The
Upfront fees are high and to cancel your account you have to send the router back after navigating
an extensive online process to figure out how to do it in the first place if you can get a hold of
anyone at all contact 10 creators or influencers myself included need to realize that we're part of
the research we're part of the due diligence people are trying to complete when making
buying decisions we're not here to say do your own research we are the research and maintaining trust
with our audiences will only become more critical as AI content creation becomes more prevalent
some creators did not handle this situation well that is absolutely true most wish they handled it
differently but most were also duped by a con man and thought they were legitimately sharing
their honest experiences with a product there is no magic bullet mobile internet option out there
they all have issues we carry a T-Mobile plan of a legacy at T unlimited plan that's no longer
available Verizon phones with Hotspot data and Starling starlink is now our Powerhouse internet
providing the best speeds and bandwidth most of the time although it can slow down during
busy periods in busy areas and obviously it's affected by trees none work everywhere and if
100 uptime is critical to you you need multiple options and probably need to look at the places
you're traveling to see if there is cell service available or a clear shot of the sky for starlink
companies like T-Mobile now offer their home internet wireless service which can be moved about
the country for far less money than third-party providers there are many options out there and you
can find a wealth of information from experts like the folks at the mobile internet Resource Center
where I'd like to thank for helping me with that portion of this story I also want to thank Jamie
Schumacher for her research help you can find her new podcast letters from the road on any podcast
app thanks so much for being here if you have a story about Nomad internet or any other internet
company you'd like to share we hope you'll leave a comment or you can email me anonymously at
editor rvmiles.com if you find Value in stories like this consider subscribing to the channel
and giving us a listen on the RV miles podcast thanks so much again and we'll see you next time