Skip to main content

Update August 12, 2023: After the threat of a Grievance to the Texas State Bar Spring Free EV’s Lawyer Rob Sayles finally confirmed representation of the client on July 27, 2023 in response to one of several inquiries sent over the course of approximately one year. 

After that email Push ROI, met with Rob Sayles and Spring Free EV General Counsel Nancy Lee, where Push ROI offered to delete this article with an apology if Sprig Free EV could dispute the existence of the signed contract or Google Doc where the contract was negotiated. Spring Free EV refused to dispute these facts. 

Push ROI later sent an offer in email that among other things, waived the interest fees Spring Free EV owes under the terms of the contract they solicited, negotiated, signed, and breached. Ten days later (and Six days after a follow up email) Spring Free EV General Counsel Nancy Lee replied with a nonsense statement that neither addressed Push ROI’s offer or disputed claims made by Push ROI, and requested that statement be added to this article. Push ROI flatly refuses to add more meaningless statements to this article. As a company we request in the future that Spring Free EV directly address offers sent to them. 

Update April 13, 2023: Push ROI’s lawyers drafted a lawsuit, and compiled all other needed documents to bring suit against Spring Free EV in January of 2022. Push ROI did not move forward with that lawsuit because Spring Free EV appeared to have no assets to gain a judgment against.  

Push ROI is still not taking legal action following Spring Free EV’s announced $31 million Series A round because it does not appear to be a real funding round. In June 2022, SPEV was running job ads claiming the firm had deployed $6 million as part of a proof of concept; they have in April 2023 announced a $31 million funding round and presented it as the totality of funding. Spring Free Either has a total raise of at least $37 million or uses very creative accounting.

Based on both the calls Push ROI received from due diligence staff at investment funds and the reaction of multiple journalists to an announced $31 million Series A, Spring Free EV likely announced little more than access to a secured credit line, possibly with additional creative accounting, such as calling deferred executive salaries deployed capital or investment. 

Update March 21, 2023: Despite Spring Free Ev’s Lawyer Rob Sayles stating that SPEV disputes Push ROI’s version of events, Spring Free Ev and Sayles have turned down at least six separate offers to correct any information they dispute. On knowledge and belief the below email sent on behalf of SPEV August 12, 2022 was not sent out of any actual dispute of facts.

The events described, remain undisputed by Spring Free EV.

How Spring Free EV Breached The Contract

Thinking of working with Spring Free EV or Sunil Paul? Before you do, understand they don’t honor their contracts.

In November of 2021, representatives for Sunil Paul’s fintech startup Spring Free EV negotiated and signed a contract with Push ROI. The agreement, a draft of which Spring Free EV first received on November 17th, received multiple edits at the request of Spring Free EV’s representative Cassandra John. When Sunil Paul signed the contract on November 29th, it had been negotiated in completeness and became binding when signed by myself on November 30th.

See also  Focus On Value Not Busy Work

Contract between Spring Free EV and Push ROI

Download the full contract

Only after the contract was fully executed did Spring Free EV’s representative Visrin Vichit-Vadakan, demand I sign an adhesion contract on behalf of Push ROI. The new adhesion contract overwrote some terms of the already executed agreement. Visrin Vichit-Vadakan informed me that Spring Free EV would terminate that executed agreement if I didn’t sign this never-before-mentioned document on behalf of my firm. Spring Free EV had no contractual means of ending that agreement with Push ROI for this reason.

In plain terms (apart from bankruptcy provisions), the agreement was uncancellable for a four-month engagement with a minimum fee of $22,000 due to Push ROI. The fact that the agreement couldn’t be terminated for convenience during the initial period had been explicitly clarified during the negotiation. And as it’s a generally bad practice to allow one party to edit the contract on demand, I refused to sign the new document.

True to only this one aspect of their word Spring Free EV refused to honor the contract they entered into with Push ROI. They also refused to pay out the balance of the agreement they signed after breaching and further rejected the reasonable attempts at negotiation Push ROI’s lawyers made in January of 2022.

Video Overview of the Situation.

Spring Free EV Acknowledges A Contract Exists

Visrin Vichit-Vadakan clarified that Spring Free EV waited to introduce this document until after signing a contract with Push ROI. The agreement they furnished is, according to here intended to function as an addendum to vendor contracts.

Everything Spring Free EV has said supports the idea that they intentionally failed to negotiate terms they wanted. It’s clear the expectation of adding terms they wanted later with a new non-negotiable term sheet. That never before mentioned CIIA agreement claimed supremacy over prior executed contract.

At no point in any settlement negotiations did Spring Free EV so much as argue that Push ROI’s contract was contingent on the signing of an additional term sheet. In fact, the only argument any lawyer for Spring Free has made is that the agreement doesn’t meet mutual assent. A laughable claim, given the volume of emails between Push ROI, and SPEV negotiating specific clauses in the contract. It’s also directly refuted by Visrin Vichit-Vadakan’s phrasing “we will have to revoke our partnership” in the email terminating the contract.

Visrin Vichit-VadakanMa for Spring Free EV terminating the contract SPEV solicited negotiated and signed.

Spring Free EV Is Abusing The System

$22,000 is not an inconsequential amount of money but an amount that makes damage recovery tricky. It’s a flaw in contract law. Push ROI will easily spend more than the value of the contract trying to recover damages. Spring Free EV, as a finance company would be well aware of this. Even with the fee recovery provisions in the contract and under Texas law, Push ROI will only be entitled to recovery of “reasonable attorney fees”.

As you can imagine, courts don’t generally deem it reasonable to spend $30k recovering $22k. Push ROI’s costs are already past what courts are likely to consider “reasonable”. Morally I want to spend the money to have a court record showing how transparently Sunil Paul and Spring Free EV disregard their contracts, however it’s clear that Spring Free EV is not ethical. Spring Free EV is a finance company, a subset of businesses known for hiding assets to avoid someone collecting on a judgment.

See also  We Need An Open Mobile Web, We Have Digital Land Grabbing

Logistically, at this time, my company can’t be the one to get this past the finish line. So this blog post will hopefully serve as some warning to others. I didn’t get a warning. When I researched Sunil Paul and Spring Free Ev before taking the first meeting with them, I saw only a few dozen articles about old startups.

Public Record

But as I said in an email to one of Spring Free EV’s lawyers. In an email I sent after a member of spring free EV’s marketing team contacted my former business partner to find out if “Mason Pelt would really sue over this amount of money”.

Email to Spring Free EV from Mason Pelt of Push ROI: "I want to add one thing. My only request now, and at any point in this process, is everyone follow the terms that we've already agreed to after a negotiation. I believe that Spring Free believes that when procuring damages for a contractual breach is cost prohibitively expensive, they can ignore contracts without fear of consequences.

The Email Text

I believe that Spring Free believes that when procuring damages for a contractual breach is cost prohibitively expensive, they can ignore contracts without fear of consequences. I think this because of the transparency of Spring Free’s breach and current behavior. I feel this is a highly unethical way of conducting business and, sadly, is very common.

Many vendors end up in this position, where a larger company wipes their ass with our contracts. Push ROI, has approximately $200,000 in uncollected payments due to breaches like this.

The net result of the contract everyone signed, is that in the event of a breach, the balance of the contract comes due. Following those agreed-upon terms, I’ve sent an invoice. If that invoice is paid within the net 30 terms, from my perspective, everything is remedied according to our agreement.

I may not choose to spend $30,000 to recover $22,000. But I feel a moral responsibility to create a public record if this agreement is breached.

So if this contract is not ended according to the terms of this contract, My new goal in life, becomes ensuring that reasonable due diligence by any party intending to conduct business with Spring Free or Sunil Paul will include this contractual breach.”

You may still choose to work with Spring Free EV or Sunil Paul, but I want to make sure that you’ll get an option to see how the man and his company behave. That’s an option I didn’t have, when I Googled Sunil Paul his online reputation appeared carefully managed since back when Cuil was a relevant search engine.

On 8/12/2022 Spring Free EV Requested A Call

Spring Free EV rebuffed all attempts at negotiation between their initial breach of the contract on December 3rd, 2021, and January 18th, 2022. On January 18th, 2022 Spring Free EV decline the settlement proposal offered by Push ROI’s lawyers, and refused to make a counter offer ending the confidential settlement negotiations.

Over a month later on March 15th, 2022 Push ROI published this blog post, in the hopes of warning others about Spring Free EV’s bad faith approach to contracts. The allegations that Push ROI has made publicly since March 15th, 2022 have remained entirely undisputed by Spring Free EV until an email on August 12th, 2022, offering no specific factual disputes.

See also  Reinventing The Wheel: Are We Out Of Ideas

When Push ROI requested a statement defending Spring Free EV’s actions, on August 2nd, 2022 in an email, and on Twitter referencing the email Spring Free EV provided no response, apart from blocking Mason Pelt on Twitter.

Despite all this on August 12, 2022, Spring Free EV’s Lawyer Rob Sayles sent the following email. "Mr.Rob Sayles’ Email Text

Spring Free EV desires to resolve the dispute with Push ROI. The process would be easier if we enter into confidential settlement discussions, which is the normal process for business disputes like these. We will not be able to resolve this dispute if you are not willing to speak with me over the phone, you post our communications on social media, and you and Push ROI continue to make allegations about my client online. Spring Free EV disputes these allegations. That being said, my client would still like me to visit with you to see if the parties can reach a resolution of this matter. Just contact me at the number below if you would like to discuss a potential settlement.

If you again reject my request to visit about resolving this matter, I ask that you publish this email in full in any publication or post you make and/or submit regarding this dispute. My client does not plan on discussing this dispute over social media, but is willing to do so through a normal business process. If my client needs to take this dispute to court instead, then we are willing to move forward accordingly. But my client hopes we can resolve this matter quickly and allow each of the parties to return to their regular business.”

Push ROI Will Maintain A Record

Given Spring Free EV’s intention of targeting individual ride share drivers as customers, Push ROI is deeply convicted to maintaining a public record of Spring Free EV’s behavior. Push ROI is willing to forgo any amount of money Spring Free EV is willing to pay in order to keep their misbehavior hidden from public view.

Push ROI, eagerly awaits any specific dispute of facts or justification of behavior from Spring Free EV. We find the threat of a SLAPP lawsuit amusing. Equality laughable the implication that Push ROI did not attempt to negotiate this contract using the “normal process for business disputes.” When this blog post was published, all other financially viable means of dispute resolution had been exhausted. 

Update August 15th, 2023.

Despite the evidence outlined here, Spring Free EV has clarified their position as feeling they do not owe Push ROI any fees.

Spring Free EV has not clarified any legal reason for this position, nor have they disputed any facts alleged here or elsewhere by Push ROI.

As shown in this article in response to a request to clarify Spring Free EV’s legal position they sent a threat of a strategic lawsuit against  public participation.


Mason Pelt is the founder of Push ROI. Header Image: TechCrunch, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons