Whoah, they seemed kind of decent and sincere when they made those responses to you.
Unfortunate that they're going down this path.
Yeah, I was hopeful that things were actually going to get taken care of at that point. In retrospect, there are a few red flags there; he was shifting blame onto others and seeking sympathy for his situation in order to placate me. Sometimes shit does happen, but if I'd looked into the other reports at the time I would've realized that he's either unable or unwilling to put in the work required to make his business run smoothly.