I Lost $35,000 to the AI Agency Mastermind — Here’s What Happened

The Promise: A $20,000 Course with a 100% Money-Back Guarantee

In early 2025, I came across the AI Agency Mastermind program, run by Wyatt Roderick and Carson Reed. They were marketing an “AI agency” course through their company, TacticalConsulting.io LLC, promising to teach you how to build a six-figure AI automation agency.

The price? $20,000. But they had a big selling point: a 100% unconditional money-back guarantee within 120 days. That guarantee was written directly into the contract I signed.

Evidence: The Contract — 100% Money-Back Guarantee

I paid $20,000 through Whop.com — $10,000 on February 28, 2025, and another $10,000 on March 29, 2025. The contract was signed by both Wyatt Roderick and Carson Reed.

Evidence: Payment Confirmation — $20,000 to Whop.com

What They Promised vs. What They Delivered

The contract listed specific services they were obligated to provide:

• Six (6) total group coaching calls scheduled weekly over the first 6 weeks — multiple weeks were skipped or canceled
• 1-on-1 Kickoff Call with Carson — never scheduled despite multiple requests
• Access to Discord Q&A forums and community — provided, but operators were increasingly absent
• “AI Agency Blueprint” course on Whop.com — access was suspended for weeks
• All templates, SOPs, and software snapshots — several were incomplete, requiring significant additional work

The contract itself states: “Failure to deliver any of these services in full constitutes a material breach of this Agreement and entitles the Client to a full refund.”

Evidence: Calls Canceled by Operators

Two consecutive weeks of canceled calls. This was not a one-time thing — it was a pattern. I reached out on Discord asking about my course access being down for weeks. No response. I sent a formal email requesting a refund under the guarantee. No response.

The 120-Day Trap: How They Timed the Scheme

Here is the part that convinced me this was planned from the start.

My first payment was February 28, 2025. The bank’s chargeback window — the period during which you can dispute a charge and have a realistic chance of winning — is approximately 120 days from the transaction date.

120 days from February 28 is late June 2025. And right on schedule, that is exactly when they made their move.

I had filed disputes with my bank in July 2025 on both charges. My bank initially granted me temporary credits. But on September 16, 2025, both disputes were resolved in Whop’s favor, and $20,000 was re-charged to my account. The chargeback window was now closed.

Then, within days, I started getting voice messages from Carson Reed and Wyatt Roderick on Discord. What they told me to do next is the most damning part of this entire story.

The Voice Messages: In Their Own Words

What follows are direct transcriptions of voice messages sent to me on Discord by Carson Reed and Wyatt Roderick. I have the original audio recordings. These are their words, not mine.

Carson Reed Discord Voice Message — September 27, 2025, 12:45 AM

“We don’t have anyone inside [Whop]. We’ve been using Fanbasis, everyone’s been using Fanbasis for all transactions, much better than Whop. Whop has just turned into a company where from our understanding — I guess I’ll just put the word allegedly around this — is taking money by essentially automatically winning disputes.”

“We never countered any of the dispute that you filed, right? So, the only way for that to were happen was Whop automatically winning it and taking the money for themselves.”

“As far as what I can tell you to do from now is to reverse whatever charge they would have charged you to your bank.”

What this means: Carson is admitting they abandoned Whop months ago and moved to Fanbasis. He claims they “never countered” my dispute, yet Whop won it anyway. He is telling me to dispute the charge again through my bank — knowing the chargeback window has already closed.

Carson Reed Discord Voice Message — September 28, 2025, 11:54 PM

“The best way to do it is to really go through your bank and yeah, just say charges not recognized from them pulling money back from your bank or whatever it is. You’ve got to just… you’ve got to go through and just dispute that payment through Whop.”

“A lot of people, even guys in the mastermind that closed… had problems with Whop as well. Exactly what you’re having.”

What this means: Carson is explicitly instructing me to tell my bank the charges are “not recognized” — in other words, to claim I didn’t make the purchase. This is not a legitimate dispute. He is asking me to make a false claim to my bank. He also references “a lot of people” having the same issue, confirming this happened to multiple victims.

Wyatt Roderick Discord Voice Message — October 3, 2025, 3:53 PM

“We actually had the same thing happen to another member, where basically, we didn’t challenge this dispute, obviously. We did not fight against it, but it looks like Whop tried to challenge it on their end, which we didn’t assume they would do, which is obviously why we had you guys do this.”

“All you have to do is you should be able to just call your bank one more time. Don’t even mention that you did a dispute before, but when you do a second dispute, that’s what tells the bank, okay, well, you were clearly supposed to get your money back.”

“What happened to the other guy, he did the dispute, he lost, and then he just called his bank and just disputed it again. Didn’t even mention having a dispute already, just literally decided to dispute again.”

This is the most damning statement in the entire case. Wyatt says “which is obviously why we had you guys do this” — guys, plural. He is admitting this was an orchestrated instruction given to multiple people. He is telling me to hide the prior dispute from my bank and file again. And he is coaching me on what to say to make the bank side with me. This is textbook bank fraud coaching.

Wyatt Roderick Discord Voice Message — October 9, 2025, 1:00 PM

“The Whop account is terminated. I don’t know what they’re telling you. There’s no way we can access it… Obviously of us doing the thing over there on Fanbasis is if we still had access to [Whop], we’d still be using it.”

“Whop literally just stole so many people’s money. They shut down our account. They shut down a bunch of Mastermind members’ accounts.”

“If you really stress enough to your bank, they will give you a refund… That’s the exact same thing that happened to another guy in the Mastermind. He was just stressing to his bank like ‘Listen, I need this money back. It was completely fraudulent. Whop scammed me!’”

What this means: Wyatt is blaming Whop for everything and coaching me to pressure my bank by calling the charges “completely fraudulent.” He references yet another victim who went through the same process. He is essentially building a script for victims to use with their banks — a script built on false claims.

Wyatt Roderick Discord Voice Message — October 9, 2025, 10:52 PM

“I would 100% on your end at least try to reinitiate [the dispute] because I do have a good feeling it’ll go through. Like I said, this guy re-initiated it… he got that refund the next day.”

“Even for me, I literally don’t know what I’m going to do when it comes to… filing all this income because there’s no proof of it coming from anywhere because it all came from Whop.”

What this means: In a moment of candor, Wyatt admits he has no records of income because everything went through Whop. Yet this is the same platform he claims “stole” everyone’s money. The contradiction is telling: if Whop was truly the villain, why did they process all their business through it for months?

The Duplicate Payment: How I Ended Up Owing $35,000

While all of this was happening, I was also contacted by a representative named “Kota” who worked for the program. Kota instructed me to:

1. File a new dispute with my bank claiming “charges not recognized” on the original $20,000 Whop payment
2. Simultaneously make a new payment of $15,000 on a platform called Fanbasis

The logic they gave me? That the Whop dispute would succeed this time, effectively giving me back my $20,000, and the $15,000 Fanbasis payment would be a “discounted” continuation of the program.

Here is what actually happened:

• The Whop dispute failed — because the chargeback window had closed, exactly as they knew it would
• I was now on the hook for the original $20,000 on Whop
• Plus the new $15,000 payment on Fanbasis
• Total: $35,000 for a program that didn’t deliver what was promised

This was not an accident. The timing — waiting until after the 120-day chargeback window — was deliberate. The instruction to file disputes they knew would fail was deliberate. The simultaneous demand for a new payment on a different platform was deliberate.

This Wasn’t Just Me — It Was a Pattern

The voice recordings make this clear. Wyatt and Carson reference “other guys,” “other members,” and “a bunch of Mastermind members” going through the exact same process. This was not an isolated incident. It was a playbook:

1. Sell a $20,000 course with a money-back guarantee
2. Wait until the 120-day chargeback window closes
3. Claim a “payment processor issue” (blaming Whop)
4. Instruct victims to file disputes they know will fail
5. Collect a second payment on a new platform (Fanbasis)
6. Result: Victims owe double, with no recourse

Over 100 estimated victims. Over $2 million at stake. Individual losses ranging from $20,000 to $35,000.

The Entities Behind the Scheme

Public business records confirm the following:

It is worth noting that TacticalConsulting.io LLC — the entity that signed my contract — is now inactive. They shut it down.

Why I’m Speaking Up

I’m sharing this because staying silent only helps the people who did this. If you are a victim of the AI Agency Mastermind program, know this:

• You are not alone — over 100 people have been affected
• The evidence is documented — contracts, payment records, voice recordings
• There are legal options — FTC complaints, FBI IC3 reports, state attorney general filings, and civil action
• Every story strengthens the case

If this happened to you, share your story. Your experience is evidence. Together, we can make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else.