I agree with your observations
The person that said they saw red flags, you are very perceptive!!! Tony Lupia is a horrible little man. I have taken a few of his seminars and courses. I quit after the first course ended because he was wasting our time. He wasnt teaching, and he wasted a lot of time telling irrelevant stories. he stretches his course over 21 weeks (3 sets of 7 classes) when they could be taught over a weekend if he wasnt wasting time.
I googled him when I first started taking his classes and one web site said he was no longer a literary agent but had been in the past. I cant find that page online anymore, it looks like its been taken down. He also uses a business card for a Lupia LIterary Agency that doesnt seem to exist?? In our classes he boasted all the time about lying to people. I dont trust him at all!!
Yes, he has groupies that take his course every time its offered at a local community center. They dont seem to know any better but he's just milking them. When I was in his course other class members were saying among themselves that his advice wasnt working for them and publishers they contacted were giving them information different to him.
I also know the girl that did work for him that he hasnt paid. She is a really sweet girl and of course he's taking advantage of her. Someone mentioned this above. she didnt build a website for his business, she built one that he sold to a self-published author he lied to and convinced his company does web design. Then he used my friend to do the work. She is also the one he wanted to 'use' to post the self-published books online that someone also mentioned here. She finished all the work for the first author he managed to catch in his web and he stopped communicating with her when the bill was due. Apparently he drove her prices down really low and wanted to add his own huge commission on top of her fees so he could make more money for himself from anyone gullable enough to hire him for self-publishing.
Smart move original poster to ask the community about this guy. Ive since learned the same things mentioned above, there are no such thing as a certified literary agent, the need for disclosure, ethics, etc.