FAR 198 The Guru Scam

Expected Air Date: 10/18/18

Opening

A friend sent me an email the other day with information about a real estate seminar he had signed up to attend. Wanted me to check it out and tell him what I thought. I did some checking and told him he was in for a high pressure sales pitch that rivaled something between a time-share and a used car. But they would be much more polished than either - in fact, you might not even realize you were being conned.

I’ve seen these hucksters for years traveling the countryside taking people’s money and providing cheap canned information that anyone could learn for free. What’s worse is they know exactly how to convince you to pay $20-$50,000 and get their money by “helping” you raise your limits on existing credit cards or by borrowing from life insurance policies or your 401-K. If you’ve listened to my shows awhile you know I tend to get on a rant about this practice, but today I’m going to back up and have a little fun. A little later on I’m going to give you my Top Ten signs you’re real estate seminar is a worthless con.

We also have Bre Braswell joining us today. She is a Principal at Sole Source Funding and she’s going to tell you how you can get up to $250,000 in unsecured funding to use in your business. That’s right. $250,000. Unsecured. Not attached to your personal credit. Game-changer.

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Guest:  Bre Braswell, Sole Source Funding Topic: The Top Ten Ways to Know Your Real Estate Seminar is Actually a Con:

1. The “nationally known” guru is not in attendance.
   1. Whose experience is being taught?
   2. Who has the experience to be able to credibly answer audience questions?
   3. What is the actual experience of the presenter and can it be verified?
2. The name of the company behind the event is vague, not mentioned, or purposely mis-leading.
   1. Where is their headquarters?
   2. Who is the person or persons behind this company? Someone did the work to gain the experience to teach.
   3. This can be taught from a curriculum and a powerpoint, but the most polished professional who is also inexperienced cannot truly serve a real estate audience.
3. The Presenter’s real estate credentials cannot be easily verified.
   1. Does he or she provide addresses of actual properties flipped?
4. The Presenter does this presentation more than once a month. If they travel and do this presentation more than once a month there is NO possible way they are actively fixing and flipping houses.
5. Early in the presentation (usually within the first two hours), they will have you fill out a worksheet with all of your assets as possible funding sources. Available credit card spending, 401k balance, cash value of insurance policies, etc. Later they will use this information to prove to you that you actually can afford their 20-50k in training.
6. They take time to teach you how to call your credit card providers and ask for an increase in your limit. The really sneaky ones will put you in a group, challenge everyone to do it, bring you back and see if you collectively came up with an amount that would buy a house.
7. They make lots of promises to you. And they will seem great!
   1. Results - lifestyle.
8. They have an emotional story of their own financial distress and real estate saved the day.
9. They will not let you take photos of the screens or record the event.
10. They want to sell you another more expensive course. Free - Low Cost - High Cost - Upgrade.

Ways to check ahead of time:

1. Check the name of the company. Look at their website. See what they emphasize.
2. Google the name of the company followed by the word “reviews.” This may not be helpful, but it can be. One company I researched had over 1000 hits on a website called “Ripoff Report.” Anyone can say anything there and not all of it should be believed. But 1000 reports?
3. Ask in online forums - Bigger Pockets, Connected Investors, Facebook Groups, Google Plus Groups etc. What have you heard about …?
4. At the event, get the presenter’s full name. Find out where he/she is from. Note as many property addresses as you can during the event. Check those addresses online for ownership and transfers of ownership. Look for an entity that owned the property for 4-6 months in the past two years. Later on, if you get a chance to speak with the presenter, casually drop the name of the entity you found and see if you get a glimmer of recognition. If you’re convinced they are lying, just for fun, make up an entity name (or use your own if you have one) and ask them if that was the entity that bought 123 Main St (or whatever). See if they say yes.

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Motivational Thoughts for the day

• Earn a lot so you can have a lot so you can give a lot.
• -Tom Olson