got scammed by robert kiyosaki (author of rich dad poor dad)

got scammed by robert kiyosaki (author of rich dad poor dad)

Member since 2023 · 2 posts · 5 votes

I decided to get started learning about getting involved in real estate, Id start by reading the popular personal finance books. I started with grant cardones 10X (arguably an even worse grifter than kiyosaki tbh) and rich dad poor dad. I honestly never even finished (or even got halfway through....) either of them because they just seemed like lots of fluff, lots of telling me things anyone with a brain probably already knows, just in a "motivational" way.

I liked the stuff said in rich dad poor dad well enough though off the bat, that I wanted to know more about what its talking about. I quickly started watching his radio shows and eventually got pulled into attending this "strategy session" on the "rich dad world" website (again, can't beleive I fell for something this stupid... literally shameful..) that ended up being emotional and psychological manipulation to get you to buy his course on something I didnt need, but became convinced I absolutely needed and would change my life. Given how my financial situation was currently going, I was the exact victim they were looking for, since I desperately needed something to change my life. The speaker kept saying "for only 99$!" but it turned out to have in small print on the invoice "6 monthly payments of 99$" that i must have been suppose to miss.

It had a money back guarantee for a month, but it conveniently took a month to actually get any answer from customer service and they played dumb; they wont even cancel the 99$ payments over the next 5 months... The "course" i was sold is absolutely worthless.

Im just now realizing, so many of these personal finance gurus or self help authors are literally the lowest of the low; they take advantage of people in bad financial situations, pretend to want to help them and convince them they've got exactly what they need, then they kick them in the balls and (legally) steal the last little bit of money they can possibly get out of them;, before going on tv, podcasts, or radio shows and complaining about the poor being a blight upon the planet.

I just want to put this out there so, if you want to better your situation in life, or get into real estate investing, dont go trusting these grifters; dont buy these peoples' books or courses. I hope this post keeps someone else from getting swindled by this literal thief.

Honestly , I know maybe it's my fault for falling for it, but being in a desperately bad financial situation made me vulnerable to this kind of scam; and his whole scammy brand (along with grant cardones, tbh) is created to scam people in bad financial situations. Now I'm just out more money, and as kiyosaki says, the rich get richer.

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Chris SeveneyBusiness Member
Moderator
Investor · VA · Member since 2015 · 21k+ posts · 19k+ votes
3y

@John Smith

Writing a book and / or hosting a podcast just means they are good at marketing - that is all it means.

This is important for everyone reading this to understand.

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  • Member since 2023 · 2 posts · 5 votes
    3y

    I thought that being the author of the best selling personal finance book automatically made him trustworthy, but turned out not to be the case

  • Member since 2020 · 241 posts · 179 votes
    3y

    Sorry to here about your experience. I'd agree most of these courses are a waste of money but at $600 you got off pretty easy compared to a lot of other programs people have signed up for. 


    kiyosaki has been calling for the end of the economic universe for a number of years and eventually he'll get it right.

    Here's a link to an interesting article about him:

    https://thecollegeinvestor.com/4726/ultimate-hypocrite-rober...

  • Investor · Costa Mesa, CA · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    3y
    Quote from @John Smith:

    I thought that being the author of the best selling personal finance book automatically made him trustworthy, but turned out not to be the case

    Why would you think that? You got off easy and hopefully learned a valuable lesson.
  • Chris SeveneyBusiness Member
    Moderator
    Investor · VA · Member since 2015 · 21k+ posts · 19k+ votes
    3y

    @John Smith

    Writing a book and / or hosting a podcast just means they are good at marketing - that is all it means.

    This is important for everyone reading this to understand.

    7e investments53 Reviews
  • Contractor · Scottsdale, AZ · Member since 2010 · 2k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    3y

    It's good that you put this out there. Hopefully others don't fall prey to similar upsells during these seminars.

    Going forward it's just important to have your guard up when it comes to anything related to real estate education. I personally found a ton of value in both of the books that you are critical of. Rich Dad Poor Dad single handedly gave me the basic knowledge and motivation to get into real estate at the age of 25. A few years later, The 10X Rule gave a boost to my motivation and goal setting that I desperately needed at the time.

    Point is, not all education content out there is bad. You just have to get good at extracting the value out of these personalities where you can, and ignore the slimy sales tactics when they show up.

  • Kerry Noble JrPro Member
    Investor · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2018 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    3y

    My Journey started with RDPD. I emersed myself in a lot of books and began my journey. I connected with people that were in the same situation and i eventually found a mentor. I like to seek the knowledge for myself. 

  • Member since 2019 · 7k+ posts · 4k+ votes
    3y
    Quote from @John Smith:

    I thought that being the author of the best selling personal finance book automatically made him trustworthy, but turned out not to be the case


     everyone that has podcast, seminar, book author, is usually a shady individual. Including maybe from BP too LOL, more if they're highly quoted.

    You should join investor club group only that's whre you meet the true person on the field or can do DD with heavy rationality and logic.

  • Real Estate Agent · Denver CO · Member since 2019 · 210 posts · 333 votes
    3y

    Sorry to hear that you were misled.  Typically the slowest way to wealth is the shortcut and that's what some people sell.  

    There's a lot of info out there and in my experience it all just remixes the two golden rules...spend less than you make and invest early and often. 

  • Member since 2019 · 7k+ posts · 4k+ votes
    3y
    Quote from @Marcus R.:

    Sorry to hear that you were misled.  Typically the slowest way to wealth is the shortcut and that's what some people sell.  

    There's a lot of info out there and in my experience it all just remixes the two golden rules...spend less than you make and invest early and often. 


     can't be truer than this

  • Member since 2023 · 243 posts · 199 votes
    3y

    I’m not sure what was misleading.

    The price was 6 installments of $99. You thought it was only $99. That’s not a scam.

    However, not getting a refund is an issue.

    What were you expecting from this course? Did you try the program and it didn’t work? What didn’t work?

    As others mentioned, $594 is cheap in comparison to the stuff I saw. The “if you don’t come to my seminar, you deserve to be broke” guy wanted $2500. 

    Not all seminars/meetups and gurus are bad or scam artists.

    I've read rich dad, seen him in interviews, podcasts, and I understand his "use debt to get ‘rich'" strategy. I disagree with several of his philosophies but acknowledge some of his ideas work. Would I buy his program? Nope. I only focus on learning more from experience, local REI investors, and bigger pockets forums and podcasts. Tons of info.

  • JD MartinBusiness Member
    Moderator
    Rock Star Extraordinaire · Northeast, TN · Member since 2015 · 10k+ posts · 16k+ votes
    3y
    Quote from @John Smith:

    I decided to get started learning about getting involved in real estate, Id start by reading the popular personal finance books. I started with grant cardones 10X (arguably an even worse grifter than kiyosaki tbh) and rich dad poor dad. I honestly never even finished (or even got halfway through....) either of them because they just seemed like lots of fluff, lots of telling me things anyone with a brain probably already knows, just in a "motivational" way.

    I liked the stuff said in rich dad poor dad well enough though off the bat, that I wanted to know more about what its talking about. I quickly started watching his radio shows and eventually got pulled into attending this "strategy session" on the "rich dad world" website (again, can't beleive I fell for something this stupid... literally shameful..) that ended up being emotional and psychological manipulation to get you to buy his course on something I didnt need, but became convinced I absolutely needed and would change my life. Given how my financial situation was currently going, I was the exact victim they were looking for, since I desperately needed something to change my life. The speaker kept saying "for only 99$!" but it turned out to have in small print on the invoice "6 monthly payments of 99$" that i must have been suppose to miss.

    It had a money back guarantee for a month, but it conveniently took a month to actually get any answer from customer service and they played dumb; they wont even cancel the 99$ payments over the next 5 months... The "course" i was sold is absolutely worthless.

    Im just now realizing, so many of these personal finance gurus or self help authors are literally the lowest of the low; they take advantage of people in bad financial situations, pretend to want to help them and convince them they've got exactly what they need, then they kick them in the balls and (legally) steal the last little bit of money they can possibly get out of them;, before going on tv, podcasts, or radio shows and complaining about the poor being a blight upon the planet.

    I just want to put this out there so, if you want to better your situation in life, or get into real estate investing, dont go trusting these grifters; dont buy these peoples' books or courses. I hope this post keeps someone else from getting swindled by this literal thief.

    Honestly , I know maybe it's my fault for falling for it, but being in a desperately bad financial situation made me vulnerable to this kind of scam; and his whole scammy brand (along with grant cardones, tbh) is created to scam people in bad financial situations. Now I'm just out more money, and as kiyosaki says, the rich get richer.

     This is the entire reason Bigger Pockets exists. @Joshua D. created this place so that real investors and rookies could get together and commune on real estate. There's a ton of free info here, so I would suggest chalking your loss up to a lesson, avail yourself of the knowledge here, and just move forward.

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  • Rental Property Investor · Somewhere over the Rainbow · Member since 2021 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    3y

    Hard lesson to learn

    100% of these "gurus" are selling nothing more than a dream. Some may be decent investors and many more are nothing more than marketing salesman

  • Member since 2019 · 7k+ posts · 4k+ votes
    3y

    The moment he promoted bitcoin , I could only laugh.

  • Member since 2020 · 671 posts · 937 votes
    3y

    I have no idea what the $600 course is, but I can definitely say that buying Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad, Poor Dad", the "Cashflow 101" board game, and "On the Road with Robert Kiyosaki" were three of the best financial decisions I've ever made and have paid for themselves many times over.

    Then, coming across Bigger Pockets during coronavirus and realizing that money was about to be devalued in a major way was also a personal game changer.  I'm so thankful that I locked in all of that debt at historically low, fixed rates.

    Sincerely, I'm beyond thankful to Kiyosaki and Bigger Pockets as they've changed the arc of my family's financial situation.  I'm just sorry that not everyone has had the same experience.

  • Dan H.Pro Member
    Investor · Poway, CA · Member since 2015 · 7k+ posts · 8k+ votes
    3y

    Did you pay via credit card?  If you did, inquire with the credit card vendor about not paying and provide them your reasoning.  This will be more likely to work if the RDPD actually strung you along to where you could not easy cancel in the 40 days.

    I do not agree with everything in RDPD, but found it valuable enough that I have purchased a handful of copies and given them to proteges and some of my employees.  The Bigger Pockets podcast used to have standard exit questions.  One was something like favorite RE book, RDPD was the most common answer provided by the guests.  This indicates that many successful investors have found RDPD to be a valuable resource.

    Good luck

  • Rental Property Investor · PA · Member since 2017 · 69 posts · 60 votes
    3y

    @John Smith

    Trust but Verify. People just share their experience how they make it/made it. Take what resonates with you and leave the rest. Rich Dad Poor Dad was a great way to explain a concept(s) - read it 24 years ago (was given to me) and today I still can reference a few things one 'You must mind your own business' another one 'Build Your Team' There may be a few more. I found the CD collection on establishing an Entity - Business Structures very helpful.

    If you only learn one thing from each experience I say it was well worth. You are building wisdom based off of real experience. To be successful to make it you must take a negative and find the positive - easy one : read the fine print aka as in the future you will never sign a document or sign up for anything that you do not have complete understanding.

    When you point the finger of blame at anyone or anything there's always 3 fingers pointing back at you.

    Experience, Knowledge, Wisdom and Appreciation of the Journey.

    You will know that you made it or on your way when you look back and are grateful that Robert Kiyosaki early on for a few hundred dollars taught you how to read the fine print.

  • Dominic RosatoBusiness Member
    Real Estate Agent · Jersey City, NJ · Member since 2022 · 82 posts · 61 votes
    3y

    Try not to linger the mistake - be great full you found biggerpockets, the best FREE education source in the world on real estate investing. The books they publish are also phenomenal. My advice though- learn what you can and take consistent action everyday. All of the education in the world can’t help someone who can’t take action. 

  • Real Estate Agent · WA · Member since 2021 · 254 posts · 173 votes
    3y

    He's just a good marketer. As for results for others, he lacks. So sorry that you had to be scammed to realize that from both of them. Bigger Pockets is the right place to get the real juice of the situation and hear from different perspectives other than a person who is trying to create their own "religion" of motivational adages. 

  • Member since 2019 · 7k+ posts · 4k+ votes
    3y

    these days, there're floods of kiyosaki wanna-be, saying they are life coach, food cooking coach, gym coach, financial coach , or follow-me-anything coach, the world is full of puppets.

  • Jay HinrichsBusiness Member
    Real Estate Consultant · Summerlin, NV · Member since 2014 · 45k+ posts · 66k+ votes
    3y
    Quote from @Jeremy Horton:

    Hard lesson to learn

    100% of these "gurus" are selling nothing more than a dream. Some may be decent investors and many more are nothing more than marketing salesman


     the man in the blue suit is getting rich on your dreams   ( low spark of the high heel boys) Steve Winwood. 

  • Member since 2019 · 7k+ posts · 4k+ votes
    3y
    Quote from @Jay Hinrichs:
    Quote from @Jeremy Horton:

    Hard lesson to learn

    100% of these "gurus" are selling nothing more than a dream. Some may be decent investors and many more are nothing more than marketing salesman


     the man in the blue suit is getting rich on your dreams   ( low spark of the high heel boys) Steve Winwood. 


     Jay if you write a book I would be the first one that purchase it.

    I bet reading your experience is 33x more valuable than what this and that guru preached.

  • Investor · Vermont and New York · Member since 2023 · 308 posts · 309 votes
    3y
    Amazing how many apologists there are for Kiyosaki. 
  • Sarah KensingerPro Member
    Real Estate Consultant · OH · Member since 2023 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    3y

    Was it the person, course, or lack of execution? 

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