FortuneBuilders three-day experience from 4-27 to 4-29-2018

[Suzy LeBoeuf]

I wanted to post a newer post about FortuneBuilders three-day weekend since I see posts that are five years old and could not find more recent posts to add my experience.  I wrote down my disappointed thoughts in my email and then copied it below.  I am still wanting to do real estate investing but now I will have to find another group or something to get the information and group support I need, so if anyone's out there who has these, please let me know by replying to this post and I would be happy to move to another string to talk with people on this site.

My experience with FortuneBuilders was going to their initial session, paying $299 for an extra book about liens and to pay for their three-day training. I was higher than a kite and excited about what I was about to learn, so I spent the $200 to attend their three day seminar and $100 (rounded numbers) for their Lien buying book. 

I was excited my first day at the three day weekend and could see myself doing real estate investing.  But, by the second day when they asked us to fill out a questionnaire to be "interviewed" for possibly receiving an "invitation to join" their Mastery college,  I was not expecting to be hit with a cost of $30,000 - $50,000 price to join that would be due the next day, which was Sunday.  I was told, after asking one of their staff, when this payment would be due on Saturday, because I asked.  We were not told up front when the money would have to be paid.  There are three levels: Platinum $29,997, Diamond $34,997 and $Inner Circle $49,997.  They have no tuition assistance nor payment plans.  You are not warned of this being the main item they sell before you come.  It is a complete surprise.  

After showing them you are interested and "need help", assumedly the money would be a problem for some, you turn in your questionnaire and wait to be "called" by your name appearing on a big screen.  You then are escorted out to the tables where "Advisors" meet with each "candidate".  After meeting with an "advisor" named "Cori" for a brief few minutes (who acted mad at me and very stern, very unfriendly), she suggested I "get a credit card" to buy houses with... they train you on how you can do that and for what benefit in their three-day weekend.  When I gave her my post card she gave me to let her know I was "still interested", I told her that I was in shock that they had asked me to come up with that amount of money and with no warning and I asked her when the #30,000 - $50,000 would be due.  She said the next day.  I was still in shock, feeling deflated as hell and felt ambushed.  

I was not aware that their Mastery school was going to be mentioned continually over the three-day weekend, telling us they have "billions of dollars" to help their students out who "needed financial assistance", I had no clue it must have meant only for once you get in the Mastery school with your own money but not to help cover tuition that "could be paid back with one or two flips".  That is how they thought we could pay them back the $50,000...  When I approached her to hand her the post card back, and told her I was no prepared to pay the money, she told me "we would come up with a plan tomorrow", meaning the last day of the three-day weekend, but she never showed up to speak with me again.  No one "came up with a plan" for me as she had said.  Silly me to think she would have done what she said she would do.  No matter, she was so unfriendly that I didn't want to speak to her again.

She never met with me after that, leaving me not knowing where I stood financially with FortuneBuilders and their Mastery school, and I would have liked to have written those comments down on my survey at the end of the weekend, but was too disturbed by it to have my thoughts straight.  

I felt the three day weekend was divided into "them and us", those who could pay were "family" and "students", and then the rest of us who couldn't pay and who "were not invited to attend Mastery School." My time there was spending three days full of how "we" get to learn this, use this tool, or do that, have a coach, etc. and learn what they would be learning about in the classes they would be taking. The rest of us, speaking for myself, wondered what I was doing there and why I had come. At the very end, literally, the last hour on Sunday afternoon the speaker spent time on the only piece of information that would help people like me turn a profit and maybe be steady enough financially to do the flips they were teaching about. I got little information on how I would start, planning a budget, the first thing I would do, all the things we would need during that last hour or so of the three-day weekend.

I would not recommend going unless you have the big bucks to afford to go. They are not going to help anyone into their Mastery school. You will wait until the end of three wasted days, filling your time learning about how "they" will continue on to be "family", learning about the instructor's car and home, or whatever, leaving the rest behind. I was expecting less of a jump in cost to take the next step with FortuneBuilders. It was a waste of my time and energy, and oh, the $300 I spent on them plus the $50 to attend which included missing a bus and then driving in so I could be on time the second day, full of enthusiasm, parking in the lot underneath the hotel cost #30, buying coffee across the street for about $4 apiece... they had ice water there. No complimentary coffee in the morning. And two days taking the bus to and from Redmond, WA to Seattle. Not very fun in there. Save your spare cash.