RAD Diversified SCAM ALERT!!!

[Arthur Crum]

Hello,

I Just wanted to give everyone a quick update on the RAD Diversified scandal that is currently unfolding. As of April 1, 2024, RAD Diversified (a REIT), has officially put a freeze on withdrawing any and all funds from the REIT. If I had to speculate, I would say they are facing some serious liquidity issues. Interestingly enough, I came across an article in the Philidelphia Inquirer that raised concerns about the REIT two years ago. It's pretty much spot on. Looks like your classic Ponzi scheme. It would appear good ole Dutch has been using new investor funds to pay liquidations i.e. robbing Peter to pay Paul. I guess the well has run dry.

I myself was duped into investing $5000 (unaccredited) into the fund and will now no longer be able to liquidate any portion of my shares. The URL provided above will take you to official statement that RAD has provided to the SEC. Personally, I doubt its authenticity, but that's the direct information I was provided with from Alexander Prock, as of one hour ago. I also know that RAD's accreditation with the BBB has been revoked due to the massive influx of similar complaints that have been pouring in since the official statement was released on April 1st, 2024.

I would strongly advise ALL BP members to stay far away from this scam. I highly doubt I will ever see my money again. I would sincerely hope that the SEC has begun looking into this and/or the FBI. And, by the way, Dutch Mendenhall the CEO of RAD, has been a member of the BP community now for several years so feel free to chime in bud. Below is a copy of the SEC statement. It really makes me sick that these scam artists run rampant while the SEC does absolutely nothing to combat the issues. Anyway, please feel free to do your own due diligence but it looks like we all got got.

"On April 1, 2024, the board of directors (the “Board") of RAD Diversified REIT, Inc. (the "Company”) decided, in accordance with the terms of its Share Redemption Program, to continue the temporary freeze of the Company’s redemption program. The Company will not process any pending requests that have not been redeemed as of February 1, 2024 nor will it accept any redemption requests after April 1, 2024. Pending redemption requests will remain in queue until the Company recommences the redemption program. The Board intends to reassess this decision to determine whether to recommence the redemption program or to continue to pause the redemption program no later than July 1, 2024."

[Jay Hinrichs]

Quote from @Scott Trench:

I have no idea what is happening at this particular fund, and can’t chime in on any specifics.

I will say that I, along with many investors in the community, have likely lost a lot of money. Syndicators who bragged about how smart they were, showed off fancy lives, cars, private jets, and mansions, second homes, and wrote books and sold expensive courses about how smart they are at investing are being exposed all over the place. Sometimes, these syndicators who are actively in process of wiping out investor’s life savings, even brag about how automated their businesses are and how they don’t have to work!

I’m not making the same mistakes with my money again, nor will I allow investors who made their name in part on BiggerPockets to go unexposed if they treat investors poorly, lose huge amounts of investor money, or clearly mismanage funds.

We are starting PassivePockets.com and launch it in June. We will learn how to find and vet “good” and expose “bad” for ALL to see. In the meantime, we will watch the forums for more posts about the syndicators who handle situations to the chagrin of their investors. 

 Morning Scott,  I missed this post and posted above but its worth repeating. What I see irrespective of how the deals are going is the lack of communications from these syndicators
with respect to how their deals are actually doing. Communication good or bad goes along way to keeping investors from being upset to going ballistic on the internet and creating irreparable harm to the syndicators reputations.

It seems that most of the BP influencers I have seen over the years have stepped into MF syndication with varying results. So to that end they are new to the game never went through a deep downturn cycle. And for them rasing capital on SM BP facebook whatever has been fairly easy compared to others who dont have a big SM or BP presence.  This is where the crowdfunding sites helped a lot fo those types scale.

The play book as you described is an old one when it comes to marketing themselves nothing different than what the how to trainer do. The difference is they are stuck with a certain asset as we are seeing. The trainers just pivot to what is working today and set up training in that niche. But its all the same big budget for marketing and go hammer the airwaves/internet. Sell the sizzle etc etc.

Having been front and center in the late 80s of a billion dollar syndication company ( was an independent contractor in charge of finding and entitling their land projects in northern CA.) I saw what happens when these things start to go south and from my mind most of these companies that could be struggling now simply do not have enough staff to handle all their investors needs in a timely fashion and when things go bad like we see posted on BP right now lack of up front communications leads to Investors going out of their minds with worry and the blame game starts. Then of course google searches bring all these things to the front page and next thing you know reputations get hammered..

As one who personally had a medium sized HML company going into 2007 2008 with 600 loans on my books and by 2010 went through a massive re value melt down all of us in that business got hammered for us we started in 2001 and by 2010 had to basically shut down let go 90% of staff and spent 3 to 4 years hemorrhaging our net worth's to make sure our banks got paid ( which to my personal financial situation was devastating) Most of my peers went out of business completely ( BK) I did not but by 2011 I was basically starting over. But with my head held high gone was all the normal trappings of RE success being served as a big slice of humble pie :(.

And as my core commercial banks understood that I doing everything i could to protect them. The one bank left kept a 1 mil line of credit for me ( down from 15 mil) had me  on a 90 day extensions for 4 years and allowed to to earn back in. Its taken basically 12 years to get back to maybe half of what I had at the time.

Bottom line RE cycles and I suspect most of the folks that are having issues did what they thought was correct or right and the market has gone against them.. If they are not changing their personal lifestyles to adjust to this, not communicating, doing new deals leaving old ones to wither then you know what your dealing with the goal ( human nature i guess) is to keep lifestyle intact at all costs.

To that end I just paid off yesterday my last legacy bank debt took me 12 years but its done an gone now. But those same banks stuck with me and allowed me to pivot and build up my new construction side using bank debt intead of HML.. etc etc.

So If i was guessing most of the folks having issues in the space have very little assets aimed toward client relations and communications but still do big spends on advertising for new blood.