Scammed by "Estate Legal"

[Scott Johnson]

Unless someone can prove otherwise, I’m fairly certain I was just scammed out of $3,400 by a supposed “Lead Provider.” I’m sharing my story so everyone can be aware and hopefully avoid the same experience.

I received a call from one of my ads that targets probate clients. The caller, William Silva, claimed to be a salesperson for a company called “Estate Legal.” He seemed legitimate at first, and I even had a few friends look over the materials he provided. Everything checked out.

They claimed that Estate Legal helps people through the probate process—especially those with a living will or those who’ve moved into a nursing home and need to sell their house. Supposedly, they connect sellers with brokers and homebuyers in each market. They also stated they only allow three brokers and three cash homebuyer “spots” in any given area, and they only move into areas where they can guarantee at least 600 leads per year. I was told there was already one broker signed up and no cash homebuyers yet, so it seemed like a good opportunity. After doing what I felt was enough research—even though the sales pitch was a bit pushy—I decided to move forward.

Their pamphlet outlined several guarantees and provided additional details. The only slight red flag was that they only accepted payment via Venmo or wire transfer, but that's how I accepted payment when I was selling lead bundles, so I still thought it was worth a shot. So, I wired the money. After that, they sent a few messages mentioning they were working with a couple of probates and would get back to me.

To date, I haven't received anything, and my attempts to reach them have gone unanswered. I recall looking up their LLC in Florida, even though some documents mentioned California.

If you’ve had any interactions with these people, please reply below and let us know your experience. I hope this helps keep others from falling into the same trap. Hope this helps, and God bless!

[Jay Hinrichs]

Quote from @Christopher Johnson:

@Scott Trench - FALSE - DECEPTIVE POST - It's sad people resort to this online bullying, invasion of privacy, attacking our staff, and clearly attempts to blackmail us for $. Complaints are being filed and we are resolving the matter via the appropriate channels. Without waiving any of our contractual rights, Scott we recently emailed you and your support team. This post violates 3rd party agreements and confidentiality terms of service. Additionally, Mr. Scott Johnson is spreading false and defamatory content on this platform. He and others seem to be attempting to circumvent an agreement with us, by attempting to smear us on this platform. Mr. Scott Johnson refuses to comply with an arbitration and non disclosure agreement with us, we have offered him to enter into binding arbitration, which is required per our terms of service and agreement he signed.  We are proceeding via the appropriate process in order to address Mr. Scott's issues, via the American Arbitration Association. We want to advise you that Mr. Scott has a binding agreement with us that strictly prohibits this type of defamatory, false post, which obviously can cause confusion in the marketplace, for future and current partners. Please check your private DM and email messages and please respond there. We would appreciate the help from Bigger Pockets Support. Again, there is a non-disclosure agreement, an arbitration agreement, an agreement not to post on 3rd party sites like this, and for matters to be resolved privately in order to avoid harming anyone's image and goodwill. Please remove this post. Please direct Mr. Scott Johnson to comply with dispute resolution via the American Arbitration Association. 

BP is not the arbitrator.. SM giviths and takiths away. U guys let it get this far over 3400.00 its your fault.. even if you did something wrong.. who is going to go to arbitration for such a small amount of money.. U should revist your refund policy it really reeks of get the money and never refund any money because of your arb clause and venue clause you guys know what your doing.. So maybe think this through a little more. Instead of crying to BP.