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Has anyone used WealthAbility?
Hi Everyone, I wanted to see if anyone has used WealthAbility by Tom Wheelwright. The amount they charge to analyze your information and give you a plan is pretty steep, so I wanted to see if anyone has used them and how happy you are with their services. Thanks in advance for any input.
@Joe Banks - Happy to provide whatever transparency into Eric's complaint that's within ethical standards and does not reveal any specifics of his personal situation. This situation occurred almost four years ago. I respect Eric and at the end of the day there were things that could have been done better. We have since written over 4,800 client engagements for the WealthAbility Network. I realize the negatives get a disproportional amount of attention no doubt. Let me know if you want to connect, always happy to do that, be well!
Quote from @Patrick OHalleran:
Appreciate the comments which confirmed my experience. The program offers many of the items I want to tackle: overall tax strategy, review of past 3 tax returns, etc. Had 2 calls with a WA sales person and was quickly forwarded a link to sign-up for $13,200. I sent a follow-up email with 3 questions/requests before moving forward:
1. Opportunity to speak to 3 current references.
2. Greater detail/specifics around the 100% customer satisfaction guarantee.
3. Given they're based in Arizona, like me, an opportunity to meet the lead CPA before moving forward.
I never received a response from the sales contact despite sending 3 follow-up requests on top of my initial request email.
That was it for me. Disappointed as I hoped this might work out.
@Brad L. greatly appreciate the timely response and email exchange.
@Patrick OHalleran - any time. Have a great day!
Quote from @Patrick Juliano:
Quote from @Shan Vincent:
Hi Everyone, I wanted to see if anyone has used WealthAbility by Tom Wheelwright. The amount they charge to analyze your information and give you a plan is pretty steep, so I wanted to see if anyone has used them and how happy you are with their services. Thanks in advance for any input.
Thanks to @Shan Vincent for posing the question and initiating the thread. I've read every response and really appreciate the responses, from every single one of you!
Recently, I spoke with Joseph Sorge and was quoted similar prices to others. My situation is relatively simple relative to others, and I'm hoping to find legal methods to improve my tax burden. I'll report back in a few months to share my experience with all of you.
cheers
Well, time to report back. I wrapped-up my initial session with Wealthability recently. I'm going to share a little context and a few insights.
1st things 1st -- my #1 cost for the past 20yrs ago is taxes; #2 my home; #3 kids. I maxed IRAs, 401ks, investments in stocks and had professional wealth managers. This didn't get me to my goal of retiring by 40, but close. OK, done with context. I decided, whatever I'm doing isn't working. I read books year after year, including Rich Dad, Poor Dad, all of Tom's books, etc etc, and I discussed investments with friends and family in finance regularly throughout my life (have a PhD, love this stuff), and despite all of this it has still been mediocre results given my goal of retiring before I'm too old to enjoy it. Thus I took the plunge cause ... why keep doing what I'm doing if I'm doomed to get the same results? Watching my parents waste away to cancer spurred me to action, "enough is enough, the future needs to happen, now."
The journey with Wealthability team involves a mindset shift. In part, it's an education boot-camp, and you get a personal coach. Mine was an MBA, CPA, CFA, and holds multiple other profession accounting designations that are more sophisticated than a CPA. He had 20yrs experience in corporations, business management, and now runs a business offering CFO consulting services, accounting, tax advising, and book-keeping. My coach was legit, and had received tons of training from Tom's team, including on-going training, access to the best experts in the US in all aspects of what you need to grow, manage, and protect your wealth. You get ~10 coaching sessions (ask Joseph for details), and access to a ton of detailed online, self-paced training on all topics related to wealth, and tons on real estate topics I didn't find anywhere else the past 20yrs.
In addition, a personality assessment is included, and helps you understand what's driving your behavior, financial decisions, and then how to leverage that and select a financial strategy. I've had multiple assessments as a leader and manager in corporations, but this was particularly useful for aiding what drivers are active in this context. During the coaching sessions, you'll cover a ton of training material, and discussions with someone that can really dig into what you've been doing, what you're trying to do now, and then collaborate you're doing now, help you settle on your goals & where you want to get, and then customize a plan for you to implement. And, this involves everything you care about: stocks, real-estate, business dev, commodities (oil, precious metals, minerals, etc), estate planning, asset protection.
The more effort you can devote, the more you can learn, the more you can shift your thinking, the more likely you are to implement the plan that works for you and delivers results. At the end, you are referred to advisors that will help you build a team of professionals that will support you growth, your plans, and ensure you get where you want to go.
The obvious problem for us all is the cost. And for me, a guy that drives a car 20yrs old, this program cost 5x what my car costs to replace. So, yeah, it wasa large cost to swallow. If you want direct 1:1 access to experts to support you and access to people and coaches that can expose you to a completely new growth path, then bite the bullet and invest in yourself.
Good luck on your journey, and thanks to everyone that's shared their experiences with me, and others in this community
-Patrick
Quote from @Patrick Juliano:
Quote from @Patrick Juliano:
Quote from @Shan Vincent:
Hi Everyone, I wanted to see if anyone has used WealthAbility by Tom Wheelwright. The amount they charge to analyze your information and give you a plan is pretty steep, so I wanted to see if anyone has used them and how happy you are with their services. Thanks in advance for any input.
Thanks to @Shan Vincent for posing the question and initiating the thread. I've read every response and really appreciate the responses, from every single one of you!
Recently, I spoke with Joseph Sorge and was quoted similar prices to others. My situation is relatively simple relative to others, and I'm hoping to find legal methods to improve my tax burden. I'll report back in a few months to share my experience with all of you.
cheers
Well, time to report back. I wrapped-up my initial session with Wealthability recently. I'm going to share a little context and a few insights.
1st things 1st -- my #1 cost for the past 20yrs ago is taxes; #2 my home; #3 kids. I maxed IRAs, 401ks, investments in stocks and had professional wealth managers. This didn't get me to my goal of retiring by 40, but close. OK, done with context. I decided, whatever I'm doing isn't working. I read books year after year, including Rich Dad, Poor Dad, all of Tom's books, etc etc, and I discussed investments with friends and family in finance regularly throughout my life (have a PhD, love this stuff), and despite all of this it has still been mediocre results given my goal of retiring before I'm too old to enjoy it. Thus I took the plunge cause ... why keep doing what I'm doing if I'm doomed to get the same results? Watching my parents waste away to cancer spurred me to action, "enough is enough, the future needs to happen, now."
The journey with Wealthability team involves a mindset shift. In part, it's an education boot-camp, and you get a personal coach. Mine was an MBA, CPA, CFA, and holds multiple other profession accounting designations that are more sophisticated than a CPA. He had 20yrs experience in corporations, business management, and now runs a business offering CFO consulting services, accounting, tax advising, and book-keeping. My coach was legit, and had received tons of training from Tom's team, including on-going training, access to the best experts in the US in all aspects of what you need to grow, manage, and protect your wealth. You get ~10 coaching sessions (ask Joseph for details), and access to a ton of detailed online, self-paced training on all topics related to wealth, and tons on real estate topics I didn't find anywhere else the past 20yrs.
In addition, a personality assessment is included, and helps you understand what's driving your behavior, financial decisions, and then how to leverage that and select a financial strategy. I've had multiple assessments as a leader and manager in corporations, but this was particularly useful for aiding what drivers are active in this context. During the coaching sessions, you'll cover a ton of training material, and discussions with someone that can really dig into what you've been doing, what you're trying to do now, and then collaborate you're doing now, help you settle on your goals & where you want to get, and then customize a plan for you to implement. And, this involves everything you care about: stocks, real-estate, business dev, commodities (oil, precious metals, minerals, etc), estate planning, asset protection.
The more effort you can devote, the more you can learn, the more you can shift your thinking, the more likely you are to implement the plan that works for you and delivers results. At the end, you are referred to advisors that will help you build a team of professionals that will support you growth, your plans, and ensure you get where you want to go.
The obvious problem for us all is the cost. And for me, a guy that drives a car 20yrs old, this program cost 5x what my car costs to replace. So, yeah, it wasa large cost to swallow. If you want direct 1:1 access to experts to support you and access to people and coaches that can expose you to a completely new growth path, then bite the bullet and invest in yourself.
Good luck on your journey, and thanks to everyone that's shared their experiences with me, and others in this community
-Patrick
Thanks for the breakdown @Patrick Juliano! I just got my engagement letter and I was a little surprised to see the heavy focus on the educational side of things. I have read Tom's books as well as Amanda Han's books for BP and have a fair understanding of taxes. Yet I still feel like I am paying too much which is why I decided to reach out to wealthability. My thought was that for the large fee they would be taking much of the thinking and planning off my plate so I could stop being the one recommending strategies to my CPA and instead have the professionals make suggestions to me. So, am I accurate in interpreting your bottom line there as this is more of a fee for a class/coaching than it is in actual tax strategy?
Quote from @Shan Vincent:
Hi Everyone, I wanted to see if anyone has used WealthAbility by Tom Wheelwright. The amount they charge to analyze your information and give you a plan is pretty steep, so I wanted to see if anyone has used them and how happy you are with their services. Thanks in advance for any input.
Reading through all the responses, I can feel what each person is going through to search for the right CPA. I have read the series of books from Tom, Kiosaski et al.
From my experience in dealing with 2 different CPAs and having a mixture of high-income W2s and running 2 Airbnbs as well as 2 long-term rentals: Here is my take.
Ideally, It would be much easier to find a CPA that has their own Airbnb. I believe such a CPA will be very useful to the new age of Airbnb hosts who have other varied sources of income.
Such a CPA will understand what needs to be done in theory and practice!
If anyone happens to know a CPA with this background~Please share their contact. It doesn't matter which part of the US they are located in.
Thanks!
@Ike Unegbu its always a great idea to find a CPA team that specializes in your investment class or business niche. A lot of CPAs can be generalists but you’ll likely have a higher return on your investment finding a group that specializes in your niche!
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CPA
I bought their course years ago. It's packed with a TON of information and formatted professionally, they provide you with video content and everything in writing, even the videos are transcribed to read along. Hours and hours of content. It's pricey though. And whether or not it will directly correlate to increasing your income, ehh a little debatable. What I realize now after 3-4 years of taking that course, the majority I've been able to find on youtube, my CPA, and other people in my network for free. However, I still think it was worth it because it catapulted my entrepreneurial mindset and gave me more confidence going into different ventures. Basically, I could have received all that knowledge (more like 90%) for free from social media, colleagues, etc., but it would have been slow and taken time (a few years). I'm all about buying educational content and mentoring and coaching, but it's up to you whether you should it it or not.
I only bought their course though. I did not utilize their services. I can't speak on that, but I know there are CPA's out there that are real estate friendly and others that are not. Some focus primarily on agricultural industry, real estate agents, product based industries, etc., so you could find a CPA in your area that could provide you with everything you need in your current situation. It's up to you. Maybe down the road you decide that Wealthability makes more sense to you, but if you're newer and do not have many assets or businesses to account for, maybe hold off if the price is too steep?
Ok friends, here's where I am on this.
First meeting was an interview. Joseph, a very nice man asked me all kinds of questions about what was important to me. And it seemed they were taking notes. I was super specific. Tax Savings, reviewing my estate plan, and asset protection. And was looking for the full team. They had me upload all of my tax returns etc. and had me take a personality test...
My cost, was quoted at $35K (yes you all had a much lower quote that me) With the promise of outstanding expertise, and being assigned a whole team and saving me huge money on taxes I went forward. I added: Please set me up with my team and don't me a young lightly experienced kids, as that won't be a match for me.
Well, first meeting with CPA (no other team members were assigned). He was a sweet extremely talkative young man who was excited to learn through doing my very complicated returns. (Exactly what I said I didn't want). I called Joseph back and reminded him what I said. Through that conversation, they agreed to put me with someone else. After about a week, I was match to another person to have an appt. At that time I also asked when I would be meeting the rest of my "team" that we discussed. Lots of deflection stating I had to meet the CPA first. A second guy, Brad called me, to confirm that no other "team" would be setting an appt. with me, as this was only going to start with me meeting the CPA. Each time they asked me what I was looking for, and each time I asked them if they had read what I had already provided, including my tax returns. Nobody seemed to really have the details in front of them on any of that.
So, at this time, I am getting tagged "difficult woman" I am sure. But whatever. Finally we agreed they wouldn't be able to do the plan I was promised, and have agreed to refund my $35K. Especially as I asked them exactly what I was going to get for that amount of money, as it sounded like what I thought it was, was not going to happen. The conversation was very very basic. I didn't get the feel that each department know what the other was saying. (I hear my refund its being processed, now...and I am sure it will be).
The CPA that had an appt. with me, thought she is simply a part of their trained network of CPA, who are all NOT working specifically in the wealth ability organization (I discovered) has a non-compete and cannot keep the appointment she and I had. They called me to confirm that I knew that.
Last part: They through out several of my friends names, who are well known in my circles that they used them. I texted one of them. He works directly with Tom, the "team" and he doesn't pay for their program. He said he would not pay what I paid at all. Soooo there you go. You all have me wondering how I got the "privilege" of being quoted the amount that was so much more than everyone else.
I'm posting this because this was a huge disappointment to discover, and a waste of my time. I was really looking forward to having the right team. My friend I spoke of above, sent me the name of his cpa, and I am speaking with her this afternoon. I wish I had a better reveiw...but this is truly how it went.
I really apologize again that we were not able to meet your expectations here, and we can’t apologize enough for the lost time as well. Speaking to one another I felt I had a firm grasp and understanding of what your requirements were of your team and hopefully provided some transparency on how our process works - and why we’re unfortunately not able to meet those requirements. We maintain a 100%, full satisfaction policy for this reason. It wasn’t a fit and as unfortunate as that may be, it does happen. Again we apologize for the time lost and I’m happy we were able to fully refund you and do our best to make things right. The last thing we’d want to do is set you or your team up for failure, so hopefully we were able to avoid a future problem.
We love the Biggerpockets community and since this is a public forum, I’d like to share that Beverly is 100% correct that our CPA firms are part of our community and use our platforms, trainings and resources, but they are also all business owners and entrepreneurs themselves and are not employed directly by WealthAbility. Our goal is not just freedom from employers, the government and Wall Street for our clients, it’s true for ourselves as well! 😊
If you’d like to talk through things any further feel free to call me anytime I’m always happy to connect and clarify anything further. Thank you and have a great 2023!
Tying up all the cash in a property doesn’t seem like leverage to me and I missing something?
We are satisfied with the WA service thus far enrolled fall 22. The educational videos WA provides are very helpful in guiding you towards specific aspects of tax savings. Tom is very thorough in these videos and after watching and watching again the knowledge is very beneficial and then you need to take action. The network CPA which WA referred us to is also very knowledgeable. We own RE looking to expand on along with a few businesses. Our previous CPA wasn't providing us enough business / RE guidance on tax savings and we had an idea that we were paying way too much. We searched for a new CPA for about a year read many books and felt the WA service was the best fit for us. The services they provide are very time consuming (at least initially to fix what hasn't been filed or prepared efficiently) and we understand there is a cost for this level of service. At the end of the day the costs involved for this service are much less than what we were paying in avoidable taxes that were could have been avoided through education and the right CPA.
I originally posted on this thread 2 years ago. Even though we were quoted so much higher than the others at that time, we went ahead and went through Wealthability. They farmed us out to a group in St. Louis called E3. We were very satisfied with E3 and their pricing was reasonable. It was confusing though. We paid somewhere around $22,000 to Weatlhability if I remember correctly. After we went through the consulting and process with E3.....not Wealthability.....then we were charged for tax preparations, etc. I think we had hoped that would have been included with such a price tag but, OK...whatever. We did that. Then, to re-new with E3 for the next year, I believe they wanted an additional $10,000 that did not include tax prep or bookkeeping. They had us do thing differently to make tax season easier, with less hassle. So we had them do the book keeping at their suggestion. Then, we get popped with a bill for $15,000 for taxes, book keeping, etc. A significant amount higher than last year. Just for the tax prep side of it. We're not a big operation, by the way. And for 2023, they're not going to a fee-based model any more. Now, it's a concierge style model stressing the 'relationship' more than the 'service'. Lol. AND, we just got notice from the IRS that E3 filed our taxes incorrectly! You can't make it up. So, we are back to working with Wealthability to find us a CPA that is more our speed. It was really great in the beginning. This last year has been fairly confusing and miserable. We'll see. I'll keep you updated.In the meantime, if you have an amazing CPA, we'd love to check them out.
@Jeff Williams interesting. Perhaps ask for 3-4 different groups to speak with to see which lines up best with your niche and preferred work style!
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CPA
Hi,
I would like to add the review here as well for any of other who are interested in joining. My wife and I invest in SFH and I have a regular W2 job. We decided it was time to "fix " our tax filing situation and we bought into the wealthability program. We paid $25k (hurts) in Aug 2022 with the premise of how we will be setup and save so much money.. We were scheduled with a CPA who is good. But beyond that, we had to do everything on our own. Dig up our own attorneys/accountants etc. They gave us their possible referrals but it did not ensure that these guys are good or bad, it did not ensure a single scheduled introduction time. We had to hound some of these companies for appointments and in some matters are still struggling. We are yet to file our taxes for 2022. I received email from wealthability stating that my year had ended and they need monthly payments to continue wealthability from here on, for their live webinars. If I do not continue, they will take all the information that they posted from their live webinars from last year away. So, I cancelled it and they took those away.
We were led to think initially that once we pay $25k, we would be set up with our own personal team starting with CPA but it never happened. If we had to vet each person ourselves, email and call them multiple times to setup appointments, we could have done ourselves.
I agree with lots of other folks here that talking to different CPA would be helpful. I say, even if you spend $2k (going above and beyond) just to meet few CPAs, you still save time. I did try to meet 2-3 CPAs but did not like them. I changed 2 CPAs over the course of last 4 years which simply added to the frustration. Maybe I did not look hard enough!
BTW, no one has called 30 days after getting $25k to make sure everything is going well.
I am comparing Wealth Ability and 1800 Accountant. I had a free consultation with 1800 Accountant this morning and was decently impressed with Nigel their representative this morning. In total with Business Tax Prep (yearly), Personal Tax Prep (yearly), Tax Advisory (yearly with unlimited support and no hourly billing), automatic linked bank accounts to all business accounts to generate reports, automatically update from bookkeeping software, a single state LLC formation (single time fee), EIN, Entity formation (single time fee), and Loan Agreement (single time fee) was all quoted for $3,035.89. Overall for a new formation of small company with one property in NM and looking to expand into the next rental LLC in Texas this looks very promising for overall cost vs my personal tax burden reduction from my 30% tax burden.
I'm waiting on to hear back and discuss these detail with Wealth Ability. I'm curious if anyone has used 1800Accountant and if they would stay steer clear or if it's a situation where they offer pretty standard services in the world of virtual CPA firms that have CPAs with direct real estate experience to dedicate to real estate investors. I certainly see the benefit of paying for a CPA knowing this cost is 100% tax deductible? Looking forward to hearing of good / bad / indifferent experiences with 1800Accountant vs any other virtual CPA firms. Thanks in advance! Buy good investments do good things! I'm rooting for you!
Yikes on those fees! I am all in favor of professionals charging for the value they provide but dang $20k-30k++ is a TON! Obviously everybody has different incomes, complexity, etc....
We are looking for a new CPA, after many years with the same place, due to the ball being dropped too many times. Small stuff but balls dropped repeatedly. Actually, not all small stuff as I think of it. Anybody have an incredible CPA that they absolutely love? I don't care where they are located. Some element of tax planning, in addition to filing returns, would be great but not looking to spend $35k on that! Lol.
@Aaron Ohler we would also appreciate the information as we are still looking for a good CPA.
Quote from @John P.:
Yikes on those fees! I am all in favor of professionals charging for the value they provide but dang $20k-30k++ is a TON! Obviously everybody has different incomes, complexity, etc....
We are looking for a new CPA, after many years with the same place, due to the ball being dropped too many times. Small stuff but balls dropped repeatedly. Actually, not all small stuff as I think of it. Anybody have an incredible CPA that they absolutely love? I don't care where they are located. Some element of tax planning, in addition to filing returns, would be great but not looking to spend $35k on that! Lol.
@John P. - It could be worse LOL - really though I guess it all depends on what they do for you for the money, for high complexity clientele I've seen it go well north of that figure for a full suite of accounting and tax planning. If they're costing you more than they save you that would be a problem for sure. Best of luck have and have a good one!
@Aaron Ohler @Beverly Steiner would you all be willing to share the CPA you found and your experience so far?
Where do I begin? Tom Wheelwright’s WealthAbility is a full-on SCAM with shoddy ‘business practices’ that needs to be investigated for consumer fraud! Let me first provide you with an accurate and honest one-liner to summarize what to expect if you decide to work with WealthAbility followed by a detailed account of my own personal experience with the company.
Quick Summary: WealthAbility acts as a middleman, a go-between, that pairs you with a CPA. That’s it! They will charge you $25k to connect you with a CPA who is not a WealthAbility employee, they are contract workers. These CPAs have their own companies and are taking a pay cut working with WealthAbility in the hopes of gaining wealthy well-vetted clients.
Of note, there is a clear difference between tax strategy planning and tax preparation and the $25k paid was claimed by WealthAbility to cover both. We believed that the main portion of that fee would go towards the tax strategy portion where your designated ‘tax team’ would help you create a customized ‘tax strategy plan’ to minimize your taxes moving forward, while the tax preparation for a simple portfolio like ours was thought to cost no more than $2k of the total fee. We were okay with that fee aslong as they delivered on their claims.
Detailed Summary: In June 2023, WealthAbility swindled us out of TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS with the use of deceptive practices, false promises, and largely inaccurate claims of providing a "full-service" detailed and customized wealth and tax strategy plan, guidance for plan implementation, tax preparation and filing, and much more with a rigorously vetted CPA and support team. Grandiose claims that we initially read on the company website and then had repeated to us by Kirt Bassi, the client relationship manager, over the phone. The ethically correct thing to do would have been for Kirt to communicate to us during our initial consultation that we were not a good fit for the program given that we were already too advanced. We already had a strong financial foundation with a clear focus in real-estate investing. We did not need help in deciding what our investment niche would be; we needed help in creating and implementing a tax strategy plan for a married couple composed of a high-income earner and a real estate agent and business owner.
A few weeks after paying the $25k, we set up our first meeting with our assigned CPA and started the so-called “advanced tax courses” provided, which are generic modules that only vaguely introduce financial concepts, topics, and terminology. These courses are NOT advanced in any sense of the word. They are elementary at best and NOT tailored to the clients’ specific needs or interests which should have been conveyed to us at the beginning. Tom Wheelwright’s books contain more detailed information than the online courses do. After completing 3 of the 10 courses from the Road Map Courses, we started to express our concerns and dissatisfaction with the program to our CPA, who talked us into ‘giving the program a chance’ and continuing with the coursework and the meetings. We tried to stay positive and hopeful that we would see the value in the program and that it would be worth our time and money, but we were just kidding ourselves. Nothing changed and nothing got better.
WealthAbility inaccurately claims to thoughtfully pair their clients with an elite, well-trained CPA, and tax strategy team - but we were not given a team, just a poorly vetted arrogant CPA who was late to almost every session and who never took notes on our financial situation making us feel as if we were meeting him for the first time every time. On multiple occasions he had us wasting our time looking up unnecessary tax forms online because he wasn’t well versed in tax code. Even when pressed for customized tax planning advice, he could or would not deliver. Instead, he used our one-hour sessions to review and repeat the exact same useless generic information contained within the online modules and to sell us on buying his whole life insurance policy he sold on the side. In hindsight, we should have been paired with a CPA who specialized in tax code for real estate investors - our assigned CPA was not. Honestly, we should have been easy clients - we came to him with a plan in place wanting his help on claiming REP status, setting up a cost segregation for a rental property bought and functioning in 2022, so that we could file for 100% bonus depreciation for that tax year. He kept avoiding our requests and said we should claim it in our 2023 taxes instead… The last straw for us was when he tried to charge us another $7.5k to file our taxes which obviously ended our relationship instantly. That’s when we reached out to client services and expressed our dissatisfaction with the company in August 2023 (only 2 months after starting the program). Funny thing is that both Brad Doran and Alan Kirkham mentioned to me over the phone how they both knew that our CPA had a reputation for being disliked and having problems with multiple clients, but yet that CPA was still working with WealthAbility and was still being paired with clients! Since our 2022 taxes were due in October 2023 (CA extended due date), we knew that we wouldn’t find another CPA to do our taxes in time, so we allowed Brad Doran and Alan Kirkham to match us with another ‘WealthAbility CPA’ to complete our tax prep and filing, while they worked on coordinating a refund for us… a refund that was promised to us repeatedly, but still has yet to come to fruition.
Alan Kirkham is WealthAbility’s client success manager who is amazing at lying about doing things he has no intention of doing like providing a refund. He is also amazing at never following up, never reaching out or providing updates, and stellar at avoiding all communication attempts from the customer. He has promised countless times over several months (5 months to be exact) to come back to us with "a proposal by the end of this week" via email on 11/28/23 and "we will get this wrapped up this week" via email on 12/11/23 - and we are already in the first week of February 2024 without a proposal and without any progress in coming to a resolution. Those promises quoted are only from one email chain of ours - I have record of multiple others I’d be happy to provide to everybody and anybody interested. This severely subpar customer service, lack of timely correspondence and initiative from Alan Kirkham should be unacceptable for a company that claims to be top notch and superior to all other CPA / tax advising firms and charges clients a ridiculous $25k fee for their 'all-inclusive services'. Our last email from Alan confirmed our suspicions that we were getting jerked around by him admitting that it was his fault that the refund process was dragging on because he ‘knew what was in our best interest to do’ and that was for us to relaunch the program instead of giving us a refund. What a joke! What a scam! After giving Alan Kirkham 5 months to right this wrong and come up with a fair resolution, we have been left in the dark with no set plans or expectations and no true point of contact, which is why we have decided to share our experience here.
This whole experience was a huge disappointment, waste of money and time! I would NOT recommend this company to my worst enemy and I hope that I can prevent others from being scammed by WealthAbility by posting my personal experience on as many forums, websites, platforms as possible and by filing complaints to every agency out there that deals with consumer fraud. I encourage all others who have been swindled or have had similar experiences to share them too and to submit complaints to the Better Business Bureau, Department of Consumer Affairs, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, State Board of Accountancy, Federal Trade Commission, Police Department’s Financial Crime Unit, and the District Attorney.
For the potential franchisee owners who are considering this as a business, I would run the other way! And for the companies that endorse WealthAbility, I would think twice about putting your stamp of approval on such a sleazy sham of a business. As a business owner myself, I would not want to claim association with, let alone endorse a low-quality company with deceptive business practices, like WealthAbility – it just reflects poorly.
(copy/pasting from other thread full disclosure - sorry always seems odd to me not doing original composition LOL)
@Samia Moughanni - Hi Samia! I disagree with your version of events but your feedback and experience with us is relevant.
This was beyond our 30 day full guarantee and satisfaction policy when we were informed by you of your demand for something outside the contract well after that period. You had one desired outcome that was outside of the parameters of what we were able to make a reality. Those are the only facts I will share in this case and anything outside of that would be unprofessional.
I can assure you the employees involved in trying to help are good people that were doing their best to try and help solve the problem and didn't have any malicious intent. I should probably give some highly corporatized reply or something, but honestly seeing Alan and Kirt's names drawn into a public forum is hurtful to me. If nothing else I take responsibility for that and will work to improve our communication systems between our franchisees, client success and sales team that's valid.
As I have done before I'm a big fan of transparency and this forum, and will happily talk to anyone that has concerns about how we do business. In addition to that I love accounting and tax and love helping people and pointing them in the right direction even if our model isn't a fit for them hit me up any time! FYI we've changed our approach entirely and have lower fee initial entry points to avoid the challenges of long term project based arrangements so we can catch issues much sooner. This situation surely would have benefitted from this indeed.
All the best!
#bringback100%bonusdepreciation
1. You can disagree with my version of events, but I have emails to back it all up. Funny how you and Jonathan both were cc’ed on Alan’s last email on 1/26 that said, “someone within our company will get back with you on our proposal.” But neither YOU nor Jonathan or anyone else for that matter has reached out to us with a refund proposal, but yet you quickly respond to my comment on a public BP forum within hours.
2. If company policy dictates firm adherence to the contract, then why did you and Alan keep me waiting on a refund proposal for 6 months? Again, I have multiple emails to prove that. You also ran into my husband at the BuiltHow expo in Phoenix in 11/2023 where you told him the same thing you told me over the phone about knowing that the CPA we had been paired with had a bad reputation and a history of problems with multiple clients. You also promised to follow up with him and I, but never did.
3. Good people do not knowingly scam others out of 25k.
4. New business practices or not… any amount of money paid for their services is a rip-off. Just read Tom’s book!
5. For anyone who isn’t sure who to believe - please, do your research. Read the 2 complaints on the Better Business Bureau and all the one-star reviews on google (all have same detailed complaints). All the 5-star reviews on google claiming to be working directly with Tom are lies - you need Robert Kiyosaki riches to be working directly with Tom.
Thank you for responding, Brad!
We signed up with them 4 or 5 years ago and feel it was one of the best decisions of our investment career. Things I like:
1. The initial consult is like going to school on tax planning! I have not seen a more thorough, personalized approach to educating RE investors on taxes. We finished that phase with a high level of comfort with our tax plan.
2. They have a team of experts. Over the years our accountant with them has leveraged experts in various topics - the tax laws are dynamic and complex and it helps for the CPAs to be able to use the experience of other accountants.
3. Their structure improves consistency, we have had the same person supervising our taxes over the years even though the CPA doing the front line work has changed. This has kept our treatment consistent and personal. We don't have to reeducate an accountant when one moves to a new job.
4. They are very, very good at tax prep and tax planning. We have saved enormous amounts of money in taxes.
5. Their audit response posture is very strong. We were audited and came through with 0 changes to our return. I am convinced this was the result of both their training us in the initial consult and their skill at handling audits.
They are not cheap but I consider them worth every penny I pay.