My Experience of Rich Dad/Elite Legacy Event Scam

[Constance Kang]

I want to talk about my experience taking Rich Dad/Elite Legacy Education's three days Real Estate workshop. The conclusion: it's a scam. The purpose of this post is to alert people about this $35K scam (since BP has such a high Google ranking, and hopefully this post might come up in some's search result when they are doing research on this so called "Elite Legacy Education"), and here are the details:

I read the Rich Dad Poor Dad book back in high school, and I'm fascinated by his emphasis on financial education (although later on I realize man of his other books are repetitive and erroneous). So about a month ago, I came across a free rich dad ad on Instagram. Based on the graphic presentation of that ad, it shows Robert Kiyosaki, so I thought it would be great to attend this free event and meet him (similar meet the author events are very common here in NYC, so I didn't give it a second thought). I thought, learning any information is better than not learning at all, isn't it?

So I went the Hilton hotel where they held the conference/event. There were about 100 people attending. Much to my surprise, the author himself was not there--so I figured, they just borrowed the copyrighted trademark "rich dad." The first speaker talked about real estate; he started with a long introduction about how he become rich from a college student with debt by investing in real estate-- the theme of the story: education makes you broke, and you have to get a financial education. Since I always wanted to learn more about real estate and OMG, he was good at selling (plus they create an atmosphere of preying on people's fear of missing out). For the second part, another guy came out, and in the name of "multiple streams of income", he sold another three-day stock workshop course to me. Alright, I mean, after all, it's a free event, so I don't blame them for selling. Because I want to learn more about these subjects, I paid $299+ $199 to learn more about introductory to Real Estate and Stock Market. Fair I thought.

They gave me two bags, with some books and audios to read/listen to at home as my "homework" before the workshops. "Thoughtful!" I thought to myself and thought the workshops must be very intensive.

For me, the 3-day Real Estate Workshop was held at Roosevelt's Hotel.

First Day:

I was given two booklets--

1) Real Estate Workbook (wich supplements the book they gave out before the workshop)

2) Real Estate Elite Workshop Events Catalog (which I first thought was the daily schedule for the workshop but later found out it's an information packet on the $39,500 "elite" courses that they sell)

The ironic part is that, through this three-day event, the so-called instructor Jason Jones referred to the Ad packet "Real Estate Elite Workshop Events Catalog" SIX times (he literally asked us to take it out and flip to certain page) and didn't mention ANYTHING nor asking us to read the "Real Estate Workbook ". What a great way to teach!

The instructor gave a case study where we needed to team up as groups of fours and figure out a way to buy an REO property with no money of our own and increase the equity by 30K. The resources we had:

- a bank (conventional) that lends money up to 35k for 650 credit score

- hard money lender with APR 120%

- seller/community (who acts like he doesn't want to talk at all)

- a real estate mentor that costs $35K to use

The "answer" to this exercise was:

Use personal credit to borrow from the bank and spend the $35k on mentor, and then mentor has the "connection" with the community bank to negotiate a deal and brought a 70K property for 40K with FMV of $140K. However, they didn't discuss how the student was able to raise another 40K (which I'm significantly concerned about lending 40K from a hard money lender and pay APR 20%).

Second Day,

They told us that they were giving out a bonus session for early comers. So people went there at 8:30 before the 9:00 start. And they end up talking about credit repairs.

But then, things turned VERY FISHY:

They asked people their credit score and asked us to fill out a "Strategy Session Checklist" that asked about the full legal name, occupation, annual income, bank account $, 401K, IRA, TSP, Available Credit on Cards, and Credit Score.

Instead of actually having a 1-1 personal financial coaching, they got your financial info and "taught" you to apply for a credit card and pay for their $39,500 program. And they said it's okay to "temporarily" have a bad credit score because you could also repair your credit. Ah! That's what the bonus session was for!

Third Day:

They asked a past student Andy to gave a talk on his success story after going through the program. What's annoying is the woman (one of the "expert" who played "mentor" role) kept on asking him rhetorical questions to prove the value of their program and act like it's the only way for one to succeed in the real estate market. But what I found ironic are:

- Andy, who has been working full time in RE for 4 years, are finally going to make $50K passive annual income from rental (with a flawed net profit calculation that didn't income vacancy rate, maintenance fee); and he said after attending the $39,500 program, he paid total $80K--poor Andy didn't even make his initial investment back after four years and yet they are demonstrating him as a success case.

- In fact, Andy is now a "trainer"--which seems to me, training is their stream of income, not real estate

- Andy revealed that he found his deal leads through words of mouth; what's ironic is the instructor kept on selling the importance of the company's Elite Success Software and told us we can't make deal without it

Instead of teaching something, they spent the whole third day (at least until 1 pm when I finally decided to leave) selling the program. When one student asked if the instructor is going to talk about a case study he promised to demonstrate, he responded (don't remember his exact word, but it's pretty much something like this:) :"If you are not even going to buy the next training, it's not relevant to you." And started to identify us as who will not make money and never succeed in life.

My thoughts:

- I don't mind paying $40K for real estate education; however, my reservation is their professionalism. So far they only demonstrated their proficiency in the art of selling but nothing talented about their industry knowledge.

- They are extremely manipulative in their sales approach. Don't get me wrong; I don't hate sales people, being in Media industry myself, I understand that selling is necessary because at the end of the day everyone has bills to pay. But you need to be at least transparent and ethical in your practice. They are not calculating, but also very deceptive that now when I look back, the whole three days training is a step by step scripted the process of selling, every single second of it.

- I went to a top college and have a very stable career with great income. However, most people attending the event are less than college educated and have lower income. The fact that they don't have critical thinking skills and limited income/saving, makes them desperate and easy target. This is also my purpose for sharing the experience with the BP community and the internet community so that people are more informed. Seeing someone with bad credit, messed up financial, no job, putting the debt on his parent's account to pay for this program and hope to achieve a dream that he's most likely not achieve, really breaks my heart! 

[Devin Thomas]

Thank you for sharing!! I'd had bad experiences with many of these events. They prey on desperate people who can't think critically and ask you to put down way too much money before you're even ready to decide. Most of these events are so shady, in my opinion

[Earl Co]

This email tells you all you need to know about Rich Dad Coaching and how Professional Education Institute runs their business.

[Guy Gimenez]

Welcome to Guru-ville. They all use the same business model. Fortunately for the Gurus there is always a new crop of wannabe investors who can easily be separated from their money by selling hope.  Last I heard from a friend of a Guru, greater than 95% of those pay $40K plus for these plans, never even open the materials.  It's a business and it's very profitable.

 

[Elaine Embree]

I went to the Rich Dad free seminar here in Paris, led by a man named Steve Sweet who spent his introduction bragging about living in Marseille, holding a British passport, and calling us LIARS when we didn't raise our hands to say that we could live comfortably on 10k a month. It was such a farce that I left after 5 minutes. And I agree, the crowd was full of people that looked like they didn't have two dimes to rub together. 

[Sonja Glass]

Thank you, dear Constance!
You prevented me from further damage!
As you did, I just visited the 3-day event, but in Zurich, CH. It went out the same way you experienced. As a consequence I just visited the first day. The first speaker from south africa, Sean Thomson, had too much of this chakachaka-mentality I do not like that much. The others always refered on their success stories and why's. All did their great success within 18 Months. Strange to me. There was always the speak of that £ 25k Investment, which they easily got back with the first deal. Then they moved over to the expansion of your credit-card limit, which a lot in the audience including me performed during lunchtime. Quite a funny experience for me and the Lady on the other end of the phone line! In the afternoon the mentor, Catherine McGuire talked about the opportunities in the UK-Market. Not too bad, but I don´t have comparable information to evaluate or to judge. A group work followed: "How to get money?" could be a headline. At last there came some stories about funding the £ 25k in the family and the request to do so as a homework. That helped me not to visit the following days!
Result: Hands off!

[David H.]

Hi Sonja,

Also had a run-in with these guys at *some* property investment meetup here in South Africa. It's sad because they promote dangerous strategies like increasing credit limits without consulting each person about their financial status. When people are in bad financial straits, its so easy to get taken advantage of. I would only consider hiring a coach after I know for a fact that they have years of investing experience and a good track record.

[Corey Dunbar]

Just left their workshop and luckily I been reading the books off of bigger pockets, So I was only taking down notes on things I didnt learn from bp, Well I ended up with no notes because it was all geared towards the 3 day workshop. It had about 40 something people in there and and at least 36 of them was signing up... me,my wife, and a lady I met at the event walked out....pure scam

[Jade Wilson]

My mum and I attended 2 out of 3 days the 3 day course this weekend in Auckland. I agree with the majority of comments. Lots of manipulative sales tactics, long personal stories, and repetition. Every 10 minutes they made sure to drill in that none of what they were talking about would be possible without investing in the right team of people - investing in their mentorship programme.

It had a lot of very cult-ish vibes. If you questioned anything, then you were a skeptic and had a bad attitude. I especially didn't like the way that they tried to make you feel unworthy of success, or unmotivated and lazy if you didn't want to sign up for their mentorship program. (starting at $42k!)

We didn't sign up. But a concerning amount of people did. 32 people went down the back of the room to give their details and pay for the mentoring. Which at the minimum of 42k would be about 1.3mil in sales! And that's only on day 2! (I think they were doing 2 for 1 for some people which is still 21k each!)

We are not going back for the 3rd day. I hate to think how many people will end up paying for legacy's programme this weekend alone!

I don't doubt that with the mentoring they will get a good start on their property investment portfolio. However, $42k is a stupid amount of money to spend on info you can easily find for free.

[Steven Foster Wilson]

@Constance Kang I encountered a similar interaction after going to a "Free" Rich Dad event. It was just an event put on by some stranger, pointing us to buy the 3 day workshop.

He told us a story of how he used to be broke, but he spent his last 3k on his credit card and it changed his life. He said you don't even need to ask your spouse, they'll thank you later.

Total 180 from what I've read from Kiosoky 

[Jay Hinrichs]

Originally posted by @Guy Gimenez:

Welcome to Guru-ville. They all use the same business model. Fortunately for the Gurus there is always a new crop of wannabe investors who can easily be separated from their money by selling hope.  Last I heard from a friend of a Guru, greater than 95% of those pay $40K plus for these plans, never even open the materials.  It's a business and it's very profitable.

Its so profitable that all of us would do it if we could..   

[Emma Gold]

Why didn't this thread come up when we did a google search while we were attending our Legacy seminar!? … *Sigh* … 
I notice there isn't anyone here who invested after the 3 day "education" package. After sweating out the three days in Melbourne, Australia and doing the do we, don't we dance the entire way, we finally bit the bullet and took the plunge, along with probably 30 other people … almost 50K of hard earned cash went from our account to theirs and 3 months on, we have nothing but confusion and a horrible gut feeling to show for it.
So far we have had one personal, one on one conference call, our second one has been cancelled and will now be a one way group conference where we can't ask anymore questions. We have been given access to the online files, which is full of motivational paraphernalia and very little finance information. Some Excel files that my 15yo daughter could have done a better job putting together and when we ask questions we are given the shuffle around, no one … and I mean NO ONE will give us a straight answer … I feel like we have just been sucked into the 2020's version of a new age cult!
They have told us, when we spend more of our hard earned money to buy flights to the UK, book accommodation etc... that more will be revealed … however they are no longer returning our emails or phone calls, so with absolutely no confidence left in them, it would seem the jokes on us.

I wish we had seen a post saying exactly this before we handed over the cash … so to anyone still considering putting their faith in Legacy or Epic … DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!

[Iris Cruz]

@Constance Kang

Thanks Constance.

I was looking for a seminar just yesterday so your message came like a blessing. I cannot believe such scams still happening and they are not made accountable for fooling people. Thanks again.

[Trent Chance]

@Constance Kang what a complete joke. I recently attended @Michael Ealy 's FREE seminar where you learned how to do all this and more without buying anything.

I also attended a $2k course where I learned more in a weekend then my entire business school experience.

A business owner I work for recently spent $20k on one of these scams. I told her she'd been better off partnering with me and doing an actual deal for $20k since she now has a "$20,000" binder sitting in her desk drawer.

Thanks for sharing.

[Emilio Gonzalez]

Jesus, I actually did attend the $300, 3 day event a couple years back, probably when the original post was written actually. At the time I had 0 knowledge of finance, real estate, business, anything. I was still in high school. I actually got a lot of value out of the 3 day course, mind you I was 16 and had no knowledge of anything. I thought it was really beneficial... until the last day, when they guilt tripped you into buying the packages I think the lowest was like $10k and the largest program was somewhere around $60k. The Last day was shorter and thats when this particular trainer did most of the selling. And they did tell us that we are not qualified to make any of these deals (ridiculous) without going to one of those crazy expensive programs. After my dad and I decided no, (we (he) were(was) never going to spend that amount of money on something we didnt trust 100%. They used the tactic that we would spend the same amount on a semester at college. So we were about to leave, and one of the secondary trainers pulled a bunch of us into a seperate room. And they were going to sell there software only to one of us for the "low price" of around $2k. And they guilt tripped us saying we don't really care about our future unless we buy these programs. And although I enjoyed the first two days (did not have a credit score at that point so I didn't participate in that part) the last day was so annoying how much they pushed to sell. That made me loose faith in any alternative education programs.

[Lisa Poulsen]

My boyfriend paid 30K for what he thought was going to be a college-level education in Real Estate. The classes were outdated, the phone calls were no help. It really messed up his financial situation... for nothing. It's so aggravating.

-Lisa P 

[Kainoa Oneha]

Hi @Constance Kang,

I wish I would have seen this post before I fell into that $30k "financial education" trap. On October 13, 2019, I made the most regretful decision of my life: spending $30k in one sitting. I'm a sucker for anyone that says financial education because I have an enormous passion for business and I value education more than money itself. 

I spent the $30k and thought I was going to have a magnificent journey of mentorship and experience in the one and only industry that I love: Real Estate. I got so involved with real estate that I decided to get my Real Estate license in March 2020. Because of COVID-19, Elite Legacy Education had to postpone the mentorship program that I paid for, which I understood fully. But till this day, that "mentorship program" that I paid for in 2019 has still not been used and the program itself has not come back to life just yet. 

I have been a Pro member with BiggerPockets since December 2019, and I believe I learned a heck of a lot more information from just the podcasts itself than any material from Elite Legacy Education. Till this day, spending that $30k has been the most regretful day of my life because I am still slowly paying back that debt. I will only trust BiggerPockets for my education and information from now on.

To conclude, I agree with your statement completely. Elite Legacy Education is just a manipulative scam that target individuals who are desperate for change in their lives. They just target the weak, but I assure this situation has made me strong to analyze the real education from the fake.

[Dan Schwartz]

@Kainoa Oneha Education is 100% back, whether in person or online.  Did you pay with a credit card?  These are services bought and not delivered.  It's one thing to postpone for a little bit, but there is no reason for it still not to be offered.  I'm sure Elite has complex T&Cs to protect themselves, but it costs you nothing to dispute the transaction.  Don't worry that it's been so long.  Demand that they chargeback and see what happens.

[Brian Garlington]

My story regarding the Rich Dad companies had a slightly different ending than a lot of others. 

I got to the point of paying the $300.00 for the weekend bootcamp that would "give you all the secrets" regarding their options trading program. I actually got their early on Friday and was talking with a couple of the "staff"...it was pretty easy to figure out who they were. One of them told me that at some point during the weekend they would share with us their program and additional resources that would be very valuable.  As others have mentioned ...there were about 200 "prospective students the first day. By the end of the second day there were abot 100. At about 3:35pm on the third and final day(there were only about 40 people left) when we all came back from our last "break" there was a slide up on the screen. The title said "Additional Resources". I didn't know how long it had been up or how soon it would be taken down. I quickly pulled my phone out and took a picture of the slide. The speaker started talking and he simply said something like, "This slide has additional resource information you can jot down in case it isn't in your material." Most people did NOT do this. He had it up there about another 20 seconds and then nonchalantly moved on to the next slide. 

Among the "additional resources" was information about a website called InvestView. I called InvestView the following Monday and told them I know nothing about options trading. They told me they have a self paced course program that was $600. You learn about everything from calls, puts, naked puts, verticals, calendar spreads, diagonal spreads, iron condors, straddles, etc. They also had a separate program iterally and figuratively for $299 per month where they they would send directly to your email about 5-8 trade recommendations per month where they would literally show you what option trade to do, at what price or net debit or net credit, etc. They would also tell you when to get out and how to close out the vertical or calendar spread or whatever you were doing. I traded based on their recommendations for years...........their head trader was someone named Corey Halliday. Unfortunately they got bought out by another entity and they don't offer that service anymore. However I now follow Larry McMillan's Daily Strategist Newsletter and it accomplishes the same thing for about $350/mo.

None of this would have happened if I had left early like 80% of the people...and if i had not taked advantage of making note of the additional resources.

On a side note I am still waiting on that "Free Camera" the Rich Dad team promised me for attending the weekend Boot Camp. :-)

[Tripp Warren]

I just thought I was being cheap! I paid for a "Rich Dad World" course (3 actually; a bundle) and once I got the course work, it was basically all the recordings of Kiyosaki that I had already watched on YouTube FOR FREE. 

In retrospect, the books were good buys. But those were like the hook to wanting to become a RE Investor. The real meat and potatoes is right here at Bigger Pockets for me at least. I've learned so much more for so much less. 

You have to give it to the man though. He's an entrepreneur for sure and knows how to make a dollar!