Call from Detective....

[Nick Mainella]

I have to share an experience that I had today.  I'm wondering if this is something that has happened to others.  I'm fairly new to this, and definitely wasn't expecting a call from the police!

I got a voicemail last night from someone who had received one of my letters and wanted a call back.  I called back this morning and talked to a guy who didn't seem to want to give me any info on his property, but had a ton of questions about who I am and what I do.  I explained everything and that I'm looking for off market properties etc.

I then asked him if he had a property that he would like to sell and he said yes, he had a house that had been vacant for years that he wanted to get rid of.  I started dancing around in my office because I thought this would be a VERY motivated seller.

He said he would pull up all the info on the house and call me back.  

He called back about 10 minutes later and admitted that he was a detective from the local PD and that he had received a tip about one of my letters and that it was a possible scam.  He told me that after he had spoken to me, he understood that it was not a scam and that I was conducting business legitimately. He told me to have a good day and good luck on my business venture.

I also have a question for all of you about yellow vs. professional typed letter.  I have received calls from other leads that said they almost didn't call me back because of the hand written letter.  They though this might be a scam as well.

I haven't been putting my last name on the letters either.  I live in a small area and my day job makes me very visible to the community (music teacher and gigging musician) and because of this, while I know I'm not running a scam, I don't want people to think that I am in the business of scamming if someone I was familiar with ended up with one of my letters.  This may be a stupid reason, but it is a legitimate concern of mine.

I'm thinking about doing a round of mailings with a typed, professional letter explaining that I am an investor and trying to make it look as professional as possible.  

What do you all think?

Thanks!

Nick