Like all the investors in the multitude of these, in my opinion, scams and frauds, we believed in the private placement memorandums and were, in my opinion, lied to by the manager not being truthful about his checkered history. 

I didn’t have the time or inclination to do the STR until we had a broad base of LTRs to help bridge the financial gap that we encounter in the slow season.  

I have not felt scammed, but I don’t trust anyone when it comes to screening.

I'm curious if this uptick is due to many investors being involved in hard money loans and now facing the need to refinance, unexpectedly encountering significantly higher interest rates compared to a few years back.

My ultimate goal is to invest in multi-family properties, but I've encountered difficulties in raising capital.

Compare that to being able to easily compare options and know what you are getting into and being able to see what is going on, even if you are inexperienced.Check all the threads here on Bigger Pockets about turn key companies that were/are scams/ not as promised/disappointments. 

Encountered the same problem recently looking at a deal that was comped as if it pertains to residential comps in the area and if you cut the asking price by 50% than you get to the valuation based on NOI which is more realistic....

Good people do not knowingly scam others out of 25k.4.

Thus far, I encountered two scammers.

In particular, I'd suggest asking those folks about what types of challenges they encountered, lessons they learned, and mistakes they made with OOS REI ...It's a lot easier, safer, quicker, and cheaper to learn from other peoples' mistakes than to make your own...Good luck out there!