There are a lot of scammers there and I wouldnt give anyone any money at all without having vetted them thoroughly first. 

I was brainwashed for years that real estate investors are dirty, unwashed scammers by the banking system.

Based on what I'm seeing in some FB groups (don't intend on buying here), there appears to be a lot of scammers.

They are definitely scammers and will continue to hound you for that money.

Peter Vekselman himself is a joke and his partner Julia has no idea how real estate works, they sell this software and business model which leaves users in middle of nowhere and then they do not have a refund policy, any program who has no refund policy is basically a scammers group.

DO NOT invest with Chris Walters or Jim Thorpe, they are repeated and known scammers who have been issued fines by the WA State Department of Financial Institutions and are currently under investigation. 

Acting like a good person is easy for scammers. 

I find sewer lines to be one of those things that if you get 3 bids, they can be wildly different because some companies will recommend only what is necessary such as just cleaning out the roots annually for $150, or replacing just a small section that has an issue for $2-3k, while other companies like to recommend replacing the whole line whether it needs it or not, charging $20k every time they can get away with it even though the average cost is $5-10k (which is why some of these companies have a reputation for being scammers).

Others are just salespeople and scammers. 

This is what scammers and con artists do.