The likelihood of someone scamming me with a photoshopped pay stub seems pretty low.

@Hector Idarza I am glad you decided to stay away form them, please spread the word too..his youtube videos are informative but his products are a scam..we got scammed by them along with 300 other investors.

There is nothing wrong with paying for your education but many real estate investing gurus are a scam In general the more expensive the are the more likely they are a scam. 

He said that everything is virtual and i needed a program called REIwebtools. the thing is that the program cost about $1500 plus $97 each month. i was just wondering if anyone has tried it and if so is it real or a scam. im looking so desperately in my area for investors willing to pass down their knowledge to me.

Joe Kaiser was a scam artist.

These guys completely scammed me and many others.

My wife and I got started in real estate after attending one of the free "teaser's" that are put together to sell these scams.

The main points I wanted out of the question was 1) in what ways can I be scammed, 2) in what ways can I protect myself, respectively, and 3) was the deal worth it?

The above is much different than the actual "investment scams" that take advantage of homeowners offering a loan in exchange for 10% down, schemes to rehab and sell FEMA trailers, etc.  

Many local attorney I talked they called asset protection with Wyoming LLC a scam .