On Sunday May 31st my husband, and I were watching our Sunday morning Charles Stanley program. After Dr. Stanley's service was over I flipped through the channels and came upon a program called Real Estate Investing, featuring Flipping Vegas stars, Scott and Amy Yancy. My husband and I had decided earlier this year to begin investing in real estate to boost our income and this program interested us. We had already taken seminars through Remax Advantage Plus and Minnesota Realtor Investors group. In addition to that, I had purchased numerous books on real estate investing, Land Trusts, forming LLC's, and financing real estate just to name a few. We weren't going into this seminar blind. The seminar advertized by Scott and Amy Yancy said that it would provide further education to help those interested to get started. My husband and I agreed that it was free so it didn't hurt to learn more. I called and registered for the seminar on Friday June 5th at 11:00. Upon arriving to the seminar we were greeted by numerous individuals. We were seated in the front row and the presentation began. A video of Scott and Amy Yancy was shown first. In the video Scott and Amy congratulated the audience on wanting to better their lives, but ultimately there had to be a deep reason why. Amy said her ultimate reason why, was to help the wounded vets by donating a rehabbed house to a vet. Amy cried and Scott said we all have to have a reason why. A speaker came to the front after the video was over and began. The speaker was named, Steve. Steve began to tell us about Scott and Amy Yancy's partnering with Abundance Edu to help people get a leg up on investing in this hot market. Now my husband and I, along with a fellow investor had previously bid on many houses to flip, but were were outbid and left frustrated because auction houses were coming into our area, buying foreclosed houses in bulk and selling them to auction houses, where the prices got bid up and priced any profit right out of the house. Listening to Steve he confirmed what we had already learned about not being able to get access to houses or deals. Steve went on to say that, if we invested 2,194.00 for further advanced training that we would get access to “hundreds of houses that were cherrypicked and bought off tapes of the major banks”, and he also showed us examples in our area. Steve clearly implied that his company had access to deals in our area.Steve also said that when we received that training we would also get access to financing that had better interest rates and a reasonable transaction fee. This made sense to us because we knew that if we could get a first chance at these foreclosed houses we could get going in our future in real estate investing. Toward the end of Steve's presentation a woman named Tish, came up to give her testimony as a student of Scott and Amy Yancy's. Tish was from Wisconsin and said her reason why for investing in training was that her daughter, who was a nurse, had twins and developed complications following the births leaving her unable to work. Tish and her husband were desperate to help their daughter so they took the $2,194 dollar training and did five deals. Steve kept saying that those deals were waiting for us if we put a little skin in the game ($2,194) and received the further training. We decided to take the training. We believed, without a doubt, that what was promised (the leads on houses and financing) would be given to us if we took this training. We had to pay in two installments $1,000 down and then $1,194 the following Tuesday, because I had to transfer the money out of savings and make sure that I had no debits coming out that might cause overdrafts. Our three day real estate retreat and training was scheduled for Friday-Sunday June 12th-14th, 2015. Meanwhile, we read through all of the preliminary materials provided, glowing reviews, wholesaling previews and about some of their other small add-on services. Nothing raised a red flag and we both believed what was promised to us.
On Friday June 12th we arrived at the Hyatt Regency, downtown Minneapolis by 8:30 to get checked in for our seminar. We were greeted by four men: Darin Knowles, Gavin Satio, Rob O'born and Brandon Hudson. We were directed to Brandon where he gave my husband and me a name tag and information to fill out. The form that was given us asked what credit cards we had, the balance, IRA balance , any equity on our house and if we had fellow friends, or investors that had money and how much. We chalked this up to the fact that sometimes in real estate you have to get creative in financing deals. We were seated at tables outside the seminar to fill out this paper work. We sat next to a kind , friendly gentleman from the Caribbean who was there with his business partner from Minnesota. This man told us that he and his partner (we will call him Tomas and her Janet) had gone to many seminars that they learned quite a bit from, but one seminar, put on by Flipping Boston stars was a scam to get you to pay $30,000 more for their real estate training. My husband and I just said “oh, wow, that's crazy!” Just about that time, Gavin, one of the seminar consultants came over to us and told us to get up from the table so that others could sit down and fill out their information. Later Tomas told us that Garth came over to him and said “who do you think you are bothering those people?” Tomas then replied, “you don't know me, what gives you the right to say such a thing?” About that time Tomas' business partner, Janet came along and it was time to be seated in the seminar room. We sat down at the second to front table. Garth came to the front of the room and said that where he was from they had a custom of rubbing their hands together when greeting others. He told us to rub our hands together to welcome our main teacher, Deno Febrezio. We were rubbing our hands and Garth noticed one younger guy not rubbing his hands. He called him out and demanded that he go to the back to talk to his assigned advisor, Darin, because everyone had to participate, and if you didn't you weren't a doer. Deno came to the front of the room and began by saying, “if you are not committed you could leave, and in fact, there would be many who will leave because they are afraid of taking action.” He also said that we weren't allowed to ask questions during the seminar but to wait until breaks and talk to our assigned advisor. Deno went on to say that he knew this first day of the seminar there would be skeptics, but he “wouldn't tolerate it for long because I am sick and tired of non-doers.” So that set the tone right there, we were losers, if we weren't doers. Deno showed the class how he began his journey; over leveraged in a house he couldn't afford with two kids and another on the way. He said his sister was in the same situation and they decided to have both families share rent on a house. His wife, Melissa, was upset by this and it prompted him to look into buy and hold rental houses, and here he was today giving presentations for Scott and Amy and living in a gated community. The morning part of the seminar was all about changing your mindset, to not let negative people sway you into not bettering your future. We were given a short morning break, but not before meeting in a group with our assigned advisor Darin. We were already a bit tired and Darin kept talking about if you don't make a change now, you never will. My husband and I took a needed break and returned to the room. Deno then began to tell us that we wouldn't be able to get access to these tapes of houses bought in bulk by their company unless you were willing to be a doer and sign up for their Diamond training at $29,997 dollars. Our jaws nearly hit the floor. Deno then became very aggressive in his hard sell the rest of the morning. Deno also went on to talk about how we needed to get more credit, because that was considered good investor debt. Before lunch Darin came to the front of the room and gave us a script to call our credit card companies and raise our limits and try to get lower interest rates. I wasn't too comfortable with this because I knew it might ding our credit a bit pulling reports because we had credit pulled not long ago for pre-qualification of funds for buying houses to rehab. My husband and I did the exercise and presented the information to Darin. After lunch, Deno began the hard sell again and began to really insult people about not using credit cards or the equity in their houses or IRA's and it was actually better to pay that small early withdrawl penalty fee on an IRA so you could make better interest on being a Diamond member of their company and being a hard money lender in their pool of money. In the afternoon break my husband and I were tired and shocked at the bold faced lie that we had been sold and to ask for more money from the students. After the break, Deno briefly covered wholesaling contracts. There were two gentlemen, who didn't understand, a black man behind us and an older white guy who looked to have had a stroke. Deno allowed their questions and belittled and talked down to them both! I was shocked at the rudeness “what don't you get? “ “How can you not understand this?” Then Deno went into his whole talk about not taking action and that he was really, really sick and tired of basically lipservice. The whole atmosphere was very intimidating and threatening feeling as if they were a mob of goons who were going to get our money because we wouldn't succeed without their advanced training. Deno made us repeat him over and over about when the advanced training was and where it was (Las Vegas, once a month). Then he went on to say that we all need mentors and there was additional fee for that ($18,000!) called “Boots on The Ground”. By the end of the day 6:30 or so the seminar had finally wrapped up. My husband and I were exhausted and blindsided, all that we had been promised was NOT being delivered without an additional $30,000! On top of that Darin told the class before we left to go onto Credit Karma, pull our credit score and apply for more cards!My husband and I got up to leave and were barely out the door when Tomas came to us and said “something happened I have to talk to you.” He began to speak and I noticed Darin come out and look at Tomas. I told Tomas, “let's go outside”. Before we went outside Darin said “see you tomorrow”. My husband and I said “yep, see you then.” Outside Tomas began to tell us that on lunchbreak, Janet had called her husband to tell him about the $30,000 upsell and he was very upset. Tomas tried to calm Janet and she walked away. Garth then approached him and said “You aren't a man, you didn't even pay for the seminar, Janet did (Tomas did offer her half, but she declined him).” Tomas looked at Garth and said “man, what gives you the right to say that?” And Garth replied”You (Tomas) are no man, you don't know sh*t, you aren't deserving as a business partner to Janet.” After Tomas told me that I felt it was total racial intimidation. Tomas was upset and stunned as we were. We gave Tomas our number, I recommended free resources for learning more about real estate, he thanked us and we wished each other well. After leaving and getting home we were livid. All day it was as if they were purposely fatiguing us putting us on the ropes until we committed to that $30,000. There are so many negative things that happened and I tried to make this as clear and brief as possible. But ultimately, we WERE NOT given what was promised for $2,194 which was access to houses in our area and clear financing.
After further investigation, this company has had many names, and on top of that I have been continually contacted by them even though I have said I wanted a refund and to STOP calling me. Wells Fargo did not get my money back and now we are out $2,194 and I have been physically stressed because of this.
we didvtge aame thing also out of $2194. pkus $500. down deposit for the silver plan. Spent money $500. for LLC. l would ro know if we can start a law suit, this is similar to trump university. Something needs to be done about these criminals.
I have attended the 3 day workshop & gone even further. And would love to speak to anyone interested before you attend the 3 day Abundance EDU meetings. I can be reach [email protected]
SHAME ON ME I fell for all of it and i'll give you allot of insight before you make the same mistake. We spent a total of 50grand.
YEP. After you finish the 3 day and if you buy into the program. It doesn't stop there. There is a HARD push for the INNER CIRCLE!!!!!!! Don't do it talk to me first.
Lsandler
By The way, I did close a deal in the first 90 days....Infact 2 deals & according to Abundance EDU The declined both. They were fix & flips they didn't qualify because I hadn't also sold the property in that 90 days. I don't about you guys we weren't told that on a fix & flip you had to purchase, rehab & sell the property for a profit. The EDU mentor's???? Told us you had to close a deal in the first 90 daya for you to get the 2,000.00 well I didn't anything back. There is so much more I could say but the guys before me have covered everything I would also say.
I'm really in shock our Government has not shut these aggressive, degrading fast talkers down. I paid the 2K for education I got a seminar about how jacked up I've been my entire life not investing or knowing about this technique to rip people off. This seminar was a very aggressive environment. I felt like if I walked out the door I'd get a dagger in my back. But I stayed with the faith and hope they would give me some educational advice. "nope" just a scolding and a requirement to layout all my money indebt and in savings to them. Deno Fabrizio continued with his fast talking selling techniques very impressive and convincing, I'm sure he was paid very well for his speech. So they could call afterwards having all my credit card info and 401 K to harass met to give it to them "or" I'm be messing up my future. There was one lady that came forward and said "I'm not showing you my information and there is nothing you can do, that's private." I thought they were going to rip her head off in there aggressive stance stating "We can't help you if you don't trust us". These are the people to look out for not sure if it's their real names: Garth S, Darin K., Rob O., Wyatt G., and Carolyn V. Then I there was another lady that was in her late 70s and kept asking questions and they treated her like a nuisances asking so many questions.
Well after losing the 2K and now the 15K / 30K over fraud I think the ole lady had a point. "of course don't forget the 3 day clause" ha ha ha.....you don't even have that option because NONE of the classes are within 3 days. So your screwed immediately with the loss. I was guaranteed a home training program and still waiting. I blew up the help desk phone and they go irritated with me at the desk. Because there "is no training"!!! There is a "boots on the ground team", but they only talk about how they built their business on flipping houses. "NOT ON HOW TO USE THE ABUNDANCE EDU SYSTEM with INSIDERS'CASH"!!
Ok, so being the driven person I am I continued to bust my a*s working full time "ACTIVE DUTY MILITARY" Yes I serve my country for these "xxxx" and they rip people off. So I don't give up at this point "they say" we will have up to $750,000.00 within 3 days" it's a lie it takes a minimum of 21 days. Don't forget about that "proof of funds" letter. Ok, some non-experienced individual on the street might accept this but "no bank" they are not stupid. It gets better, I provided the "proof of funds" letter to a real-estate agent, yes doing something for myself feeling so happy I'm soon to retire from the Army and setting my future up for success. LOL joke is on me!! They would not accept the "proof of funds letter" it is NOT cash!! Just a bank saying they will provide the money for the transactions as long as you pay 1% to the Insiders Cash, of course that is $750,000 x .01= 7,500.00. So I call the Insiders Cash and the Abundance Edu "hotline" they say," Oh, yes you have to pay us another $500.00 so we can put the money in a back account say the money is in an account you own and send you the letter and then they take the money back. "So they are lying and providing a fraud letter for you. Yes our government is allowing these people to rip Americans off, money our people work their entire lives for and an agency like this is not held accountable for their actions or have to give you the money back. Oh, so don't forget to incorporate the buyer costs, he want's his closing fees, maint fees while he remodels, and electricity covered, then add the 1% fee for insiders cash and your profit. Now this is your listing price. "This is a great plan to go indebt.
Discussed and Broke. Oh, in addition you set your business up under Veil that costs another 750.00 and then your business is labeled a fraud due to doing fraud with this company, plus you can do it for "free" all of it!!! you tube and just watch HGTV or DIY make overs, I learned more online then in this entire process, your on your "own" this is a scam they teach you "nothing"!! Oh, be aware "Invested iQ Stock Workshop & Simple Real Estate is part of this same scam. The bank "Insiders Cash", that has an "F" business IQ.
I will be joining the homeless people on the beach no home or business for me on this retirement.
My Son received an invitation and talked me into going as his Guest. He wanted to go because of the free food and the promise on a Free MP3 Player if you sat through the whole lecture, which we did.
What we didn’t expect is at the end of the 3 hour lecture instead of a MP3 Player we got a voucher with a website that they said we had to go to. When people asked why they replied "There were more people than we expected and we ran out." That put up the red flag for me and I had a feeling we would never see the Free MP3 Player.
When we got home we did as instructed and filled out the online form for the Player. Well it has been a month and we have never received it. Yep, Scam in my book. We did get Free food and drinks but that was it. Of course we did not sign up for any of the classes and I am guessing we will never be invited back.
I purchased a seminar program from Abundance EDU for real estate purchasing creatively. They told me under no uncertain terms I could get a refund if I asked for it, no questions asked. I then eventually did ask for a refund and as of today have not recieved it.
This is how the scam works. I call the number given and that person sends me to another person who gives me yet another number to call and they will be my case handler. That person leaves a recorded message stating they will get back to you in the order he/she recieved the call. They never call back!.
I have sent letters and emails with no response. I asked my credit card company to deny the payment. The cc company did stop payment and attempted to get ahold of them without ever talking to anyone, however they did get a fax with my signiture on the papers I signred for the course. The cc company reinstated the payment to my account.
They refuse to honor thier word, thier online site shows a refund policy that shows you have bought so much property and are not satisfied with the results. Totaly going against what I was told at the seminar. Abundance EDU is as far as I can tell a barely legal company with more lawyers and stalling tacticts than actual education.
The other thing is we purchased a stock buying program the same night. They tell us we can have access to so much info with the purchase. When we buy it we find we have to purchase even more to get to what they stated the program had to offer. Again, no refund, no response.
Now it is called Affluent EDU. My wife and I went to one of the seminar. They don't give you any food, and only ice water anymore. No computer or MP3 player. What a wasteful 3 hours! Scam, scam, and scam! What a laughing strategy about no credit, no money, and only 3 days workshop (you need to pay $2,000). Anyone should know this better there is no such thing about 100% finance, and you only pay 1% of max. $790,000 that you owe to them.
My experience was a similar scam to those above. Education is promised, but you only sit thru days of pressured advertising. Do not be scammed by this group.
They Just Want Sheep to Fleece. Be Abundantly Cautious!
This Abundance Edu company is a joke! Much has been shared of their deception, starting at the intro seminar where they promised a free dinner, free digital camera, and a free tablet to the first 50 people who call in. The dinner ended up being a dollar store bag lunch (a basic sandwich consisting of 2 slices of cardboardish white bread with a thin slice of cheese or meat inside, a small bag of chips, and a water--not at all what you'd expect from the high-end hotel where the event took place, and I'd venture most hobos would likely shun such cuisine); the digital camera also came from the dollar store and it was so cheap quality you couldn't even give it away to a homeless person! And, the 50 tablets never materialized! If the Scott Yancy (DBA Abundance Edu) company does such a cheap & shoddy marketing job at this stage, how do you expect them to treat you later? Is the kind of company we're supposed to entrust our money & future success to? Perhaps if they didn't starve us until 8:30pm or hand out the dollar store crap, we might actually have more respect and reason to sign up for their $2,000 training. My guests having waited until the deceptive end, left in disgust.
At the 3 day training, it was painfully obvious to me the trainer (Stephen Libman) and his cast of minions didn't want to deal with anyone with even a modicum of intelligence. The very sheep they claimed they didn't want us to be was exactly what they were looking for. They just wanted mindless docile sheep to fleece & shear for every penny they had, even if it meant borrowing the $30,000 against high-interest credit cards! This is so Baaaad! And, anyone who questioned them or brought up other concepts was shunned and some even kicked out! It's also why they don't want anyone recording their training to prevent their bogus claims from being brought to light outside the class.
They claim 60% success rate from people taking their advanced classes, however the stats paint a different picture. Out of the many thousands who took advanced training, only 1% actually got their 3-day training cost refunded. What about the other 59%? To me, this is a huge red flag. They say you cannot succeed without advanced training, but once they have your money you're essentially trapped with no recourse, and by that time you realize the whole thing is a scam. It's no wonder they're showing an "F" grade with the BBB.
I see why they don't want you to ask questions. They leave out all the details and just give you an overview of the program. Yes, I say its a scam. If it sounds too good be true, it's not true....
My partner and I made the mistake to sign up for their elite program totaling in at $37,000 divided between the two of us in the hopes to learn the Realestate investment ropes. I should have realized it was a scam with the way they ushered us through the sign up process - they didn't sit down and explain the contract or didn't really offer to answer questions but I thought I read the contract so I thought I understood. The thing I couldn't know is that the tactics they are teaching are illegal in most states including mine. I can't build a reputable wholesale business with any contract they tell you to use because it is a federal offense to practice law without a license to do so. So you can't use their - and/or assumes contracts. I found out pretty fast no one in my area wants to play that way. They think you're shady because this company is teaching shady tactics not to mention over charging for what they are providing. They encourage you to build a power team but the reality is that it's super hard to do that because people don't just want to trust you. You have to be a stand up person and bring cash investors good deals. So it's super challenging to build that team being a nobody in the business. The other issue is that they have trainers who are successful investors in their own states but not in your state. The trainer can assume they know how a market works but they aren't in it. The other selling point to the program was mentorship. They do not reach out to you to see how you're doing or if you have any questions. You have to force info and time out of them. They have big name investors lead the intro seminar and I trusted what he was saying. I don't want to be a scam artist to make money. I want to make a difference for people and I thought this could be the way to do that. I drank the cool-aid and am now too far past a possible cancellation date. I will have to bust my ass for the next year to try and pay off this debt. Lesson learned the hard way. I'm happy to chat with anyone who has questions on our experience. You can email me at [email protected]
may now be presenting as Visionary Events and InvestedIQ
I went to a free workshop supposedly put on by the guys on the Rehab to Rent show. Turned out to be a video of them in the beginning congratulating people for coming and introducing the speaker. Sounds identical to a lot of the reviews/comments above. What followed was a slick talking, very convincing young guy who gave some interesting info which progressed into a hard push to get people to pay around $2k for a three day workshop which would give them all they needed to have access to the properties with built in equity that their company (which they never named) had access to, plus the ability to buy trust deeds, etc, from this company. I didn't go for it, as it was too pricey and I just didn't have the time and money to risk. However, as I mentioned my concerns to one of the gals at break, she said I should hang around after the break, as she was going to give a shorter talk on investing which might be an easier way to make some extra $ with a much lower initial output. I did that, and she was talking about options, which I was interested in. I am somewhat familiar and comfortable with trading my own stocks, and she said this was pretty simple - she had even taught 4th graders how to do it!. This seminar was only $300, with the tuition reimbursement guarantee if you simply made 15 trades of any amount in three months. I figured that was fairly simple, so I went for it. Well, I've just sat through my first day of that two day workshop and I can see the writing on the wall. The better part of the day was more of a sales pitch to get people to pay
$8-$10k for the next level of training. Now of course, they say well, there is no way we can teach you everything in two days. This company goes by the name of InvestedIQ. Interesting to note that Abundance Edu, Visionary Events and InvestedIQ are all incorporated in Utah. Sounds like the same spiel, new wrapper. If you go to Visionary Events website, you will see many of the same terms people have listed above :Inner Circle, Veil, etc..... I'm so glad I didn't bite on that one. I got a bit of a red flag when people were hesitating to pay the $2k and the pressure started to increase, with fear and shaming tactics. I think I may be out $300, but it could have been worse. I may just do the 15 trades for small dollars within my ROTH at my brokerage just to get my money back - if that even works! I hope these terms will come up on internet searches so others can get a heads up!
Abundance Edu Reviews
On Sunday May 31st my husband, and I were watching our Sunday morning Charles Stanley program. After Dr. Stanley's service was over I flipped through the channels and came upon a program called Real Estate Investing, featuring Flipping Vegas stars, Scott and Amy Yancy. My husband and I had decided earlier this year to begin investing in real estate to boost our income and this program interested us. We had already taken seminars through Remax Advantage Plus and Minnesota Realtor Investors group. In addition to that, I had purchased numerous books on real estate investing, Land Trusts, forming LLC's, and financing real estate just to name a few. We weren't going into this seminar blind. The seminar advertized by Scott and Amy Yancy said that it would provide further education to help those interested to get started. My husband and I agreed that it was free so it didn't hurt to learn more. I called and registered for the seminar on Friday June 5th at 11:00. Upon arriving to the seminar we were greeted by numerous individuals. We were seated in the front row and the presentation began. A video of Scott and Amy Yancy was shown first. In the video Scott and Amy congratulated the audience on wanting to better their lives, but ultimately there had to be a deep reason why. Amy said her ultimate reason why, was to help the wounded vets by donating a rehabbed house to a vet. Amy cried and Scott said we all have to have a reason why. A speaker came to the front after the video was over and began. The speaker was named, Steve. Steve began to tell us about Scott and Amy Yancy's partnering with Abundance Edu to help people get a leg up on investing in this hot market. Now my husband and I, along with a fellow investor had previously bid on many houses to flip, but were were outbid and left frustrated because auction houses were coming into our area, buying foreclosed houses in bulk and selling them to auction houses, where the prices got bid up and priced any profit right out of the house. Listening to Steve he confirmed what we had already learned about not being able to get access to houses or deals. Steve went on to say that, if we invested 2,194.00 for further advanced training that we would get access to “hundreds of houses that were cherrypicked and bought off tapes of the major banks”, and he also showed us examples in our area. Steve clearly implied that his company had access to deals in our area.Steve also said that when we received that training we would also get access to financing that had better interest rates and a reasonable transaction fee. This made sense to us because we knew that if we could get a first chance at these foreclosed houses we could get going in our future in real estate investing. Toward the end of Steve's presentation a woman named Tish, came up to give her testimony as a student of Scott and Amy Yancy's. Tish was from Wisconsin and said her reason why for investing in training was that her daughter, who was a nurse, had twins and developed complications following the births leaving her unable to work. Tish and her husband were desperate to help their daughter so they took the $2,194 dollar training and did five deals. Steve kept saying that those deals were waiting for us if we put a little skin in the game ($2,194) and received the further training. We decided to take the training. We believed, without a doubt, that what was promised (the leads on houses and financing) would be given to us if we took this training. We had to pay in two installments $1,000 down and then $1,194 the following Tuesday, because I had to transfer the money out of savings and make sure that I had no debits coming out that might cause overdrafts. Our three day real estate retreat and training was scheduled for Friday-Sunday June 12th-14th, 2015. Meanwhile, we read through all of the preliminary materials provided, glowing reviews, wholesaling previews and about some of their other small add-on services. Nothing raised a red flag and we both believed what was promised to us.
On Friday June 12th we arrived at the Hyatt Regency, downtown Minneapolis by 8:30 to get checked in for our seminar. We were greeted by four men: Darin Knowles, Gavin Satio, Rob O'born and Brandon Hudson. We were directed to Brandon where he gave my husband and me a name tag and information to fill out. The form that was given us asked what credit cards we had, the balance, IRA balance , any equity on our house and if we had fellow friends, or investors that had money and how much. We chalked this up to the fact that sometimes in real estate you have to get creative in financing deals. We were seated at tables outside the seminar to fill out this paper work. We sat next to a kind , friendly gentleman from the Caribbean who was there with his business partner from Minnesota. This man told us that he and his partner (we will call him Tomas and her Janet) had gone to many seminars that they learned quite a bit from, but one seminar, put on by Flipping Boston stars was a scam to get you to pay $30,000 more for their real estate training. My husband and I just said “oh, wow, that's crazy!” Just about that time, Gavin, one of the seminar consultants came over to us and told us to get up from the table so that others could sit down and fill out their information. Later Tomas told us that Garth came over to him and said “who do you think you are bothering those people?” Tomas then replied, “you don't know me, what gives you the right to say such a thing?” About that time Tomas' business partner, Janet came along and it was time to be seated in the seminar room. We sat down at the second to front table. Garth came to the front of the room and said that where he was from they had a custom of rubbing their hands together when greeting others. He told us to rub our hands together to welcome our main teacher, Deno Febrezio. We were rubbing our hands and Garth noticed one younger guy not rubbing his hands. He called him out and demanded that he go to the back to talk to his assigned advisor, Darin, because everyone had to participate, and if you didn't you weren't a doer. Deno came to the front of the room and began by saying, “if you are not committed you could leave, and in fact, there would be many who will leave because they are afraid of taking action.” He also said that we weren't allowed to ask questions during the seminar but to wait until breaks and talk to our assigned advisor. Deno went on to say that he knew this first day of the seminar there would be skeptics, but he “wouldn't tolerate it for long because I am sick and tired of non-doers.” So that set the tone right there, we were losers, if we weren't doers. Deno showed the class how he began his journey; over leveraged in a house he couldn't afford with two kids and another on the way. He said his sister was in the same situation and they decided to have both families share rent on a house. His wife, Melissa, was upset by this and it prompted him to look into buy and hold rental houses, and here he was today giving presentations for Scott and Amy and living in a gated community. The morning part of the seminar was all about changing your mindset, to not let negative people sway you into not bettering your future. We were given a short morning break, but not before meeting in a group with our assigned advisor Darin. We were already a bit tired and Darin kept talking about if you don't make a change now, you never will. My husband and I took a needed break and returned to the room. Deno then began to tell us that we wouldn't be able to get access to these tapes of houses bought in bulk by their company unless you were willing to be a doer and sign up for their Diamond training at $29,997 dollars. Our jaws nearly hit the floor. Deno then became very aggressive in his hard sell the rest of the morning. Deno also went on to talk about how we needed to get more credit, because that was considered good investor debt. Before lunch Darin came to the front of the room and gave us a script to call our credit card companies and raise our limits and try to get lower interest rates. I wasn't too comfortable with this because I knew it might ding our credit a bit pulling reports because we had credit pulled not long ago for pre-qualification of funds for buying houses to rehab. My husband and I did the exercise and presented the information to Darin. After lunch, Deno began the hard sell again and began to really insult people about not using credit cards or the equity in their houses or IRA's and it was actually better to pay that small early withdrawl penalty fee on an IRA so you could make better interest on being a Diamond member of their company and being a hard money lender in their pool of money. In the afternoon break my husband and I were tired and shocked at the bold faced lie that we had been sold and to ask for more money from the students. After the break, Deno briefly covered wholesaling contracts. There were two gentlemen, who didn't understand, a black man behind us and an older white guy who looked to have had a stroke. Deno allowed their questions and belittled and talked down to them both! I was shocked at the rudeness “what don't you get? “ “How can you not understand this?” Then Deno went into his whole talk about not taking action and that he was really, really sick and tired of basically lipservice. The whole atmosphere was very intimidating and threatening feeling as if they were a mob of goons who were going to get our money because we wouldn't succeed without their advanced training. Deno made us repeat him over and over about when the advanced training was and where it was (Las Vegas, once a month). Then he went on to say that we all need mentors and there was additional fee for that ($18,000!) called “Boots on The Ground”. By the end of the day 6:30 or so the seminar had finally wrapped up. My husband and I were exhausted and blindsided, all that we had been promised was NOT being delivered without an additional $30,000! On top of that Darin told the class before we left to go onto Credit Karma, pull our credit score and apply for more cards!My husband and I got up to leave and were barely out the door when Tomas came to us and said “something happened I have to talk to you.” He began to speak and I noticed Darin come out and look at Tomas. I told Tomas, “let's go outside”. Before we went outside Darin said “see you tomorrow”. My husband and I said “yep, see you then.” Outside Tomas began to tell us that on lunchbreak, Janet had called her husband to tell him about the $30,000 upsell and he was very upset. Tomas tried to calm Janet and she walked away. Garth then approached him and said “You aren't a man, you didn't even pay for the seminar, Janet did (Tomas did offer her half, but she declined him).” Tomas looked at Garth and said “man, what gives you the right to say that?” And Garth replied”You (Tomas) are no man, you don't know sh*t, you aren't deserving as a business partner to Janet.” After Tomas told me that I felt it was total racial intimidation. Tomas was upset and stunned as we were. We gave Tomas our number, I recommended free resources for learning more about real estate, he thanked us and we wished each other well. After leaving and getting home we were livid. All day it was as if they were purposely fatiguing us putting us on the ropes until we committed to that $30,000. There are so many negative things that happened and I tried to make this as clear and brief as possible. But ultimately, we WERE NOT given what was promised for $2,194 which was access to houses in our area and clear financing.
After further investigation, this company has had many names, and on top of that I have been continually contacted by them even though I have said I wanted a refund and to STOP calling me. Wells Fargo did not get my money back and now we are out $2,194 and I have been physically stressed because of this.
Lawsuit?
I would like to know if anyone has gotten money back or started a lawsuit?
con artists
we didvtge aame thing also out of $2194. pkus $500. down deposit for the silver plan. Spent money $500. for LLC. l would ro know if we can start a law suit, this is similar to trump university. Something needs to be done about these criminals.
Lawsuit
Is anyone getting their money back, and how can this group be stopped?
I have attended the 3 day workshop & gone even further. And would love to speak to anyone interested before you attend the 3 day Abundance EDU meetings. I can be reach [email protected]
SHAME ON ME I fell for all of it and i'll give you allot of insight before you make the same mistake. We spent a total of 50grand.
YEP. After you finish the 3 day and if you buy into the program. It doesn't stop there. There is a HARD push for the INNER CIRCLE!!!!!!! Don't do it talk to me first.
Lsandler
By The way, I did close a deal in the first 90 days....Infact 2 deals & according to Abundance EDU The declined both. They were fix & flips they didn't qualify because I hadn't also sold the property in that 90 days. I don't about you guys we weren't told that on a fix & flip you had to purchase, rehab & sell the property for a profit. The EDU mentor's???? Told us you had to close a deal in the first 90 daya for you to get the 2,000.00 well I didn't anything back. There is so much more I could say but the guys before me have covered everything I would also say.
I'm really in shock our Government has not shut these aggressive, degrading fast talkers down. I paid the 2K for education I got a seminar about how jacked up I've been my entire life not investing or knowing about this technique to rip people off. This seminar was a very aggressive environment. I felt like if I walked out the door I'd get a dagger in my back. But I stayed with the faith and hope they would give me some educational advice. "nope" just a scolding and a requirement to layout all my money indebt and in savings to them. Deno Fabrizio continued with his fast talking selling techniques very impressive and convincing, I'm sure he was paid very well for his speech. So they could call afterwards having all my credit card info and 401 K to harass met to give it to them "or" I'm be messing up my future. There was one lady that came forward and said "I'm not showing you my information and there is nothing you can do, that's private." I thought they were going to rip her head off in there aggressive stance stating "We can't help you if you don't trust us". These are the people to look out for not sure if it's their real names: Garth S, Darin K., Rob O., Wyatt G., and Carolyn V. Then I there was another lady that was in her late 70s and kept asking questions and they treated her like a nuisances asking so many questions.
Well after losing the 2K and now the 15K / 30K over fraud I think the ole lady had a point. "of course don't forget the 3 day clause" ha ha ha.....you don't even have that option because NONE of the classes are within 3 days. So your screwed immediately with the loss. I was guaranteed a home training program and still waiting. I blew up the help desk phone and they go irritated with me at the desk. Because there "is no training"!!! There is a "boots on the ground team", but they only talk about how they built their business on flipping houses. "NOT ON HOW TO USE THE ABUNDANCE EDU SYSTEM with INSIDERS'CASH"!!
Ok, so being the driven person I am I continued to bust my a*s working full time "ACTIVE DUTY MILITARY" Yes I serve my country for these "xxxx" and they rip people off. So I don't give up at this point "they say" we will have up to $750,000.00 within 3 days" it's a lie it takes a minimum of 21 days. Don't forget about that "proof of funds" letter. Ok, some non-experienced individual on the street might accept this but "no bank" they are not stupid. It gets better, I provided the "proof of funds" letter to a real-estate agent, yes doing something for myself feeling so happy I'm soon to retire from the Army and setting my future up for success. LOL joke is on me!! They would not accept the "proof of funds letter" it is NOT cash!! Just a bank saying they will provide the money for the transactions as long as you pay 1% to the Insiders Cash, of course that is $750,000 x .01= 7,500.00. So I call the Insiders Cash and the Abundance Edu "hotline" they say," Oh, yes you have to pay us another $500.00 so we can put the money in a back account say the money is in an account you own and send you the letter and then they take the money back. "So they are lying and providing a fraud letter for you. Yes our government is allowing these people to rip Americans off, money our people work their entire lives for and an agency like this is not held accountable for their actions or have to give you the money back. Oh, so don't forget to incorporate the buyer costs, he want's his closing fees, maint fees while he remodels, and electricity covered, then add the 1% fee for insiders cash and your profit. Now this is your listing price. "This is a great plan to go indebt.
Discussed and Broke. Oh, in addition you set your business up under Veil that costs another 750.00 and then your business is labeled a fraud due to doing fraud with this company, plus you can do it for "free" all of it!!! you tube and just watch HGTV or DIY make overs, I learned more online then in this entire process, your on your "own" this is a scam they teach you "nothing"!! Oh, be aware "Invested iQ Stock Workshop & Simple Real Estate is part of this same scam. The bank "Insiders Cash", that has an "F" business IQ.
I will be joining the homeless people on the beach no home or business for me on this retirement.
My Son received an invitation and talked me into going as his Guest. He wanted to go because of the free food and the promise on a Free MP3 Player if you sat through the whole lecture, which we did.
What we didn’t expect is at the end of the 3 hour lecture instead of a MP3 Player we got a voucher with a website that they said we had to go to. When people asked why they replied "There were more people than we expected and we ran out." That put up the red flag for me and I had a feeling we would never see the Free MP3 Player.
When we got home we did as instructed and filled out the online form for the Player. Well it has been a month and we have never received it. Yep, Scam in my book. We did get Free food and drinks but that was it. Of course we did not sign up for any of the classes and I am guessing we will never be invited back.
I purchased a seminar program from Abundance EDU for real estate purchasing creatively. They told me under no uncertain terms I could get a refund if I asked for it, no questions asked. I then eventually did ask for a refund and as of today have not recieved it.
This is how the scam works. I call the number given and that person sends me to another person who gives me yet another number to call and they will be my case handler. That person leaves a recorded message stating they will get back to you in the order he/she recieved the call. They never call back!.
I have sent letters and emails with no response. I asked my credit card company to deny the payment. The cc company did stop payment and attempted to get ahold of them without ever talking to anyone, however they did get a fax with my signiture on the papers I signred for the course. The cc company reinstated the payment to my account.
They refuse to honor thier word, thier online site shows a refund policy that shows you have bought so much property and are not satisfied with the results. Totaly going against what I was told at the seminar. Abundance EDU is as far as I can tell a barely legal company with more lawyers and stalling tacticts than actual education.
The other thing is we purchased a stock buying program the same night. They tell us we can have access to so much info with the purchase. When we buy it we find we have to purchase even more to get to what they stated the program had to offer. Again, no refund, no response.
Abundance EDU is now Affluent EDU.
Now it is called Affluent EDU. My wife and I went to one of the seminar. They don't give you any food, and only ice water anymore. No computer or MP3 player. What a wasteful 3 hours! Scam, scam, and scam! What a laughing strategy about no credit, no money, and only 3 days workshop (you need to pay $2,000). Anyone should know this better there is no such thing about 100% finance, and you only pay 1% of max. $790,000 that you owe to them.
just another scam
My experience was a similar scam to those above. Education is promised, but you only sit thru days of pressured advertising. Do not be scammed by this group.
They Just Want Sheep to Fleece. Be Abundantly Cautious!
This Abundance Edu company is a joke! Much has been shared of their deception, starting at the intro seminar where they promised a free dinner, free digital camera, and a free tablet to the first 50 people who call in. The dinner ended up being a dollar store bag lunch (a basic sandwich consisting of 2 slices of cardboardish white bread with a thin slice of cheese or meat inside, a small bag of chips, and a water--not at all what you'd expect from the high-end hotel where the event took place, and I'd venture most hobos would likely shun such cuisine); the digital camera also came from the dollar store and it was so cheap quality you couldn't even give it away to a homeless person! And, the 50 tablets never materialized! If the Scott Yancy (DBA Abundance Edu) company does such a cheap & shoddy marketing job at this stage, how do you expect them to treat you later? Is the kind of company we're supposed to entrust our money & future success to? Perhaps if they didn't starve us until 8:30pm or hand out the dollar store crap, we might actually have more respect and reason to sign up for their $2,000 training. My guests having waited until the deceptive end, left in disgust.
At the 3 day training, it was painfully obvious to me the trainer (Stephen Libman) and his cast of minions didn't want to deal with anyone with even a modicum of intelligence. The very sheep they claimed they didn't want us to be was exactly what they were looking for. They just wanted mindless docile sheep to fleece & shear for every penny they had, even if it meant borrowing the $30,000 against high-interest credit cards! This is so Baaaad! And, anyone who questioned them or brought up other concepts was shunned and some even kicked out! It's also why they don't want anyone recording their training to prevent their bogus claims from being brought to light outside the class.
They claim 60% success rate from people taking their advanced classes, however the stats paint a different picture. Out of the many thousands who took advanced training, only 1% actually got their 3-day training cost refunded. What about the other 59%? To me, this is a huge red flag. They say you cannot succeed without advanced training, but once they have your money you're essentially trapped with no recourse, and by that time you realize the whole thing is a scam. It's no wonder they're showing an "F" grade with the BBB.
Stay far away!
scam
we need to file a lawsuit against them to get our money back.
Really confused?
I see why they don't want you to ask questions. They leave out all the details and just give you an overview of the program. Yes, I say its a scam. If it sounds too good be true, it's not true....
Teaching illegal tactics
My partner and I made the mistake to sign up for their elite program totaling in at $37,000 divided between the two of us in the hopes to learn the Realestate investment ropes. I should have realized it was a scam with the way they ushered us through the sign up process - they didn't sit down and explain the contract or didn't really offer to answer questions but I thought I read the contract so I thought I understood. The thing I couldn't know is that the tactics they are teaching are illegal in most states including mine. I can't build a reputable wholesale business with any contract they tell you to use because it is a federal offense to practice law without a license to do so. So you can't use their - and/or assumes contracts. I found out pretty fast no one in my area wants to play that way. They think you're shady because this company is teaching shady tactics not to mention over charging for what they are providing. They encourage you to build a power team but the reality is that it's super hard to do that because people don't just want to trust you. You have to be a stand up person and bring cash investors good deals. So it's super challenging to build that team being a nobody in the business. The other issue is that they have trainers who are successful investors in their own states but not in your state. The trainer can assume they know how a market works but they aren't in it. The other selling point to the program was mentorship. They do not reach out to you to see how you're doing or if you have any questions. You have to force info and time out of them. They have big name investors lead the intro seminar and I trusted what he was saying. I don't want to be a scam artist to make money. I want to make a difference for people and I thought this could be the way to do that. I drank the cool-aid and am now too far past a possible cancellation date. I will have to bust my ass for the next year to try and pay off this debt. Lesson learned the hard way. I'm happy to chat with anyone who has questions on our experience. You can email me at [email protected]
may now be presenting as Visionary Events and InvestedIQ
I went to a free workshop supposedly put on by the guys on the Rehab to Rent show. Turned out to be a video of them in the beginning congratulating people for coming and introducing the speaker. Sounds identical to a lot of the reviews/comments above. What followed was a slick talking, very convincing young guy who gave some interesting info which progressed into a hard push to get people to pay around $2k for a three day workshop which would give them all they needed to have access to the properties with built in equity that their company (which they never named) had access to, plus the ability to buy trust deeds, etc, from this company. I didn't go for it, as it was too pricey and I just didn't have the time and money to risk. However, as I mentioned my concerns to one of the gals at break, she said I should hang around after the break, as she was going to give a shorter talk on investing which might be an easier way to make some extra $ with a much lower initial output. I did that, and she was talking about options, which I was interested in. I am somewhat familiar and comfortable with trading my own stocks, and she said this was pretty simple - she had even taught 4th graders how to do it!. This seminar was only $300, with the tuition reimbursement guarantee if you simply made 15 trades of any amount in three months. I figured that was fairly simple, so I went for it. Well, I've just sat through my first day of that two day workshop and I can see the writing on the wall. The better part of the day was more of a sales pitch to get people to pay
$8-$10k for the next level of training. Now of course, they say well, there is no way we can teach you everything in two days. This company goes by the name of InvestedIQ. Interesting to note that Abundance Edu, Visionary Events and InvestedIQ are all incorporated in Utah. Sounds like the same spiel, new wrapper. If you go to Visionary Events website, you will see many of the same terms people have listed above :Inner Circle, Veil, etc..... I'm so glad I didn't bite on that one. I got a bit of a red flag when people were hesitating to pay the $2k and the pressure started to increase, with fear and shaming tactics. I think I may be out $300, but it could have been worse. I may just do the 15 trades for small dollars within my ROTH at my brokerage just to get my money back - if that even works! I hope these terms will come up on internet searches so others can get a heads up!