Get Rich Quick : R.I.P. ...

[Vanessa]

Over on Singing Pig, I had a very long running thread called "Too good to be true: The Overnight Millionaire Scam".

Every time I came across a get rich quick scheme, or news of a company who had promised GRQ and then gone bust, I added it to the thread. I wanted to warn others of what Seth Godin had so eloquently said in one of his blogs:

"Times are tough, and many say they are going to be tougher. That makes some people more focused, it turns others desperate.

You may be tempted at some point to try to make a million dollars. To do it without a lot of effort or skill or risk. Using a system, some shortcut perhaps, or mortgaging something you already own.

There are countless infomercials and programs and systems that promise to help you do this. There are financial instruments and investments and documents you can sign that promise similar relief from financial stress.

Resist.

There are four ways to make a million dollars. Luck. Patient effort. Skill. Risk.

(Five if you count inheritance, and six if you count starting with two million dollars).

Conspicuously missing from this list are effortless 1-2-3 systems that involve buying an expensive book or series of tapes. Also missing are complicated tax shelters or other 'proven' systems. The harder someone tries to sell you this solution, the more certain you should be that it is a scam. If no skill or effort is required, then why doesn't the promoter just hire a bunch of people at minimum wage and keep the profits?

There are literally a million ways to make a good living online, ten million ways to start and thrive with your own business offline. But all of these require effort, and none of them are likely to make you a million dollars.

Short version of my opinion: If someone offers to sell you the secret system, don't buy it. If you need to invest in a system before you use it, walk away. If you are promised big returns with no risk and little effort, you know the person is lying to you. Every time."

Many of these schemes require a significant amount of money upfront. As many of you know, myself and Nick are very vocal against paying large fees upfront, before results are delivered. One such company is Passive Investments.

I found this blog from respected property speaker, Maria Davies, outlining her experiences with Passive Investments:

Passive Investments - Greg Ballard & Andy Shaw

"Lots of people who invested with Passive Investments have asked me to repost the blog I removed last year as it brought so much response from other unhappy clients, so I'm pleased to do so...

As you know, I've been investing myself since 1990 (yes, not just through the growth years, like some people who call themselves "expert" - I started when prices were high and they suddenly dropped, which could explain why I'm absolutely NOT in any state of panic about the current market). So when I spoke for a couple of companies who offered to provide a full service for potential investors (and invested in these myself - remember, my rule is that I never speak for anything I don't invest in myself) people asked why I needed help.

It's a valid question and the answer was always because, with property, you can leverage both money AND time AND knowledge. Unfortunately, if you leverage other people too far, you lose control.

Many of you will know that I used to speak for Andy Shaw & Greg Ballard (Passive Investments) and I also became an investor with them. The idea was that those who didn't have the time, but had the money and the desire to invest in property, would be able to pay Passive to "do it all for them". In practice, it's turned out horribly wrong for me, and not exactly as expected by many others.

When someone has too much control through having 6 years' management funds up front AND full control over the bank account, the danger is that they drop the ball and you (whose name everything is in) end up suffering the consequences. Because they've got your money up front (on a NON-REFUNDABLE basis - as Greg likes to point out after he's got the money), they've also got you over a barrell.

In my own case, and the case of others, the first red flags were when the bank account went overdrawn, and the first we knew of it was receiving a letter from Barclays!

The second red flag came when it took over a week for anyone at Passive to act on the urgent fax I sent through regarding this, and the third red flag came in the form of them managing to get a CCJ attached to me due to another oversight (denied by Greg Ballard, but since verified with the managing agents!).

And don't forget, you're now paying this company the best part of £40K - UP FRONT - to do all this for you PLUS a back-end fee of around £20K on EACH PROPERTY!!

You can read more about the whole sorry saga on my book reviews page at:

http://www.womeninpropertyinvestment.com/bookreviews.html

where you'll receive a warning about how buying Andy's book, which, incidentally, takes about 300 pages to say the same thing that I say in just one of the myths I write about in the chapter of my co-authored book "The Advantages of Real Estate") can get you entangled into their scheme, if you're not aware.

So that's my response to the people who ask me what I think of Andy, Greg & Passive - NOT MUCH!!

Nice idea but do you really, really need to pay all that money and leave yourself so exposed?

By the way, it wasn't so much when I was speaking for them, but they increased it over time.

The question I'd like to ask is where have all these funds gone? They took so much up front from their clients and this was meant to be in order to manage their portfolio for 6 full years. Now, only 1-3 years on for clients, Andy has moved to Cyprus, Passive have at least one judgement against them already, there is a skeleton staff at their offices and Greg is pleading poverty when it comes to returning money due to clients. Even their acquisitions manager left, stating, in writing, "I left the company as I no longer had the confidence in their abilities to provide the service their clients paid for." Wow, that's from an insider.

I've been contacted by various clients who have had problems ranging from the usual lack of communication through to Passive's inability to return large sums of money under the terms of agreements they had whereby Passive paid a return on money deposited with them. Where's it all gone?

In addition, many clients are now left with all their funds tied up in properties that they cannot remortgage (showing how important it is for a company to have a strategy that doesn't just work in a rising market - any fool can operate in a market like that!) and some have more than one property that isn't even let. So much for Passive's assertion that they held more sway over letting agents than an individual owner.

I do wonder whether Passive, Greg and Andy will be around for much longer. They have a string of past business closures behind them, Passive Investments Ltd company accounts are late and for a couple of supposed "property millionaires", you may be surprised what a personal search on the individuals will throw up.

My legal action could be the final nail in the coffin, but I reckon they're already hammering away themselves."

This is a great example of Web 2.0 in action. Web 2.0 dictates transparency. In other words, the internet shines a light on what really goes on, and means there are less places for unscrupulous companies and people to hide. Google never forgets! With this level of transparency there is no excuse whatsoever not to do due diligence on any company you are getting involved with.

There is a great article below explaining what signs to look out for if you are concerned something is a scam, using the Madoff case as an example.

[Vanessa]

Madoff: Lessons from a Disaster

Amid the wreckage and recriminations, investors are left wondering what might warn them of the next mega-fraud

By Ben Levisohn at www.businessweek.com

On Mar. 12, victims of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme finally had one of their wishes come true. After a judge denied bail, Madoff is going directly to jail, and he isn't passing "go." But Madoff's victims still want answers.

They want to know where the money went. They want to know who else was involved. And they want to know how they got scammed.

At the courthouse, many victims said there were no warning signs and Madoff himself, in his courtroom statement, backed them up on at least one count. "The clients receiving trade confirmations and account statements had no way of knowing by reviewing these documents that I had never engaged in the transactions," Madoff said during his guilty plea.

Maybe not. But to Harry Markopolos, the risk manager who alerted the SEC to Madoff's fraud in 1999 to no avail, the foul play seemed obvious. Madoff was supposedly using a complex trading system to generate returns, a strategy he dubbed the "split-strike conversion strategy." He would buy stocks in the Standard & Poor's 100 and sell options to reduce volatility. But Markopolos' firm was running a similar strategy and couldn't match the returns. A look at the returns was all it took for Markopolos to know something was up.

Preying on a Community

Markopolos had plenty of incentive to doubt Madoff; he was a competitor irked by Madoff's claims of too-good-to-be-true returns. For most of Madoff's clients, the math that Markopolos employed would have been out of their league. Some Madoff investors were sophisticated enough that they might have dug deeper into their statements and trade confirmations. A quick comparison of their returns with those of the actual markets might have been enough to tip them off that at least some of the trades were phony. Some of them might have realized that the average returns were too high and too constant, based on the mathematical probabilities. "If the standard deviation is too low and the mean too high, something is wrong," says Utpal Bhattacharya, finance professor at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. Still, "the retail investor would need some help."

Experts say investors can avoid Ponzi schemes and other scams without relying on math. The first step: Take a look around; who are your fellow investors? Often in a scam, a pattern emerges. There's a reason why many Madoff-like scams are called "affinity crimes." Charles Ponzi, for whom the scam is named, targeted Italians. Joseph Forte ripped off his friends. And before Madoff branched out into Europe in recent years, his clients were primarily Jews and Jewish foundations.

"Ponzis involve preying on people who have some association. The same clubs, religion, geographic location," says Tim Kochis, chief executive of financial advisory firm Aspiriant. "Madoff's investors all trusted each other. They assumed that was good enough." If investors get a sense that their adviser caters to a very narrow group, they should probably dig a little deeper.

Do Your Own Due Diligence

That starts with doing your own due diligence. Scamsters often make claims to bolster the confidence of investors that they're dealing with a heavyweight. Allen Stanford built an image of a successful businessman whose family's financial-services roots went back to 1932. In fact, his banking empire consisted of a Montserrat bank founded in 1986 that had its license revoked by the local government. Go back further, and Stanford filed for bankruptcy not once, but twice.

Victims of Tom Petters, the mastermind behind another recent Ponzi scheme in Minnesota that cost investors $2 billion, didn't check out basic claims, such as Petters' assertion that he was a major supplier to Sam's Club. He wasn't, which the investors could have figured out if they'd picked up the phone and made a call.

Madoff's investors might have been able to determine if their trades were legitimate if they'd checked how a stock or option traded on any given day. Even something as trivial as the accounting firm can be a tip-off. Both Madoff and Stanford used tiny accounting firms that would have been hard-pressed to handle the job. "Investors have to do their own due diligence," says Gregory Hays, managing principal of Atlanta-based Hays Financial Consulting. "They need to make sure what they're investing in is accurate."

Investors also should dig into the firm and the background of its managers. A quick check on the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA, Web site could alert investors to a black mark on an adviser's record. Its Broker Check function alerts investors to any regulatory proceedings against an adviser, from bad record-keeping to misuse of client funds for firms and advisers. If the firm doesn't have a solid explanation, it could be time to look elsewhere.

The Defense of Skepticism

Even a quick search of Google (GOOG) can be revealing, yet it's a step few victims take. It would have revealed accusations from the 1990s that Madoff was front-running his customers, that is, buying or selling shares before filling their orders. The charges may amount to nothing. "But," says Billy Procida, founder of William Procida Inc., a turnaround management firm for middle-market real estate companies, "do I really want to take that chance?"

Still, the best defense may be a healthy dose of skepticism. Most people with money to invest with people like Madoff worked very hard for it. In business, they wouldn't have taken anybody's word for something. They'd have checked it out. But they didn't do the same with their advisers.

Richard Friedland, a CPA and Madoff investor, said on Mar. 12 that he could have recognized the scam if he had been looking for it. But he saw no reason to look for it. "Madoff was the chairman of Nasdaq," Friedland said.

And that's what the Madoffs of the world depend on to build their webs of deception. They have fancy offices, fancy cars, and travel in private jets. They have pictures of governors, mayors, movie stars, and athletes.

"People love that," Procida says. "They want to be with a star."

[Marcus]

This reminds me of the Ronald Hubbard quote:

"If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion."

Religion could be transposed with one of these property scams. Companies headed by 'David Koresh" type figures who hypnotise their followers into parting with their cash before leading them to the inevitable apocalyse, i.e., loss of investment!

[Vanessa]

You are so right Marcus. There is massive psychology and NLP techniques used in selling. These people make an art of it! However much we try and alert people to the pitfalls, there will always be "opportunity seekers" willing to be sucked in and "sold to". It appears they are more interested in seeking the opportunity than anything else!

This from Seth Godin again:

Get rich quick

"As long as there have been people who want to get rich, there have been get rich quick schemes. The guys who sell mailing lists have a name for people who buy these schemes: "opportunity seekers."

Raising ostriches, or timing the market or investing in tulips--there's a long history here. The schemes tend to have a few things in common. They tend to have the same tone of voice (part breathless, part bad design, part 'we're just like you') and most of all, they are too good to be true.

Being too good to be true is the key part, because if it's too good to be true, maybe, just maybe, it is true. Maybe all those stuck in the mud types aren't doing it because they're skeptics, maybe I get a chance to invest in this video program/perpetual motion machine/envelope stuffing scheme precisely because it has scared away the conservative folks who never get anywhere.

Online, of course, like most things online, this has blossomed. You'll see the long long web pages filled with ALL CAPS and bright colors and testimonials and "wait there's more!" They look alike for a reason--it's a signal to the opportunity seeker that this is one of those.

Do they convert watchers into buyers? Sure they do. Do a few people make money? Of course.

There's a tribe here, and it's always looking for a new leader. Someone who will sell them an exclusive $1249 course, or ongoing advice and consulting or some other insight that has escaped the market leaders. The more skeptics they generate, the better they do, because the skepticism itself is part of the story that needs to be told.

What's being sold here? It's not riches, because if the riches were automatic, the seller would just hire people, right? Why make 1,000 people into millionaires if you can just hire 1,000 people and be a billionaire? No, it's the belief in riches, the thrill of finding just the right deal, the challenge of getting a relative to loan you money one more time. It's the frisson of excitement from sending in the money, the rush of impatience that follows as you wait for the package, and then the scary moment when you open the package and come face to face with your dreams.

Of course, your dreams are rarely what you hoped (how could they be?) but soon, you'll be back for more. It seems that being an opportunity seeker is about seeking, not finding."

[Tony Murray]

Blimey, what a fool I have been!!!!!

[Vanessa]

Going off at a tangent: are we all familiar with the "sales letter" that goes on and on, is highlighted in yellow, has big capitals, and stuff written in red writing? As much as I loathe them, I recognise that they work! I received one recently from a property club, and it was so well written, so convincing, that I almost signed up for it myself! Shows how powerful they are!

Do you think it is almost a subliminal thing, that when "opportunity seekers" see this type of message, it's almost like a drug to them? Or like a hint of blood in the water, that a shark hones in on? There is something strangely compelling about this type of letter.

Or do you think that people will become jaded to this forumulaic marketing approach?

Any thoughts greatly appreciated .....

[Marcus]

This article about self-help gurus cashing in on the recession appeared in the Mail this week. I particularly liked the following quote:

Hour upon hour of expensive listening. Just for comparison, Christ's Sermon on the Mount - revealing his own 'science of success' - lasted about ten minutes and was absolutely free.

Says it all...

[Vanessa]

That is such a great quote about Christ's Sermon on the Mount - it took ten minutes and was free! Jesus understood Web 2.0 mentality!

[Vanessa]

I saw this reply to a post about investing in property with no money, and contacted the writer Clottie (Susanne on PT) to ask her permission to reproduce it here as I felt it was one of the best posts I had ever read on this subject. I would link back to Singing Pig (in the spirit of Web 2.0 and reciprocity) but unfortunately David Beard has banned my IP address.

I had the pleasure of meeting Clottie at Brian's Wessex Investor Network. She is a lady of tremendous knowledge, experience, and integrity as evidenced by her massive "contribution currency" on Singing Pig and other forums.

When Clottie writes something like this, I hope people will listen and take note, especially as one property guru is now advertising "Become a Property Billionaire". Over to Clottie:

CAN YOU GET INTO PROPERTY WITH NO MONEY?

i have a fairly blunt way of expressing myself quite often, as those who read SP will know - but i say it how i think it is - that is what a forum is for - for a wide variety of folks to express their views - others may disagree with those views



For several years we had a poster called TONY2 who came here - who was absolutely pilloried for his perceived negativity. He was a successful, rich, property professional of many years, but, he was also a Debt Counsellor and i believe had a profesional therapeutic connection with prisoners (sorry if that is wrong Tony2 - if you ever get to read this - his story is on the Millionaire Thread if anyone wants to look)



What he came on here to share (often with even more bluntnes than I) were his thoughts after having had dealings with many folks who had been repossessed, lost homes, lost jobs, were in huge debt, had family members committing suicide etc etc



He was one of the few Realists on here when the BTL frenzy became insane - and he was pilloried for it. Those who participated in the "race to buy buy buy" overlooked many of the basic criteria of sensible investing, and Tony2 was one of the few voices in the wilderness who looked at the long term consequences of over-burdening oneself with bad debt - and who foresaw future problems - the Credit Crunch came......



If he were to be posting now - he would no doubt be saying "told you so" as the number of repossession rise - as more and more amateur landlords get repossessed and increasing numbers of faultless tenants get chucked out onto the streets due to their landlords greed and ignorance.

We are primarily a landlords forum here - you have only to read www.moneysavingexpert.com and www.landlordzone.co.uk (to name only 2) to see the other side of the picture as more and more tenants find themselves about to be made homeless through no fault of their own. NLA has had to increase its Legal Helpline staff to cope with the increasing numbers of landlords in trouble. Lenders are refusing mortgages to established investors..... etc etc etc we all know what is happening



the "Millionaire Dream" and "you dont need spend ANY of your own money" type headlines, are merely marketing "hooks" designed to trap the ignorant, the unwary and the dreamers.



"Not using any of your own money" - this will show a bank that you have no committment, that you are not willing to gamble any of your own assets - so they will say - 'why should we risk our money' ?



"""Not using any of your own money" - there is a cost to borrowing - and when interest rates rise - these costs go up - there are also human costs to be borne



""Not using any of your own money" - if you, as an individual, have no personal stake in a project - you do not create "ownership" of it - its not "yours" in any meaningful sense - and if the s*** hits the fan - there will be a huge temptation to just walk away - and some just drop the keys on the lenders desk hoping thats an end to it. Lenders can legally pursue you for 6 (?) years - ADDING INTEREST ON A DAILY BASIS as they pursue you for return of their original loan



"""Not using any of your own money" - to me means not wanting to take any reponsibility for your own life - not wanting to take responsibility for your own projects - for your own future - for your own financial health.



No doubt some will call these ideas fanciful and old-fashioned - i think since credit had become so obscenely easy to get, that many young prospective entrepreneurs think that they really DONT need any money of their own - that there is no cost to pay - that there is no end result if it all goes t*ts up - that they can just walk away



in any business you can stop trading - you can go bankrupt and refuse to pay off your debts - But someone always pays the price - more often than not its the suppliers who supply the product which is then sold on ..



in property - it will not only be the landlord who has gone belly up who pays the price, but the lender and tenant also - the lender will have an unpaid debt and the tenant will be evicted



entering into a business such as ours - and in which failure has such profound effects on folks lives (a large percentage of families suffering from eviction and reposession go on to suffer depression and mental health issues) should not be taken lightly



coming onto a website asking " How do you get property without using your own money ?" is but the tip of the iceberg of "wannabees" who have been fooled by the successful and crass marketing of the "Millionaire Dream" adverts - of which there are still thousands - (sadly even on this site). I even saw one today for Billionaire Property Dream ....



Telling newbies who come on here is this fashion "yes yes yes yes - go for it " is both inappropriate and unrealistic UNLESS it is tempered with sound pointers as to how and where they can learn more - rather than just "back-slapping" each other all day long - we all know A bloke/blokeess who has been successful - what forums such as this never tell anyone is how many fail



no-one can tell how many failures there are on here - there may be 8000+ (?) SP posters, but, my guess would be that less than 1% actually own any property.



We do have differing views on this "no money" business - i think it is madness to go into any business without some money of your own - and i think to wildly encourage utter newbies to do so is highly inappropriate



When i mentored young newbies - 8 out of 10 never got past the first post -



Why ?



Because i used to ask them to fill in a form which involved some thought and some forward planning about their new business -



8 out of 10 of them never filled in the form



IF our OP had been one of your "really determined passionate gutsy" individuals - he would have been back here asking questions, challenging assumptions, wanting more help.......



hopefully this thread may give other newbies more ideas .........

[Roberta Ward]

Clottie-very succinctly put and echoes what I and many others have been saying for a long time.
I went the traditional route to investing and raised my own capital to start up. Nowadays we are using more option style agreements, which is growing into the latest band waggon/ trend. Im just hoping the 'no money down' guru's dont run with options in the same way and ruin it for the rest of us.
Personally, I have no time for someone who advertises this NMD method. ( That includes brokers-who should know better and all the so called 'legal' types who are clearly bending the rules nearly double to suit their cash hungry desires.) Between them they have created a shark hungry pool and a shoal of hungry fish waiting to be eaten.

Ooops! went off on a rant there! Sorry folks.

Re Passive Investments-I had heard that Andy Shaw was touting the same scheme he set up here in Cyprus. I went to one of their road shows about 3 years ago to see what it was all about and Maria was there as one of the speakers along with Rohan Weersinghe who has just spoken at the Berkshire property meet. I have always felt that it was a huge mistake to hand over your cash to someone else to invest for you. As you effectively give up all control of the property and funds. Long term, the type of model they were using was not sustainable in any kind of fluctuating market-let alone the one we have now.

There are others who have based their model around the Passive one too, some with very high profiles who certain media types consider to be 'experts' and who are constantly contacted for quotes.

I wonder if there could be some kind of 'class action' law suit which could be brought against them where everyone who has lost money can add too it?
Unfortunately this is the kind of investing which gives everyone in the industry a bad name-much like the estate agent industry suffered from a few bad eggs. ( Boy did they pong!)

Roberta Ward
web:http://www.mypropertymentor.co.uk
[e-mail]
Twitter: http://twitter.com/RobertaWard
Tel: [phone]


Vanessa said:

I saw this reply to a post about investing in property with no money, and contacted the writer Clottie (Susanne on PT) to ask her permission to reproduce it here as I felt it was one of the best posts I had ever read on this subject. I would link back to Singing Pig (in the spirit of Web 2.0 and reciprocity) but unfortunately David Beard has banned my IP address.

I had the pleasure of meeting Clottie at Brian's Wessex Investor Network. She is a lady of tremendous knowledge, experience, and integrity as evidenced by her massive "contribution currency" on Singing Pig and other forums.

When Clottie writes something like this, I hope people will listen and take note, especially as one property guru is now advertising "Become a Property Billionaire". Over to Clottie:

CAN YOU GET INTO PROPERTY WITH NO MONEY?

i have a fairly blunt way of expressing myself quite often, as those who read SP will know - but i say it how i think it is - that is what a forum is for - for a wide variety of folks to express their views - others may disagree with those views



For several years we had a poster called TONY2 who came here - who was absolutely pilloried for his perceived negativity. He was a successful, rich, property professional of many years, but, he was also a Debt Counsellor and i believe had a profesional therapeutic connection with prisoners (sorry if that is wrong Tony2 - if you ever get to read this - his story is on the Millionaire Thread if anyone wants to look)



What he came on here to share (often with even more bluntnes than I) were his thoughts after having had dealings with many folks who had been repossessed, lost homes, lost jobs, were in huge debt, had family members committing suicide etc etc



He was one of the few Realists on here when the BTL frenzy became insane - and he was pilloried for it. Those who participated in the "race to buy buy buy" overlooked many of the basic criteria of sensible investing, and Tony2 was one of the few voices in the wilderness who looked at the long term consequences of over-burdening oneself with bad debt - and who foresaw future problems - the Credit Crunch came......



If he were to be posting now - he would no doubt be saying "told you so" as the number of repossession rise - as more and more amateur landlords get repossessed and increasing numbers of faultless tenants get chucked out onto the streets due to their landlords greed and ignorance.

We are primarily a landlords forum here - you have only to read www.moneysavingexpert.com and www.landlordzone.co.uk (to name only 2) to see the other side of the picture as more and more tenants find themselves about to be made homeless through no fault of their own. NLA has had to increase its Legal Helpline staff to cope with the increasing numbers of landlords in trouble. Lenders are refusing mortgages to established investors..... etc etc etc we all know what is happening



the "Millionaire Dream" and "you dont need spend ANY of your own money" type headlines, are merely marketing "hooks" designed to trap the ignorant, the unwary and the dreamers.



"Not using any of your own money" - this will show a bank that you have no committment, that you are not willing to gamble any of your own assets - so they will say - 'why should we risk our money' ?



"""Not using any of your own money" - there is a cost to borrowing - and when interest rates rise - these costs go up - there are also human costs to be borne



""Not using any of your own money" - if you, as an individual, have no personal stake in a project - you do not create "ownership" of it - its not "yours" in any meaningful sense - and if the s*** hits the fan - there will be a huge temptation to just walk away - and some just drop the keys on the lenders desk hoping thats an end to it. Lenders can legally pursue you for 6 (?) years - ADDING INTEREST ON A DAILY BASIS as they pursue you for return of their original loan



"""Not using any of your own money" - to me means not wanting to take any reponsibility for your own life - not wanting to take responsibility for your own projects - for your own future - for your own financial health.



No doubt some will call these ideas fanciful and old-fashioned - i think since credit had become so obscenely easy to get, that many young prospective entrepreneurs think that they really DONT need any money of their own - that there is no cost to pay - that there is no end result if it all goes t*ts up - that they can just walk away



in any business you can stop trading - you can go bankrupt and refuse to pay off your debts - But someone always pays the price - more often than not its the suppliers who supply the product which is then sold on ..



in property - it will not only be the landlord who has gone belly up who pays the price, but the lender and tenant also - the lender will have an unpaid debt and the tenant will be evicted



entering into a business such as ours - and in which failure has such profound effects on folks lives (a large percentage of families suffering from eviction and reposession go on to suffer depression and mental health issues) should not be taken lightly



coming onto a website asking " How do you get property without using your own money ?" is but the tip of the iceberg of "wannabees" who have been fooled by the successful and crass marketing of the "Millionaire Dream" adverts - of which there are still thousands - (sadly even on this site). I even saw one today for Billionaire Property Dream ....



Telling newbies who come on here is this fashion "yes yes yes yes - go for it " is both inappropriate and unrealistic UNLESS it is tempered with sound pointers as to how and where they can learn more - rather than just "back-slapping" each other all day long - we all know A bloke/blokeess who has been successful - what forums such as this never tell anyone is how many fail



no-one can tell how many failures there are on here - there may be 8000+ (?) SP posters, but, my guess would be that less than 1% actually own any property.



We do have differing views on this "no money" business - i think it is madness to go into any business without some money of your own - and i think to wildly encourage utter newbies to do so is highly inappropriate



When i mentored young newbies - 8 out of 10 never got past the first post -



Why ?



Because i used to ask them to fill in a form which involved some thought and some forward planning about their new business -



8 out of 10 of them never filled in the form



IF our OP had been one of your "really determined passionate gutsy" individuals - he would have been back here asking questions, challenging assumptions, wanting more help.......



hopefully this thread may give other newbies more ideas .........

[Vanessa]

Julian Sonnessa, ex of Passive Investments, recently had Nichola Cairncross speak at his event. Nichola is one of the biggest adovacates of Andy Shaw and Passive. On SP, Julian attempted to distance himself from his former employers, but his actions speak louder than words. Again, people should understand the transparency afforded by Web 2.0. and should endeavour to be consistent and authentic in their web antics.

[Roberta Ward]

Indeed. Just thought of a new phrase....

'google will out'

Like picking winkles from a shell. The great thing about SM ( thats social Media- not S&M!!) Is that you cant stop the truth getting out. If you rip people off (or have done in the past) or your practices are questionable someone somewhere will say so. People tend to come forward when somebody else starts the ball rolling. Of course the downside is that if you were ever wrongly accused you could be in trouble big time. Which brings me to wondering if that happened how would you sue someone for defamation of character or whatever??

If your business exists purely on getting more and more 'newbies' to contribute their cash so you can extract it from their pockets and those people feel they were misled in some way........watch out!

People communicate more now than ever before, we dont live in a media fed vacuum anymore ( hallelujah!). Food for thought eh?

Vanessa said:

Julian Sonnessa, ex of Passive Investments, recently had Nichola Cairncross speak at his event. Nichola is one of the biggest adovacates of Andy Shaw and Passive. On SP, Julian attempted to distance himself from his former employers, but his actions speak louder than words. Again, people should understand the transparency afforded by Web 2.0. and should endeavour to be consistent and authentic in their web antics.

[REI]

Flipping this around a bit.

Lets say someone gets involved with a company and it turns out badly. Or they sell a product or service that looks worse once time passes than it appeared originally. Or they worked for RBS, HBOS, Northern Rock and not are branded a banker in a suit (#4WallMtg discussion topic).

Does the world of Web 2.0 and long tails allow one to rebuild a career? Similar to an elected official who falls from grace or a rock star that gets clean.

In the US the bankruptcy laws are more favorable to the borrower such that it is almost a positive sign if a founder of a start up has a prior bankruptcy. It shows grit and the ability to bounce back. Henry Ford, Lincoln and a few others have has financial or politically failures before becoming a success.

While Google never forgets does the stuff on the top page really matter more in a philosophical sense. You can not erase the past. Can you rebuild from the ashes and rise above the past mistakes?

Historically people could. Does Web 2.0 change that?

Maybe all Web 2.0 does is make the person actively participating in negative behavior and fraud more likely to be caught. Once someone actively starts to rebuild maybe Web 2.0 makes it easier to spread the word that a true change has taken place.

John Corey
www.ChelseaPrivateEquity.com/blog