Anyone ever heard of "Nouveau Riche University"?
Back in July I was contacted by a "real estate investor" saying that he was looking for some people to come and join his office and learn real estate investing. Now this was the first time that I, at 19 years old, had ever given thought to getting in the real estate game, but I was told it was a free dinner and presentation and there would be other investors there he wanted me to meet.
So I figured, "what the hell?". I was supposed to arrive at 6:45 and be there for the 7:00 meeting. Well, I got to the hotel MUCH sooner than I though at 5:30 and accidently wandered into the meeting already in progress, where Andrew (aka...Mr. Big Shot) was speaking with a group of about 30. Now...mind you, I walked into this HUGE conference room, with about 500 chairs set up. I of course thought, "I'm in the wrong place." But there were signs all over the stage and room with the Nouveau Riche logo. Anyways, as I sat and listened to this meeting, within 5 minutes, I figured out that this was not the meeting I was supposed to be in.
He was basically explaining to them that to get leads, you have to call call call...blah blah blah. I now realized that these "leads" and these "contracts" they needed to get done, were people like me to bring into the "real estate" school. So, I sat through that whole meeting where Mr. Big Shot ended it with looking at his watch and saying, "Alright, its 6:50, we're ganna let these suckers in and see if we can make some money tonight." I'm thinking..."what the hell is going on?!" So the doors open and in pours about 600 people...(remember how I said about 500 chairs...yeah...people were standing).
This supposed "dinner" was nothing more than the founder of Nouveau Riche, Jim Piccalo, on a video talking about how wonderful life can be, and how signing up for the school will change your life. It was halfway through the video that I finally put it ALL together and figured out how this was a MLM scam. (I know, it took me forever, but at least I figured it out before I gave them $19,500, that I didnt have).
But while I was sitting there, I thought of how I could use the company to maybe make some money with thier marketing scheme, and possibly get some knowledge of how real estate is done from my "mentor". Well, truth be told.....my "mentor" had no idea about real estate...except for the basics, and when I thought was finally at the "level" to be able to get paid(what they call, being certified)...I never saw a dime. Why? Because it turned out that when I let my "mentor" handle my forms to send in to the company, he took all the information I got from the leads, and re-wrote them onto his own forms, and collected the money for himself...
When I went back and tried to re-track how much money I should've made, it was about $45,000. Which would have been a VERY nice chunk of change for me. So when I contacted "headquarters", they said they never even heard of me (meaning I wasnt on record.) I later found out from other people that you were supposed to get an account and access to websites and all sorts of things. I spoke with my attorney (who is also a RE attorney) and he said unless I have ANY evidence (which I didnt because I was stupid and gave him all the forms), there was nothing I could do.
All I can say, is luckily, I never put any money into it...so I really didnt lose anything but time....
If anyone else has had any experience with this rip off of a company...post your story.