| Fortune Builders |
| Fortune Builders Than Merrill $27,000 Ripoff Internet |
| 3rd of Nov, 2010 by User624809 |
| I got a flier in the mail to come see how to invest and make money in Real Estate, this was my introduction.. The speaker was great and I got excited about the potential of making money in Real Estate. We were asked to pay $2000 for the opportunity to here how we can make money in Real Estate. This is where the promises came if you sign up specifically me you willl get rich in Real Estate. Doesn't matter what your credit is you will get lending and we will show you how. Never got money, in fact when I asked I was put down for my effort. The lady I signed up with Carley and she told me I would be able to replace our home and have enough income in the next 12 months from my investments that I wouldn't have to work other than Real Estate. I asked her straight up "Will I be able to get lending for a new house (our house was forclosed on)? Will I be able to get lending for investments? Both answers were yes. You can ask her she will tell you. They gave classes and directed you to buy into other investments. What can I say I am Bitter. They took $27,500 by then and we were all promised the world. They refunded $5,000 but I want all of it back and I want others to know about this scam. They openly say that 80% of the people that invest in this never invest in anything. All they do is take your money. After that night they asked me to join the"Inner Circle" for $15,000 more. Thank god I didn't do it. |
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I guess the "review" website I tried to post this to is run by fortune builders so after Jonathan posted a reply to my original post; I could not post my reply to him, so I found this website. People need to know up front what the costs are.
Jonathan, Isn’t new technology Grand:
Using your tracing software you were able to find out my unlisted phone number and call me. Isn’t that special, just 3 days ago I sent the “not much help support-desk” an email that told them to take me OFF their email list and not to contact me ever again…since you nor them would, could or were willing to produce the presentation slides that you promised us (and I have asked a few others that attended and they didn’t get all the slides either, what we got was barely nothing) …when you repeatedly told us not to take notes…that you would send us the slides. Under promise and over deliver???
So since you were able to trace my post and get my unlisted phone number, I’m sure you have my name and phone number and mailing address also, so do one of two things, send me the ALL the slides you promised or the refund of $200. It’s that simple. The only person I will speak to over the phone is Than Merrill and I’d love to have a chat with him…but apparently that’s not going to happen. Not good customer service Than.
Next time, before you have someone spend $200 bucks, you might tell them how much your program is so they can decide if they want to proceed. I think that was a real rip off…Because IF I had known the cost UP FRONT for the program was $20, 000-70, 000, 14% to loan THIER “students” buy money…which you would think since they were already being paid $20, 000-70, 000K for coaching, they wouldn’t gouge their students for the use of their money, I WOULD NOT HAVE SPENT THE $200.
I didn’t bash your personal story I criticized the reason you shared it, it’s an old sales trick to get people emotional so they will spend money. I don’t agree with those tactics and I’ve never used them. I think you are better than that and stated so Jonathan, and some day if you learn how to sell your product by delivering some REAL MEAT in the presentation, you won’t need to use that tactic and people (that have $20-70K) will sign up because of the evidence of proof you provide showing that it works, not because they were emotional.
I don’t doubt Than’s, Paul’s or your successes or your automated mailing software but I didn’t hear anything about the additional cost of that automated program, I looked it up on the FB resources page, it’s about $300+ per month for a medium version and more for the full version. Is that an additional cost to the already expensive coaching this company offers? The details were not discussed at the seminar…oops, did you forgot to tell us about that little extra hidden cost.
My doubts about the company’s ability to deliver on promises are made based on the FACT that we DID NOT get the promised slides. And IF I did misunderstand (I didn’t but let’s say I did) what slides we were going to get, it is because you repeatedly stated that you DID not want us to take notes, you wanted us to look up at you, you wanted out attention on you and you said it several times all three days, you would be sending us the slides.
The few slides we did get didn’t even begin to cover a fraction of the material you covered.
I did not attack your personal business efficiency, I’m sure you are very efficient in your own business or you wouldn’t be where you are today. I’ve researched you and you are successful. But what you are trying to sell with a few pictures of people you SAY are successful doesn’t prove anything.
Boring: only because you didn’t have any REAL MEAT (evidence of proof) in your presentation of students successes, only photos with blurbs, no local examples of the real estate market in Sacramento when I know you could have used the MLS you belong to and pulled information from all throughout California, same as the MLS in Sacramento.
You had videos of “other seminar attendees”, why didn’t you have LIVE videos of the now rich and happy students with contact info so they could be called to verify what you are trying to sell us. Haven’t you heard the old saying: “Telling is Selling.” Provide evidence of proof and the product will sell itself.
The revival style selling hype, repeat this, raise your hand for that…dude that got old after the first two times.
Hey Jonathan, I have a picture of me standing next to a check made out to me with 7 figures on it, and I’ll only charge you $20, 000-70, 000K to teach you how I made that…so sign here and press hard, there are three copies, and make your check payable to my corporation. Spending 9 hours three days in a row telling you why you should give me $20-70k to coach you to make that same 7 figure income isn’t going to convince you is it?
You stated: “As far as giving out all the slides I do believe you misunderstood. I said I would be giving some of the slides in a few of the presentations, but not every single slide. People do not feel the need to take notes if you give out every single slide. I believe it would be a disservice as the trainer to not engage people. You definitely have a right to disagree with this, but this is what I have found to be true.”
We are going to have to agree to disagree with each other on this. You repeatedly stated that we would get the slides, you DID NOTE WANT us to take notes; you wanted our attention on you. Now I know why you have the “no recording rule”, if we could have recorded you I could have counted up how many times in each of your presentations that you told us you would send the slides, not to worry about taking notes.
My time is too valuable to play ping pong with you about this so I’ll just caulk it up to my own stupidity for believing you would follow through on your “under promise, over deliver” and call it a day.
FYI: I have paid good money for professional coaching and marketing programs to a company where the owner himself flew in on his private jet that he owned free and clear to give his seminar and his program was affordable and worth every penny…and in a room of over 500 people he didn’t spend half a day on rules, he encouraged people to record, video and take notes of him. Big difference! He didn’t have anything to hide.
After you gave us all those ridiculous rules (except to turn off cell phones) when the majority of the room was filled with people over 50 I became suspicious. There is usually a reason someone doesn’t want to be recorded…and the excuse you gave was also weak.
You run a large business and you know the copyright laws, so don’t use something that has copyright laws and let people record you, it’s not that difficult to do. Or with all the money you and your company are making, buy the rights to use it.
Maybe I also misunderstood your extravagant open house where you had the title and loan people pick up the tab for the cost, but if you ask DRE (here in California) that can get you and them in some deep, deep trouble.
At $200 bucks a pop for approximately 150 people that paid you and your company made $30, 000+ minus the expense of the room, you got paid some BIG Bucks for those three days, as you said; your time is worth a lot of money…so is mine.
So unless you want to pay me $1000 per hour for my expert advice on how to really get your product sold and how to put on a seminar, without all the revival type hype and hand raising, using STRAIT talk that provides evidence of proof (if there is any besides you, Than and JD) that your product/program is worth what your company is selling it for, we are done here.
Good luck. |
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For some reason, this review site would not let me post my reply to Jonathan...It seems that it will only let Jonathan from Fortune Builders post a high rating reply but not other that want to reply to Jonathan.
http://reviewopedia.com/workathome/fortunebuilders-com-reviews-is-fortunebuilders-legit/
Here was my first post: I hope this is a Neutral website that will let me post this so that people can be made aware.
March 6th, 2012 at 9:47 pm
I’ve been in real estate for 20 years and I’m a broker. I have been to ALL KINDS of seminars, but this one was the worst. At the initial meet and greet you are told that you will learn a ton for another $200 (and that the company will lend money to their students to buy homes…but at the seminar you learn that their rate is 14% YEEE HAAWWW!!! And that’s after you spend $20-70K for their program).
So $200 buys you and one other person a ticket to a 3 day revival type selling technique that is so boring you would fall asleep if you weren’t raising your hand every 5 seconds to repeat what the speaker wants to you yell out on his command. I stayed because I wanted to see if there would be something offered that I could use that would help me get my $200 back, but no luck.
The first half of the day was spent going over rules: no cell phone ringers on, no recorders, no video’s, etc. etc. etc. the rest of the day was spent on why you need this to make money but they wouldn’t tell you how much until towards the end of the second day; but then after they told you, Jonathan spends about an hour telling you a personal family incident that is supposed to get you all teary eyed and concludes it with…and that’s why I’m glad I found this program…to soften the blow of the cost of the program. Jonathan, save it bro. Everyone in the U.S. has a sob story in this day and age, even I do, but we don’t use it to get people emotional so they will spend money.
I’m not saying that what happened wasn’t tragic, it is and was, but don’t use it to sell your program, it’s beneath you and if the program is really that good, if you would have had live REAL examples that you could have produced (students making money), the program would have sold itself.
As far as the actual material they offer, it could be effective and very useful but I’m not going to pay $20-40K just for some outlines of letters, an automated mailing/CRM program and someone to coach me to do what I’ve already been doing for 20 years.
And the young man that was giving the seminar, Jonathan, boasted about utilizing your loan, title and other service people to pay for an elaborate open house they called a “party”…sorry bro, RESPA LAWS are RESPA LAWS and they don’t bend the rules for anyone or any “Party”.
The most disappointing (but I suspected it was BS from the start) was that as people were frantically taking notes, Jonathan told us several times throughout the presentation that HE WOULD SEND ALL OF US THE SLIDES (he said it several times all three days) and not to worry about taking notes, he wanted us to pay attention to him.
It was BS for sure, I got 18 slides and a couple of other excel spread sheets with a schedule on them and a video of how to make a hand written form letter…WOOPTY FREAKIN DO…LOL, give me something I didn’t know for the $200 bucks I spent.
I emailed the company several requests to provide the slides and they replied that they sent all that they had and that was all that Jonathan sent them to send us. I tried to email Merrill directly but they screened it and I got an email back from the same help desk with the same message.
So as it stands in my mind, although Jonathan continued to taunt that their company “under promises” and “over delivers”, they did not deliver on their promise in the least, could not or flat out refused to deliver the “Promised” sets of slides to us and if they can’t keep that easy of a promise then I’m sure they can’t deliver on the other ones that you pay $20K, 40K or as much as 70K for.
Whether you are licensed or not BEWARE of the “neat” marketing ideas Jonathan shared, they can get you in deep poop for sure with the authorities.
The short portion of the seminar about corporations was so vague it gave me no more information than I already knew being in business all these years myself…”you get taxed according to how and where you set up your corporation” REALLY??? I didn’t need to pay $200 to know that or hear things that could get me in hot water with authorities that might be ok back East but not in California.
I’ve taught several investors how to invest as my clients without charging them a dime (maybe I should have…LOL) but I did as a courtesy to them for using my real estate services and none of them had to worry about breaking any laws or spending another $40k for the advice.
The other thing that really seemed odd is that they did not (although the MLS reaches throughout California) provide or have any local Sacramento real estate examples, they did not have any of the “now rich and happy students” come to share their experiences in person. They only had pictures of them and blurb quotes.
They did have video recordings of others that attended their other seminars that raved about the seminar so why not have live videos of those that have gone through the $20-40K or 70K program??? There sales pitch is real weak if you ask me.
If I had or for that matter anyone had a program that they are charging $20-70K for, and there WERE successful people that have gone through the program, I would pay for my students to attend and for their time to come to my seminar and share with others.
Of the people they had come on stage, one was not even signed up in the program I found out later, one had just signed up and the other had been doing it for a year. Jonathan’s business partner was the only one besides Jonathan that has made any real money but from what I gather it has mostly been done back East.
So when you add these deficiencies in the sales pitch up, to me it’s all BS. If it works great, but I’ll never know because instead of bringing people (students that have used the program and made money with it) to give testimonials, they used revival style hoop la that didn’t show us anything but a bunch of hype. YOUR company needs to show us the MONEY and then we will show you OURS, but you first since you want $20-70k.
I’m not sure why Than Merrill would let someone give a seminar that didn’t have some real meat in it, but as far as I’m concerned it was a waste of 9 hours 3 days in a row and $200 I could have put to better use.
Than Merrill, you need to revamp your delivery and show some true life examples in the areas that you want people to spend $20-70K on your program, do that and you can save people 3 days and 9 hour days of hype and just get to the point in one day. Your program will sell itself, IF it really does what it says it does.
As it is now, you were able to sucker a few people that did buy into it, but if they don’t become successful you won’t have to come to Sacramento again, word will get out and Sacramento although it is the Capitol of the State, is still a close nit town. Bad press travels fast around here.
For those few that spent the money for the program I do hope someday you can tell the world how rich you are and how well Than Merrill’s coaching and other programs worked for you, I’d love to admit that I’m wrong.
However, you might want to note that about three days after the seminar, I was contacted and offered another less expensive level of the program for $3-7K. I declined becasue I still think it’s a bunch of hype, accept for the automated email and letters (but not for even 3K would I buy it). So instead of you spending a minimum of $20K, if you would have held out, you could have saved about $13K. Now how do you feel about the program? Maybe the company can give you a rebate…RIGHT…LOL |
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I just attended the seminar out here in Framingham MA, and at the end paid the $197 to do the program in the forst week of June. I thought it was odd, when they went from $1197 to $197 if we did it at that meeting. I have been in the Real Estate business and family was in the construction industry. I was hoping to hear more, and at least I was hoping would be covered in the three day class. Looks like I just may have shelled out $197 to learn what I could have done for a $35 book at Barnes and Noble.
I agree that before asking people to shell out the $197 they should have said that the next round they would be requesting a larger investment. Especially a sum of 20-70k. Also looks like they are asking to have us put a lot of trust and money, without them putting up anything in good faith in return other than some flashy slides and vague information.
I have no problem investing into something that provides an education or increase over current knowledge, but not when it is just a event to get me to give them more of my hard earned money. Thanks for the insight.
John |
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Thanks for the comments, I just completed day 1 of 3 in Boston. Paul's putting this on. Very interesting comments on the note taking and slides. I did exactly the same, and now I won't expect the power point slides.
I do believe that the first two previous comments that were made rang a bell w/these guys. Several local "mastery" graduates came on stage and briefly discussed their success stories.. most of them now live in San Diego, but were successful in MA. Paul had slides of these houses they flipped in the area.
My time is very precious and the first two comments may have an impact on whether or not I show up in the morning.
I'm still paying off the bachelor's that was a little more than 70K, I couldn't imagine paying that again and not getting something accredited. ..Their "mastery" program sounds good but you can should get a real MASTERS for that price. I'm really disappointed they're asking that after talking so much about "Giving Back"
..hopefully we'll talk taxes and contracts tomorrow. Thats all I care about if I care enough to go now. |
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I am in the middle of the Mastery program. I joined around May 4, 2012. The $197 three day seminar was good for me and they offer to refund your money at the end of the 2nd day if you are not satisfied. We had about 6 mastery students at the seminar from various parts of the country who were successful. I bought into the program because I believe in what they are selling - a live system. No book on real estate is going to motivat people as well as the system FB has created.
After joining, I started my Coaching calls with real people successful in the business and who are Mastery Students themselves. They have successful people all over the US. At the 1st two day Full Immersion training, I met a successful mastery student that was from San Antonio and another that was from Houston, I am in Houston. The weekly live webinars feature successful transactions from realatively new students to help show you the system working, But one detail is that you MUST DO IT YOURSELF. No system will work without YOUR work. Oh and the 14% loan someone was complaining about: that is a hard money loan for usually no more that 6 months. It is to be used to buy, rehab and flip a house - not a long term loan. Look around and you'll be hard pressed to find a hard money lender out there that will give you better that 14% on a new account. But you dont have to use them and many dont - its just a resource.
There is no scam here but they dont just GIVE you money or wealth - they just show you what to do and in what order to do it with a great support network to keep you motivated along the way. With that said, I believe that only about 1-5% of the people that buy into the seminar have what it takes. Want to talk to me? 832.473.8664. I'm in Houston TX |
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| I bought the program 2 years ago. I would like to sale it to someone who has the time to invest in learning. Call me: 678-665-1283. |
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No complaints here.
I'm essentially a millionaire real estate investor who just attended the Fortune Builders 3 day seminar put on by Than Merrill (presented by someone else). Our presenter was more than an adequate speaker and I learned a lot even having been in this business for 15 years.
This entire weekend cost me $100 (bring a guest for free) because my real estate agent came and we split the cost of $200.00. Some of the tips I heard in the seminar were worth $100 ALONE.
I'm not affiliated with Than Merrill and I didn't sign up in the program, but I'm at a more advanced level. For someone who doesn't know anything about real estate or flipping homes, I HIGHLY recommend the 3 day weekend. I can't speak for the merits of the Mastery Program. As they presented the costs of the Mastery program, there were three tiers, $25K, 20K, and 15K. More coaching and training were included in the higher tiers, but the same software was available to all tiers.
I agree the cost of the program is high, but if it's good, it may be worth it. I made 25K on my first rehab. So the cost of the program can possibly be recouped in one property flip.
That said, the real estate rehabbing business is NOT easy. I've done it for a long time and I still do it to this day. If you join this program wealth is not going to just flit your way. You'll still have to work your buns off! I know enough about real estate that I don't have to pay 25K to learn how to flip a house.
But I can tell you that even after doing this for as long as I have, the systems they presented were WAY more efficient than anything I've ever done.
I made some contacts with people who joined the program and intend to follow their progress to get more feedback on the program. In particular, I met one person who is highly motivated, but very green. He has the appropriate levels of motivation, so we'll see if the program can guide him.
To beginners, there is a TON of information, and all of it might not necessarily make sense. If you're a millionaire real-estate investor, you think completely differently than someone who just invests in a 401K and sits at a job. I found almost all the advice give was RIGHT on the money in the three day seminar.
If you decide not to join the Mastery program, that's fine, but I'll definitely vouch for the efficacy of the three day seminar.
If you want to contact me you can email me at [email protected]. |
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| Update to my previous post 57 days ago. I've been following a graduate of the mastery program and have learned that there are ongoing expenses related to the software from FortuneBuilders. This was never disclosed during the three day weekend I attended and in my opinion, it should have been. If you are going to pay as much as $25K to enroll in the mastery program, there shouldn't be any ongoing expenses. Since I gave a very positive review of the fortune builders 3 day seminar, I thought I'd better disclose this as well. If you have questions, you can contact me at [email protected]. Happy investing! |
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