Robert Kiyosaki, Darren Weeks and a bunch of other idiots are about to get a smacking they deserve.
Marketplace is doing a spot tonight on their look [edit: here’s the article and promo from CBC] at the Canadian Rich Dad Seminars. There’s an accompanying article on the CBC website here about why they’re calling Rich Dad Seminars ‘deceptive’.
I’ve made myself pretty clear in the past that I think Rich Dad’s workshops are useless, overpriced and nothing more than a non-stop sales pitch. They’re the lowest form of real estate investment education.
There’s a lot of people around REIN who have made the mistake of doing Rich Dad stuff before they found REIN. The consensus of every one of them I’ve talked to is that REIN is in a completely different arena and the RD stuff is worthless. My own experience is limited by the fact that I couldn’t stomach more than an hour of their weeknight sales pitch.
The Canadian Rich Dad stuff has been run by Darren Weeks, and I know of more than a few people who were burned by investments he pitched or was a part of. I only know one person who was willing to talk with me about experiences actually making money with Darren.
I’ll be interested to watch if I can, and I hope people realize that there is quality real estate investment education out there. Yes, it costs you money, but it shouldn’t cost you $40,000.
Interestingly, I also ran across this PBS special about credit card companies and their underhanded tactics. Check it out. (Hat tip to Canadian Capitalist for that one)
Hi Chris, I saw this show last night and heartily agree with you. Even the venerable Robert K. himself looked off code. Too bad, I used to have the greatest respect for him.
Thanks for passing along this information.
You’re welcome Jim, it’s a crazy story. I’ve gotta give them points for the marketing they do. If you want to go big and railroad people into something, they’re pros!
Chris,
Thank you for posting this video and information.
It is important that aspiring real estate investors don’t get fooled with these such scams.
I was fortunate, in that I never attended any of The Rich Dad seminars. Like you, from what I heard about them from other REIN members was very concerning. The whole, ‘increase your credit card as high as it will go’ is ridiculous.
Watching a video like this goes to show you how unbiased and important REIN is.
Onwards and Upwards,
Neil.
Yeah, I’m going to try to make time to watch the episode tonight. There’s some crazy people out there.
Thanks for the mention. I’m not a real estate investor, so it is interesting to hear from actual real estate investors that these Rich Dad seminars are garbage. Do you know of any online commentary on these Rich Dad seminars from actual real estate investors? Cheers.
Hi CC, there was a good thread on myREINspace with some people’s feedback on the Canadian Rich Dad experience. Some of the people responding are very, very experienced investors.
In particular you might find the WebNet and mPowerTech investments interesting.
That video was exceptional!! I wish that more information was available on these programs when we signed up in 2002… at the time it was not Rich Dad but it was essentially the same program. We spent nearly $20,000 and got ourselves into so much trouble with the investments we made. It’s not that the techniques they teach don’t work … they do …
We bought several properties pretty darn fast and for nearly no money out of our pockets (at first) … but it eventually caught up to us and then it took us years to recover from the mistakes we made in buying those properties!!
The real good to come out of our experience is that we learned a lot of hard lessons really fast. And we have some fabulous war stories. 🙂 We have a lot of wise advice to offer new real estate investors thanks to what we’ve learned.
Thank you for writing about this. I think more of us need to be vocal about the garbage that is taught at these guru programs.
Hi Julie,
There’s good stuff one can learn from RD, but it’s hidden under a fairly deep pile of crap. Glad to hear that you’ve come out the other side of your experience with a positive attitude and some good lessons learned.
I’m going to try to live-blog some more REIN meetings as I can attend them.
The rest of the story is how Darren Weeks talks about his wonderful history of personal investments at his presentations, but look at what he has recommended to his followers:
Client Card Solutions – failed
WebNet Global – failed
Mpower Tec – failed
Door Knob Ads – failed
Now he promote a tax shelter, and deals that he has personal equity in as a result of raising money from the public.
That’s a whole new story. Do your research.
Follow up comments, im interested
Dear Chris,
This your article is dated January 2010. How are “they” doing today?
Is fasttracktocashflow still going?
Just by coincidence found your site. I am a mother, busy, that stopped
attending investment seminars for 7 years.
Just now I wanted to learn more about real estate investment. Years
ago I looked up REIN, the monthly cost for me was to high. Hope your company do not fall in the same way as “greedy” others.
Thank you for your kind, wise, and unselfish advice.