Feedback on "Canada's Rich Dad" - Darren Weeks, besides cash-flow 101 .. any good investments ? Options

[ThomasBeyer]

I understand that Darren Weeks, who advertises under "Canada's Rich Dad" is selling syndicated investments in US apartment buildings, among other investments.

What is your feedback on this ? Good ? Bad ? Neutral ? Great ? too early to tell ?

Any other decent investments with Darren Weeks, besides the board game cash-Flow 101 (invented of course by Mr. Robert Kyasaki, Mr. Rich Dad, Poor Dad ) ?

[Jack]

Oh man, what a crooked company. My advice would be to RUN.

I went to one of their seminars about eighteen months ago, where they were featuring a Rich Dad Real Estate expert, the guy that wrote The ABC's of Real Estate Investing. Ken McElroy, if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, he was introduced in the morning, after Darren spoke for about 15 - 20 minutes on how wise it is to invest in real estate in Costa Rica. Mr. McElroy spoke very vaguely about investing in real estate for about 30 minutes, and then we were given about a 90-minute lecture on some program where you donate money to some AIDS foundation and you can save taxes. Wow, a deduction for a charitable donation; what revolutionary stuff! Who'd have ever thought that you could get a tax credit for donating to charity?!?

Anyway, I left before that was all done, because it was really just a waste of time. The information provided by Mr. McElroy was of very little substance, and I believe that there were 2 or 3 other scheduled -er - commercials (?) like the one above throughout the day.

I also used to work with a lady who went in on one of their peddled investments. She and her husband dropped about $15,000 to purchase royalty rights for some bizarre technology that's "breaking in" to the Lower Mainland. The keyword, and the point where my jaw-dropped upon hearing of this investment-gone-bad, was that this technology company selling royalty rights through Darren Weeks was private. It was a private company, meaning that the investors had essentially no way of finding where their money was and no way at all to ever hope to get it back. This lady went on to receive some message a few months later, where, shockingly, the company had gone bankrupt. Don't quote me on any of this, either, but I recall this lady I work with being very upset and wanting to take Mr. Weeks' company down, because someone else who had invested somehow found out that this technology company was affiliated within the structure of Darren's company, somehow, or something like that. Anyway, very shady stuff, ENRON-esque, actually.

The really sad thing is that this company hasn't done well for the strong Rich Dad brand built by fantastic books by Robert Kiyosaki (and they are great books, the 5 that I've read, anyway).

[brentdavies]

There a few Rein Members who love going to Darren's seminar, a great source of joint venture money. At the begining of Darren's seminar, he asks the audience for anyone with a business card with real estate investor on it. Guess who puts their hands up. Darren is currently selling apartment blocks in Texas. Ask what is the exit strategy and wait for the silence.

[rymac]

I went to the same event you mentioned Jack. Ken spoke a little more about RE investing in the afternoon but nothing you couldn't have gotten from reading his book.

As for darren weeks I found him to be nothing but a salesmen. All his events are geared towards getting everyone to run to the table at the back of the room and buying some sort of info material he produced. Stand up and give an appluase to our sponsors, who are now going to do a sales presentation for a you. Now the secret to being rich is to sell, so I'm going to show you how to do this by talking about my land development project in Costa Rica, btw there are only three lots left! Run to the back of the room if you want to buy one.

[thejules]

Well I have to stand up for Darren a bit here.

I started with this crazy idea of investing after reading books & listening to tapes of Robert Kiyosaki's & a few other American based courses. And at the time, Darren Weeks was the only one of his kind that was running true Canadian finacial educational seminars that I was aware of. This would've been about 6 to 7 years ago. So I traveled down to Toronto from Orillia to go to Darren's seminars. And he actually made me feel that I had something to contribute to the investing world & that was my ability to do real estate investments. At the time I met some people there that became really great friends & in a couple of cases, real estate joint venture partners.

Then in August of 2003, Darren told me that I had to be at a seminar put on by Raymond Aaron in Mississauga. At that seminar Darren introduced me to one of the speakers, Don Campbell. He was doing a Quick Start to Real Estate Investing course for Mr. Aaron, but I knew that I was there to see this Canadian Specific Real Estate Investing Speaker. Well, at the time things were really not going well for me, and then I was Yelling & Cheering for the first time in a long time when I heard the Top Ten Ontario towns to invest in. At the time Barrie/Orillia was # 1.

So I don't know what kind of experiences that you guys had with Darren, but for me it was a very life enhancing experience.

Now I know to date, Darren has branched out to doing investing with his audience. I don't know about that. I have my own apartment buildings that I am trying to raise capital for. But I know one thing for sure, I can't think of any one else who is a more qualified Apartment Building Expert Investor than Thomas Beyer!

I hope that helps...

[ChrisDavies]

I have a friend here in Kelowna who has done reasonably well investing with Darren, although he got started several years ago. The current investments are not nearly as good as the old ones, but he speaks highly of Darren. For experienced investors, there may be potential, however there are some possible landmines for the uninitiated.

[jarrettvaughan]

Well I have to stand up for Darren a bit here.

I started with this crazy idea of investing after reading books & listening to tapes of Robert Kiyosaki's & a few other American based courses. And at the time, Darren Weeks was the only one of his kind that was running true Canadian finacial educational seminars that I was aware of. This would've been about 6 to 7 years ago. So I traveled down to Toronto from Orillia to go to Darren's seminars. And he actually made me feel that I had something to contribute to the investing world & that was my ability to do real estate investments. At the time I met some people there that became really great friends & in a couple of cases, real estate joint venture partners.

Then in August of 2003, Darren told me that I had to be at a seminar put on by Raymond Aaron in Mississauga. At that seminar Darren introduced me to one of the speakers, Don Campbell. He was doing a Quick Start to Real Estate Investing course for Mr. Aaron, but I knew that I was there to see this Canadian Specific Real Estate Investing Speaker. Well, at the time things were really not going well for me, and then I was Yelling & Cheering for the first time in a long time when I heard the Top Ten Ontario towns to invest in. At the time Barrie/Orillia was # 1.

So I don't know what kind of experiences that you guys had with Darren, but for me it was a very life enhancing experience.

Now I know to date, Darren has branched out to doing investing with his audience. I don't know about that. I have my own apartment buildings that I am trying to raise capital for. But I know one thing for sure, I can't think of any one else who is a more qualified Apartment Building Expert Investor than Thomas Beyer!

I hope that helps...

I have had a similar experience as Darrin Weeks was the one who really convinced me that I can raise capital and own real estate. It was the evening after one of his events in Richmond that I proposed to my first JV partner. Saying this, all of his investments seem super sketchy and he is making great profits by promoting costa rica real estate, 3DH, Webnet Global etc etc. He is the "run to the back of the room before they sell out" kind of promoter.

It is also true that the technology company that he promoted (3DH and Webnet Global) in the fraser valley have gone under and have not paid back any investors!!! Thankfuly I went with my gut and did not buy any investments, however, I did buy the cashflow game from him which is great, thanks Darrin.

I would be very careful.

[Shaune]

I went to one of the seminars as well. After the seminar asked the same questions mentioned here earlier about the ROI/exit strategy for the US apartment project. I seemed to have confused the young salesman as he couldn't answer my question that night and my follow up e-mails were un-answered.

[bigbear]

Hi there,

First of all before I begin, I just want to say this is just my personal opinion and one should not take this as fact.

I think Darren Weeks is a man of questionable integrity and people who listen to his investment advice often lose money.

I have gone to several of his events purely for networking purposes and I have seen him promote bad investments.

As was mentioned above, WebNet has gone bankrupt and all the investors will likely never see any of their money. If you are interested in the WebNet scam(?) check out this forum where investers in WebNet discuss what happened:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread353929/pg1

Another investment from several years I saw was mPowerTech for point of sale debit machines. One buddy of mine never got a dime from his promised cashflow. I hear this turned out to be a scam with fake certificates of placements and Darren Weeks continued to promote them after the fact based on this report.

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/349/RipOff0349781.htm


In addition, he continues to promote COIP a tax charity which in my opinion as a professional accountant is another scam. In simple terms, you invest 10,000 and they give you a donation receipt of $30,000 stating you made a FMV donation receipt of 30,000. They offer inflated donation values which the newspaper Toronto Star has investigated and determined to be inflated and false. A former co-worker who now works at CRA tells me that they are planning to perform to full investigate and challenge this charity. CRA's success rate against charities using inflated values is 100%. I feel bad for all those people who got suckered into making donations as they will most likely be disallowed in the future. Thus they will have lost their initial contribution, lost the tax savings, be charged a penalty of 100% of the tax savings (tax avoidance penalty) and have to pay interest on top of that. Some people might argue that the charity is doing good things and helping people. As a former auditor and in my opinion, the effective charities I have audited use only 10% of their donations on admin and marketing and the rest goes on serving their purpose. The commission individuals marketing the program such as Darren earn over 20%, then there are all the legal and structure costs to prepare to fight the CRA (another 5-10%), setting up the complex transactions (5-10%), and another 10-15% covering the head office. I doubt that this is an worthy charity. In addition, as the charity is kept private, it is hard to say how much good is being done.

In my opinion Darren Weeks is like a used car salesperson. He is only looking to maximize his own profit from unsophisticated investors.

Look behind the curtain. One of my favourite Don Campbell quotes.

Bigbear

[ChrisMewhort]

What is your feedback on this ? Good ? Bad ? Neutral ? Great ? too early to tell ?

Might be a little early to step in here, but I'd say it's advised against investing with him

[mikecunning]

Might be a little early to step in here, but I'd say it's advised against investing with him

I attended the Cashflow events a couple of times; first time out of curiosity and the subsequent times for networking. I found that the free events tended to attract quite a few people that either didn't either have the money or the resolution/commitment to pay to attend a higher quality event. I never went back.

[SusanPenner]

Just thought I would add my 2 cents...for what it's worth

I attended a Cashflow event in Edmonton in March 2007 prior to attending Quickstart in June 2007. Yes there were quite a few sales pitches from "the sponsors" of the weekend. I had gone there for the real estate content but the surface was barely scratched. What I did take away from that weekend was a few things:

1. A contact to the Freedom Investment Club (FIC). I haven't yet pursued anything with them as of yet. The write ups I've read from Mike Lathigee's (the president of FIC) on a current month's economic outlook for the market were at the time better than the advice I was receiving from some other investment councilors.
2. Cashflow 101 is an interesting game to play. It does make you think of other investment vehicles to use (other than real estate)

In April 2007 I attended the COIP song and dance. This one really gave me a bad "gut" feeling! The best part of that night was: I had extra time so I went to Chapters and I ended up buying Don's book !!

Anyways, if I ever do go another "fast track event" I would do it with my eyes open. I did meet some wonderful people in March 2007 that I "clicked" with and it was definately a different crowd "feel" than REIN events. I would consider these events for networking as the people I met definately have an entrepreneurial bent to them.

Take care
Susan

[klewlis]

1. Cashflow 101 is an interesting game to play. It does make you think of other investment vehicles to use (other than real estate)

I've played it a few times through meetup.com groups. I really enjoy it and have learned a lot from it... it really brings the concepts of the Rich Dad books home. It's nice in private groups too because the hosts spend time explaining and coaching... this avoids the confusion that seems to happen in the large seminar groups!

[AndyLuchies]

my wife and i went to a "rich dad weekend" and loved it. the guy (Pip ?Stehleck?) was excellent and there was only Canadian real estate content. other than pressure to shell out $5000 to take more specific courses (e.g. "wholesaling" or "commercial real estate") we had an awesome time. In fact, it was only through the "rich dad" stuff that we ever found REIN!!
I think RK's strongest suit is his motivational mindset stuff, REIN is far better for real estate specific techniques, although the rich dad stuff gave us lots of neat tips that compliment REIN.

I wasn't impressed with the Cashflow 101 game. My wife and i picked it up easy and got bored of it quick, BUT everyone else i've talked to loves it and its a GREAT resource to teach kids about investing!

(my two cents)

[AndyLuchies]

Robert K's best book by far (besides RDPD) is "Rich Dad's Prophecy." He was, and is, bang on in his predictions, especially considering the last 6 months!