Feedback on Canada`s Rich Dad - Darren Weeks

[KeithW]

The odd thing is, Darren is doing EXACTLY what the Rich Dad books recommend. I went to the back of the room and got the investment packages. I took time to read it over.
RD says make sure you get something for free out of every deal (pg180 Rich Dad Poor Dad.) After 5 years, Darren`s personal company owns the Costa Rica property (sans investors.) The profit you make on that investment is from 5 years of rental fees, starting from the day they break ground (think about construction delays.) Pay yourself first (pg 172 Rich Dad Poor Dad.) Darren takes 10% cash off the top whenever you invest with him for promotional fees. There is nothing wrong with that since he has people to pay too, but the percentage seems a little steep. The Costa Rica specifically, the info for the predictions were old (travel numbers from 2004, the seminar I took was in 2009). At least they did say that all investments there were speclative.

 

[Al Verwey]

QUOTE (KeithW @ Feb 8 2010, 04:02 PM)
The odd thing is, Darren is doing EXACTLY what the Rich Dad books recommend.




Keith,



That may be true, but Darren appears to be in it for himself first and the members and investors come next. His recommendations for investments, whether Costa Rica or Fight Aids Save Taxes, cannot be properly evaluated since he has a vested interest in selling the deals. And the expensive "further education" programs at the proverbial "back of the room" suggest that he makes most of his money from the seminars and commissions on the deals.



While I'm sure that Don does quite well from the REIN membership dues too, he is not selling real estate or other investments to us and his credibility is intact.



On a side note though, I often wonder why Don permits the "tables in the hall" at the monthly workshops and weekend events that are strictly looking for JV partners. It would seem to be contrary to the REIN system that is teaching us to be the creator of the deals, not the passive JV partner. The presence of those tables says to me, "If you don't have the courage/knowledge/time to do it yourself, let me do it for you."



Al Verwey

Penta V Holdings

Newmarket

 

[koop]

I just have to laugh. I went to a fast track thing last April, I went wanting to learn how to invest in RE, I did learn nothing at this event. I think I saw what it was about pretty quick, selling programs. The networking was really good, like it was said, if I had an investment to sell I would go to a fast track event again. I have friends who are really into this, one friends dad has invested in RE for close to 35yrs and he is really into this, but I still told him how I saw this who thing "just a huge sales event".

The people who go to these things really aren`t very well educated, they want to invest but don`t know how, and hey there is a table at the back where I can drop $15000 and they will do the work for me. You should have seen the people line up after Bill Bartlet(sp?) spoke about how you could buy his system for investing into bad debt, they were lined up to kiss his rear, okay the guy made a lot of money but I`m not going to worship him. Darren Weeks is selling an idea that if you invest with him you will be on the "fast track to becoming rich", Don is telling us that this is not a get rich quick plan, its a get rich plan.

 

[ClintonB]

While I yearned for more knowledge about Real Estate it was RichDad programs books that I found first. When I looked into trying their training I quickly realized it wasn`t quite what I was looking for and (thankfully) that was how I able to find REIN!

If you are looking into these investments and RichDad training please watch this video first...
http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/2010/road_to...h_dad/main.html

 

[4doubledutch]

Appeals Court of Canada decision released on Oct. 28. This upheld an earlier decision by the Tax Court of Canada, totally denying any tax break for Mr. Max Marechaux -- who put up $30,000 of cash into a donation scheme and claimed a $100,000 donation receipt.






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

 

[4doubledutch]

I attended a Darren Weeks seminar a month or so ago....Fast Track to Cash...or something like that. His delivery style is upbeat and he clearly knows how to capture the audience. It seemed on the face of it that his messages were sincere and he perhaps had some offerings that may be useful. I followed up with his young sales rep...no depth of knowledge there. I was however able to get hold of a copy of their Offering Memorandum for their latest appartment syndicate....what a joke! One hundred and fifty pages of multiple layers of companies, trusts, layered share structures, heavy commissions, heavy fees.....all designed to guarantee returns to the principals (Darren and his team) with no skin in the game....and NO EXIT STRATEGY...that's not investing...that's speculation at best. Personal opinion: stay clear unless you are a gambler and can't resist. From my calculations 35% is taken off the top up front. That only leaves 65 cents on the dollar to "invest". In this current market that is an awful lot of ground to catch up!

I also attended the follow up session for their tax shelter FAST (Fight Aids Save Taxes). A 'creative' scheme to inflate the donation value by a factor of ten. Very impressed with the creativity, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.....they rely purely on the CRA challenge taking years to get to court/settlement...they know full well that it will get challenged by CRA. Their pitch however is that once it is challenged by CRA's aggresive tax shelter dept, all participants tax returns are no longer likely to get audited by the Audit Dept because their tax returns are moved to the aggressive tax shelter dept (implying that Audit cannot get their hands on your tax returns for the duration of the dispute)...meaning that one could conceivably get away with overstating expenses and other creative things within the rest of one's tax returns...clever...if it is true...but exploiting the system for sure. Apparently CRA can only audit 3 years back (not the 7 that that is the common misconception), so by the time the tax shelter goes to court/gets settled, at least 7-8 years has gone by. Is it legal to do this? Probably... Is it moral in my view? Certainly not. There are so many legitimate ways to make money in real estate without ripping off the system...I see no redeeming factors in their offerings.

In short, I have removed myself from all their mailing lists. Not my kind of business or ethics. However they will draw in a lot of novice investors...hopefully they will not get too burned. My personal opinions and 2 cents.

 

[4doubledutch]

The Appeal Court of Canada just upheld the Tax Court of Canada's ruling that profit received from giving a gift to a tax shelter/charity will change the gift to a non-gift and there goes your tax credit. Oct. 28, 2010 ruling was for a donation made in 2001. So much for CRA not being able to come after you after 3 years. Every tax shelter says they are different but they really aren't. They get your money and you get the CRA asking for more.
I attended a Darren Weeks seminar a month or so ago....Fast Track to Cash...or something like that. His delivery style is upbeat and he clearly knows how to capture the audience. It seemed on the face of it that his messages were sincere and he perhaps had some offerings that may be useful. I followed up with his young sales rep...no depth of knowledge there. I was however able to get hold of a copy of their Offering Memorandum for their latest appartment syndicate....what a joke! One hundred and fifty pages of multiple layers of companies, trusts, layered share structures, heavy commissions, heavy fees.....all designed to guarantee returns to the principals (Darren and his team) with no skin in the game....and NO EXIT STRATEGY...that's not investing...that's speculation at best. Personal opinion: stay clear unless you are a gambler and can't resist. From my calculations 35% is taken off the top up front. That only leaves 65 cents on the dollar to "invest". In this current market that is an awful lot of ground to catch up!

I also attended the follow up session for their tax shelter FAST (Fight Aids Save Taxes). A 'creative' scheme to inflate the donation value by a factor of ten. Very impressed with the creativity, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.....they rely purely on the CRA challenge taking years to get to court/settlement...they know full well that it will get challenged by CRA. Their pitch however is that once it is challenged by CRA's aggresive tax shelter dept, all participants tax returns are no longer likely to get audited by the Audit Dept because their tax returns are moved to the aggressive tax shelter dept (implying that Audit cannot get their hands on your tax returns for the duration of the dispute)...meaning that one could conceivably get away with overstating expenses and other creative things within the rest of one's tax returns...clever...if it is true...but exploiting the system for sure. Apparently CRA can only audit 3 years back (not the 7 that that is the common misconception), so by the time the tax shelter goes to court/gets settled, at least 7-8 years has gone by. Is it legal to do this? Probably... Is it moral in my view? Certainly not. There are so many legitimate ways to make money in real estate without ripping off the system...I see no redeeming factors in their offerings.

In short, I have removed myself from all their mailing lists. Not my kind of business or ethics. However they will draw in a lot of novice investors...hopefully they will not get too burned. My personal opinions and 2 cents.

 

[CalvinPeters]

"Is it legal to do this? Probably... Is it moral in my view? Certainly not. There are so many legitimate ways to make money in real estate without ripping off the system...I see no redeeming factors in their offerings.
In short, I have removed myself from all their mailing lists. Not my kind of business or ethics. However they will draw in a lot of novice investors...hopefully they will not get too burned. My personal opinions and 2 cents."

Just a personal question here...do you think that paying the maximum amount of tax is "legitimate" and "not ripping off the system" or in some way "ethical?" I have no opinion of the "offerings" here, or the Rich Dad reps in any way, only interested in your opinion of utilizing tax advantages.

Is it not business savvy to try and avoid tax if possible?

 

[Thomas Beyer]

yes one should always try this .. BUT WITHIN THE LAW .. pretty obvious to me if you donate X and get a write-off for 3X or 5X that s.th. is not right ..

 

[MikeDix]

Once you read the fine print and realize who is making money guaranteed (Weeks and co.) and that the 'investor' carries all the risk of loss and CRA audit, why would anyone want to put money in? Bottom line...the scheme relies on the herd instinct, and on the 'investors' laziness in performing due diligence.

 

[johnsu]

Hi Guys,



I was just at one of their investment seminars Feb 14/2011. It was a weekday and they had 90 people in the room. Average age must have been 45.



Here's what I noticed:



1. 25% of the room had invested with them.

2. The claimed to educate but I really don't think their doing that. Fast track exposed a few secrets, drop some big names, fancy facts but none of the people became more investment savy from info presented

3. They had a pretty "Emotional" presentation though. Structured very well Psychologically to appeal to the "Sheeple" Right from their investments, mission statement, name dropping ect.



Here's what I'm wondering:



1. REIN educates but I've consistenly heard that our percentage of action takers is very low. I've heard this consistently over 5 years

2. So how does Fast track who claims to "Educate" but REIN who actually does educate have a higher action taker percentage.



Again this goes back to my study on "What's really holding us back?" If anyone's interested in helping me I'd love to chat with you.



I'm looking for 2 types of REIN members:



1. People who've STUDIED the REIN system and got analysis paralysis

2. People who've got turned off by Real Estate.

 

[JimWhitelaw]

[quote user=johnsu]1. REIN educates but I've consistenly heard that our percentage of action takers is very low. I've heard this consistently over 5 years

2. So how does Fast track who claims to "Educate" but REIN who actually does educate have a higher action taker percentage. Fast Track makes it easy to "take action". They sell investment products. All you have to do is walk to the back of the room and sign up. With REIN meeting, you have to go out and do something on your own, days/weeks/months after the meeting excitement has cooled.



FT does put on some education-focused events as well. Those generally have lots of pitches for additional courses etc. Just part of the game.

 

[TodorYordanov]

The two systems do not compare.

One is designed around education, the other around selling.



I went to one of his presentations in Toronto few years ago and I have to tell you: It was hard walking away form the opportunity to own a lot in Costa Rica right next to his lot. The pictures were amazing and the investment was - how can you go wrong! I decided to be one of the "losers" and not buy.



As far as analysis paralysis is concerned, it may be view as period of education and observation. Nothing wrong with that. People will "pull the trigger" when the time is right for them.

 

[Herbert]

Hi All,

Dareen Weeks a crooked company that why advertise under Canada Rich Dad

It's early to tell but there must be a big game behind their every new project.

 

[housingrental]

There is too much negativity in this thread

Posters should be reminded to focus on positive things

Happy landlording!

 

[Thomas Beyer]

[quote user=housingrental]There is too much negativity in this thread

Posters should be reminded to focus on positive things


Which investments with Darren Weeks have been POSITIVE ? [hence my original posted question] Anyone ?



How do they stack up against those 8 Real Estate Syndication Mistakes to Avoid ?

 

[MarkHealy]

Good evening



As always Thomas posts points that make you think

Other often just spout off



Thank you Thomas for asking each of to look closely at opportunities, options and investments with a critical eye.



Some are good, some are bad, each of us need to do our own due diligence

The warning of scams is always timely, as the are like mushrooms sprouting in fertile fields



This is one. But it will not be the only one we are exposed to



Due diligence MIGHT and should protect us. There are no sure things but it helps



Thanks

Mark

 

[housingrental]

No idea.... thought you'd enjoy my post thought



[quote user=ThomasBeyer][quote user=housingrental]There is too much negativity in this thread

Posters should be reminded to focus on positive things


Which investments with Darren Weeks have been POSITIVE ? [hence my original posted question] Anyone ?



How do they stack up against those 8 Real Estate Syndication Mistakes to Avoid ?

 

[joojubs]

I didn't know that Don Campbell partnered with Darren Weeks (Rich Dad). I find Rich Dad very shady and so it's a little disappointing since the reason why I like REIN is because it seems to offer real substance.

 

[bizaro86]

[quote user=joojubs]I didn't know that Don Campbell partnered with Darren Weeks (Rich Dad). I find Rich Dad very shady and so it's a little disappointing since the reason why I like REIN is because it seems to offer real substance.





Really??? Do you have a link showing this? Because it seems possible (even likely) to me that anyone saying this is making it up. Unless I saw it on REIN material I wouldn't believe it, since it seems like they'd be reducing their credibility big time by partnering with that particular group.



Michael