In May I was interested in becoming a real estate investor. I had no previous experience. I don't remember the exact moment I became aware of Prosper; it may have been a TV infomercial or the internet or a prospecting email. I began my exploration on the internet and have to admit, they have a very compelling message. Not just about becoming a millionaire yourself, but they compel you to give to charities after getting rich yourself. Very admirable. I was phoned by one of their salesmen about the program: Carl Avery. Carl was obviously the front man, who qualified people and then turned them over to Mark Butler, a Director. Carl was enthusiastic about how many millionaires they had created, but was tight lipped about the cost of the program. Mark Butler talked to me for about 90 minutes. More enthusiasm and lots of you can do this! Coming from him; telling me that if I spent 10-20 hours a week, I should be able to make my money back in 30-90 days. I'd have unlimited access to my coach. I had been recently let go from my work and was unemployed when speaking with Mr. Butler. When he told me the price of the program: $8505.00, I choked. I didn't have that money available. Mark started asking me about possible second mortgages on my home (I rented). Then he asked me about 401ks that I could borrow against. He suggested that I could put the price on a credit card. He figured that I could probably have my entire course fee paid off in a few months, so I wouldn't incur much interest on the charges. He even postponed $2000 of the fee for two months (although not the interest it was deferring). He failed, however, to tell me that adding $8500 debt to my credit cards would damage my credit score and consequently sabotage my ability to get good financing! Well, his sales job was very good and I bit. I was even excited about it, imagining a rich future with the expert coaching I'd get from them. I had joined a local real estate investor's club and at the next meeting I told some folks about my purchase. It was the first time I realized how expensive the course I bought was compared to other real estate programs that offered the exact same things. Others there had paid up to $3,000 and were getting coaching, manuals, online website access. I was sick. The next day I called Mr. Butler to voice my doubts. I asked him point blank why his program was worth almost triple what other programs charged. He assured me it was their quality of coaching. I've been in the training and development industry for many years and understand the value of having a coach. They can customize the learning and escalate your learning incredibly. So, I decided to stay with it. I got the manuals a few days later and began my coaching (forty minutes, once a week for five weeks). My first coach was touted as a successful RE investor herself. Supposedly all their coaches are successful investors. My first coaching session was more or less a get to know you session. No real substance, just more of an orientation to the materials. I ended the call a bit disappointed, but realized that any first call is going to have some orientation stuff in it. My homework was to get to know my area's RE market. The following week, my coaching session consisted of having the coach walk me page by page through the manual. I'd already read what she covered and truthfully didn't get any value out of this session at all. Again, my homework was to go see some homes for sale and watch the classified RE ads. Now I was mad! Two sessions were gone and I had gotten NO value from them at all. Plus, the coach hadn't returned several emails I'd sent. What happened to unlimited access to my coach? I called Mr. Butler and demanded my money back. He spoke with me at length and was empathetic. I told him I'd lost all confidence in their company and didn't want to waste any more of my time or money on such disappointing content. He told me, If you don't want to be part of the program, we don't want you to be. Mr. Butler had told me that they were not the kind of company that was solely interested in taking a person's money. That there were companies out there that did just that, but they weren't one of them. They had integrity and wanted their students to be satisfied and supported. I was so relieved. I thanked him for his understanding and he gave me the name of the person to call to end my program. Imagine my shock when I called the person he'd told me to contact to end my program and that person told me that I could end the program if I wanted, but they weren't refunding my money! I told him that Mr. Butler had indicated that I could get a refund and he refused to believe that. He said they didn't refund money. He said he'd call Mr. Butler and find out what was said. He called me back and told me that Mr. Butler said he'd never said they would refund my money. And that Mr. Butler never had intended for me to believe that. Again, they refused to refund my money. I wasn't about to just donate my $8500 to them and walk away. They told me that they could assign me a different coach. I hated my situation, but accepted this as the only way I could still possibly get value out of my exorbitant investment. I told them I didn't want to start from scratch with my new coach and spend the entire first session in orientation. I told them that, as a trainer myself, that use of my time was wasted. All that could be handled in an email. My second coach was nice and also an investor, but although a bit better than my first coach, I still found our time spent on things that I could easily do myself, like covering manual material. And again, their expert advice was to get to know my market and go look at homes. Any fourth grader on the street could come up with that tactic! This coach told me that he wouldn't be able to sometimes respond to me because he was only in the office two days a week. He was an active investor himself, which he stated was a benefit to me. But, if I'm supposed to have unlimited access to him and he's not around, how is that a benefit to me? After three sessions of no value, I told my coach I wanted to stop my sessions for a while. Which they allowed me to do. I needed to figure out what to do. Then I got an email from another Prosper student whom I didn't know. She asked what I thought of their program and had evidently gotten my name from someone's email list? I told her I was disappointed and had tried to get my money back. She told me that she and her husband began the program and were very disappointed in their results and they DID get their money back when they complained. Minus 10% restocking fee. Her words: We did get most of our money back after complaining to Amber at EMI. You might mention calling the attorney general & see if that helps. I wonder if so many people have asked for their money back, that now they are refusing refunds. They told us they were withholding a 10% restocking fee. If you haven't finished your coaching, you should be able to get the money back. Don't wait until you've finished or you'll have less leverage. Also, will your credit cards help you reverse charges if you dispute it? I hope that helps. I shared the same enthusiasm initially, & they have helped some, but you don't need to spend that much to learn it. Have you discovered The Creative Investors website? There is tons of info & free mentors there. We did the level 4 mastery program. Some of it has been good, but what we've had so many problems with is the preconstruction deals in FL that they "promised" us would pay for doing the level 4 mastery program. I think they actually meant well, but they can't keep everybody on the "team" honest. Purdy's builder sold our lot (& many other students' lots) out from under us after we were locked in & contracted with them because the price for our lots increased $25K before we were closed. Glen Purdy's lawyers, the mortgage co. Lawyers, & the builder's lawyers have gotten involved & I'm not sure what's going to happen now. We did the onsite mentoring & that was really good, but we found out later, we could have gone to Todd Dotson directly & paid $5K less than through EMI. There should be some kind of recourse for consumers who don't get what they paid forand some protection against companies that inflate their prices beyond anything reasonable. Prosper doesn't offer anything better than companies that charge MUCH less and they should be able to dupe the public like this. I was originally wowed by the fact that Mark Victor Hansen had his name on this organization. As author of such warm and sensitive and kind books as the Chicken Soup books, one is easily led to believe that he wouldn't be part of an organization that wasn't completely on the up and up. I think they involved him for that very reason to lull the public into believing that Prosper really cares about their students' welfare. Mr. Butler told me on the phone, Prosper is only interested in getting paid. They could care less that their students aren't getting value. If they did they wouldn't have ignored my third and last demand for refund sent certified mail 8/16/05. I told them if they didn't refund my money I'd be writing to you, the Utah Division of Consumer Protection, the Utah Department of Commerce, The Spokane Better Business Bureau, and whomever else I could tell about what kind of ethics this company has. Karen Spokane Valley, Washington
U.S.A.
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