A friend Michael, told me about a seminar he went to today at Wellington Airport given by Income education. Clearly very persuasive, they offered access to American real estate. Their basic strategy appears to require people to move their equity to American property investments. They wheeled out a NZ'er, Sandra, who now lives in Brisbane. Her story is typically emotive, involving God, newborn children who survived against the odds, motivated by a desire to change her life, final release to financial freedom. To do this it claims she purchased four rental properties, 16 tax liens, of which only eight have paid out. She had money to buy only one property, and because of what she had learned about investing from Income Education, she was able to leverage other money to get all four. To quote Sandra, "I've changed. I've learned to be responsible for my decisions. Before, I could say that I had no choice. if I invested in stocks and the company I invested in lost the money, it wasn't by doing. But this opportunity has made me incredibly strong. It's taught me to make a decision and stand by that decision."
At the seminar at which Sandra spoke, there were six people attending. Four left before the presentation began. That left Michael, and another person. After presenting the opportunity, they asked for $2800 to "invest" in a tax lien, and when that came through, they would refund the entire amount, less $600 for an investment training seminar lasting three days. Michael said that he saw a person who worked at Te Puni Kokiri sign up, presumably to accept the training. He was told that the previous night, 120 people had attended. He believed mornings didn't suit people so well to attend these sorts of seminars.
I explained to Michael, that that was probably untrue. In any case, it was not an offer that he should accept. He hasn't accepted it, but I very surprised how persuaded he had become to accept their ideas of investment.
I wondered if you were aware of this seminar taking place, what you thought of their offer, whether you would be attracted yourself. Their website is www.Incomeeducation.com