Complaint Review: Albert Lowry Educational Institute (EAI) And (ES).

"The no-money-down option is really aimed at the people who want to make money but don't have seed money. But they could be left holding the bag if something goes wrong," said Nadine Samter, an FTC lawyer in Seattle who has recently been looking into the industry. "We haven't done too many of these cases because it's hard to prove that you can't make any money at it," said Samter. "But the reality is, and we all know it, ,that most people don't. Very few people make money, or we'd all being doing it." Samter and other FTC officials said real estate seminars are a subset of the investment seminar craze. The agency's most recent attention has been on investment adviser Wade Cook and his Seattle- based firms, including Wade Cook Financial Corp., which in December agreed to settle charges leveled by the agency, Samter said real estate get-rich-quick courses could be valuable, "if you've been a real estate person for years and you want to get into creative financing, and you know you can put the deals together. But for Joe Schmo, who is retired or just wants to make money, this is not a small undertaking, and often the claims are inflated."

FTC officials say the agency's message has not changed since 1998, when it said "thousands of consumers throughout the country have attended
seminars' in hotel rooms or public forums where they defraud, mislead and persuaded victims to invest in their fraudulent business opportunities and
investments."

Typically, the agency said, consumers are "I deliberately misled, defrauded and lose hundreds of thousands of dollars by these re-tooled seminars by
many unscrupulous television infomercials or letters promising instruction in how to operate a home-based business, how to buy and sell real estate to fraudulently earn big incomes. At the seminars, however. consumers lm very little, if anything about how to run a business or make profitable investments. Instead, they are treated to slick sales pitches for schemes that are essentially worthless." Consumers, the FTC said, "succumb to these pitches because the seminar hucksters who create impressions that anyone
regardless of experience, can buy their deceptive real estate programs and
earn a lot of money."

Edward J. Johnson Ill, president of the Better Business Bureau of Metro Washington, said: "It may be true for some people -- that they can earn a lot of money -- but for the majority of people it will never happen." The Better Business Bureau's position, he said, "is that consumers should research these things thoroughly and not make snap financial decisions based purely on emotion." That sounds wise, but it is also clear that people can see that others are making money in the real estate business. They want in, too. And it is natural, experts say, that average people who will never make millions of dollars at their jobs would respond to revival-like motivational pitches for making big money. For instance, Carleton Sheets, another longtime pitchman and author 20 years ago of the book, "How to Buy Your First Home or Investment Property With No Down Payment," has a TV infomercials that has been on the air for more than 16 years, deceiving victims out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, while making them millionaires according to his Web site (www.carletonsheets.com).

The Infomercial Monitoring Service, which tracks 40 national cable channels, says Sheets's record seems unparalleled. "In .the 10 years we've been monitoring paid cable programming," said publisher Sam Catanese, the Sheets program "is the longest-running and has spent the most money on airtime." Sheets, like several other high- profile gurus, does the commercials, but he generally leaves the lectures to others.

Those at the Greenbelt Marriott hotel two weeks ago certainly wanted in on the real estate investment action. When the Allen Institute's "Creating Wealth" instructor asked the members of the crowd to raise their hands and say how much money they hoped to make, the numbers were not small change -- $1.5 million, said one, $1 million to $2 million said another. Then came $10 million. "Is ,this realis,tic?" said instructor Cherif Medawar, who works as an independent contractor for Dynetech.com in Orlando, which markets the Allen Institute seminars and training camps. "I know this area is affluent, but you're taking it to the next level," he said with a laugh.

After the two-hour, uninterrupted pitch, several audience members including Bahjat, signed up for a three-day training session. The participants (victims)
were to "learn the secrets" of using discount mortgages, finding "pre- foreclosures" while criminally avoiding paying taxes and earning big bucks brokering private mortgage notes and tax lien certificates.

The credibility of the seminar was buttressed by references to newspaper and TV mentions of Allen, best-selling author of the 1978 book "No Money Down" and recent co-author of the book "The One Minute Millionaire" with Mark Victor Hansen, who has helped produce the popular series of books "Chicken Soup for the Soul." Allen, however, appeared only in a video, not in person. His materials are marketed by the Robert Allen Institute of Orlando, Florida(www.robertalleninstitute.com) and through the Web site (www.muItiplestreamsofincome.com.

Their training camp offer, that victims or attendees pay out are told would be discounted to $2,495 from $4,995 to as much as $10,000 or more, that does not work and is illegal in most States. If they sign up that day, included a year's mentoring, costing the victims more than $2,000, additionally, via the Internet, curriculum and reference manuals and a guarantee that participants could get their money back if they drop out the first day. the crimes are that victims pay out, per Rust Grimm, hundreds to thousands of additonal money
that is not returned by them Lowry, Sheets and Allen, who will only pay back victims not more than 50 cents on their dollars spent of a participant's $10,000 to $20,500 program costs, fees and expenses incurred where the county or state tells the 'investor', the laws do not allow --FLIPPING PROPERTIES, LIKE IN MARYLAND, DC, VIRGINIA, FLORIDA, PENNSYLVANIA AND DOZENS OF OTHER STATES. Investors are then prosecuted for felony real estate frauds, mortgage fraud, bank fraud, credit card frauds that bring in the Secret Service, as what has happened against Lowry in the East Coast and Sheets in Chicago and the Midwest.

Spouses and children were allowed to attend free. "Imagine you spend three days with us," Medawar said. "You'll be lethal, you'll be dangerous." insurance
salesman Bahjat said: "What put me over the top was that they promise that you can go the whole first day and if you don't like it, you get your money back." Amos Cheeseboro, a college student from District Heights, wanted to sign up, but said he could not afford the fee. "I know there is big money in it, but it's not at the best opportunity for me," he said. "I trust this guy. I don't know if I'd be a millionaire, but there are a lot of people I would like to help if I did it."

Meanwhile, Kevin Patel, a biotech research associate from Germantown who attended the seminar with his father, anted up the $2,495. Pavel said the
moneyback guarantee won him over, and the fact that university classes can cost the same "without showing you how to apply" moneymaking techniques.
The FTC warned seminar participants to get refund guarantees in writing that will include all other fees, costs and expenses incurred to try the program, and make sure that you run the programs through States Attorneys Generals and your real estate laws. FTC and other agencies and state enforcement agencies have filed complaints and initiated criminal investigations against
all those who did not make full and complete retunds, or who did not make full and complete or timelv refunds in full which includes all fees, expenses and costs incurred that includes the participant's full prices of their real estate programs.

After the class, pitchman Medawar repeated how taking the Allen class as a hotel manager in California "had changed my life." In response to questions about whether he or Allen were exaggerating the potential to be a millionaire, Medawar said "the or~lyre ason I work for him is because I checked, and he has no problems." Others do not offer the step-by-step help, he said, "so it's not real. . . . If [seminar takers] get 10 percent of what we teach them, they're better off than anything else they do in their life." Across the
country, others are leading "Creating Wealth" seminars. To meet what ads call Allen's "challenge to create 1,000 (more victims) and he millions in record time," He is defrauding tens of thousands of participants under various means through his campaign hitting 57 cities. The Washington area was the 10th stop. Interest in quick profits from real estate was equally high at a different seminar held in an Arlington hotel just days before the Allen workshops.

The Ron LeGrand "Cash-Flow Generator Workshop" came to five Washington hotels for two three-hour sessions daily from Feb. 4 to Feb. 7. Several of ,the 200 people attending a session at Crystal City said they were attracted by fast-paced infomercials featuring testimonials from students who claimed to have made bundles of money with no license, no cash and no credit. Also there were the commercial's narrators, twin dwarfs John and Greg Rice, who are said to be real estate brokers from Texas.

LeGrand never speaks on the infomercial, and as of Dec. 31 he was no longer employed by SDI Wealth Institute Inc. of Jacksonville, Fla., which markets the classes, SDI President George H. Brady said. But LeGrand is a shareholder of the company that now owns SDI, International Media Holdings Inc., Brady said. The twins, however, talk a lot in the ads. Wearing matching outfits that they change frequently, the brothers trade remarks back and forth constantly between the testimonials, kind of like verbal ping-pong.

A number of seminar attendees at the Crystal City Doubletree Hotel signed up for educational videos, booklets and tapes costing $1,997. The lecture, which
built on statements like "A Job is the Biggest Killer of Financial Freedom," covered a lot of ground quickly, including a discussion of techniques such as "wraparound" mortgages, doing "lease-options" for those who want to buy but have no credit, buying mortgage notes and conducting simultaneous closings, where properties reportedly can be bought and sold in subsequent transactions without cash or credit. The first 22 people to pay for the materials were promised personal mentoring by cell phone, fax or e-mail from lecturer Lorenzo Spencer. Spencer later offered a pair of three-day "boot camps" -- one on selling "pretty houses" and one on selling "ugly" or distressed houses -- at half the regular price, for a total of $3,490, instead of $3,495 each. The next nearby classes are in Baltimore in late May.

Bob Steere, a self-described entrepreneur, paid the $1,197 fee, he said, to get the materials and the personal help. Peter Richter, a Springfield heating contractor, did not buy, he said, because he was already actively trying to invest and has bought about $1 00 in books. He said he understood why the workshop drew so many. "Everybody doing this is looking for a better quality of life," said Richter, who described his own schedule as a painful 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. In real estate investing, Richter said that he and a business partner found out that "you can't really do this part time" and that the risks can be high.

Spencer, he said, "downplayed a lot of it to get people to sign up." When asked about criticism that training camps are generally not worth the money because most people will not achieve the results, SDI President Brady said by ail that "the success of our attendees achieve typically depends upon their individual level of commitment they make to studying and learning the real estate advice and information provided through our products, workshops and seminars. Also, success of our attendees depends on their proper application of the knowledge gained from those studies to their real estate investing activities." Brady said, "Our business has steadily increased over the last 10 years." He said 10 to 15 percent of those who attend workshops buy one or more "offerings" that cost from $49 to several thousand dollars. In response to a question, Brady said the company is "not currently, nor have we in
the past been under investigation by any state attorney general, consumer protection agency or federal authority."

A David Early, director of business development for Dynetech.com, which malkets the, Allen material said in an interview this week that "we really don't worry about complaints. We are a member of the Better Business Bureau, in good standing. We are honest with customers -- we know not everyone can do this, and we tell them that." Early added that full refunds are available.

An Atlanta-based FTC lawyer Loretta Kraus, who was involved in the criminal investigations of other Lowry, Sheets and Allen real estate seminars about
"financial freedom" seminars in the mid-1990s, said "here are slicksters who make all sorts of misleading, deceptive and fraudulent claims to attendees.
They are very skilled in the seminar spiel" who tour the country, "Thev are very slick and verv articulate. They speak very quickly and use visual aids very effectively. The material shown [via overhead projector or video] goes up and down real quickly" to keep seminar attendees off balance.

Kraus added that "the whole setting is fairly claustrophobic . . . with the side doors usually blocked and people pushed to sit in the front and to fill in seats." There are not enough chairs and the seminars are held in small rooms. She and others said, to add to the pressure on people to take advantage of deals or lose out. The two recent local seminars followed that pattern. - John T. Reed, a longtime self-appointed seminar watchdog and critic of many wellknown gurus, said he cannot quantify the growth in the seminar business, but "I get the impression that it's booming." Reed, who has written extensively on making money in real estate and tried offering seminars briefly, bases his opinion on the activity from the number of questions he gets at his Web site (www.johntreed.com).

"There seems to be more of them every week . . . and every week when I get inquiries about a guy I never heard of," he said no one can make money in these real estate programs, Reed said. "There are 10 million real estate investors in this country, and generally they're pretty wealthy," he said. "You can do it, but it's hard work, it's risky, it's a pain in the a*s." -- Real estate pitchmen, however, "don't tell you that," he said. "And they do just leave out all the bad stuff. They lie- and cheat." Reed, who rrrinces no words in rating the 123 pitchmen listed on his Web site or in Reed, who rrrinces no words in rating the 123 pitchmen listed on his Web site or in discussing the industry,
savs the guru business has changed for the worse ever since Allen got into
the Lure.

William Nickerson in the 1950s wrote "the first book that said the average guy could make a rrlillion in real estate," Reed said, adding that Nickerson "was tlie father of all gurus, but he was a legit guy." Not only did he know and admire Nickerson's first book, "How I Turned $1,000 Into $1 Million in Real Estate in My Spare Time," and his subsequent work, but "I gave the eulogy for him when he died." An updated version of Nickerson's book is still for sale, although now the title boasts he turned that $1,000 into $5 million. About
two decades later, Nickerson's teacher and developed the technique of advertising free seminars to seminar participants who end up victims at the hands of these false pitchman on weekends. said Reed. Those seminars "cost 295 bucks for the whole weekend," said Reed.

But speakers like Lowry, Allen and Sheets and others, by the late 1970s to 1990's, Lowry, who wrote the book, "How to Become Financially Independent by Investing in Real Estate," was on the cover of Money magazine, Reed said. But according to numerous newspaper accounts, he later lost millions of dollars on a California development when interest rates soared and the real estate market sank. After the deceptive or misleading infomercials came into
play, Reed said, Allen was the next marketing genius, but that is just about the last positive thing he will say about him.

While Allen's "No Money Down" "blew Al Lowry off the bookstore shelves,and became the best-selling financial book in the history of the universe," said Reed, "there's not a single technique in there that does not require either misleading an institutional lender or taking advantage of an unsophisticated seller, or both.' Reed said he has made the accusations many times, "and Allen has never sued me."

Joe Kilsheimer, a public relations representative speaking on behalf of the Robert Allen Institute, said Allen's early books were "truthful and accurate at the time." "All the information that is presented today from the Robert Allen Institute is truthful and legitimate as strategies for today's real estate market," Kilsheimer said. As far as Allen never suing Reed, Kilsheimer said, "I don't kliow that there's any value in suing Mr. Reed." SDI Wealth Institute's Brady, who markets the LeGrand courses, said in his e-mail that "Mr. Reed has his opinion, and we recognize he is entitled to it. However, it should be noted that Mr. Reed, by offering his own printed materials for sale, could be more accurately described as a competitor as opposed to an unbiased critic."

Reed criticizes not only Allen and LeGrand, but also Sheets and relative newcomer Robert Kiyosaki, of "Rich Dad Poor Dad" fame. This month's issue of Smart Money magazine contains a critical analysis of Kiyosaki, 55, who was dubbed "the John Grisham of the get-rich- quick genre." Locally, Better Business Bureau President Ed Johnson says corrlplaints about the seminar
industry are routine, but he has not seen a jump in questions about real -estate seminars.

Virginia Cheatham, an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia said she was working on ongoing fraud investigation(s) into real estate investment
seminar(s) being offered locally, but said she could not discuss specifics. FTC officials, meanwhile, said they were not aware of any new national investigations on seminars, but warn consumers should always be wary.
Eleanor Durham, a Seattle-based FTC lawyer, said if the pitchmen are careful, ",there fs no way you can protect people from their own greed and their own credulity."

Ross
Williamsburg, Virginia
U.S.A.