Complaint Review: Jason Rodriguez

The pattern of reports already in existence for this man and his company does not surprise me at all. 

I was introduced to Mr. Rodriguez in early/mid-2011 at a "wealth summit" in my area of residence, Richmond, VA.  This wealth seminar in question was put together by a dear friend, who well-intendedly compiled a roster of otherwise illustrious guests who were presumably "experts" on wealth, finance, personal growth, real estate, and other related areas.  Sadly enough, my friend - an otherwise legitimately good person who does things in trust without feeling compelled to do background checks and professional history searches - was badly deceived by much of his own guest roster, most of which were later revealed to be the low-hanging fruit of the supposed "wealth," "coaching," or "personal growth" professions.  Most of them had histories and m.o.'s that ranged from embarrassingly mercenary to utterly fraudulent. Unfortunately, many in attendance at this wealth seminar committed to services, other seminars, purchases of books and coaching materials that would more or less reveal themselves later to be worthless.

One such guest speaker at this Richmond event was Mr. Jason Rodriguez of Elite Mentoring...a dynamic, charismatic, streetwise, Orlando-based real estate professional who spoke very convincingly on the subject of investing, and his history of coaching budding real estate investors into great success and wealth.  His initial spread of products and services on display seemed impressive, and his forthcoming coaching events and services were compelling.  Like many others at this event, I was desperately in need of a successful, lucrative new enterprise that would hopefully turn my embarrassing financial circumstances around.  I was very turned off by the more overtly mercenary approach that some of the other real estate investing experts maintained at this event, and Mr. Rodriguez's "street smart" sensibility was especially distinct and appealing in this arena.  Thus, while not committing to any five-figure coaching package just yet, I did, however, commit to a three-day investing seminar scheduled for about a month later in Orlando, FL.  The cost was $1500, which I was able to split-pay between check and credit, and seemed a lower risk than some of the commitments being proposed by others at this event. 

Excited about my forthcoming professional chapter and, at that time, believing Mr. Rodriguez to be authentic, I quickly got busy reviewing the materials that were being sent to me by Jason’s company in advance of the Orlando event I had enrolled for.  I also continued to research Mr. Rodriguez in general for any pearls regarding past results and/or professional history.  However, I was rather suspicious of the fact that his website, which is supposedly in promotion of a man whose skills and services makes millionaires, featured several embarrassing typos and seemed rather remedial.  Beyond pictures of lush properties and other pictures of Jason sitting on a Mercedes with a thumbs-up slickster type of pose, this really looked a bit underwhelming.  (The "Toney Robins of real estate."  Um..."Tony" has no e, and that's two b's in Robbins, thank you.)  Furthermore, I already noted a couple of rip-off report listings that referenced him as a con-artist who offered $25,000 coaching at his seminars, and was infamous for not delivering and/or being unavailable after having taken peoples' money.  Additionally, his BBB profile later revealed itself as having an F rating...which was not exactly encouraging given that this was the same company that was going to coach me to “great success and wealth.”  Even YouTube videos featuring Jason conducting real estate challenges had been bombed with comments accusing him of being a scam artist who takes the money and runs.

Now rather concerned, I contacted my Richmond friend who put together the local wealth seminar that I was originally introduced to Jason Rodriguez at, essentially saying, “Um…I’m seeing some red flags here.  Seems he’s got some complaints and a bad BBB rating.  Did you know about this or even check this at all before bringing him to Richmond and/or recommending him to all of your friends?”  My friend responded, “Wow, I had no idea.  That is strange.  But really, due to the circumstances that people are often in when seeking out such services, they are probably just angry and resentful about not getting the results that they wanted.  My other Richmond real estate investment contacts have indeed dealt with him legitimately, and can vouch for his authenticity.  Please don’t worry.”  I took my well-meaning friend at his word, and carried on in preparation for the Orlando event.

Jason’s administrative assistant, Kim, was a fairly good communicator leading up to the event.  And a webinar that all of us enrolled for this forthcoming event attended seemed to showcase Jason speaking with conviction and expertise about the profession.  However, another red flag arose when it was announced that the Orlando seminar was now no longer going to be at the airport hotel, but was going to be at Jason’s house.  The reason given by Kim is that this was going to be better, more productive and intimate, “more like a mastermind group.”  Be that as it may, this was frustrating in that I now had to arrange for a rental car and search for lodging elsewhere other than the airport hotel, both of which proved to be unexpectedly costly.

When finally travelling to Orlando the following month and arriving at “Jason’s house,” it was indeed a nice house…though it sure was strange to me that, in May, the lawn was replete with Valentine’s Day decorations that said “Be mine” and the like.  (I suppose we were too busy making everyone rich to take down three-month old decorations.)  Also strange was the fact that there was a lock box on this house’s back porch (of “JASON’S house”) and that, while traditionally furnished like a high-end Floridian subdivision home might be…it was still peculiar that several areas of the house seemed sparse and barely lived-in, recently packed/unpacked, and uninhabited.  (Again, if this guy was the “mack daddy of real estate” and “so wealth conscious,” I was certainly expecting more in the way of accommodations, furnishings, and a thoroughfare of business activity.)

Earlier in the seminar, Jason and Kim had us sign an agreement that declared we would “not speak of anything that happened at the seminar outside of the seminar.”  Major red flag.  (Really?  But, aren’t I supposed to go off and tell all of my friends what a great coach you are, and how rich you’re going to make us?) 

As this three-day seminar commenced…to be fair, Jason did speak aplenty about valuable things.  Sure, he did.  If anything, he seemed to have essentially compiled the best or most compelling teachings and/or presentations from other legitimate real estate coaches and packaged them as his own.  Not completely worthless.  At least there was a lot of information there.  And again, while I was now out $1500 and the days off of work and travel time/expense…at least it was all recoverable, and was like getting the “greatest hits” of other true investing pros.  Certain bits like a jaunt over to a nearby house or two in the same subdivision to do a mock home inspection were also somewhat enlightening.

However, the sad truth was revealing itself early on in this journey that Jason was hardly the “veteran real estate millionaire-making coach” that he had been pawning himself off as all the while.  Jason couldn’t get his facts straight about his circumstances:  his professional history with his partners/investors;  his personal circumstances such as why he was in this (obviously makeshift) house (that clearly wasn’t his);  why he showed up to at his home one day in a black Mercedes and another day in a silver Mercedes; why this room in the house was empty;  why his office was in the smallest bedroom in the house and so many of his related materials and supplies were still in boxes; what role Kim played in all of the above;  very successful past deals, and very successful deals in progress; etc.   He would reference one anecdote about his past, circumstances or conditions, and then contradict it later.

And while touring the house and other workspace areas…sure, he had piles and handfuls of literature and paperwork related to real estate lying around.  Yes, there were mailers and postcards and the like.  However, I still found it odd that the supposed workspace where this “business” was being conducted had a dry-wipe board whose contents seemed freshly written in one sweep.  No visible past erasures or different bouts of writing or any corrections to speak of.  I also couldn’t help but notice that the addresses on some of these stacks of marketing material varied, suggesting that Jason and his supposed partners had multiple addresses in the past…with Kim unable to answer as to why there were so many. 

I also found it amusing that the bulk of the “class/lecture time” of this seminar took place in a common area of the second floor of Jason’s “phat pad,” and had provided for us plastic folding chairs from Costco that still had the tags on them (which just reeked of, “I’m going to return these for a full refund as soon as you all leave.”).

On a neutral point, Jason would return to topics that were clearly inspired by the more spiritually-inclined approach to prosperity.  Focus on the details of the lifestyle we want to live; what our house is going to look like when we’re successful and have everything we want just how we want it and can afford that jumbo loan it would take to buy it; what kind of sleek car we want to drive and what it will feel like to get behind the wheel of that thing when we have the down payment money to finance it…you get the idea.  Again, I won’t write these bits off as utterly worthless.  Visualizations and detail-rich lists and visions of desires can be helpful…but I also felt like we could have obtained this sort of thing anywhere, and given Jason’s wavering credibility at this point in the seminar, it admittedly felt like a substitute for the more practical expertise we should have been gleaning from him here.  I also resented the fact that Jason’s projection of goals for us were rife with mentions of mortgages and car payments.  He seemed to overlook the fact that so many of us at this seminar were more than likely hopelessly in debt, and had a desire to achieve financial solvency…not to get “hood rich” by a thread and finance/mortgage ourselves to ruin just to finally have that “phat pad” or “sweet ride” in our visualizations.  Also, Jason gave us the imminent gift of taking a sneak peak at his vision board – something that he “usually doesn’t share with anyone, but will do so just for us” – which was nothing but a desktop-sized image file of pretty houses, cars, vacations, and money.  (Is this really “exclusive info?”  Hmmm…)

To compound all of the above, I couldn’t help but smell a rat about the authenticity of he and Kim’s “real estate chatter” during break time moments when those in attendance were scattered.  Lots of talk of “deals” and/or the need to “drum up some deals,” etc.  It also became clear to me that several of the people present at this seminar (which had a total head count of maybe 10 to 12) had not paid to attend, but were invited by Jason personally and were either friends/acquaintances, or past clients.  (They weren’t very subtle, as most people who travel so far and pay $1500 or however much for a seminar meant to change their desperate financial circumstances…don’t usually get up and leave mid-teaching, skip a day, and maintain such non-committal behavior.)

Additionally, the common thread of all of these teachings was the availability of Jason’s $25,000 intense personalized coaching package that was presumably unlike anything we would have ever encountered in terms of the net benefits we would reap for committing.  This was clearly the intention of this otherwise modestly-priced seminar (which many present hadn’t even paid for)…was to sell us on this five-figure coaching package.  I was grateful that, despite the endless pitches he made for it, and how it was critical to this success we had since visualized for ourselves, I still maintained my boundaries and was content to just peel from this hodgepodge of fraudulence from Jason and truths he had stolen from other great coaches in our existing material.  There was plenty there that I could move forward with…without committing on the spot to something that was not tried and true in my eyes, and for which I had already read the smattering of rip-off reports about prior to my attendance here.  The dude was shady…and, given the already glaring number of inconsistencies and suspicious anecdotes that had been shared or witnessed throughout these few days, the $1500 I paid for this present seminar was all he was going to get from me.

Sadly enough though, others present at the seminar did indeed drink the kool aid, and seemed to like it enough to commit to further coaching from Jason.  I couldn’t help but want to be like those old 1950’s cartoons in which a terse voice in the next room would cry out, “YOU’LL BE SOOOOOORRY!”  An especially humble, starry-eyed couple in their mid/late 50’s, who also came from Richmond, VA to attend this seminar, bought it hook, line and sinker.  Despite their desperate circumstances, it seems they were in Jason’s “office” by the very end committing to his intense, $25,000 coaching program. 

To this day, I have since had to avoid this couple in Richmond circles, merely because their naïve, clingy efforts to reach out to me after this seminar seemed fraught with the same kind of “marketing 101” “stay in touch” and “let’s do lunch” swagger.  But all the worse, I can see based on various social media activity that this couple, despite announcing it, never got off the ground with any real estate endeavors or investment projects…whatsoever.  Though I’m sure Jason collected his full fee (and then disappeared), this couple surely remains another set of victims like those already having reported on rip-off warning sites.  They, like so many others, have since seemed mired in multi-level marketing projects and other endeavors that have doubtfully netted any return.  

All the sadder, my Richmond contact who put together the wealth seminar that myself and others were first introduced to Jason at, and who swore by his own experience with other Richmond real estate investing types that could vouch for Jason’s legitimacy…is pitifully knee-deep in infamous multi-level marketing projects and sales pitches (Organo Gold coffee, Costa Rican real estate, NValeo, and so forth), and furthermore, is no longer associated with those Richmond real estate professionals who then insisted Jason was authentic.  I still have no idea if this Richmond friend received any benefit from my having enrolled in Jason’s seminar, and if he did, it couldn’t have been much.  I still feel in my heart of hearts that my friend, this initial point of contact we all had for Jason, meant well and probably took Jason and all others involved at their word, and I hope that he himself isn’t being taken advantage of by similar fraudulent folks.  However, one cannot dismiss the fact that, had my friend done actually done his online research about Jason and looked into these other channels of information prior, he and all others that were directed to Jason would have likely been saved a lot of potential grief and disappointment.

From what I can see, it seems that Jason the “real estate magnate” has since moved to New Jersey, and is about as loved there as he was in Orlando…as the rip-off reports keep coming. 

Word to all…PLEASE DO YOUR RESEARCH.  Check rip-off sites such as this.  Check the Better Business Bureau site.  Check for actual references and testimonials.  Note patterns of inconsistencies in a company’s P.R. content and, if need be, challenge them on it.  Note whether they seem more interested in taking photos of themselves winning faux awards and/or sitting on top of expensive cars than they are in managing the content of their business.  You have a right to ensure that the investment you’re about to make is legitimate.  Scam artists like Jason talking a big game with no actual tangible results or references to speak of (that can be verified, anyway) prey upon the insecurities and desperation of those that are hopelessly mired in circumstances.  In this time of economic stringency and scarcity…we don’t need to enable charlatans like this one bit more. 

Final recommendation:  Adam Grant’s book “Give and Take: a Revolutionary Approach to Success” is an excellent resource for spotting takers like Jason a mile away.