Avoiding Real Estate and Investment Scams

Investment scams lure you in with promises of teaching you how to make a lot of money quickly, easily, and with low risk — usually by investing in the financial or real estate markets. Sometimes starting with a free seminar, the scammers later will charge you a hefty fee for their “proven” investment tricks. But the real tricks are the lies they tell you.

Real Estate Investment Seminar Scams
In-person and online seminars about how to invest in real estate often promote “risk-free” training or business coaching systems. They may lure you in with big promises or guarantees of financial freedom, saying they’ll teach you how to make lots of money. But many real estate investment seminars are scams.

What to watch out for
The promotional materials and sales pitches used for real estate investment seminars often make over-the-top claims:

• Scammers say you can earn big money fast, regardless of your experience or training. That’s not true.
• Scammers promise their deal is a “sure thing” that will give you security for years to come. It won’t.
• Scammers say you’ll rake in money by working part-time or at home. Most people don’t.
• Scammers promise you’ll be coached to success each step of the way. There’s often little coaching, and no success.
• Scammers claim the program worked for other participants — including the organizers. While it might have for a few people, most people never make their investment back.

Don’t be convinced by ads with success stories of people saying how much money they made with little time, effort, and risk, or ads that feature celebrities praising the program. Those kinds of claims aren’t reliable and don’t mean the program works. Real estate investment scams often use fake testimonials and pay people to endorse their programs.

What to know
For most people who invest in these real estate investment seminars — some of which cost thousands of dollars to buy into — the pay-off doesn’t match the promise. In fact, most people never get back the money they invested.

For more information on other investment scams and where to report them, visit:
consumer.ftc.gov/articles/real-estate-and-investment-scams