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RE Expert, The Real Estate Advocate, Lead Generation Services

By
Real Estate Agent with The Nichols/Ersery Home Team, RE/MAX Heartland

So, I was about to tee off late yesterday afternoon and my cell phone rings.

My foursome turns to me with very disapproving looks... they have been here before.  They know it is most likely a client and I'm going to be on the phone for the next three holes.

NOPE, not this time. 

This time it was Dan Brown from RE Expert and he wants to know if I would like to receive some referrals from his boss, Jeff Guthrie.  According to Dan, Jeff has several people that need to buy in Independence in the near future. I say sure, let me give you my fax number and e-mail address so you can send me the info.  WOAH... not so fast.  The boss has to talk to me and make sure that I am the caliber of agent they are looking for.  Uh, OK.  Now Dan says I have to be on a conference call in 30 minutes.  Now my foursome is really giving me the evil eye.  So I let Dan know I am busy and just cannot be on that call. 

Fast forward to this morning and NO, I did not have a good round... 102  yikes!

My buddy Dan Brown from RE Expert calls me and says he has some great news. I am soooo lucky that not a single person in my region was "qualified" to receive these wonderful referrals... oh, and can Imake it on a conference call with Jeff today at noon. Sure, there are going to be a few others from my region on the call but they are really excited about talking to me because of my experience and past success. So, I agree to make the call.

I tell me business partner about my call and he laughs and tells me he got the same call from Dan.

So we both decide to listen in... and the sales pitch is AMAZING.  They are promising me that I will get 5-10-15 even 30 new deals a MONTH!  They have me looking at these really amazing websites and promising me that I will get all of this and there are no fees... just pay the 20% referral fees on all the deals I am going to be blessed with.

Then he tells me we have to grow our e-mail database and the way we do this is to send e-mails to everyone we know and then tell them that we will place their name in a drawing for $5000.00. 1 entry for each valid e-mail.  LOL... he actually implies that we never have to give away the $$$$.  Now he has my attention as he is indirectly telling me to lie and cheat my friends and past clients.

Now he is really SELLING me on these amazing websites.  There are tons of really slick pages and he claims that AOL wants him to be the exclusive referral agent for the 40 million aol users.  And I am going be RICH beyond my wildest dreams... and he is going to crush House Values and these BAD lead generation services.

Uh, oh... now there is a cost, but wait, they are going to give me a loan approved buyer to help me pay the fee... one payment of $3490.00 or two payments of $1900.00... what happened to FREE and only pay a small 20% referral fee?

WOW... look... Don't call me with a lie, then bait and switch me and try to get me to TRUST you and send you 4k of my hard earned money.

If you get the call from my good buddy Dan or one of his partners, do yourself a favor and just hang-up!

 

They claim to have 1200 agents in their "network" already.  That is more than $4 million dollars they have already taken from agents!

Steve Hoffacker
Steve Hoffacker LLC - West Palm Beach, FL
Certified Aging In Place Specialist-Instructor

David,

You're a lot more patient than I am for this nonsense. I would have hung up as soon as he wanted to give me referrals because as precious as they are, they don't come for free from an unsolicited source.

Steve

Sep 11, 2008 06:44 AM
Ron Tarvin
Residential, Investment properties, rehab projects, property management, luxury homes, new construction! - Katy, TX
Broker, Katy, Houston, Cypress 77450,77494,77095

I can't stand these companies that try to market themselves as REFERRAL companies and yet are not doing referrals in the industry norm.

Anyone in the industry knows " here is a referral and when you close it, 20 or 25% back to the referrer".

If you actually bring that up to any of them claiming to be referral companies, you get a whole nother song and dance about how agents can't all convert and they can't "waste" these great leads on people who can't close.  Wait,  didn't you already tell me how qualified I was to work with these leads?!  

HAHAHA!

Sep 11, 2008 06:45 AM
David Nichols
The Nichols/Ersery Home Team, RE/MAX Heartland - Lee's Summit, MO
Leenulls Summit Real Estate

Steve, i am really not that patient, just ask my wife!

Ron, it was all very comical but they do start out with, you pay us nothing until you close the deal and then we only want 20%.  I guess the old saying holds true... if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

 

Sep 11, 2008 06:57 AM
Toni M. Rose
Prudential C. Dan Joyner Realtors - Easley, SC
Easley SC Real Estate

David ,me too! I got that same call about 3 weeks ago. I was busy at the moment and told them so and that it was not a good time for me . ( they asked) The3y wanted to know if I could be on a conferrence call later that day. I told them no, but they could try me back later. I haven't heard back from them ( so glad now that I have heard this) but makes me wonder if some other agent in my town may have fallen for it.

Thank you David for this post, it'll save alot of agents alot of cell minutes and time.....Click.

Sep 11, 2008 07:07 AM
David Nichols
The Nichols/Ersery Home Team, RE/MAX Heartland - Lee's Summit, MO
Leenulls Summit Real Estate

Toni,

I hope it saves a few people from waisting an hour of their lives!

Sep 11, 2008 07:22 AM
Marc Baysek
Iron Horse Properties, LLC - Rockingham, NC
Iron Horse Properties

David, thanks for the heads up.  I will be especially mad if I get that call on the golf course!!

Sep 11, 2008 07:29 AM
David Nichols
The Nichols/Ersery Home Team, RE/MAX Heartland - Lee's Summit, MO
Leenulls Summit Real Estate

At least I have someone to blame for my golf score!

Sep 11, 2008 07:34 AM
Anonymous
Lori Day

Hi -

I got this call too.  Having been burned in the past by "referral" sources - I immediately told them I don't pay for leads, thank you very much and hung up.  There are too many scammer companies out there trying to screw agents - it's INSANE.  Thanks so much for the details on their scam... I will be sure to pass this along to other agents. WOW I hope nobody really falls for this nonsense.

 

Also - you should forward your calls to your partner when you're on the golf course!  There are too many distractions as it is!  Personally I turn my phone off!  ;)

Sep 11, 2008 10:12 AM
#8
Bart Whitmore
Keller Williams- Louisville - Louisville, KY
Real Estate Agent

I too received the same call, I just told them no and hung up.

Sep 11, 2008 12:39 PM
David Nichols
The Nichols/Ersery Home Team, RE/MAX Heartland - Lee's Summit, MO
Leenulls Summit Real Estate

Lori,

My regular foursome agrees with you that I should forward my calls!

The really scary part about these people is that they seem to have somehow convinced 1200 agents to pay them!

Sep 12, 2008 03:28 AM
Patty Luther
RE/MAX Rock-n-Roll Realty - Lewiston, ID
Lewiston ID Real Estate, Idaho-Washington

on July 15th, when my husband & I decided to join the Real Estate Advocate, wondering if it was a scam....and weighing out the chances of loosing the $3490...we hoped not to be scammed, but we also said to each other ...the good that could come from this could be... we will meet and converse with REALTORS all over the United States and we should get a couple of REFERRALS from this...  :-)

Like I said in my original post...we opened a new company and I have been so busy with that...I have not had time to call to complain to the Real Estate Advocate...and from the sounds of all of the other posts...it is not going to do me any good anyway... WE all just gotta Move on... I suppose we Need to kiss that $3490 right in the ASS and  of course I think we should complain to get these people in trouble if it is truly a SCAM... we pay National Dues  and I am sure the National Association of Realtors would want to know about this if it is truly a SCAM. File a complaint to the BBB and other entities...  but mostly we all need to REMEMBER WHY we joined the Real Estate Advoacate in the first place... ALL of us that joined the RE Advocate... WE joined it for the referrals .... 

Let's HOPE it is not a SCAM...hoping for everyone that it works... My original POST was removed today because of too many lies etc...Is all any of us wants is the TRUTH...and the SERVICE...see below... it seems my BLOG was getting too many mean, bad comments...

There's a new comment on the blog entry The Real Estate Advocate

Comment by Bob Stewart - ActiveRain:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

There are numerous slanderous comments being left here by too many anonymous people. We are removing this post.    Please follow this link to respond: http://activerain.com/blogsview/595283/The-Real-Estate-Advocate

about BOB below.

Name: Bob Stewart - ActiveRain
Company: ActiveRain

Email: Contact Bob Stewart - ActiveRain
Website URL: http://activerain.com

Office Phone: (425) 216-2754
Cell Phone: (425) 753-7340
Description: In charge of ActiveRain community support. I'm the link between ActiveRain and our great members. Are you having an issue? Get a hold of me, hopefully I can work it out for you.
 
 

Picture of Real Estate - Other: Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain)
49113 Points

What about Bob??

Does surfing ActiveRain all day sound like a job you would like? Well I have it. I have been entrusted with the position of "Community Builder" by the founders of ActiveRain. I took this role on after the departure of our last distinguished community builder. When I first came on board with ActiveRain formally, it was to head our advertising team. That lasted all of one week. 

When the makeup of our team changed, we needed someone to step in that had a unique understanding of the dynamics that are ActiveRain. The person most qualified to do that was me (I guess). So now I get to come to work with a whistle and a "smite" button. The whistle is to make sure everyone is playing nice, the "smite" button is in case they aren't. (I have yet to get to use it unless someone asks to have their profile deleted). I must admit, I had a little bit of an idea of the underbelly of ActiveRain, but my eyes are now wide open to it. I mean underbelly in the nicest possible manner.   I love my job!!!

Areas of Expertise Sorting out the differences that are bound to arise when you put over 100,000 Real Estate related professionals in one place.

Oct 08, 2008 04:46 PM
Patty Luther
RE/MAX Rock-n-Roll Realty - Lewiston, ID
Lewiston ID Real Estate, Idaho-Washington

I was quite surprised ActiveRain completely removed the BLOG it all began with this BLOG I just did on Realtor.Com (see link below) ... and look what it has turned into...I did get a CALL from Leanne yesterday from the Real Estate Advocate,  just before ActiveRain deleted my blog...she asked me to take the BLOG off that had all of the investors names, numbers, eMails, addresses...I told her I would ... Leanne & I visited for awhile... she said she HAD never wrote a response on my BLOG on ActiveRain ... so if you were reading my original Blog and the comments on ActiveRain you could see many anonymous entries that were MEAN and appeared to be from disgruntled employees & Jeff Guthrie himself or atleaset someone who was trying to PORTRAY this ... it was QUITE and Active issue ... so then about ½ hour later I went in ActiveRain to remove what Leanne asked me to remove and IT was gone ... all of it... the WHOLE BLOG ... I am just glad I saved all of the eMails pertaining to the BLOG, in a file in my eMail filing cabinet ... so I still have most of the information... I did not save some of the MEAN  comments... but the ones that had good information about this REexpert Issue...  And as you can see from this Blog I did on Realtor.com  on October 6th... this is my original BLOG  I did do on ActiveRain... It just asked a innocent Question and I had only a few replys on it until  September...and then WOW... there have been NO comments on this Realtor.com BLOG though... not quite as Active place as ActiveRain is...

 Blog on Realtor.Com   http://pattyluther.featuredblog.com/

Patty Luther Business Card

Oct 09, 2008 07:42 AM
Anonymous
WARNING

Jeff is back to his old tricks again. He has been charging "REexperts" $500.00 per month. The ones being charged need to dispute those charges with their Credit Card Companies. Jeff has also managed to CON Todd Haigh out of another $40,000.00. $20,000.00 for the video magazine and $20,000.00 for Jeff's pockets. The lies continue, if you call Jeff and ask him for an explanation he will tell you the company is moving forward, but in reality the only thing growing is Jeff's pockets with all the money he took out of the company. Jeff has not paid any of his ex-employees. Jeff has even been in contact with several companies to try to get them to hire him as a "Consultant". The only thing Jeff wants to do is "CON" those companies out of money.

Dec 23, 2008 08:26 AM
#13