Container Man
Man oh man,
When is Lufos going to get jailed or banned for his blantant advertising of his "great container homes" deal? He's at it again, posting remarks in the comment section of various articles about his container plan.
Regardless of the issue, which was already hotly debated here, of whether or not it's scam, IT IS advertising, and anyone else would have been warned, jailed, warned and banned by now.
So why not him?
Likeable, colorful tales or not, he needs to be put right on this.
Roger
Raj,
There is no question as to whether Lucius was advertising as evidenced by the people who sent him money, I don't even want to hear this was not his objective when posting his article and his follow up posts.
Scam or not set aside, yes we don't tolerate advertising from others so why allow him to. Here again I was asked if he should be banned. At the time I was asked, I felt it was more important to get an issue resovled and by leaving him on board I felt this would help expedite the process. Someone should email Lucius and tell him he can advertise his containers on the Deals in Progress forum, this would be a deal in progress no matter who gets hurt.
I see on this forum they allow, pm me, email me, see my profile, so this will breed people like Lucius, how do we justify banning him, when the other hustlers will be allowed to advertise. I don't want to hear any of this is a righteous forum BS, this forum is self serving and built for hustling.
I receive many posts from members who have been hustled, here is one of my current ones. This is not a student of mine by the way.
Mr Locke,
I'm emailing you because part of my problem involves a TCI member and I don't want to make things worse by posting publicly. I'll let you know the member if you want to kow, but I'm not here to tattle.
I am an investor trying to get out of rentals and move toward rehab and resale. I have/had three properties in XXXXXX that I could not sell. I advertised them here on TCI and a buyer came to me offering to buy them "Subject to".
I had never heard of this method and after I spoke to him I was skeptical, but I read all of his posts on the website and he came off as a seasoned investor so I trusted this method of selling and took it. In exchange for the deeds for the properties he is to collect the rent and make the payments.
When we made the deal, three of four units were rented. His management company went out at 7:00 pm several nights before we signed any agreement, introduced themselves to my tenants and informed them that the company would now be collecting their rent.
Since I had not contacted my tenants about this it spooked them and then have now been evicted by the buyer. Another tennat was tragically killed a week after we signed the agreement. So now he has 3 vacant properties.
He hs not been making payments. He was deliquent the first month. I have recieved calls from collection departments and have had derogarory remarks on these accounts for the first time EVER. I never missed a payment. I called the buyer to ask him why, and he chastised me for calling him, he said he would deal with it and I took his word for it.
A week later the same problem arose, and he had a story about his staff that didn't mail the checks and he needed the account info from me again so he could do a check by phone. In July he finally, on the 28th paid 2 of the 3 mortgages.
It is now the middle of August. I just recieved another call from one of the lenders saying they haven't recieved July or August yet. I have checked the other accounts and they are not yet paid either.
My last converstaion with the buyer was last week via email. He has told me that he does not like to get calls and I am in violation of the agreement. He has let these properties get overgrown and rundown in the last 2 months. He told me if I want them back I can havbe them, but honestly Mr. Locke, I do not want them back, and I don't have the money to repair the damage and/or recover the past due payments. I want him to do what he agreed to.
Is this a scam? Have I been duped? What is my recourse? I don't want to profit, I just want out with my credit intact. Since that is now a nonissue, I just want out without a foreclosure. Can you shed any light on this? If this is a scam, how can I stop this guy from doing it to someone else?
Thank you,
I do what I can for these members, by putting the word out to my students who have helped many with these type of problems.
$Cash$
[addsig]
Mark,
"1) Do you plan on doing anything to help Eric? If not do you mind if i
contact him and see if I can render assistance?"
I will call Erik and talk with him about your request, then let you know.
"2) Do you have any specific sugestions for how to restructure the "Deals"
forum or is your only suggestion a complete ban? And how does that ban
really stop hustling? It didn't prevent Eric from being hustled and it
hasn't prevented Lucius from hustling. All it has done is make it very
difficult for legit people who want to try to use the resources of TCI to
put transactions together to do so."
There will always be those that try to hustle and advertise on the boards, however "Deals" is an open invitation for Advertising and Hustling.
1. THE ADVERTISED TRANSACTION MUST BE REAL AND SPECIFIC.
Setting aside for the moment you are saying it is OK to advertise maybe you can explain to me how your are going to determine that the transaction is real and specific?
2. THE ADVERTISED TRANSACTION MUST INVOLVE A CERTAIN TYPE OF PROPERTY.
Not only once do you say advertise here, you re-enforce that you are looking or posters to advertise.
4. YOU MUST BE A PRINCIPAL IN THE ADVERTISED TRANSACTION.
How do you plan to check and see if the poster is a principal in the "Advertised" transaction?
"Protecting yourself from phony deals and people is still your responsibility, but the hope is that this Forum may help people hone their due diligence skills and also avoid scams. This Forum is very much an experiment."
Then you realize that this disclaimer should be written as a quasi cover your a$$ statement, the part about honing their skills and due diligence makes no sense at all. How does a new person avoid scams when you cannot judge the difference between a hustler and scam artist.
The article was poorly written, as it lacks what the "mission" or "purpose" of what this forum is all about. The purpose of any forum should be to help TCI grow by integrating aspects to accomplish this.
An example would be the Commercial Lenders program that is upcoming, why not make a forum that would direct the people who would post in the "Deals" forum that if the their deal is legitimate, then TCI has a program to help them.
Part of the Moderators job it to stop hustling and advertising from happening, however you can spot the majority of them by watching how they post and certain signs that an experienced Moderator investor picks up on.
"Legit people" to do what advertise and hustle, you certainly are not going to tell me that you know the difference, I think I caught you when you first came on board with a different user name (correct me if I am wrong on this) and many more besides you, so I have some expertise in this matter.
You would have to convince me that this forum was not something you tried to get on many times and was unable to, your past history on TCI verifies this.
You hit it right though it was built for Advertising as your copy well demonstrates.
$Cash$
"astrojunkie" said:
"I have/had three properties in Dayton, OH that I could not sell. I advertised them here on TCI and a buyer came to me offering to buy them 'Subject to'."
Where did astrojunkie advertise his Ohio properties?
astrojunkie advertised his Ohio properties in the TCI "Properties" Section -- NOT the Deals in Progress Forum.
So everybody who advertises their properties in the TCI Properties Section (and there are currently 1,929 properties advertised in the TCI Properties Section) can get "scammed" just like astrojunkie got scammed.
TCI permits advertising of different types, and in fact TCI sells banner and other forms of advertising to all kinds of people and organizations.
People can get scammed on TCI any number of ways:
1. by purchasing products or services advertised on TCI;
2. by paying money to organizations advertised on TCI;
3. by advertising their properties in the Properties Section;
4. by being a TCI member who can be contacted by email or PM by other TCI members
The bottom line is that ANYBODY can get scammed ANYWHERE, ANY TIME unless they exercise prudence and fully investigate the person, property, product, service or organization.
Mark,
By my asking you a question and you responding with another question is not an answer.
$Cash$
I'm sorry, John, what was the question?
Mark,
Never mind I can't type any slower or find smaller words to use.
$Cash$
Okay, CK, you wanted to know why that post was still up. While I can't answer for the other moderators, I can answer for me.
Most of the time, I simply delete any posts requesting mentors, loans, etc. But occassionally (when the poster seems sincere about their interest in REI), I choose to reply to the instead, informing them that it is a very bad idea to post on an open forum for "mentors." You'll see that I did this here.
The reason is simple. By telling the poster this, he can be on guard for anyone that promotes to him their "mentor packages." It also alerts others that read the post of hustlers and scammers, as well as telling them not to post their "I want a mentor" threads.
It's been my experience that doing this occassionally greatly cuts down on the number of the "I need/want" posts, at least in the short term, making my job a little easier.
I'm done now. You two can commence to fighting again. CHARGE!
Roger
Thanks Roger. I found that answer helpful.
For the record Lucius has responded to my suggestion that he post in Deals in Progress. Here is part of a much longer e-mail
Quote: No we saw the light and are not looking for anymore financing. It was much
too small for the amounts that we actualy spent. I have paid out in actual
cash for lots, drawings, engineering and masses of motivating occasins about
$73,000.
Not sure what a "motivating occasion" is but I suspect it is Lucius and a few of his cronies over cocktails.
[ Edited by commercialking on Date 09/13/2004 ]
Mark,
Here is my favorite reply from Lucius about his containers.
"Thanks John, it was not a con if it had been we would have laid it onto someone with really big bucks. I want to stay involved as it does a social correction and at my age this is my last chance.
(I think he mis-spelled social "correction, he had the e's and r's mixed up at his age)
They wanted to give me $800,000. Have me stay in for the next 100 houses then step aside as they did the IPO. I would have been out and as far as low cost housing is concerned it would never happen.
I saw their study Henry Bloom did it and sliped me a copy. I liked their description of me as an old blundering fart who did not understand money. Well part of it was correct."
$800K sounds like it belongs in the "Deals" forum to me, us creative folks can't count that high.
$Cash$
[addsig]
The marketing for containers is all wrong, so this is what I am going to post in the "Deals" forum.
"CREI Cryonic Containers Acres"
CREI Cryonic Containers offers cryonic suspension services and information.
As soon as possible after legal death or you not being able to do a deal, a creative or commercial investor is prepared and cooled to a temperature where physical decay essentially stops, and is then maintained indefinitely in cryostasis.
When and if future anyone writes an investing course that you will be able to follow you we will be awakened so that you can pursue your investing career.
We have a limited number of these cryonic containers as Lucius has captured the market, so apply now before our remaining inventory is gone.
For those interested in buying into this fantastic opportunity, we have refrigerated trucks that contain frozen safes where your money will be stored until we bring you back to life.
Call our special number and give us your address our truck will stop by temporarily freeze you until we take you to CREI Cryonic Containers Acres of course after you have given us your money for safe keeping.
John "The Cryonic One" Locke