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John T. Reed’s views of various real-estate-investment gurus 2

Jim Banks-I do not recommend
Probate speaker. I heard his free come-on speech. I talked to him afterward. He struck me as a first-class jerk---gratuitously hostile and belligerent. I do not recall ever discussing him with anyone who disagreed with that assessment or who valued his probate advice. I do not recommend him. I recommend Gary DiGrazia's probate book instead. Also, there is a chapter on probate in my How to Buy Real Estate for at Least 20% Below Market Value.
A visitor to this Web site sent me the following: "I had found a 6-tape seminar by J.G. Banks entitled "Treasure Hunting Probate Real Estate" for $1.98 in a Sacramento thrift shop and it piqued my interest, particularly when he talks about $20,000 to $40,000 profit per deal. Jim Banks is not a polished speaker and he didn't use a quality tape production company. There were two copies of tape 6 in the package, one of them labeled as tape 2. I don't know why the original purchaser in 1987, at $317.70 (the VISA receipt was still in the package), didn't get it replaced."
Click here for a humorous anecdote about Banks having to remove pages criticizing Robert Allen from Banks' Treasure Hunting book after Banks started appearing at Allen events.
A recent caller said Banks is now charging $6,000 for his seminar. Lord, that's a lot of money! This caller said there were two phone numbers of satisfied customers in Banks' free presentation. My caller called both and found they were both "no longer in service." He asked Banks for the names and phone numbers of other satisfied customers and Banks flatly refused to give him any. If you want names of my satisfied customers, along with cities, states, and, in many cases, e-mail links, see the reader comments listed under my various book titles and my newsletter.
Len Barry-I do not recommend
Yet another flim-flam medicine-show guru selling "Elixir of Real Estate Investment." 98% salesmanship and 2% real estate knowledge, only half of which is valid.
John Beck—I recommend John Beck and his books and Distress Sales Reports; I do not recommend his TV infomercial tax lien products or services
I love John the person, the writer, and the speaker. However, I have received an unacceptable number of complaints and nothing but complaints about Genesis Media Group, Inc. or Family Products, LLC or whoever, the company that sells the Free and Clear program through the infomercial and a mentoring or coaching program in which John trained the mentors, provides material that the mentors and mentorees use, and is on call to to help them. Apparently, employees of Genesis left that company and started Family Home Products. John believes the mentoring program is helpful for some would-be investors who are not self-starters. My opinion on mentoring is that it is an informal service provided for free by knowledgeable friends.
John has always tended to undercharge for his information. I attended a $15 seminar where he gave out about $200 worth of solid info over two hours. But no one has ever told me they thought Genesis or Family Products undercharges. I do not know John’s arrangement with them, but if it’s like his past activities, he is probably getting too little for his services. If John ever started a mentoring service without them, I would probably take another look at mentoring. More likely, in the absence of a company who would market and handle the details, he would simply stop selling how-to information at all.
Here is an item I published in my newsletter, Real Estate Investor’s Monthly in January of 2002:
John Beck’s ‘Free and clear’ infomercial
I had long heard of John Beck’s infomercial for his “Free and clear” course on investing in tax-lien certificates, but I had never seen it—until recently. John is a long-time real-estate investor and guru. He is also a lawyer and a friend of mine. My articles and books have often featured John’s adventures and opinions.
I was channel surfing around 12:15 AM recently when I heard the name “John Beck.” It was freaky. We tend to regard TV as another world. But when they kept saying John Beck and writing his name on the screen, I thought, “Hey, I know him! He’s a real person, not a TV character!”
The infomercial features a young man and woman who finish each other’s breathless sentences about how wonderful John’s course is. They are as energized and enthused as only TV pitchmen can be.
From time to time, the scene changes to some guy interviewing John. But it was not the John I know. He is rumpled, low-key, laid back, thoughtful, slow to speak—sort of an intellectual Jimmy Stewart without the stuttering.
What I saw on TV was what I would expect if you gave him a dress-for-success makeover, made him double-park his car in downtown San Francisco, and had him drink diuretics for three hours without letting him go to the bathroom. He seemed to be sitting on the front of his chair and almost shouting his lines with a tremendous sense of urgency. The guy who interviewed him behaved the same.
Apparently the producers of the infomercial, Genesis Media, have found through focus-group research or something, that the way to market a book on investing in tax-lien certificates is to say over and over how cheap such purchases are—often under $1,000 in the examples in the infomercial—and that those who buy such houses have no mortgage or mortgage payments. I am not sure they ever mentioned the phrase tax-lien certificates. It was cheap, free and clear, cheap, free and clear, cheap, etc.
One bit of John’s influence was apparent. The commercial was honest. John repeatedly held up color photos of houses and stated the price at which they sold via delinquent-property-tax procedures. If John says it, it’s true.
There were testimonials, but they, too, were honest as far as I could tell. For one thing, they claimed far less success than the outlandish nonsense you hear on other real-estate infomercials.
The testimonial givers were not identified, but one was Ron Starr, an investor and guru who has co-authored books with John and who has often been featured in my books and newsletter. Somehow, they made Ron look ten years younger in the infomercial—which I guess is not surprising after they made John look like an investment banker.
The infomercial appeared to have been part John insisting that it be honest and part Genesis insisting that everyone act like carnival barkers. From the emails I have received, the problem arises after you buy the $39.95 course, then start receiving calls from boiler-room salesmen who pressure you into buying far more expensive services.
I pass the complaining emails I get along to John and he seems to win most of them over when he contacts them. I surmise that he is also asking Genesis to behave in such a way that fewer complaints are generated. I have never seen the $39.95 course. I love John; have no use for Genesis.
I was asked to do an infomercial about an exchanging course many years ago. I refused in part because I felt the infomercial format had been used almost universally by sleazeballs. Although it would theoretically be possible to do an honest infomercial, the mere fact that I was using that medium would make me look like a sleazeball.
I said I might do it if I could make it look totally different, but when I described some ways I would want to do that, the producer rejected them out of hand. The only way they would do it was a fake talk show format. The only identification that it was a commercial that they would allow was a fine-print written disclaimer at the beginning and end of the half hour. No way, I said.

Ed Beckley-I do not recommend
Moved to Iowa to be near Mahareshi Yogi transcendental meditation. Shut down by attorney general for not paying refunds. The Wisconsin state Bureau of Consumer Protection published a Guide for Wisconsin TV stations which lists several "Questionable infomercials," among them those of Ed Beckley's Home Business Technologies. See also David Martin's letter.
John Behle (Salt Lake City)
Here is an item I posted on Behle on 4/16/99:
"Behle once tried to rent my mailing list. I refused to let him because I thought the advertising piece he wanted to send was misleading. It was made to look like a newspaper article and had a post-it note on it that looked like it came from a friend. It was signed "John B." I had received the same piece myself previously and called my friend John Beck to ask if he had sent it. That's when I first heard of John Behle."

Behle responded (4/17/99):
“Stabbed! - The latest victim
I had been so thrilled to stay off John T. Reed's hit list. He doesn't have a competing book about paper, so I thought I might be safe. Apparently someone inquired and now his faulty memory and facts have colored me too. It's not a big deal, just not true. I left a message on his voice mail which since it wasn't ‘worshipful’ will probably lead to further attacks. I guess I knew it was just a matter of time. Here's the scoop - I mean *beep*.
I’ve never tried to rent John's list. He has nothing to do with paper and wouldn’t be an interesting list for me anyway. The only list I've ever rented in my life is Creative Real Estate Magazine (a couple times).
I doubt John cares about facts, but the letter/ad he is referring to was developed and marketed by a company named Unicorp or Millionaire Consulting Service. They marketed a consulting service for Bob Allen and Mark Haroldsen.
I sued them and won over the fact that they used their infamous “John B” letter as they called it. Nothing in the letter ever mentioned me or referred to me, yet in a marketing script that we uncovered it mentioned that if they thought it was a friend or relative that had sent it to not disagree with that. If they were upset or enquired (sic) as to who sent it, the marketer was told to say that it came from John Behle in their marketing department. I never had anything to do with their marketing department. For a few months I helped out in doing some training for their consulting staff and handling the most difficult consulting situations.
I sued them because many people did assume the letter came from me. At that time about 100,000 people per month had been reading the magazine articles I wrote for many different publications and my name was the first to come to many people's minds. They mailed out tens of thousands of these ads per week and just about anyone with the name “John B” paid the price. Chuck Abbot, Doug Holmes and Richard Allen that developed the ad said that they chose that name because almost anyone knew a "John B". I sued for $750,000 in damages and because they didn't have a leg to stand on, they settled. I just wanted an apology, the cessation of any use of my name and just to rub Doug's nose in it a little, I received rights to use his mailing list (total junk), the Unicorp mailing list and had him sign a letter to clear up falsehoods that they had spread among their employees. I'm not a real vindictive person, so I didn't mail the letter. I guess I should have. Anybody want a 10 year old 30,000 name mailing list from a consulting service?
Once again, John T. Reed’s facts are messed up. Hopefully he will show his intentions are honorable and clear it up. What do you wanna bet?
JOHN T. REED - I DO NOT RECOMMEND HIS RECOMMENDATIONS
From what I’ve heard, his books are very worthwhile reading, his opinions of others in many cases are flawed.”

My (John T. Reed's) response (4/17/99) to John Behle’s email:
I stand corrected. I was wrong. My apologies to John.

Robert A. Blair, President of National Home Buyers Training Corporation---I do not recommend
I am told they charge thousands of dollars for seminars. See my article on expensive seminars.
Sonny Bloch (deceased)-I do not recommend
Radio and book guru. Sent to prison for income-tax evasion. Died in 1998.
Bill Bowen—Unknown
I recommend that you use my Real Estate B.S. Artist Detection Checklist to evaluate this guru.