Equity Leadership Group ripoff pyramid scheme Cedar Rapids Iowa

I'm just going to copy text from an email to my friend. You can pick out my points from our experience here.

I went to that seminar with Mic last night. It was just like Trek and I swear to GOD it was all planned out and scripted. Even Mickey was saying stuff that I know they all planned out ahead of time. Did they pull up numbers on a financial calculator and act real surprised when talking about how much you can earn diverting money from your mortgage to an IRA? And then act like the lady never used the calculator before or did the calculation?

It was so cheesy and such a hard sell to join their company. Even worse is they had 11 people all together in this room. I found out within five minutes that only 3 of us were not actually employees. That means they filled 8 seats with their own employees! I mean come on that is a red flag as employees don't usually go to introduction seminars for compaies they already work for.

Then they presented this whole pyramid scheme about how you can work for them and you can work up to these different levels and get people working under you to make more money. Sounds like Trek to me. I can make $45,000/month…yeah right.

What was worse is I decided before going to the seminar that I was not going to ask any questions. Reason being…I already made up my mind that I didn't want to get involved and if I did ask questions that would just give them an opportunity to try to sell me and rebute what I know are facts. So I didn't ask anything and the husband and wife couple that were there as well didn't ask anything.

So this Mr. Todd guy says the presentation is over and asks if we have questions. Of course none of us did so he knew he was screwed. So after saying he's done he sits down and starts preaching again about the company and what a great opportunity it is. After that this guy says he was an engineer making tons of money and he went to this seminar in Colorado Springs and would never go back to engineering after that. Another lady said she was in medical supply industry and would not go back. Your not going to quit engineer to sell people on mortgages…come on! It was such a joke and I cannot believe Mickey is involved in this after he knew the bad luck we had with Trek.

It's funny cause they say they can put you into this 1% interest prefered mortgage. If they could do that everyone and their brother would be doing it. I mean financial planning is good and I agree you need to think about 401K and IRA's but you can't rob from Peter to give to Paul and that is what Mickey is doing by diverting money from his mortgage to go to a retirement account.

Furthermore I have a amortization schedule and I amortized it out. If you took a $93,000 mortgage at 6.5% and dropped the rate to 1% you would be diverting $298.49 to your IRA rather than the mortgage. Sound good right? Well here is where it gets sticky.

Your traditional 30 year fixed rate would have you pay $115,057.88 in interest. Yes $115,057.88 is just interest you will pay in 30 years. Now if you drop that rate down to 1% and keep all the original terms you will pay $324,016.52 in interest…and you know what it won't stop there.

Reason it won't stop is because according to the amortization schedule your first payment will not pay any principal and it won't even pay all the interest on the first payment. So if your not paying the principal and your not paying all the interest all your are doing is carry your balance and adding the extra unpaid interest.

The result is this…your mortgage doesn't pay down…it actually goes up cause your not paying anything. At no point in Mickey's mortgage will he ever pay ahead. In fact if he keeps it up he will owe $309.938.45 on his $93,000 home after paying on it for 30 years!! Yes I repeat if Mickey keeps it up and stays in his house for 30 years…when 2035 arives Mickey will still owe at least $309.938.45. And you know what is funny? Mickey when to an ARM (Adjustable Rate Mortgage) so that means you can't even count on the 1% rate as it is adjustable and will go up. So Mickey will have left his fixed rate to go to an ARM and I bet in 5 to 10 years with the ARM he will be paying 3 to 4 times as much in interest.

So take that final $309,938.45 number and add about $150,000 to $200,000 in interest and you can see where Mickey will end up. That is friggin nuts!!

Try explaining this to Mickey though and it's like hitting a brick wall. He is brainwashed and just too far over the rainbow to get back.

Chris
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
U.S.A.