Landmark Education will not refund your money, deceptive, coercive Ripoff Chicago Illinois

I attended the Landmark Forum, the advanced course and then I signed up for the Self Expression and Leadership course. After one year of being involved with Landmark I can finally admit that I was brainwashed.

I am not saying that all of what they teach is rubbish. They have a lot of good theories but they are all stolen from others which they do not give credit to.

I will make this complaint short as there are numerous others on the internet that go into great detail.

The points that really pushed my limits are:

1. They keep pushing you to keep calling friends and family and to tell them how wonderful this experience is and how great your life is as a consequence. If you don't do it they tell you that you are not doing your homework, or not being a person of integrity. Excuse me!!! But if after the first or second day of the training (which lasts all day and into the evening) I do not feel like calling people up at midnight and tell them how wonderful this has been for me. How can one know after such a short time how good this really is. Well I did not call anybody Because I did not have any "breakthroughs" or "transformations", as they call them, but their response is that "you are not getting it", and "you are not playing the game of the landmark forum".

2. They will not give your money back. I attended the Self Expression and Leadership course (SELP) for two sessions and then decided that it was not for me. They do say at the beginning of the first day that if anybody wants to leave now they will get their money back. I stayed because I was curious and I was really pressured during the previous courses to keep taking other courses. I mean CONSTANTLY pressured. It seemed like I paid for a three day course, and like a third of that time was spent convincing us to take other courses and telling us how great Landmark Education is. Sadly I believed it. OK, so I missed the chance to get my money back by staying (for about 5% of the three month course), but what kind of service or product does not have a money back guarantee, or at least a partial refund.

3. Volunteers. Yes a for profit organization that in my opinion is like 90% volunteers.

Landmark Education is just an organization to take your money. They are basically selling religion to the masses, except that at church you have a choice to contribute money. They will never admit to this, but in my opinion it is a religion, or better yet a cult. At Landmark every little event costs money, and you are pushed to attend everthing and volunteer.

I was pushed to do this by a relative. I wanted to help my troubled relative and so by attending I thought that I would help. My relative did not get better and is even more depressed now than before Landmark.

Please do some research before joining this cult. Some people can be better off because of it but you can get the same info from reading religious, philosophical and psychological material.

There is tons more to tell, so ask me if you want to know.

Love, respect, and take care

Mark
Crystal Lake, Illinois
U.S.A.