Stephanie g rapkin wrote:
The National Foundation for Tax Planning Estate Preservation and Asset Protection is coming to Wisconsin to lecture. The speaker will be Jay Mitton, MBA, JD. After all the hassle others on the list have had with clients getting sucked into these types of scams, does anyone have any suggestions of how to prevent this from happening here? The AG is too busy, the State Bar is ineffective and I am tired of clients coming in after they have heard this garbage and explaining why it is a scam. Stephanie G. Rapkin _____________________________________________________________________ Stephanie: I wish I had an easy answer for you. However, if your AG and State Bar are both unwilling to take any action, I am not sure where that leaves you. In Colorado, we have pretty strong Consumer Fraud and Misrepresentation statutes that are often used by the AG’s office to shut down operations like this, especially if they are not attorneys, or at least to force these folks to leave the state. However, to date, Mr. Minton and Co. have not been graced with that result here in Colorado to my knowledge. Maybe a group of experts from your State Bar Probate Section should pop for the nominal fee it costs just to attend his lectures (they even discount that fee if you prepay) and attend and ask some pointed questions that will expose him and his people for what they really are (be sure to scatter yourselves around the audience and to take a companion along if you can so you will look like the rest of the folks there). For sure, your clients are not going to be happy once they have shelled out over $2,000 for all the package materials that will be offered for sale to them that day (for RLTs, CRTs and Tax Lien Sales) at their “one-time on-site only” discount price of about 75% off of the “usual retail price.” Unfortunately, they will view that offer as a real bargain deal and gladly pay it, so you can guess whose assets and estate are really being protected by all of this, and it is not your clients’. Maybe you can pay the way for one of the AGs consumer fraud division people to attend too so they can see first hand what these people are up to and quickly evaluate if there are sufficient grounds for a prosecution. You’ll have to move fast, though, as these people will be out of your state on a plane back to Utah with over $250,000 of your citizens’ hard earned money in their back pockets (via instant point-of-sale credit card charges) faster than you can say BOO (not a bad fee for about 8 hours of work over the span of two days if you ask me). Good luck, and have fun! Let us all know how it goes. Joe Hodges, Denver, CO |