![]() ![]() ![]() Once out into the real world, however, many students found that Vu's fabled system didn't fit. He also disputes Hara's view that students were hassled if they left the room.Īt the end of three of the seminars, while faith still ran high, Vu urged students to invest yet an additional $50,000 to $65,000 to join the "Elite Inner Circle " where, the lawsuit alleges, they thought they'd be working with Vu directly. Scott Rader of Palm Bay, Fla., says that losing sleep didn't bother him. True believers, however, see it differently. "It's a form of coercive persuasion or brainwashing, " charges Hara's lawyer, Daniel Girard of the San Francisco law firm Lieff, Cabraser &Heimann. Both Hara and Smith left Orlando on cloud nine. In a tape I've seen of graduation day, excited participants extol Vu while confessing to getting only four or six hours of sleep all week. Vu arrives late at night and lectures his students until dawn-so to hear the master, they have to stay up. Vu's criteria, according to the lawsuit: 25 to 50 percent below market value, which you try to secure with a $ 10 deposit. From time to time, students hit the phones to try to make real-estate deals. If you leave to go to the bathroom, Hara says, you're hassled to hurry right back. They all sit for hours through real-estate and motivational lectures, in a chilly room with no breaks for meals. The course itself is a boot camp from hell, according to Hara and other students. be set up with a $500,000 line of credit. "I was told in no uncertain terms that Vu was looking for regional partners among students who took his five-day class. "That's a primary reason I signed up, " says San Diego real-estate agent Kathleen Smith. If students find a good property, Vu says, he'll buy it and split the profit with them 50-50. Why would anyone risk such a sum? The hook, the lawsuit charges, is Vu's promise to be their financial backer. Most classes meet in Orlando, Fla., Vu's home base. Those who raise their hands are taken into a separate room and hard-sold on a five-day class for $15,000 (knocking off $1,000 for a quick sign-up). When people sign up, he asks if anyone has $16,000 cash available, Hara says. The Tom Vu system starts with a free "seminar " that's really just a sales pitch for a $1,500 weekend class. Denying the charge, Vu's lawyer, Richard Wheeler, says Hara probably should have worked at it longer. She tried for two months to apply Vu's system before deciding she'd been misled. Plaintiff Darlene Hara, a California strawberry farmer, put up $44,000 to set herself on the road to riches-almost all the money that she and her husband, Melvin, had. But a class-action lawsuit, filed last month in a federal court in California, claims that Vu deceives his followers. How easy is it to dowse for riches in troubled properties? Bargains do exist, says John Reed, publisher of the Real Estate Investor's Monthly in Danville, Calif. Vu's wealth game, he says, is buying properties from distressed sellers cheap, with "no cash and even no credit out of your pocket. Yet others pester real-estate agents to rat on clients desperate enough to sell for a song.Īt the extreme, wanna-be millionaires have paid an astounding $15,000 to $50,000 to learn the real-estate "secrets " of Vietnamese refugee and get-rich-quick guru Tom Vu, whose cable-TV infomercials tease viewers with flashes of sports cars, fancy homes and sexy women. Others rain offers on banks holding foreclosed homes. Some investors try tax sales or foreclosure auctions. ![]() It's to steal it from a Yuppie who can't pay his bills. The new American Dream isn't just to buy a house. ![]()
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