We know that a key component of any scam is the prevalent use of deception. Here you will discover a
few of the many deceptions utilized by Armando Montelongo to get
unsuspecting, desperate people to clean out their bank accounts for the express purpose of fattening his own.
Here are a few facts. We report, you decide if there is widespread, intentional deception.
CASE #1: People go to "review" or "scam" websites to find out the truth about certain people, products or services. And there are countless sites that host many complaints by Montelongo students who feel they have been scammed. Even the Better Business Bureau has posted a scam warning on his seminars. To try and counteract that, it appears Armando Montelongo's people had, early on, published several bogus websites and blogs designed to appear as though they are objective third party reviews, all of them saying great and wonderful things about him, and that there is no merit to others who file complaints.
Here are some probable examples of these bogus sites...
UPDATE - the bogus review sites have been taken down. That is a "plus" for Montelongo
CASE #2: Another deception is how he advertises his seminars. The advertising for the seminars is designed to convince you that you might learn how to grow rich from that seminar, even though it is not actually stated that way, only implied. In fact, the primary purpose of the seminar is to talk you out of a LOT of your hard earned cash - up to $40,000 for other seminars, bus tours etc. DECEPTION? Perhaps not - but it certainly is reminiscent of the "wild west Medicine Shows" in a previous century.
And in 2011, the Texas Attorney General objected to his practices and deemed them to be less than fairly presented. Montelongo was forced to make certain concessions and stipulations, without admitting guilt, in order to get the AG off his back.
CASE #3: And yet another deception - in December 2012, Armando Montelongo attempted a forced take-down of our Armando Montelongo review page at www.real-estate-made-easy.com/armando-montelongo.html by erroneously - and illegally - using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which is strictly for copyright issues. Subsection A (17 U.S.C. 512(c)(3)(A)) states that to be effective a notification must include identification of the copyrighted works claimed to have been infringed;
Armando Montelongo did not identify ANY copyrighted works being infringed, because there were not. Still, he claimed in his DMCA to our server host, "I am writing to inform you of... copyright abuse in violation of the DMCA. Please see the information below related to this take-down matter."
First and foremost, he falsely claims a copyright issue when his complaint fails to list ANY copyright issue, required by DMCA. There are no copyright issues listed in the Armando Montelongo complaint because the site does not use any of his copyrighted work. Obviously, his attempted take-down failed miserably because it was baseless. Not only that, it was illegal - it is a crime to abuse the DMCA in the manner he abused it.
So here is the point - through his "Licensed Branding LLC" team, he "fabricated" an issue of "copyright abuse" in order to try an illegal take-down under DMCA. He KNEW there were no copyright issues. And he also knows that anyone can use his trademark if it is for purposes of comparison or reviews, as clearly stated in the Lanham Act (trademark law). Armando Montelongo used - DECEPTION!. And perjured himself in an attempt to silence the truth.
So, without even having to get into his actual real estate investing "program" or bus tours, we can already see that there have been ethical issues in the past. While we are uncertain to what extent Mr Montelongo may or may not have addressed those issues, it is worth noting that they have existed, so it is suggested that anyone contemplating doing business with him to do their due diligene and decide for themselves.
So, the question once more is whether or not Armando Montelongo is a scammer. You can decide that for yourself. And anyone who feels as threatened by the numerous bad reviews and compaints as he does, to the extent that he tries to force reviewers offline (and still trying as of 2/11/2020) well, all we can say is if he wants to put an end to the bad PR, perhaps he should consider offering a product/service that is better, and more fairly priced. Instead of trying to do damage control, he might want to try quality and price control.
For those of you who are seriously looking for a GOOD real estate investing program that actually works, and is priced very fairly, check out "The Simple Man's Guide to Real Estate" created by 40 year veteran investor Bill Vaughn and published by IntelliBiz, which also publishes this page (we don't use deceptive practices - we do not need to). At under $100 complete, and because it is a non-profit, mentoring is included at no additional cost. And unlike most other "gurus", it has an A+ rating with the BBB, and it has the highest documented success rate of all the other courses combined. Check it out - it costs nothing to look...