Friday, May 04, 2007

Smith & Merritt: Scam Your Way To Wealth?

I called it.

I don't mean to toot my own horn, here, but back almost a year ago, when Smith & Merritt were endlessly assaulting my ears with their inane slogan, “Spend your way to wealth”, on the Howard Stern Show, I said this:

They don’t seem to have any “products” for sale—except a “Free Report and Consultation,” which has to be some sort of loss-leader designed to get you to buy the “real” (and no doubt “real expensive”) stuff, whatever that is.
Shortly after I wrote that and the post following it, the Smith & Merritt advertising contract with the Stern Show ended, and they promptly dropped off my radar screen.

I gave them no more thought, until recently, when the number of hits to my blog via Google searches for “Smith and Merritt” started spiking. Then the comments started trickling in. Most painting an incomplete picture of some sort of high-pressure sales scam designed to bilk people out of $9,995 (or $3,895... I'm not sure which) with the promise of “materials” and/or coaching sessions.

Now, think about this for a second. People are coming to S&M for some sort of financial education, which, presumably, they need because they aren't doing so well, financially, right? So what's the likelihood that these people are going to have $9,995 in ready cash to spend on the S&M program? Undoubtedly, “But I don't have that kind of money” is a common objection, and it seems S&M have a ready “solution” - something that, based on the comments in this post, they dubbed a “student loan”. Apparently they counsel their clients to do a balance transfer from their credit cards to their checking accounts, after which S&M withdraws the money from checking. I may be wrong about this, but I believe that such a setup makes it more difficult to dispute the charge if you feel you've been ripped off - otherwise why would S&M go through the trouble?

A check at the BBB website for S&M or the deceptively named “College Partnership” (their other company?), reveals a number of unresolved complaints that seem similar to the ones people have been leaving on Die Eigenheit. I'd like to quote at length from a very detailed comment left today:

When we signed up for this program, we understood that we would get sound financial advice. Being this was our first experience with financial coaching & the cost of the program, we had no other reason to assume we weren't going to get financial advice. The salesman used high-pressure sales tactics & a needless sense of urgency in selling us the program stating that even if we wanted coaching there was a chance we wouldn't get "accepted". From the sales call (we have detailed notes of the call) he stated we'd have "unlimited access" from the best people in the business which implied financial advisors, yet he NEVER told us that we would NOT get coaching from financial advisors or planners. Had we known this, we wouldn't have signed up for the program. We purchased on Aug 7, 2006 for $3895 for 3 months of coaching. Even though we had 72 hrs to cancel after purchasing we hadn't started any coaching to determine that our coaching was just a professional form of cheering rather than financial advising. The first two sessions focused on our abundance statement and not finances! We realized especially after the 3rd session (around the beginning of September 2006) that this was not the service we expected. Besides calling us late, our coach hadn't even reviewed our financial reports we had emailed to her & after talking with our coach on the phone she informed us that she was not LICENSED to give us financial advice & we discovered that she didn't have a strong financial background! We were then assigned another coach because he used to sell insurance & had a "strong" financial background, yet after tolerating 2 sessions with him, we made the decision to seek a refund. We contacted the head of coaching and explained our concern & over the course of a few weeks or so she kept meeting with a "committee" giving us the impression that a decision would be made as to our refund. However, we eventually received a letter from a "customer care" lady stating that we should continue coaching & later another letter that we were to continue with 6 more sessions due to "contractual responsibilities" (whatever that means) & then they would reevaluate our complaint. Knowing that the coaching does not advise like we originally understood, this is an unreasonable request. She mentioned in the letter that we needed to file an "official withdrawal" from the coaching program & other pertinent information, yet when we have called the SLC office to receive further instruction to get the form or other information, we have had no response. We have made numerous attempts to talk the salesman regarding the sale & others regarding a refund & neither has returned our calls. We filed a complaint with the BBB on March 1, 2007 & the information was sent apparently to California & was returned with a correspondence stating that he wasn't in charge of refunds. We filed a complaint with the SLC office. That BBB complaint came back unanswered.
If it wasn't clear before that Smith & Merritt is a company to avoid, it seems quite clear now.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AlIntHVn_9Sls_6.CBooussjzKIX?qid=20070427135837AAHOKmw

Anonymous said...

Hello I am working on getting my money back from the scam artists at SMI and I have 17 other people that feel the same way I do and demand they receive a full and complete refund. Get in touch with me if you are perusing a refund too so we may unite against the scam artists! Im the one who left the response on yahoo answers.

Anonymous said...

I can't figure out how to respond to your post on Yahoo questions, but if you are abrennan, I also sent you a private message on scam.com about 6-8 weeks ago. Check out the 140+ comments on the next posting under this blow titled "Spending your way to lameness". You can email me and I'll let you know what some of us are doing and hope to do to get our money back.

Anonymous said...

I AM abrennan007 and you should also check this out!

http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=18962&highlight=smith+merritt+college

Chris Johnson said...

If anyone can get me a number, I'd like to also file suit or do something to get our money back. We signed up for the $7k package, 6 months... got about half the package, some software and etc. & even had some reasonable discussions with two coaches. Then, they abruptly stopped the sessions and put them on hold until further notice... a scam? I think so... email me... senatordj@hotmail.com

Toni said...

Anyone with information on how to try to acquire my funds back from these evil people, please contact me. I invested over $9000 for the 2 year program. I received 2 sessions.

thsmikle1@aol.com

Thank you in advance

smartcookie54 said...

I am embarrassed to say that I signed up for the 2 year program and BORROWED $9995.00 to pay for 25 coaching sessions. I received three sessions. When I could not reach a person at S&M for weeks, I requested a refund of around $9000, agreeing to pay for the three sessions I had although I was taught nothing, just tracked my spending for 3 weeks.I eventually filed a case with the State Attorney General in Utah. The agnet assigned to the case told me he was about to file fraud charges against the principles and that I might get some money back, but certainly not all of it. I would like to join any class action suits forming to see how much of my money I can recover.