Just to let you know, there are, in fact, quite a number of reputable asset protection planners who give yearly seminars. However, these people are in the minority. The best planners are working for their clients and haven’t time to be out on the seminar circuit. In fact, most of the best planners usually limit themselves to about a dozen appearances per year.

So the people usually seen presenting the asset protection seminars are the dregs. These are people making their money by giving expensive seminars (which cost an average of $1,500 or more per person while the real value is $300), or giving cheap seminars costing $15 per person where they make their profits by selling worthless books, partnership and trust forms, and other useless material for thousands of dollars. One scammer holding a seminar pitched a $2,500 "do it yourself asset protection kit."

Anyone who attends one of these cheap seminars will discover that the promoters will inevitably announce that they are selling materials at the back of the room. When this announcement is made, people literally jump up out of their seats and, with their checkbooks in hand, rush to the back of the room. Don’t let yourself be fooled by this; most of these people are nothing more then "shills" paid to do this by the promoters to make it look like there is really a great interest in the worthless materials they're selling sold. (By the way, the use of shills is fairly common. In fact, at public auctions, shills are used to encourage people to bid or make larger bids then they should.)

Keep this in mind: If you attend one of these seminars, and if you should follow a herd of people stampeding to the back of the room to purchase a $1800 set of materials, your check might wind up being the only check that gets cashed.

If you would like more information regarding asset protection, trusts, family limited partnerships or the subject of this article please call or email our office.