Archive for May, 2007

Today, a short message was left for visitors such as myself on a blog I frequently visit.

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IamFacingForeclosure.com is over. It will never return.

Advertisers: Feel free to cancel your PayPal subscription. I will be issuing pro-rated refunds this week.

Everybody: I’m very sorry to end like this.

Thanks to all the supporterz, haterz and everyone who wrote about me. You guys made the last 9 crazy months of blogging possible.

You may contact me or join my mailing list here.

–
Casey Serin
May 31, 2007

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This very short but direct message appears to be Casey Serin’s farewell message on the chapter of his life known as IAFF or IamFacingForeclosure.com.  It was a very popular blog and website but not really for the reason most people would want to be popular.

Casey Serin, the misguided soul he is, put on a show for all of us.  As I had said before in an earlier post months ago, it is a site that is hard to resist.  It had so much entertainment value and was a guilty pleasure.  The posts he wrote often made my eyes roll into the back of my head.  So many times, I wanted to make some comment but I resisted.

The reason was that any comment I could have made would not have been that meaningful but simply a vain exercise for me to vent.  His “aw shucks” “gee, I feel bad” “gosh, I am trying, give me a break” “I agree but…” attitude was really sad to watch.

What Casey never understood is that results and accountability matters in life, not endless apologies or declarations of good intentions.  He frequently shut down mentally (by sleeping & avoidance of problems) because he was not mature or knowledgeable enough to handle the situation he was in.  He frequently self-sabotaged because he was in over his head.  It was apparent to everyone except himself.  I never bothered to chime in because everyone else did.

I don’t have an axe to grind with him.  But I do pity him a bit.  His 20-something attitude that he displayed is quite common.  And only life’s hard lessons will teach him, not anyone’s words of wisdom.  He represented many of the things you should not do.

He was so lackadaisical, he often let the small minority of haters influence him.  Most people were like myself who quietly and regularly visited out of ongoing curiousity and entertainment value.  Casey so badly loved and wanted the attention even if it was negative and mocking.  The problem with that is what he was known for did not have substance.  It is like enjoying cotton candy.  Big, pretty, colorful, and sweet but ultimately empty and of little value.

The thing Casey has going for him is that he is still young and can still recover from all of this.  Unfortunately, his motivations are not coming from within himself.  He is being motivated by his wife who is “making him” stick to his word with threats.  If Casey needed to be motivated by his wife’s threats vs. his own wisdom or maturity, that is a big problem.

I confess I learned a lot by watching his blog.  I found the swirl of publicity, controversy, and high emotions surrounding him interesting to watch.  Talk about learning from a live case study.

I know Casey Serin will be back.  Whether or not it will be a true comeback will ultimately come down to the level of wisdom and maturity he gains.  He has an entrepreneurial drive that will not be squashed forever.  Not even by his family or wife.  Either he will learn to balance his priorities in life or he will ultimately leave his family and wife behind.  They do not have a chance of keeping him down forever.

Casey Serin may have shut down for now but he will be back.  And when he comes back, I suspect he will come back in a way quite different than how he left us.  Whether he comes back to entertain us some more or an overwhelming success, many of us will likely tune in once again…. if for the sheer curiousity of it all.

See you again, Casey.  You get my applause for putting on a heckuva show.

Years ago when I decided I would become both a publisher and author, I knew if I stayed in the business long enough, I would eventually make someone unhappy.

One of the most important lessons I have learned in business is that when you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one.  Everyone has to take a position in life.  Everyone has to make a stand regarding their convictions and beliefs.  Sometimes it is unpopular. This includes the work we all do and what we produce.

I have to admit, it is still easier for me to notice one negative comment and review of my books than a positive comment.  Fortunately, I receive more positive feedback than negative ones.  But the negative ones do stick out in my mind.

When I look at the negative feedback, I look to the tone of the comments and whether it was intended as being constructive or destructive.  I also look to see if someone looks for what is right about a book vs. what is wrong with a book.

The negative comments I have seen are split between constructive and destructive 40/60 with the destructive ones having an edge.  I can live with the fact that my work may not please everyone.  But I find it interesting how many of the destructive comments get personal and off-base they are.

Some people read more into my writings than are really there.  Others see very little in some of my writings when it is actually some of the most important stuff people need to know.

Case in point, “The Intrepid Way” was my first book written in 2003 and I consider it one of my most important works.  It is important because it represents my spirit and the message I am trying to share.  And yet, it has been the most criticized for a variety of reasons.  I actually thought about discontinuing the book once my print run was sold out.

But a funny thing happened.  It kept selling with no publicity.  Sales actually picked up in 2006 as I sold my last copies of the 2004 edition.  I actually ran out of copies to sell!  I had to turn some orders way.

“The Intrepid Way” is not one of my top sellers but it is a steady seller.  I took the increased sales as a sign that the book was not yet meant to be put to rest.  And so, during the Summer of 2006, I decided to update the book.  I not only decided to update the book but I vowed to not let the occasional negative and destructive comment derail me from being true to my work.  I renewed my comment to keep “The Intrepid Way” alive as long as people continued to show interest in my book.  There would be no more silly notions of discontinuing it.   That piece of work was simply too important to let some detractors take it away from me.

As a result, I believe I have grown some thicker skin over the years.  I have a greater level of confidence as I turn out some 6 to 8 titles per year.  I put a lot of thought, work, and passion to every title I release.  I make sure that each title serves a very particular purpose and delivers more than the price I charge for it.

I am happy that sales continue to gradually increase with little promotion and marketing.  One of these days, I am going to have to get more serious about promotion and marketing.  But the fact is, I have my hands full right now simply producing the number of titles I do per year.  At some point, I will slow down.  Last year was not the time.  This years is not the time. And certainly next year is not the time.

Part of my goals is achieving a level of production as an independent publisher and author that few authors can match.  Growing a thicker skin has been necessary to disregard the tired values and sensibilities I see in traditional publishing.  It has allowed me to be as true to my work and be as authentic as I can be.   I believe when you become authentic, people respond in a positive way.

Thanks to the naysayers and my critics.  They have helped inspire me to step up and produce in a way I probably never could if I didn’t have them.

What started out as a complaint placed on the Internet has now grown to a collection of information and business horror stories over dealings with Janice Ledden and Cobra Collection Agency (aka Cobra Collections Inc.).

I have begun receiving information from many different disgruntled and dissatisfied parties.  It was getting too much to keep posting the new Cobra information on my blog.  I don’t want my blog to become unnecessarily polluted with such entries.

Having said that, the information I have assembled is badly needed and had to be listed somewhere.  And so, in simplistic format and name, I have created “The Cobra Collection Agency Information Page”.  That way, I do not have to spend much time while serving a greater good.  The 24-hour nature of the Internet and the Google search engine will ensure this page ranks high to anyone who searches “Cobra Collections” or “Cobra Collection Agency”.

I hope that some ex-employees will step up and share this story.  Until that happens, we have a bunch of pissed ex-clients standing up to do something about it.

The direct URL to this page is:  http://www.matthewchan.com/cobracollections.htm

I tried so hard to tell Janice Ledden to come clean last year but she wouldn’t.  So now, her ex-clients are coming out more and more to tell their story.  What goes around, comes around.

Update:  For the latest information, visit The Cobra Collections Agency Scam website.

Last week, my real estate investing partner, Wes Weaver, and I completed an audio interview moderated and interviewed by my friend, Tony.  This interview was recorded for an upcoming educational audio program.  The subject was collaboration, alliances, joint ventures, and working partnerships.  However, most of the program centered on how Wes and I use a tag-team approach to our property investment and management activities.

Many people know about us and how we work today.  However, in the formative years, things were very different.  Our relationship was very different but it evolved over the years.

I am excited for a few reasons.  One, there are few audio programs which go into the inner workings of a successful “partnership” and what makes it work.  Two, we get to share some of our past stories that very few people know about and how the partnership began.  Three, it is officially our 2nd Audio Program we have jointly done.  The previous one (also our 1st one) was “The Real Estate Agent’s Guide to Making Money from ‘No Equity’ Properties & Expired Listings” available on Amazon and AscendBeyond.com.

The title has not yet been worked out but will be released later this year as a new audio title in The TurnKey Investor series.

I received an unsolicited email today from Jennifer, an office manager based in Sumner, GA.  Her company is the latest victims of Janice Ledden and Cobra Collection Agency.  It appears she Google searched Cobra and found my blog report.  I spoke to Jennifer earlier today and received permission to share her information.  Jennifer provided me information to follow-up with our local Better Business Bureau (BBB).

As I suspected, my company and I are not the only victims of this crooked collection agency.  I knew victims would eventually want to start looking for ways to take action against Cobra Collection Agency. 

Essentially, all anyone has to do is contact the Better Business Bureau in Columbus, GA to submit a complaint.  If you do a search on “Cobra Collections”, you will find all the contact information made available to the general public.

 It would appears that they confirm the address as:  3500 University Ave, Suite 4, Columbus GA 31907.  I placed a link to the Google map for anyone who wants to visit them personally.

The latest phone and FAX numbers (which were previously unknown to me) are: 706.562.2343 and 706.562.2347 respectively.  It appears I was correct in my last post.  They changed their phone numbers.  I suspect their old phone lines were simply getting “too popular”.  Imagine that.

Because I foresee more updates from various people coming out of the woodwork, I have created a new Category just for Cobra Collections Agency on this blog.  I truly hate dwelling on the negativity of it all.  But I cannot stand idly by and do nothing when it is in my power to help the situation.  By comparison, I have lost relatively little money compared to the reports coming in.

Up to this point, I have kept my personal opinions to a minimum.  But as more information comes in, I will be providing more insights as to what I think is happening.  For now, I will continue collecting and reporting information for my fellow business community members in Columbus, GA and Phenix City, AL.

 Update:  For the latest information, visit The Cobra Collection Agency Scam website.

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 Matt,

    I unfortunately last year had Cobra Collections to work some delinquent accounts of mine.  You can only guess what has happened.  They have collected my monies and I in return have got nothing.  I am now going through my accounts and getting them to get me all the cleared checks so I can pursue a suit against this company.  I did make a call into a Nicole Dickerson at the attorneys number you had listed on your site.  I just wanted to say thank you for listing this info.  I would not have had any other way of knowing who to call.  I have been on the phone with the BBB and they have been very helpful.  I also wanted to give you COBRAS new number.  I have not called them because I didn’t want to scare them into changing there number again until I can get all my info together.  For your info 706-562-2343.  I may not be able to get any of my money out of them but I would like to let them  know they cannot do this to people.

   Again, thank you so much for your blog.

Jennifer xxxxx (Last name & company name deleted intentionally)

I recently wrote a user review of PropertyBoss 2006, a property managment software, and submitted it to the good folks at PropertyBoss Solutions.  I like their product so much, I am posting a copy of my review here.

I will soon be upgrading our office to PropertyBoss 2007.

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PropertyBoss is a property management software developed and supported by Property Boss Solutions based in South Carolina.  PropertyBoss was originally developed for property managers managing single-family houses.  It has since been expanded to include multi-family unit apartment buildings and student housing.  However, I have found that it is flexible enough to be used for a slightly different segment of the market of which I work in, using Lease-Options within the single-family house market.

PropertyBoss has gone through different revisions over the years.  What makes PropertyBoss different from many software packages is that they actually include new features with their minor revisions, not simply bug updates.

In the property management software marketplace, there are different kinds of offerings.  Some cater to the lower-end of the market, some cater to the higher-end of the market where the larger management and investment companies exist.  Some have different features than others.  Or they implement the same features differently.

When it comes to value pricing, I find PropertyBoss pricing to be somewhere at the mid-level.  There are property management software more expensive and there are some less expensive.  But in evaluating software, I believe you have to go beyond pricing.  Less expensive does not always mean inferior functionality or usability just like more expensive doesn’t always mean superior functionality and usability.  You have to evaluate software holistically.

The flagship PropertyBoss software product starts at 100-units for $795.00.  In the multi-family apartment arena, that is actually a relatively low number of units and a reasonable entry point.  I happen to come from the single-family house market.  And so, most companies working in a similar segment would consider 100-units a high entry point.  In those cases where a company or investor may only have 10-20 units, you have to break it down to see if it is “worth” paying the additional 100-unit cost.

From what I have been told by the company, setting the software at 100-units allows the company to separate themselves from the “lower-end” of the single-family house rental market and the technical support involved in servicing that market.  It doesn’t mean that if you only have 10-20 units (or rental houses) you cannot use PropertyBoss.  But it does make for a higher management software cost per property than if you had 50-75 units.

Technical support is an important issue to discuss for any software user, large or small.  PropertyBoss Solutions tends to avoid the lower-end of the market because of the costs involved.  I respect that the company understands the importance (and costs) of technical support.  It is simply smart business.

However, do not take that in the wrong way that they do not provide good technical support.  They do.  They are responsive to both email and phone requests and they are friendly!  I will admit I do not know if they are simply friendly with me because they know me and I have some history with them or if they are friendly with everyone.  I tend to think they are friendly with everyone because at one time, I was a new customer and I was treated in a personable way.  Friendliness is always a nice touch beyond the normal, standard polite call.

Their views on technical support may be contrary to what many customers think companies should do but I respect PropertyBoss Solutions for holding to their convictions.  Too often, companies will try to be too many things to too many people.  What happens then is their limited resources are stretched too thin and no one is served well.

Having said that, I do believe the company wants to provide a growth path for “up and coming” companies.  And so, they provide PropertyBooks which is a slightly scaled down version of PropertyBoss.  You have to pay extra for technical support (through their annual PASS program) but it does provide an easy, affordable way for smaller companies to get involved with the product.

I admit I am biased towards their flagship product.  The company allows you to download and “play” with the trial version.  I must say that sales strategy worked with me.  When I installed and saw how easy the software was to use, I was won over.  Although it was somewhat more expensive than some other products I evaluated, I decided I need to “step up” and work with a different type of company. 

For me, user friendliness is important.  PropertyBoss has a pleasing user interface and it is logical to my sensibilities as a user.  The software provides a wide variety of reports (more than we ever use).  And it is customizable to the way we do business.  There is a feature that allows you to integrate PropertyBoss to Quickbooks.  However, I cannot give an opinion on how well this is implemented as my office does not currently use this function.

The underlying technology appears to be solid and supports the most current versions of Windows.  Installation and upgrades are relatively painless.  However, I did find the multi-user implementation a bit unusual.  I got through it but not without getting some clarification from technical support.  Single-user implementation is by far the easiest and most convenient.  However, I found that multi-user access is inevitable for any growing company.  That cost has to be factored in.

In the realm of the software industry, it isn’t often you find a company that releases a great product but also pleasant to interact with.  Most of the time, the interaction between software companies and their customers is relatively cold and impersonal.  But I find PropertyBoss Solutions to be a personable company.

Overall, I highly recommend PropertyBoss as a comprehensive property management software with many helpful features.  And it is backed by a company that is responsive and seem to care about the happiness of its customer base.

After some extended poking and prodding from my friend and business associate, Josh, I have agreed to commit to releasing “The TurnKey Investor’s ‘Subject To’ Mortgage Documents Collection” later in 2007.

Josh is preparing to enter the world of “subject to” mortgage financing and found himself in the position of wanting baseline documents for his own operation.  I tried to talk him out of it and explain how impractical it was.  My feelings were if that I released such a documents collection, it would encourage people to do their own closings (vs. using professionals) which would fundamentally go against what we are teaching.  And I want no part of that.

However, he made some valid points that people still need some baseline documents for their own knowledge.  Further, if a closing attorney or title company closed his deals, they would still need instructions and a baseline set of documents to work from.  The alternative to NOT have a set of baseline documents can potentially be disastrous and/or very expensive.

Additionally, my involvement with The Investors Roundtable of Columbus has shown me that my students will quickly and eventually reach the same point as Josh and I will be further “pressured” to release some set of tools or documents to assist them in their “subject to” mortgage transactions.

Do I say “forget it” and say fend for themselves?  The answer is “no”.  In good conscience, I really can’t do that given I have already 3 titles released already.  I have to do a 4th title in the form of a manual.

It was easy for me to say “no” when people emailed me in the last couple of years.  However, it is way harder to say “no” in person.

And so, given all of this, I will move forward on this project.  More importantly, this product will become essential because it will have a written Set of Closing Instructions for closing attorneys and title companies.  Along with the manual, there will be a CD-ROM with Microsoft Word documents and MP3 audio files which explains the purpose of each document and how they should be used.

Pricing has not yet been set.  However, it will not be any more expensive than my prior Documents Collection product, “The Turnkey Investor’s Lease-Option Documents Collection”.

If there was ever a better reason for my blog’s existence, then this message would be that one.  To help point out the injustices of this world and to do my part in exposing this injustice and rally others to the cause.

I roll my eyes and get irritable over many things in life but I don’t post about it.  But I have to tell you, I am OUTRAGED over a $67 million lawsuit filed against a small dry cleaning company over a lost pair of pants.  To top this off, it is by a so-called judge! 

Read the CNN article, MSNBC article, and Yahoo News!

Normally, I am very respectful of members of the legal system especially judges.  However, I am going to publicly make it known how despicable Roy Pearson is for filing such an outrageous $67 million lawsuit over a pair of pants.  He is being greedy, abusive, and malicious.

This so-called judge should be disbarred and should be “punished” for such a malicious lawsuit.  It is an embarassment to the entire U.S. legal system to have him as a judge.  The sad thing is that this has already been damaging to to the owners of the dry cleaners and now after 10 years, they are considering leaving the country and go back home to Korea.  I am absolutely certain that most of their customers appreciate their business and the service they provide otherwise they could not have been in business for so long.

Any judge who hears this case needs to throw it out.  The dry cleaners actually offered $3,000, $4,600, and $12,000 to settle the case and still this was not enough!!  Roy Pearson is just being mean and malicious.

I normally would not wish anyone ill will and certainly not in a public way.  But I do believe in karma.  Roy Pearson, through his actions, deserves to receive lots of negative karma.  In other words, I have no problems saying that he deserves bad things to happen to him.  What goes around, comes around.

If Roy Pearson is trying to make a name for himself, he has succeeded.  He is an absolute loser that deserves no respect, and a pathetic excuse of a human being.  If this lawsuit doesn’t rally others about the problem of abusive and frivolous lawsuits, nothing will.

ATRA, American Tort Reform Association is actively trying to fight this.  I commend them for their efforts.  I recommend you visit their website to learn more about their cause.  They make some excellent points about this case.

Sherman Joyce, President of ATRA, made a commentary on this case.  She also wrote an editorial on the Washington Post website.

Marc Fisher of the Washington Post writes a nice column on this case.  When you read it, you will boil over Roy Pearson.

I urge you to do your part and show your outrage over this.  The media is doing their part by giving attention to this story and showing everyone how outrageous this is.

There is a website that will be set up to help fight this ridiculous case. 

http://www.CustomCleanersDefenseFund.com

Let us hope the owners of the dry cleaners get some sympathy and help along the way.