The number of people summiting Mount Everest each year has increased from 23 people in 1983 to 704 people in 2022. That’s almost a 31-fold increase over a timespan when the overall global population has only increased by 70%. And that’s despite the median travel guide package for Everest exceeding $50,000.
The two interruptions to the exponential growth in Everest tourism occurred in 2014-2015 (due to avalanches) and 2020-2021 (due to Covid travel restrictions).
Google, Facebook, and Instagram are now required to pay media companies in order to display links to their news articles, under Canada’s new law, the Online News Act.
Immediately after the law passed, Facebook and Instagram announced they would be shutting down all news access for Canadian users.
Justin Trudeau and his political allies who passed the Online News Act have said they believe this withdrawal is only temporary and point to Australia which passed a similar bill two years ago. In that case, Facebook also pulled out in protest but restored news access less than a week later.
However, in Australia, many small media companies were losers in the end. Independent journalist bloggers and reporters didn’t have the resources to navigate the government’s negotiation process, even as part of a collective bargaining group, so they simply got nothing while their larger competitors received subsidies from Facebook.
Putting that aside though, there is still a critical difference between what Canada is doing now and what Australia did two years ago: generative AI.
This time when Facebook said it was shutting off news access, it also said it was conducting ongoing “product tests to help us build an effective [replacement for Facebook news]”. If Facebook decides to replace the 3% of its news feed that consists of actual news articles with AI generated paraphrases, it’s not clear that Facebook’s business would suffer any more than it would by paying news companies for links.
What is clear is that media companies would suffer. A lot. Because media companies gain a LOT more benefit from the free distribution of their links on social media than the social media companies do. Those links funnel users to ads and paywalls that monetize readers directly on media company websites. That’s why you see everyone from small bloggers to the biggest media conglomerates in the world pushing their links on social media without tech companies paying them anything. In fact, about 8 years ago, Facebook was losing so much traffic to media company links posted by its users that the company began systematically throttling the reach of posts that contained links. Most social media companies still do that today.
Despite those issues, a group of 15 U.S. senators led by Amy Klobuchar have advocated for a U.S. version of the Online News Act.
List of Senators that Sponsored a U.S. Version of the Online News Act in 2022
In 2022, Senator Amy Klobuchar led a charge to give America its very own version of the Online News Act, which was called the “Journalism Competition and Preservation Act“. Here are the 15 senators who cosponsored the bill:
Commission means the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.
News content means content — in any format, including an audio or audiovisual format — that reports on, investigates or explains current issues or events of public interest.
News outlet means an undertaking or any distinct part of an undertaking, such as a section of a newspaper, the primary purpose of which is to produce news content.
NOTE: Even if a news business (defined later) qualifies as “eligible” (defined later) under the Online News Act, the Commission may deny the new outlet the right to be bargained about under the Online News Act if the Commission is of the opinion that the outlet fails to satisfy any of the following five criteria:
The outlet is operated exclusively for the purpose of producing news content that consists primarily of original news content that is:
(a) produced primarily for the Canadian news marketplace;
(b) focused on matters of general interest and reports of current events, including coverage of democratic institutions and processes;
(c) not focused on a particular topic such as industry-specific news, sports, recreation, arts, lifestyle, or entertainment; and
(d) not intended to promote the interests, or report on the activities, of an organization, an association, or its members
News business means an individual or entity that operates a news outlet in Canada.
A news business is eligible under the Online News Act if it meets at least one of the following four criteria.
It is a qualified Canadian journalism organization as defined in subsection 248(1) of the Income Tax Act.
It is licensed by the Commission under paragraph 9(1)(b) of the Broadcasting Act as a campus station, community station, or native station, as those terms are defined in regulations made under that Act or other categories of licensees established by the Commission with a similar community mandate.
It produces news content of public interest that (1) is primarily focused on matters of general interest and reports of current events, including coverage of democratic institutions and processes, (2) regularly employs two or more journalists in Canada, which journalists may include journalists who own or are a partner in the news business and journalists who do not deal at arm’s length with the business, (3) operates in Canada, having content edited and designed in Canada, (4) produces news content that is not primarily focused on a particular topic such as industry-specific news, sports, recreation, arts, lifestyle, or entertainment; and (5) is either a member of a recognized journalistic association and follows the code of ethics of a recognized journalistic association or has its own code of ethics whose standards of professional conduct require adherence to the recognized processes and principles of the journalism profession, including fairness, independence, and rigor in reporting news and handling sources.
It operates an indigenous news outlet in Canada and produces news content that includes matters of general interest, including coverage of matters relating to the rights of Indigenous peoples, including the right of self-government and treaty rights.
Notwithstanding the preceding eligibility description, a news business cannot be deemed eligible if it meets at least one of the following three conditions:
It is the subject of sanctions under the United Nations Act, the Special Economic Measures Act, or the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Sergei Magnitsky Law), or is owned or controlled by an individual or entity that is the subject of such sanctions.
It has its headquarters in a foreign state (as defined in section 2 of the Special Economic Measures Act) that is the subject of measures under one of the previously mentioned acts.
It was previously designated as eligible but had its designation revoked under paragraph 59(1)(c) of the Online News Act.
News content is made available if (a) the news content, or any portion of it, is reproduced; or (b) access to the news content, or any portion of it, is facilitated by any means, including an index, aggregation, or ranking of news content.
Digital news intermediary means an online communications platform, including a search engine or social media service, that is subject to the legislative authority of Parliament and makes news content produced by news outlets available to persons in Canada. It does not include an online communications platform that is a messaging service the primary purpose of which is to allow persons to communicate with each other privately.
Operator means an individual or entity that, through any means, operates a digital news intermediary.
The Bargaining Process
Here is how the bargaining process works under the Online News Act:
A news business requests the Commission designate it as “eligible”.
The news business (on its own or collectively with other eligible news businesses) notifies the operator of a digital news intermediary that it is initiating a bargaining process under the Online News Act. The news business must specify which of its news outlets will be the subject(s) of the bargaining process.
If the operator contests the initiation, the Commission will decide (based on the criteria discussed above with the definition of news outlet) whether or not to allow the bargaining. If the bargaining is allowed, then:
The news business and the (digital news intermediary) operator will begin negotiation or bargaining sessions over a period of 90 days.
If the parties are unable, within the negotiation and bargaining period, to reach an agreement, they may jointly request the Commission extend this period. If both parties do not share a desire to extend, or if the Commission rejects the request, then:
The news business and operator will engage in mediated sessions over a period of 120 days.
If the parties are unable, within the mediation period, to reach an agreement, they may jointly request the Commission extend this period. If both parties do not share a desire to extend, or if the Commission rejects the request, then:
Forced final arbitration sessions will take place over a period of 45 days. The Commission has ultimate authority to decide who qualifies to be an arbitrator. From the Commission’s list of arbitrators, the parties must select three arbitrators. If the parties cannot agree, then the Commission may fill any of the three slots with its own appointees from its roster of qualified arbitrators. As part of the arbitration process, both of the parties must submit a final offer, and the arbitration board (consisting of the three arbitrators) will ultimately select one of the offers to be binding. However, the arbitration can dismiss any offer and require the submitting party submit a new offer if the original offer (1) allows a party to exercise undue influence over the amount of compensation to be paid or received; (2) is not in the public interest because the offer would be highly likely to result in serious detriment to the provision of news content to persons in Canada, or (3) is inconsistent with the purposes of enhancing fairness in the Canadian digital news marketplace and contributing to its sustainability.
“Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is a highly effective (at least in the short-term) and universally irritating way for businesses to retain customers.
Some states such as California, New York, and Maine have already outlawed the practice.
However, the situation at the national level is ambiguous. “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is a just one example of how some companies intentionally make it confusing and inconvenient for consumers to cancel their subscriptions.
Currently, there’s no explicit federal law that says companies have to make it easy for people to cancel subscriptions. However, the Federal Trade Commission Act does ban “unfair and deceptive trade practices”.
And two days ago, the FTC filed a lawsuit against Amazon for allowing people to enroll in Prime with one or two clicks but requiring them to navigate a “four-page, six-click, fifteen-option” process to cancel. The specific legal accusation was that Amazon’s cancellation policy was a deceptive trade practice because it intentionally misled consumers into making decisions they otherwise would not have made.
In making this argument, the FTC heavily relies on academic research from people like Harry Brignull who have published articles on how certain features of an app’s design can mislead people into making decisions they later regret. Researchers have dubbed these misleading features “dark patterns”.
But is an inconvenient or confusing user experience enough to constitute a deceptive trade practice in the eyes of the law?
A small business may have a confusing cancellation process simply because it doesn’t have a lot of money and what money it does have is put towards improving the sign up process rather than the cancellation process. A startup may require an exit survey so that they can figure out why you cancelled so that they can improve their product for the next customer–that’s good for innovation. And there’s also a big issue of perspective. Every attempt to sell someone is an attempt to get them to do something they would not otherwise have done. If I’m an ethical salesperson, I’ll only try to sell things to people that I believe will make them better off. If I’m an ethical founder of a company that I truly believe will help people, I may want to show someone a screen highlighting the things they’ll lose by unsubscribing before I process the cancellation. That isn’t deceptive under the common language definition of the term, but it could be under the FTC’s definition.
Whether or not the FTC wins will ultimately come down to whether or not it can prove Amazon’s cancellation process met either the deceptive trade practice or unfair trade practice standard.
Deceptive Trade Practice Standard
An act or practice is deceptive where:
A representation, omission, or practice misleads or is likely to mislead the consumer,
A consumer’s interpretation of the representation, omission, or practice is considered reasonable under the circumstances, and
The misleading representation, omission, or practice is material
Unfair Trade Practice Standard
An act or practice is unfair where it:
Causes or is likely to cause substantial injury to consumers,
Cannot be reasonably avoided by consumers, and
Is not outweighed by countervailing benefits to consumers or to competition.
In 2022, the phone service company Vonage paid $100 million to settle a similar lawsuit with the FTC. Given that Vonage only made $1.3 billion of revenue in 2022, that $100 million settlement was a big deal which means the company must have believed there was a serious possibility of the FTC winning the case. That doesn’t bode well for Amazon.
In the context of online businesses, a negative option feature means a provision of an offer which interprets a customer’s silence (or failure to take an affirmative action to reject goods or services, or to cancel the agreement) as acceptance of the offer.
Hunter Biden to Plead Guilty to Federal Tax Crimes
Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, has agreed to plead guilty to criminal federal tax charges.
Hunter was charged with two counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax.
Willful failure to pay federal income tax can be a crime that is classified and prosecuted either as a misdemeanor (IRC 7203) or a felony (IRC 7201). Hunter was charged with the lesser crime (the misdemeanor), and the U.S. Attorney for Delaware is recommending to the judge that Hunter only receive probation for the crimes. In principle though, Hunter’s dad, as President, could pardon him of any crime.
That’s a safety cushion we normal people don’t have, so if you’re a business owner who is years behind on your taxes, contact me today so I can help you catch up on your bookkeeping backlog.
21 Controversial Business & Finance Topics to Increase Audience Engagement
Controversial articles and videos get more comments, and more comments means more virality for your content. So if you are a marketer or content creator in a finance or business niche, then it helps to make at least 5-30% of your posts on controversial topics related to finance or business. Those pieces of content help you to get in front of fresh people who haven’t seen your stuff before. In this article, I cover 21 examples of highly controversial business and finance topics for you to take inspiration from when making your own content.
NOTE: Just because you are covering a controversial topic doesn’t mean you necessarily need to take a controversial viewpoint (although you can if you want). For example, when the Trump Organization was convicted of fraud in December 2022, I posted a TikTok describing the structure of the Trump Organization, and it went viral. Sometimes objective, fact-based content about a controversial topic (especially when that controversial topic is already in the news) performs better than over-the-top, emotionally-charged content.
But without further ado, here are the topics:
1. Unions
Should people be forced to pay union dues in order to work, even if those dues are used to donate to political candidates they don’t like?
Should “right-to-work” laws actually be called “right to free ride” laws?
Do unions help workers by ensuring they are paid more, or do they hurt workers by making jobs more scarce?
Are unions good or bad for the economy?
2. Billionaires Avoiding Taxes
The very first article I ever shared on Hackernews went super viral, bringing in 100,000 visitors to my 6-month old blog in just 3 days. The article was about how almost anyone could use opportunity zones to avoid capital gains tax. However, on Hackernews I titled the post “How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax“.
Billionaires are controversial in general, but billionaires avoiding taxes and “not paying their fair share” are even more controversial. That’s part of why that article went so viral.
Other examples of content that have gone viral based on this theme include:
Trump’s tax returns
Biden’s proposal for a new “billionaire minimum tax”
Senator Warren’s proposal for a wealth tax
3. Inheritance
Is inheritance fair? Are any billionaires truly self-made? Should inheritance be taxed at a higher rate?
4. Crypto
Are any cryptocurrencies actually valuable or they all scams and pyramid schemes? Is crypto going to replace most of the traditional financial system? Are DAOs going to replace corporations?
5. ESG
Should investment fund managers consider environmental sustainability and employee diversity when deciding which companies to invest tens of millions of Americans’ retirement money into, or should they always just pick the companies that are expected to generate the highest returns?
6. Stakeholder Capitalism
Is stakeholder capitalism a fundamental violation of fiduciary duty or is it a necessary change that capitalism needs in order for our society to continue working for everyone?
7. DE&I
Should companies consider the color of someone’s skin when deciding whether or not to hire them?
Should someone who is gay be hired when there is a straight person with more experience who could be hired instead?
Just typing those questions raises my heart rate slightly, and that’s exactly what you want when you create content.
Some controversial keywords related to DE&I are:
Affirmative action
Racial equity
Inclusive hiring
Racial quotas
Boardroom diversity
8. Woke Brands
Is it fair for a company to sponsor a trans-woman (biologically male) athlete instead of a biological woman athlete, given that biological women only get 1% of all sports sponsorship money?
Is it inappropriate to allow trans-women (biological men) to use the the same bathroom that small girls use?
Should brands like Disney be boycotted for glamorizing transgenderism in kids films? Do boycotts even work?
9. Living Wages
Imagine coming across YouTube videos with any of the following titles:
“How to Replace Your American Employees with Cheap Columbians”
“All My Employees Are Overseas, And I Pay Them $1.50/Hr”
“Why I’ll Never Hire an American Again”
“How to Legally Pay Your Employees Less Than Minimum Wage”
“Amazon Saved $3 billion in 2021 by Paying Less Than $15/Hr”
Did any of those stir your emotions a bit?
Minimum wages and “living wages” are hot topics.
10. Fair Trade, Free Trade, and Trade Wars
Does free trade exploit less developed countries or does it help them develop economically?
Is fair trade actually more fair than free trade? Who benefits from fair trade anyway? Is fair trade even effective at helping the people in less developed countries?
Is free trade possible between the U.S. and China when China insists on stealing American IP?
11. Immigration
Is overpopulation or population decline a bigger risk?
Do immigrants make it harder for Americans to get jobs or do they help the American economy by taking jobs we don’t want for wages so low that Americans won’t accept them?
Is it fair that taxpayer money is being spent on housing immigrants in hotels for months?
Would allowing more immigrants into the U.S. help bring down inflation?
Do immigrants strain America’s welfare system?
12. Climate Change
Should pension fund managers consider climate change risk when making investment decisions?
Is climate change an increasing risk to Florida real estate investors?
Is climate change at fault for increasing Florida insurance premiums?
Not everyone agrees that climate change is real, so any content you make which simply assumes it is real and discusses implications of it (e.g. “How Climate Change Is Causing an Insurance Crisis in Florida”) will naturally get some people commenting to tell you how wrong you are (yay engagement).
13. Nuclear Energy
Nuclear energy could replace fossil fuels, but is it safe? Physicists say yes, but the majority of the public doesn’t think so. Where would all that nuclear waste go? How dangerous is it to live next to a nuclear plant?
I made a basic listicle-style TikTok about nuclear power plants, and it got over 13,000 likes and hundreds of thousands of views.
14. Trump’s Business Activities
Is Donald Trump an amazing business man or a subpar business man who only generated subpar returns on the wealth he inherited?
Is he being unjustly attacked for political reasons or were his business dealings criminal?
15. Elon Musk
Elon is a billionaire (controversial) who makes electric vehicles to prevent climate change (controversial) and talks about spending billions to go to Mars (controversial to the people who say “we have enough problems to solve here on Earth”).
He bought Twitter (controversial both politically and financially), talks about free speech (controversial), and engages in juvenile behavior online (controversial).
16. Online Censorship
Are social media companies censoring Republicans? Are they doing enough to censor hate speech? Is it appropriate for kids to see transgender content online?
Should Section 230 be amended? Repealed entirely?
17. Student Loan Forgiveness
Should college be free? Should student loans be forgiven? Would that be fair to the majority of Americans who haven’t attended college but still pay taxes?
18. Retail Crime
Retail theft and organized retail crime have been on the rise for years. A California law restricting the ability to go after people stealing less than $1,000 of merchandise is controversial.
Are Democrats being too lenient on criminals?
Are immigrant “sanctuary cities” to blame?
Is inflation to blame? Inflation is certainly a consequence since retailers have to raise prices to cover the costs of more theft.
Do we need more police funding to solve this problem?
19. Big Oil
Are big oil companies ruining the planet, or are they essential to our civilization?
Does the U.S. government go to war over oil?
Should oil companies be taxed more?
20. AI Fear
People are afraid that AI is either going to take over the world or replace their job.
21. U.S. Defense Industry
The U.S. Defense Industry (also known more ominously as the “military-industrial complex”) is controversial in several ways.
Is it immoral to work at a company that makes missiles that sometimes kill innocent civilians but also help to keep America safe from terrorists?
Does the U.S. spend too much money on defense when it should be putting some of that money towards universal healthcare or childcare?
Is there collusion between certain members of the defense industry and certain politicians, at the expense of the taxpayer?
“Before Ramsey started promoting Timeshare Exit Team on his show, the company was doing less than $1 million in annual sales. Five years later, the company was doing over $40 million in annual sales, and Ramsey allegedly earned more than $30 million during that time for promoting it.”
Dave Ramsey–the billionaire OG personal finance influencer–is facing a $150 million class-action lawsuit for promoting a “timeshare exit services” company on his radio show for almost 6 years, from 2015 to 2021.
The lawsuit was filed by 17 Ramsey Show listeners who followed Dave’s advice to hire Reed Hein & Associates (a.k.a. the “Timeshare Exit Team”) to help them get out of their timeshare contracts.
There are many good reasons for the bad reputation of timeshares. One reason is that timeshares bought directly from developers typically lose 90+% of their resale value the moment you buy them (like buying a new car, but WAY worse). Another reason is that timeshares are often marketed as investments, but most are just memberships that don’t give you any fractional ownership of the actual underlying resort property.
Yet another reason that timeshares have a bad reputation is that timeshare salespeople use high-pressure sales tactics (such as spending 10 minutes on the phone with no one, pretending to talk their boss into a price that is more than 50% lower than what the salesperson initially pitched you).
Oh, and don’t forget, timeshares often cost $30,000 to $100,000, are financed by the timeshare companies with a 15-20% interest rate, come bundled with mandatory maintenance fees that average over $1,000 per year and increase every year, and typically have hidden “exchange” fees that you must pay to use them at the locations you thought were already included in the purchase price. Timeshares are HUGE financial liabilities advertised as luxury investment assets, with restrictions that end up preventing most people who buy them from even being able to use them. So, it’s understandable why Dave Ramsey doesn’t like them.
In fact, he dislikes them so much, he told his listeners for almost 6 years, that if they owned a timeshare, they should hire the Timeshare Exit Team to help them get rid of it. From 2015 to 2021, Ramsey was allegedly paid $450,000 per month to promote the company to his audience — totaling over $30 million — in exchange for driving over $70 million of total revenue to Timeshare Exit Team.
Timeshare Exit Team charged anywhere from $4,000 up to $72,000 for its services and promised customers a 100% refund if they were not relieved of their timeshare obligations. However, the company didn’t advertise to customers that its definition of “relief” included the the possibility of customers negotiating themselves out of the timeshares, the timeshare company foreclosing on customers and ruining their credit for 7 years, and a variety of pseudo-legal processes that allegedly deceived thousands of customers into thinking they were legally released from their obligations when they were not. Some customers tried visiting the Timeshare Exit Team office near Seattle only to be told that no one had been in for months. Many of those customers were long-time Ramsey listeners who felt betrayed that he had misled them by making false statements about the trustworthy “legal specialists” employed by Timeshare Exit Team.
Throughout his promotions, Ramsey assured his listeners that he had vetted the Timeshare Exit Team, and that he was confident they could get anyone out of their timeshare commitment. And Ramsey continued to promote the company after several warning signs that something was wrong. Starting in 2016, Ramsey began allegedly receiving what would eventually add up to thousands of letters from listeners complaining about their experiences with the Timeshare Exit Team.
Ramsey continued to promote them.
In 2018, the Better Business Bureau (which in my opinion is also something of a scam) issued an alert after receiving more than 300 complaints about the Timeshare Exit Team, which held a “C-” rating.
Ramsey continued to promote them.
In May 2019, a Florida district court found the Timeshare Exit Team’s practices unfair and deceptive as a matter of law.
Ramsey continued to promote them.
In February 2020, the Washington State Attorney General filed a lawsuit against the Timeshare Exit Team alleging violations of the Consumer Protection Act and listing out nearly 5 pages of unfair and deceptive trade practices. Here are just eight of the allegations:
Displaying review summaries on timeshareexitteam.com which omitted 1- and 2-star reviews.
Misrepresenting that the Timeshare Exit Team will help people get out of their timeshare obligations by forcing resorts to cancel or annul timeshare contracts, when in reality, the company often just led customers into foreclosure which ruined their credit for 7 years.
Interpreting foreclosure as a successful timeshare exit without disclosing that interpretation to customers at the point of sale of Timeshare Exit Team’s services.
Offering a 100% money-back guarantee, but not disclosing the full terms of the guarantee and not honoring the guarantee, despite many unsatisfied customers requesting a refund.
Misrepresenting that customers’ timeshare obligations had been terminated when they had not been.
Misrepresenting to customers that progress had been made towards a timeshare exit, when in fact no services had been rendered to move the progress along.
Misleading customers into believing there would not be negative financial consequences from the efforts of the Timeshare Exit Team.
Giving customers a false impression that the Timeshare Exit Team had a 100% success rate when in fact the company’s own records indicated roughly half of its customers had no exit and the majority of the other half had foreclosures and other “bad” exits with unanticipated negative consequences.
Interestingly, the Washington AG’s lawsuit also contained an entire separate section accusing the owners of Timeshare Exit Team of also running a debt counseling business that violated the Credit Services Organization Act, operated without the legally required surety bond, and engaged in deceptive or fraudulent practices.
Unbothered, Ramsey continued promoting Timeshare Exit Team for more than a year after the Washington AG’s lawsuit was filed. But eventually, the AG’s lawsuit was settled, and Timeshare Exit Team was forced to rescind certain statements, cease using certain advertisements, cease using certain financially damaging “exit methods”, disclose many of its business practices to consumers, more readily provide refunds, and pay $2.61 million in customer restitution. A few months later, they were out of business.
All of this from a company that Dave Ramsey told his audience that he had been skeptical of at first but had then vetted and found trustworthy.
Ramsey promoted the Timeshare Exit Team even as many of his listeners filed lawsuits against the company and fourteen separate arbitrators issued awards to the company’s customers because of the company’s misconduct. In fact, let’s just take a moment and listen to Ramsey’s own words of endorsement:
Ramsey only stopped promoting the company in March 2021 when the Timeshare Exit Team and its associated marketing company, Happy Hour Media, stopped paying him.
The lawsuit against Ramsey alleges that Ramsey made statements he knew, or should have known, were false, and it’s hard to see how Ramsey can refute that. He endorsed the team as “legal specialists” when in reality it was run by non-lawyers who used to sell rain gutter systems and now outsource what little work they actually do to third party lawyers who mostly send boilerplate demand letters and then declare success, even when the demand letter has no legal effect.
However, instead of apologizing, Ramsey recorded a 10-minute radio segment in which accused journalists and the Washington State Attorney General of being bought by the timeshare companies. I guess he forgot about the 14 separate arbitrators who awarded his own listeners civil damages for Timeshare Exit Team’s misconduct. Those were not really publicized which means there would be little incentive for timeshare companies to find and pay off all those arbitrators, not to mention that it’s unlikely every arbitrator could be bought, even if some could be. But to Dave, everything is a conspiracy coordinated by the timeshare industry.
“[The CEO of Hilton] teamed up with Wyndham, and he teamed up with Bluegreen…and Marriott and whoever else they could get, Westgate, whoever else they could get on the list, and they decided to go after these lawyers and different companies that were running people out of timeshares… They’ve got bad stories written about people, including they’re going after me now. They’ve got the Attorney General in the state of Washington to try to prove that there was something false going on when there wasn’t… I wonder how much he was paid…And [you journalists at Insider who asked me why I promoted Timeshare Exit Team] how much were you paid?”
Dave Ramsey
Firstly, I want to point out that Dave was talking about going after lawyers, but Brandon Reed and Trevor Hein, the founders and primary operators of Timeshare Exit Team, were not actually lawyers, and the company was not a law firm.
Secondly, I want to point out that Dave is assuming the world is all about good versus evil, and since timeshare companies are evil, Timeshare Exit Team must be good. But reality doesn’t work that way. Once a person has been scammed once, they’re identified as an easy mark. In fact, there is an entire industry of “recovery scams” using what the Federal Trade Commission calls “sucker lists” where scammers offer to help the victim of a previous scam recover their money, in exchange for an upfront payment for services that will never be rendered. For example:
From January 2021 to March 2022, the FTC reported that over 46,000 people lost a total of more than $1 billion to cryptocurrency scammers. A subset of those people were subsequently retargeted by scammers who promised to help them recover the funds in exchange for an upfront fee, but then those scammers vanished, leaving the victims even worse off than they were after the original scam.
Victims of vehicle theft are another group often retargeted by scammers. Someone promises to help the victim recover their vehicle in exchange for an upfront fee to cover the cost of the tow truck they’ll need to pick up the vehicle when they find it. Of course, the scammer never rents a tow truck. They just take the money and disappear.
One couple that listened to Dave Ramsey paid over $41,000 to Timeshare Exit Company and got no help in actually getting out of their Timeshare! If Dave doesn’t think that is as much of a scam as timeshares themselves, then he’s either delusional or a liar.
Also, during Dave’s rant, he said that timeshare companies had “poked the wrong bear”, that Dave was sitting in a “$300 million building that’s bought and paid for”, that Dave was “neck deep in cash”, and that he was coming for the timeshare companies. So why didn’t Dave buy Timeshare Exit Team?
Dave claimed to be sitting in a castle of cash that he was going to put to work fighting the timeshare companies, so if he really believed that Timeshare Exit Team was doing a good job helping people, the best way he could have put that cash to work would be to acquire the company. He probably could’ve bought the company nearly for free since it was about to go bankrupt anyway. His cash reserve could’ve allowed the company to make it through the lawsuits and restructure to become profitable again. Why didn’t he seize this opportunity?
Or alternatively, why hasn’t Dave just set up a new timeshare exit service company himself? One of the main methods used by Timeshare Exit Team was just letting people be foreclosed on by the timeshare companies. He could form “Ramsey Timeshare Exits” and charge people $4,000 to $40,000 to let them be foreclosed on, just like Timeshare Exit Team did. There’s something disingenuous about Ramsey ranting that he is sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars and going to crusade against the Timeshare companies for ruining Timeshare Exit Team’s business, but then doing nothing to ensure the survival of Timeshare Exit Team or any other timeshare exit solution. Cue Dave Ramsey saying:
“When something feels slimy, you know? Cause it’s slimy!”
So, did Dave Ramsey make tens of millions of dollars sending tens of thousands of people to pay thousands of dollars each to a company that turned around and paid $500 each to a morally questionable lawyer that sent those unsuspecting people into foreclosure and 7 years of ruined credit? Almost certainly yes.
Were Dave’s actions unethical?
“We do not endorse things on this show unless we believe in them. I don’t put my name or my voice on something merely for money.”
Dave Ramsey, speaking about the Timeshare Exit Team controversy
I’m actually willing to give Dave the benefit of the doubt on this–my first guess would be that he is simply gullible.
According to many of the lawsuits involving Timeshare Exit Team, thousands of customers were tricked into thinking they had been released from their timeshare obligations, and they sometimes went on for years without making payments before they found out the truth. No doubt some percentage of these people reached out to Dave to thank him for recommending Timeshare Exit Team after they thought they were free. Dave would have looked at those hundreds of messages and concluded that Timeshare Exit Team was helping people. So when new a few customers and even the Washington AG started suing Timeshare Exit Team, it would have been easy for Dave to believe that those things did not reflect reality.
However, if Dave had bothered to read the details of the various lawsuits and arbitration cases, he would have realized that many of the people who had originally been happy with Timeshare Exit Team eventually became very unhappy when they realized they had been sent into a foreclosure they didn’t ask for or were actually still responsible for the timeshare that the Exit Team told them they had been “exited” from. He would have discovered the evidence that Timeshare Exit Team hid 1- and 2-star reviews from their websites–a serious sign of deception. And he would have discovered that the operators of Timeshare Exit Team also owned a debt relief company that operated without the legally required surety bond–a sign of either incompetence or disregard for the law. Neither is what you want when you pay $42,000 to a company of supposed “legal specialists”.
The following are the plaintiffs in the class action suit against Dave Ramsey, along with the amount they each paid to Timeshare Exit Team.
Anna Patrick — Paid $8,570
Douglas and Roseanne Morrill — Paid $41,200
Leisa Garrett — Paid $4797
Robert and Samantha Nixon — Paid $7,839
David and Rosemarie Bottonfield — Paid $8,795
Tasha Ryan — Paid over $5,000
Rogelio Vargas — Paid $5,495
Marilyn Dewey — Paid $7,355
Peter and Rachael Rollins — Paid $6,145
Katrina Benny — Paid $4,497
Sara Erickson — Paid $5,102
Greg Larson — Paid $4,797
James King — Paid $4,797
Appendix B: Related Cases
State of Washington v. Reed Hein et al.
Case No: 20-2-03141-1 SEA
The Attorney General for Washington State, on behalf of the Washington Consumer Protection Division, filed a lawsuit against Reed Hein and others in early 2020. The AG makes several allegations, including that the majority of Reed Hein’s customers (1) did not receive the promised exit, even after years of Reed Hein’s claimed work towards it, (2) received an “exit” that causes the customer unanticipated negative financial or other consequences, or (3) received an exit the customer could have obtained for themselves, without paying thousands of dollars to the defendants.
Wyndham Vacation Ownership et al. v. Reed Hein et al.
Case No: 6:18-cv-02171-GAP-DCI
This case was filed by several timeshare companies against Reed Hein, the key operators of Reed Hein, as well as Reed Hein partners such as Happy Hour Media Group and Mitchell Sussman.
The plaintiffs make several accusations:
Defendants engaged in false advertising in violation of the Lanham Act.
Defendants violated Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (FDUTPA).
Defendants engaged in a civil conspiracy to perform the above violations.
Wyndham Vacation Ownership v. Reed Hein & Associates
Westgate Resorts, a major timeshare development company, sued Reed Hein, alleging … details?
Appendix C: Additional Facts
Reed Hein & Associates (doing business as “Timeshare Exit Team”) was founded in 2012, based in Bellevue, Washington.
Over the next 10 years, the company allegedly convinced thousands of consumers to pay more than $200 million in exchange for a “hollow promise” to terminate those consumers’ timeshare contracts.
Reed Hein was affiliated with (and possibly owned) a marketing company named Happy Hour Media Group (based in Kirkland, Washington) which it used to pay Dave Ramsey.
Dave Ramsey wholly owns the company Lampo Group which received some or all of the money for promoting Timeshare Exit Team.
Reed Hein allegedly charged customers between $4,000 and up to $72,000 for its services and promised customers a 100% refund if they were not relieved of their timeshare obligations. However, it defined such “relief” so broadly as to include the possibility of the timeshare company foreclosing on customers, the customers negotiating themselves out of timeshares, and a variety of pseudo-legal processes designed to deceive customers into thinking they were legally released from their obligations when they were not.
Over the period from 2015 until 2021, when Dave Ramsey was promoting Timeshare Exit Team, the company went from less than $1 million in annual revenue to over $40 million in annual revenue.
