Christian radio host Dave Ramsey sued, $150 million, over timeshare fraud claims

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

Christian finance guru Dave Ramsey has been sued over a failed company that promised to free its customers from their timeshare obligations, according to a report.

The class-action lawsuit alleges the Washington-based Timeshare Exit Team collected $200 million from clients, with $30 million allegedly going to Ramsey, who promoted the company on his radio show, but defrauded customers through “negligent malpresentation,” reported Religion News Service.

The suit brought by 17 customers say they relied on Ramsey, who often talks about his disdain for timeshare accommodations, for advice on getting out of their burdensome contracts, and the complaint alleges that he continued to promote the company even after concerns were raised about possible fraud -- which he suggested was part of a conspiracy against parent company Reed Hein & Associates LLC.

“Instead of acknowledging the deception, Ramsey recorded a nine-minute radio segment in which he lashed out at anyone he felt to be responsible for Reed Hein’s woes,” the complaint alleges.

The suit alleges that Reed Hein told customers to stop paying their timeshare fees and created fake property deeds to falsely suggest they were free of their commitment.

“When customers finally discovered the schemes and demanded their refunds, Reed Hein fabricated excuses not to honor the promises or stopped returning their calls,” the complaint says.

The lawsuit seeking more than $150 million names Ramsey, Timeshare Exit Team and Happy Hour Media Group as defendants.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/christian-radio-host-dave-ramsey-sued-over-timeshare-fraud-claims/ar-AA1c303L

[Tetrachloride]

1. The greed was more important than the good.

[CanonRay]

2. Scratch a Christian radio host

Find a con artist

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

3. .. and he went anti vax too

[marble falls]

4. Ramsey has always been a questionable source of information. Ihope he has that cash so they can ...

Last edited Mon Jun 5, 2023, 07:19 AM - Edit history (1)

... take it away.

[Dustlawyer]

7. Probably spent it on a jet and prostitutes.

[marble falls]

8. My best friend used to listen to this guy, he's been on air decades. Irv was Jewish and the ...

... most liberal person politically I knew. And a conservative financially. I just put it down as a quirk in my most favorite person I knew. But he would turn Ramsey off the radio when I showed up.

I sure miss Irv everyday, he passed from illness, and yet this waste of protoplasm is still shitting up the airwaves ten years later.

[Johnny2X2X]

17. Dave's show and books can be distilled into a few sentences

Make a budget and stick to it.
Get a $1000 emergency fund together
Used a debt snowball to pay off debt (This is method of paying the smallest debts off first while making minimum payments on everything else).
After you're reasonably debt free, save 4-6 months of expenses.
Don't take on new debt, buy used cars...that's about it.

The entirety of his literature and 3 decades on the radio can be summed up with those hand full of rules, which are actually pretty good advice.

He's a horrible person who mistreats employees, made them violate the law during Covid, and has sexually harassed people who work for him. It's zero surprise he's also a grifter.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

19. almost every call "I'm deeply in debt, what should I do", and he goes over the debt snowball again

and again.

I do give him credit for pulling the very very demoralized from the brink... some call in so stressed and he basically lets them know "it will be ok".

[Johnny2X2X]

21. Really is common sense stuff

And the snowball method works, it makes sense and is based on the psychology of seeing progress quickly so you'll stick to it.

Credit card debt is a killer. And the average consumer doesn't hae the math background to assess credit card usage properly. So they see something on sale 1/2 off and think it's a great deal, so they use a credit card not realizing that they're going to end up paying 3 or 4 times the purchase price by the time they pay it off. So that "great deal" of 1/2 off was really double the normal cost because they paid with a high interest credit card.

And it's remarkable how even if you set up a spread sheet with the amortization schedule for their $1000 in credit card debt, they simply refuse to believe you that they're really paying $3500 by the time they pay it off. It's a powerful mental block for some people.

And Dave's stance on new car purchases is a good one too. This idea that everyone is driving new cars is wrong, you don't need a 2023 car, you can get a 2020 with the same features at a much better value.

[Skittles]

30. this kind of stuff should be taught in high school

yup

[Johnny2X2X]

31. They teach the opposite in high school

They teach kids they should get credit cards to build credit.

[Skittles]

32. ooh....well I don't remember that

I had a hell of a time getting a credit card as a single gal, and I was ENLISTED at the time

[Zeitghost]

26. That about sums it up.

I never understood how he was able to survive so long on the radio. It was the same damn thing every single time. It's decent, albeit simplistic, common sense financial advice for people who have a hard time managing their finances. But it never changes and if you listen for a few days you've heard the entirety of his plan.

[Johnny2X2X]

27. And the success stories are mostly the same too

"We were in debt, we started out making $45K a year combined. Now we're making $185K a year combined and we just became debt free, Wooo hooo!!!!"

Wait, you mean to tell me your income went up 350% and you were able to pay off some debt?

Living debt free has to be taught at a young age, your child's financial education starts when they're still toddlers. Because once you get a few years past college, if you didn't have that education, you're likely already in trouble and it's going to take a major jump in income to ever see a way out. I still have a house payment and some student loans, but I said good bye to credit card debt and auto loans, but that coincided with my increase in income of a couple hundred %.

It's easy to be preachy about debt when you're making a top 10% income, but the reality when you're barely getting by is a lot different than just following a budget and not being stupid.

[NowISeetheLight]

29. It's Easy

It's easy to say cut up all your credit cards and pay cash for everything when you're sitting on a million plus a year of income and a ton of money. Working people don't have it quite so easy.

[bullimiami]

5. Fines are restitution. Deterrence requires punishment which is jail time.

And increasingly long jail time for repeat offenders.

These corporate criminals will just keep at it.
Fines are factored into their costs of doing shady business.

[badhair77]

6. Not surprised he's compromised.

Always seemed a bit of a charlatan to me.

[jimfields33]

9. His financial way to get out of debt is pretty good.

But probably should have stuck with that.

[badhair77]

15. Exactly.

Some of our local churches offered classes using his books. The debt-reduction sections were probably beneficial, but there was something about his advertising and commentary as time went on that bothered me. It’s been so long that I can’t remember specifics.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

20. right before Trump's prez win, he started to open the door on his Trumpian political views

Trump won and the world was so upset, it bled over to his followers. He pulled back ... had an episode about no mattering who is president.

But then COVID times... he came out of the closet.. anti vax.

[Hugin]

10. I heard several ads for this outfit on the radio over the weekend.

I always figured that it was a scam. I never guessed that they were doing nothing, though.

Once again, there’s no bottom for depravity.

[3Hotdogs]

11. Of more interest to me, is his sponsor, Christian Healthcare Ministries.

CHM looks similar to the Liberty HealthShare case.

I wonder if there are people who were suckered into sending money into CHM and think they got ripped off because their requests for money from Jesus didn't get dispensed.

Well, seems to me, they just didn't pray hard enough.

[malaise]

12. Let us Prey

How are people so effin gullible?
That is all.

[Cheezoholic]

13. A kinder gentler Alex Jones n/t

[Farmer-Rick]

14. He promoted a timeshare exit team scam

And didn't reveal he was getting millions in kickbacks to push the scam.

If you have a timeshare it is a money pit that never ends. He claimed this Time share exit team would get you out of your timeshare. But of course it didn't. You could send them $5,000 and they would send you a sample letter to send to your timeshare corporation. People who sent the time share exit team money, never did get out of their timeshares without lawsuits and further costs.

Dave knew the business model was a scam and kept promoting it.

[multigraincracker]

16. What would Jesus say?

Confess, pay the victims and then "go and sin no more."

[Bleacher Creature]

18. Scamming the already scammed.

How "Christian" of him.

[Demsrule86]

22. I bought time shares in the mid 90's...with three kids it was the best way to vacation...

I bought a couple of used Time Shares from a real estate agency...never fall for the hard sell on new ones. I paid almost nothing for them. After that, there was a maintenance fee which wasn't bad. We took great vacations that we would never have afforded thanks to them. I bought in Williamsburg...one of my kid's favorite vacation spots and one in Florida in a fancy resort we only went to once and traded it every other year. If you know how to manage them, get the places you want and how

Time Shares are worth it. But many buy when they don't know how to buy them, use them. Also to have the time and want to vacation. Anyway, when the kids were grown and hubs became ill, we needed to cut our expenses so we figured we would sell them or even offer them 'free'. I 'bought' a free one once. But to our surprise, we sold them all and even made some money. we used Century 21 where we bought most of them. Always be careful and check if taxes are paid...that sort of thing.

[UTUSN]

23. He can pay it off small to large & eating rice & beans and beans & rice.

[Kennah]

24. Louis says

[StarryNite]

25. What 'Living Righteously' Means at Dave Ramsey's Company

What ‘Living Righteously’ Means at Dave Ramsey’s Company
Former employees describe a gossipy culture of paranoia and suspicion where women are subject to special scrutiny and rebuke
STEVEN HALE DEC 7, 2021

In 2019, Ramsey Solutions held its Christmas party at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center. An enthusiastic email sent to staff of the company, which is run by evangelical cash-chat radio host Dave Ramsey, informed them on logistics and included a few warnings.

“We’ll have alcohol at the party (which is awesome but requires us to be wise and mature),” wrote chief marketing officer Jen Sievertsen in the email, a copy of which was obtained by the Scene. “Most of us have a hotel room there (another huge blessing).”

She went on: “And just one more time….whether it’s 5 pm or 11:30 pm or 2:30 am….don’t have an individual in your hotel room that’s not your spouse or your family member….it may be 100% innocent YET the appearance is less than that. Even your serious boyfriend/girlfriend/fiance/ or just ‘really great long time platonic friend of the opposite sex’ needs to NOT be in your hotel room. Period. If they need a ride home, put them in an Uber, but don’t let them sleep off that extra drink in your hotel room because it doesn’t look good. And you don’t need people questioning your integrity because righteous living is living righteously and not giving people a reason to question that.”

One former Ramsey Solutions employee — a woman who left the company this year — says staffers were told that board members would be in the lobby to make sure no one was leaving with someone other than a spouse.

https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/citylimits/what-living-righteously-means-at-dave-ramsey-s-company/article_c525c46c-56e5-11ec-be58-9b22ecb568c6.html

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

34. "board members would be in the lobby to make sure no one was leaving with someone other than a spous

[Sam_Fields]

28. His Show is almost the same every day

1. He take calls and tells a person deep in debt not to file bankruptcy. Even though he took advantage of it himself.
2. Tells someone barely scraping by to keep on paying that credit card debt rather then set up an account with a consumer credit counseling non-profit.
3. He has high income people that paid off their house early scream "we're debt free!"


It is a repeating format. He must be targeting the listener that listens for 10-30 minutes during their commute.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

35. it is very repetitive

[pstokely]

33. he says to buy beater cars

but those are likely to have high repair costs