Cohousing-L Mailing List: Legal Advice Scams

[fertilezone (fertilezone]

Re: Negotiating land deals, lbrighton [at] juno.com wrote:

Don't sign anything without the approval of an Attorney.  Get 
yourself the best RE attorney you can find .. you need proper legal 
advice.  
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Is there a well recommended "do-it-yourself book" that addresses 
the land development issue?  If not beware of cheep Pre-Paid Legal 
advice.

I was initially lead to believe I could broker Pre-Paid Legal Services 
to Non Profit companies.  Relying on the credibility of the 
Northwest Regional VP of PPL, I almost closed a deal that would 
have caused substantial damage, if not for checking with the PPL 
corporate office in Oklahoma.  

My potential client and I were both shocked as the corporate office 
explained, contrary to what their Northwest VP told us, PPL does 
not offer any services for Non Profits.

I should have got suspicious after my first personal experience with 
the affiliate PPL Law firm in my state.  This was an encounter with 
a phone screener that attempted to substitute unqualified legal 
advice for speaking with an actual attorney.  

I though this poor service was just a rare case of bad training, or a 
new receptionist.  However, I later learned from an Uncle, also 
signed up in the PPL program, that the provider-law-firm lawyer 
blew him off, saying he didn't have a good case.  My uncle had to 
get legal help elsewhere.  

Also notable, was my 19 yr old cousin who had to take an 
unscrupulous mechanic to small claims court, by himself, after the 
PPL letter writing service, resulted in an even stronger retort from 
the mechanic's lawyer.  The PPL provider firm washed their hands 
of the case, claiming his Pre-Paid Legal plan does not cover further 
action.  My cousin was only 19 yrs. old, and the small claims 
judged ruled in his favor.

PPL relies on multi-level marketing, which may produce much 
more incentive for sales, than incentive for qualified representation 
of its products.  It seems to me PPL affiliate law firms can not 
provide the same kind of service to the high volume of PPL-member 
callers than it can to regular clients.

High pressure sales tactics appealed to me during desperate 
times.  I lost about $400.00 in credit card debt, in broker fees, plus 
the opportunity to further a more realistic career.  I couldn't make 
any money.  

However, my ISP liked my PPL web page so much, he talked me 
out of taking it down and let it stay on his server for free.  This site 
quickly became one of several that saturated the internet by mid 
1998.  I finally took the site down after getting refund requests from 
previous brokers that I never sponsored.  

I realized Multi-Level Marketing provides no incentive for its agents 
to address dissatisfied customers, nor does it guarantee return of 
any initial investments.

Everyone I talked with that made this work did so by calling on 
family, friends, cold calls from the phone book, or by dragging 
people to repetitious marketing meetings.  These motivational-
marketing meetings are typically a long commute, and require 
entry fees to cover hotel rental space.

If you know of any discouraged PPL associates, or other MLM 
suckers who lost initial investments, I doubt there is much chance 
the sponsoring Associate would respond to a refund request.  
There's no incentive to do so with Multi-Level Marketing.  You 
should be able to get a better response directly from the PPL 
corporate office number, at 1-8000-654-7757