Has Ted Haggard Found A New Way To Fleece People?
An eagle-eyed JMG reader has found Ted Haggard's new business site, a mortgage reduction scheme company called United First Financial with the URL: KeepYourOwnMoney.com.
Entering the company's site through their main portal (not Haggard's) one finds a link to another company site called ThinkBeyondMortgages.com. JMG reader David ponders:
Glancing through the "agent manual" it appears to me to be something like a Multi-Level-Marketing scheme, and the "customers" at the bottom are lured in by promises of tens of thousands of dollars in EVENTUAL savings on mortgage interest, in exchange for a $3500 upfront fee (as nearly as I can tell) which gets gobbled up by however many "agents" are in the food chain above them. Unlike MLM schemes, this one may actually produce an actual major savings for the "customers", but it does seem to me to have the flavor of taking advantage of some people in specific situations.How about it, you financial types out there? Is this a legit business or has Haggard glommed onto yet another way to defraud people? Pyramid / Ponzi schemes ARE, after all, a traditional scam of evangelicals. Remember Jim Bakker's famous Heritage USA scam? What's the real story behind Ted "Completely Heterosexual" Haggard's new line of work?
It also seems to me that this is PERFECT for TH's talents and resources -- he has thousands of people at NLC who still trust him and who believe what he says, many of whom probably want to help him, and I bet a lot of them have home mortgages to pay off. I'm sure he can be VERY convincing, especialy when he's in a face to face situation trying to sell someone something.
Labels: closet cases, religion, Ted Haggard, United First Financial