Surplus funds, tax lien overages, excess proceeds, asset recovery, and whatever else you wanna call it, right? It’s a jargon-y industry but that shouldn’t stop you from getting involved, say gurus like Bob Diamond, Spencer Vann, and Nick Fullmer. Of course, they’ve all got a multi-thousand-dollar course to sell you, so they’re gonna be biased. The point of this article is to quickly review some of the negatives of starting your own surplus funds business.
First and foremost, it’s kind of a dirty industry. There’s a lot of scammers in this space. They’ll find some poor old lady who lost her home due to foreclosure, who’s owed, let’s say, $100,000, and they’ll call her up and be like, “Hey, I think you might be owed some money. How ’bout I send you $1,000 and you sign over the rights to me to go try and collect that money, and I should be able to get you even more back.” The old lady agrees, and then some sociopath collects the $100k, keeps it all and bounces.
I mean, jeez, rub salt in her wound and then stick a lit cigarette in it, right? So ya gotta ask yourself: Is that something you wanna associate yourself with? Keeping in mind, even if you’re one of the good ones, and you do everything by the books, the cynic might say, “Yeah but aren’t you preying on people who’re in tough positions? Why should you take a cut outta this money they’re owed? Clearly they need it more than you do.” Right? And then, even if that doesn’t bother you, remember, these claimants are gonna be skeptical of your intentions (and therefore hard to close).
The second downside of this type of business is that you’re beefing with government officials at the state level. If I’m making a living by repeatedly trying to claw back money from California and New York and wherever else, I dunno, I think I’d be paranoid that there’s a target on my back. Like would they go outta their way to see that I get audited or messed with in some way, to sorta prove a point? You just never know, because these states are earning interest on this money, right, so they’re incentivized to hold onto it.
Third is, you hear a lot of stories about people buying into one of these surplus funds coaching programs and not getting any results. Too complicated, they’ll say. Too slow. Too much red tape. Or they just can’t get anyone to agree to let ’em help because of what we talked about earlier. But the guy or gal who sold ’em the course will say it’s their fault; that they clearly didn’t follow through; didn’t take enough action; that it’s a numbers game; if you reach out to enough people and make enough offers, you’re bound to make money with overages.
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. No doubt the guru made it sound faster and easier than it really is. But on the other hand, the disgruntled students likely took some shortcuts or lost focus or flat-out gave up at the first sign of adversity, right? But that leads me to my fourth and final flaw with this business model. Even if you’re successful at it, it does take a long time to get that check in the mail. You could be looking at six, seven, eight months, from the time you get a yes to the time you see the money hit your bank account.
And being that this is marketed as a great way for beginners to make some extra money in their spare time, I mean, who’s gonna be that patient? Who’s gonna stick with it that long? Anyone starting a side hustle needs right now money, or they wouldn’t be starting a side hustle in the first place. Granted, if somebody’s promising you instant riches? They’re lying to you. But, for example, with our business? The lag time isn’t nearly as bad. Click the link below and check out that video to learn more.
