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Probably the “Twenty Minute No B.S. Telephone Consultation With Scott Oliver – Author of ‘How To Buy Costa Rica Real Estate Without Losing Your Camisa’ – Special Offer at US$99” didn’t bring much (or not enough).
https://www.welovecostarica.com/public/2181.cfmNow you try this ? Real bad in Real Estate Country ?
But your partner is still doing very well, isn’t she ?Ouch! I hadn’t seen that one. I’d only seen Scott’s recent articles in other publications about how investment in C.R. real estate is taking off and how a well-known investor was ramping up a development and investing heavily. I questioned that but I’m not in the business.
Scott has a great potential client base on this forum and on the website. If business is so bad he’s going to a subscription base it must be a really dismal market. The lesser agents must really be suffering. I’m sorry to see it and it doesn’t bode well for any of us property owners. I’m just glad I’m not in the real estate business.
CDEdited on Sep 16, 2009 22:47
Ah! Brave ‘sumaSAL’ – Where have you been!
1. I am always happy to receive constructive criticism from our members because 99% of them have the courage and the decency to post their comments or at least register using their names…
You on the other hand, can only post your usually insulting comments anonymously… And you always wondered why the kids in your school gave you that white feather…
2. You’re welcome to jump to all the conclusions you wish, but as very long time members will remember WeLoveCostaRica.com started as a subscription website but that came to an abrupt end when my payment processor went out of business.
Getting a merchant card account as a British citizen living and working in Costa Rica proved not to be possible but there are other payment options available now…
Scott Oliver
In starting WeLoveCostaRica.com in early 2003, my initial goal was simply to share my passion for living in Costa Rica with family and friends.
When I discovered that there were so many scam artists operating in the real estate field (as well as the financial services field at that time), I began writing articles about real estate to help educate and protect our VIP Members and eventually published a book called How To Buy Costa Rica Real Estate Without Losing Your Camisa…..
Because our VIP Members kept on asking that instead of simply telling them that they must be careful, that I should actually recommend developers, we began recommending developers whom we knew were experienced developers with a proven track record of delivering quality real estate in Costa Rica.
So when it comes to this little business of WeLoveCostaRica.com I have tried hard to provide the information and the products requested by our VIP Members however in doing so, what our VIP Members may not be aware of is the price that I have paid because as we cautioned our VIP Members in articles about dealing with certain kinds of “developers” – who five years later have never actually developed anything – I made some enemies…
* The lives of my family and I have been threatened on at least 8 occasions by Americans in anonymous and untraceable telephone calls.
* Dozens of my business associates received anonymous emails in English and in Spanish from a variety of Hotmail/Yahoo type email addresses originating in four different countries claiming that I was involved in serious, fraudulent activities.
* Those same anonymous emails were sent to everyone that ever wrote a positive review of my book on Amazon.com using their own internal email system.
* Dozens of ridiculous and always anonymous reviews were posted on Amazon.com from an “96 year old widow and I followed Scott Oliver’s advice and lost my shirt.” Most of which Amazon.com removed but some remain.
* Those same anonymous emails were sent to all of our recommended developers claiming that I was involved in serious, fraudulent activities and I spent many hours visiting those developers proving to them that these allegations were totally false.
* I have been visited by police officers who have received anonymous tips claiming that I was involved in serious criminal activities.
* The immigration police visited me because they received an anonymous letter claiming that I was working here illegally and involved in a charity fraud.
* This anonymous letter full of totally false allegations made it complicated and expensive to renew my residency.
* Two separate websites were put up about Scott Oliver alleging my involvement in a variety of serious, fraudulent and other criminal activities.
* In May 2005 I wrote about these “… slanderous allegations” which you can see at [ https://www.welovecostarica.com/members/167.cfm ]
* In July 2006 I even offered a US$100,000 Cash Reward! which you can see at [ https://www.welovecostarica.com/public/298.cfm ]
* However, if you have ever tried to have even blatantly outrageous slanderous information removed from a website or to track anonymous emails, you will know it is not a simple task.
* The OIJ (the Costa Rica FBI) visited dozens of my business associates to review their computers and check their data, they compiled an incredibly professional report of close to 200 pages but, the next stage would have involved hiring attorneys on four different continents who were asking me for retainers equivalent to about US$50,000 before they began any work.
* And when all of this was over, a Costa Rican attorney friend of mine informs me that someone had been paid to plant drugs in my car which would then conveniently be discovered by a police officer! Thankfully I am very careful where I park my car.But should this happen again, we are all most definitely ready!
Do I regret doing what I considered to be the right thing?
Absolutely not.
As you can see, over a four year period this has caused me significant “inconvenience” (a typical British understatement), thousands of dollars in legal fees and wasted precious month’s of my life.
The good news is that there are thousands of people out there who, thanks to the expert information they have found on WeLoveCostaRica.com have NOT sent a ton of money to someone they don’t know, for land they haven’t seen, in a country they have never visited, for a home in development that was never going to be developed.
And the other good news is that this has brought me closer to some attorney friends of mine and, we now have some good contacts in Costa Rica law enforcement.
So perhaps now you might understand why I get a tad irritated by anonymous people wasting our time playing games in our Discussion Forum and, anonymous people who post very little constructive information in the Forum but love to post insulting comments.
The beautiful thing about having your own business is that you get to choose with whom you communicate with, with whom you eventually do business with and, for all of the reasons stated above, we will no longer allow anonymous registrations and certainly will not allow anonymous Discussion Forum postings …
I am very, very grateful to all of our VIP members who regularly contribute lots of helpful information in our Forum and look forward to reading more…
Scott Oliver – Founder
WeLoveCostaRica.comI guess I am in the minority, when I say that I think that there are plenty of people that will pay for this content. I would love to see the forum stay free but however you go Scott I am with ya. I have been living in CR since January and have used your site a reference several times. I can’t imagine taking this on for free for as long as you have and, in fact, I have more than once said “what’s in it for this guy”. Kudos for getting paid for work done well.
Wether you are in the minority or not is yet to be seen, I myself have wondered what Scott was getting out of this site,he has answered all my personel e-mails, answered phone calls, I would hope he would be getting something, being monetary or otherwise. Free info is usually not very indepth, not so with WLCR.
A membership should bring more serious dialog in the forums, but saying that it should not be censored in anyway.
WLCR and CRB are the only sites I find myself going to any more
Sign me up, we are talking under a 100 bucks.
BrianI’m probably in the minority too. I disagree with about 50% of what Scott says/does with the threads on the website but I totally support his efforts to bring consistency and rationality to the real estate market.
I’ll still be on the “no” side of paid membership, and will miss the camaraderie of the forum.
CDI am sure that the majority will NOT pay. But (example) if “only” 3,000 members pay $ 5 per month…….. you will have a great life in Costa Rica, that’s what they call PURA VIDA !!!
Less than 10 bucks a month for all the information on this site is a deal. If you are serious about living, knowing about or buying in Costa Rica you have very limited resources for honest, rational information. Nothing is perfect, but this site is the best place to start your search if you are going to buy property in Costa Rica. Even if you don’t use one of Scott’s recommended resources you will have a solid education and a far better understanding about this country and how business gets done. From hiring an attorney to choosing a bank or real estate broker.
Sorry. I don’t see it that way. This forum is an exchange of ideas. The most beneficial are those from people “in the know” (read: who live here.) I wouldn’t have known about it though if I hadn’t long ago visited the (free) website. If at that time the website had charged I wouldn’t have bothered visiting the forum. That’s why I believe as do those other posters, that a subscription basis would drain the membership and limit new members.
There is too much good information out there for free, even if some is questionable. Just because someone charges for membership doesn’t make it better, just more likely that it won’t be seen.
“There is too much good information out there for free, even if some is questionable”
This is fine as long as you know how to filter the questionable info.Brian
True. As all of us are forced to do, including information on WLCR. Any online investigation requires evaluation and filtering, and I don’t necessarily trust WLCR ads and information more or less than others. They’ve always had a profit motive. Charging for access to them now doesn’t make information better or more reliable, just more expensive.
On Tim’s http://www.TheRealCostaRica.com is a wealth of great information for free too. If he started charging I’d give the same comments.
I’ll stop posting on this now. My objective was to express my concern to Scott.
I certainly agree with Countdowns comments.
There are many other reputable sales agents, developers & lawyers ‘out there’ or I should say, here in Costa Rica. And just because they are advertised on this site, doesn’t necessarily make them ‘honest’.
One thing I don’t like about this site, that links to other websites, are often removed.
There are things I do like, though…I should add those ‘posting’ or ‘responding’ are not always honest, either.
Edited on Sep 18, 2009 11:56
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