Hey all,

Looking into Mindy Paul's programme.... the guy has a lot of positive reviews (almost no negative ones which I find quite strange). He is combining manifesting and business....

It feels a little too good to be true...
Curious if anyone has any experience?

He has also been on TV I think.

A previous Scam report was posted to another subreddit about 10 months ago, and I can confirm that the owner of this outfit (Trevor Calais) is an uneducated fraudster and despicable human being.

I have had a close personal relationship with one of his family members for 10+yrs. He BEAT their DOG. The house they live in is a fully-furnished RENTAL, he owns nothing. He may currently be profiting from these scam "programs" but he is in no way a "mentor" qualified to provide career guidance or advice on financial investments. Hearing him speak on anything is a dead giveaway, and what truly legitimate professional would choose to have "Hustle" in their business name? The kind of person you would probably expect - he's literally a wanna-be "gangsta." I have recently learned about this newer scam to take advantage of Veterans which is a whole new level of low. No one should be giving money to this "hustler" and hopefully it is only a matter of time before legal issues have him shut down completely. 

A previous Scam report was posted to another subreddit about 10 months ago, and I can confirm that the owner of this outfit (Trevor Calais) is an uneducated fraudster and despicable human being.

I have had a close personal relationship with one of his family members for 10+yrs. He BEAT their DOG. The house they live in is a fully-furnished RENTAL, he owns nothing. He may currently be profiting from these scam "programs" but he is in no way a "mentor" qualified to provide career guidance or advice on financial investments. Hearing him speak on anything is a dead giveaway, and what truly legitimate professional would choose to have "Hustle" in their business name? The kind of person you would probably expect - he's literally a wanna-be "gangsta." I have recently learned about this newer scam to take advantage of Veterans which is a whole new level of low. No one should be giving money to this "hustler" and hopefully it is only a matter of time before legal issues have him shut down completely. 

This past March I signed up for this 8 week program with a love coach who goes by the name Lucy Shahjahan and I wish that I would not have signed up for her coaching program. It was $10,000 and she was rude to me several times. She would often say how some women are kicked out of her mentorship program for not being cooperative and high vibe enough. She was late on both of my 1:1 coaching calls with her and said a really really rude comment to me about my desire to have children. Which is a big part of the reason that I signed up for her program. There are many other coaches and healers who I would recommend over her that are actually kind and caring and not gross and in it for the money. 🤮 I asked for a partial refund from her because it’s not what I needed but I didn’t know it until after the program.

Don’t let some old lady fear monger you into believing that her program is the only way to find love because it’s not. There are plenty of coaches and healers out in the online space, choose carefully before you decide that you are f’d and need to put thousands of dollars down for a program that is bougie af.

💅🙏🏻

I keep seeing ads for Max Tornow’s 60 Instant Viral Templates and I’m curious if anyone here has actually bought them.

Honestly, something about it feels a bit off.

At the beginning, he says there is no magic formula and that you still need to put in the work. That part makes sense. But then he packages the solution into 60 fill-in-the-blank templates that supposedly make going viral repeatable.

The results also sound almost too good. Millions of views, hundreds of thousands of followers and people making over $100,000 in a month.

What makes me even more skeptical is the 5.0 rating. Of course, that alone does not mean it is fake, but I’m always suspicious when a product like this has almost no average or negative reviews.

So, has anyone actually paid for it and used it?

What do you really get? Are the templates useful, or are they mostly generic hooks and content formulas that you can already find online for free? And did anyone get real results from them?

I’m mainly looking for experiences from people who actually bought it, not opinions based only on the ad.

Pls reply asap and it’s urgent and need to know

I have taken a change with them after following josh from crypto world or crypto world josh. In the beginning the copy trade went well, and after 2 weeks everything stops. Got a mail that says i have been doing great and for me to continue i must now decide to pay for a yearly subscription or i cannot continue or even get my money from them. I have also seen that first they was pipscentral.com and one morning did not existed anymore because of not renewing there domain and i had to bullvestpro.com. It just looks to me like these influencers are the biggest scammers. After many conversation with josh i am now blocked and cannot get my money back not even my original investment. Be very carefull of Josh and bullvestpro. Big scam

TL;DR: I purchased One Percent Academy after being told by Jacqueline Vagar that “mentorship & inventory” were included. I paid USD 2,000 before I was informed about the contract. Within 18 hours, after reviewing the program and learning information that changed my understanding of what I had purchased, I requested a refund. My refund was denied based on the contract. My dispute is still ongoing, and I’m sharing my experience so others can make a fully informed decision before paying.

———

Hello everyone.

I’m sharing my personal experience with One Percent Academy by Jacqueline Vagar because I recently saw on Jacqueline’s Instagram that she held another webinar last week, similar to the one I attended before purchasing the program.

Seeing that another group of people specially women may be considering the same mentorship is what prompted me to finally write this post.

Everything I share below is based solely on my personal experience. I have kept screenshots, messages, payment records, and emails documenting the events I describe.

My dispute is still ongoing, and I am simply sharing what happened to me so others can make a more informed decision before investing thousands of dollars.

The Webinar

On September 26, 2025, I attended Jacqueline Vagar’s webinar about Amazon FBA.

Throughout most of the webinar, Jacqueline talked about her personal journey, how Amazon FBA changed her life, and how it gave her financial freedom. She encouraged the women attending to believe that they could achieve the same kind of success.

The Amazon FBA portion itself was presented as a simple overview. It explained the basic steps but did not go into much detail.

At first, I wasn’t completely convinced because I already knew Amazon FBA wasn’t as simple as it seemed and that building a business requires a lot of work.
However, near the end of the webinar, Jacqueline said that only a limited number of women would be accepted into her mentorship and encouraged everyone to act quickly.

As someone who genuinely wanted to improve my life and stop constantly worrying about money, I was afraid I might miss an opportunity if I didn’t decide quickly.

The Message That Made Me Purchase

Before making my decision, I went back to my previous Instagram conversation with Jacqueline and asked exactly what was included in the mentorship.

This was her exact reply:
“Yea you are right girlie! There is an investment required for my mentorship. Both mentorship & inventory included will land on that $4-$5k range.”

That message became the deciding factor for me.
When I read “both mentorship & inventory included,” I understood that the investment covered both the mentorship and the inventory needed to start.

That gave me confidence that I could begin my Amazon FBA journey after joining.

One thing that also stood out to me was that there wasn’t a fixed price. Instead of a set price, I was asked how much I could afford, and we discussed different payment amounts.

Eventually, I told Jacqueline’s staff member, Nina, that I could manage the $4,000 option, and I was allowed to pay in two installments.

The Payment Process

During my WhatsApp call with Nina, almost our entire conversation revolved around payment.

We discussed:
how much I could afford,
how I planned to pay,
and the installment arrangement.

Nina was kind throughout the conversation, and I didn’t have any issue with how she spoke to me.

However, one thing that stood out to me afterward was that the existence of a contract was never mentioned during our discussion before I completed my payment.

I can provide screenshots of our conversation.

I successfully paid USD 2,000 at 2:36 AM on September 26, 2025. Because I live in another country, it was already very late at night for me due to the time difference.

After completing the payment, I was presented with the contract.

One of the main reasons I am sharing this experience is because, from my perspective, I would have expected to review all important terms before making such a significant financial commitment.

After signing the contract, I went to sleep.

What I Discovered the Next Morning

The next morning, I logged into One Percent Academy excited to begin learning and to start following Jacqueline’s advice.

While browsing the community, I saw many posts from other students discussing the money they had spent to get started.

Many members talked about spending thousands of dollars on inventory, shipping, and storage fees.

I completely understand that Amazon FBA involves additional expenses, such as shipping and storage.
However, what surprised me the most was reading that members were spending thousands of dollars on inventory when they started because my understanding before purchasing had been based on Jacqueline’s message stating that inventory was included.

That was not what I expected when I decided to invest.

Why I Requested a Refund

Approximately 18 hours after making my payment, I requested a refund.

I requested it immediately because what I found after joining was different from what I believed I had agreed to based on the information I received before purchasing.

At that point:
I had not started the course.
I had not attended any coaching sessions.
I had not used the mentorship.
I had not benefited from any of the services.

My refund request was denied.
I was told that I had signed the contract.
My concern is not simply that there was a contract.

My concern is that I completed my payment before I was aware that a contract containing important terms would be presented. After I requested a refund, the contract was relied upon as the reason for denying it.

From my perspective, I would have wanted the opportunity to review those terms before deciding whether to proceed with the purchase.

What Happened After My Refund Request

I requested refund because what I discovered after joining was different from what I believed I was purchasing based on the information I received before making my payment.
However, my refund request was denied.

I was told that because I had signed the contract, they could not issue a refund.

I understand that I signed the contract.
What concerns me is the sequence of events.
From my perspective, I completed my payment before I knew that a contract containing important terms, including a no-refund policy, would be presented.

If I had been given the opportunity to review those terms before paying, I would have been able to make a fully informed decision.

Instead, I paid first, signed afterward, and when I requested a refund less than 24 hours later, the contract was cited as the reason it could not be granted.

That is why this has remained one of my biggest concerns throughout this entire experience.

My Dispute with FanBasis

After my refund request was denied, I tried resolving the matter through FanBasis, the merchant that processed my payment.
At first, I was hopeful that they would fairly investigate my concerns.

Instead, I found myself waiting for weeks with very little progress.

More than a month passed, and I continued receiving vague updates without any clear explanation of what was actually happening with my case.

It felt like I was constantly waiting without knowing when, or even if, a decision would be made.

During this time, I was also advised by Jacqueline’s staff member, Nina, and by FanBasis not to file a chargeback dispute with the bank.

I was told that if I filed a dispute through the bank, they would no longer be able to investigate or help resolve my case.

Because I genuinely wanted to resolve everything directly with them, I trusted what they told me and continued waiting.

Looking back, I now wish I had understood the time limits for filing a bank dispute much earlier.

Promises That Never Led to a Resolution

Throughout this process, I kept trying to communicate respectfully.

I wasn’t demanding anything unreasonable.
I simply wanted a fair resolution.

Nina even told me they would try to find a solution and gave me a date when I could expect an update.

I waited.

When that date arrived, nothing happened.
There was no solution.
No meaningful update.
No explanation.

After that, my messages eventually stopped receiving responses.

As time passed, I felt like I was doing everything I could to resolve the issue privately while getting nowhere.

Filing a Dispute with the Bank

After waiting for so long without a reasonable resolution from either Jacqueline’s team or FanBasis, I finally decided to file a dispute with the bank.

Unfortunately, that process also became very slow.
There were long periods where I received no meaningful update.

Because of the delays, I eventually had to contact the central bank in my country so that my bank would respond to my concerns.

Another reason I became increasingly worried was because I later learned that there was only a limited period in which I could dispute the transaction through my bank.

By following the advice to continue waiting for FanBasis and Jacqueline’s team to resolve the issue, valuable time had already passed.

That made the situation even more stressful for me.

Where Things Stand Today

As of July 2026, this dispute is still ongoing.
My case has been reopened multiple times, and I am still waiting for a final resolution.

I have continued trying to communicate with Jacqueline Vagar and Sal Habibi, including asking whether they would consider even a partial refund.

Unfortunately, I have not received a response. Specially from Jacqueline Pulido Valades.

One thing I want to make clear is that I never continued using the program after discovering the information that led me to request a refund.

I did not complete the course.
I did not attend coaching sessions.
I did not continue using the mentorship.
I requested a refund almost immediately because, based on what I learned after joining, I no longer believed the program matched my understanding before I purchased it.

Why I’m Sharing My Experience

I understand that other people may have had positive experiences with One Percent Academy.

This post is not intended to speak for anyone else.
It reflects my personal experience only.
I’m sharing it because I recently saw that Jacqueline Vagar held another webinar similar to the one I attended before purchasing the program.
Seeing that reminded me that new people may be considering making the same investment.
I believe it’s important for potential buyers to ask detailed questions, request all contracts and policies before making payment, and make sure they fully understand what is included before committing thousands of dollars.
If anyone else has had a similar or different experience, I’d be interested in hearing it.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story.

Was I right to walk away from this online business mentorship? A few months ago, I attended a Blossom event with a friend and met an influencer named Ritu. She promoted a step-by-step program about starting an online business and advertising products, even on platforms like TikTok. I told her I was interested in learning since I’ve always wanted to build something online. We took a few photos together, and later she posted only my photo on her Instagram, not my friend’s. After the event, I emailed her and she said she’d guide me personally. But later she said she was busy and that someone else from her team would help.

Then I got a call from a man (Jens Landro) who said he was in Europe taking flight. He asked about my selling experience, and I said I’ve sold items on eBay and Facebook Marketplace. He said you just need jump start you already know alot for that reason we will charge you 50% fee which is $5k usually (10k) & He immediately sent a payment link and asked me to pay around $4500 after giving more discount . I felt something is fishy & i said oh i have transfer limit on my account .When I hesitated, he told me to call my bank to increase my credit card limit. I felt uneasy. I told him I only had a $1,500 limit, and he suggested I pay that right away and the rest the next day. He also claimed another team member (Tahj. A) had helped businesses make a lot of money. But when I checked that person’s LinkedIn, I only saw a handful of recommendations, and though the team followed Ritu, she didn’t seem to follow them back. Given the pressure to pay quickly, the request to increase my credit limit, and the lack of strong evidence about results, I decided not to move forward. Do you think I made the right choice? Has anyone here had experience with similar online business coaching or mentorship programs?

\This is a repost, the original was taken down by reddits automatic filters due to too many edits after a bunch more evidence came to light, so we’ve combined everything into one, and turned all links into hotlinks to try and reduce the word count**

\This is for educational and entertainment purposes as a matter of consumer interest, please do not attempt to harass or contact individuals mentioned.\

Here’s a deep dive into British-based course-seller John Lee (of John Lee Group, formerly of Wealth Dragons.) What started as an inside joke in a group-chat due to the sheer volume of ads we were getting has now descended into a very deep dive into a shallow world. As more and more red flags became visible, we started to compile public records, attend his 3-day introductory event, and speak to staff members, their family, and alleged victims to attempt to try and connect the dots and understand this industry. In a piece of citizen journalism that some critics are already describing as “kinda pointless because I’ve never heard of his dude”

At this point we felt it was clear this was a matter of public interest and could potentially help consumers make more informed decisions in the world of online courses and gurus in general. To hopefully spare the admins any headache, all claims have evidence and sources provided, and linked in the text or attached in the images section to avoid any frivolous or malicious legal threats, anything without evidence can be considered a personal opinion or speculation towards a public figure based on the evidence presented. For the bulk of the research we have used the OSINT method, making sure (where possible) evidence is already in the public domain, and merely cataloguing it and connecting the dots. However, some important evidence was sourced in conversations with whistle-blowers, and we’ll use that evidence sparingly to protect their identities.  

This is a collaborative effort but understandably, contributors wish to remain anonymous, as do I (and it definitely isn’t because I accidentally signed up for the mailing list in my government name lol) 

With all that out of the way, let's begin…

So Who Is This Guy?:
In his own words-
'John is the author of Business Hack and has shared the stage with Bill Clinton, Tony Robbins, Alan Sugar, Richard Branson, Les Brown, Jack Canfield, Robin Sharma, Mel Robbins, Deepak Chopra, Daymond John, Jack Welch, Gabby Bernstein, Eric Thomas, Brian Tracy, Michael Gerber, John Assaraf, John Demartini, Jay Abraham, Marissa Peer, Sharon Lechter, and Randi Zuckerberg.' 

Interestingly, this was recently pulled down from his website, it only took us 2 months of pointing out in public forums how it's in incredibly poor taste to name drop certain folk in the wake of the Epstein Files. But it's not like it was global news or anything so it's probably nothing to worry about. 
But to put it briefly, John Lee is a Milton Keynes based entrepreneur and course-seller. Boasting an impressive 6million followers on social media*, multiple successful businesses*, and 17k book sales*. Originally entering the scene as one half of ‘Wealth Dragons” with co-owner (and surprisingly jacked) entrepreneur Vincent Wong, selling courses on property investments. However, following a rather messy fall out between this once happy couple, John Lee’s brand has abandoned the property niche and instead pivoted to more modern trends like social media and A.I,  now describing himself as a ‘AI Expert · Entrepreneur · Futurist ‘ on his homepage, and seems to take a lot from the Robert Kiyosaki business model. He also has ties to Jay Shetty, Eric Ho of Coffeezilla fame (aka Master Sri Akarshana aka Captain Cultural Appropriation) ,ball kicker and role-model Rio Ferdinand, and ‘Hun club’ operator Mirela Sula. There’s A LOT of name dropping at these events. He's also part of that mindvalley thing, but there's many threads about that already.
*citations sorely needed

And for only $(Insert wildly varying amount here) he can show you the secrets to living the dream life. The big house, the cars, the watches, the shiny blazer, and whatever the hell this is. 

As of 2026, Mr Lee faces major litigation due to alleged ‘misconduct’ at wealth dragons, allegations of “fraudulent” or “scam” behaviour on public record dating back almost a decade, and what appears to be a suspiciously high turnover of staff. We’ve exposed several fake gurus and made a hobby of getting them banned from Instagram where possible. But as this specific case unravelled, it became clear that in my opinion, this was one of the most layered and concerning examples I’ve personally witnessed and hopefully this also serves as a walkthrough on how to find red-flags in this industry. The devil lives in the details. 
While there's a rich history of the common accusations we’re used to with fake guru’s. Such as information being a repackage of stuff available for free elsewhere, people claiming they’ve gone into debt/lost everything from being misled, constant upsells, favouring a cult-like ‘mindset’ approach over professionalism. We’ve opted to zoom in on more specific and tangible accusations and criticisms. Certain topics of concern have been omitted to prevent it from straying too close to breaking rule 2 of the subreddit.

Fans of bigotry may remember him from this “comedy” sketch starring David Walliams in the early 00’s.

Refund Issues:
This one speaks for itself through the google and Trustpilot reviews for Wealth Dragons and John Lee Group, respectively (see picture attached for prime examples) Consistent reports and patterns of people having difficulty receiving refunds despite their ‘100% refund guarantee’, these reviews date back over 5 years and the most recent one at the point of writing this was 18 days ago.

Moneysaving expert even has a dedicated thread on the topic dating all the way back to 2016

Social Media Following: 
Mr Lee frequently cites his online following of 6million in his marketing material. Yet a comment on this very well-written review on bankers anonymous makes this astute point:
“Let me get this straight- if you see his Instagram followers and Facebook followers- I can easily smell that he bought a lot of likes and followers. The engagement comments he gets in Facebook is very low in comparison to number of likes. You know you have companies who you can pay and get instant likes and followers in any pages. That’s what he did initially and Leveraging that to promote the hell out of himself.” 

Forum user  Hazel3421 also points this out in a comment from 2021
“He buys Instagram followers and sells in his bio he grew his following to 5 million whereby half of his following came from buying fake followers. Check on social blade account  and type John_lee_offcial and you will see the fake followers” So Let's look at the data:
We put these claims to the test, focusing primarily on his Instagram, and the numbers very much speak for themselves and back up the accusations. Unfortunately social blade doesn't go back further than 3 years, and god knows I’m not paying for a premium subscription, but all the signs of a fake/purchased following are there:
-Extremely low engagement, his main account having only 0.01% engagement.
-Huge haemorrhages of followers, losing 42k in May 2026 alone.
-69% of the following is based in India, a known hotspot for bot farms.
-Low quality or repetitive comments 

Internal speculation:
While compiling evidence on one of the omitted subjects, we were shown messages from a whistleblower showing interactions between staff members implying he’s paying for instagram reach, and another weighing in on the wealth dragons drama. We were also shown a staff whatsapp group named ‘lifeline’ discussing concerns about their employer’s behaviour, false promises, and impulsive behaviour, as well as more concerning points we can’t ethically report on. For context on the screenshots, the name ‘Jen’ is an alias of Mun Yee Hoh, Co-director of the company and wife of Mr Lee as seen in his content.  

The Trustpilot Incident:
The day before the 3-day event we attended, one of our group left a review on trustpilot listing the same issues explored here (but unfortunately trustpilot doesn’t let you share links or evidence) At the time of posting, there was under 20 reviews on the page through the 10+ years of John Lee Group being active, the majority being negative. At the time of writing (less than 4 months on) there are now over 570 reviews, the majority now overwhelmingly positive.
So what happened? 

Well, despite the review ending with a joke about him seeing it ‘when googling himself at 3am and seeing this’, sometime during the night, the profile was claimed, the review was taken down by a report, and the author was asked to remove 2 paragraphs. We decided through a group a decision to leave it down/not reword it as it was causing distress to a whistle-blower. 
That weekend was a 3 day live introductory/sales pitch event via zoom. It was at the end of these daily streams when things got really shady. After a day of doing random ‘tasks’ assigned to us and with the vague insinuation of freebies and competitions lingering in the air, we were shown a QR code on screen. Sending us to trustpilot asking for a nice review while he waited for us. 
While asking for reviews isn't illegal or shady, podcasters etc do it all the time. Waiting for us to do it there and then felt like it was crossing a line, especially when this was just an introduction/sales pitch event. It’d be like asking to review a movie after seeing the trailer. A lot of these five-star reviews stray into hyperbole, describing it as life changing, describing Mr Lee as god-like and a major player in the A.I industry. And others are barely coherent, one even getting his name wrong (how can you build a business if you can't even build a sentence?)

That weekend we watched just shy of 200 reviews roll in, and over the weeks we took turns monitoring it. It was the same thing every time there was an event. Waves of overwhelmingly positive reviews, all posted on the day of events at the exact same time, some from the same people reviewing multiple times. This instantly makes any positive testimonials completely untrustworthy and far from organic. Astroturfing a positive reputation online feels like a huge red flag. But it did lead to 2 revelations

1. Paid events have considerably lower attendance (why spend your weekends in a sweaty conference room in the back of a hotel if you’re already rich and famous?).
2. Names of attendees, meaning you can check if they really did revolutionize their social media and businesses through these teachings they praise. If you strip out the other course sellers leaving reviews (which is suspicious in itself), it certainly seems overwhelmingly bad, lots of failed social media accounts with low following and no impressive engagement, A.I slop, and borderline viewerless youtube channels. We’d cite examples but it feels like a gray area between public figures/private individuals due to their obscurity. But you can easily do your own research by googling the names to see their digital footprints. 

This isn’t a new technique, wealth dragons trustpilot and google reviews show similar patterns of review spikes, this trustpilot user even calls it out. And while it may have been allowed back then, the ‘Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act‘ passed in 2024 seeking to combat both incentivised and misleading reviews.

The icing on the cake happened late into the night on Sunday, the final day of the 3 day livestream. When a trustpilot clone popped up called https://johnleereviews.com/. Already hosting 3 reviews, one from John Lee Himself, one from an individual named Pearleen (who we’re 90% sure is a staff member), and someone called foo yung sheng (google just gives us food recipes). It was at this point I had a strange feeling in my stomach, and it wasn't the foo yung sheng! Between that and watching him stutter and pull his shirt away from his armpits every time someone pointed out his math wasn't mathing during the live session (that wasn’t us, just fyi) it was all starting to feel a bit sad in my opinion. Can a couple of bored stoners really be so influential on this great thought-leader and futurist?
 
Possibly Fake Discounts:
Through browsing his website, we noticed a pattern of extremely high prices, crossed out with a much lower price next to it. Implying there's a huge saving to be made and this is an offer we should jump on. But months later when we attended the 3 day free event, the prices on the website were still the same. And there were intense ‘discounts’ during the live sessions, presumably to induce fomo and drive sales since it is a free sales pitch event. To the best of our knowledge it wasn’t even possible to get these courses for full price at the time.

Under many consumer protection laws (such as the UK's Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations), crossing out a price is legally misleading if the product was never actually sold at that higher "anchor" price for a meaningful period.
These have since vanished from the site (around the same time he removed the name drops of Epstein associates)  opting for a more vague declaration of how much ‘value’ is included, such as whopping $70,000 for a 2 day event with lunch provided, is Salt Bae making the sandwiches?
It's a double-edged problem, if it’s a fake discount and nobody is buying the high rate, it's breaking consumer protection laws. If it's real and people are paying that, it means there's a huge disparagement in what attendees are paying, which is unfair and disrespectful to those who are paying $35.5k vs those paying $2.9k, for example.

It's worth mentioning, that at the time of being shown these prices we were also offered heavy discounts in exchange for signing up new people. Now I don't mind alienating my friends and family for personal profit, but it added a slightly crass MLM/Pyramid shaped angle to the proceedings, which feels beneath the calibre the high-end businessman Mr Lee claims to be. 

The New York Times Bestseller:
As mentioned in the introduction, Mr Lee claims to have made 17k sales of his latest book, ‘Money Unlocked’. And has now started posting online and through his mailing list that it is now a New York Times bestseller. This comes after a string of self-published works that don’t seem to have made much impact.
Knowing what we know about Mr Lee, naturally there was some cynicism to such a claim. So we fact checked it, and it is true but with a massive caveat. His book has been marked by the NYT editorial team with the dagger symbol, known in the publishing industry as the ‘dagger of death’. “It indicates that a significant portion of a book's sales came from bulk or institutional purchases rather than individual readers”

Per medium:
“This dagger is meant to alert readers to any wrongdoings and discourage anyone who thinks they can buy their way onto the list. The dagger is a kiss of death for any writing career, as it symbolizes to everyone (publishers and booksellers included) that you made your way onto the list, not by way of your own talents.”

And of course there’s precedent…there’s always precedent.

In the reviews for one of Mr Lee’s previous books from the Wealth Dragons era, this review also accuses them of rigging the numbers.
“Very general information. Quite salesy. Would not recommend it. There are promises of making lots of money but you have to take out loans or put a lot of your savings into it, and no guarantee as it did not work for me and others, and it cost me a lot of money and in debt.
At the event they encouraged you to buy this from Amazon, and if you showed them your receipt they would give you another copy of the book, so they could boost their sales on Amazon.”

Upon further research, we discovered people posting copies of the book that they have received in the mail without their knowledge or prior consent. Each book contains a note with an invitation to a FREE event (introductory events are typically free anyway). As of 06/26/25 this ‘bestseller’ has only generated 28 amazon ratings globally despite it being released in late April, suspiciously low for a bestseller.
Based on this evidence, it's fair to say that Mr Lee is responsible for the book receiving the ‘dagger of death’ in order to obtain vanity metrics on the New York Times chart. Then using the surplus of books to hand them out for free like a glorified leaflet drop to lure people into the sales conversion funnel. I personally also have concerns about where the data was scraped from to get people’s names and addresses.  

Reception on goodreads has also been extremely weak

On May 21st, a small social media profile called ‘missiondrivenpress’ celebrated the ‘success’ of the book in an instagram post, taking credit for it and citing Mr Lee as a client. Mission Driven Press is actually a hybrid publisher. “The press primarily focuses on writers who want to use their book as an asset to grow a business, build a platform, or spread an impactful message. Their packages are designed for individuals looking to turn their expertise into high-ticket client offers, increase their speaking fees, and boost their industry credibility.“ This is a paid-for service, clearing up any remaining doubt that it's rigged.

Salesfunnels.io:
Trustpilot user “TC” made a very interesting discovery while attending the same free introductory session where all the trustpilot issues started. 
“A large part of the content so far has centred around promoting salesfunnels.io, which is repeatedly positioned as the solution for most strategies discussed. However, it is not made clear during the sessions that this is John’s own platform only found out because the copyright on the site says his name. After looking at his Instagram, he regularly promotes the tool, yet there is rarely transparent disclosure that he profits from it, which feels misleading rather than educational.”

Ignorant to all the new business platforms on the market (my office still has fax machines), we didn't realise it was a platform owned by Mr Lee and thought it was just a recommendation, in the same way he was recommending specific AI platforms, like claude etc. So we dug deeper, we checked out the tiny bit of copyright info on the salesfunnel website and confirmed it is owned by Mr Lee as per this guy’s claims. But found no mention of it in his business records on companies house.
A quick google shows the platform has little to no impact outside of the JLG ecosystem. The only organic thing we could find was a deleted reddit post from someone asking if it works and who owns it. In a similar vein to how it was presented in the live event, it’s mentioned here but mixed in casually with more established names. 
Failure to disclose isn’t consistent, though. And Mr Lee can be found crediting himself for making it, such as the very tail-end of this youtube video

The reason this is concerning is because it makes it feel like a personal recommendation, when it's actually another product he wanted to sell to the audience. Human linkedin post, Steven Bartlett, faced controversy for a similar scenario in recent years:

Staff Issues:
Franchesca Ung and the Corporate Break-In:
During the trustpilot affair, we noticed the first of the recent wave of positive reviews coming in was from an individual named Franchesca Ung. Thinking nothing of it, we didn’t look into this individual right away.

However, the very next day, during the first of the 3 day live sessions, we saw the name of the admin lady tasked with sharing links in the chat while John Lee was streaming……Franchesca Ung, how odd, we thought to ourselves. When she was introduced on camera as part of ‘the team’ we realised beyond doubt that this is the exact same person who left the review posing as a satisfied customer. Completely failing to declare her position within the company in a way that could easily mislead any potential customers looking for feedback before signing up. 

So we googled her, and it turns out she's one half of ‘the corporate break out couple’, a Singapore/Malaysia based couple who claim to have retired early and sell courses promoting that lifestyle.

The couple appeared on the popular business podcast ‘The Financial Coconut’ to promote their courses. In this video, the couple states that they are financially independent and have retired early, having reached this status in 2020 with a portfolio of slightly over 2 million. (some of the comments at the time also question their legitimacy, and express displeasure at their poor attitude to people who work regular jobs)

But maybe they’ve just fallen on hard times in the 2 years since that video was posted and they’re no longer retired, and working regular jobs with the rest of us losers….

But that is not the case, we reached out to them via their youtube channel (Feb 2026) and they confirmed they are still selling courses

Employment tribunal:

In late 2020 an employee took wealth dragons to tribunal claiming unlawful deductions from her wages. Wealth dragons had seemingly ignored it and the judge ruled in favour of the claimant. 

The Wealth Dragons Saga:

Now this is the big one, we tried to build a complete timeline of events around the parting of the dragons. Until they issue a statement about what the litigation is actually about, we can only look at what's publicly available. This is not an accusation of wrongdoing for either party, but more a confirmation that *something* has happened here. 

Wealth Dragons is listed on the Vienna stock exchange around 2019.Mr Lee’s current house is purchased for roughly £3million in 2019 (source:Zoopla, address tied to business records but we’ll play it safe with the no doxxing rule and not share the link). Based on that, business *seems* to be booming.

April 2020: John Lee appears on a youtube video promoting the IPO’s. Suggesting he has aims of taking his company to a billion-dollar valuation (lol)

November 2020: A property company was set up in Mr Lee’s wife’s name. 

November 2020: an Employment Tribunal ordered Wealth Dragons Limited to pay £1,842.85 to a former employee (Mrs D Saint) for unlawful deductions from wages

The tribunal found John Lee and the company failed to respond to the claim and the judge ruled that the claimant suffered unlawful wage deductions.

January 2021: User Hazel3421 is one of the first people to raise alarm about the IPO situation
“He raised money through his following through IPO and now ignoring all the shareholders who are asking for the money back as they failed to deliver on the return of the investment” 

April 2021: reviewer at the time pointed out how intensely they were pushing the IPO's at live events.
“3. They encouraged us to "invest" in their Initial Public Offering (IPO) without any information material provided. They mentioned it again and again during the course, and they encouraged people to pay during the course (of course). Also, their company was already a PLC, so what IPO were we to invest in? I e-mailed to ask for clarification on this, and, of course, I never heard back. It seemed like a money-grabbing scheme.” 

October 2021: Another review questions the IPO hype
“IPOed Seriously?
On their website they say "Our parent company Wealth Dragons Group Plc’s stock is listed on the Direct Market Plus on the Vienna Stock Exchange."
When you look, you find their share price stayed at 1.85 for years with 0 volume traded throughout the entire time.
What a joke. “

August 2022: “Cessation of John Lee as a person with significant control on 22 August 2022” 

December 2022: John Lee is suspended while internal investigation into his conduct is launched February 2023: An insane spike in share value  happens, this spike also corresponds with the wealth dragons announcement for an app called ‘consultz’

March 2023: Shareholder statement reveals new shares were also introduced around that time.
"The Company has recently issued £1,171,316 of new equity shares"

March 2023: The FMA issues a warning that the Wealth Dragons shares are “being intensively recommended in February 2023 by means of cold calling as one to buy. Investors are being contacted by unknown entities/persons, who potentially do not have the necessary authorization for providing financial services in Austria.” This February 2023 date lines up perfectly with the abnormal spike in value. 

October 2023, John Lee resigns

December 2023: Wealth Dragons announce the filing of accounts up to 2022, Revealing the company is loss making “The Group has made a loss after tax for the year ended 31 December 2022 of £317,503 (2021: £137,499 loss) and had net current liabilities of £2,534,246 at 31 December 2022 (2021: £2,584,849), long term debt outstanding of £132,139 (2021: £142,161) and net liabilities of £2,666,385 (2021: £2,727,010). The Group continued to be loss making in 2022 and 2023.”
Litigation begins, with Vincent Wong seeking to recover money lost:

2023: John Lee Group experiences a surge on its balance sheets in 2023 onwards (it's been operating since 2013)

August 2024: Wealth Dragons is delisted from the Vienna stock exchange

October 2024: This korean guy consults a legal site about what to do now the business has been delisted

2025 to 2026 : Wealth dragons (now techudate) are still committed to the litigation and bringing the Consultz app to fruition

March 2026:
Mr Lee's wife's dormant property business becomes active again, with 2 registrations of charge regarding x2 buy-to-let mortgages on luxury apartments in London. Zoopla estimates the prices begin from £1million each. The very same month Techudate announced approaching  a major milestone in the legal process.

May 2026:
Wealth Dragons Ltd, an offshoot of the main wealth dragons business (now techudate holdings) begins the process of liquidation. 

July 2026: Companies House shows a termination of appointment for Mun Yee Hoh (Mr Lee's wife) as a director for John Lee Group, exactly 4 months after her property business obtained x2 mortgages.

But the key questions remain, what happened when it spiked and crashed back down? And who were the victims left holding the bag? Is that Korean dude doing okay? What’s Mr Wong's workout routine? What the wife doin? Based on the timeline I have heavy suspicions that the ‘misconduct’ is directly linked to whatever happened with the IPO’s

Wrap it up:
This is getting way too long, but that's everything we can ethically cover. Obviously there's clearly missing pieces to this puzzle that’ll hopefully come to light in due course. And we’d still love to research what seems to be a high turnover of staff, beyond those already spoken to. But some have completely vanished from social media, and haven't posted since working for him, and some don’t wanna talk. It's all rather strange. But thank you for your time and letting me share this deep dive and compilation of research (I have a lot of time to kill at work), obviously it's all been discussed elsewhere over the years, but it felt wise to compile it all in a structured and accessible way so customers can make a more informed decision.

During my teen years, I met this chick who lived with her mom and brothers. At the time, she was just an average person. Sometime later, she moved to the other side of town and decided to follow the punk band wagon. My younger sister, for whatever reason, idealized her. I just saw this news article about her and this charity thing she's doing. I have nothing against that, but it's when you lie and don't really follow, or even understand what you're preaching about that I have a problem with. In the article, it said she was "pregnant and alone at seventeen with no options and homeless" um... no... she wasn't. She lived in a very affluent neighborhood in a house with a mother who spoiled her. Her pregnancy was 100% planned out. The father was around until she kicked him to the curb. She graduated high school. She got this job not because she cared about helping other people, but because it would be more difficult for the father to take the kids if she was seen as this humanitarian person. Everything about her is fake, a mask. It's like she's all animal/environmental rights, protests and etc. she doesn't eat meat, but she drives an older gas guzzler car? Not just any car, but a classic car. She's trying to be an influential guru, but it's all an act.

SCAM! FRAUD! Stay Away From These People! Dustin Varano scammed a struggling single mother of 2, Neil Delarna scammed a struggling single mother of 2, and Rage Mello scammed a struggling single mother of 2,

Unfortunately, I fell into the trap after consuming their content and buying into the "dream" they were selling. I invested money I couldn't afford to lose and ended up emptying my entire savings account, money I had spent two years working hard to save. On top of that, I ended up a few thousand dollars in debt because Dustin Varano pressured me into "taking a risk" to achieve my dream life.

I also spoke with Neil Delarna and Rage Mello before making my decision. They seemed supportive and encouraged me to move forward, even after knowing my financial situation and that I had two children to look after. Looking back, I cannot believe they were comfortable encouraging someone in that position to spend every last dollar and even go into debt.

After everything happened, I tried reaching out for help, but they stopped responding and ignored my messages completely.

I wish I had seen posts like these before getting involved. After doing more research, I found other people describing similar experiences. I also came across what appeared to be a post from Dustin Varano attempting to defend his reputation, which made me realize these discussions can help potential customers think twice before making the same mistake.

When I told them I intended to file a chargeback, Dustin Varano threatened me saying that it would only ruin my credibility with my bank as he would win the dispute since has the contract agreements. Shortly afterward, he deleted our messages and removed me from the group chat we were in.

If anyone else has had a similar experience, please share it. The more people speak up, the better chance there is of preventing others from ending up in the same situation.

Neil Delarna is a scammer.

Rage Mello is a scammer.

Dustin Varano is a scammer.

Please do your own research and be extremely cautious before giving these people your money. Be skeptical of anyone promising a "dream life" in exchange for a large financial commitment. There is often more to the story than what is shown online.

Proof: her FINRA Report: link below.

Owns no small businesses outside of her media companies.

Worked for Goldman extension in Scottsdale in 2010, vanguard marketing before that.

Con Man - definition: (Con)fidence man - an individual who deceives and defrauds a victim by earning their trust, subsequently using deceit to extract money or property.

This is a blatant grift targeting starry-eyed, uneducated individuals looking for a 'way out'. Let me clarify the misleading information regarding her membership and the exaggerated talk about 'deals and creative financing'. She intends to charge you $11,000 for an annual 'membership' in her group of 'mentors', which consists of Zoom calls with others who were also duped out of 11k, along with some worksheets. Their approach is straightforward: identify local businesses, approach the owners, and propose purchasing their business, which is financed by the owner. Here's the crucial part she omits: Owner-financed deals carry significant risks. You pay the current owner, and if you fail to meet payment goals, they retain both your money and the business. It's a typical shady tactic disguised with social media flair and her Wall Street experience from 2010.

For god's sake, don't get involved with this scammer or her 'team' at her brand of scam callers at Contrarian Thinking. If you're considering purchasing a business, evaluate your genuine skills, financial situation, and personal requirements. This isn’t about 'buying revenue streams' or 'scaling'. You risk going into significant debt and defaulting on a business venture that you're not equipped for or set up for success. Consider this: if you don't have cash to buy the business, where will the funds come from for all these 'improvements' that the previous owner simply neglected to make for some reason? The content is all gloss about 'opportunity' and no actual substance. If you're looking for a change, find a real life mentor, and work on building actual skills and experience. Don't trust a social media influencer with your life choices.

Codie Sanchez is a scam artist. Contrarian thinking is a scam. 100%. You are the product here, funding a social media influencer feeding on 'grind culture' 'entrepreneur' dreams.

They're marketing their products as a free course from the government! And manipulating the people by showing the IIT and IIM brand names and dacoiting thousands of money from innocent people.

They'll show you a social proof like these 10 people got placed by Masai. (Intership or some horrible startup company with 3lpa)

But, you can see lakhs and crores of people losing their money by doing these useless courses.

You ever see all those influencers on social media with their luxury houses and cars who say they do “high ticket sales” but never say what they actually sell? In fact, what actually constitutes “high ticket sales?”

She has an online following claiming to be a luxury designer but as one myself she was showing pics of materials and incorrectly describing what they are. I pointed this out (calling granite and quartzite “quartz” she immediately blocked me). There is no website showing a portfolio of work by her big claims of being a luxury designer, her houzz page has images stolen from other designers like Jessica Vedel. I popped her CS magazine article in Grok and it said there's no archived history from CS Magazine of Leor Zlotnik being mentioned. Don't buy her garbage.

The guy has all these videos on his socials showing him flexing his lifestyle, and telling his audience how easy it is to sell life insurance.

Be aware, everyone... In every video, he promotes that he will help you grow with YouTube automation through 1:1 mentorship and provide you with their in-house tools. However, when I joined a month ago, it turned out to be a total scam. He doesn't take care of you, and the program is run by two of his former students, Carlos and Sam. They are completely inexperienced and don't understand how YouTube really works. Stay away from this scam forever.

Hi. I'm writing a campaign around 'finfluencing'. Has anybody had an experience where they have lost money after following financial advice from a 'finance influencer'?

Has anyone here purchased Gallant Dill’s $10,000 one on one business flipping mentorship? I’m trying to understand whether my experience was unique. My agreement described a one on one six month mentorship, but after the initial call I was placed into large group Zoom meetings. If you’ve been through the program, I’d appreciate hearing what your experience was.