Andy Shaw’s book “Money for Nothing and Your Property for Free” was a big hit in the business opportunity world when it was launched back in early 2007. The book was relatively cheap at £20 or so and it described, with great excitement and optimism, how anyone could make money through buying residential property.

Many people, including myself, thought the ideas were wonderful and that Andy was an extremely successful property investor who was willing to share his secrets for a small fee via the book.

Of course, there was more expense. The book only gave a general overview of the methods. For detailed instructions you would need to spend more with Andy and Greg.

Buying the book automatically enrolled you in a monthly membership site for which subscription rates were £40 per month. Then there were seminars which came with a ticket price of £5,000+ (allegedly) and also a scheme, costing £35,000+ which promised to set buyers up with 6 properties over 5 years.

In reality the book was just the top of the funnel and Greg and Andy’s main aim seemed to be getting people onto the program costing £35k.

I met both of these property investing experts at a seminar in Birmingham in April 2007. Andy insisted on drinking Bellinis all weekend, which cost a fortune and therefore I imagine made him look rich. Greg spoke loudly about the problems he and Andy had faced in driving “the Bentley” up the motorway.

They were nice people, friendly to all the attendees and willing to share tips and advice to anybody who asked. I wasn’t surprised when they spoke on the Saturday and wooed the 100 or so people in the room. At the end of their presentation they simply stated that if anyone wanted to know more they should just buy the book. Every other speaker that weekend went to great lengths to sell some expensive special offer but these two didn’t, they just mentioned in passing that everyone should buy the book.

Several months later I learned that they had held a small seminar with 30+ people attending and providing video testimonials as to how great the material was. I recognised several faces from the Birmingham seminar. I guess they had gone ahead and bought the book then gone through the funnel to the £5,000 seminar part.

Next was the £35,000 part of the funnel – which brings us up to the present day.

According to reports, things have soured a little…

“Greg Ballard is in Brighton bankruptcy court on 14 December and Andy Shaw on 21 December“

To learn more, check out Maria Davies’ blog:

Passive Investments – Greg Ballard & Andy Shaw Latest…

On reading more it struck me that some of the people I recognised from the testimonial videos may well be contemplating a huge loss at the moment.

One I remember had been sat with Greg in the smoking area as Greg suggested he remortgage his mother-in-law’s house to release funds to start investing in property.

I just hope he had second thoughts after the seminar and stopped short of taking Greg’s advice and using the money to fund the 5 figure investment with Passive Investments.