Do Not Fall for Institute of Commercial Real Estate (ICRE)

I attended the ICRE sales presentation in Portland, Oregon in October with about 30 other people some of whom paid $2,995.00 at the introductory presentation in order to attend the ICRE 3 day seminar shortly thereafter. Founder Sherif Medawar leads to believe that by signing on you will receive valuable real estate analysis software, access to a private, members only ICRE website which has valuable contact names and numbers for national corporate tenants looking for new locations ( Starbucks, Burger King, Subway and 1500 more), names and contact info for institutional and private mortgage lenders specializing in funding commercial real estate, personal coaching staff, and finally, a website area devoted to networking amongst seminar graduates for the purpose of working on joint ventures in commercial real estate projects. The initial presentation that I attended took place at a hotel in Portland. The ICRE organization had placed a full page advertisement in the Oregonian newspaper with quite a lot of hype. At the two hour presentation Cherif Medawar told us that ICRE was his own creation. He said that we could learn the ways to earn big money in commercial real estate by using his patented “FACTS” system, the company’s website, personal coaching, and special software.

However, on day two of the seminar, after the “get out at the end of the first day and get your tuition back” guarantee has elapsed the ICRE “teachers” tell the victims that the RE analysis software costs from $5000.00 to $17,000.00 depending on the level.

As of today www.MyICRE.com

1.The analysis software is an extra cost of $4995. They didn’t mention this until day two of the seminar. We were lead to believe it was included in the original price.

2.The website doesn’t provide a list of 1500 national corporate tenants looking for new locations. In fact there is no such list available on the site. Recently some other victims of this fraud who are asking for refunds were emailed a non-functional Excel spreadsheet purporting to contain this info.

3.The “Members Community” part of the website doesn’t have hundreds, as promised, of private money lenders.

4.The “Members Community” part of the website doesn’t have hundreds, as promised, of individual listings of commercial property buyers, sellers, traders.

5.The “Members Community” part of the website doesn’t have hundreds, as promised, of individuals networking on setting up deals.

6.Other victims have been told by ICRE tech support that the promised website information is still months away.