I used to read the author's musings GrandPa Dr. Peter Taradash (pen name or pseudo name) I don't see his websites working anymore..... :( What happened to him does any1 know? I never even heard his voice either ...
www.offshorecorptalk.com
This is Peter Taradash, a/k/a "Grandpa" I retired last year and am currently living in the Philippines. Age-wise, I am way past my sell by date. I was recently contacted by "Passportskr" who was referred to me by Eden Press. Eden publishes abridged digests of many of my books and reports. The topics are often complex, and unsuitable for people of low intelligence or low income . As consultant and international lawyer I used to charge $25,000- upfront for two years worth consulting services. But after retirement last year, I decided not to take on any more clients. I heard from this chap "Passportskr" who said he made over $200,000 a year, would not pay even a token retainer fee to me, yet pumped me endlessly in many many emails for all the free information he could get out of me. His main expressed goal seemed to be moving abroad a.s.a.p. from the USA, & getting second passports, etc. I suggested , after giving him. a lot of free advice that he consider sending me a discounted fee of $2000 to my pay pal address if he wanted to continue our relationship as a consultee (consulting client) ---to get still more detailed specific information on achieving his stated goals. If I was not retired, I'd have charged (by the hour) at least $5000 for what I'd already given him. Then out of the blue, he revealed that because he had young kids in school in the USA that essentially he was just fooling around with me , wasting my time & sucking out info he wasn't intending to use in the near future & probably wouldn't ever be able to use. At that point I politely declined to correspond with him further. I didn't get 2c from him. Now I see here he is making the 1st complaint about me in 65 years of my career . I have been a very effective person in getting (mostly) high level entrepreneurs exactly what they want: Health, wealth, suitable wives, second passports, etc.. I guess this shows that you can't please everyone-- especially those who really need adult supervision. Inexperienced individuals don't realize how little they know and how much they misunderstand about moving abroad, passports, bureaucracy. Typically most wage slaves don't have a clue about dealing with such issues as being a digital nomad, & getting "legal residence." . Anyway, I felt compelled to respond here. I have written about two dozen books on the topic I sort of invented- i.e. being a PT, a Perpetual Tourist, just "Passing Through" invisible to any and all governments ...I've had probably over 300 happy clients, and if I ever had anyone the least b it unhappy, I refunded their unused funds.... Because of my advanced age and the fact that my clients were mostly older than I, they are almost all dead now, as I will be pretty soon. This response was just to set the record straight. As most people know, there are always two sides to every story.
This is passportskr and I wanted to remind everyone there are 2 sides to every story. This is not what happened exactly.
The first reason I posted if anyone was familiar with Grandpa/Peter Taradash is because I wondered what people's experience with his writings, professional services were, and just a general reputation -good/bad/indifferent. I bought some of his reports and they had good offshore, life, business, and investment ideas. Some of the second passport information did see dated because rules and programs change. That is not his fault.
Secondly, when doing the math on his life, I thought it could be a situation where he might have died and someone took over his psuedonym because I don't think Peter Taradash is his real name and this has been a subject of great mystery in off shore circles.
The reason I had a doubt about who he might be is because he had immediately asked for a fee of $2000 before NOT being willing to reveal the country's name of the CBI program he was suggesting (which happens to be Turkey). Likewise, he was not up front about the program of Campione D'Italia. I had a problem with the lack of transparency which is a best practice of most agents/firms in the offshore space. These firms even advertise or provide information on the programs they provide. I am not sure about anyone else here, but, there is a process called due diligence and I like to know exactly what product or service I am gettig up front *before* I pay for it so I don't get scammed or engage in a bad deal. It seems to me that when offshore services require a fee up front before they will even mention the country they handle, it is either a scammer and you may never see your money again or it might be a gray or black market passport that can get you in trouble so am very vigilant against these kind of vendors.
The other thing that I thought was unusual was the name of his Paypal account did not match his other email names so I was wondering if someone was scamming trying to steal money using Grandpa's identity. There were other inconsistencies in his communications including misspelled words, incorrect use of highlighting in text that just gave
off a non-English spammer vibe that gave me second thoughts.
Additionally, I am guessing he can help facilitate getting an apartment rental in Campione D'Italia as they are hard to get. This option allows a person to have access to the EU and Switzerland. On my own research, I found you can also qualify for an Italian residency card after living there for a while. After 10 years of living in Italy, you can qualify for the passport.
I don't know why he couldn't state this information up front. I handle the Turkish program it costs $$$ for my fee and you need $200-500k for a property investment. Campione D'Italia will not give you a passport, but, it will cost XXX dollars for my fee and you will need to prepay a 1 year lease of 20000 EUR. You will not get a residence card per say or you will. This was the kind of straight up clear communication I was looking for in his response.
He claims I was pumping him for information without being willing to pay his $2000 fee. I have no problem paying that fee amount. What I do expect to get before I pay a professional fee is to understand *exactly* what fees are being charged and what results I should expect to get in return from the residency/citizenship process. He would have saved a lot of my time and his by being up front and direct about the costs, money requierements for each program and I would not have needed to email him so much to get a straight answer. He could have presented a fact summary on each program and stated that any other communication will require a $2000 fee retainer and I could have then analyzed if I had the funds and whether the program is for me.
I was very up front with him in the intake questionaire he sends to clients about the fact that I am widowed and have two older sons. In particular, I stated that one son is 16 and I cannot leave the US full time for the next 2 years. I also stated that I am not a traditional HNW individual who can drop $100-300k on a CBI passport on a whim. I also shared my income was more what would be regarded as "upper middle class" and I have my own IT software business and I make about $200k a year. I was also very honest with his questions about what I would like to be doing differently in business and why I wanted a second passport/residency. I had explained that since I could not afford the $100k route now for a CBI program, I was interested in a lower cost program like Nicaragua or the Dominican Republic where you may have to spend time on the ground, but, you can eventually get a second passport (at least through my own research).
I have no problem paying his fee of $2k, but, I want to understand the services clearly. He still did not clearly explain how the Campione program worked. It sounds like you pay a fee to Grandpa and then he facilitates you getting an apt. that can then give you rights to live in Campione and have access to Switzerland or the EU but you prepay for at least 1 year. I am not sure how long you would have to prepay each year for the apt. or if it is a 1 or 4 year lease (have heard some stories in Campione of 4 year leases as real estate is expensive). After finally taking a guess at what this situation entailed, I determined it would not make sense for me to pursue this route as I would be paying at least $20-30k for an apt I wouldn't use but once a year and that would not get me residency or a second passport.
I did say I would be willing to proceed forward, but, at this point, he got sarcastic, condescending, and rude like he was better than me. I conced that he might have far more offshore intelligence than I and more money, but, that does not give him the right to be rude to a customer. He said I was asking a lot of questions and I informed him I would not have needed to ask so many questions if I had given straight up front answers like most of the reputable offshore firms. I don't expect professional offshore consultants to work for free. I do expect them to give the customer enough up front information before the customer decides to part with their own hard earned funds to get a program that would be good fit. I think any reasonable consumer would expect this.
Lastly, he felt the need to passively agressively call me a child not capable of going offshore without "adult supervision". He also basically looks down his nose at people that might not have as much money or as much offshore knowledge and treats them rudely even with they are the customer.
I am 49 year old widower, raising 2 teen sons alone, building my business, and being an adult thank you very much Grandpa.
I didn't pretend to have the offshore knowledge you do and would not go about it on my own which is why I am here trying to educate myself on good providers and the laws, countries, and good options surrounding second passports. I treated you with respect even when you were rude to me. Sorry you felt I wasted your time. If you presented the Turkish and Campione informmation up front clearly, I could have made a decision on if it would make sense to move forward or not. I would have no problem moving forward and paying the $2k fee looking at other options. However, you were a rude condescending man and then talked bad about me here on OffshoreCorpTalk so the feeling is mutual that I would not want to use your services and I hope other people know what they are getting into with you as a person and professionally.
Passportskr
I did contact Eden Press as I was interested in getting Grandpa's advice on a seccond passport program and potentially getting started as a second passport broker.
What happened to him does any1 know? I never even heard his voice either ...
