Coaching Scams and Spiritual Grifters: All About Lawsuits against Life Coaches and Business Coaches
It's time to tell the truth about scams in life coaching and business coaching.
You might be here because you are a life coach, aspiring entrepreneur or self-improvement seeker who has overpaid for a program, workshop or retreat that overpromised and underdelivered. Or worse.
Sadly, some in the coaching industry, particularly in high-ticket business coaching, engage in predatory and unlawful tactics to get you to buy, and stick around — and pressure you to engage in the same tactics yourself.
You might be wondering if what happened to you is against the law, and if you are entitled to a refund.
Here’s what you need to know to protect yourself, from a consumer protection lawyer who is also a life coach with two certifications.
First, what's good about life coaching?
A lot. Coaching has been around as long as there have been people helping other people reach their goals and sort out their personal issues, but it has only been in the age of the internet that life coaching has exploded as its own field.
Over the 20th Century, some smart folks realized that psychotherapy and drugs are not the solutions to every problem, and there are people of “normal” psychology who still need support. Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say, and coaching was born.
Coaching has a lot of overlap with the personal development and self-improvement industry that has been around a lot longer.
A lot of it came from the New Thought movement of the early 20th century and the American Transcendentalist movement that incorporated some Eastern belief systems. And you can follow those threads further back in human history.
Much coaching, as you probably already know, is derived from a particular school of thought in psychology called cognitive-behavioral therapy, or CBT for short.
Coaching generally focuses on the practical application of CBT with a dash of “woo” — the power of intention and other similar philosophical or spiritual approaches to better living — to help people without an acute mental illness improve their lives.
The basic message of empowering you to create your own reality is fantastic, and so are a lot of the methods.
And, it is true that a skilled, ethical life coach can help a person create desired results in their lives faster than that person could do on their own.
There are life coaches on the planet who have far greater skill to deal with trauma than some therapists. It is substantive training and experience, and not a title, that makes someone an effective human helper.
I have changed my life for the better and created wonderful things by using coaching principles, getting coached, and yes, certifying as a coach and coaching others.
It was a couple of 1:1 coaches who helped me resolve some personal and family trauma that had resisted other approaches.
So why am I publishing an article about grift, scams, egos and ripoffs? Because unfortunately, life coaching is not specifically regulated, and so there’s no clear line for the consumer to easily discern which coaches are professional service providers and which coaches are primarily internet marketers with inflated promises.
Just because the life coaching industry is "unregulated" doesn't mean it is beyond reproach.
For better and for worse, life coaching has come of age at the same time as social media marketing.
Anyone can call themselves a “coach” — that’s not a term of art. You don’t have to have any particular training or background. There are no external standards decided by any government agency. There is no test administered by any regulating body.
Coaching certifications are private training programs of varying quality. The entity that sells the “cert” can require you to complete their program before you can use their trademark or call yourself a fill-in-the-blank-certified coach, but this is a matter of private contract, not any official government standard.
The lack of specific regulation of life coaching + the algorithm-driven marketplace = fertile ground for abuse of consumers.
Social media algorithms have enabled some people who are highly skilled at preying on peoples’ “pain points” — fear, uncertainty and doubt — to make staggering amounts of money in exchange for relatively little substance. Such people are in it for the money first, and the actual helping of the person a distant second. And sadly, some of them don’t realize they’ve lost their way.
This is how really effective, but fear-based marketing works: It speaks to those pain points enough to get the clients to show up, believing that it must be a great solution because they paid so much. This is the placebo effect and the sunk cost fallacy. The person calling themselves a coach doesn’t always have an effective solution for the client’s problem, however.
Most people don’t wake up one day and go, “gee, how can I scam people today?” The moral compass of a person who ends up as a scammer usually gets slowly out of whack. They might start out with good intentions, but lose their way and let the money drive everything.
Someone who uses scammy or culty tactics to get people to buy are frequently victims of the same tactics having been used on them. It’s sort of like the cycle of abuse, or Stockholm syndrome.
Here’s a common pattern. The coach has a few “stars” and early adopters who have really succeeded in the coach’s early programs, and those are true success stories. The tales are not bullsh*t. It’s not Paul Bunyan. They’re real people who got in at the right time and have done well. Good on them!
But like a gold rush, only the first few who showed up found gold, and then follows the “rush” of people who aren’t getting anywhere near what they are investing in terms of money and time.
And the bigger someone gets, often the more they have to broaden or water down their core message in order to reach a broader audience. (This has been skillfully pointed out by Rachael Kay Albers, the “marketing muckraker.”)
That results in a negative cycle where the more famous a coach becomes, and the more they are compensated, the less value people are actually getting.
The coach might not actually have the state of mind necessary for a rightfully disappointed customer to state a claim for fraud. Common law fraud requires a fraudulent intent. They might be really good at lying to themselves and telling themselves that they are offering a real product or service, even when they are not.
Thankfully for the aggrieved consumer, you don’t need to prove a fraudulent intent to have grounds for a refund or other relief. There are other avenues described later in this page.
So what about the other “bad apples?” Have they simply consumed way too much of their own kool-aid? How is it that they think they are so right, and the disappointed customer so wrong?
How do they get away with charging so much, give you so little, and then claim all the results are on you?
It comes down to the errors in those coaches’ thinking — and their questionable ethics.
The business coaching industry is rife with astronomical fees stemming from logic errors and ethical iffiness.
Before I get into the vast majority of high-ticket programs that are overpriced at best, first, there are certain scenarios where it is completely justified to charge, or pay, a “large” fee for a coaching program:
First Scenario: There is significant substantive training, support, feedback and hands-on practice time designed to take your skill from one level to another significant level at the end, and you intend to use what you learn in your work either as a coach or in some other profession where coaching is an important part of your job. The program is marketed to you as a skill-building program without promises about income levels. You pay a lot but it’s worth a lot.
Second Scenario: You are wealthy already. You are at the income level where $10k, $20k or more is not that big of a deal. It’s not nothing, but you are not going to sacrifice your lifestyle or put your business at risk when you invest in the coach. You and your business are already at that price point where this makes sense for you. (Attention: most coaches are NOT there and many will not get there. And this does not make them less of coaches.)
And the coach who is charging this? Totally fine if this coach is very advanced, experienced, reputable, and in high demand. Additionally, this is necessarily going to be one of two kind of folks: (1) someone with at least several years’ experience coaching, or (2) someone with many years of professional experience mentoring and coaching as part of their duties in a substantive and relevant field that gives their coaching depth.
Now for the discussion of the logic errors, ethical iffiness and questionable tactics used to justify and sell high-ticket programs that overpromise and underdeliver. We’re gonna talk about life coaching scams.
Logic error #1: high-ticket coaching programs and masterminds are the best way to "serve" women
High-ticket pricing has become widespread in the coaching industry. And boy is it enticing. Your social media feed is probably full of coaches flouting a luxury lifestyle in the name of “empowering women” while wrapped in the trappings of patriarchal “one percenter” type capitalism, completely devoid of the irony of it.
I love seeing women become rich and live fully, and it’s fun to buy nice things as your standard of living increases.
But the way some of these women are getting there is a perversion of the very feminist American dream they espouse. Here’s what I mean by this.
Some of these coaches lean heavily on the “feminist” justification for charging fees that are higher than similar services in other industries. Why is coaching so special? (It’s not. Great coaching is no more special than great therapy, great lawyering, great doctoring or great whatever-ing.)
But, the “girl bosses” of the world claim that it is “feminine leadership” or “empowering” or “alpha female” to unilaterally decide the “value” of what you are offering and then have people just give it to you because of an inherent right to prosper.
They claim they are empowering you instead of a corporation or industry deciding for you how much money you make.
But with this is the implication or explicit message that if you are uncomfortable paying or asking for a fee that most people outside the coaching world would find excessive, it’s not your conscience, it’s some “block” or psychological problem. They usually suggest next that you need to get yourself psychologically and emotionally “aligned” with the high fee you’re demanding, and “step fully into your power” in order to do so.
While there is some truth to this — often women do not ask for as much money as they deserve, and unnecessarily deprive themselves of things that they can afford to do, this is used to manipulate people into ignoring their conscience. No woman wants to be less of a feminist, or less “ready,” or have “blocks,” right?
This leads the women who can’t stomach asking for astronomical fees to blame themselves, and often pay for even more programs.
Guess who this serves? The people at the top who got into the game early.
Gatekeep, Gaslight, Girlboss…and Grift.
The client, not the coach, should come first. Other professions that have "clients" require a fiduciary relationship.
This brings us to another thing that is wrong with having no brakes at all on fees.
In professions where there are limits on what the practitioners can charge, such as the law — where we have an ethics rule that a fee must be “reasonable” — then the customer is primary, not just the wishes of the seller.
This fosters a more honest marketplace with happier clients, and in the end, happier sellers of services because the happy customers come back.
Now, some people might think it’s ridiculous that I use lawyers, of all people, as the standard-bearer for “reasonable” fees. But what is “reasonable” for a lawyer’s overall fee or hourly rate is heavily determined by the context: their actual skill. How long they’ve been doing it. The result they helped the client achieve. And yes, what the going rate is in their community. Lawyers can’t just put a sticky note on the mirror that says “I’m worth $1,000 per hour” and then set their rate at that.
When an industry lacks some external check on fees, even the vague “reasonableness” standard, the fees just get higher and higher, and the next level of women under the ones at the top have to turn around and charge that to their own clients. And the programs and containers that are doing this pyramid-like pricing are typically the ones that have the least amount of substance and the most amount of narcissistic behavior.
In other words, your success in the program is contingent on doing exactly what the person above you is doing, which sounds an awful lot like a pyramid scheme.
And the crazy part of it is: some coaches who use this approach are teaching that making someone have to rise to the occasion for such fees is actually for the client’s own good. The terminology they use is that this is “in service of” their clients.
A high fee is in service of an affluent client, but is predatory if an indigent client is talked into incurring debt to pay for it. If that’s what’s happening, “in service of” is a flag that a coach is teaching people to care more about themselves than their customer, which is the opposite of a professional and a fiduciary.
At other times, it’s just the same people trading large sums back and forth. That happens when attorneys share fees on multiple cases, however, there are ethical speed bumps in place to make sure this doesn’t happen in a closed universe without recourse to the person who ultimately matters: the client.
"Coaches coaching coaches, who coach coaches"
Hey, but what's so bad about high-ticket coaching programs that aren't pyramid schemes? Don't you believe in abundance?
You might be convinced that it’s only the programs that are like pyramid schemes that are bad, and that in the hands of the right people, you can be a consumer and seller of high-ticket coaching programs between consenting adults, and “the rising tide lifts all ships,” etc.
The proponents of high-ticket coaching for average middle-class folk claim that it promotes lifting people out of middle-class obscurity and “changes their family tree.”
There’s still a problem. These are justifications employed specifically to sell to people who are not appropriate for a high-ticket price point into the system.
Once there, the only way they can recoup their investment is to rapidly scale either in cost per unit sold or number of units sold. And the actual resources involved to accomplish this are hefty. That part is downplayed or hidden until the program has your credit card number. Let’s look at the tangible and intangible resources.
(1) Changed Facebook ad economics:
Facebook ads used to be a cost-effective strategy for acquiring leads, and some people got rich that way, but that’s largely because they were early adopters. It’s a very expensive strategy for people entering the market in the 2020s and using that strategy for the first time. You can have a “working” funnel and have really small margins or not even break even.
Pushers of high-ticket programs don’t tell you that on the sales call. They point to their success stories and attribute the success to following the formula and working hard.
The people who bought real estate in 2008 and 2009 worked hard too, but they had amazing timing.
Facebook ads are not a “magic ATM” like they used to be, unless you are already established, or are Mr. Zuck himself.
The answer usually given to people who are breaking even or losing money is to invest even more, which causes them to blame themselves when it still doesn’t work.
(2) The ethical, moral, and practical problems with high-ticket programs:
The bulk of many high-ticket programs is simply a demonstration of how to make money by doing the same thing to others that your program is doing to you. You are a participant in a laboratory of how to hype people into investing longer/more with them. If you can swallow that, you could then turn around and use the tactics on your own people.
A lot of time in these programs is spent coaching participants to justify and rationalize why these tactics are “good” and not out of integrity. Why does it take up so much airtime in these programs?
It’s not because you must overcome ingrained toxic scarcity beliefs. If you are underearning as a life coach or as anything else, it’s childish to place all the blame on your “scarcity consciousness” or some other form of “toxicity” that then you need to go on a quest to “purify.” If you feel “blocked” or uncomfortable selling high-ticket programs, it is probably because your potential clients are not appropriate candidates to spend that kind of money, and if you have a conscience, it’s gonna feel bad to sell that way.
So these programs spend a ton of time on the brainwashing — er, mindset coaching — because it actually takes a lot of energy to talk an ethical person into doing something unethical, which is sell someone something that they either don’t need, or engage in serious price gouging to do it.
Just like any product or service, there is a very wide spectrum of price points. A person making minimum wage is not an appropriate customer for Rolls Royce, for example. A price that seems astronomical is not by itself unfair or deceptive. I don’t know what baseball Hall of Famer Chipper Jones charges to be a hitting coach, but it’s probably a lot.
A lot of this comes down to whether the price point is a good match for the person being marketed to, and if the parties to the transaction have equal bargaining power.
Cult-like tactics are often used by unscrupulous group business coaching programs
How do you know if you’re surrounded by well-meaning coaches trying to cure you of your horrible scarcity mindset, or if they’re using cult-like tactics on you? While a full discussion of cult-like tactics is beyond the scope of my work and this website, a strong clue is feeling emotionally whipsawed during coaching calls and group events.
If you feel anxious when you hear the leaders/coaches talking about how wrong the people are who don’t take their advice, or stop taking their advice; if they break you down until you’re crying and then “love bomb” you and tell you how wonderful you are and how rich you’re going to be if you just keep going with the formula…these are cult-like tactics.
The outlier success stories are vividly on display while the crowd is whipped into a pep-rally type frenzy so that they are weakened into accepting the standard answer given to the unprofitable coach: keep doing the same things that are keeping you from being profitable (i.e., spending money on the mastermind, pricing your services out of reach of most of the people who most need your help, and pouring more money into the ads even if the algorithm boat has already sailed).
This causes coaches to blame themselves even more when it still doesn’t work. It drives a deeper wedge of distrust in oneself.
At the end of the day, if justifying and rationalizing a strategy requires constant “mindset” work, group events that whip people into hyped emotions, and other cult-like, brainwash tactics, maybe that’s a clue that the high-ticket aspect is absurd at best, like the infamous Dutch Tulip Bubble of the 1600s.
The longer this goes on unchecked and unregulated, the more you have the cliche of “coaches coaching coaches, who coach coaches.” Eventually, people in many other professions like doctor, lawyer, banker, teacher, etc. can no longer afford the services (unless it is a “loss leader” type program to get people into coaching certifications or other higher-ticket experiences). Good coaching is then not accessible to the people who need it. It’s all behind an ever-climbing astronomical paywall.
And many of these smart women are then enticed away from perfectly good careers, trying to follow the yellow brick road of this particular vibe of coaching, only to find there’s no wizard behind the curtain.
If the coaching industry had some ethical standards or regulation for its fees, we would see more coaches charging reasonable fees and a focus on helping clients use those coaching tools to create better experiences within the career they already have, not selling escape as the answer.
Right now, fees are just up to the coach. And that’s a problem. It invites bad actors into the industry. It makes the industry more prone to having too many life coaching scams that confuse consumers and tarnish the reputation of the industry as a whole.
Logic error #2: life coaches get to unilaterally decide the value and charge clients whatever the coach wants
The coaches who teach this are ignoring basic economics.
I’m just old enough to remember when college and even law school were relatively inexpensive.
The cost of higher education skyrocketed exponentially over the last couple of decades, but the degrees aren’t worth any more, and graduates aren’t commanding salaries that effectively service their student loan debt.
Some big-name coaches just completely gloss over this economic reality. They tell you a business program is worth more than college, because you can learn how to “charge whatever you want.” But this does not work for every single person due to the quality of their coaching, the price point of their likely pool of customers, or their conscience.
You might have also heard to “charge what you are worth,” which contains a disgusting presupposition that your worth is somehow tied to the money you are asking people to give you.
Some decent business and marketing coaches out there, such as Tad Hargrave of Marketing for Hippies, have dismantled this.
I will add that for someone with a conscience, that can be really difficult when you know the person can’t afford it, or you don’t have enough experience yet to command such a fee or be the right coach for the people who are the appropriate candidates to pay that kind of fee.
The long-term worst effect on women is that that somehow you still have more “work to do on yourself” to “step fully into your power;” see #1, supra.
Equating how much you pay for a program or how much you are charging for your own program with how evolved of a feminist you are, in so many words, is deeply offensive and manipulative.
You might also hear that you should “believe harder,” and take “massive action” — including going into significant debt for programs. For most people, this necessitates that you need to charge more than you’re comfortable asking for in order to pay off your tab at the end of the night, so to speak. It becomes a ridiculous cycle of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
While it is basic human nature that we tend to appreciate things that we pay real value for — you’ve got to have some skin in the game, and yes, sometimes it IS beneficial to stretch yourself — price gouging and manipulation are just plain wrong. Back away slowly from that Zoom call or sales page and check in with your gut before getting out your credit card.
Logic error #3: if the coach is rich that means therefore they created that much value for others
Such big-name coaches who got their riches by teaching the above tactics are under the delusion that “because I am making X amount of dollars, I therefore produced X amount of value.”
On one level, this is accurate: people valued it enough to buy it; the coach named a price and was able to get the market to say “amen.”
But what is really the value?
A fast food hamburger chain might accurately claim that they have “served billions.” But when you factor in the public health costs of billions of nutritionally bankrupt calories, you have to question that value. When you look at the health costs to that individual, and yes, we could get an economist to crunch numbers for this — it could even be a net loss.
So when a coach claims that she is what is “possible” — that you can get rich using her methods, she is correct, but leaving out some material facts.
It’s like telling a little league baseball team, “you can grow up to be an all-star if you just take batting practice exactly as I say, and do infield drills with my specific proprietary method.”
That “specific proprietary method,” by the way, is nothing more than a well-packaged derivative of other coaches’ tried-and-true methods. Like baseball, business has changed a lot, but some things never change. There is nothing new under the sun, and all content is derivative of something.
Some in the industry anticipate this objection, and justify the repackaging of well-worn material by stating that the clients are paying for access to the coach, because something is so special about the coach’s intangible attributes that it is worth whatever that coach wants to charge.
I agree that value is largely emotional and irrational — luxury brands are priced the way they are priced for very shrewd reasons. And maybe those intangible attributes might have been a legitimate asset and benefit years ago.
But a lot of the justifications used by people selling high-ticket programs (on how to turn around and sell your own high-ticket programs) smack of the tactics used by some celebrity preachers who have gone down in the flames of financial skulduggery and other scandals: Jim Bakker, the televangelist from the 70s and 80s, Hillsong Church, and Mars Hill Church, among others. There’s plenty of good journalism about fleecing the flock that you can read online or watch on your favorite streaming service.
Often, there is narcissistic manipulation designed to get you to think it is going to benefit you in some magical way if you keep giving those folks your time and money. There’s gaslighting you into thinking you’re the oddball who isn’t getting results or isn’t “fully in her power.” You might even pay for additional programs in the same place in hope that “this time you’ll finally ‘get it.'” You are blaming yourself for your lack of results.
While it’s true that your attitude and your self-belief go a very long way to create your success, your doubts are often the voice of your discernment screaming at you to put away your credit card.
If you have doubts about whether some tactic that costs tens of thousands of dollars to learn is going to work for you, it’s not that you are “in scarcity” or in a “low vibration.”
And even the fact that the person trying to convince you to buy is richer than you are does not mean they are “higher vibration” — or even know something you don’t.
They only want you to think that so you will part with your money. Your doubt is your wisdom telling you that you don’t need that program or coach.
To live up to a high-ticket price, the coach better be really good, and really care about “the kids on the team,” or their clients, and nurture every single one of them if they’re charging a lot of money. They should add benefits and be generous; not take benefits and perks away while raising the price. Any training should prepare you for working for yourself instead of just training you to work for the company store.
Unfortunately, not every coach gives a high level of service in exchange for a luxury price point.
Some programs don't even qualify as real coaching.
An influencer is not a "coach" just because they're famous. Such people are entertainers, not coaches.
And some are dangerous.
Unfortunately, some of the highest-ticket programs currently available are so far from anything resembling actual coaching that it is deceptive to call it that.
Such programs are really just overpriced quasi-spiritual entertainment provided by influencers with no coaching credentials, hawking wholly derivative or outright ripped off content — with an astronomical admission ticket.
Some woefully unqualified people (frequently also young and lacking life experience) are charging $10,000 or $50,000 or $100,000 for literally what they just read last week in a handful of ten-dollar self-help books.
Girl bosses, spiritual boss ladies, feminine leadership teachers: some programs in the “feminine” space provide meaningful mentoring and community, but many of them are just good at selling you an illusion of a lifestyle.
If someone like this is pitching a high-ticket “coaching” program laced with sexy pictures of themselves and their consumer goods — rose petal bath water, boudoir photo shoots, expensive handbags, champagne — and their messaging sort of jumbles stuff (you might have heard this termed “word salad”) about getting men to fall all over you while making lots of money — rest assured, this is not coaching. It’s just entertainment, and guess who is laughing all the way to the bank?
There’s a male version of this too. “Bro marketers,” the “manosphere” and similar kinds of male influencers prey on the insecurities of men who are frustrated by their perceived inability to live up to an extreme, manufactured concept of masculinity. These insecurities are leveraged to sell a lot of hot air to vulnerable men.
Logic error #4: "I did it, so you can too." Not exactly. There are many factors at play that create outlier results like those touted by marketers.
In addition to the issues with early adopters vs. late adopters covered above, there are even more circumstances outside one’s control that business coaches like to gloss over.
“If I can do it, you can do it too:” When the “it” is rich and famous, here’s why this statement omits material facts.
Fact: if everyone is rich and famous, nobody is rich or famous.
Fact: not everyone gets to be the best. It’s logically impossible.
Back to the sports analogy, not every kid who can play baseball is going pro, even if they have the very best coach, spend the most money on coaching, believe the hardest and take massive action.
Beyond the coach’s program, there are a whole lot of other factors at play that neither the coach nor the client can take full credit for. Not every kid becomes Ronald Acuña or Aaron Judge, and when we are getting into 7- and 8-figure coaches, we are talking about a statistically similar, rare level of success.
That does not mean that nobody else gets to play pro ball. There are 975 Major League Baseball players, and thousands more in the minor league system. It is just reality that not everybody is the star.
It would be more accurate to say, “any one of you could possibly be rich and famous, but not all of you. There are factors outside your control that we cannot predict.”
Law school is a lot more honest than what’s too common in the coaching industry. In orientation week, they say, “look to your left, look to your right — one of those people will NOT be graduating from law school.”
I still remember that moment. And they were right. They couldn’t predict with certainty who would succeed, so they extend the invitation to more people than they know will stay. That’s just how it is. I doubt it would have served anyone if they had bullsh!tted us and said, “all of you are just AMAZING, you are ALL going to be RICH LAWYERS (woo! fist bump) if you just do as we say.”
Business coaches would serve coaches much better if they would just say, “I will help you do your best with the factors within your control and mine. You will have a better shot because of me if you apply my advice and coaching in earnest.”
Trouble is, being an honest marketer is a longer-term business strategy. Unfortunately, there’s tremendous upside for leaving out the full truth for those who are willing to step into ethical gray areas or be downright dishonest.
here are some additional red flags when considering any coaching program or mastermind.
- Pressure to go into significant debt for the coaching, or claims that the payment of a large fee, by itself, is the chief mechanism of transformation. A claim that you will “calibrate” to a “higher level” in someone’s container by going into financial peril is dangerous. (A real coach makes the coaching about YOU and not some magic aura they supposedly have. Should you pay good value to the right coach or teacher? Yes. Are some coaches and mentors remarkably intuitive and insightful, helping you evolve as a person? Yes, the good and legit ones do exist. But there are many who are wanna-bes just trying to cash in on a trend, who don’t have any real skill. There has to be an actual service delivered, not just some five-figure sum disappearing from your bank account and magically reappearing in theirs.)
- Toxic positivity and prosperity gospel. Marketing copy that emphasizes “unlimited abundance,” “light” and “ascension” (etc.) while ignoring that the actual work of developing yourself into a stronger, wiser, better human being involves things like grief, hard choices, loss, constraint and limits. A coach needs to be able to sit with the hard stuff and not just offer platitudes or use coaching against you (e.g., “Stop being so negative. You attracted this with your thoughts.”)
- Manufactured scarcity. A bunch of hype and lots of reminders about how famous and rich so-and-so is, with fear- and scarcity-laden messages that you’ll miss the boat to riches if you don’t sign up today. (You’re an adult signing up for a high-level professional service, not a fan girl.)
- Pressure to engage in any sexual or drug activity with other participants or workshop leaders, or pressure to ingest mood-altering substances. (Call 911 and get the hell out of there.)
- Confrontational or “radical truth telling” that crosses a line into verbal, emotional, psychological or physical abuse. (Heed your intuition. If you feel like something is off or wrong, it is. Leave, or call 911, no matter how much money you “invested” in this.)
- It resembles movies and TV shows that depict scam artists or toxic group environments like “The Hunger Games,” “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” “The Apprentice,” “The Bachelor,” “Real Housewives,” “Mean Girls,” “Grifters,” “The Road to Wellville,” “The Paper Chase,” “Girls gone Wild” or MTV’s “The Real World.”
- Every event is an upsell for something else where they’ll finally tell you the real guru secrets. You buy the entry-level program on claims that it is a complete program or solution, but turns out it wasn’t. (A coach with integrity is upfront about their pricing, and gives you tons of value no matter what you’ve paid. Yes, for those who are appropriate candidates, quality coaching can be a medium or large investment, like regular massages, or adult orthodontics. But you should never feel shamed or FOMO-ed into doing it, and different price points are appropriate for different people.)
- A coach who builds you up, only to put you down, or around whom you feel small and broken from the moment you first get on a call with them. (You may be dealing with a narcissist. A good coach knows how to hold space for the hard shit, is trauma-informed, and knows when they should butt out and refer you to therapy. A good coach does not coach without your consent. Feeling triggered is not proof somehow that you should work with that person. It is probably your inner voice of better judgment talking! Their unilateral claims to have the answers is just a high-pressure sales tactic.)
- A coach whose best answer to all your troubles is that you should quit the day job ASAP and “burn the boats” and go all in on your coaching business without a safety net, and just believe. (That is definitely NOT everyone’s answer. We need big-hearted leaders in every industry and we need to change those industries from within — and your coaching skills are valuable beyond just being the next big influencer or entrepreneur.)
- They are a for-profit business soliciting volunteer labor, dangling the opportunity to basically “kiss the ring” of the guru and be closer to her in exchange for free labor. (For-profit businesses are generally prohibited by law from using volunteer labor, minus some very narrow exceptions.)
If you feel like you were scammed by a coaching program, it's not just a thought.
And, It's not your fault.
Want more validation of your experiences? Check out these podcasts:
It is really common for people who are victims of scams to blame themselves. “I should have seen this coming,” they say. That’s well-articulated in a New York Times article profiling people who spent their life savings on coaching.
And, a lot of us who have done coach training do believe that we create our results, and that what we are thinking will manifest in our life or show up in it somehow.
On some level, part of you might have known, and you chose to override an icky feeling in your gut.
None of this means that the person or company who withheld material information from you to get you to sign up, or didn’t deliver commensurate with the large sum of money you paid, is not primarily responsible.
You can take radical responsibility in your own life and stand up for your rights. These ideas are not in conflict. In fact, standing up for yourself, asking for a refund, filing consumer complaints and even filing a lawsuit can be part of you taking radical responsibility.
The law is based on the “least sophisticated consumer” standard. This acknowledges that while you might be educated and sophisticated in how you function in your career or your life, you might not be wise to the tactics of people who are skilled marketers.
Consumer protection statutes replace the old standard of caveat emptor — buyer beware — with the “unfair or deceptive” standard. This applies to all business, even ones like life coaching that aren’t specifically regulated.
Now let’s talk about some of these laws. This isn’t legal advice; this is for informational purposes only.
Here are a few of the laws that could protect you if you have been scammed by a coaching program.
Fraud and misrepresentation
I often get asked about this first, so we’ll start here!
Fraud and misrepresentation are common law claims; in essence, legal theories that have been around for a long time.
Fraud and misrepresentation therefore have unique nuances that differ a bit from country to country, and state to state. Different things are required to prove them in different jurisdictions. Washington State’s fraud claim has nine different elements!
Generally, in order to prove fraud, the victim has to prove that the fraudster had a fraudulent intent. This can be super difficult when you are dealing with someone who has consumed a lot of their own kool-aid and will defend vehemently that their program is legit.
Thankfully, there are plenty of other laws that don’t depend on you unpacking the complex psychology of a narcissist or sociopath in order to prevail.
UDAP Statutes
Each state in the United States has some version of what’s called a “UDAP” — unfair or deceptive acts or practices statute.
In Washington State, we have the Consumer Protection Act, RCW 19.86 et seq.
Basically what these statutes do is protect consumers from unfair or deceptive acts or practices taken by businesses in the marketplace. Some states have the additional requirement that the offending activity be capable of repetition and against the public interest, in other words, not just a one-off, isolated incident.
Some states’ UDAP statutes have additional protections for the elderly, disabled, military and veterans.
If you want to look up what your state’s UDAP statute is, the National Consumer Law Center is is an organization that publishes material on this subject as well as a library of regularly-updated legal treatises on consumer law. You can read a report below:
NCLC’s Consumer Protection in the States: a 50-State Evaluation
Speaking only to Washington State’s UDAP statute, it includes the following remedies: you can seek an injunction (a court order to make someone stop doing something they shouldn’t do, or do something they should do), actual monetary damages that can be trebled up to $25,000, and your attorney’s fees paid by the other side if you win. There is no “pain and suffering” in Washington State’s UDAP statute. Questions about this or any other state’s statute? Contact a lawyer!
The Fair Credit Billing Act
Consumers who paid for goods or services using a credit card have rights under the federal Fair Credit Billing Act, and a process to dispute and have fraudulent charges reversed. Consumers may have claims against the merchant or credit card issuing bank under the Fair Credit Billing Act if the charges remain after the dispute. You might have heard of this referred to as a “chargeback” process.
Questions about credit card billing disputes? Talk to a consumer protection lawyer.
You can also complain about your experiences to the Attorney General in the state in which you live, or the state where the business is located. (The Better Business Bureau is not part of the government.)
Here’s a search form to find a state’s consumer protection office.
You can also complain to the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC regulates “business opportunities,” the conduct of influencers, and other business activities: https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/
Business Opportunity Acts
"If I had known only a handful of people make their money back from this program, I never would have joined."
The FTC has a Business Opportunity Rule (which only the FTC can enforce) but most states also have their own similar Business Opportunity statutes.
A “business opportunity” includes the sale of any service which enables the purchaser to start a business, where the seller guarantees that the purchaser will make more money than the purchase price of the program.
Does that cover business coaching programs? It can, depending on state law and the specific facts of the business coaching program.
Business opportunities are often required to be registered, licensed, bonded, make certain explicit disclosures, and give you a cooling-off period after you put down the money. Few business coaching programs, even super high-ticket ones, make such disclosures or bother to register.
Business coaches might say they don’t provide you with a specific product, or business-in-a-box kind of thing, but just the “tools” for you to be “successful.” But if you are someone who has not had a business before, and the program promises to give you everything you need to build a business that makes X amount of money per month, this is arguably a business opportunity and should be required to comply with applicable requirements.
Not sure? Ask a consumer lawyer in your jurisdiction.
Sometimes, Influencers and Business Coaches Violate Labor Laws by Using Volunteer Labor
I've been a "volunteer" in a for-profit coaching business and I'm just now finding out that violates labor laws. What do I do?
See: https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/flsa/docs/volunteers.asp
Report this immediately to the relevant states’ Labor & Industries and to the U.S. Department of Labor. Then consult with an attorney to get advice on your rights and protect your interests.
United States Department of Labor Complaint Site
Here is a list of each state’s Labor department. Then look up where to submit a labor or wage complaint.
You can also look for a employment lawyer at NELA: https://exchange.nela.org/memberdirectory/findalawyer
Business Coaching Scams often Have Unconscionable and One-Sided Contracts
What about the fine print in the contract, or the "no refunds" policy? Does that mean I have no chance of getting a refund from a coaching scam?
Just because a company says they don’t do refunds does not mean that you’re out of luck. It could be part of what is unfair or deceptive about their actions.
While a business is allowed to have a no-refunds policy, it must explicit and conspicuous, and “no refunds” cannot negate their obligations to actually deliver what they promised and that you paid for.
You might have remedies of your own under the contract, or basic contract law — such as the right to rescind (undo) the contract. It depends on the facts, so consult a lawyer.
Fine print in contracts sometimes contain an arbitration provision — a term where you already agreed to have any dispute heard outside of court. That may also limit your ability to bring claims as a class action with other people similarly situated as yourself. But this generally should not stop a person from seeking redress for their individual grievances. Consult with a consumer protection lawyer.
What if the coach threatens me with a lawsuit for defamation because I complained?
The United States First Amendment gives you the right to free speech.
In the United States, you have the constitutional right to express yourself. Telling the truth, and expressing your opinions are not defamation. You can take to Reddit, the BBB, Trustpilot, social media, etc., and leave truthful negative reviews. You can complain to the government about your experience. You can complain to your credit card company. You are also free to discuss your concerns with your friends in the same program.
You might have signed a contract that says you shall not “disparage” the coach. And yes, they might take legal action to enforce that. But the problem with such contract provisions is that they are arguably unconscionable, one-sided and anti-competitive, trying to enforce silence without any benefit to you. You might have these and other defenses that would help you challenge whether the contract you signed is enforceable against you.
The Consumer Review Fairness Act gives you the right to leave a truthful negative review.
The FTC has also made it explicitly clear that the seller and consumer cannot contract to prevent the consumer from leaving an honest review, the seller cannot punish the consumer for their review, and the review is the intellectual property of the consumer. This is the Consumer Review Fairness Act, 15 U.S.C. §45B.
Does any of that stop unscrupulous programs from threatening lawsuits? No, there are lawyers out there who only hear the coach’s side of the story and send threatening letters to scare people into silence. To their credit, many coaches and lawyers probably don’t know about the Consumer Review Fairness Act.
Anti-SLAPP Statutes provide additional, state-specific rights and remedies if you are threatened with a lawsuit for complaining or whistleblowing.
SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. A SLAPP is a lawsuit designed to silence dissent and keep the public from advocating for themselves. Most states have some kind of anti-SLAPP law prohibiting lawsuits brought by people who are unhappy with criticism, or threatening such lawsuits. See https://www.rcfp.org/resources/anti-slapp-laws/
Even receiving a threatening letter might be actionable in some circumstances.
Hiring a lawyer to help you get a refund -- or even filing a lawsuit to protect yourself -- does not make you a "litigious" person.
Cliches like “there are too many lawsuits,” “hot coffee,” “runaway juries,” “litigious society,” “victim mindset,” etc. are not particularly empowering for you if you’re standing around scrambling to get your money back from someone who scammed you, oversold you or engaged in price gouging. (By the way, much of this rhetoric originated with the insurance industry, which spends millions of dollars on advertising and lobbying to poison the public’s perception of people who have legitimately been harmed.)
And “don’t be a victim” is kind of hard to stomach if you’re not sure how to extricate yourself from someone who is unlawfully having you doing free labor for them.
We’ve all heard of stupid lawsuits. But there’s absolutely nothing stupid about you asserting your rights. If you want to be empowered and change your family tree, one way to start is by standing up to people who take advantage of people.
How do I find a consumer protection lawyer if I have been scammed by a coaching program or business opportunity?
You can go to the National Association of Consumer Advocates website.
NACA lawyers are dedicated to helping consumers.
I am a member of NACA, but in posting this link, I am not endorsing any other NACA-member lawyer.
I am an attorney licensed in Washington State and Alaska. My practice is devoted to consumer protection.
You can contact me on my law practice website and discuss your situation confidentially.
Please understand that I am not “your” attorney without a signed fee agreement, and I am only able to take a limited number of cases.
I take cases on contingency where there’s a statute that helps the consumer that could cover my fees. I cannot quote a fee without speaking to a potential client first.
I am being pressured by a coaching program to lie on credit applications, work for free, engage in sexual activity, etc. I think maybe what's going on is criminal...what should I do?
Call 911 and get to safety.
Report the crime to your local law enforcement.
Additional resources here: https://www.usa.gov/crime
Report internet crimes here: https://www.ic3.gov/
Sexual activity of any kind in a coaching program is a dangerous slippery slope. While the proponents of this claim it is “empowering,” that is a major red flag. It might even constitute sex trafficking and sex assault. See, New York Times coverage of two so-called “coaching” programs that were prosecuted by the Department of Justice: NXIVM and One Taste.
I might have trauma from my experience getting scammed, ripped off or abused in a coaching program or business opportunity. What else can I do?
It’s very sad that the coaching industry, which should be here to help people, has become so enmeshed with influencers, grifters, network marketing, pyramid schemes, bro marketers, and other unfair and deceptive “dream merchants.”
Even if your economic losses aren’t significant, you might be experiencing anger, sadness, embarrassment, shame, and trauma from your experiences. And being in a truly safe space where you are validated, and not gaslit, is critical for healing and moving on.
There are therapists who focus on the needs of clients who are victims of financial crimes and fraud, or are on the journey of cult recovery. Those are some terms you might want to use in your search, e.g., “_____ therapist near me.” I am not a mental health professional, so talk to someone who is.
But what if I live in a different country from the person or business that scammed me? Can I still demand a refund? Can I still get sued by the coach if I complained?
I wish I could answer these questions, but I don’t have a crystal ball. There are consumer protection organizations outside the United States who should be made aware of your ordeal.
Also, a person who is an “alien” — terrible term, I know — but someone who does not live in the United States — may still have standing to bring a case against a United States citizen person or corporation and have that case heard in federal court.
Someone who is not a U.S. citizen might in certain circumstances be subject to the jurisdiction of the United States in a civil lawsuit.
Consult with a consumer protection lawyer in your own jurisdiction and also in the jurisdiction where the business that wronged you is located. Dispute the charge with your credit card. Be persistent in seeking answers and help.
