We posted a while back about new Wholesale Rules in Missouri. And about the Kansas Attorney General suing a local wholesaler. Here's another big one - from Tennessee — because lately it isn’t the statute tripping wholesalers up. It’s their own mail. And the people have given up on State Laws being changed, so they are using the existing Consumer Protection Laws - Laws your state probably has too.
Investor Caleb Luketic has been telling anyone who’ll listen how one piece of marketing put him in a lawsuit he chose to settle. The culprit wasn’t a contract or a phone call. It was a fake offer check — one of those mailers built to look like a freal check: perforated edge, signature line, a “direct deposit” stamp. Not real money. Just a look-alike check with an offer printed on it — the kind plenty of investors still drop in the mail every week.
He ran a clean shop. It didn’t matter.
By his own account, Caleb did the hard parts right. The seller sat on the mailer for a few months; when he finally called, Caleb’s team told him in the opening minute that the price depended on the home’s condition — and they had it on tape. Every call recorded, every disclosure and addendum in order. On paper, an airtight file.
What landed him in court had nothing to do with any of that. It came down to two lines printed on the check.
Why this should worry you, not just him
This isn’t a real-estate rule. It’s consumer protection — the same legal theory that’s been used for years against car lots that put one message on the front of an offer and bury a different one underneath. The attorney who came after Caleb has reportedly already won cases like this against other investors, and says she has more in the works. And it travels: Missouri enforces the Merchandising Practices Act, Kansas the Consumer Protection Act — same species of law, same exposure right here in our backyard.
Caleb says a fake check even showed up in his mailbox not long ago — more convincing than the one he’d sent. So whoever mailed it is sitting on the same problem and probably has no idea.
Why he settled instead of fighting
He figures a trial would have cost him another five to seven grand in fees before a judge heard a word — and, more to the point, he didn’t want to become the name that turns into the case every other plaintiff’s lawyer starts citing. So he settled and moved on. These days he skips printed mail altogether and runs inbound only.
The lesson for the rest of us
If a fake check — or any mailer — makes a big promise up top and quietly walks it back in the fine print, a clean file won’t save you. Before your next drop, have your attorney read every word on the piece, and take an honest look at whether a printed “offer check” is worth the risk it carries.
Education, not legal advice — talk to your own attorney about your marketing. This is our summary of investor Caleb Luketic’s public Facebook post about his own case.
Wholesaling
Do you know the rules?
