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Updated: April 15, 2023

22 Comments

Is Tai Lopez A Scam?

Fact-Checking 37+ Tai Lopez Claims

Is Tai Lopez a scam?

To find out, we spent 6 weeks investigating Tai Lopez.

We watched his videos, listened to his podcast, and even bought two of his courses.

This video summarizes our findings:

If you want a quick answer…

Is Tai Lopez A Scam?

Tai Lopez offers some genuine value and advice, and his courses are legit – though often overpriced.

Many people consider Tai Lopez a scammer due to his frequent use of questionable marketing tactics, and his tendency to bend the truth.

You’ll find all the juicy details further down the page.

Table Of Contents

Who is Tai Lopez?

Tai Lopez is a professional internet marketer perhaps best known for flaunting his lavish lifestyle online, and for a popular TEDx Talk in which he claimed to read a book a day.

Above: Tai showing off a Lamborghini in his (in)famous Here In My Garage video.

Tai has been a controversial figure since bursting onto the scene in 2015, when he began heavily promoting his online programs, primarily via paid ads on YouTube.

Critics were quick to label him a scammer and denounce his products as “get rich quick schemes.”

Many people questioned how he became wealthy in the first place, whether he actually owned all those Ferraris and Lamborghinis, and if the big house he showed off in his videos was only a rental.

Meanwhile, Tai built a large following and a loyal fanbase.

He seemed friendly with many celebrities and successful entrepreneurs. Years after he first appeared on everyone’s YouTube screen, he hadn’t gone away, and his online businesses looked to be doing better than ever.

So who is the real Tai Lopez?

More importantly: can you trust him?

Let’s find out…

MONEY + WEALTH

What is Tai Lopez’s net worth?

  • Tai Lopez has stated publicly that his net worth is more than $50 million.
  • We acquired a written statement by an accountant in Los Angeles specifying that “a conservative estimate of the net worth of Taino A. Lopez is $60 million USD

Here’s a video we put together investigating Tai’s net worth…

In a March 2019 appearance on Logan Paul’s podcast, Tai was asked about his net worth. 9

His response:

“Online it says $5 million. I think that was 10 years ago. I always say underestimate your net worth, so let’s just say [my net worth is] $50 million.”

We explored Tai’s net worth further in this article, including the $60 million estimate by an accountant in Los Angeles:

How does Tai Lopez make money online?

Tai Lopez mainly makes money online by selling online courses.

Tai seems to have initially starting earning significant sums of money online via a fleet of now-defunct dating websites, some of which were accused of baiting customers with fake profiles of attractive matches (more on this below).

Starting in 2014, Tai began creating and selling online courses, starting with his flagship 67 Steps program (reviewed here). Based on our research, online courses are still likely to be his biggest source of income.

Tai also makes money online via:

  • A book shipping and e-learning company he co-owns called MentorBox
  • Selling sleep glasses
  • Sponsors on his podcast
  • Affiliate marketing
  • Coaching and consulting

For more info on each of those (including revenue numbers), see this article:

Does Tai Lopez actually own all those fancy cars?

Tai may own a few of the cars he shows off in his videos, but he definitely leases some of them.

In multiple videos and on social media, you’ll find Tai Lopez showing off his fancy cars.

A prime example is his famous “Here In My Garage” video:

Right off the bat there he tells us:

“Just bought this new Lamborghini here.”

Another example is a Facebook video from 2016:

On other occasions, Tai has shown his garage stocked with as many as six luxury vehicles 10

But it seems Tai doesn’t actually own those cars.

At least, not all of them.

Consider the following:

  • At the 14:04 mark of the following April 2017 video, Tai shows paperwork that states at least one of his cars (a red Ferrari) is leased.
  • Here’s a screenshot from another video of Tai driving a black Lamborghini (taken from the 6:02 mark):

There is speculation that the white item attached to the key in the ignition is a rental tag.

  • At the 3:55 mark of the below May 2016 video on his official YouTube channel, Tai says:

“I’ve done all of them. I’ve bought, I’ve leased, I’ve rented cars.”

“If you talk to Tai and you get to know him, and I’ve been to his home, I’ve seen a lot of the stuff. You know, he’ll talk about cars. He’ll tell you he leases them. It’s not like he’s saying he bought it outright.”

Of course, leasing a car is totally fine, and may even be the smart move financially (especially when you can write it off as a business expense, which Tai seems to do).

It’s just hard to know which of those fancy cars Tai does lease, and which of them, if any, he actually owns. The man’s own words do not seem to be a reliable guide here.

Curious how much it costs to buy vs. rent some of those cars? Click here.

We researched the price of renting vs. buying some of the cars that have appeared in Tai’s videos. Here’s what we found…

  • Lamborghini Aventador 1
    $2,250 per day, or $468,000 to buy 2
  • Lamborghini Gallardo 3
    $358 per day, or $293,756 to buy 4
  • Ferrari 458 Italia Spider 5
    $1,750 per day, or $326,000 to buy 6
  • Rolls Royce Ghost 7
    $499 per day, or $308,300 to buy 8

Does Tai Lopez actually own that fancy house?

No, Tai doesn’t own the Beverly Hills house you may have seen in his videos. He leases it.

Here’s a June 2016 video (not on Tai’s official channel), showing you around his house in Beverly Hills: 11

Tai has shot and broadcast numerous videos from that house over the years.

There were rumors that the house was rented, especially when a listing for the property was found on Zillow.

Tai responded to one such rumor in a January 2017 tweet:

However, in the following April 2017 video by h3h3Productions, Tai clearly says at the 2:45 mark that the house is leased.

“This is a house I do through my business. It’s not a rental. It’s a lease.” – Tai Lopez

Now you might wonder, as we did, what the difference is between renting and leasing a house. Aren’t they pretty much the same thing?

The difference is most clearly explained by AllBusiness.com:

A lease has a set term, such as six months or a year, during which the tenant agrees to rent the property. […] Rental agreements are month to month, with no long-term requirements.

In other words, Tai is paying (via his business) for the use of that house long-term, not for a few days or weeks at a time.

And Tai certainly seems to live in the house.

Below is another video tour of the property (not on Tai’s official channel), where you can see the master bedroom (0:30), a fully stocked walk-in closet (1:00), and the master bathroom (1:30).

As for how much it actually costs to lease that house, we’ve seen a few different estimates:

Does Tai really keep stacks of cash lying around his house?

Not really: it’s fake cash.

You’ll see one or multiple stacks of cash make an appearance in many of Tai’s videos, like this one: 12

At the 1:45 mark of a January 2018 podcast, internet marketer Neil Patel said the following:

I was at [Tai’s] house and we were shooting a video, and there was all this cash on the table, and it was fake cash. He even tells people, “Yeah, it’s fake cash. I don’t want real cash because then someone’s going to rob me, but I’ll give them and currency in real cash, or whatever it may be.”

How did Tai Lopez get rich?

Most likely Tai began building significant wealth via a wealth management company he co-founded in 2003.

We pieced together a few things from Tai’s TEDx talk: 13

  • At the age of 16 he began looking for “the good life.”
  • He started traveling and went to 51 countries.
  • Then he worked on Joel Salatin’s farm for 2 years.
  • Then he lived with the Amish for 2.5 years.
  • Then he had a realization…

I made one mistake. I forgot about money. That’s one of the things, and so eventually, I ran out of money. I had to do the thing nobody wants to do, I had to call my mom and be like, “Mom, I know I’m an adult, but I don’t have any money. Do you mind if I come stay at home until I get back on my feet?”

She said, “Sure”. She had a mobile home in Clayton, North Carolina. I went and she said, “Sorry, Tai, I don’t have a room for you, but you can sleep on this couch.” So I remember laying there at night, like: “Did I mess up? Did I miss out on the good life? Here I am, I have no college degree. My skills? I could milk a cow with the Amish.” That wasn’t a very marketable skill. I remember I had like $47 in my bank account.

Our research strongly suggests that Tai was born on April 11, 1976 14, so that means he would have been broke on his mother’s couch around the year 1998 at age 22. 15

Ten years later, in 2008, Tai appeared as a millionaire on a 2008 episode of The Millionaire Matchmaker (watch the full episode here).

How did that happen?

According to Tai’s LinkedIn, he worked for GE Capital from 2001-2003, and then became a founding partner in a wealth management company called LLG Financial Inc.

LLG Financial apparently ended up managing “$100 million for 6,000 clients in 50 states.” 16 According to LinkedIn, Tai was only involved in this business until 2007, but it sounds like that’s where he first started generating a sizeable income and building his net worth.

Rumors abound that Tai owns real estate and even some nightclubs – which he may have started investing in around 2007 – but we’ve been unable to verify such claims.

As for online business, Tai ran a fleet of dating websites that were especially active from 2010 to 2015. It’s unknown how much money those sites earned, though zoominfo.com (via web.archive.org) listed their revenue as $2.8 million with a staff of 14.

For more on how Tai has made money over the years, including a list of the dating sites we were able to link to him, see this article:

Has Tai Lopez helped other people get rich?

Yes. Tai has almost certainly helped other people get rich.

Check out the first 45 seconds of this video on Tai’s official YouTube channel:

We checked out all those folks on Instagram:

And yeah, most of them seem to be legit and doing pretty well for themselves.

But consider this:

  • According to one analysis, the odds of making the NBA are .00036.

Given that, it’s not surprising to see a few dozen success stories.

The real question is: were those students destined to succeed anyway, without Tai’s help?

Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Can Tai Lopez help YOU get rich?

Perhaps.

But as Tai notes in a disclaimer at the bottom of each email to his mailing list…

***Tai is a professional internet marketer. His success, and the income possibilities mentioned by his students, are not typical and are not a guarantee you will make money. You could make more, less, or none at all.***

“The Average American is $225,238 in debt”

False.

This is a claim made on a sales page for Tai’s 67 Steps program.

The number seems unlikely and we’ve been unable to find a source for the data.

NerdWallet publishes a debt study every year and the highest number they’re reported for the average debt of an American household (i.e. not individual) has been $137,000.

“GDP has gone up every single year for the last hundred years”

False.

Tai made this claim in a December 2018 video on his official YouTube channel:

Tai’s words from that video (at about the 4:10 mark):

“There’s plenty of money to go around. People will tell you there isn’t, but they don’t understand that GDP has gone up every single year for the last hundred years.”

Tai doesn’t mention where he’s getting that information from, but it seems he’s been misinformed.

According to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, GDP in the United States (both nominal GDP and real GDP) has seen “strange ups and downs” since 1929.

Both nominal and real GDP decreased from 2008 to 2009, for example.

FAME + POPULARITY

Is “Here In My Garage” one of the most-watched video campaigns in history?

Not even close.

From a September 2015 article on Vice.com:

“I did a video earlier this year, that one in my garage,” Lopez said after he took me for a spin in his Ferrari. “It’s almost the most watched video campaign in history.”

I didn’t bring up the absurdity of touting viewership figures on an ad you’re paying to put in front of eyeballs.

Leaving that absurdity aside, we wanted to find out if Tai’s “Here In My Garage” video was indeed one of the most watched video campaigns in history.

Well, according to AdWeek, Tai’s video didn’t even crack the top 10 most watched video campaigns in 2015, racking up less views than ads for the likes of Budweiser, Durex, and Clash of Clans.

Was Tai Lopez voted the #1 social media influencer by Entrepreneur Magazine?

Not really.

This claim appears on Tai’s about page:

Tai […] was voted the Number 1 Social Media Influencer by Entrepreneur Magazine.

There is an article on Entrepreneur.com from January, 2017 which lists Tai as the #1 social media strategist to watch in 2017.

Note however that the article was written by a “content partner” called The Oracles, meaning it’s sponsored content.

And The Oracles just so happens to be a networking group for 6- and 7-figure entrepreneurs. Which Tai Lopez is a member of. As are three others who appear on the Entrepreneur.com list.

There’s even a note at the top of the article:

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Given that, it’s disingenuous to say that Tai was voted #1 by Entrepreneur Magazine. Because Entrepreneur Magazine didn’t actually vote on the topic or write the article. Presumably, a representative for Tai’s networking group did.

It’s kind of like paying a marketing company to take out a full-page ad in the New York Times stating that you are the sexiest person alive, then saying on your website:

I was voted sexiest person alive by the New York Times!

Does Tai Lopez run the largest book club in the world?

Unlikely.

An April 2017 tweet from Tai, promoting his company MentorBox:

We couldn’t find any report of how many members MentorBox has, but Tai has claimed in the past that the company generates as much as $65,000 per day in revenue (see our full report here). Given that membership costs between $7 and $89 a month 17, it seems they could therefore have as many as 250,000 members.

Does that make it the largest book club in the world?

Well, that depends on what you mean by “largest book club.”

Because…

  • Oprah Winfrey’s book club doesn’t require any membership, but is surely the most famous book club in the world, and has catapulted several books to bestseller status.
  • The Economist once called Goodreads the world’s biggest book club. It has more than 90 million members.
  • The biggest group within Goodreads, Our Shared Shelf, has more than 229,000 members.
  • Actress Reese Witherspoon runs a book club on Instagram that has more than 1.4 million followers.

The best we can say about MentorBox is that it may be the largest paid book club in the world.

However, Tai seems to have been making the claim about running one of the largest book clubs in the world since before MentorBox was launched in January 2017.

In a video for his 67 Steps program (most likely filmed in 2015), Tai says the following:

“Me and Oprah have the biggest book clubs in the world”

See our review of The 67 Steps here

What Tai is most likely referring to here is his Book Of The Day Club, which is a free email newsletter.

As of 2020, that newsletter was reported to have 3 million subscribers 18, but Tai uses it to promote his own products and services far more than sharing book recommendations.

See our analysis of Tai’s newsletter here:

Do celebrities like and respect Tai Lopez?

It would seem so.

We’ve seen him in photos and/or videos with all of the following people:

Did Tai Lopez speak at Harvard?

Yes.

He was listed as a speaker for a November 2016 event on the Harvard website, and a video on his official YouTube channel shows some clips from his talk.

BUSINESS + MARKETING

Is Tai Lopez a scam?

This very much depends how you define “scam.”

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it like so:

a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation 19

A commenter on YouTube writes:

Tai IS A SCAM because first you need to look up what scam means. Most people ASSUME what it means. A scam is when you use deception to financial gain. So, if I charge you $1000 to teach you tenis under the guise that I’m a top Tennis instructor and have trained the best players….but I actually lied to you and I’m just an average player….I’ve SCAMMED you. The whole reason you bought my product is because of the LIE I sold to you. That is a scam.

Tai Lopez pretends to be some successful businessman who knows how to make money but his previous businesses were all ripe with fraud and failure. He even has a book about dating that has like 5 reviews. His success all came when he started PRETENDING like he was some big success. 20

Some strong claims there, but they don’t quite fit with our findings.

As noted above, Tai had apparently achieved millionaire status by 2008, mainly through offline businesses and long before he became something of an online celebrity.

It’s also hard to call Tai a scammer when he includes a clear disclaimer below his signature in every email to his mailing list:

***Tai is a professional internet marketer. His success, and the income possibilities mentioned by his students, are not typical and are not a guarantee you will make money. You could make more, less, or none at all.***

And, as Tai noted in this April 2018 video on his YouTube channel, lots of things can be considered a scam from a certain perspective:

Tai’s words from the 2:40 mark:

“If I charge someone 500 bucks to learn […] yeah, if you don’t do the course, I guess I made money and you didn’t gain but that’s like saying a book is a scam because the author gets paid $15 if you buy the book whether or not it helps you. That’s like saying all gym equipment is a scam, because if you don’t go on the treadmill or you don’t hit the weights, the person who sold you the weights was guaranteed to make money.”

To find out for sure if Tai Lopez is a scammer or not, we went and purchased two of his premium courses, consumed all the materials, and put together in-depth reviews:

We concluded that neither course can be considered a scam, because the content is delivered as promised and we were even able to get a refund of one purchase upon request.

That said, Tai’s courses certainly have their shortcomings (summarized here), and he undoubtedly employs some questionable marketing tactics (listed here).

We can’t go so far as to call him a scammer – at least not anymore; see the next section – but we’ve learned to be wary of taking him at his word.

But wait: didn’t Tai Lopez run a bunch of scammy dating websites?

Yes, it seems Tai Lopez did run several questionable dating websites up until about 2015.

Best we can determine, Tai first started earning significant sums of money online running a fleet of dating websites that were especially active from 2010 to 2015.

All are now defunct, but we were able to link several to Tai (see our full report here).

You can still find scores of complaints about these websites online, like this one:

I agree it’s a scam. I got all these hot men (odd since all the other dating sites are UGLY Fuglies. I know I’m not the sexiest woman alive, so suddenly all these hot men are contacting me? I thought, ok give it a shot – paid for it and suddenly they stop writing to me and NONE of them responded! NONE! The ones who are happy on this site are probably the owner and working posing at fake happy people. Buyer beware! 21

It seems this was a common occurrence on Tai’s dating websites: fake matches prompting people to sign up for premium accounts.

So yes, it seems clear that Tai’s dating websites scammed a lot of people.

They had all been shut down by 2016, however.

As far as we can tell, Tai’s businesses since then have been much better behaved.

Does Tai Lopez add people to his email list without permission?

In some instances, yes.

This post appeared on Reddit in June 2018:

That might once have been true, but we tested it ourselves by emailing Tai via [email protected] and were not added to his mailing list.

However, we did find verify a different instance of Tai adding people to his email list without permission, as outlined here:

Was Tai’s “Here In My Backyard” video removed by Google?

Unlikely.

A website called Market Rap claims that it was:

2017 Update: It appears that “Here in My Backyard” was removed by Google due to, “violating YouTube’s policy on spam, deceptive practices, and scams.”

It’s unclear where they got that information from, but since the same video was re-uploaded to Tai’s channel in 2018 and has gone on to amass millions of views, it’s unlikely that Google ever had a problem with it.

Here’s the video:

Does Tai Lopez give refunds?

Yes, Tai Lopez does give refunds, but he doesn’t make it easy. The best way to request a refund is via Tai’s live chat support.

In a 2017 video promoting his 67 Steps course, Tai says:

“There’s never been a time someone’s wanted a refund that they haven’t gotten their money.”

Here’s the video (above quote from the 1:06:40 mark):

There are many reports online however of Tai’s customers having difficulty getting a refund.

One such example from a YouTube commenter: 22

To see for ourselves, we bought Tai’s 67 Steps course twice and asked for a refund on one of the purchases. We eventually got it, but it took three phone calls, an email, and a live chat. (Read all the details here.)

We also requested a partial refund on Tai’s SMMA 2.0 course (reviewed here), since we purchased it at what was promoted as a deep discount ($97, reduced from $697), only to find it priced significantly lower ($19) a couple of weeks later.

On that occasion, we reached a support rep on our first try via live chat. Instead of a refund, he offered us access to another of Tai’s courses, which we accepted.

Here’s what we’ve learned from our experience requesting refunds on Tai’s courses:

  • Tai does give refunds, but he doesn’t make the refund process easy for his customers.
  • The best way to request a refund is via live chat. (Our phone calls and emails to Tai’s support team, during business hours, went unanswered).

Also note that as per the “Terms and Conditions of Use” page on Tai’s website, some of his courses have “action-based” refund policies. Here’s what that looks like:

Also, according to that page, several of Tai’s courses are not eligible for a refund at all.

For example:

Given that, be sure to read the small print when buying one of Tai’s courses, so you know in advance if you’re entitled to a refund, and what hoops you have to jump through to get one.

“Tai never discounts his programs”

False. Tai Lopez discounts his programs and courses all the time.

As recounted in our breakdown of Tai’s approach to email marketing, after about a week, every new subscriber to his list receives a couple of emails from his cousin Maya.

In one of them, after linking to the 67 Steps sales page three times, she writes:

P.S. Tai never discounts his programs so this is your one and only chance to get this for just $37. In just 12 hours the price will go to $67 and you’ll miss out.

13 days later, that discount was still available.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg, as it seems that Tai’s courses are more often offered at a discount than at full price.

For example, a quick search for the word “discount” in the emails Tai sent to us in a 5 week period brought up 12 results:

Furthermore, in our deep analysis of Tai’s email marketing, we found 53 total links to sales pages in his first 19 emails.

ALL those sales pages offered discount pricing.

Is Tai Lopez selling a get-rich-quick scheme?

No. Tai Lopez has stated explicitly and frequently that his programs are NOT a way to get rich quick.

This is a frequent accusation aimed at Tai, but he has said multiple times that he never promises people that they can get rich quick through his programs.

At the 7:25 mark of the following April 2018 video, Tai says:

“I don’t teach get rich quick. I specifically say, on average a millionaire takes 12-20 years, but you can probably cut the learning curve if you go directly to the source and follow somebody.”

At the 4:00 mark of the following February 2017 video, Tai says:

“I’m not talking about a get rich quick scheme. That’s not what I’m about. Life takes patience. But I’ll tell you, sometimes you can be too patient and too slow. So you have to have that perfect balance of quick and slow. Know when to be quick, know when to be slow.”

And the following appeared in a September 2015 article about Tai on Vice.com:

“When people hear me or anyone talking about money, there’s a part of their brain that immediately thinks: Get rich quick scheme. But there have been get rich quick schemes since the dawn of time and I never say anywhere that you’re gonna get rich from my steps,” Lopez said. Which is true, I guess—he never says you’re going to drive off in a Ferrari tomorrow—but he does imply that you’ll be able to drive a Ferrari someday.

Did Tai Lopez work for Joel Salatin?

Yes. Tai did work for famous farmer Joel Salatin as a young man.

Tai worked for Joel Salatin at his farm in Virginia for an 18-month period, as confirmed by Salatin in the following video.

“Tai is fantastic and I’m just so proud of him.” – Joel Salatin

Did Tai Lopez steal Jack Canfield’s material?

No, Tai did not steal Jack Canfield’s material.

We found the following claim repeated in at least six different publications:

  • Tai Lopez’s online course (The 67 Steps) is a complete rip-off of Jack Canfield’s book (The Success Principles).

Here’s what VICE wrote in a September 2015 article:

Others have argued that Lopez’s advice isn’t all that novel, since many of his talks piggyback off more established luminaries of the motivation and business spaces. Many point to Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles, a 2006 book with it’s own 67 steps, which they claim Lopez straight-up stole and repackaged.

We went through both The 67 Steps and The Success Principles and detailed our findings in this article:

The short answer is no, Tai did not rip off Jack Canfield.

Is Tai Lopez “an investor, partner, or advisor to over 20 multi-million dollar businesses?”

Unverified, businesses not listed.

The about page on Tai’s website notes that he is “an investor, partner, and advisor to over 20 multi-million dollar businesses.”

Unfortunately, the names of most of those businesses are not listed.

Rumors abound that Tai owns real estate and even some nightclubs, but we’ve been unable to verify such claims.

All we can say for sure is that becoming an investor in a multi-million dollar business is not a hard thing to do, if you count buying stocks as investing.

For example, you could buy one stock in each of the following companies for less than $500 total:

  • Bank of America
  • Coca-Cola
  • Dunkin Donuts
  • Ford Motor Company
  • Nike
  • Royal Bank of Scotland
  • The New York Times
  • Twitter
  • Under Armour
  • Walmart

Given that, we’re a little suspect of Tai’s claim here, especially considering how he’s no stranger to bending the truth.

What businesses does Tai Lopez own?

Some listed below, others unknown.

Tai has claimed to own 100% of a company called Mas Group LLC 23, which was first registered in Nevada in March 2010. 24

Presumably, Tai runs all his online businesses through this company.

We detailed several ways Tai makes money online in this article:

As per that article, Tai’s businesses include:

  • Selling courses via TaiLopez.com and The67Steps.com
  • MentorBox (50% ownership)
  • Sleep glasses ecommerce website
  • Coaching and consulting

Are Tai Lopez’s courses any good?

Some of Tai’s courses are worthwhile, and some aren’t.

To answer this question, we bought and reviewed Tai’s two most popular courses:

The 67 Steps

You probably shouldn’t buy this one.

It’s a decent course packed with insights from some of the world’s greatest minds, but we can’t see how it offers much beyond what’s already freely available on Tai’s podcast and YouTube channel.

Social Media Marketing Agency 2.0

This one is well worth the price of admission.

We’ve yet to come across another course that offers such comprehensive training from so many experts at such a low price – provided you buy it on sale – with a thriving private community and dozens of believable success stories to boot.

Here’s our video review:

PERSONAL + FAMILY

Is Tai Lopez his real name?

Taino Adrian Lopez is his full name, and we have no reason to believe it’s fake.

In an April 2017 video by h3h3Productions, Tai shows the DMV paperwork for a leased ferrari with his name listed as Lopez Taino…

We ran a background check on Tai via BeenVerified.com and it coughed up the following:

An online listing of Tai’s business, Mas Group LLC, notes his name as “Taino A. Lopez”

Tai’s middle name being Adrian makes sense, as Adrian is the name used on a handful of dating websites he once ran (more info on those here).

We can conclude with some confidence therefore that his full name is Taino Adrian Lopez.

We have no reason to believe this is not his real name.

Did Tai Lopez live with the Amish for 2.5 years?

Most likely, yes, Tai did live with the Amish for a couple of years.

Tai mentions his time with the Amish frequently, including at the 6:50 mark of his TEDx talk:

In Step 41 of The 67 Steps (reviewed here), Tai goes into some detail about his time with the Amish, revealing that he lived with a carpenter named Sam Chupp and family near a town called Wytheville in Virginia.

We confirmed via a website called Amish365 that there is indeed an Amish carpenter named Sam Chupp living near Wytheville, Virginia.

Unfortunately, our several emails to Mr. Chupp have gone unanswered, 25 so we’ve been unable to verify whether or not Tai did live with him once upon a time in Virginia.

Is Tai Lopez an “attractive male”?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So it says on Tai’s profile from the now-defunct ModelPromoter.com, which we found archived here:

“I am the CEO of this website.” – Tai’s profile from March 2016 on ModelPromoter.com.

We’ll leave it for you to decide if Tai is indeed an attractive male.

Does Tai Lopez have a cousin named Maya?

Tai works with a Maya Burkenroad; unknown if they’re related.

We first heard of Maya when she emailed us on Tai’s behalf via his email list.

Initially we were skeptical that Maya was a real person, but she shows up as a manager for Tai’s company here:

We also found her on social media:

Tai appearing in a video post on Maya’s Instagram.

So she does indeed seem to be a real person.

We’ve been unable to verify if she and Tai are actually cousins, but we see no good reason to doubt it.

Tai Lopez age – how old is Tai Lopez?

Most likely Tai Lopez is 47 years old as of April 11, 2023.

Several sources online claim Tai was born April 11, 1977.

This Facebook post from 2015 confirms that April 11 is the correct month and day…

…but this tweet calls the year into question:

Tai’s age was listed as 39 years old in March 2016 on a personal profile on a website he ran called ModelPromoter.com (archived here):

(Confusingly, his zodiac sign is listed there as Capricorn, which would mean he was born in December or January.)

If we do take April 11 as Tai’s birthday though, and the age on the profile above as correct (as of March 2016), Tai’s date of birth would have to be April 11, 1976.

So how old is Tai Lopez?

  • 44 years old in 2020
  • 45 years old in 2021
  • 46 years old in 2022
  • 47 years old in 2023
  • 48 years old in 2024

Was Tai on the TV show Millionaire Matchmaker?

Yes. Tai appeared as a millionaire on a 2008 episode of The Millionaire Matchmaker.

You can watch the full episode here. Tai comes in at the 16:44 mark.

Is Tai Lopez an author?

Yes, Tai is an author, but not a successful one.

According to a signature image in an email we received from his support staff, Tai is an investor, entrepreneur, and author.

We found that Tai does have a couple of books listed on Amazon, only one of which is still available for purchase:

The first book has a few reviews, mostly negative, like this one:

Did Tai Lopez work in a leper colony in India?

Unverified.

Tai makes this extraordinary claim within his 67 Steps program (reviewed here):

“I went to India, worked in a leper colony…” – Tai Lopez

The same claim is repeated on Tai’s about page at TaiLopez.com:

He spent two-and-a-half years living with the Amish, spent time working at a leper colony in India, and helped Joel Salatin pioneer grass-fed, sustainable agriculture on Polyface Farms.

We were unable to verify this claim, but did find an interesting take on it at BroBible.com:

Holy shit. Embedded with the Amish? Living in a leper colony? Dropping out of college as an entrepreneur? Financial planning? Tai is like Mother Teresa, Mark Zuckerberg, Lloyd Blankfein and wrapped into one holy, capitalistic super-human.

ODDS + ENDS

Does Tai Lopez read a book a day?

No. Tai Lopez doesn’t read a book a day. He skims a book a day.

Tai’s claim that he reads a book a day is one of his most famous.

He even titled his TEDx talk along these lines:

But we’ve found this claim by Tai to be disingenuous.

He does not read a book a day. He skims a book a day.

At the 12:30 mark of this video, you can see Tai outline his method for “reading” books:

Tai goes into more detail in a bonus section of his 67 Steps course entitled “Smart Reading,” in which he says he likes to read for a minimum of 45 minutes per day, divided into three 15-minute sessions.

Screenshot from the Smart Reading bonus section inside The 67 Steps. Read our review here.

There is value in Tai’s “smart reading” approach, certainly.

But again, we find it disingenuous for him to claim he reads a book a day when what he is actually doing is skimming through each book rapidly.

It’s a bit like someone boasting that they cycle 20 miles a day, which sounds impressive, until you find out they use an electric bicycle 😕

Is Tai Lopez in Mensa?

Yes. Tai Lopez is a member of Mensa.

In case you don’t know what Mensa is:

Mensa is the largest and oldest high IQ society in the world. It is a non-profit organisation open to people who score at the 98th percentile or higher on a standardised, supervised IQ or other approved intelligence test. 26

In other words, it’s an exclusive club for super-intelligent people.

Tai mentions on his about page that he is a member of Mensa. He sometimes has “Mensa Member” in his Twitter bio:

March 2016 snapshot of Tai’s Twitter, archived here.

We emailed [email protected] to ask if Tai is indeed a member.

This was their reply:

The Amish have 80% lower rates of depression

Unverified.

Within The 67 Steps, Tai says that the Amish have ⅕ the general rates of depression.

Tai’s exact words:

“I’m telling you, I’ve seen happy people before and I’ve never seen as many as I saw [in Amish communities]. And later I found out the research backs this up. Jared Diamond here in LA, at UCLA, the Pulitzer Prize winning historian and writer, he wrote Guns, Germs and Steel. If you remember in that book, another one of the recommended books that I have, he said the Amish have one-fifth of the depression. Now, how can that be?”

We bought and digitally searched the book Guns, Germs and Steel but failed to find the words “Amish” or “depression” anywhere in there.

So Tai must be misremembering where he heard this information about the Amish.

We also searched online for any studies related to the Amish and mental health and couldn’t find anything solid to back up the claim about lower depression rates.

If anything, we found as many references to the Amish having the same or greater depression rates as the general population.

(Do you know of any peer-reviewed studies showing that the Amish experience significantly lower rates of depression? If so, please share in the comments below.)

“The average person regrets the education they received”

Unverified.

Tai wrote the following in a January 2019 message to his mailing list:

Unsurprisingly, Tai provides no references to back up his claims here.

We looked online and the best match we could find was a study of 370 people across the United States where “the respondents were asked to describe, in detail, one significant incident of regret.”

The top 5 regrets according to that study:

  1. Romance (cited by 18.1% of the respondents)
  2. Family (15.9%)
  3. Education (13.1%)
  4. Career (12.2%)
  5. Finance (9.9%)

Education lands at #3 there, just as Tai said, but #1 and #2 don’t match his list, so it looks like Tai has pulled his info from another (unknown) source.

BOTTOM LINE

Is Tai Lopez a scammer?

Having investigated all the above claims and watched perhaps more Tai Lopez video than his biggest fanboy… we have to say:

No, Tai Lopez is not a scammer.

But nor should you believe everything the man says.

Too often we’ve found him making claims that were either unsubstantiated, or flat-out false.

At the same time, there is genuine value to be gained from many of his teachings, so long as you keep in mind what we like to call, The Real Law of 33%:

For every 30 minutes you listen to Tai Lopez talk, you will receive only 10 minutes of value.

In other words, approximately 33% of what Tai has to say is incredibly useful, insightful, and perhaps even life-changing.

And the rest is either pointless rambling, Tai reminding you how successful he is, or claims that can’t be taken at face value.

We wrote another article summarizing the takeaways of all our research into Tai Lopez:

Read more about Tai Lopez

This article is part of a 9-part series:

What do you think of Tai Lopez: scammer or no?

We’d love to hear your thoughts below – good or bad – doesn’t matter so long as it’s helpful to our visitors.

Thanks for your support!

About The Author
Niall Doherty – Founder and Lead Editor of eBiz Facts Born and raised in Ireland, Niall has been making a living from his laptop since quitting his office job in 2010. He's fond of basketball, once spent 44 months traveling around the world without flying, and has been featured in such publications as The Irish Times and Huffington Post. Read more...

22 thoughts on “Is Tai Lopez A Scam?”

  1. Thats the story of 98% of super succesful online marketers. One of the first super affiliates actually had training courses that instructed you on how to ‘fake it until you make it’.
    He would tell stories of how he made $20,000 in one week, but he admitted he worked 6 months to to reach that one week payday. Like he said, he didn’t lie, but they assumed his average income was $20,000 a week. He said always embellish the truth in advertising. always go up to the line without crossing it. He would even show photos he took with celbreties, as a fan of course. B ut his followers did’nt know that. so faking it until he made it has turned him intoan affiliate marketing legend.

    Reply
  2. Good writing and I enjoyed reading the whole thing!
    The minute when someone starts showing off huge fancy houses, super cars, and hot girls et al, it’s a big turn off to me! If you’re a real deal, you don’t need to do all that in-your-face stuff as it just seems too fake for me! That said, kudos to him, more power to him that he’s figured out easy ways to make money on, what should I say, naive people! If you buy into his stuff and he does it by the book (even in gray areas!) and it turns out a waste of money for you…too bad!

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  3. First time I’ve read an article by you.
    Well done!
    You answered the question I wanted to know.
    There is a lot of deception online and people are barraged with noise.
    Thanks for knowledge!

    Reply
  4. He’s scammed the banks including Citibank and American Express with his accountant with a shell company from paying debts. His company makes around $800,000 a year and his Linkedin claimed that he was a certified financial planner – which in fact he is not. So no sir – Taino Adrian Lopez is a scam in many ways. There is a complete flowchart of the types of companies that he is operating under each shell. There is no legit track record, outside of the busted dating sites that he used to own and his “rise to glory” is simply be using “credit” to pay for ads that gave him more money to fuel his overly “generic” business advise.

    Reply
    • Thanks for the comment, Jason.

      You made some big claims there without providing any evidence or reference material. If you have some proof of your claims please send them along and I’ll look into them.

      Reply
  5. Downloaded his courses for free back in the days. Found them incredibly helpful and do recommend it to anyone.

    Can imagine the point you made regarding the value of the 67 steps but back then when I just started with personal development I found these details and stories incredibly helpful.

    I just started listening to them again and I am getting annoyed by his long unstructured stories and am skipping some parts. Still incredible value for money though.

    Easy for people to call things a scam.

    Reply
  6. I fully agree with your summation of “Is Tai Lopez a scammer?” It’s a complete relative matter of perspective at any randomly given time. But what I really want to know is Naill Doherty’s claimed fondness of porridge genuine, or is it just a quirky psuedo trait added in to nicely round his bio?

    Reply
  7. I discovered Tail Lopez through an ad on YouTube in April 2015. Trouble was, I clicked past it before I could finish watching. It took a lot of research before I actually found the ad again. I think it was the original ‘Here in my Garage’ video. I watched it to the end (more than 2 hours). He said, because you made it to the end, I’m going to give you gift. Write to me at this (undisclosed) email address with this request and I will give you a free ticket to my next event. Two and a half years later, he was putting on a conference in LA so I dug out the info, emailed him and sure enough, instantly received my free ticket. It was amazing! I got VIP status, invited to a private luncheon where I was seated at Tai’s table!!!! I can tell you, the man is as real as they come. I also met and talked with Tai’s mentor, Joel Salatin. He’s a very nice, down to earth man. And Maya does exist. I met her as well.
    I was so excited to be one of the first people into his ‘Travelling CEO’ program. It seemed like an unattainable dream for me but 2 years later, that’s exactly the lifestyle I’m living!
    I also just bought his “Credit Mentor’ program. I highly recommend it.
    It really doesn’t matter if anyone thinks he’s a scammer or not. My life was immediately impacted by the info I learned in the initial 67 Steps video. Looking back to 2015, my life isn’t even recognizable (in a good way) and it all started with finding Tai’s ad on YouTube.

    Reply
  8. Excellent work, but I’m surprised at your conclusion that he’s not a scammer. You don’t have to lie all the time to be a scammer, but if you lie some of the times, intentionally, in order to better sell your products (even if they’re good) then you’re a scammer. Without the lies and the false hype, he would not be as successful. The most obvious example is the house. He claimed that it was his house in that video, more than once. Just because he corrected it quickly in ANOTHER video, after questions began surfacing, that doesn’t mean he didn’t lie to benefit off others’ money, i.e scam.

    He’s veeeery careful with his wording and drops in hints here or there, so that maybe he can’t ‘legally’ be called a scammer. However, the standard in court is higher than in real life. If you’re constantly using tricks and dropping tiny hints to maintain some semblance of plausible deniability, but to intentionally exaggerate your success so as to intentionally mislead people into giving you money, you’re a scammer. In court, it can be “plausibly” chocked up to a series of mistakes or misunderstandings, but if it’s a clear pattern with somebody (as it is with Tai) then we should definitely be avoiding them as scammers.

    Basically, he’s a “good” scammer in that he’s able to cross the t’s and dot the i’s so carefully that he just “barely” makes it obvious. The only difference between him and a “bad” scammer is that he’s smart, but he’s still a scammer.
    I hope, eventually, that he’ll slip up, and that somebody sues the hell out of him, because the internet is definitely better off without him.

    On the other hand, it could be that he can sue you for slander or something if you outright call him a scammer? In that case, your conclusion makes sense.

    Reply
    • Hi Zed,

      Thanks for the comment.

      It really comes down to how you define the word scam. I’m very hesitant to use that word. There’s only one course I’ve reviewed on this site so far (ClickBank University) that I call a scam, and I only call that a “borderline scam” because I was able to get a refund upon request.

      With Tai, I’ve actually bought two of his courses. One was pretty good – mainly because Tai brought in other people to teach it – and one wasn’t. I got a refund on the one that wasn’t. So the fact that the guy seems to produce some good courses, and gives refunds upon request, makes it very hard for me to call him a scammer. (To me, an outright scammer takes your money, doesn’t deliver the goods, and you never hear from them again.)

      On top of that, while about 2/3 of what Tai says is worthless to me, the other 1/3 is interesting and often helpful. He’s put me on to a lot of great books, thinkers and points of view. I really wish he’d clean up his marketing and fact-check stuff before he throws it out there as gospel, and I’ve learned not to take anything he says at face value, but I still won’t go so far as to call him a scam when he offers a decent amount of genuine value.

      It would be easier if he was just 100% a scammer or 100% a legit and honest guy, but it’s not that clean-cut, unfortunately. The best approach with someone like Tai is to dip in and out of his stuff, don’t believe everything he says, take from him what seems useful, and ignore the rest.

      Reply
  9. Great article
    His latest half truth reframe is “pay me to market my products for me” and I’ll pretend it’s me “mentoring” you and doing you a favor by having you sell my shit on a commission/results only basts.

    While he may not (always) overtly lie, the essence of his “systems” is to sell his shit or its semantic equivalent to others. IE. Sell this same exact shit to anyone else as gullible as yourself. In his own words “skeptics lose” IOW don’t think or question intelligently, just buy my products.

    I especially love your point that at least Some people make to the NBA. Hello exploitation of the survivor bias and ignorance of those you pretend to educate.
    On a personal note, Tai’s “doctor” partner in mentor box failed to, or was unable/ incapable of a response to my questions about how the reduced disfluency likely produced by book summaries would likely produce a corresponding reduction in learning
    , which is why readers who become leaders almost certainly read the WHOLE FUCKIN’ BOOK to incite and grow from the deeper level processing it produces.
    I’ve been studying success, psychology and entrepreneurship for three decades and no one sets off my unethical bullshit alarms more than Tai Lopez.

    Reply
    • Thanks for the comment, Tim.

      I’ve seen Tai promoting that new “Cashflow System” affiliate marketing course and it seems over the top to me as well. You used to be able to sign up to his affiliate program completely free of charge. Now he’s making it sound like you need to pay for the privilege. I can’t speak to the quality of the training that goes along with it (we haven’t bought it), but I was amazed by the guarantee he was offering.

      Quote from one of his recent emails:

      If you don’t make at least $2,500 in 60 days with my program – I’ll give you back your full investment.

      That sounded insane to me. I have experience with affiliate marketing and earning $2,500 in your first 60 days as an affiliate marketer – especially if you don’t already have a big platform (blog, social media, etc.) – is unheard of.

      And sure enough, if you check the T&C’s page on Tai’s website, you find the refund isn’t exactly straightforward:

      Tai Lopez Cashflow System terms and conditions

      Those terms aren’t listed on any of the sales pages for the Cashflow System, though you do have to check a box saying you agree to them and they are linked from there.

      But still, I think Tai is misleading people dangerously here. I suspect there will be a lot of frustrated customers asking for refunds and getting turned away.

      Reply
  10. Thanks for the great research!
    I’m left questioning myself: why does he need to blow up “facts” like for example every American’s debt when the number is already high?
    And why is he selling sleep glasses and the mentorbox when he’s invested in “a number of” multi million dollar companies that most likely are already known and would be easier to sell and at the same time give him credibility by mentioning?

    Reply
    • Hey Kdog (great name!),

      why does he need to blow up “facts” like for example every American’s debt when the number is already high?

      I really don’t get that either. Doesn’t make any rational sense, which makes me think the most likely explanation is that he was misinformed and never fact-checked that info before publishing.

      As for sleep glasses and Mentorbox, I find that easier to understand. Tai has the entrepreneurial gene. He loves the game of business. I bet he’d still be experimenting with new businesses even if he was a billionaire. I don’t think it’s about the money for him anymore.

      Reply
  11. Niall,
    What I’m hearing from you is that you didn’t rule out this possibility in your research.

    I strongly suspect this guy is a paid employee for some investors – has he ever said he isn’t? That seems the most likely scenario by far, even though it may require an ounce of speculation.

    If that’s true, he’s walking an interesting tightrope between marketing and fraud (he may be anyway).

    Cheers,
    Don

    Reply
  12. I just stumbled upon this remarkable piece of research, and unfortunately don’t have the time to read the whole thing right now, but after briefly wondering who Tai Lopez was a few years ago, and having not thought about it in a very long time, a thought just popped into my head:

    Couldn’t he merely be a front-man – a pitch-man – for silent investors who are simply paying him to be their public face? Wouldn’t that make more sense than some multi-millionaire appearing out of nowhere?

    As in: You get to drive these nice cars, and live in this nice home, if you peddle our ideas?

    I’m not sure if this question is addressed in this lengthy essay, so instead of forgetting about it, I thought I’d put it out there for people.

    I mean, what if he’s nothing more than, “Dude, you’re getting a Dell!” ?

    Reply
    • Hey Don,

      Thanks for the comment.

      Interesting theory, but I’d refer to the principle of Occam’s razor here: “Suppose there exist two explanations for an occurrence. In this case the one that requires the least speculation is usually better.”

      Not always, of course. But usually.

      Seems to me it would be easier for Tai to have built up his empire himself, rather than doing a front-man act for ~5 years.

      Reply
  13. Amazing work, Niall! Love this approach. Had a look at page 1 and I predict you’ll be no.1 or at least top three within the next month or two tops. It’s always a great sign if there are YouTube, Quora and similar results in the SERPs, as it means Google is lacking quality content on that topic.

    Not sure if it’ll make much revenue for you in and of itself but you never know, and of course the main objective is rankings and traffic (which lead to $ 🙂

    Reply
  14. Got curious myself about the car lease and the LLC…

    According to the California Vehicle Code (CVC), Section 4453.5, California car registrations must show the name of the lessor and the lessee. LSR stands for lessor, LSE for lessee.

    So Ferrari Services Title Trust is a part of Ferrari. And that’s the lessor. The lessee is Mas Group LLC or Taino Lopez.

    Mas Group LLC is a domestic Nevada LLC (Entity number E0153382010-4). The owner (“Member”) of the LLC is not publicly listed (not required in NV), but the Manager is TAL Promotions LLC.

    An LLC Manager may or may not be an LLC Member (owner). An LLC Manger has legal authority to bind the LLC into contracts and agreements as well as run the business activities.

    Although TAL Promotions LLC shows a California address, that LLC is actually a domestic North Carolina LLC (SOS ID 0717074), with Taino Adrian Lopez as the Manager. This North Carolina LLC has its Principal Office in California. Same thing here… LLC Member(s) are not shown. Not shown on North Carolina LLC business entity records or in any of the documents filed on behalf of the LLC. They just show Tai as Manager.

    In some states (it depends on how the LLC formation documents are filed), LLC Member(s) information is often only on “internal documents” (documents not on file with a Secretary of State’s office, or equivalent department). Internal documents are just kept among the LLC Members, Managers (if applicable), and other authorized parties, like an attorney. LLC Membership details are most often included in the LLC Operating Agreement. But those are not a part of state records.

    Reply

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