Unfortunately, some people don't seem to realize how real estate investors / land wholesalers like us and any of the other investors and/or wholesalers work. These people believe its a scam because they were offered less than retail. As you see from any of the tv shows on flipping houses or even American Pickers, a wholesaler/investor can't pay retail pricing and make money.
To make an offer is not a scam. Its about finding someone in the right situation who wants to get their money sooner rather than later and they don't really care about maximizing the profit.
In land, thats even more critical as to get retail, sometimes a seller has to wait 12, 18, even 24 months while the property sits. We close in 3 to 4 weeks. We close thru a title company so that our buyers or sellers and ourselves are always 100% protected.
And keep in mind, we send out 5,000 offers a week based on data that we are getting from various counties. Sometimes its simply not accurate and our offer may come in too far below or sometimes too far above for the number to make sense. There are just too many variables that don't show up in the data for us to catch that sometimes.
To be honest, I'm surprised there are only a handful of these complaints. Out of 100,000 offers, the fact that only a few felt the offers were woefully low. To the sellers who received the low offers, I understand. I actually own rentals and get the same letters myself. But for every 1 that is woefully low, there are thousands that are going out in the ballpark.
Its just part of the business of wholesaling and land investing. Its just a shame these people aren't educated enough to understand the realities of what we do. Are people getting "scammed" by American Pickers when they buy their antiques from them for 40 cents to 50 cents on the dollar? Of course not. The sellers know what they're worth. They know that the pickers have to make a profit. Its a win win. And thats what the people who sell to us believe too. They're tickled pink when we send them an offer and they can get money for land they literally haven't seen in 20 years.