Robert Kiyosaki - Criticism and Controversy

Criticism and Controversy

Kiyosaki's books and teachings have been criticized for focusing on anecdotes and containing little in the way of concrete advice on how readers should proceed. Kiyosaki responds that his material is meant to be more of a motivational tool to get readers thinking about money rather than a step-by-step guide to wealth. He also says the books are supposed to be "interesting" to people, which precludes involving a lot of technical material.

In 2010, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation investigated the Rich Dad seminars associated with Kiyosaki on their consumer advocacy program, Marketplace. They found that one-day free seminars were conducted at which three-day courses were offered for $500. At the three-day classes, participants were offered longer courses priced between $12,000 and $45,000. A hidden camera was employed at a $500 seminar in Kitchener, Ontario, showing the trainer, Marc Mousseau, advising participants to request that their credit-card be raised and giving out scripts with instructions for how to ask for limits as high as $100,000.

The show interviewed Bob Aaron, a lawyer whose practice is 25% real estate law, who said that some of Mousseau's advice was unusual and unlikely to work, such as advising that a developer might give two condos free when selling ten, getting an option to buy the house at a later date, and buying a house in pre-foreclosure. The program also found a claim by the trainer to be untrue; he claimed to have been part of a deal that made $32 million on a mobile home park in Saskatchewan, but the park did not exist. The instructor was described as "overbearing, obnoxious, and rude" by an attendee, after showing video footage of his behavior.

When questioned about the findings of the program, Kiyosaki said he too was unhappy about how the company running the seminars, Tigrent Learning (formerly Whitney International), was conducting them and that these were not the first complaints he had heard. He promised to look into the problems and said they would serve as "ammunition I need" in his "continuing to pressure them" and "constantly saying" to Tigrent Learning that he is "unhappy with them". He claims not to have known "how severe it was" at the time of partnering with them that Tigrent Learning had such a "checkered past". "I'm more upset than you are; I really am," he told the interviewer, "It disturbs me. It's not my fault."