Wade Cook – Wade Cook Financial Corp
He did 'Business Buy The Bible.' Then his business went to hell.
Wade Cook was a financial guru who was far more gifted at self-promotion and filing bankruptcy than teaching people how to make money.
He self-published his first get-rich-quick book, “Real Estate Money Machine,” while working as a taxi driver in 1981. By 1987, he filed personal bankruptcy.
This could have been the end, but Cook updated his book in 1996 and kept right on cooking.
You might be asking, “Who wants to hear get-rich-quick lessons from a bankrupt taxi driver?”
That’s where the wonders of marketing come into play. Cook knew how to round up suckers through aggressive media campaigns and paid radio programs. He lectured at hundreds of seminars. He authored numerous books, including “Wall Street Money Machine,” “Wealth 101,” “Brilliant Deductions” and “Business Buy the Bible.”
He frequently made religious references in his rants and writings and presented himself as an upstanding member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Yeah, in addition to being a Wall Street Wizard, he was an ethicist and a veritable theologian.
His company, Wade Cook Financial Corp., was charging up to $5,695 for seminars, claiming participants would make potential monthly returns of 20% on their investments. This gross exaggeration put him at odds with the Federal Trade Commission in 2000, but a settlement with the regulator didn’t stop Cook.
At its peak, his company employed 550 people and generated annual revenues of $118 million. But in 2002, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and ultimately liquidated.
In December 2005, Cook and his wife, Laura, were indicted for evading federal income tax on $9.5 million in royalties from 1998 to 2000, filing false tax returns, and obstructing investigations by creating fictitious documents.
In August 2007, Cook was sentenced to 88 months in prison and ordered to pay $3.75 million in restitution. Laura Cook received an 18-month sentence.
After his release from prison, Cook continued promoting his financial teachings through books and online platforms, despite his complete loss of credibility. In the end, there was only one thing that could stop his incessant money-machine malarkey. He died of cancer in 2021.