Eddie Hobbs

take everything

This guy is in the paper today.

He loses 13 million on behalf of 800 investors in property in Detroit among other failures and he still has a Financial Practice.

He's taken to thinking he knows better than the medical profession and politicians when it comes to Covid now saying there was zero scientific evidence for lockdown.

I read the interview with him in the paper today and he comes across as deluded and just muddled in his thinking. He's done "a lot of things right on behalf of the Irish people" apparently. Tell that to the 800 investors above.

Has this guy done anything good for anyone except himself?

A serious dum-dum, God bless him.

But with such lack of self-awareness and hard neck, he'll no doubt be successful with whatever his next take on things is.

Can't keep a good dummy down.

Gant21

A grade A tool.

Effects

He's got it right this time. Instead of investing in houses in a crumbling Detroit, he's getting people to invest in the Irish housing market. Guaranteed returns from the government, who don't really want people owning their own homes, just paying returns to investors, foreign or domestic.

EmmetSpiceland

Avoid his Twitter, where possible. He’s already banging on about “western media” and painting Russia as the real victims.

This is after his, prolonged, covidiocy during the pandemic. Wouldn’t trust the guy with my bus fare.

Allinall

Just a technicality, but the 800 people mentioned above lost their own money.

Tork

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118663353#Comment_118663353

Maybe more people should look at his Twitter, just to see how unhinged the man is.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118663307#Comment_118663307

Has the government come looking to take your home off you?

vriesmays

He looks like Indiana Jones.

rolling boh

Eddie's advice may result in your savings dissapearing over a short time span .

vriesmays

Wiser to invest your savings with Catriona Carey,

growleaves

I don't trust him at all or put any stock in what he says even though I myself am not a believer in 'lockdowns'.

He separated 800 fools from their money. Amateur vulture investors looking to flip distressed properties in Detroit? I'll feel sorry for them when I stop laughing.

Dakota Dan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118663353#Comment_118663353

What do you think he’ll gain out of it?

Dakota Dan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118663380#Comment_118663380

That goes over the heads of many posting on this thread. As with any investment there is also a risk.

Swaine

Eddie Hobbs gets more abuse for losing some rich folk their savings than Bertie does for losing the Irish state billions.

Brussels Sprout

Makes a change from him doing online videos with anti-vaxxers like he was last year

rolling boh

Part of the problem with Eddie was his profile as some sort of financial guru and had all the answers but as rightly pointed out there is always a risk with any investment so when that happens it will get a lot of coverage especially if you do your dough .

Still stihl waters 3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058233936/eddie-hobbs

An average loss of 16250 euros, not a huge amount, for instance, I have access to 16250 but my better judgement tells me not to invest in something I know nothing about, if people who have money to invest like this then they should know that "investment values go up as well as down" as the lad on the financial ads keep telling us. Like going into a bookie, don't be surprised if you don't finish with more than you started with

NSAman

No issue with him loosing peoples money.

having dealt with him on a one to one basis, the guy is a class A ass**.

people like him, invariably believe their own importance. Needless to say, he didn’t get he wanted from me.

Kildare’s gain is corks victory

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118663543#Comment_118663543

Its peak Celtic Tiger. Especially funny since so many Irish people think they have such a great handle on American race politics. Who did they think was going to move to Detroit to juice the share price?

Arghus

It was a bit of a shock to see him turn up on TV last week on a debate on housing - no doubt delighted to get the invite.

I was curious to see what he'd get into, considering he's spent the last couple of years spouting all sorts of utter gibberish on twitter, giving every impression of a man who has lost his mind.

He started off kinda tethered to planet earth, but soon wandered off into scattershot incoherent bar stool analogising between socialism and farmers owning cows. It was embarrassing, it wasn't just as if he was debating another issue altogether as the rest of the contributors, but that he was inhabiting a different planet entirely .

He's an out and out nutter.

StevenToast

How much money has eddie hobbs received from RTE over the years....

Reason no. 67549 not to pay the licence fee....

Atlantic Dawn

I'm assuming RTE has some new show lined up for their former massiah.

A consummate failure.

• Finance
• Media
• Politics

No wonder he's hitched his wagon to the gullible anti-vax crowd. They'll donate to anyone that massages their delusion.

HerrKapitan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058233936/eddie-hobbs

Would you have written this if he had different viewpoints on covid lockdowns?

generic_throwaway

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118663963#Comment_118663963

Do you find yourself lining up beside someone who takes bizarre positions all the time? So you you question the motives of the poster, rather than reassessing your own position?

We call that cognitive dissonanace.

In fairness, at the time, every financial institution was saying the same thing..

take everything

Of course.

I just think he's a fool.

Albeit a fool who can do well for himself

enricoh

He was flogging gaffs in Cape Verde many moons ago, may as well have lashed a few up in Timbuktu while at it- serious returns! There should always be people out there to milk suckers dry.

enricoh

silliussoddius

His tv show Rip Off Ireland was quite good, his next one about how to spend SSRAs went completely into head up his ass territory. A sign of things to come.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118664034#Comment_118664034

To be fair, they weren't telling people to buy up distressed properties in Detroit

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118663469#Comment_118663469

Plenty of people have money to invest and for many of those, it is a good investment to get good advice. Most people with a lot of money actually pay others to manage it for them. The average rule of thumb for a "family office" is often quoted to be a minimum of $100m although this is a very rough figure. n the case of Hobbs, it appears that he used his media profile to attract people who might otherwise have not invested like that. It's a bit sh1tty to laugh at them. You are free to put your own investment credentials up here for scrutiny if you are going to sneer at others.

(I wouldn't have given EH any money because I wouldn't have considered him to have any experience in the area, although perhaps he gave the impression that he had people managing the fund with some sort of experience in order to lure people in? Although obviously not very well experienced people as they seemed to buy stuff without realising local regulations and conditions)

Dempo1

I saw this absolute clown appearance on Claire Byrne Live last week, I almost vomited at the sight of him , it begged numerous questions , the main one, RTE inviting this odious individual on, it's just beggars belief.

It seems he's going under somewhat of a media Rehabilitation, I just hope people won't be fooled a second time round by this buffoons advice 🙄

mickdw

Eddies investment firm borrowed at something like 10 to 1 versus money raised from investors.

Eddie then took management fee of 1 percent on the entire amount so in a climate where property was standing still or dropping, investor funds would disappear pretty quickly.

rolling boh

His tv profile brought in people who were most likely not big hitters who would have already dealth with investment advisors so his clients were people who had a bit of money to spare but unfortunetly backed the wrong horse with Eddie .

Gregor Samsa

Hobbs was a non-executive director of Brendan Investments Property Management, so it wasn't "his" company per say (he did own a minority shareholding). He was brought in as a friendly public face for it. Hugh O’Neill and Vincent Regan were the executive directors (and Regan managing director). Hugh O’Neill, for instance, was previously a financier with Deloitte. He certainly showed poor judgment, was in way over his head, and his "celebrity status" surely attracted people who weren't experienced enough in such matters to be getting involved, but it wasn't as if people were just handing cash over to Hobbs personally, and then he had some people working for him. He wasn't the brains behind the operation.

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118664271#Comment_118664271

Where are my own investment credentials for scrutiny? Lol. Yeah I'm a big-shot bond trader, here's my investment portfolio...

Hobbs worked for Zurich Life for years so I'm sure he could claim experience with money management and selling financial instruments to big clients.

Look its like this, if you are being funnelled into something by media or advertising - stocks, crypto, gambling - its probably a con. If a stranger is telling you 'This is the way to get rich' then it isn't or they wouldn't be telling you.

Many Irish people won't look past the surface of things, won't figure things out for themselves, they just want someone else to tell them what to do and a few assurances that the person leading them is 'official' or has 'qualifications'.

In the Bible its said that there are two parties to a deception, the deceiver and the deceived, and both are guilty.

Why are the deceived guilty? Because a man is meant to use his discernment and look at human nature without blinders on.

No one who appears in the media is your friend. Or who writes for a newspaper. That's lesson #1 for anyone over the age of twelve.

The Detroit thing is comical because the Motor City is a ruin. After white flight and the destruction of the automobile industry, who is going to move there? How is it going to be regenerated and by whom? I think it had something like a 200% population reduction in the decades before Hobbs and his merry band lighted upon it. This is just stuff that everyone knows or should know.

Yeah its mean to laugh but Irish people were naive during the Celtic Tiger. No excuses now though.

While Bill Gates buys up land the ordinary joe buys electronic tokens with no dividend or consistent price stability.

I saw an ad at the cinema the other day, Matt Damon telling people how they can buy crypto. Gee I like Matt Damon, he came to Dalkey.

Tork

I was surprised RTE brought him on at all, considering his Twitter feed has no shortage of mainstream media bashing. He struck lucky with that old TV show where he helped people who were rubbish with their money. After that, he said and did a lot of batshit things and lost a lot of other people's money. He's an odious spoofer.

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118665103#Comment_118665103

He's also gotten a sympathetic puff piece in today's Sunday Independent.

The headline says that he suffered from 'PTSD' after his American debacle.

Thargor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058233936/eddie-hobbs

And yet RTE brought him onto a Claire Byrne special on why its too dangerous to vote for Sinn Fein the other night...

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118664609#Comment_118664609

I don't know what you are ranting about but nothing can have a 200% reduction in anything. When you have some money to invest yourself, then maybe come back and tell all the "amateurs" how you are investing it.

I'm not going to sneer at some people who maybe put a chunk of their life savings into a particular fund. Half the country had money sunk into property that crashed around that time............

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118665223#Comment_118665223

"Amateur" is not an insult. If you invest, but not professionally, then you are an amateur investor.

Mad_maxx

What kind of idiot invests in Detroit ?

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118665223#Comment_118665223

It's sad for people who lost their savings yeah. But it was a con. Lesson learned.

Hopefully few now are over-leveraged, or ready to re-embrace Hobbs crying about his mental illnesses, or sinking all their savings into crypto...

Larbre34

"I'm a maverick", says he.

You are yes, Eddie, in the mould of a Paddy Cosgrave or a John McGuirk or John Waters (v2.1, not v3.0).

Not a maverick in the sense of a rule breaker to get results, or someone that shakes the hornet's nest to see what falls out, just a contrarian for attention's sake, an enormous but incredibly frail ego, like a balloon with a weak spot.

A balloon with a big stupid cross-eyed clown face painted on it.

NSAman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118665257#Comment_118665257

me! But it’s just outside Detroit … a little place called Grosse Point :)

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118665257#Comment_118665257

Well, from what I recall, people gave their money to Eddie for a fund which was advertised as having a mandate to invest in high value German commercial premises such as shopping centres. Money was collected and left sitting on deposit somewhere for a few years (all the while management fees were eating away at it). Then it abruptly changed tack and decided to go to the US and buy distressed properties, not realising that the US is happy to allow cities to decay to nothing because as far as they are concerned, there are loads more cities to move to. I think it then got caught on tax on those properties and actually just handed most of them over.

I don't know the terms of the fund or whether there were lock up periods etc.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118663963#Comment_118663963

Well it would be a bit weird to say Eddie is a moron for going against scientists if he agreed with the scientists.

Gusser09

Ah Eddie. A total spoofer.

"I'm Eddie Hobbs and this is rip off republic"

All the while he riding people for hundreds just for a half hour consultation.

The whole detroit thing just smells of a con. A piss poor ponzi.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118665410#Comment_118665410

It wasn't a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme uses later investment to pay off earlier investors. I don't think anyone got out of Hobbs' fund with their original investment intact

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118664609#Comment_118664609

Yeah, was shocked to see him shill crypto. Eye blink stuff.