Flip This vs. Flip That

The Prey: Uninformed everyday people trying to get rich quick.

The Bait: Infomercials and Reality Shows showing huge profits too good to be true.

The Catch: It’s easy for a flip to become a very expensive flop.

Stop letting these vultures prey on you with promises of riches. PAY ATTENTION & PASS THIS ON: REAL ESTATE INVESTING IS NOT AS EASY AS THEY MAKE IT LOOK! AS A MATTER OF FACT, MOST OF WHAT YOU SEE IS NOT EVEN REALLY WHAT IT IS!

Every where you look, someone is trying to sell a bill of goods to you about how easy it is to find a property, fix it up and get rich quick. Two popular shows come to mind. A&E's, Flip This House program really dug into problems with contractors, negotiating prices, and time crunches. TLC’s Flip That House follows the transformation of a different house, each with its own "flipper/host" with step-by-step renovation from the initial purchase to plans for giving it the necessary "facelift" to re-sell.

Flip This was a one hour show vs. Flip That being 30 minutes -- the differences between the two programs are very subtle. At the end of each of the shows episode the results of the house-flipping exercise is revealed, along with a new sales price to re-sell showing a huge profit.

These shows romanticize the act of rehabbing properties and selling them for profit. The reality of this reality is that it’s not as easy as they make it sound, even for a seasoned investor. What they don’t show is how easy a flip can become a flop!

On an episode of A&E's popular reality series Flip This House, Sam Leccima, a self proclaimed successful Atlanta real estate investor sits in front of a run-down house and calls buying and selling real estate his passion.

Flip This House depicted him buying, refurbishing and reselling several Atlanta-area homes for profits of $77,000 and more. But Leccima, who is currently under investigation by the Georgia Secretary of State's office for securities fraud, is nothing more than the latest scam artist caught preying on victims with promises of easy riches. His real estate license was revoked by the Georgia Real Estate Commission in 2005, citing that Leccima "does not bear a good reputation for honesty, trustworthiness, integrity, and competence."

It appears Leccima's true passion was a series of elaborate hoaxes and scams that included faking the home renovations shown on the cable TV show and claiming to have sold houses he never even owned.

His friends and family were presented as potential homebuyers and "SOLD" signs were slapped in front of unsold houses. The home repairs - the lynchpin of the show - were actually temporary patch jobs designed to look good on camera. One scammed Investor attended what was billed as a wrap party at one of Leccima’s homes. But when A&E Television Networks aired the party on Flip This House, it was presented as an open house at where a buyer expressed interest in buying the property. Sound familiar? How many times have we seen this on shows!

While not acknowledging his televised renovations were staged, Leccima didn't deny it. Even though Leccima suggested that A&E and Departure Films, the production company that makes the show, knew exactly what he was doing, they got busy denying any knowledge of wrongdoing. The cable network pulled reruns of Leccima episodes off the air and wiped his mentions from its Web site when they learned of the claims against him. "We are dismayed to learn of these allegations," read a statement issued by the network. "A&E Television Networks is not a party to any of the transactions shown in Flip This House and has not received any formal complaints about the properties or sales."

"Ask anybody who works in television how a reality show is made and you'll find that ours was a very typical approach," Leccima said in a telephone interview.

Atlanta FOX 5 has this footage.