u/Inside_Minimum_9435

*This is a repost of a post made one month ago, in that time we have been inundated with additional details and evidence. In an effort to keep the post up to date, I accidentally got the post banned due to too many edits. It feels a shame to let it die as a lot of work went into the research, so I’ll repost this complete version and any updates will be in the comments. Apologies for how long it is, the devil is in the details with these things*
*This is for educational and entertainment purposes as a matter of consumer interest, please do not attempt to harass or contact individuals mentioned. Any jokes or attempts at humour are purely to prevent this being a boring slog of information, and is no way intended to diminish the experience of any potential victims or individuals involved*
Here’s a deep dive into British-based course-seller John Lee (of John Lee Group, formerly of Wealth Dragons.) What started as an inside joke in a group-chat due to the sheer volume of ads we were getting has now descended into a very deep dive into a shallow world. As more and more red flags became visible, we started to compile public records, attend his 3-day introductory event, and speak to staff members, their family, and alleged victims to attempt to try and connect the dots and understand this industry. In a piece of citizen journalism that some critics are already describing as “kinda pointless because I’ve never heard of his dude”
At this point we felt it was clear this was a matter of public interest and could potentially help consumers make more informed decisions in the world of online courses and gurus in general. To hopefully spare the admins any headache, all claims have evidence and sources provided, and linked in the text or attached in the images section to avoid any frivolous or malicious legal threats, anything without evidence can be considered a personal opinion or speculation towards a public figure based on the evidence presented, any non-public figures will remain nameless. For the bulk of the research we have used the OSINT method, making sure (where possible) evidence is already in the public domain, and I’m merely cataloguing it. However some important evidence was sourced in conversations with former staff and customers, and thanks to a whistle-blower we were shown a private staff group chat where staff discuss Mr Lee's behaviour, mainly confirming things that are already publicly evidenced so I’ll use that evidence sparingly to protect their identity. 
This is a collaborative effort but understandably, contributors wish to remain anonymous, as do I (and it definitely isn’t because I accidentally signed up for the mailing list in my government name lol) 
With all that out of the way, let's begin…
So Who Is This Guy?:
In his own words-
'John is the author of Business Hack and has shared the stage with Bill Clinton, Tony Robbins, Alan Sugar, Richard Branson, Les Brown, Jack Canfield, Robin Sharma, Mel Robbins, Deepak Chopra, Daymond John, Jack Welch, Gabby Bernstein, Eric Thomas, Brian Tracy, Michael Gerber, John Assaraf, John Demartini, Jay Abraham, Marissa Peer, Sharon Lechter, and Randi Zuckerberg.' 
Interestingly, this was recently pulled down from his website, it only took us 2 months of pointing out in public forums how it's in incredibly poor taste to name drop certain folk in the wake of the Epstein Files. But it's not like it was global news or anything so it's probably nothing to worry about. 
But to put it briefly, John Lee is a Milton Keynes based entrepreneur and course-seller. Boasting an impressive 6million followers on social media*, multiple 6-figure businesses*, and 17k book sales*. Originally entering the scene as one half of ‘Wealth Dragons” with co-owner (and surprisingly jacked) entrepreneur Vincent Wong, selling courses on property investments. However, following a rather messy fall out between this once happy couple, John Lee’s brand has abandoned the property stuff and instead pivoted to more modern trends like social media and A.I,  now describing himself as a ‘AI Expert · Entrepreneur · Futurist ‘ on his homepage, and seems to take a lot from the Robert Kiyosaki business model. He also has ties to Jay Shetty, Eric Ho of Coffeezilla fame (aka Master Sri Akarshana aka Captain Cultural Appropriation) ,ball kicker and role-model Rio Ferdinand, and ‘Hun club’ operator Mirela Sula. There’s A LOT of name dropping at these events. 
*citations sorely needed
And for only $(Insert wildly varying amount here) he can show you the secrets to living the dream life. The big house, the cars, the watches, the shiny blazer, and whatever the hell this is. 
As of 2026, Mr Lee faces major litigation due to alleged ‘misconduct’ at wealth dragons, allegations of “fraudulent” or “scammy” behavior on public record dating back almost a decade, and what appears to be a suspiciously high turnover of staff. We’ve exposed several fake gurus and made a hobby of getting them banned from Instagram where possible. But as this specific case unravelled, it became clear that in my opinion, this was one of the most layered and concerning examples I’ve personally witnessed and serves as a great walkthrough on how to find red-flags in this industry.
While there's a rich history of the common accusations we’re used to in r/fakeguru. Such as information being a repackage of stuff available for free elsewhere, people claiming they’ve gone into debt/lost everything from being misled, constant upsells, favouring a cult-like ‘mindset’ approach over professionalism. We’ve opted to zoom in on more specific and tangible accusations and criticisms. Certain topics of concern have been omitted to prevent it from straying too close to breaking rule 2 of the subreddit, as it involves the wife/co-director disclosing personal matters to staff during a failureof duty of care. 
Fans of bigotry may remember him from this “comedy” sketch starring David Walliams in the early 00’s.
Refund Issues:
This one speaks for itself through the google and Trustpilot reviews for Wealth Dragons and John Lee Group, respectively (see picture attached for prime examples) Consistent reports and patterns of people having difficulty receiving refunds despite their ‘100% refund guarantee’, these reviews date back over 5 years and the most recent one at the point of typing this was 18 days ago.
https://uk.trustpilot.com/reviews/69f31c14faebf9afde314684
Moneysaving expert even has a dedicated thread on the topic dating all the way back to 2016
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5427254/refund-on-wealth-dragons-course-edited-by-forum-team
The New York Times Bestseller:
As mentioned in the introduction, Mr Lee claims to have made 17k sales of his latest book, ‘Money Unlocked’. And has now started posting online and through his mailing list that it is now a New York Times bestseller. 
Knowing what we know about Mr Lee, naturally there was some cynicism to such a claim. So fact checked it, and it is true but with a massive asterix. His book has been marked by the NYT editorial team with the dagger symbol, known in the publishing industry as the ‘dagger of death’. “It indicates that a significant portion of a book's sales came from bulk or institutional purchases rather than individual readers”
Per medium:
“This dagger is meant to alert readers to any wrongdoings and discourage anyone who thinks they can buy their way onto the list. The dagger is a kiss of death for any writing career, as it symbolizes to everyone (publishers and booksellers included) that you made your way onto the list, not by way of your own talents.”
While not explicitly illegal. It's the topic of intense moral and ethical debate and often considered cheating. And obviously serves to bolster the accusations of astroturfing as evidenced by the trustpilot incident. 
And of course there’s precedent…there’s always precedent.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wealth-Dragon-Way-Infinitely-Wealthy/dp/1119533120
In the reviews for one of Mr Lee’s previous books from the Wealth Dragons era, this review also accuses them of rigging the numbers.
“Very general information. Quite salesy. Would not recommend. There are promises of making lots of money but you have to take out loans or put a lot of your savings into it, and no guarantee as it did not work for me and others, and it cost me a lot of money and in debt.
At the event they encouraged you to buy this from Amazon, and if you showed them your receipt they would give you another copy of the book, so they could boost their sales on Amazon.”
Upon further research, we discovered people posting copies of the book that they have received in the mail without their knowledge or prior consent. Each book contains a note with an invitation to a FREE event (introductory events are always free anyway). As of 06/26/25 this ‘bestseller’ has only generated 28 amazon ratings globally despite it being released in late April, suspiciously low for a bestseller from a major publisher.   
Based on this evidence, it's fair to say that Mr Lee is responsible for the book receiving the ‘dagger of death’ in order to obtain vanity metrics on the new york times chart. Then using the surplus of books to hand them out for free like a glorified leaflet drop to lure people into the sales conversion funnel. I personally also have concerns about where the data was scraped from to get people’s names and addresses.  
Reception on goodreads has also been extremely weak:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242881230-money-unlocked

Social Media Following: 
Mr Lee frequently cites his online following of 6million in his marketing material. Yet a comment on this very well-written review on bankers anonymous makes this astute point:
https://www.bankers-anonymous.com/book/book-review-the-wealth-dragon-way-by-john-lee-and-vincent-wong/
“Let me get this straight- if you see his Instagram followers and Facebook followers- I can easily smell that he bought a lot of likes and followers. The engagement comments he gets in Facebook is very low in comparison to number of likes. You know you have companies who you can pay and get instant likes and followers in any pages. That’s what he did initially and Leveraging that to promote the hell out of himself.” 
Forum user  Hazel3421 also points this out in a comment from 2021
“He buys Instagram followers and sells in his bio he grew his following to 5 million whereby half of his following came from buying fake followers. Check on social blade account  and type John_lee_offcial and you will see the fake followers”
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5427254/refund-on-wealth-dragons-course-edited-by-forum-team/p3
So Let's look at the data:
We put these claims to the test, focusing primarily on his Instagram, and the numbers very much speak for themselves and back up the accusations. Unfortunately social blade doesn't go back further than 3 years, and god knows I’m not paying for a premium subscription, but all the signs of a fake/purchased following are there:
-Extremely low engagement, his main account having only 0.01% engagement.
-Huge haemorrhages of followers, losing 42k in May 2026 alone.
-69% of the following is based in India, a known hotspot for bot farms.
-Low quality or repetitive comments 
Internal speculation:
While compiling evidence on one of the omitted subjects, we were shown messages from a whistleblower showing interactions between staff members that *seem* to be implying he’s paying for instagram reach, and another weighing in on the wealth dragons drama. We were also shown a staff whatsapp group named ‘lifeline’ discussing concerns about their employer’s behaviour, false promises, and impulsive behavior. It's important to note that due to the timelines of these messages and the seemingly high turnover of staff, these are most likely former-staff at this point. For context on the screenshots, the name ‘Jen’ is an alias of Mun Yee Hoh, Co-director of the company and wife of Mr Lee as seen in his content.  
The Trustpilot Incident:
The day before the 3-day event we attended, one of our group left a review on trustpilot listing the same issues explored here (but unfortunately trustpilot doesn’t let you share links or evidence) At the time of posting, there was under 20 reviews on the page through the 10+ years of John Lee Group being active, the majority being negative. At the time of writing (less than 4 months on) there are now 570 reviews, the majority now overwhelmingly positive.
So what happened? 
Well, despite the review ending with a joke about him seeing it ‘when googling himself at 3am and seeing this’, sometime during the night, the profile was claimed, the review was taken down by a report, and the author was asked to remove 2 paragraphs. We decided through a group a decision to leave it down/not reword it as it was causing distress to a whistleblower. 
That weekend was a 3 day live introductory/sales pitch event via zoom. It was at the end of these daily streams when things got really shady. After a day of doing random ‘tasks’ assigned to us and with the vague insinuation of freebies and competitions lingering in the air, we were shown a QR code on screen. Sending us to trustpilot asking for a nice review while music played and he waited for us. 
While asking for reviews isn't illegal or shady, podcasters etc do it all the time. Waiting for us to do it there and then felt like it was crossing a line, especially when this was just an introduction/sales pitch event. It’d be like asking to review a movie after seeing the trailer. A lot of these five-star reviews stray into hyperbole, describing it as life changing, describing Mr Lee as god-like and a major player in the A.I industry. And others are barely coherent, one even getting his name wrong (how can I build a business if I can't even build a sentence?)

That weekend we watched just shy of 200 reviews roll in, and over the weeks we took turns monitoring it. It was the same thing every time there was an event. Waves of overwhelmingly positive reviews, all posted on the day of events at the exact same time, some from the same people reviewing multiple times. This instantly makes any positive testimonials completely untrustworthy and far from organic. Astroturfing a positive reputation online feels like a huge red flag. But it did lead to 2 revelations

1. Paid events have considerably lower attendance (why even bother doing all of these events if you’re already rich and famous?).
2. Names of attendees, meaning you can check if they really did revolutionize their social media and businesses through these teachings they praise. If you strip out the other course sellers leaving reviews (which is suspicious in itself), it certainly seems overwhelmingly bad, lots of failed social media accounts with low following and no impressive engagement, A.I slop, and borderline viewerless youtube channels. We’d cite examples but it feels like a gray area between public figures/private individuals due to their obscurity. But you can easily do your own research by googling the names to see their digital footprints.

 

This isn’t a new technique, wealth dragons trustpilot and google reviews show similar patterns of review spikes, this trustpilot user even calls it out. And while it may have been allowed back then, the ‘Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act‘ passed in 2024 seeking to combat both incentivised and misleading reviews.

The icing on the cake happened late into the night on Sunday, the final day of the 3 day livestream. When a trustpilot clone popped up called https://johnleereviews.com/. Already hosting 3 reviews, one from John Lee Himself, one from an individual named Pearleen (who we’re 90% sure is a staff member), and someone called foo yung sheng (google just gives us food recipes). It was at this point I had a strange feeling in my stomach. Between that and watching him stutter and pull his shirt away from his armpits every time someone pointed out his math wasn't mathing during the live session (that wasn’t us, just fyi) it was all starting to feel a bit sad in my opinion.
 
Possibly Fake Discounts:
Through browsing his website, we noticed a pattern of extremely high prices, crossed out with a much lower price next to it. Implying there's a huge saving to be made and this is an offer we should jump on. But months later when we attended the 3 day free event, the prices on the website were still the same. And there were intense ‘discounts’ during the live sessions, presumably to induce fomo and drive sales since it is a free sales pitch event. To the best of our knowledge it wasn’t even possible to get these courses for full price at the time.
Under many consumer protection laws (such as the UK's Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations), crossing out a price is legally misleading if the product was never actually sold at that higher "anchor" price for a meaningful period.
These have since vanished from the site (around the same time he removed the name drops of Epstein associates)  opting for a more vague declaration of how much ‘value’ is included, such as whopping $70,000 for a 2 day event with lunch provided, is Salt Bae making the sandwiches?
It's a double-edged problem, if it’s a fake discount and nobody is buying the high rate, it's breaking consumer protection laws. If it's real and people are paying that, it means there's a huge disparagement in what attendees are paying, which is unfair and disrespectful to those who are paying $35.5k vs those paying $2.9k, for example.
It's worth mentioning, that at the time of being shown these prices we were also offered heavy discounts in exchange for signing up new people. Now I don't mind alienating my friends and family for personal profit, but it added a slightly crass MLM/Pyramid shaped angle to the proceedings, which feels beneath the calibre the high-end businessman Mr Lee claims to be. 
Salesfunnels.io:
Trustpilot user “TC” made a very interesting discovery while attending the same free introductory session where all the trustpilot issues started.
https://uk.trustpilot.com/reviews/6974e45350d140c19d073e3a
“A large part of the content so far has centred around promoting salesfunnels.io, which is repeatedly positioned as the solution for most strategies discussed. However, it is not made clear during the sessions that this is John’s own platform only found out because the copyright on the site says his name. After looking at his Instagram, he regularly promotes the tool, yet there is rarely transparent disclosure that he profits from it, which feels misleading rather than educational.”
Ignorant to all the new business platforms on the market (my office job still has fax machines), we didn't realise it was a platform owned by Mr Lee and thought it was just a recommendation, in the same way he was recommending specific AI platforms, like claude etc. So we dug deeper, we checked out the tiny bit of copyright info on the salesfunnel website and confirmed it is owned by Mr Lee as per this guy’s claims. But found no mention of it in his business records on companies house.
A quick google shows the platform has little to no impact outside of the JLG ecosystem. The only organic thing we could find was a deleted reddit post from someone asking if it works and who owns it.
In a similar vein to how it was presented in the live event, it’s mentioned here but mixed in casually with more established names.
https://businessblueprint.com/advanced-social-media-strategies-to-skyrocket-your-leads-and-sales/
Failure to disclose isn’t consistent, though. And Mr Lee can be found crediting himself for making it, such as the very tail-end of this youtube video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJFk7w5OzdE
The reason this is concerning is because it makes it feel like a personal recommendation, when it's actually another product he wanted to sell to the audience. More established entrepreneur and actual dragon, Steven Bartlett, faced controversy for a similar scenario in recent years:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rwz5xkrg8o
Staff Issues:
Franchesca Ung and the Corporate Break-In:
During the trustpilot affair, we noticed the first of the recent wave of positive reviews coming in was from an individual named Franchesca Ung. Thinking nothing of it, we didn’t look into this individual right away.
However, the very next day, during the first of the 3 day live sessions, we saw the name of the admin lady tasked with sharing links in the chat while John Lee was streaming……Franchesca Ung, how odd, we thought to ourselves. When she was introduced on camera as part of ‘the team’ we realised beyond doubt that this is the exact same person who left the review posing as a satisfied customer. Completely failing to declare her position within the company in a way that could easily mislead any potential customers looking for feedback before signing up. 
So we googled her, and it turns out she's one half of ‘the corporate break out couple’, a Singapore/Malaysia based couple who claim to have retired early and sell courses promoting that lifestyle. While her public-facing social media doesn't explicitly state she works for John Lee, instead pushing her own guru-esque content, her travels to various locations around the world sync up with John Lee’s events.
The couple appeared on the popular business podcast ‘The Financial Coconut’ to promote their courses. In this video, the couple states that they are financially independent and have retired early, having reached this status in 2020 with a portfolio of slightly over 2 million Singapore dollars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IwDj7EsF5s(some of the comments at the time also question their legitimacy, and express displeasure at their poor attitude to people who work regular jobs)
But maybe they’ve just fallen on hard times in the 2 years since that video was posted and they’re no longer retired, and working regular jobs with the rest of us losers….
But that is not the case, we reached out to them via their youtube channel (Feb 2026) and they confirmed they are still selling courses (We are unsure if it was the Franchesca or the husband who replied) 
Employment tribunal:
In late 2020 an employee took wealth dragons to tribunal claiming unlawful deductions from her wages. Wealth dragons had seemingly ignored it and the judge ruled in favour of the claimant. 
“No response having been received to the Claimant’s claim The Claimant has suffered unlawful deductions from her wages in the sum of £1842.85.” 
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5fbf88068fa8f559e7757725/Mrs_D_Saint_v_Wealth_Dragons_Ltd__-_3306568-2020__-_Judgment.pdf

Continuation in this comments due to character count...

Looks like friend of the sub, Ozman Ali, has been suspended from IG for scam/fraud

https://www.reddit.com/r/FakeGuru/comments/1sq30tn/osman_ozman_ali_scammer/

Rest well brother. We have the watch, and we'll see you in like a month or so when it comes back after an appeal.

update: It's back already. Thank goodness the Philanthropy and coaching was only temporarily interrupted.

I did promise myself that I'd stop posting everytime a course seller gets banned from Instagram, as I'm starting to feel like the Mandarin from that Iron Man movie.

But this is an interesting one as I try to spot trends or patterns and work out what instagram does/doesnt allow in the guru spaces

Typically these banned accounts return within a month, presumably after an appeals process, maybe? Yet this time, a new account seems to have popped up and is reposting old content. A fresh start already? And a 2nd new account in their name with zero posts. Very strange.

A minimal digital footprint suggests the brand isn't popular enough for a copycat (but i wouldn't totally rule it out) So it'll be interesting to see if the original account with the large following reappears again in the future.

Also, upon further research, that website looks shady as hell, make sure your browser is wearing protection if you click it

www.thatcanadianmamma.com

It looks like it got *semi* acknowledged on tik tok, but with no explaination as to why.

https://www.tiktok.com/@thatcanadianmomma

And a google search shows a positive review on trustpilot for another course seller doing affiliate content, I dont wanna click any sign up links as it asks for details immediately, but I'd be curious to see if its all actually funneling back to that.

EDIT: I guess they've seen this

-Some accounts do seem like copycats so it may not be a panicked fresh start, a couple have been taken down from reporting them.

-Genuine ones like their tik tok have turned private. Her other Instagram was posting about it but has erased the posts. now the most recent posts are months old

-Branding has immediately pivoted from affiliate crap to A.I prompt crap.

EDIT AGAIN:

-Weirdly, the bots seem to have descended on this post all making the same point with repeating phrases. Ironically one of the things I call out on course sellers posts. But surprisingly these bots do seem correct about the brand switching and concerns around the mailing list.

I assume it was for the affiliate stuff, idk what a bun dance is.

https://www.scampulse.com/biz-with-chelsea-and-abundance-with-chelsea-reviews

*EDIT: thanks for the clarification in the comments, looks like its a morally debatable tactic rather than any explicit misconduct. I guess the publishing industries equivalent of buying your own followers on social media?

So I did some deeper reading and here's some links I found (though maybe topic old and played out in this community?)

https://medium.com/illumination/five-new-york-times-bestselling-books-with-the-dagger-of-death-873b05f1eac9

https://www.reddit.com/r/SullivanSnark/comments/15xsayg/has_anyone_ever_talked_about_their_nyt_dagger/

https://www.tiktok.com/@theshamelessbookclub/video/7312575307163176210

*

Hi there, hopefully someone here can help explain this to me

I'm part of an exposè group who looks into scammers and the course seller industry. having currently been looking into a guy named John lee, and going down a deep rabbit-hole.
https://www.reddit.com/r/FakeGuru/comments/1tlrlgd/a_brief_look_at_the_concerns_around_john_lee/

But for now I just want to focus on the book and hopefully this sub will have people who know the industry on a deeper level

In recent weeks he's been boasting through marketing emails that he's now an NYT bestseller with his latest book "money unlocked". My spidey senses were tingling as his social media reach seems limited at best, as well as ongoing controversies like being sued for the vague but alarming "misconduct".

The first red flag was the lack of reviews (his website claims 17k sales but currently has just under 20 reviews on amazon) I appreciate people dont always leave reviews but you'd expect more from such high sales numbers, surely?

The second red flag was an amazon review on his old book (the wealth dragon one) revealing the reader was encouraged to buy the book at a seminar event. With a promotion where he'd get 2 copies, accusing him of rigging sales numbers. Establishing a possible precedent of foul-play.

The third red flag is what led me here. I checked the NYT list to see if its even on there. And it is....but with a small dagger symbol next to it.

The hallucination machine (google a.i) describes it as "the dagger of death" and suggests that the sales aren't organic.

So my question is, is the A.I correct? And is this an indicator of foul play? I'm slightly ignorant to the publishing industry so would appreciate some input to understand this properly

*This is for educational and entertainment purposes as a matter of consumer interest, please do not attempt to harass or contact individuals mentioned. Any jokes or attempts at humour are purely to prevent this being a boring slog of information, and is no way intended to diminish the experience of any potential victims or individuals involved*

Here’s a deep dive into British-based course-seller John Lee (of John Lee Group, formerly of Wealth Dragons.) What started as an inside joke in a group-chat due to the sheer volume of ads we were getting has now descended into a very deep dive into a shallow world. As more and more red flags became visible, we started to compile public records, attend his 3-day introductory event, and speak to staff members, their family, and alleged victims to attempt to try and connect the dots and understand this industry. In a piece of citizen journalism that some critics are already describing as “kinda pointless because I’ve never heard of his dude”

At this point we felt it was clear this was a matter of public interest and could potentially help consumers make more informed decisions in the world of online courses and gurus in general. To hopefully spare the admins any headache, all claims have evidence and sources provided, and linked in the text or attached in the images section to avoid any frivolous or malicious legal threats, anything without evidence can be considered a personal opinion or speculation towards a public figure based on the evidence presented, any non-public figures will remain nameless. For the bulk of the research we have used the OSINT method, making sure (where possible) evidence is already in the public domain, and I’m merely cataloguing it. However some important evidence was sourced in conversations with former staff and customers, and thanks to a whistle-blower we were shown a private staff group chat where staff discuss Mr Lee's behaviour, mainly confirming things that are already publicly evidenced so I’ll use that evidence sparingly to protect their identity. 

This is a collaborative effort but understandably, contributors wish to remain anonymous, as do I (and it definitely isn’t because I accidentally signed up for the mailing list in my government name lol) 

With all that out of the way, let's begin…

So Who Is This Guy?:

In his own words-
'John is the author of Business Hack and has shared the stage with Bill Clinton, Tony Robbins, Alan Sugar, Richard Branson, Les Brown, Jack Canfield, Robin Sharma, Mel Robbins, Deepak Chopra, Daymond John, Jack Welch, Gabby Bernstein, Eric Thomas, Brian Tracy, Michael Gerber, John Assaraf, John Demartini, Jay Abraham, Marissa Peer, Sharon Lechter, and Randi Zuckerberg.' 

Interestingly, this was recently pulled down from his website, it only took us 2 months of pointing out in public forums how it's in incredibly poor taste to name drop certain folk in the wake of the Epstein Files. But it's not like it was global news or anything so it's probably nothing to worry about. 

But to put it briefly, John Lee is a Milton Keynes based entrepreneur and course-seller. Boasting an impressive 6million followers on social media*, multiple 6-figure businesses*, and 17k book sales*. Originally entering the scene as one half of ‘Wealth Dragons” with co-owner (and surprisingly jacked) entrepreneur Vincent Wong, selling courses on property investments. However, following a rather messy fall out between this once happy couple, John Lee’s brand has abandoned the property stuff and instead pivoted to more modern trends like social media and A.I,  now describing himself as a ‘AI Expert · Entrepreneur · Futurist ‘ on his homepage, and seems to take a lot from the Robert Kiyosaki business model. He also has ties to Jay Shetty, Eric Ho of Coffeezilla fame (aka Master Sri Akarshana aka Captain Cultural Appropriation) , and Mirela Sula. There’s A LOT of name dropping. 

*citations sorely needed

And for only $(Insert wildly varying amount here) he can show you the secrets to living the dream life. The big house, the cars, the watches, the shiny blazer, and whatever the hell this is. 

As of 2026, Mr Lee faces major litigation due to alleged ‘misconduct’ at wealth dragons, allegations of “fraudulent” or “scammy” behavior on public record dating back almost a decade, and what appears to be a suspiciously high turnover of staff. We’ve exposed several fake gurus and made a hobby of getting them banned from Instagram where possible, it's good to have a hobby. But as this specific case unravelled, it became clear that in my opinion, this was one of the most layered and concerning examples I’ve personally witnessed and serves as a great walkthrough on how to find red-flags in this industry.

While there's a rich history of the common accusations we’re used to in r/fakeguru. Such as information being a repackage of stuff available for free elsewhere, people claiming they’ve gone into debt/lost everything from being misled, constant upsells, favouring a cult-like ‘mindset’ approach over professionalism. We’ve opted to zoom in on more specific and tangible accusations and criticisms. Certain topics of concern have been omitted to prevent it from straying too close to breaking rule 2 of the subreddit, as it involves the wife/co-director disclosing personal matters to staff. 

Fans of bigotry may remember him from this “comedy” sketch starring David Walliams in the early 00’s.

Refund Issues:
This one speaks for itself through the google and Trustpilot reviews for Wealth Dragons and John Lee Group, respectively (see picture attached for prime examples) Consistent reports and patterns of people having difficulty receiving refunds despite their ‘100% refund guarantee’, these reviews date back over 5 years and the most recent one at the point of typing this was 18 days ago.
https://uk.trustpilot.com/reviews/69f31c14faebf9afde314684

Moneysaving expert even has a dedicated thread on the topic dating all the way back to 2016
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5427254/refund-on-wealth-dragons-course-edited-by-forum-team

Social Media Following: 

Mr Lee frequently cites his online following of 6million in his marketing material. Yet a comment on this very well-written review on bankers anonymous makes this astute point:
https://www.bankers-anonymous.com/book/book-review-the-wealth-dragon-way-by-john-lee-and-vincent-wong/ 
“Let me get this straight- if you see his Instagram followers and Facebook followers- I can easily smell that he bought a lot of likes and followers. The engagement comments he gets in Facebook is very low in comparison to number of likes. You know you have companies who you can pay and get instant likes and followers in any pages. That’s what he did initially and Leveraging that to promote the hell out of himself.” 

Forum user  Hazel3421 also points this out in a comment from 2021
“He buys Instagram followers and sells in his bio he grew his following to 5 million whereby half of his following came from buying fake followers. Check on social blade account  and type John_lee_offcial and you will see the fake followers” 
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5427254/refund-on-wealth-dragons-course-edited-by-forum-team/p3

So Let's look at the data:
We put these claims to the test, focusing primarily on his Instagram, and the numbers very much speak for themselves and back up the accusations. Unfortunately social blade doesn't go back further than 3 years, and god knows I’m not paying for a premium subscription, but all the signs of a fake/purchased following are there:

-Extremely low engagement, his main account having only 0.01% engagement. 
-Huge haemorrhages of followers, losing 42k in May 2026 alone.
-69% of the following is based in India, a known hotspot for bot farms. 
-Low quality or repetitive comments 

Internal speculation:

While compiling evidence on one of the omitted subjects, we were shown messages from a whistleblower showing interactions between staff members that *seem* to be implying he’s paying for instagram reach, and another weighing in on the wealth dragons drama. We were also shown a staff whatsapp group named ‘lifeline’ discussing concerns about their employer’s behaviour, false promises, and impulsive behavior. It's important to note that due to the timelines of these messages and the seemingly high turnover of staff, these are most likely former-staff at this point. For context on the screenshots, the name ‘Jen’ is an alias of Mun Yee Hoh, Co-director of the company and wife of Mr Lee as seen in his content.  

The Trustpilot Incident:

The day before the 3-day event we attended, one of our group left a review on trustpilot listing the same issues explored here (but unfortunately trustpilot doesn’t let you share links or evidence) At the time of posting, there was under 20 reviews on the page through the 10+ years of John Lee Group being active, the majority being negative. At the time of writing (less than 4 months on) there are now 570 reviews, the majority now overwhelmingly positive.

So what happened? 

Well, despite the review ending with a joke about him seeing it ‘when googling himself at 3am and seeing this’, sometime during the night, the profile was claimed, the review was taken down by a report, and the author was asked to remove 2 paragraphs. We decided through a group a decision to leave it down/not reword it as it was causing distress to a whistleblower. 

That weekend was a 3 day live introductory/sales pitch event via zoom. It was at the end of these daily streams when things got really shady. After a day of doing random ‘tasks’ assigned to us and with the vague insinuation of freebies and competitions lingering in the air, we were shown a QR code on screen. Sending us to trustpilot asking for a nice review while music played and he waited for us. 

While asking for reviews isn't illegal or shady, podcasters etc do it all the time. Waiting for us to do it there and then felt like it was crossing a line, especially when this was just an introduction/sales pitch event. It’d be like asking to review a movie after seeing the trailer. A lot of these five-star reviews stray into hyperbole, describing it as life changing, describing Mr Lee as god-like and a major player in the A.I industry. And others are barely coherent, one even getting his name wrong (how can I build a business if I can't even build a sentence?)

That weekend we watched just shy of 200 reviews roll in, and over the weeks we took turns monitoring it. It was the same thing every time there was an event. Waves of overwhelmingly positive reviews, all posted on the day of events at the exact same time, some from the same people reviewing multiple times. This instantly makes any positive testimonials completely untrustworthy and far from organic. Astroturfing a positive reputation online feels like a huge red flag. But it did lead to 2 revelations

1. Paid events have considerably lower attendance (why even bother doing all of these events if you’re already rich and famous?).
2. Names of attendees, meaning you can check if they really did revolutionize their social media and businesses through these teachings they praise. If you strip out the other course sellers leaving reviews (which is suspicious in itself), it certainly seems overwhelmingly bad, lots of failed social media accounts with low following and no impressive engagement, A.I slop, and borderline viewerless youtube channels. We’d cite examples but it feels like a gray area between public figures/private individuals due to their obscurity. But you can easily do your own research by googling the names to see their digital footprints.

 

This isn’t a new technique, wealth dragons trustpilot and google reviews show similar patterns of review spikes, this trustpilot user even calls it out. And while it may have been allowed back then, the ‘Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act‘ passed in 2024 seeking to combat both incentivised and misleading reviews.

The icing on the cake happened late into the night on Sunday, the final day of the 3 day livestream. When a trustpilot clone popped up called https://johnleereviews.com/. Already hosting 3 reviews, one from John Lee Himself, one from an individual named Pearleen (who we’re 90% sure is a staff member), and someone called foo yung sheng (google just gives us food recipes). It was at this point I had a strange feeling in my stomach. Between that and watching him stutter and pull his shirt away from his armpits every time someone pointed out his math wasn't mathing during the live session (that wasn’t us, just fyi) it was all starting to feel a bit sad in my opinion.   

Possibly Fake Discounts:

Through browsing his website, we noticed a pattern of extremely high prices, crossed out with a much lower price next to it. Implying there's a huge saving to be made and this is an offer we should jump on. But months later when we attended the 3 day free event, the prices on the website were still the same. And there were intense ‘discounts’ during the live sessions, presumably to induce fomo and drive sales since it is a free sales pitch event. To the best of our knowledge it wasn’t even possible to get these courses for full price at the time.

Under many consumer protection laws (such as the UK's Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations), crossing out a price is legally misleading if the product was never actually sold at that higher "anchor" price for a meaningful period.

These have since vanished from the site (around the same time he removed the name drops of Epstein associates)  opting for a more vague declaration of how much ‘value’ is included, such as whopping $70,000 for a 2 day event with lunch provided, is Salt Bae making the sandwiches?

It's a double-edged problem, if it’s a fake discount and nobody is buying the high rate, it's breaking consumer protection laws. If it's real and people are paying that, it means there's a huge disparagement in what attendees are paying, which is unfair and disrespectful to those who are paying $35.5k vs those paying $2.9k, for example.

It's worth mentioning, that at the time of being shown these prices we were also offered heavy discounts in exchange for signing up new people. Now I don't mind alienating my friends and family for personal profit, but it added a slightly crass MLM/Pyramid shaped angle to the proceedings, which feels beneath the calibre the high-end businessman Mr Lee claims to be. 

Salesfunnels.io:
Trustpilot user “TC” made a very interesting discovery while attending the same free introductory session where all the trustpilot issues started. 
https://uk.trustpilot.com/reviews/6974e45350d140c19d073e3a

“A large part of the content so far has centred around promoting salesfunnels.io, which is repeatedly positioned as the solution for most strategies discussed. However, it is not made clear during the sessions that this is John’s own platform only found out because the copyright on the site says his name. After looking at his Instagram, he regularly promotes the tool, yet there is rarely transparent disclosure that he profits from it, which feels misleading rather than educational.”

Ignorant to all the new business platforms on the market (my office job still has fax machines), we didn't realise it was a platform owned by Mr Lee and thought it was just a recommendation, in the same way he was recommending specific AI platforms, like claude etc. So we dug deeper, we checked out the tiny bit of copyright info on the salesfunnel website and confirmed it is owned by Mr Lee as per this guy’s claims. But found no mention of it in his business records on companies house.

A quick google shows the platform has little to no impact outside of the JLG ecosystem. The only organic thing we could find was a deleted reddit post from someone asking if it works and who owns it.

In a similar vein to how it was presented in the live event, it’s mentioned here but mixed in casually with more established names. 
https://businessblueprint.com/advanced-social-media-strategies-to-skyrocket-your-leads-and-sales/

Failure to disclose isn’t consistent, though. And Mr Lee can be found crediting himself for making it, such as the very tail-end of this youtube video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJFk7w5OzdE

The reason this is concerning is because it makes it feel like a personal recommendation, when it's actually another product he wanted to sell to the audience. More established entrepreneur and actual dragon, Steven Bartlett, faced controversy for a similar scenario in recent years:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rwz5xkrg8o

Staff Issues:

Franchesca Ung and the Corporate Break-In:
During the trustpilot affair, we noticed the first of the recent wave of positive reviews coming in was from an individual named Franchesca Ung. Thinking nothing of it, we didn’t look into this individual right away.

However, the very next day, during the first of the 3 day live sessions, we saw the name of the admin lady tasked with sharing links in the chat while John Lee was streaming……Franchesca Ung, how odd, we thought to ourselves. When she was introduced on camera as part of ‘the team’ we realised beyond doubt that this is the exact same person who left the review posing as a satisfied customer. Completely failing to declare her position within the company in a way that could easily mislead any potential customers looking for feedback before signing up. 

So we googled her, and it turns out she's one half of ‘the corporate break out couple’, a Singapore/Malaysia based couple who claim to have retired early and sell courses promoting that lifestyle. While her public-facing social media doesn't explicitly state she works for John Lee, instead pushing her own guru-esque content, her travels to various locations around the world sync up with John Lee’s events.

The couple appeared on the popular business podcast ‘The Financial Coconut’ to promote their courses. In this video, the couple states that they are financially independent and have retired early, having reached this status in 2020 with a portfolio of slightly over 2 million Singapore dollars. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IwDj7EsF5s
(some of the comments at the time also question their legitimacy, and express displeasure at their poor attitude to people who work regular jobs)

But maybe they’ve just fallen on hard times in the 2 years since that video was posted and they’re no longer retired, and working regular jobs with the rest of us losers….

But that is not the case, we reached out to them via their youtube channel (Feb 2026) and they confirmed they are still selling courses (We are unsure if it was the Franchesca or the husband who replied) 

The Wealth Dragons Saga:

Now this is the big one, we tried to build a complete timeline of events around the parting of the dragons. Until they issue a statement about what the litigation is actually about, we can only look at what's publicly available. Obviously it's impossible to tell who cashed out and got rich on the shares, so this is not an accusation of wrongdoing for either party, but more a confirmation that *something* has happened here. 

Wealth Dragons is listed on the Vienna stock exchange around 2019.
https://www.wienerborse.at/en/news/vienna-stock-exchange-news/wealth-dragons-group-plc-new-in-the-direct-market/#:~:text=07/15/2019%20Market,offers%20seminars%20and%20training%20programs.

Mr Lee’s current house is purchased for roughly £3million in 2019 (source:Zoopla, address tied to business records but I’ll play it safe with the no doxxing rule and share a link). Based on that, business *seems* to be booming. Prior to the covid-19 pandemic disturbing an industry built on exotic travel and in-person events. 

April 2020: John Lee appears on a youtube video promoting the IPO’s. Suggesting he has aims of taking his company to a billion-dollar valuation (lol)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEpsVjkvsWw

November 2020: A property company was set up in Mr Lee’s wife’s name. 
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13041998/filing-history

January 2021: User Hazel3421 is one of the first people to raise alarm about the IPO situation
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5427254/refund-on-wealth-dragons-course-edited-by-forum-team/p3
“He raised money through his following through IPO and now ignoring all the shareholders who are asking for the money back as they failed to deliver on the return of the investment” 

April 2021: reviewer at the time pointed out how intensely they were pushing the IPO's at live events.
https://uk.trustpilot.com/reviews/6076961bf85d7508705b342c
“3. They encouraged us to "invest" in their Initial Public Offering (IPO) without any information material provided. They mentioned it again and again during the course, and they encouraged people to pay during the course (of course). Also, their company was already a PLC, so what IPO were we to invest in? I e-mailed to ask for clarification on this, and, of course, I never heard back. It seemed like a money-grabbing scheme.” 

October 2021: Another review questions the IPO hype
https://uk.trustpilot.com/reviews/61600481d12ab8ef5160f27e
“IPOed Seriously?

On their website they say "Our parent company Wealth Dragons Group Plc’s stock is listed on the Direct Market Plus on the Vienna Stock Exchange."

When you look, you find their share price stayed at 1.85 for years with 0 volume traded throughout the entire time.

What a joke. “

April 2022: “Cessation of John Lee as a person with significant control on 22 August 2022” 
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/06950495/filing-history

December 2022: John Lee is suspended while internal investigation into his conduct is launched 
(presumably the public announcement of what happened in april)
https://www.wealthdragons.co.uk/en-gb/announcements/wealth-dragons-group-plc-shareholder-and-board-member-john-lee-suspended-as-employee-due-to-internal-investigations

February 2023: An insane volume of trading happens, 
https://www.investing.com/equities/wealth-dragons-historical-data
1.21 million shares were sold by sellers, and those exact same 1.21 million shares were bought by buyers,with a +106.35% bump in the value of shares. This crowdsourced "IPO funding" via his student base could have realistically created the exact supply of shares that later experienced the massive trading and volume anomalies on the Vienna exchange when the internal board war erupted. (that many shares is roughly 60% of the entire business’s shares)

However, this spike also corresponds with the wealth dragons announcement for an app called ‘consultz’
https://www.wealthdragons.co.uk/en-gb/announcements/wealth-dragons-will-announce-an-exciting-new-platform-consultz-this-week

Based on its social media presence and lack of digital footprint, it looks like the app still hasn’t launched and doesn’t seem to have gained any significant hype or momentum outside of the wealth dragons eco-system.

March 2023: The FMA issues a warning
https://www.fma.gv.at/en/wealth-dragons-group-plc-isin-gb00bgmgzr93/
 “being intensively recommended in February 2023 by means of cold calling as one to buy. Investors are being contacted by unknown entities/persons, who potentially do not have the necessary authorization for providing financial services in Austria.”
This February 2023 date lines up perfectly with the abnormal spike in trading. 

October 2023, John Lee resigns:
https://live.deutsche-boerse.com/news/Wealth-Dragons-Group-PLC-Resignation-of-Co-CEO-John-Lee-72bdcbba-fd97-4be2-9d95-f1961ff0ad59
“Termination of appointment of John Lee as a director on 17 October 2023” also shown on companies house.

December 2023: Wealth Dragons announce the filing of accounts up to 2022
https://www.wealthdragons.co.uk/en-gb/announcements/accounts-ending-31-december-2022-filed
Revealing the company is loss making
“The Group has made a loss after tax for the year ended 31 December 2022 of £317,503 (2021: £137,499 loss) and had net current liabilities of £2,534,246 at 31 December 2022 (2021: £2,584,849), long term debt outstanding of £132,139 (2021: £142,161) and net liabilities of £2,666,385 (2021: £2,727,010). The Group continued to be loss making in 2022 and 2023.”

Litigation begins, with Vincent Wong seeking to recover money lost:
https://www.wealthdragons.co.uk/en-gb/announcements/litigation-update-against-john-lee---april-2025

2023: John Lee Group experiences a surge on its balance sheets in 2023 onwards (despite operating since 2013)
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08350293

August 2024: Wealth Dragons is delisted from the Vienna stock exchange
https://www.wealthdragons.co.uk/en-gb/announcements/wealth-dragons-group-plc-shareholder-update

October 2024: This korean guy consults a legal site about what to do now the business has been delisted
https://www.justanswer.co.uk/law/qan5l-withdrawl-imbestment-money.html

April 2026: Wealth dragons (now techducate holdings plc) continues to make updates via Vincent Wong, confirming they are still committed to the litigation and bringing the Consultz app to fruition
https://www.techducateholdings.com/blog/techducate-holdings-plc---shareholder-stakeholder-update

As of 2026 John Lee continues to sell unregulated educational courses, still using the same questionable sales tactics, but seems to have abandoned his property-investment persona and has pivoted to social media and A.I trends. Vincent Wong states in shareholder he is working without remuneration to resolve this in the interest of the shareholders, with wealth dragons now becoming ‘Techucate holdings’. 

But the key questions remain, who cashed out and made millions that month? And who were the victims left holding the bag? Is that Korean dude doing okay? What’s Mr Wong's workout routine? Based on the timeline I have heavy suspicions that the ‘misconduct’ is directly linked to whatever happened with the IPO’s

Wrap it up:

This is getting way too long, but I think that's everything we can cover. Obviously there's clearly missing pieces to this puzzle that’ll hopefully come to light in due course. And we’d still love to research what seems to be a high turnover of staff, beyond those already spoken to. But some have completely vanished from social media, and haven't posted since working for him, and some don’t wanna talk and express hurt, as if talking about a problematic-ex. It's all rather strange.

We’d love to hear other people's experiences as I know they pop up on forums from time to time, especially if you were around when the IPO was being promoted. And hell, even positive experiences, he’s been active for over a decade so it’d be cool to finally find someone with organic, tangible praise. But other than that, thank you for your time and letting me share this deep dive and compilation of research (I have a lot of time to kill at work), obviously it's all been discussed elsewhere over the years, but it felt wise to compile it all in a structured and accessible way so customers can make a more informed decision.

After Kier Hubners gram-ban the other week, I was curious if it'd happen again. I reported this other dude I started getting ads for, and Instagram was also quick to nuke it.

I'm still curious to why certain ones get banned so swiftly (is it because they're botting? Buying followers? Using AI agents against the terms of service?) Or are Instagram finally cracking down on the industry? (I doubt it as they make too much in ad money from them)