Accelerated StrategiesAccelerated Strategies help families gain confidence and control over their finances so that they can experience financial peace of mind. We do this by providing consulting, education, and software services to help homeowners pay off their debt faster. Through our relational approach, we empower American families to make better decisions using revolutionary financial strategies.
Accelerated Strategies (acceleratedstrategies.com) has 419 customer reviews on Five Star Index, with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5.
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Investments & Wealth · Chicago, Illinois
Excellent
Investments & Wealth · Chicago, Illinois
Excellent
Investments & Wealth · Chicago, Illinois
Excellent
Investments & Wealth · Chicago, Illinois
Excellent
Showing 6 reviews with 1 star · Clear filters
Conqueso S.
Remarkably rude. Invested time talking with Logan and doing their applications. Some online applications didn't work. I reported that error and got no response back. Logan scheduled a phone call with Joel M. Joel stood me up with a poor excuse and left me sitting there waiting for a call. These guys are Kwaks, alright. They don't have their ducks in a row. Yet, they think I'm going to take their advice and let them manage 1.2 M in equity. NEXT!
David P.
I paid the fee to have Kwak help with setting up a HELOC. The first expert that contacted me did nothing to help. In fact, all she did was send me a list of three lenders, two of which didn't do business in my state. The next batch of lenders were worse. The entire list didn't do business in my state, even though I specifically communicated with her the state I live in. On top of that, I could never login to the portal and the IT department could never figure out my problem. I couldn't take advantage of the "guarantee", because you have to be deemed ineligible for a HELOC to get the refund. I wound up doing the HELOC on my own, without Kwak assistance...a $5,000 lesson in life.
Response from Accelerated StrategiesMay 1, 2025
Thank you, David, for sharing your feedback about your experience with Accelerated Strategies. We’re genuinely sorry to hear that our program didn’t meet your expectations, and we take your concerns to heart. Our mission is to empower clients with the education and support needed to achieve financial freedom, and we regret that we fell short in your case. To clarify, our Accelerated Strategies Consulting Program focuses on providing comprehensive financial education and personalized coaching, not directly applying for loans like HELOCs on behalf of clients. We are not a lender, a bank, or a loan broker. We do not issue credit and loans. We offer hours of on-demand video content, 1:1 coaching calls, weekly live Q&A sessions with our Founder, and access to a supportive private community, all designed to help clients strategically manage debt and optimize their finances. As outlined in our client agreement, success in our program requires active engagement with these resources, such as scheduling consultations and applying recommended strategies. We acknowledge that initial miscommunications regarding lender recommendations caused frustration, and we take full responsibility for this. Upon identifying the issue, we assigned a senior strategist to your case to ensure you received dedicated support, and our records show that both of your emailed questions were answered by the end of the day. We’re also sorry to hear about the login issues with our portal. Our IT team was ready to assist, and login problems are typically simple to resolve. Had you communicated with us, we would have resolved the issue as soon as possible. While our team was prepared to support you, we recognize that you did not proactively engage with the coaching, videos, or community resources, which are critical to the program’s success, as noted in the agreement. To address your concerns, our VP of Enrollment personally reached out to you twice by phone, left voicemails, and sent an email with a link to book a call, but we haven’t heard back. We’d welcome the opportunity to understand your experience further and explore how we can assist you with the resources you paid for. To prospective clients reading this, we invite you to join our program if you’re ready to actively apply our proven strategies. Our community is built for dedicated, coachable individuals who are committed to investing in their financial education and working closely with our team to achieve their goals. David, please feel free to contact us. We’re here to support you and wish you the best in your financial journey.
John
Had a phone appointment with a sales rep Angel. I had several email confirmations of my appointment. I got in the office that morning and the sales team wanted me to take a call, I put it off for this appointment. Angel had texted me prior on my google voice. Although I had at least 5 email confirmations I saw the Google Voice the next day. Despite confirming the appointment on my google calendar I was told that I should have confirmed other ways and the appointment never happened. I was blamed. Really disappointing. I put aside a time for them and yes. Their video sounded interesting and sounded like it had potential. You don't treat prospects like that.
Response from Accelerated StrategiesAug 7, 2024
Hi John, thanks for taking the time to provide feedback - whether negative or positive. We do apologize that you didn't get the best experience this past January. I'm sure you felt disrespected and ignored because you felt like you were blamed for the missed call. January is when we are the busiest. When we get really busy, we ask ALL individuals to verbally confirm their appointment with us. This way, we get to serve potential customers who are actively showing interest. Because there's always a group of people who don't show up to their appointment, we assume that an individual has lost interest if we cannot verbally confirm the appointment. Again - we apologize that you had a terrible experience. Since January, we have loosened up our confirmation policy and we don't require verbal confirmation anymore. We want to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to speak with our team and we've removed many barriers for this to happen. Wishing you the best in your endeavors.
James
Overhyped compound interest that is just making extra payments to pay down principal. Just increase your mortgage payment without higher interest rates or the expense of a middleman that could go towards your mortgage. It DOES NOT lower your interest rate unless you get a lower HELOC rate than your mortgage. (Not likely currently) Update- I read your reply & watched your video. youtube watch?v=BlqWO10PS5c It's worse than I thought! Take out a high interest HELOC so that you have a higher amount of interest savings when you make a payment on it. (But your large HELOC remaining balance is high interest) Appears to be simply a HELOC salesman confusing people with #'s.
Response from Accelerated StrategiesAug 7, 2024
Hey there James, thanks for taking the time to share your feedback. I'm sorry that we didn't do a good job explaining our strategy and its advantages. Noting from your comment, we do not promise that we help lower interest rates. However, we do help homeowners pay LESS interest and spend less time doing it. So I'm afraid that you may be misunderstanding our strategy and our method. We have plenty of videos explaining our our strategy is different and why it has advantages over just increasing your mortgage payment. You'll be able to view that video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlqWO10PS5c We avoid sensationalizing or "overhyping" our strategy as we do acknowledge that there are other ways of paying off your mortgage faster. Furthermore, Accelerated Banking is definitely not for everyone. There are individuals that we would encourage to stay far away from our strategy because it would do more damage in their situation.
Tyler L.
I will be as accurate as I can with this review to help people understand why I am giving this a 1 star review. I enjoyed my phone call with my sales lady who walked me through all my numbers related to my situation and it seemed to map up from what I understood. I was going to save 10 years on three different properties and a couple hundred thousand dollars in interest according to my sales rep. Once I decided to purchase this service ($5000), the next step went to an introductory phone call with someone explaining what I should expect for my next steps. I enjoyed that phone call and all was going well up until this point. The next step was talking with my strategist to fine tune my plan on the best route to go. This was when everything fell apart. My first phone call consisted of imputing my numbers for calculation and discussing my goals. He could not figure out why the excel spreadsheet wasn't calculating to what he thought was correct so we rescheduled the phone call to a week out so he could speak with his manager about this spreadsheet situation. At this point, he hadn't asked for my information I was told I would need to bring for my initial appointment with my strategist. Information like my monthly expenses, principle and interest amounts for my mortgages, etc. A week later I get on the phone with him to start from square one. He told me I was only able to take out Helocs on two out of three of my propertys because of the LTVs. This is when I got very confused/irritated because my sales lady told me I would Heloc everything and go a whole different route. The sales lady told me in Washington state I could take out a Heloc on an investment property with an 80% LTV and my strategist was telling me 70%. I knew for a fact it wasn't 70% because my personal bank offered me a 75% LTV Heloc the week prior. This bit of information let me know that my "professional" strategist hadn't done his research before providing me with the most accuracy plan that I should have moved forward with. I let him know that I could find better Helocs and he sent me an email later saying that he could find me something with a 75% LTV and not a 80% LTV like my sale rep said. So I was sold a lie according to my strategist. He told me that he would send over a list of banks and an excel calculator with all my numbers imputed so I could see the math on my future path. I was never sent this information. I was frustrated at this point so I tried to call the company and explain my situation to get a different strategist. My thought was since the strategist was working from home with no supervisor, he was being lazy and not performing his job to what he should have. I was giving the company the benefit of the doubt and thinking the strategist was a dud. I left a voicemail explaining my frustration with the phone number on the accelerate banking website only to find out that it routes my call right to my strategist and he got my voicemail. Maybe my own fault that I didn't know that? So I found out I couldn't talk with anyone else in the company other than my strategist... I was trapped. My strategist, after listening to my voicemail, then let me know that the next zoom call would be with his manager and him so that I could understand everything that he has been explaining. When I got on the next zoom call, it was just my strategist with no manager and he said that between him and his manager working together going over my numbers for many hours that it just doesn't work out and I they'll have to refund my money. This confused me very much because he wrote up a whole plan for me based off our first phone call and now he is telling me that my situation doesn't allow me to use their accelerated banking system. I didn't question it at this point because all I wanted was the refund so I could leave this company that I'm having a terrible experience with. I'm not sure if my strategist was a dud or if the company is a dud. All I know is from what I experienced they were disorganized, I was lied to, the strategist I dealt with was not educated (maybe he was a new financial advisor) and many more things seemed fishy. In the end, I got my $5000 refund and that was the most positive experience I got from the hours I spend dealing with company. Id give this company a zero star if I could because what they advertise does not line up with what I got. Absolutely terrible experience. *UPDATE* The company called me about 1 star review. They agreed with me that I got the short end of the stick for what happened. On the other hand, they claim they're reaching out so they can improve their system so situations, like mine, don't happen anymore. I believe they have good intentions want to improve. If anyone was to ask for my OPINION on to use them or not, I'd say to go a difference route. If you do use them, good luck and I hope your experience is better than what mine was.
Response from Accelerated StrategiesJun 1, 2023
Dear Tyler and to whom reading this review, First and foremost, we appreciate the fact that Tyler took the time to thoroughly write this review. Whether it's a 1 star or a 5 star review, we welcome all feedback with humility and extreme ownership. Second, we certainly feel that we could have done a better job being more organized, professional in our conduct, and better prepared to work with Tyler and his journey in our program. I, personally, would have certainly felt the same way if I were treated the way Tyler was treated in the process of our program. So we formally apologize for the horrible experience that Tyler went through. We believe he deserved better. At the end of the day, we knew the right thing to do was to offer a 100% refund and we did so as Tyler has mentioned. In fact, our decision to refund Tyler was not out of his request. But rather, we're the one that initiated and recommended a refund in the first place. Also as mentioned, we did reach out to Tyler about his experience and listened for feedback. Since then, we have made several changes and improvements to our experience. In the past, each of our clients are assigned to a specific strategy consultant from start to finish. The drawback as Tyler has experienced is that there's issues with continuity if the consultant is not available. We would assign another consultant is assigned to continue working with the client but would lack the context or the background information about the client. This caused massive delays and unnecessary waste of time for the client and our team. We now established a "Single-Universal File" policy where any of our strategist would be able to access a client file and provide a streamlined experience so that the client doesn't feel like they have to start "all over". In addition to this change, we've made changes to our phone system where if the assigned strategy consultant is not available, it will then attempt to reach the next available consultant to assist with the client immediately. This allows the client to reach us faster and get the help they need. Just as any other businesses, we strive for perfection and positive experiences. However, we also admit that our team is made up of people. And like any human, we make mistakes. It's easily recognizable that no business can achieve 100% positive reviews. At the same time, we stand by our "Excellent" status on TrustPilot in our 7+ year of business. We appreciate the fact that Tyler took the time to give us feedback which is incredibly valuable to us. We take Tyler's feedback as a moment to reflect and improve. We have taken real steps towards improving our services and we would like to ask all future clients to give us an opportunity to provide a positive and valuable experience based on this moment of falling short as humans. As a parting word, we would have certainly liked to have Tyler experienced a positive result. We own up to the fact that we could have certainly done a better job but we also recognize that this allowed us to grow and improve. We wish Tyler the best in all of his future endeavor. We sincerely hope that wherever Tyler goes, he would have a bright future. Blessings, Sam Kwak CEO & Managing Partner
Ellen D.
Don't trust this company to take your circumstances into consideration at all. Whatever they are, they only recommend one solution - the 1st position HELOC. I am very close to retirement and their slick talking reps made it all sound so doable that I signed up. Now they won't refund me because I came to my senses and realized their solution would ruin me financially.
Response from Accelerated StrategiesAug 27, 2022
Dear Ellen, It is incredibly sad and unfortunate that you feel this way. However the outcome, we wish you all the best and hope that our paths will cross in better terms. However, this situation does warrant an explanation with accurate context and we would like to state our case for those reading this review. First and foremost, our company - Accelerated Banking (a Kwak Brothers Company) offers financial consulting to help our valuable clients pay off their mortgage faster. Our methods are always legal, moral, and ethical. We take pride in the fact that our company is A+ rated on Better Business Bureau, and STILL rated 'Excellent' on this platform, Trustpilot. We've been doing business since November 2015 with a long track record of success after success. Second, Ms./Mrs. Dawson signed an agreement with us that makes our working relationship VERY clear. One of which, our clients agree to follow directions and suggestions made by our team in good faith. If the client does NOT achieve a promised milestone within 180 days, the client would receive 100% of their money back AFTER they have acted on our suggestions with good faith. Ms./Mrs. Dawson did not abide by this agreement. More specifically, we had 3 individual consultants assess Ms./Mrs. Dawson's situation. (We typically have ONE consultant assess a client) In all three assesments, our team has arrived to a specific set of plans that , we believe, would benefit Ms./Mrs. Dawson. We make suggestions and recommendations solely based on the information that our clients provide. Based on our estimates, it was apparent that Ms./Mrs. Dawson would be able to pay off her mortgage in approximately 65 months (5 years and 5 months) using our methods. To protect Ms./Mrs. Dawson's financial information, we will omit other details. In matters to the delivery of our service, our team has provided both timely and exceptional service to Ms./Mrs. Dawson. When Ms./Mrs. Dawson made an appointment, she did so a few days in advance. But When she demanded help immediately, we expedited her request by serving her on the day of the request without hesitation. Furthermore, one of our consultants even offered to meet Ms./Mrs. Dawson in person - drive an hour. Bear in mind, this consultant who offered this is 67 years old AND is one of our executive leadership to personally help her. Our consultant disregarded her own convenience AND safety to satisfy Ms./Mrs. Dawson's requests and demands. This is DEFINITELY not our protocol or our standards. But the fact that our consultants truly care about our clients should speak volumes to which how we did our best to serve Ms./Mrs. Dawson. In multiple occasions, we've offered her both resource and knowledge for her to succeed in the method we've suggested. We do this by delivering a highly-detailed report that are custom tailored for her situation. There ARE components to our service where the client does have to either "sign-off" on documents and/or contact a vendor to initiate certain processes. We do our best to minimze the efforts required by our clients. However, Ms./Mrs. Dawson did not do her part in making sure she would achieve the results. Therefore, she has violated the agreement she signed by a.) not following our directions and suggestions in good faith; b.) disqualifying herself from the 180 day money back guarantee; and c.) threatening legal actions which constitutes as malicious behavior and therefore disqualifies for any refund as clearly stated in our agreement. Overall, we SINCERELY hope and pray that Ms./Mrs. Dawson will do well. We do wish that she will prosper and retire with financial peace of mind. There is no doubt that we will welcome Ms./Mrs. Dawson back with open arms as long as she is willing to adopt a cooperative attitude. We extend grace and 2nd tries. However, our company abides by principles of honesty, respect, and integrity. Furthermore, our company MUST protect our own employees, agents, and vendors from harassment and 'bullying' from clients. We do not tolerate these behaviors from both clients and from our own team members. We sincerely wish Ms./Mrs. Dawson well and prospers in her other endeavors.