PSA: Karim Naoum “section8karim” “Freedom For Life LLC” Red Flags/ Scam

Found him on Instagram and want to share my experience to spare others from wasting their time and money when they can easily get started on their own. (This may look familiar as my last post was reported by Karim/removed for containing a link).

I had an initial call with his partner and they sounded like they knew what they were talking about and were able to answer my questions regarding Section 8 on the zoom call, but it’s all public information you can find on Housing Authority websites. They were vague with numbers and proof of documentation for their business and gave me a contract with a 24 hour time limit or their cost would increase (huge red flag). Since it felt like scam, I went down a hole researching and trying to verify the public information they provided and it was all very convoluted.. like it was all just close enough to being the truth but nothing aligned with the info. he provides so clearly something’s off.

For example, his name is listed under multiple different spellings and versions (Karim, Kareem, Kareem Thomas, Thomas Karim, etc.) and I still couldn’t find any verification he owns any homes himself. There’s multiple LLC’s under multiple versions of his and his dad’s names and his active LLC’s are under 2 years old and I think they’re just for this mentorship business he has, not property ownership. TikTok banned him so he had to create a new account, which could also mean scam reports. He gave me info. for two contacts for reference checks and both phone calls created way more questions than it did to make me feel better about it.

I also called the St. John Parish HA to see if the payment statements Karim posts are real because the logo on his document didn’t match the HA website’s logo and because anyone can easily make fake dox, and that’s where it got sketchy:

The HA was really helpful with me at first, agreeing to help verify if the doc was real because they didn’t want anyone getting scammed esp. under their name. I was upfront about the whole pay for mentorship situation saying I wasn’t trying to get any information on the account or anyone specific and that all I wanted was to see if the document was real, but as soon as I emailed it to them and they saw it was Karim Naoum’s name, they immediately retracted and said they couldn’t help me. Then a few hours later Karim’s dad called me asking why I was looking into his account, which was odd because it was supposed to be Karim’s account, not his dad’s since that’s what he advertises for his business. So, it turns out his dad (Hadir Naoum) is the one with the properties and Karim just grew up around it, I guess. The HA might be corrupt and in their pockets, too, it seems because that was a bizarre situation all around – saying they’d help but then silence once they saw the account name. It was also super weird they contacted him and passed along my contact info.

Karim blocked me for trying to verify the public info./dox he provided were true/real, which makes sense because there was a lot of conflicting info. online about him and his LLC’s. That screams red flag to me. He clearly has something to hide – whether it’s a full-blown scam or he’s lying about things, it didn’t seem good and certainly not good business practice. For my due diligence to scare him off like that screams something is majorly off to me and I’m glad I didn’t dish my money out to him.

Within a month of my call with him, I was able to figure it all out on my own so spending the money on a mentorship, with him or anyone else, is not necessary, just takes some time. Contact housing authorities, realtors, and property management companies for info. on how it all works and to build a team to manage it all. The more people you talk to, the more info. you get – they’re glad to help and have loads of experience with this to share to help point you in the right direction. In just a few weeks I’ve been able to figure most of it out on my own and will be looking at properties this week.