The Dividend Hunter Review – Tim Plaehn Scam?

The Dividend Hunter is an investing newsletter from Tim Plaehn.

You can find it over on Investor Alley's website.

If you're here I bet you're thinking about buying this product and want to know if it's a scam or not.

Well you're in luck..

I've reviewed hundreds of similar products and today will be looking at The Dividend Hunter.

I'll answer any questions you have about this newsletter including who's behind it, how much it costs, what you get and whether it's worth it.

Let's get started!

4 Facts About Tim Plaehn

Tim Plaehn is the creator of The Dividend Hunter.

Here's what I think is most important about him:

1) He Works For Investor Alley

Investor Alley is the company that publishes this newsletter and has a pretty good reputation.

If you head over to BBB you'll see that most customers have a good experience with them:

BBB typically looks at the customer service of a company and things like that.

We'll get into how successful The Dividend Hunter is at recommending picks later in the review.

There's a few different editors and other products at Investor Alley and The Dividend Hunter is definitely the most well known.

It's probably the most positively reviewed as well.

Tim's job title at Investor Alley is lead investment research analyst for income and dividend investing.

2) Got Started In Stocks Later In Life

There's not a ton of information out there about Tim's life and back story.

However, I was able to find some interesting tidbits.

He studied mathematics at Air Force Academy and graduated in 1979.. this makes Tim 60+.

After his time with the Air Force he claims he became a Certified Financial Planner and spent time in the banking and financial world.

However, on his Linkedin page it says he was in truck salesman in the early 2000's:

No jobs were listed before this on his Linkedin.

So I can't really verify his finance and investing background before this.

3) Writes A Lot About The Markets

Tim has spent a lot of time writing about the markets in this last decade.

Although he works for Investor Valley, he's featured and contributes to many other websites.

In 2011 he started writing for well known financial resource Seeking Alpha.

Additionally, he writes a lot for the highly respected Cabot Wealth Network.

Cabot Wealth has been in business since 1970 and has some of the most popular investing newsletters on the market.

So it's definitely a good thing that they trusted him to write for them.

Lastly, he's done some writing for Motley Fool as well.

Motley Fool is probably the most popular investing newsletter company out there right now. 

4) Tim Has Zero Social Media Presence

This is both refreshing to see and a little disappointing.

It's refreshing because many investors use Twitter and Youtube to build their little scammer empires.

For instance, the Najarian Brothers went on a Tweet deleting spree after the FTC sent them a warning about misleading testimonials and promotion material. 

Many other people lie about how rich they are on Twitter and Youtube to get sales for their products.

I like that Tim isn't out there building his brand by manipulating people through these channels.

However, you can really get to know someone through Twitter and Youtube.

You can track their stock picks and you can piece together how legit they are.

The only way to really get to know Tim is through his writing on various websites.

Recommended: The Best Place To Get High Return Stock Ideas

What Is The Dividend Hunter?

Before we get into what The Dividend Hunter has to offer, let's look at what exactly The Dividend Hunter is.

This way you can tell if it's right for you.

It Focuses On Dividends

Like the name suggests this newsletter looks for dividend investing opportunities.

So what's a dividend?

This graph sums it up nicely:

Dividends let you earn passive income outside of just returns you get from stocks.

How much you earn and when you earn is determined through the company's board of directors.

It's like a reward a company gives you for trusting your money with them.

The type of company you can expect to pay dividends are well established and larger corporations.

Many popular markets for dividends include energy, finance, banking, healthcare and more. 

Pros And Cons Of Dividends

There's definitely positives to dividends as well as drawbacks.

Pro #1: Reduces Risk In The Stock Market

Retail investors typically lose money in the market.. especially if they're day trading.

It's hard to compete with the big boys and a lot of the market can be manipulated.

You just don't have the tools or sway to move prices like billionaires and investment banks do.

This can lead to large losses that are hard to comprehend.

Dividends are much safer, though.

You're betting on companies that are highly predictable and less volatile.

Pro #2: Passive Income

There's no better income than passive income. 

Passive income is when you earn money without actually having to work (or you do the work up front and get paid on a continuing basis after).

I've been living off passive income for 5 years now through online marketing and creating websites.

It's the best and gives me a lot of freedom.

Dividends give you passive income because you're getting reliable and steady income from it.. with no work done on your part. 

You just invest and every quarter you get paid out depending on how much you invested.

Con #1: No Massive Gains

Investing in the right stock can completely change your life if you time it right.

If you invested in Google, Apple, Amazon, Tesla or Netflix when they first went public you'd be retied on a beach right now.

However, these stocks weren't offering dividends when they first went public.

Only large well established companies tend to offer dividends.

While the money is more reliable, you typically won't make anything significant unless you're investing a lot of money.

Con #2: Companies Can Cut Dividends

One of the positives is dividends can provide a full time income if you invest enough (this is great for retirees).

However, the payments from the dividends is out of your control.

If earnings are down or there's an economic downturn a company may cut dividends.

This isn't good for people relying solely on dividends for income.

Recommended: The Best Place To Get High Return Stock Ideas

What Does The Dividend Hunter Offer?

The Dividend Hunter is made up of different components.

Here's a look at everything that you get:

The Dividend Hunter Newsletter

This is the main aspect of the offer and is the flagship product for Tim.

The newsletter goes out monthly and you get 12 issues a year.

In these newsletters you can expect to find dividend recommendations, analysis and a look at previous recommendations. 

There's also three "upgrades" with this newsletter.

They are:

• Weekly recommendations about which positions in the portfolio are performing the best (allowing you to invest more into them).
• There's a training series and live sessions that help you grow your knowledge about dividends.
• 60 day free trial to Divcaster software. This software helps you forecast and track dividends. After 60 days it will cost you $99 per year to use.

36 Month Accelerated Income plan

This is another big part of The Dividend Hunter.

The Accelerated Income Plan is your ticket to passive income from dividends (according to Tim).

This feature comes with the entire Dividend Hunter portfolio and a blueprint on how to invest in dividends. 

The blueprint focuses on high yield stocks with dividend growth and avoids growth stocks.

The Monthly Dividend Paycheck Calendar

This feature won't really help you find dividends but is a great organizational tool.

The dividend paycheck calendar tracks all the important information you need to know about Tim's portfolio.

Some information you'll track includes:

• Payment dates
• Ex-dividends
• Monthly income

This takes the guesswork out of everything. You'll known exactly what you're making every month and won't be caught by surprise by anything.

7 High Yield Monthly Dividend Stocks To Buy Today

This is a report that offers 7 dividends that you can buy right now.

What I like about these dividends is they're very safe and pay out monthly.

Most dividends payout at the end of the quarter (every 3 months).

Getting monthly payments is better if you're retired or trying to create a full time passive income stream from dividends.

My Thoughts On The Dividend Hunter

There's a lot to unpack with The Dividend Hunter.

Here's my main takeaways:

Not A Fan Of Automatic Charges

Initially I liked the price of The Dividend Hunter a lot.

$49 for 3 months access to this newsletter and product is pretty good.. that only comes out to around $200 for the year.

I think you're definitely getting $200 worth of value for the year.

However, there's something that I don't like in the fine print..

This product auto-renews and charges your credit card automatically.

I'm not a fan of this.

It's not the biggest deal with the newsletter because you'll be able decide if it's right for you.. this gives you plenty of time to cancel your membership.

However, the software you get renews after 60 days.

It'll be pretty easy to forget this, especially when the newsletter renews every 90 days.

It would be better to have the software free trial be 90 days.. this way there isn't two dates to remember to cancel if you're dissatisfied.

I Love The Idea Of Passive Income

Every person should have some sort of passive income stream.

If you can't figure this out you're going to be a slave to the system for the rest of your life.

I make passive income online and there's other ways to do it (like investing in rental properties).

I like the idea of dividends a lot because they pay out passive income.

This will require zero work on your end besides buying the recommended stocks. 

If you can build your portfolio up through the years you'll definitely be able to retire early and comfortably.

You'll Need A Lot To Invest

A lot of people recommend dividends for retirees because they tend to have more to invest.

They can get a full time income off their dividends immediately because of this.

However, if you don't have a lot to invest up front making a full time income from dividends is going to take a long, long time.

For instance, a 4% yield is considered good.

If you wanted to make $1000 A YEAR from dividends you'd need to invest around $22,000ish.

Here's a chart that shows how much it would take to make $1000 a year if you invested in popular stocks:

So if you wanted to make $50,000 a year from dividends and expect to get s 4% yield, you'll need to invest $1,250,000.

Again that's not a crazy amount at the end of your working career.

But before then you probably won't have that money.

In that case it will take a long time of investing in dividends to create that passive income.. you'll still need around $20,000 to $30,000 to get the whole thing kickstarted.

There Are Upsells

All investment newsletters more or less market themselves the same way.

It doesn't really matter what's being marketed or the company doing the marketing.. there's a proven sales funnel that all of these companies use.

People typically won't buy a product that costs thousands of dollars unless one of two things happen:

1. They actually talk to a customer service agent 
2. They bought a product from a company already

The reason so many financial newsletter companies offer a cheap investment newsletter is to get you in their sales funnel.

The Dividend Hunter is just the first product in Investor Alley's sales funnel.

Most people will be willing to pay $49 to try out The Dividend Hunter.

However, once you do buy you'll be pitched on products that cost thousands of dollars.

My advice is to test out The Dividend Hunter thoroughly before thinking about these more expensive products.

Make sure it works as described and gets you the results you desire.

The more expensive products aren't going to perform any better.

There's A Decent Refund Policy

The refund policy isn't advertised on the sales page for The Dividend Hunter.

So I had to go digging through the terms and conditions to see if I could find anything.

I did find this:

So you can only get a refund on products that are billed quarterly.. which The Dividend Hunter is.

You get 60 days to get your money back.

It would be nice if they advertised that and made it a little easier to find.

Customer Reviews Are Mixed

The reviews are mixed for The Dividend Hunter but I'd say they're more positive than negative.

489 people rated this newsletter and it has a 4/5 rating:

This is very good and better than most.

Here's an example of a comment that sums up a lot of the positive comments:

Basically you get what's promised to you.

Not all picks are going to hit (no one hits 100% of the time) but if you follow what's recommended you'll build your income up.

There were some negatives, though.

I mentioned in the last section that there's upsells and being pitched on expensive products right away is going to rub some people the wrong way:

Some people haven't gotten the best results either.

Chuck claims he stuck with the investments in The Dividend Hunter for 3 years and was down money after:

You'll notice this person also doesn't like being constantly being sold on more expensive products either.

Many people have claimed to make money from this newsletter.. so take Chuck's comments with a grain of salt.

Recommended: The Best Place To Get High Return Stock Ideas

The Dividend Hunter Conclusion

On the surface this newsletter seems like an excellent deal.

Although I can't find a ton of information on Tim, people seem to like and trust him.

The price isn't bad and there's a pretty solid refund policy.. you just have to search for it.

But there are negative aspects.

The constant upselling is annoying and definitely raises a couple red flags on how good The Dividend Hunter really is.

Why would you need to spend thousands on a new product to supplement the one you just bought?

There's some customer reviews that are a little concerning as well.

Many claim to have lost money following Tim's advice.

But there's some good reviews too, with others claiming to have made money with the newsletter.

Overall I think this is a pretty decent investment product and it wouldn't hurt too much to test it out.

Just fight the urge to spend thousands on the upsells.

Here's A Better Opportunity

The Dividend Hunter isn't a bad newsletter but there's better out there.

I've personally reviewed hundreds of products that claim to help you make money.

Most are scams..

To see my favorite place that recommends high return stock ideas (that's affordable), click below: