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Video Transcript:
it seemed like everyone and their mother was advertising established titles this year is it a scam yes is it illegal maybe established titles has taken over YouTube extremely prominent YouTubers have run sponsorships for the company and the money was flowing like many YouTubers I had been approached repeatedly about running and established titles sponsorship if it's no Scots it's just crap I declined because it didn't make much sense to me and started researching my own video on the topic and that was until Scott Shaffer made a video calling established titles a scam it pretty much blew up the internet this company is a complete scam so is established titles really a scam well that's what we're gonna figure out here today now it's actually hard to explain what established titles does without already jumping into value judgments so I'll let establish titles explain in its own words established titles owns less than 200 acres of land in rural Scotland their website says that you can buy a dedicated one foot by one foot square souvenir plot of land from them and it also states that you can quote become a lord or lady today they say that their packages are quote based on a historic Scottish land owner ownership custom where land owners have been long referred to as lairds the Scottish term for Lord with the female equivalent being lady okay so let's start at the beginning when you're talking about false advertising or fraud in Commerce you're probably talking about one of two laws section 43a of the Lanham act authorizes civil suits for false advertising they quote misrepresents the nature characteristics qualities or Geographic origin of goods or services states have their own laws regulating false advertising and other deceptive trade practices for example California business and professions Code 17 500 AKA false advertising law the fal prohibits false and misleading statements generally in connection with any good services and or real or personal property now to understand whether advertising is false or misleading you have to look at the claims that are being made when it comes to established titles there are several different sources of potential claims their website advertisements and YouTube sponsorships and we'll look at each of those in turn well the homepage in the hero Banner states that you can quote save these Scottish woodlands and quote become a lord today a prior version of the website said become a lord or lady today you can quote purchase a personal lordship or ladyship title pack with dedicated land in Scotland the asterisk direct you to fine print right below it says a quote this is a purchase for a personal dedication for a souvenir plot of land you may choose to title yourself with the title of Lord Laird or lady and as I said before the website States quote this is based on a historic Scottish land ownership custom where landowners have been long referred to as lairds the Scottish term for Lord with the female equivalent being lady on the purchase page it states quote each Lord title pack includes a dedicated plot of land measuring one square foot five square feet or ten square feet a personalized title certificate with your name or the name of the title holder a unique plot Number that will be assigned to the title holder your digital certificate will be emailed to you within 24 hours we plant a tree for every order a digital personalized member's handbook additionally they have an entire terms of service page on the website as well with further detail now taking this all together there is an implication that by purchasing a small plot of land through his apples titles you become officially recognized as a Scottish Noble or Lord they don't explicitly state that and in many ways they explicitly walk that back and there's also an implication of owning a piece of Scottish real estate I'd call that ambiguous but we'll talk about that later now they do explicitly state that you can buy a certificate that you get a dedicated plot of land and that they plant a tree for every purchase now before digging into the claims let's clear a few things up putting aside for the moment whether established titles makes any such Claims can you become a lord related through purchasing Scottish land novelty or otherwise no not like this now first off I am not a lawyer in the UK or a barrister or a solicitor or an advocate or any of the other strange words that they use in the ridiculous English legal system soccer the entire idea of nobility or listening to anything that this guy says is silly and quite frankly Un-American but there is an authority on this particular ridiculous subject that is the court of the Lord lion which deals with all matters relating to Scottish heraldry and coats of arms and that Court said quote ownership of a souvenir plot of land does not bring with it the right to any description such as Laird Lord or lady Laird is not a title but a description applied by those living on and around the estate many of whom will derive their living from it to the principal landowner of a long-named area of land it will therefore be seen that it is not a description which is appropriate for the owner of a normal residential property it cannot properly be used to describe a person who owns a small part of a larger piece of land the term Laird is not one recognizable by attachment to a personal name and thus there is no official recognition of XY layered of Zed the words Lord and Lady apply to those on whom peerage has been confirmed and do not relate to the ownership of Lynn ownership of a souvenir plot of land is not sufficient to bring a person otherwise ineligible within the justification of the Lord lion for seeking a coat of arms but what about that historic Scottish land ownership custom that established titles talks about well that's just wrong too a representative of the court of Lord Lyon stated in response to another established title Style company quote the title Laird of Glencairn would only apply to the owner of the entire estate if it exists not those buying one foot portions of it now you can become a lord or lady through inheritance or marriage or Royal Decree but not from a Black Friday sale from established titles a monarch can give a person a period such as a Duke a Marquez a role viscounter Baron and sometimes people with hereditary titles sell them usually because they have financial problems these titles sell for tens of thousands of dollars okay but what about the implication of land ownership do you own the land now again putting aside the issue of whether established titles makes this particular claim that you are actually buying the land are you actually buying the land well established titles has just under 200 Acres now I looked around in rural land in Scotland can cost about ten thousand dollars per acre therefore established titles several hundred acres probably cost around two million dollars funny enough Katarina Yip the CEO of stylish titles also runs landassets. com which sells real land in Scotland in one to two acre Parcels now my guess here and this is just pure speculation is that they probably buy up the land in bulk and either use it for established titles or sell it in slightly larger chunks as actual real estate so with respect to the one foot by one foot Parcels no you don't own the land it's too small to be registered in Scotland and get a deed for it instead you get a contractual dedication from established titles this means basically nothing it's like buying an mp3 from Apple music you have a contract they will provide a certain thing to you a song do you own it no no you don't not in any real sense now in this context the Journal of the Law Society of Scotland says quote there have been a few articles in the media recently about companies who were selling off tiny pieces of land known as souvenir plots in the highlands some websites suggest that ownership of the plot carries with it the right to use the title of layered Lord or lady given that some websites claim that the land registration Scotland Act of 1979 removes the normal requirements to register your land thus permitting the sale to take place under contract law the keeper would like to clarify her position on the subject a souvenir plot is defined in the land registration Scott Act of 1979 as a piece of land which being of inconsiderable size or no practical utility is unlikely to be wanted in isolation except for the sake of mere ownership or for sentimental reasons or commemorative purposes the keeper is required to reject an application for registration in the land registry if the land to which it relates meets the description of souvenir plot However the fact that the keeper is obliged to reject the registration does not necessarily mean that ownership can be obtained by some other means a real right of ownership can land in the sense of a right that is enforceable against third parties can only be obtained by registration in the land registry or by recording a deed in the register of signs as appropriate solicitors who are consulted by a client in relation to the purchase of a potential souvenir plot should bear in mind that in some cases the land in question might not be of inconsiderable size in such cases no exemption from registration applies in other words the land registry act that established titles relies on defines a souvenir plot of land in the context of the things that the register of land will necessarily reject it doesn't affirm relatively mean that a souvenir plot of land is something the law will actually recognize all it means is that it won't qualify as real estate what you get at most is a personal right a contractual right against the actual landowner of established titles you do not get a real ownership of interest that is you don't own the land established titles is making a contract with you that they won't develop your tiny portion of the land and will record your name in their own private registry you know what they're actually making land nfts that's basically what they're doing and then next there's a question of does established titles plant the trees that they claim well sort of yes the very first headline on the website is save the Scottish Woodlands they also purport to plant a tree with every purchase many people have assumed that this means that the company is planting a tree on the tiny plots of land that is assigned to them if you read through the entire website it becomes clear that this isn't true established titles donates money to third parties who plant trees now their website is replete with pictures of forests and lists several addresses that appear to correspond to wooded land in Scotland and I have no reason to believe that this is false now for several years the established titles website said it had donated over 42 000 pounds to these tree planting services but suddenly in late November 2022 they changed their website copy to reflect that they were responsible for over 2 million trees being planted now it's clear when you look at the language that they work with third parties who specialize in tree planting now there's nothing inherently wrong with that and in fact you'd probably want that delegation of Labor these Services could probably plant trees much cheaper than anybody else except that the language that established titles uses is often misleading in fact the CEO admitted that the language was misleading especially when Modified by YouTubers I think we'll have to like rephrase that or look at what we're saying and try to make it clearer okay but let's go off on a quick tangent if you'll indulge me let's talk about how much money does established titles make well the answer I think is a lot The Savage titles is currently owned by a venture capital firm based in Hong Kong called Galton voicing it's this company that was reaching out to YouTubers to do sponsorships for established titles now I've talked to many creators and I know that established titles was sometimes paying five and six figures for sponsorships for the bigger Youtubers with bigger views sometimes 75 000 to over a hundred thousand dollars per video sadly they only offered me seven thousand dollars per video and my friend Rowan who is a cardiatric surgeon 3500 so you know the lawyers win again but as it happens your boy here isn't just a lawyer he's also a content creator who runs sponsorships and is an expert in the Creator economy so let's dig in let's make some educated guesses about the business of established titles in response to all this backlash the CEO of established titles wrote a letter to creators saying quote gelton Boise has supported us since day one even though they knew that their initial funding for this conservation project would most likely lead to financial loss this year alone gelton Boise has made a multi-million dollar loss on established titles sponsoring all those videos isn't cheap and you know what she's right those sponsorships are expensive and they've sponsored hundreds of videos to the tune of four five and six figure deals so let's talk about profit or loss I'm a little bit skeptical here now as I mentioned established titles boasts of over 2 million trees being planted in response to their business we know that the upper limit of the cost per tree is one dollar per tree that figure comes directly from one tree planted the company that established titles works with to plant trees now I have no reason to think that either the 42 000 pounds being donated or the 2 million trees numbers is wrong I suspect that they realize that 2 million trees sounds way more impressive than 42 000 pounds so they change the language on the website to reflect that that makes sense but because of that I think we can easily figure out how much of a cash cow established titles is they say that they're responsible for over 2 million trees we know that it costs at most one dollar per tree and probably less now the minimum that you can spend on established titles is 50 for a digital only certificate if you wanted that printed out and shipped to you that costs an extra thirty dollars if you want that piece of paper framed that costs an extra fifty nine dollars for a total of a hundred and thirty nine dollars now you can also buy larger plots of land for more money but at least the printing out and the certificate in the frame upsells cost thirty dollars and fifty nine dollars respectively with hundreds of dollars in extra upsells if you want five or ten square foot packages or a couple's package then at the checkout page you're automatically signed up for an eight dollar recurring charge to plant one tree per month until you cancel now as an aside I found this automatic addition to my cart to be particularly galling because the language makes it sound like it's the tree planting that is already included with your purchase in other words when I was checking out and yes I did purchase one of these things I thought they listed the tree with every order in my cart as as a separate item I had to read the small print to realize that this was an upsell of a monthly recurring Eight dollar cost for one tree being planted every month now the fact that they have planted over two million trees means that they've made approximately two million individual sales now granted this number might be off if they made a separate donation of trees on their own but if they had they'd probably be shouting it from the mountain tops and admittedly that upsell of a monthly tree will drive that dollar per sale number down so let's be extremely conservative and say that there are two trees per sale in other words two million trees being donated means that they've sold at least one million individual sales so to figure out the revenue and profit you can generally multiply the number of sales roughly two trees per sale by how much they make on each sale so how do we figure that out well given that the minimum that you can spend on a digital certificate that costs zero marginal dollars is fifty dollars and the sheer number of upsells that also cost almost zero marginal dollars I think that the average cart value is easily a hundred dollars plus now factor in fulfillment of maybe a couple dollars per order for a cheap frame and shipping then takes them off the top for overhead then the biggest expense is marketing the sponsorships now it's not unusual to spend 30 to 50 of Revenue on marketing for a high margin instant profit product like this and then they probably spent about two million dollars on 200 acres in Scotland all told they're probably looking at revenue of roughly a hundred dollars per purchase and a net profit of about fifty dollars per purchase yes that probably means that over the last three years they have revenue of roughly 100 million dollars with profit easily exceeding 50 million dollars but look that's just a guess my assumptions could be wrong you can do the math yourself but at base I think established titles is wildly profitable with a large expense being marketing but the benefit of that marketing is that you can easily scale it up or down and make instant profit and they could easily be making two dollars for every one dollar that they spent they clearly make a large margin on every single sale that they make and there's even a plaque on Galton Boise's office tour in their website we see that even as far back as 2020 and 2021 before this huge boom in YouTube sponsorships established titles was regularly making a over a million dollars in quarterly profit and it was their most profitable company so now we get to the heart of the matter does established titles engage in false or misleading advertisements their website States right in front become a lord today and that's not technically true you can't become a lord the implication is that established titles has found this one weird trick this funny little league loophole that lets you become Scottish nobility but implications are not necessarily false advertising and there is a subsequent language that claws this back further down on the website and they say that it's based on but not necessarily following an ancient Scottish custom and they say that it's a purchase for a personal dedication for a souvenir plot of land and you may choose to title yourself with the title of Lord Laird or lady and it's true that they will dedicate whatever that means a plot of land to you they imply that you own the land though they don't outright say that and that historic custom language is weird though where landowners have been long referred to as Laird's the Scottish term for Lord with a female equivalent being lady I mean in what sense you're not really buying the land so why is this custom even relevant or being displayed on the website I mean obviously we know why it's there but syntactically what is it doing but look there are good arguments on both sides here from established title side the purchaser does get certain rights related to their plot of land Yip explains that should established titles ever attempt to sell the land that your square foot is on you can sue them while you don't actually get a deed or plot registration by possessing some contractual rights over the square you do to some degree own that land now the bit about becoming a lord is a fun premise but it's pretty silly once you realize that it would mean that literally anyone that owned land in Scotland would be a lord or a lady which doesn't make any sense well it's a well-known fact Sunny Jim that there's a secret society of the five wealthiest people in the world known as the pentavrett who run everything in the world including the newspapers and me try annually at the secret country mansion in Colorado no dads The Meadows but that leads into one of the best offenses which would be that it's so ridiculous on its face that no one would be confused about what they were buying no one seriously thought that they were actually going to become Scottish nobility I hated the colonel with his Wikipedia guys and their website is pretty clear about implying a real Noble title but never actually saying it and then you know having lots and lots of disclaimers to claw that back anyway but it's funny you know once I started researching established titles I started getting tons of targeted advertising and in this case it was actually very helpful in these two targeted ads that I received there were even bigger gaps between what was advertised and what consumers were actually getting when you buy land in Scotland you are legally referred to as a lawyer lady so this I bought Square for the land where they're gonna play a train so if you were legally referred to as lordland the advertisement state with zero qualifications that you will own a specific unit of land in Scotland with your purchase and become a Lord that advertisement has nothing about getting a contractual right to a dedication and the ad also implies causation between buying a piece of land false and then becoming a lord also false but In fairness established titles terms and conditions clarify these claims on the website in small prints saying quote the purchase of a title pack from established titles does not constitute or trigger a transfer of ownership over that souvenir plot or any part of the land in the legal sense the website also describes this Lord package as quote a fun novelty product though it is pretty sneaky that they title their products a lordship package and a lady ship package without actually bestowing a lordship or a lady ship but the website also describes these packages as quote a fun novelty product that the purchase is a personal dedication for a souvenir plot of land and the individual quote may choose to title yourself with the title of Lord Laird or lady but arguably these disclosures contrary the plain text of these ads which say that you will own Scottish land and you will become a Lord with your purchase and contradicting the plain text of an advertisement is a No-No when it comes to false advertising and furthermore the ads inclusion of a formal certificate gives the impression that a person buying the certificate will literally be a lord or lady or of Scottish land and but hold on because some of their ads are even worse and I have the receipts more on that in a second and a lot of people have noted that established titles business evokes comparisons with the famous register of star company where basically you're just paying this company so you can put your name associated with some star in a again a private registry not the official place where stars are actually named but while a person literally can't own a piece of the Galaxy becoming a lord is a real thing that you can do in real life and again the clear implication of established titles advertisements is that if you pay them money you will literally become a lord or a lady and in fact in the FAQ section of established title's website the company encourages purchasers to refer to themselves as Lords or ladies on official documents including credit cards and airline tickets now I got a hold of the Creator brief that established titles gave to various YouTube creators when they were running established title sponsorships and in that brief established titles says specifically that the Creator can't say that you can change your name on your passport or when applying for bank loans and as the CEO confirmed in an interview the reason is because there isn't a drop down menu when you're choosing your options on a passport and most common law jurisdictions you can toggle yourself however you want to title yourself as long as you're not well as long as you're doing it in good faith and you're not using it to try to get a bank loan or try to get someone to invest like way more than they would have you know trying to make a trying to make you something seem trustworthy and make someone else um basically give you funds for that uh by using the word sorry using the Lord or lady title um but if you're doing it in good faith if you're putting it on like a plane ticket or credit card you can technically call yourself whatever you want to call yourself rather sorry very specifically you can title yourself however you want to title yourself but if it's not actually possible why you need to warn people not to do that and then they say that you can't do it when applying for a bank loan because you can't seem to be more trustworthy than you are and you can only do things in good faith but under what circumstances can you ever say that you are a lord or a lady in good faith based on established titles products it's either a joke or gimmick or you can do it in good faith it can't be both so that takes us to the defenses established titles has vigorously pushed back against claims that it has engaged in false or deceptive advertising and is otherwise a scam and admittedly they have strong defenses after Scott shaffer's video on November 24th 2022 the founder of established titles Katarina Yip sent a letter to creators and she described the package as a fun gift meant for a good laughed Miss Yip further states that it's consumers understand that they aren't literally becoming a Scottish Lord or lady suggesting any belief to the contrary would be unreasonable quote we have always been clear that our certificates are based on a historic Scottish custom I'm calling landowners Laird's Lords or ladies and that it does not Grant you the right to rule or make you a member of any royal family nor the right to a peerage and there's no doubt that a lot of people saw this as a gag gift and therefore did not buy that's not false advertising that could be described as accurate advertising and people making a reasonable decision not to purchase now A friend of mine who ran an established title spot explain it like this quote I'm sure from a lawyer perspective you're pulling your hair out at the you can own land claim but I think the rest of us think of this as a silly gimmick a feature or bug of late stage capitalism where people are looking to spend their disposable income on weird like feeling a part of some souvenir plot of land in a beautiful far away place that feels formal and is potentially contributing to some preservation effort but I honestly don't even think the conservation thing is even an appeal people find Value in weird stuff and again I don't think anyone is earnestly purchasing established titles or any of their competitors yes there are several it appears thinking they now own land and are literally a lord if anyone is selling it like that I agree that's misleading but it's hard to call established titles snake oil or scam when it's so clearly a silly gimmick now I think this is a totally fair way of looking at it and it's an interpretation that's bullied by all the disclaimers on the established titles website a lot of the critics of established titles saw no value in purchasing from established titles and therefore didn't purchase but they then assume that everyone who did purchase must have been a complete idiot and been misguided but I think my friends interpretation recognizes the agency of the buyers and the value propositions of established titles and all that is totally reasonable and in the November 2022 interview with a British YouTuber Katarina Yip states that established titles has always classified this Lord lady package as a novelty item we've always been very clear on the website that this is a novelty item um and I think that the language really hasn't changed since day one but there are some problems with this defense in that brief they include a section on common errors to avoid and section two says quote the phrase royalty or nobility our certificate is based on a historic Scottish custom of calling landowners Lords or ladies it does not Grant you the right to rule or make you a member of any royal family our certificates also do not Grant you peerages of the United Kingdom now first I think that there's an argument to be made that the reason that they have to tell creators not to say this is because they know that they are creating a lot of confusion in the marketplace now arguably people have been misled it also undercuts the argument that the term Lord is ambiguous in general I think it would be a good defense to say that Lord or lady is an ambiguous term subject to multiple definitions one of which established titles meets but I think most people understand it to mean the nobility associated with peerage which established titles tells creators specifically not to say though on the other hand this is also evidence that established titles is being careful and affirmatively avoiding confusion but a second problem with this defense is that the content creators who have the been sponsored by established titles often use the word officially or real in the context of the lordship as in officially a lord or now I'm a real lord thanks to an old Scottish custom means that you or the person you're buying the land for officially becomes what's known as a Laird that's a lord or lady for us Modern English speakers you could officially become a lord or a lady too I am a 100 authentic Scottish Lord this official certificate making you a real lord or lady I think they use that language which is not included in the talking points because that's kind of what it seems like they're selling and I suspect that they were confused and or misled and like all sponsors established titles has a duty to supervise the sponsorship integration at least the part of the video that they have specifically sponsored and according to the creators that I've talked to they do review every video before it goes live this is because companies are legally responsible for the portions of the videos that they sponsor and the words that those creators say in that context in other words when a Creator says established titles will make you a real lord or you'll officially become a lord they own that language even though it's arguably contrary to the provided talking points some sponsorships lean into the conservation aspect but a lot of the sponsorships on YouTube focus on lordship and many go hard on becoming official or real in fact the CEO admits that this is the main criticism of people is that the titles are not official titles and yet tons of creators use those terms and use that kind of language but where could those creators have gotten that wrong idea from well remember that I mentioned that there were some even worse more dubious established titles ads well here you can see that established titles does in fact use the language of official lordship and legal lordship pretty often when you buy land in Scotland you are legally referred to as a lord or lady so this I bought Square for the land where they're gonna play a train so you were legally referred to as Lord lamb can you guess how I became a lord at just age 19 I would probably have to guess that you inherited the position because your father before you actually established titles sell the title that could officially make you a lord or a lady on top of this since you're officially a lord or a lady you have dedicated land in Scotland you will literally get a certification that makes you a lord or a lady pretty cool right yeah I love it I've always wanted to be a lady hat tip to Scott Shafer for finding some of those ridiculous ads and they consistently say that you officially become a lord or that you are legally a lord no disclaimers so while in general established title says that you can refer to yourself as a Lord and maybe the term Lord Laird or lady is open to interpretation claiming that you are officially allured or legally a lord is quite another stronger claim altogether no I suspect there are a good number of people who read the established titles website or ads and thought yes Noble titles are silly but according to this legal loophole I can be a real Noble too and if true that could have been the result of misleading advertising in part I know this because established titles blog specifically says quote you won't believe this legal loophole in Scotland I mean I guess technically that's true because I don't believe them but they go on quote there's a small legal loophole in Scotland that makes it possible for anyone to title themselves as Lord or a lady through this loophole anyone can buy a small plot of land in Scotland and refer to themselves as a lord or a lady further more stating that your product is a novelty on the website doesn't necessarily cure the issue of established titles advertising campaigns that suggest you literally become nobility and as the FTC has made very clear you cannot advertise in one way and have disclaimers that say something else on your website particularly if you have to scroll to find it now perhaps it's true that absolutely no one thought they were a real lord or lady but given established titles marketing campaigns and the sponsored creators who suggest that this is anything but a novelty I definitely wouldn't hang my hat on that defense now another defense in established title's favor is that people accurately view this purchase from established titles as a pro-conservation gift and as far as I can tell you do get at least one tree planted with every purchase they probably have purchased 200 acres in Scotland they do work with third-party tree planting Services which appear legitimate you're not getting nothing for your purchase you are contributing to environmental causes with a cheeky nonsense nobility thing thrown in for kicks the CEO explains what they actually do which isn't necessarily A Bad Thing buying land and then Contracting to never develop it but when asked about about consumer confusion the CEO waffles for almost a full minute trying to dance around all of the confusion do you think that that is a little bit of uncleanness um in terms of what it is because essentially you guys are the Lords and Ladies of that land you're the ones who own it so do you think there is a little bit of um misunderstanding or miscommunication do you think maybe to the audience as to what their true status is around that because I feel like a part of it does rely on individuals knowing the laws around this and not everybody does I I certainly didn't that's a really fair uh question so I think we're very clear about that in our FAQs um we talk about how souvenir plots work um and and how we take our obligations to our Lords and Ladies very seriously so I wouldn't say that we are the um like Lords and Ladies of the land we are the title holders that's a thing like legally we can't do what we want with it so you know how that we contractually entered sorry now that we've entered into a contractual obligation to specific people or the stuff that normally let's say flows with owning or being the title holder of a plot purely doesn't apply here um so I understand what you're saying about um it perhaps um like I I understand what your your saying about are the um customers the real owners if you own the title but I think the way we see it is we take our contractual obligations extremely seriously no I commend this YouTuber for engaging in this interview and trying to do the research and going back to the source and actually getting first-hand information but even she admits that it's confusing and that they're aware of others being confused and that established titles needs to update the talking points because they're confusing um I just think that that's probably one of the parts that's a little bit confusing because there's there's some people I I mean even people who may have purchased through myself who has felt like Oh I thought like there might have been like even if I can't really use it there might have been a little bit of legitimacy behind it now I've seen a lot of people criticize established titles saying that if you really cared about environmental causes you would just skip establish titles altogether and donate directly now I'm of two minds about this because first of all that's not how charity works sometimes you have to throw a party that costs a million dollars to entice guests to donate three million dollars you might not like the waste or the inefficiency but sometimes you need a reason to incise people to give an establish title CEO said quote in the past two years we have done more tangible work in the preservation of the woodlands in Scotland than anyone else to our knowledge this includes donating to plant over 2 million trees and acquiring over hundreds of acres of land and contractually committing to preserve it in its natural state this year we are slated to be trees for the Futures giving Tuesday partner matching all donations up to fifty thousand dollars it's a shame that this attempt to cancel us will make these efforts in the future that much harder okay sure but let's talk about orders of magnitude here now as I said before I'm guessing that the average card value is about a hundred dollars it costs a maximum of one dollar per tree to plant a tree so you're talking about roughly one to two percent of the revenue of this company going to tree planting the less than 200 Acres that established titles owns is roughly 0. 3 square miles not three square miles 0.
3 square miles in a part of Scotland that doesn't see that much development anyway so let's be real here established titles is far more of a money-making Venture than it is in environmental charity so is established title as a scam I mean it seems like it at least colloquially a scam is is defined as a dishonest scheme A Swindle so probably it seems like there's some dishonesty there is it illegal well there are some good arguments to that effect and look established titles is not the only one out there there's a million of these different companies highlandtitles. com scotlandtitles. com all direct and Defenders have said it's only as much of a scam as the name of star Registries or nfts to which I say correct most of those are scams as well and the funny thing is on the internet everyone always screams class action lawsuit and class action lawsuit never makes sense in the context that people think it does but here if people were deceived that is exactly the kind of thing that actually would work as a class action except buried in the small print in the terms of service on establisheditles.