5 Retarded Get-Rich Quick Scams (People Still Fall For)
Want to get rich, but don't have the time or energy to start a business? Or get a job at one? Don't worry! In the era of the internet, any old dumbass can log on and make piles of cash with no effort or skill!
That or all of the following programs are complete bullshit.
#5.
Sell "The Greatest Vitamin in the World"
Don Lapre is that annoying hobbit-looking dude you might have seen a few years back trying to tell people they could get rich by placing classified ads, even if they didn't involve sexual services. This time he is back selling "The Greatest Vitamins in the World," because subtlety is another of Lapre's strengths.
The vitamins are supposedly the result of millions of dollars of testing and development and over 100 studies by the New England Journal of Medicine. Lapre claims the vitamins can help with diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Cancer! Holy shit!
Nothing some vitamins can't fix.
For $35 you get a chance to make millions because Lapre will sell you one of his websites so you, too, can sell the vitamins. Then if 20 people buy vitamins from that website, Lapre pays you $1,000 that month. This seems a lot less efficient than just having one website and selling the pills himself but, like others on this list, Lapre obviously has no more room in his house to store cash so now he wants to help you.
This is all explained in this video. It left us badly confused but what it lacks in clarity it makes up for in boobies.
Kapow!
What You Will Really Get:
A website no one will visit, that sells something the FDA has warned is being falsely advertised. You mean it won't cure cancer?!?!
But don't worry if you don't get any sales from your site (and you won't), because Lapre's company will sell you some marketing help, for just a few thousand dollars. Of course the problem may be there are thousands of these websites he has sold to other people competing with yours for a product no one wants and that doesn't work.
Yea, but...
Even when people manage to sell a few bottles of this junk, it turns out they still can't get paid by the company. This is probably because Lapre's math skills pretty much suck as he promised to pay people $1,000 each time they sold $900 worth of his product. Kids selling lemonade in front of their homes have a better business model than this.
Okay, yes, but, still...
It may have been Lapre's inability to count that caused him to file bankruptcy and get slapped by the IRS for failing to pay almost a million dollars in taxes. Or it could be it was because he is a con artist.
#4.
Free Money to Pay Your Bills
This is a book put together by Matthew Lesko, that annoying guy on late night infomercials who wears the suits with the question marks on them. In between fighting off trademark lawsuits from the Batman comics, he spends his time screaming at you about all this free money from the government that you are totally missing out on:
If you had a hard time understanding his wailing, Lesko is saying the government has $350 billion dollars sitting around in various programs that you--yes, you--can have if you just fill out some forms. The problem is, he claims, that the government is being its usual dick-ish self and keeps it a secret.
Fortunately, Lesko breaks this code of secrecy by revealing a list of 4,000 programs that will give you free money to pay your bills, just as his book title says (though we wonder if "Free Money to Pay for Lapdances and Nachos" would have sold more copies).
What You Will Really Get:
The good news is that you will get a book with lists of government programs that have money. The bad news is that you probably don't qualify for any of it despite the fact that the website says "Everyone who needs to Pay Bills Qualifies."
It turns out that the programs listed in the book fall into two categories: Obvious Stuff and Useless Crap. In the obvious category, it turns out that the majority of that money he was screaming about is stuff like unemployment insurance and food stamps which are about as secret as the Post Office.
In the useless category, the programs listed are so obscure that its unlikely anyone will find one they qualify for (most of it is given to other government agencies rather than individuals).
Sure, there are success stories like that dude who got 500 large to travel the world. You can get that, too, as long as you are a quantum physicist who got the award from the National Science Foundation. Otherwise, stay poor, asshole!
By the way, Lesko admits he just copied and pasted a book he ordered from the government and then sold it. Thanks to his minutes of hard work, now you, too, can spend $40 on a book of nearly useless information you could have Googled for free.
#3.
Quixtar
Quixtar is a way for you to have your own business without all those pesky business degrees and millions in start-up capital. The company claims that it's a $6.8 billion dollar business with three million "business owners" around the world. Hell, can three million people be wrong?
The process couldn't be simpler. They have a website where your customers log on and buy stuff, then you get a cut of the sales. Like a pimp but without the slapping and choking! And in case you need help with your business, professional consultants like this guy are there to help.
Ignore the home made sign, and the fact that "free" is in "quotes." According to some Quixtar representatives, you can make up to $250,000 a year working just 10-15 hours a week, which means you can finally hang up your squeegee and keep your sperm.
But you don't make the real money by just hawking their giant boxes of soap and vitamins. No, the real trick is to sponsor new people to join and start selling products. Then you can get a cut of all of their sales and the sales of the people they bring in. So you can finally sit back and reap the rewards of the hard work of others, in the manner of kings, or tapeworms.
What You Will Really Get:
If this sounds a bit familiar, it's because Quixtar is just Amway with a website.
As with all pyramid schemes, starting your own "business" involves bugging the shit out of people you know to buy products from Quixtar and/or to join up and sell themselves. Once you get good at being obnoxious you can then start harassing complete strangers.
"Hi, old people, a quick moment of your time, please."
Quixtar says they are a multi level marketing company and not a pyramid scheme, which is like saying "call girl" instead of "whore." If you think that's harsh, here's a legal expert comparing them to the mafia.
But at least the mafia makes money. The average monthly income from an active Quixtar "business owner" is only $115 a month. We don't need a beautiful mind to know that $115 a month is a whole lot less than $250,000 a year. If you only worked 10 hours a week on your business you are looking at a return of about $3 an hour, or less than half the Federal minimum wage. But that's OK, because you won't need money after you've driven away all of the friends who used to go out with you by pestering them with sales pitches.
I worked for a company called sunlife financial. It is a huge company in canada so i thought it was legit. They sell investments and insurance. So in order to do it you need certain licenses, which cost about $600 and a couple of months of studying to get. Then once you complete that, they tell you you're hired, but you HAVE to rent an office from them, pay for internet, buy a $2000 computer that is compatible with their software (one at similar power is $500 at best buy) and be part of their companies group insurance policy that is like $200 a month. So now I'm in for about $1000 a month in overhead expenses that I have to pay to sunlife. Then you get all these customers and clients that you know damn well aren't going to qualify due to their medical issues but your boss tells you to write em up anyways and if they get declined then you can deal with that later. Well the thing is they don't get declined for like 3 months. So you're thinking you're earning a decent pay check for the first three months, then they tell you that you owe them $5000 for policies that were declined and you look back and realize you were busting your hump for months to make what is the equivalent of $5 an hour. The only people that do well in that type of business (and there are some, dont get me wrong) are the ones who have a lot of business connections or rich friends that are willing to invest their lifes savings through you. Don't ever become a financial advisor unless you are one of the people that do have connections.
ReplyI am surprised that Cash Flow Notes (the one you see late night on so many cable channels, with Mr. Dalby) and Pre-Paid Legal are not on here. People that I knew in my military years tried to get me into the Pre-Paid Legal, and I attended one of their seminars. My BS meter went off when the speakers there said that you would earn a lot of money by going out there to sell. (Cool, I understand that success requires a s**t load of work; I am in school now, and reading almost 200 pages a week with essays/papers due every two week, realizing that the effort does pay off.) But, what got me was when the speakers said that you could earn more if you got others to get into the program; in effect, you earned commission on the sales produced by others you brought in. Now, I have worked at an automotive dealership, and commissions are not new. But, I looked just for S&G on the web a few months ago on any complaints and legal action on these guys; and, well the lawsuits came pouring out. (Even one of the speakers that night almost 9 years ago said that it was a pyramid scheme, but it was totally legal. Obiviously, not really.) As to the Cash Flow business, just look at the legal proceedings stemming from that program. Really, take a look. I had another guy in the military that participated in this one. Here is the thing, he didn't realize that these notes require you to buy from the party willing to sell, and when you do get them (via transfer of ownership), you are responsible for liabilites that come with them. He got a whole bunch of these "notes" from people, then could not find any willing buyers to transfer to them. He was in debt over his head (and this was 2005, before the crash a few years later.) I am an ardent captialist, and if it pays you money you take your chances. But, I love how the advertising states the program is certain to make you money. They show all these success stories with regular folks who earned hundreds of thousands, then state (in small letters) "Results not typical" (I was interested in my younger years, and signed up for a newsletter by the company that ran the program. All I ever got was calls inviting me to a seminar in the Southwest, which could really increase the returns I could be making, for a fee of $800 for a reserved spot at the event; also, as long as I paid my own airfare and lodging costs in the area where it was being held.) I guess the lesson learned from all this is two things: 1.) A fool is born every minute. (And, I was almost one in that category.) 2.) When you know better, life will be better in the long run. Hard work and passion in a business or other endevors pay off, just as long they are legal. (Easy money is rarely easy, and usually takes most of your money. A word of warning to all those out there who don't know...)
ReplyI almost got roped into one of these pyramid schemes by becoming a "Beachbody Coach". They try to get you to do the same thing; set up your own meetings and get people to sign up to be a "coach" to help sell Beachbody products. It's the same scheme, just with "jewels" as rankings. I genuinely like P90X and those type of fitness programs, but after seeing them stoop to this nonsense I sold my exercise DVDs and refuse to buy more from them. Up yours Tony Horton.
ReplyThe real truth about that lesko book is that yeah you don't qualify but most people won't say why (even cracked) Because you are white. I mean a person of caucasian/European (whichever you choose to be called)Origin. My brother got the book at the Library. He told me about all the great programs and how you could make money and get money. They were all aimed at non white people. No socialism for whitey in the USA.
ReplyHey, how about you just deal with it?
I'm an electrician and some Quixtar f$%ksticks scammed me into going to their house to do electrical work on the side. Once I was there with my tools and ladders they sat me down and tried to sell me some of their useless crap. I was there for four hours being browbeaten into buying some of their garbage. After the longest sales pitch ever I told them I didn't have any cash or credit cards I was finally allowed to leave.
ReplyAlso, my best friend's parents are Quixtar sellers. They're about to lose their damned house because they've poured all of their money into it for almost fifteen years rather than paying their mortgage. They seem to think it will one day start spewing money and save their lives, so they can eat ice cream and cake all day for the rest of their lives in Gumdrop Valley. They tried to sell it to me and I politely told them to screw off.
In all fairness, the ice cream & cake in Gumdrop Valley is f*****g amazing!
Someone tried to recruit me into Amway back when I was first out of college. Glad to this day I turned them down.
I guess I don't understand how the first question anyone would ever ask themselves, before going into anything at all that anyone was selling them, wouldn't be "If it's that f*****g amazing and easy to make money this way, why the hell wouldn't they just do it themselves and not be out here on some late night infomercial looking like a freaking hack?"
ReplyI mean, at least some of these operations cover it up by making some plausible story as to how they'll make out in the end adding at least a shred of credibility to the story, but some just jump right past that to "Give me money, cause there's no way the 40$ you pay for my book is going to be way less than you'll ever make from this information, right?!"
Plus, I feel like if any of this s**t got anyone rich, the first place you'd heard about it wouldn't be on a company's god damn commercial.
Otherwise, there'd be a hell of a lot more barbeques at mansions that went a little like:
New neighbors: "Oh, by the way, what do you guys do for a living?"
Current residents: "Actually I'm a surgeon and my wife here is a lawyer, how about you?"
N. N. : "Well, I used to be a penniless hobo, but then I called Quixtar. Now I'm rich, successful, have a hot wife who doesn't have to work, and live in a gigantic beautiful house. Haha!"
C.R.: Oh! Curse my having spent 8 years in college, working hard to spend money wisely and forcing my wife to work to pay for our mansion and only fairly lavish lifestyle! If only I'd called Quixtar instead!"
N.N.: Indeed.
C.R.: Indeed.
(I wish I could just write the inner monologues going on in my head down all day long...But that won't get me rich like calling Quixtar would! Call today!)
No, see, you CAN make money with these scams, you just gotta read between the lines. Instead of paying THEM for their bullshit, you just start up your own scam! See? See where this is going? You just watch them, see what they do, then you do that. Put a new cover on a physics book and tell people they can be scientists by paying you $90 for a high school text book. Yeah... *taps head* not just a hat rack, my friend.
ReplyDon Lapre just committed suicide the other day...
ReplySince he couldn't scam any more people on Earth he decided to scam others in the great beyond.
The Quixtar analogy would work, but as we all know, when they're dead, they're not call girls, they're just hookers.
ReplyAmazing show.
The worst is when you get a call from an old friend you knew in college and he asks if he can come over and catch up on old times. Then when he gets to your house, he says the dreaded words, "I have a business opportunity that you may be interested in."
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesThat happened to me once, but it worked out well in the end because he was extremely allergic to cats, and I did absolutely nothing to prevent my four cats from swarming all around him. He was out the door less than 10-minutes later.
My cousin, who I had almost no contact w/ tried something like that. After finding her on fb she never responded to me or any of our family. Then one day she sends out a mass e-mail about some business venture. Then she sends me a "personal" e-mail which was obviously some stock e-mail that she added my name to and some "personal info" that was also junk. And told me that me listening to her business venture would be a great way for us to catch up.
I almost got sucked in by them. Until they started asking me for a couple hundred dollars and nightly fees just to attend their asinine meetings where they had different people just repeat the layout of how to be an IBO (Independent Business Owner) and then have people discuss their weekly successes. Also, everyone seemed to go on with how they had "found Jesus" and stopped drinking or partying, and it just generally creeped me out.
This s**t almost happened to me. I posted on facebook asking my friends whether they knew of companies hiring in the area. An old friend i went to high school with messaged me saying Hey guy great to talk to you again! super! and all of the ridiculous yuppy jargon amway people spew from their despicable maws. I trusted him because he was constantly posting about being "born again" and wanting to help others. I asked him what the job was and he wouldn't tell me, he skated around the subject and told me to call his supervisor. When i called his supervisor i was answered with the same overly-positive sugar coated language the friend was so well versed in. I asked what the job would be, and he would not tell me just as my "friend" would not. he offered to meet at a panera to talk about it when i suddenly remembered: There is no free lunch. That was the end of that. I know tl;dr and such
#5 - Don Lapre was found dead in his prison cell this morning. Karma?
Replyheard it was a mixture of cancer and diabetes. maybe those pills actually were keeping him alive
The prison in Arizona says it was a suicide. Lapre was due in court in a couple of days to be tried for $52 million in fraud. Arizona uses privately-owned prisons that aren't accountable to anyone, so anything is possible, but in this case, suicide sounds probably right.
Anything with "multi level marketing" in it is a scam. Like the article said, but people still fall for it all the time. I know, I've been one of them.
ReplyHow can you mention Don LaPre without mentioning Kevin Trudeau? They go together like peanut butter and jelly, if peanut butter and jelly were dishonest, misleading and an asshat.
ReplyMan, I've seen the trudeau f**k quite a few times when I'm up in the middle of the night for whatever reason.
At first it was like "ok, this guy looks and sounds like a douche, but maybe he's really a crazy enough piece of s**t to believe that this "colon cleansing" or whatever will cure everything from aids to the common cold"
Then he started selling some bullshit vitamins I think it was, and I was like "Alright, this guy is just fishing for people who live in the mountains and haven't even heard of medical science let alone understand the limitations of some crappy vitamins sold by some random guy."
And last I saw him, he was selling the exact same bullshit thing with the houses, and how if you pay their back taxes or whatever you can get em' for a few hundred dollars! You just have to buy his book and he'll tell you how! At which point, I realized that somewhere his mother was wondering how she could have birthed such a pitiful, worthless f**k as any one of these people.
Funny enough, those scams I sometimes see them in foreing English-language channels, but never on French-language channels. Because my state has high standarts and anything borderline scammish quickly gets shut down without much fuss because our laws aren't broken...
I did the stupid Cutco thing the summmer after I left High school. Complete BS. I still have the 243 dollar set of knives I had to buy to "start".
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesHaha those people just called me today. Total scam.
I have a friend who made several thousand in between our senior and junior year of high school selling Cutco. For some people it works.
I had a friend who once made thousands of dollars selling heroin. For some people, it seems to work.
Not for him though, he's in prison.
Those asshats got me to come in to listen to their crappy little seminar about 13 years ago when I was still in college, but looking for a summer job, and once I knew it was a sales position, I pretty much got up and left. The presenter was calling after me with desperate sounding pleas of don't-leave-before-you've-heard-the-whole-thing-type entreaties. I kept walking, but I wasn't aware of the additional breathtakingly mendacious requirement of having to buy the damn thing in order to be able to sell it to other suckers, I mean customers. That alone would have made me get up and leave if I hadn't previously. Multi-level marketing is a scam, every one I've ever seen or come across is a scam in one way or another. The worst ones are Ponzis, the best are just barely legal.
There are hundreds of pages of people explaining the same story of how they were scammed by Cutco. Many say Cutco holds speeches on campus grounds and such. How can this be tolerated?
Amway is not "get rich quick," it's for people who are willing to put in the time and effort to improve their lives and themselves. the reason the average income is so low is because most people who choice are too lazy to get off their couches and go out and work on their business. i loved cracked, but you all should do some research. because of that "pyramid scheme," my parents are able to put me through college. It took several years of hard work for our friends who have made it to the million dollar paychecks to go from driving taxis in the Dominican Republic to driving a Mercedes down South Beach. Those people that don't have the guts to make things happen for themselves always blame the company and call it a scam, and everyone else believes them. They can all go suck a giant c**k and choke on it for all I care, and quit criticizing things you clearly don't know about.
Reply Hide All See All 13 RepliesSure, you can make money if you are unscrupulous enough to make money off the backs of those people "too lazy to get off the couch." How much of the successful Amwayer's revenue comes out of the pockets of the downline members that don't themselves make a profit? The vast majority, that's how much. So you can make money, if you don't mind being an immoral asshole.
Seriously, man, stop drinking the Kool-Aid.
Dude, seriously, stop drinking the Kool-Aid.
if you would do your research you would know that the percentage of the downline's sales that you would make aren't taken away FROM them, they are just calculated and added to your paycheck from the corporation's profits. the downline keeps all of their revenue, as do you. none of you profits ever go to your upline. a certain percentage of your sales are calculated and the corporation will use the number and add that to your upline's check from their own funds
I like Amway's products. It's nice as a business on the side, and I know a couple of people who have hit those gem-levels (not diamond, of course.)
Yeah, Amway's OK. And legit.
Like any other business, only those willing to go the extra mile and work harder than other people will make it to the top. The others? Nowhere near the top. Obviously.
Unfortunately, every con man/woman will weasel and use the phrase "anybody willing to work hard with this program will succeed", and the actually lazy will say it's just a scam to make money off the backs of "victims".
There are cons out there, but Amway's OK.
Source: I buy some stuff from Amway. Not a lot, but the products and price are OK.
Sure, you can make money with multi-level marketing, but it usually means turning your friends and relatives into sales prospects. Congrats if your family was able to do it, but it's usually a way to get the important people in your life to avoid you like the plague. For most people, it's inappropriate.
Tell me what zip code you live in because I'm avoiding you like the plague. These amway get-rich-quick schemes and tupper ware parties and Mary Kay garbage is just a way to get people like you to pressure-sell to your friends and relatives. Don't worry, I'm sure your family has neither these days. Most people who buy from you just want you to go away.
Let me explain something. All that you said there? Meaningless justification for your failure.
You know how to get rich quick? I do. Start up a pyramid scheme, make everyone think its the bees knees (Yes I just said that,) and funnel money in from your indentured servants, while using a minority of successful events to hide the fact that youre lying to the majority.
Its called a ponzi scheme.
Oh, Brad2325: He's not drinking the koolaid, silly. He's trying to trick people into drinking it. No one vigorously defends their pyramid schemes unless they stand to profit from doing so.
They wouldnt be scam artists if they werent good at it. I dont trust anyone so its easy for me. Once you notice that everything people do is to advance a personal agenda (even if they dont realise it) you'll see theres no good reason to count on anyone.
Kool-Aid was invented in my hometown by a man named Edwin Perkins, and his wife who was a friend of my grandmother.
I'm ok with people wanting to involve themselves in multi-level marketing (just don't try to drag me into it), but there is some serious rah-rah bullshit brainwashing going on at the get-togethers. My problem is that the message is "money, money, money". There's more to life than that. I'm glad that you're respectful and aware of the fact that your parents are paying for your college, BTW. I attended one of the regional hotel meetings once - I was curious but not really interested - and felt like I was in a baptist tent revival service. It was pretty creepy. At the end, the people around seemed confused that I wasn't as psyched as they were. However, I've had my brain washed by the best - the US Military - who, btw, are paying for MY college, right now.
@Stentor - cool story, bro.
Love how the inevitable c**k knobblers come out to defend Amway.
So it's successful, just work hard right? Is that why .02% of sellers make a living on it?
Or that Devos and Van Andel (founders) make their money, not off products, but inspirational B.S tapes, CD's and books?
Or that Amway got b***h slapped by Canada customs for 25 million in fines for their B.S?
Or that it has been likened to a cult by many psychiatrists?
Amway. The punchline to a joke that nobody ever wanted told.
Exactly what others here have said re: turning your friends and relatives into hard-sell prospects. My ex's family was involved with Amway, and every time I was coming over for dinner or whatever they would lay out an assortment of products tailored to me on the table and I would have to look at them before dinner. Every time it was the same damn thing:
"No, I have a face wash I like, thanks."
"What do you like about it? This is at least as good."
"Possibly. But I like mine."
"You haven't given me a reason why you won't try this one."
"Because I don't need to try your stupid products; they only exist as something that you can try to make me hand you money for. Honey, I'm walking to a bar. You can pick me up when you're done with dinner with your lovely family."
Matthew Lesko is the Riddler's crazy uncle, so that pretty much answers for the Riddler's... unique, personality.
ReplyVector marketing should have been mentioned.
ReplyHere's a sure-fire way to become filthy rich: write bulls**t books for gullible people. I'm not kidding. Try to find at least one self-help book that isn't a best seller. Scam books are a neat option too.
ReplyThe funny thing about the “multi-level marketing” euphemism is that now pyramid schemers are even shying away from that, and using a multitude of other euphemisms for MLM. It’s a euphemism treadmill that will probably never end.
ReplyBTW, I LOLed at “So all in all, feeding $4000 to a goat would be a better investment.”
Right, it went from "multi level marketing" to "network marketing" and last I heard I think it was "multi-layered network". They all fail. Well, except Amway, but let me know if you find someone who got rich in Amway. I'll be waiting.
Oh the irony of an ad for "Collect 59 Divdened Checks A Month" in an article about scams.
ReplyIrony: "A statement that, when taken in context, may actually mean something different from, or the opposite of what is written literally; the use of words expressing something other than their literal intention, notably as a form of humor."
Know whats neat? Your statement is a sterling example of "Socratic Irony": Ignorance feigned for the purpose of confounding or provoking an antagonist."
You know damn well how google ad words work. Everyone does. Its why you see ads for the Mormon Church when looking up deities in the Elder Scrolls games.
give it a rest, he used irony wrong, oh well