How To Analyze A Rip-Off Scheme

This review is taken DIRECTLY from a piece of "junk mail." It is or the program that starts out with the heading: "Before You Decide To Throw This Away, Please Read The Enclosed At Least Once - Then Decide. This is Not a Chain Letter! I Threw The Program in The Trash."

The first paragraph reads: "I had received this program before and threw it away, but later I wondered if I shouldn't have given it a try. Of course, I had no idea who to contact to get a copy, so I had to wait until I was mailed another copy of the program - eleven months passed, then it came. I DIDN'T throw this one away. I made $41,000 on the first try!!" Signed by D. Wilburn, Muncie IN.

In order to get your attention quick, Mr. or Ms Wilburn shares their experience of making the mistake of throwing the letter away. A normal person will say to themselves: "I don't want to make the same mistake Wilburn did. He had to wait another 11 months before he had the chance, so I better really read this thing." But in reality you'll find out that this piece of garbage has been floating around for years and if you miss this copy, you'll get another one tomorrow or the day after.

The next thing you see is a bold headline reading: "You are about to make at least $50,000 in less than 90 days - in the comfort of your own home. Read the enclosed program, then read it again." The average person is skeptical but the idea of money has been planted in your mind right up front. This will cause you to read a little while longer.

The rest of the page is completely filled with hype - informing you everything is LEGITIMATE and LEGAL. (We all want to be legitimate and legal don't we?) Claims are made that the program works 100% every time and how thousands have used the program to raise capital to start their own business, pay off debts, homes, cars, etc., and even retire. You can ALWAYS recognize a scam because your emotions are appealed to in a big way. Think about it - doesn't everyone on the planet earth want money to start a business? Pay off debts? Have homes, cars, etc.? Would anyone turn this offer away? NO! That's what makes it so easy to recognize these scams - they appeal to everybody and do nothing! Your emotions are cruelly played with!

Okay, let's move on. Frank T of Bel Air MD relates his personal testimonial at the top of Page 2. Try to look in the phone book and find either D Wilburn or Frank T. Notice how only a partial part of their names and addresses are ALWAYS presented. This is so nobody can find them. But why bother? They don't exist!

The instructions are presented on the rest of Page 2. They consist of precise directions for ordering four reports, paying $5 cash for each one and moving the names around on the list. This is a typical chain letter and they don't work because 99.9% of everyone receiving it replaces their name and members of their family with the people listed.

These instructions are completely stupid. They make you go through a bunch of bull just to make you believe you are doing something worthwhile. Actually - all they're doing is selling you some worthless reports - which you may or may not ever receive.

Page 3 instructs you to get a mailing list to mail the letter you are reading to. Of course, when you order the reports, you will get information on where to purchase this mailing list. Don't you see that these people only care about selling you a mailing list? They could care less if you get a response or not because they made their money from you purchasing their bunch of worthless names and addresses. In fact, you are even told to get names and addresses from your phone book. Come on! This is the ABSOLUTE WORST way to sell anything simply because you have no idea what these people are interested in. Even if you sold a real product, let's say: baby-sitting services - you wouldn't sit down and advertise it by writing letters to everyone in the phone book. Instead, you'd place an ad in the paper and have people only interested in baby-sitting contact you.

Now comes the guarantee. It says: "The check point which guarantees your success is simply this: you must receive 15-20 orders for Report 1. This is a must. If you don't within 2 weeks, send out more programs until you do. Then, a couple weeks later, you should receive at least 100 orders for Report 2." Notice the word "should." The fact is, you could mail until the day the Lord comes back and you'll NEVER get 15-20 orders. You'd be lucky to get even one. Believe me - 1,000's of people have put the chain letter theory to a variety of tests and actually given it every chance in the world to make money. None have ever worked.

Now, here's the hype that really gets most people. Here it is reprinted in it's entirety: "Let's say you decide to start small, just to see how it goes, and we will assume you and all those involved send out only 200 programs each. Let's also assume that the mailing receives a 5% response. Using a good list, the response could be much better. Also, many people will send out thousands of programs instead of 200! But, continuing with this example, you send out 200 programs. With a 5% response, that is, 10 orders for Report 1 (ten people responded by sending out 200 programs each) for a total of 2,000. The 5% response that brings 100 orders for report 2. Those mail out 200 programs for a total of 20,000. The 5% response to those is 1,000 orders for Report 3. The 1,000 send out 200,000 total and the 5% response to that is 10,000 orders for Report 4 (10,000 $5 for you.) Your total income in this example is $50 + $550 + $5,000 + $50,000 + $55,550. Remember friend, this is assuming that 95 out of 100 people you mail to will do absolutely nothing and trash this program. Dare to think what would happen if everyone sent out 1,000 programs instead of only 200. Believe it, many people will do that and more. By the way, at current prices, your cost to send out 200 programs is less than $100. The participation fee is ridiculously low when you consider what you stand to gain! Consider yourself fortunate to be invited to participate in an exclusive program that really works. Have faith. Think positively, Keep in mind that your investment is minimal and it's easy money invested in you."

Give me a break! What a bunch of lies. Anybody that reads this and really believes it can work must also believe that Snow White really lives in the forest with the 7 dwarfs.

The truth of the matter is that it really would work if everyone did what they were supposed to do - but they won't. I'll prove it. Go to a place where there are a lot of people (like a mall). Walk up to the first person you meet and ask them to give you a $5 bill. In return for their $5, they will get $50,000 if they will just find 10,000 other people to give them $5 by promising them the same thing. How many people do you think will take you up on your offer? If you do find one person to do it they will either be mentally retarded or hard of hearing. So if you couldn't work the program in person, what makes you think it will work through the mail with people who have no idea who you are? The truth is - it doesn't work. It NEVER will!

Page 4 tells you all about these four wonderful reports you will be purchasing. Their titles are beautiful: "How to Make $250,000 Through Multi-Level Order Sales" and "Sources For The Best Mailing Lists." I'm sure we all can't wait to order them right away.

Page 5 is a personal note from the originator of the program - Edward L. Green. He doesn't have a city and state beside his name. Why? Because his full name is used. (Remember, they don't want you to try and find these people.) A real testimonial would be proud to give you the full name, full address and phone number of the individual so you could get in touch with them to find out more about the program. Anyone hiding so that you can't call them up or write to them directly is a scam artist. No doubt about it!

Edward L Green tells you about how poor he was in 1979. He also says that he will never see a penny of your money. He has already made $4 million and wants to retire. Give me a break. If you made $4 million wouldn't you want $5 million or $10 million or $20 million. Why stop at a measly $4 million when you could star on the Lifestyles of The Rich and Famous and be interviewed by Robin Leach? $4 million is chicken feed if something really worked to bring in this amount of money!

Amazingly though, on Page 6, Johnson Distributing gives a real name and address. But try to get a phone number on them with an address of "PO Box 7, SAFB IL 42225-0007." It doesn't exist!

Page 7 and 8 contain letters from Chris Johnson, Paul Johnson, A. Zurki, Carl Winslow, A.S. Jalosyk, Bill Nelson, J.T. Adams, Charles Fairchild, Tommy Jayhet and Mary Rockland. They all tell you some hard luck story about how this program changed their life. Again - try to contact them. If you live in Waco TX, try and find Tommy Jayhet and see what he has to say about all this.

Do you get the picture yet? Almost all scams follow this same general theme. Don't get taken!

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Julia Tang publishes Smart Online Business Tips, a fresh
and informative newsletter dedicated to supporting people
like you! To find out the best online business opportunities,
and to discover hundreds more proven and practical internet
marketing secrets, plus FREE internet marketing products
worth over $200, visit: http://www.best-internet-businesses.com
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