Operation Bob

There are a lot of folks on the internet and TV making money promising to teach you how to make money.  See the problem there?  If someone wants to sell you a ‘program’ or ‘course’ to teach you how to make money the best thing you can do is change the channel or get off their website.  I’m sure some of these programs may be legitimate in that you might come out of them having learned a few tricks.  But, if they worked like they were advertised, wouldn’t everyone be a millionaire?

Another clue is any scheme that tells you about all the money you’re going to make and gets you excited about living the ‘good life’ but doesn’t bother to tell you how you’re going to make the money… just send in your $39.95 and you’ll get that info.  Did you ever go to a job interview and have the HR guy tell you about all the money you would make, the fancy cars, the vacations you’d be taking, and yet not tell you anything about the work you’d be doing or what their company does?  Yeah, me either.  But if that did happen I don’t think I’d be quick to take the job.  Yet every year, billions of dollars are spent on this kind of garbage - don’t be fooled.

How about the schemes that all but tell you that you don’t really need to do anything but recruit others?  And then they just recruit others, and so on and we’ll all make money.  Yeah, the ones at the top will make some cash, but the great mass at the bottom of the food chain won’t, unless they replace themsevles by recruiting.  If the focus of a business endeavor is solely on recruiting others - avoid it.  Now, there’s nothing wrong with affiliate programs or offering people compensation to promote your product.  But, a program that focuses primarily on recruiting and not so much on their product or service is a real red flag.  Worse yet are the programs that require thier participants to buy a certain amount of product every month and get referrals who have to buy so much every month…. well you see where this is going.

 Bottom line, the first step in discerning between a legitimate way to make some money and a scam is common sense.  If it sounds like magic or to good to be true, keep looking.