Get-Rich-Quick Scams (with affiliate marketing, affiliate advertising, secret loopholes, sending emails, creating mailing lists, and using EBay - all using so called underground secret techniques or groundbreaking guaranteed "proven" methods.)
Our site has a no nonsense approach to get-rich-quick scams. Many believe such scams are legitimate because they actually sell an end product. However there are so many deceptive marketing practises used in such schemes to make them unethical and immoral, and we list them on our site.If you have searched and found a website or promoter on this site and it has directed you to this page with little or no other information, then it falls within the scope of this article.
This article pertains to get rich quick schemes that claim you can get rich with affiliate marketing and advertising, secret loopholes, underground techniques, sending emails or creating mailing lists or other similar techniques. The schemes will all share one thing in common – they will all claim you will be able to make unrealistic amounts of money in unrealistic time frames.
This article does not cover -
Cash Gifting Schemes - join by paying a cash gift and get others to send you their gifts. Read here.
Ponzi Schemes - pay an investment and then get paid for recruiting others. Read here.
Fake Job Scams - where scammers will advertise actual jobs to try and scam you. Read here.
Again, this article covers schemes that claim you can get rich with marketing, advertising, sending emails, exploiting loopholes, selling items on EBay, or creating mailing lists, using so called underground secret techniques or groundbreaking guaranteed "proven" methods.
We’ve all seen the claims – TOP SECRET marketing tips that WILL make you RICH. So easy even a caveman could follow. Available to you for the LOWEST EVER price! Limited offer only, sign up now!
It is the usual drivel get rich quick schemes send out to the general public everyday. Can these schemes actually turn your average Joe into an Internet success in a matter or days or weeks? First off, lets take a quick look at one offer that says it can…. We stumbled on this scheme through Google Adsense actually, which is generally a legitimate way of advertising so maybe it could be worth a look?
We were taken to the website where the very first statement seemed rather dubious.
“I Made 77 Million dollars in 2 years. And you can too!” – by Vincent James.
Also displayed on the site was an alarming statement “Only 37 copes left!” accompanied with a ticking clock going backwards from 4 minutes where presumably the offer would end? Out of curiosity we let the clock reach zero, pressed F5 to refresh the page, and voila! The 4 minute “countdown” restarted, and began ticking down from 4 minutes once again….Was this really a limited offer? No actually…3 weeks elapsed before we revisited the site, and still there were only 37 copies left!
Undeterred, we carried on and entered in an email address. We were taken to a page that claimed this Vincent James chap earned more money than the CEOs of Microsoft, Yahoo, Nike, Apple, General Motors, Time Warner, McDonalds, eBay and Ford - combined!
Combined?! The rough salary for a CEO of a popular company like Microsoft (CEO is Steve Ballmer) is close to a million dollars with bonuses, so that’s a LOT of money. So this guy Vincent James must be pretty well known for all his riches – so we promptly did an Internet search that strangely only turns up information on this offer. Vincent James, who purportedly makes more money that all the CEO’s combined – who made his fortune on the Internet – is also unknown on the Internet. This makes no sense? His book (the best selling book) also turns up zero results on the Internet, other than the sites promoting this exact offer. How odd?
When we entered our email we were took to a “sneak preview” video of how this man (who know one has heard of) wrote this best selling book (that no one has heard of) and made 77 million dollars in 24 months. The video was long, tedious, and by a chap called Fabricio Cruz, who also makes more money that the pre-mentioned CEOs! The video was just a long promotional video explaining why you couldn’t live without this exciting promotional offer. Limited time only, of course.
So what is this product that everyone apparently needs so bad? We talked to some people who purchased the product, and for those that received it, it was only basic marketing material that could be found anywhere on the Internet. It was tips on affiliate marketing (selling other peoples stuff and getting commissions) but as for the “secret tips”? There were none. No short easy route to success, just information on marketing that anyone could pick up anywhere and is absolutely no guarantee to riches. After all the hype, what a let down!
These scams prey on the desperate and the naïve. They offer financial freedom in a time of financial worry. They employ every trick in the book to get you to buy their product as soon as possible, before you have time to think about it, or speak to anyone about it. The names we mentioned will all be different in the near future, as will the websites they use, but the scams use similar tricks to get people to sign up, we’ll list them here, to help you spot them in the future –
• Limited special offer? They will typically say there “deal” to make you a millionaire is only on offer for a limited time. This is to make sure people sign up as soon as they visit, so they don’t get a chance to speak to others, like spouses, who may talk the victim out of doing it.
• Limited Copies available Same as the above, just to get the victim to sign up without thinking about it too much.
• Don’t close the window Threats that if you close the window you’ll never get a chance to repeat the offer. Again this is so people don’t leave to contemplate the offer, rather sign up straight away.
• PopUp Offers Users will often see pop up offers when they try and navigate away from the site. They are pretty annoying because they have to be closed before the user can leave the site. They will tend to offer even better discounts.
• Loud Colourful Fonts Loud vibrant fonts and words tend to put the reader off guard. Scammers think they are visually appealing, but we think they look awfully tacky.
• Success Stories Past scams were not successful enough because they were criticised for not having names or faces to relate to. New scams overcome this by force feeding you “success stories” equipped with fake names. The saying “We were once like you…” theme is quite popular with these fake stories. The “Posting Links on Google” scams are terrible for this!
• Recipe for success? They all offer a certain secret recipe for success, offering silly amount of money with immediate results.
• Screenshots of earnings. Scammers like this always feel the need to post screenshots of their earnings on their websites to "prove" the legitimacy. Problem is screenshots can be easily faked and don't necassarily prove how the scammer made that money. For example the screenshot may not have been a direct result of the "course" they are selling, but from the amount of people they are suckering in by buying a useless get rich quick program!
• Up-sell Costs Especially popular in the get rich quick schemes that are free or cheap to join. The initial sign up of the victim is called a front-end sale. The people who run these schemes make little or no profit on these sign ups. However, once the victim does sign up, they are given essentially useless information that is actually promotional material (like free reports and free videos) - the victim is then pressured into upgrading, with higher costs. The information they then receive is not that much helpful. This second upgraded sale is known as a back-end sale or an up-sell. This tactic has become increasingly popular, and you can read more about it here.
• Regurgitated Sales Drivel Most of these common get-rich-quick schemes use mostly the same sales drivel in their websites. Try picking a paragraph and Googling it, and seeing how many other get-rich-quick websites use that exact paragraph whilst selling their own one in a million miracle system or program.
• The Future Schemes like these will paint you a picture of what your future could be like if you sign up. Stories of how the scammer doesn’t have to worry about bills or money etc. ever again are popular, as are “stories” about the scammers latest holiday in the Bahamas etc..
As you can see there are no shortage of red flags associated with such get-rich-quick schemes, and one question which you should ask at this point is if the operator of such a site is claiming to be so successful from using their secret program/system or underground techniques (or however else they describe it) then why are they so determined to share it with other people, to the point where they are willing to use immoral and deceptive pressuring tactics to sell it? It makes no sense. Hypothetically, if you discovered a system that not many people knew about that was able to make you financially trouble free, would you share it with as many people as possible, to the point where you would be willing to trick people into buying your system? You wouldn't. In fact you probably wouldn't share it with anyone you didn't know, let alone trick strangers into buying it.
To summarise….
Get-Rich-Quick schemes and their respective promoters are there to do one thing – to get you to sign up and sign up fast. The only motivation they will use is the promise of financial freedom, which they will use to blind you of the reality. The lure of big houses, fast cars and providing for your family all being available on “the other side” is just bait to get victims to want to believe them.
The Internet has rightly evolved in such a way that, for most people to make significant money online, you need to be able to provide something truly useful. This means people without a product in demand or without a special skill set are unlikely to make lots of money through the Internet. If it were true that there were programs out there that could easily and effortlessly turn the average Joe into an overnight success then everybody would do it.
There are no secret tips to get rich quick. There are no hush-hush tricks that only certain people “in the know” are aware of. There is only information that can point you in the right direction, and this information is, in the most part, freely available on the Internet. For more advanced information, buy a credible book on the subject. Credible books won’t give you false hope with unrealistic goals, which often causes the downfall of many potential Internet marketers.
If you want to make money online, be prepared to work hard, be determined and don’t give up. The Internet is not a shortcut anymore and anyone looking to make lots of money without putting in the work will be disappointed. Despite what these get-rich-quick scams tell you, becoming extremely successful online is very hard and most people simply won’t be able to accomplish it.
If you would like to comment on this article, please feel free to contact us.
Additionally, for further reading, read our article Tips to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing and Why Get-Rich-Quick Scams Don’t Work.
Also you can read out Get-Rich-Quick FAQ for furthur information, or take a look at out get-rich-quick scheme parody which may contain some red flags you may be familiar with!
| laszlo Says: |
| You are Great!
I just saved $100 reading your article in two minutes.
Thanks
Regards Laszlo |
| 11/10/09 |
| Ivan Says: |
| Hi.
From what I read on their sales pith the \"trial\" is $1,95 and then, in after 15 days...
There is another extra charge of $38 ??? What for??? (or $98 didn´t got that info right)
Please someone enlight us! |
| 03/02/10 |
| ThatsNonsense.com Says: |
| @Ivan - get-rich-quick scams will bait people with small handling charges and then hit them with larger fees if they dont cancel - fees you have little hope of getting back with the near-useless rehashed information many of the schemes sell. The best advice is to simply not sign up. |
| 03/02/10 |
| imcolourblind Says: |
| Nice! You just saved me a lot of money, but still.. I wouldn't have signed up anyways ;) |
| 03/14/10 |
| John says Says: |
| yep thanks to other sources like yourself that does the research, internet browsers like me can stay informed of how to avoid get poor quick schemes from buying into scammers websites |
| 03/30/10 |
| Paulus Says: |
| Has anyone ever heard of Laz Lawn and Forex Signal Mentor? |
| 04/21/10 |
| ThatsNonsense.com Says: |
| paulus - in the keyword section of this site search for the word Forex and read the article about online forex scams. |
| 04/21/10 |
| furfish Says: |
| Hi Guz, so is there any site that show us the hard way step by step on how to do internet marketing? I\'m not trying to get rich quick, just little extra $$ during my free time or the time in front of the screen playing my games. Thanks in advance, Cheers |
| 05/11/10 |
| Kenny Says: |
| I want to Thank you!
You have saved me $300.
We need more people like you. |
| 05/18/10 |
| Antoni Gear Says: |
| Thanks for your site. You reassured me about my rejection of the offer(?)of becoming an Online Auction Listing Agent C/O Elizabeth Jackson. I suspected it was just not right, & searched scam sites on the web. As anticipated, this scam under her name was listed in sufficient detail to convince me to never become involved with it. Thank you, A. Gear |
| 05/23/10 |
| ThatsNonsense.com Says: |
| @Antoni & Kenny - thanks for the positive feedback. You are correct that Elizabeth Jackson of workathomepositionplacement.org is indeed an auction listing agent scam. |
| 05/23/10 |
| Mike Says: |
| It\'s nice to see someone out there for legitimate reference. I am always looking to earn money and learn by \"doing it\" at home and online.
What I do after receiving an invite from a online biz, I go straight to see what reviews it has. Even though they may be legit, I turn away even with one negative review.
Yes. It may not have been the fault of the Site, but generally I would believe someone that has lost his money.
Oh. I do read the \"Terms and Conditions\" next to the $1.00 introductory period.
Alas, we all have to work to get something back: \"ain\'t no free lunch.\"
|
| 05/29/10 |
| Dave Says: |
| I purchased both the cash code and the affiate code and my conclusion is this, it does provide a little information most of which is free online but as for making money, I have followed every single step of both programs and not only have not seen one sale but zero increase on traffic. I personally will never trush Michael Jones again. He completely over promises and under delivers, translation: SCAM ARTIST beware of this man, he\'s the one making the money selling everyone else pipe dreams. Maybe thats why he doesn\'t live in the US. |
| 07/20/10 |
