The story begins: "Friend," the sales letter began, "let me show you how you can make an extra $25,000 a year. I am doing it this year -- and you can do it, too. For detailed information, just send me $25." One of the letters went to George Dimwitty. George was excited about the possibility of making money. So he mailed his $25. In a few days he got the following instructions: "To make extra money just as I did, you first get a mailing list of suckers who want to make extra money. Then you write them 'Friend, let me show you how you can make an extra $25,000 a year. I am doing it this year -- and you can do it, too. For detailed information, just send me $25.' " - Source: Business Communication 5th Edition, Raymond Lesikar Good luck to all the fans of [names withheld]. You know who they are.
You would be surprised at the number of people jumping at promises of quick wealth and short-cuts to whatever goal, they want to achieve. Just look at this forum and see the number of intererested replies that even most obvious scam artists get..
I believe there are dishonest people in every industry. It's funny how badly these people always end up. I sometime think there is an universal justice.
I was once told of a method where some guy put an ad in the newspaper that read: “I will show you how to cut your bills in half. Just send in $25 dollars.†(or something a little more catchy) Anyhow it turns out he would send the person back a .50 cent pair of scissors. Lame.
this is very old....way back before the internet, there were a lot of "business opportunity" magazines. There are still a few, but not like back in the late 80s and early 90s often there was an ad that said Get 1000 People to send you $2! FREE INFO just send $2 shipping & handling and a SASE to: (address) when you did this, you would get a camera ready copy of the display ad, and a list of places to advertise like your local newspaper and a few national publications. Without fail, this was in EVERY publication, every month. *for those who don't know "SASE" is a "self-addressed, stamped envelope" and was common for classified ads to put, in otherwords, you paid for the postage and did the work of addressing an envelope, all they did was stuff the info into it.
Hey, if it's (free) email i'm sure it's been done a lot. There are a lot of desperate, lazy people out there hurting for money, especially with the economy the way it is . So....where do I send my $25 ??
I don't think I've spent that much money on products created by dishonest marketers, but I've picked up a few where the marketer just didn't know what he was talking about.