One time I got this great idea - I would answer one of those ads in the back of magazines, then simply copy their business and make money myself.
I picked an ad that “Guarantees to add 50 points to your bowling average in 30 days.” for $5.95. Money-back guaranteed.
What did I get? A single pamphlet “How to Bowl”, aimed at absolute beginners. It’s about 8 pages total and appeared to be published for free distribution by some bowling ball company. The kind of pamphlet that sits free on the counter by the shoe rental.
Obviously I couldn’t duplicate their plan because it was a complete fraud.
I asked for my money back and got no answer, as the PObox was closed. I supposed I could have complained to the magazine, but for that amount of money (plus the guilt I had over wanting to copy them) I just took my lumps.
I once, er, wait, uh… This guy I knew once bought a bottle of that pheremone stuff from a nudie magazine. You know, that stuff that turns you into an instant stud because the ladies find bug juice to be irresistable? I, er, my friend was a little disappointed with the results. I, um, he, was not much of a critical thinker back in those days.
I got as far as calling the number on one of those “get paid to read books” ads, but it quickly became clear that they were just going to try to sell me something.
One time I answered an ad for a free pamphlet on “The Dangers Of Digital”.
The guy appeared at first to be crackpot who thought digital music would give you epilepsy and you should insist on analog music.
But when you actuall read the tract, buried in it were appeals to “support the research”. This secondary way of proceding gave him the advantage of not lying in print and having to face postal officials. Since I assume the research was all imaginary, I now see the whole thing as a scam to reach gullible people with spare money for odd causes. I have often wondered if he ever found a big donor.
The x-ray glasses were just silly, but did “work”.
They consisted of carboard glasses with a spiral pattern on the outside for fun and a single small hole in the center of each cardboard “lens”.
When you looked through them at your hand, the image was simply blurred. What this means is that the edges of your hand appeared out of focus, and the centerline of each finger was a different darkness, just because it was in the center of the blur. The effect was indeed like you were seeing “bones” but they were just the side-effects of double vision.
When I hatched my first Sea Monkeys I sent in $1.00 for a “Micro Sea-Vac”, described as a "miniature vacuum cleaner specifically for cleaning debris from the bottom of the MicroVue Ocean Zoo. I was so disappointed when I finally got the envelope from Tran-Science (the bastards) and it was an eyedropper.