What is going on here? Anybody have a clue??
I haven’t any real idea what he’s on about (there was a mention of books right at the end).
What I do know is that if you operate a scam, you:
- use lots of distracting words and pictures
- appeal to people’s greed, not their business sense
- explain how rich it’s made you
- ask for money
And behold! All 4 factors are present. :rolleyes:
I suppose we could ask him why he needs any more money if he’s so rich already, but I’m not really interested.
I don’t play the lottery either.
My guess: become a house-sitter and run a spam operation.
If it looks like a big duck, walks like a big duck and quacks like a big duck, it must be a goose…
That is so blatantly a scam I’m surprised people still fall for it.
It’s the oldest scam in the book: “Send $29.95 for my Money Making Business Idea!” You send in your thirty bucks and what do you get? A sheaf of photocopied pages that tell you how to whip up a fancy website so you can sell copies of that same sheaf of photocopied pages for $29.95 a pop.
There’s lost of clues:
-No mention, not even nints, of what the business is.
-‘Make Money Fast’ is widely recognized as code for “scam”. 
-Somehow, I doubt a legit business would refer to themselves as “A Money Making Dynamo.”
-Bottom line: The page is nothing but come-ons touting how cool it is to live in other people’s homes, how wonderful their vague and undefined “business” is, a handful of photos of various fancy houses (many of which could have been taken while on tour groups, or just stolen form elsewhere on the 'net) and, of course, a way to buy their stuff.
Chances are, there’s a dozen newspapers out there which have that URL in an ad in the classifieds under the “Business Opprotunities” heading.
Sucker #1 sees the ad, checks out the site, focuses on the “living in rich people’s houses” part and thinks it makes no mention of the business itself because the idea is just that simple and wonderful they don’t want to give away any secrets, and dashes off his $30 check, or fills out the credit-card form (which is probably really bad news.)
Hey! It’s the second thread today from a low-post-count person asking about, and posting scams… I wonder if the IP addresses are the same?
I guess one of us is going to have to fork over $35 to find out.
::looks around the room::
Ain’t gonna be me.
It possibly does involve sales. Found this at the end:
I agree with the others. It’s got “SCAM” written all over it.
If it looks too good to be true. . .
This is the best part:
A $49.50 retail value… as if you can walk into K-Mart and purchase this amazing opportunity of a lifetime.
Wonko: Aren’t you funny. I’ll bet your mom is so proud. I didn’t realize that a high post count allowed members to be condescending.
Everyone else: I knew it had to be a scam, but I thought there might be more to it than selling the $34.95 info pack. I was hoping to hear from someone who might have actual experience with this sort of thing. Either way, I’ll keep my money.
Thanks for the sincere responses.
Would YOU like to know MORE about these so-called scams? Join the Skeptics Scam Fund Partnership! For a low, one-tiem investment of $9.95, Dr_Paprika Enterprises will pool together the collected money and subscribe to popular offers to determine if they are legitimate! Send your money today, don’t miss out on learning about exciting business opportunities while limiting your personal risk!
I’ll take two!
They are probably expecting to make a lot more money from the backend of the scam. After they get a lot of people drawn in with the $30 package, they can prospect their list of customers to sell much more expensive schemes.
I don’t even HAVE TO click on the link…if it’s too good to be true, it IS a scam. TRUST me, I’m psychic, and for a personal palm-reading, I’ll ask for only a small…
I was curious, so I looked. Scrolling down, admiring the various photos of alledeged house-squatting, I came across a picture of a stop sign emblazoned with the words STOP ORDER. I couldn’t select it fast enough! And I had yet to actually make an order!
It seems like an odd coincidence- that’s all. Almost Serlinesque, but he sticks to one bogus login at a time. Don’t take me too seriously. BTW- good insulting there.
A certain poster on these boards may take exception to this statement. :D:D
Another clue for the certainly-scam theory is the explanation why he wants to sell an idea he should keep secret if it really were that good: He wants revenge because he told some people about it, and now those people drove him out of business, so he’s going to smash them. Then, he could simply publish the entire idea without demanding any money for it, nope?
My personal guess is operators of websites like this don’t really think anyone pays them $30 to get a surefire way to get rich; people are simply curious, and although everybody knows it has to be scam, it’s still hard to resist ordering the book just to see what you’ll get. For some people, this might be worth $30, and if Dr_Paprika’s offer were serious, I’m sure some people would join that club.
Maybe I should launch http://www.scamtesters.com or something? Invest some hundred bucks for scams, then write about my experiences on the web…my pageview rates wouldn’t be too bad, I suppose.
I had that same idea this morning. It wouldn’t even cost much, since these scams frequently have money back guarantees. It would just be a matter of watching your credit card statements carefully and understanding the procedure for “disputing” charges.
By the way, I found the following blurb on a Finnish web site:
Scamtesters.com huh?
Kind of OT, but this guy did try the old Nigerian letter scam, and wrote a book about it:
http://www.brianwizard.com/work/nigerian_419.htm
Now, is the book about the scam, itself a scam? hmm…
These are our scammers “get out of jail free” cards. By placing weasel-words in the come-on, the greedy and the gullible have no one to blame, because they failed to make sales “everyday”, and besides, there was no guarantee. You got the packet, you failed to make it work, it must be your fault, not the scammer’s. Thus, the scammer walks free.