Listening on the radio, there are often these hour long infomercial spots.
They will have titles such as
Investing in Real Estate
Retirement radio
Women and money
Money matters
Real Estate weekly
New America funding
The pitch will be similar. They will start off with mentioning a few current events. Then refer as to how they predicted something in the past (Real estate bubble, technology stock boom and bust) and if you had listened to them, you would be a lot richer
They talk about how life would be so much better if you followed their previous advice.
They will refer to a website or a phone number where you can call in for an appointment in one of their offices,
Then once in their office, it will be high pressure sales for a life insurance policy, some mutual fund, some alternate investment, real estate trust, or an invite to a hotel conference where they give you a presentation on investing in real estate (and for a fee they can give you a link to the mls or realtor.com listings which can easily be found with a search.
Quite a few of these people are not licensed (and call themselves “financial planners” as opposed to a “financial adviser” who has to be licensed.
Although entertaining and they do bring up some valid points, I often wonder how they can live with themselves when some of the stuff they are promoting is little more than a ad for what financial product thy are trying to sell
Some of them seem a little shady but they do have the gift of making it seem like a great opportunity.
Some people believe that a fool and his money should be parted with all due speed. Nature-red in tooth and claw. Survival of the fittest. The weak exist to be preyed upon by the strong. And so on.
There are three typical justifications for immoral acts:
“Everyone’s doing it”. If enough people ignore red traffic lights then after a while you won’t feel you’re doing anything wrong by doing the same. If you are in contact with others who do scams, you won’t care so much about being a scammer.
See the recent video of two televangelists discussing how they really need a private jet (paid for by donations) just to remain sane. Scammers can validate each other like this.
“No harm done”: In this case, convince yourself that the scammed people can probably afford it.
“I don’t care” i.e. I accept it’s immoral and you’re a bad person, and feel no guilt.
Most humans can only kid themselves about this to an extent though, and will feel some guilt at some point. For scammers they may need to distance themselves from the scammed, so they don’t actually see the fallout.
Some of them have been on the radio for years and years so if anything presented was totally a scam, they would not be allowed to continue for that long.
However, some of them do seem a little shady although pretty well every one of them says at some point that it is for “entertainment purposes only” and it may not apply to all cases.
I do think that they think that they really are trying to help others (but in a lot of circumstances, they will benefit first)
However, I couldn’t do it and be totally sincere about it.
I’m quite certain that some of those people are 100% sincere and well-meaning.
The problem is that they think they’ve discovered the best hammer in the world, and they set off with great zeal to convince everybody else of that fact.
And miraculously, every single problem they encounter from then on is a nail.
Most people are masters at believing their own bullshit. They really have convinced themselves that they are the most altruistic people in the world who are helping the poor and unfortunate. Lots of people do this in everyday life, just look around and you will see them everywhere.
A local radio station has one of these guys on for an hour every Saturday. He’s some “retirement/financial” guy. He doesn’t take calls, and he sounds like he’s reading from a script. It may even be prerecorded; I don’t know. Anyway, he goes on and on about stocks being “risky,” and says none of your money should be in the stock market. I have no idea what he’s trying to sell. He gives his phone number over and over…