So what's the scheme here? (another "money making" program)

Factual Questions
1

So I’m reading through this magazine and I see the run-of-the-mill “You WILL be rich!” ad. Whatever. I read it and it says the same old tired stuff about this guy that discovered this “program” (they never seem to mention exactly what the program is) that will make you rich beyond your wildest fanatasies without doing hardly any work…etc. Of course, with all this guys untold wealth, he wants you to send him 25 bucks for the secret. Well, he comes the tricky part: he guaruntees that if you’re not making truckloads of money within 90 days that he’ll cut you a personal check for $1,000. Well now, I’ve never seen that before. I’m sure this is somehow a scam but this one really caught my eye. Would he really make with the grand? If not, how can he legally do this? If so, then obviously this guy is sincere and you really can make money doing whatever it is he does (i doubt it…)

Some interesting facts:

#1 - Guy’s name is David Gates. Can’t find ANYTHING about him on the web.

#2 - Quote at top of page says “‘David Gates has NO competition. You MUST have his program.’ -Lawrence Brooks, authout of Directions to Easy Street” Well I also can’t find ANYTHING about this guy Lawrence Brooks or a book called Directions to Easy Street. Could they’ve made this guy up?

So has anyone come across this before? Thoughts? Facts?

Thank you.

2

As a guess, or WAG to use the accepted SMDB abbreviation :), I would say that he won’t front up with the $1000 and that you’ll have as much luck tracking him down in person as you have on the net.

3

IANAL, but I think the deal with these kinds of “guarantees” is that you have to ‘prove’ that you made an honest effort to follow the plan. And with a nod towards Skogcat, I bet you’d have an even harder time ‘proving’ that than you would tracking the guy down.

4

I don’t know about the guarantee part or whether you would really collect, but there have been similar schemes in the past where you send in your $25, and they send you a kit. The kit is basically a set of instructions that say:

Take out an ad in a magazine.
The ad should guarantee that people will make money.
Have people send $25 to you.
Send them a copy of these instructions.

Seems like a pyramid scheme so I don’t know about the legality.

5

The Friends In Business website (a great resource for information about get-rich-quick scams) has a page called Anatomy of A Worthless Guarantee which goes through these types of guarantees and explains all of the pitfalls and loopholes.