I've been spending a lot of time lately doing on-line research for one of my new startups--a lot of Google searches and the like, plus often following interesting links I find serendipitously. One thing I've found a lot of is blatant and obvious scams, promising to "generate fast, easy money with little or no effort".
What is it in human nature that allows people to fall for this kind of crap? Seriously? To me, the saddest thing about these scams is that somebody must be buying into them, or the people behind the scams would eventually give up and crawl back under their rock. But the exact opposite seems to be true: there are too many of these sites to count and new ones being added every day.
Has everyone forgotten this simple saying? "If it's too good to be true, it probably isn't".
Consider this: If someone can sell you a piece of software (or a web-based service) for $199 that guarantees that you'll start making $3,750 per week after only 15 minutes of work, why don't they just do themselves whatever their software or service does--do the math...one person working a comfortable eight-hour day could be bringing in $600,000 per week after just one week of "work" (compared with having to sell over 3,000 copies of their software every week from here on out). Wow! Sign me up! (By the way, I changed a few of the details, but I found several examples of "deals" just like this).
Another example: Lots of companies offer to "share" with you some sort of "secret" that will open the floodgates to untold riches that you can collect by doing absolutely nothing...once you know the "secret". Some of these sites don't even charge you for the "secret"; they just want your name and email address. Let's see here... Since I was able to find the site offering the "secret" (and many other similar sites, presumably each with their own special secrets), I have to assume that my ability to use Google is not significantly better than the other billion people that use Google every day, so that means this "secret" is likely to be "shared" with more than a few people in short order. If so, and more than a few people start using the "secret" to create their zero-effort income stream, my guess is that whatever the secret is won't work as expected for very long. OK, that was about as much sarcasm as I could cram into the last couple of sentences. Again, who is falling for this? I do believe that there are various "secrets" that a relatively few people are benefiting from (for example, I've personally seen very elaborate currency trading "systems" that generate a profit 9 out of 10 times), but the only reason these things work is because very few people know about them, and inevitably, they always run out of steam over time. But let's review: If you knew one of these secrets, why would share it with anyone, rather than just use it yourself? But for a moment, let's assume that out of the goodness of your heart (or some other unknown motivation), you decided to share the secret globally (by buying paid search terms to really get the word out, no less). Since the presumption is that any such "secret" takes advantage of some sort of flaw or loophole in some system that lets those who know the secret exploit that system, you must also assume that the system in question (the stock market, Google search, etc.) does not want to be exploited. But through the amazing reach of the Internet, many thousands or hundreds of thousands of people now know the "secret". Assuming there ever really was a secret in the first place, how long would it last with that kind of onslaught? Which brings me back to the first problem with this kind of scam: namely that anyone who knows a "real secret" would never disclose it in the first place (their personal greed getting in the way, you know).
Who are they kidding? Maybe I'm being overly harsh here, but it seems to me that anyone with two brain cells to rub together would see right through these scams in a split second. I imagine that most people reading this post would agree. But the proliferation of scams like these (and they are not limited to the Internet alone) demonstrate that in at least some fraction of the population there is a seed of hope that lets them believe that great rewards can be had with little or no effort. Short of winning the lottery (and I'm not putting any eggs in that basket), it just isn't so.
Some relevant quotes:
--Colin Powell
"Nothing ever comes to one that is worth having, except as a result of hard work."
--Booker T. Washington
"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."
--Calvin Coolidge
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."
--Thomas A. Edison
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