Get Rich Quick, How to Tell if It Is Real

You are in the hotel ballroom because you opened your mail one day and the message was intriguing. Maybe it was the infomercial pitch telling you about a free seminar that promised to give you information that would turn your financial life around. You were suspicious, maybe, but you told yourself, “It can’t hurt.”

Now after 90 minutes, or maybe even eight hours, of learning some dazzling strategy involving real estate, the stock market or Internet marketing you’re being asked to bust out your credit card to “invest” in this opportunity. The organizers of the event might have catered a meal or offered some other inducement.  They seem to know what they’re talking about and they showed videos of people who testified how much money they made. Surely those people wouldn’t lie, right? No way they’re just paid actors.

And so you reach into your pants pocket or your purse or wherever it is you keep money and plastic and come close to deciding you’re going to dive in, spend the money and go for it.

You might want to rethink that decision. We’re not telling you not to do it yet, but here are some warning questions you should ask yourself first.

Did you know any of the people, like Kevin R. and Theresa O., testifying that they had made money? Unless you can say, “Yes,” what reason do you have to trust that they are telling the whole truth? If someone you trust has done well with one of these programs and tells you about it, that’s something else. But you don’t know those people in the video. Heck, they’re even only giving you the first letter of their last names.

At any time during this seminar did you ask yourself, “If this strategy is so effective, why do they need to be selling this stuff here?” If you did, you were probably right to ask that question. Surely someone selling a real estate technique, for example, would be better off just performing that technique out in, let’s say, the real estate market. If you didn’t ask that question before, ask it now.

Did the salesperson talking about the program offer a special seminar price? Was that price available that day only? Did you have to fill out an application to find out if you were approved to participate and did you have to provide your credit card information on that application? 

Not all moneymaking seminars are fraudulent, but many are not worth a single hour lost if you attended. People shell out hundreds or more at these things and then find themselves being hounded to shell out more for “coaching” or some other enticement. If a seminar is good, chances are what you will be doing to make money will still require a lot of hours of your time working the system.

You might be in a vulnerable financial situation right now in your life. But it’s highly likely you won’t find your way out of your financial situation while sitting in a hotel ballroom.

Published Jul 11, 2014.