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I recently read an article in a postal publication about a scam where
people are sent letters asking for help transferring a very large sum of
money (tens of millions of dollars) out of Nigeria. In return for their
help, they will be paid a percentage of the transfer resulting in a fee of
millions of dollars. As it turns out (no big surprise here) they have to
pay large fees for "red tape and taxes"; some people actually
went to Nigeria where they ended up paying more fees before being
abandoned. A few were even murdered in connection with the fraud!
While reading the article I remembered receiving such letters and
turning them in to the postmaster. Someone is going to just give me
millions of dollars as a fee for doing something simple? C’mon!
I continued to read the article and was astounded to read that it is
estimated that, in America alone, over $100 million dollars has been taken
by this operation! What is wrong with this picture?
The Internet is teeming with offers of "$10,000 per month working
2 hours per day from home GUARANTEED" (I just love the
"guaranteed" part…), "Sign up for our program and start
receiving thousands of dollars in the mail", "As seen on
national TV you can be debt free in six months…" and so on. It is
disgusting, disgraceful, and disheartening. What makes it even worse is
that these people use outright lies to try to suck you in. Emails from
these people start off with something like "In response to your
inquiry…" or "You recently visited a web site where you
indicated an interest in…" or "According to the questionnaire
that you recently filled out…" , etc. (Can you send out junk like
that and feel okay about it? If so, please stop reading now and forget you
ever heard of "The Stay-at-Home CEO"; I don’t need readers
that badly.) These sorts of offers have been around for years, and that
fact alone tells the saddest tale of all; the ads must be working.
How can people be so gullible? Have we become so lazy and greedy that
claims like these are actually plausible? And what about those people (I
use the term loosely) who prey on the lazy, greedy, and gullible? How do
they sleep at night or look at themselves in a mirror?
As someone who has been out there making a business happen, I can tell
you this with absolute certainty: there is no such thing as a free ride.
There is no such thing as easy money. And there is no such thing as
getting rich and debt-free quickly.
I hate to be the one to tell you this, but if you want to be successful
and make a lot of money, you are going to have to work hard. Very hard.
There is no getting around it.
But there is more to true success than making a lot of money. There is
having balance in your life, time for your loved ones, peace of mind,
feeling like you are making a difference, etc. The irony is that the very
people that are selling their get-rich-quickly-and-easily schemes are
probably working ten times harder than required by the very scam they are
offering!
It’s tempting to look into these offers isn’t it? Who doesn’t
want to make a ton of money with no work? I know I do! Who wouldn’t want
to win the lottery? I would! Everyone needs a dream. Everyone needs a
fantasy or three.
Now it’s time to face the real world. The easier an offer sounds to
make money, the faster I run from it. I hope you do too.
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