Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

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If you`re tired of all the money-making
hype, lies and scams...read this!
Click here for more details!

LOL! I LOVE that envelope stuffing thing! I`m 55, and I remember first encountering it when I was 18. An even better one, that also actually worked (works?) is a simple classified: "Send me $1."

The problem now is how few paper newspapers there are around these days. Instead, you get the "make money while you`re sleeping, with a product you never have to see, don`t have to buy, don`t store, and don`t sell." Send money to us and we`ll take it. In return, we`ll thank you.

Then there was one where you would buy a mailing list of possible clients in your area. I had the money to try that one out, for fun, and got a booklet with a gazillion names, probably just a ZIP code print out of the phone book.

It included a "Business Plan" worksheet, with the following lines for your "plan":

1. How much money do you want to earn each month?
2. How many months do you want to work each year?
3. Multiply Line 1 by Line 2

That was it.....the business plan.

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If you`re tired of all the money-making
hype, lies and scams...read this!
Click here for more details!

I`d suggest that "classic" scams become classic because every new generation is just that---new. They haven`t seen or heard of the thing. That, and there are variations, which make it look slightly different.

Then too, with three decades of school students going through the US education system, they`ve lost their critical thinking ability. Maybe they never learned it (probably more likely).

Add to that the concept of no grades, no honors, and no special remark for students. They`re given everything for no effort, little study, and if they make a mistake, they get a do-over. To that end, I think they come to expect that all of life is benevolent, non-risk, and that everyone is essentially a wonderful person.

I think we can add greed and desperation to the mix, as well. We`ll always have people who really want something for nothing (greed). And nowadays, with so much consumer debt (coming from the something-for-nothing of credit cards), folks are so over their heads in debt, they`re grasping at straws.

And let`s not forget outsourcing, job layoffs, downsizing, and "operational efficiencies of the corporate enterprise."

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If you`re tired of all the money-making
hype, lies and scams...read this!
Click here for more details!

You left out the classic chain letter that has been updated to take advantage of the internet and PayPal.  Posted as the $6 letter or $6 biz-opp, they post all over forums and message boards, inviting people to join in, make PayPal payments to the names on the email, adding theirs to the bottom as they in turn post it to forums and message boards, hoping to receive the thousands promised them if they`d just follow the instructions.

By switching from the mail to PayPal, it did actually eliminate the illegal use of the US Postal Service..

What usually kills it, is the fact that they can post without sending a $1 PayPal payment to anyone. So if they are ethically challenged, this one seems to be a great fit.

Dennis Bevers




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Dennis Bevers
BASSCO, Inc.
www.CuttingEdgeAdvertising.com
www.CUttingEdgeAdv.com

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If you`re tired of all the money-making
hype, lies and scams...read this!
Click here for more details!

I actually did follow up on this, long ago...I think maybe when I was 20? Back before they invented cars, at any rate.

When I got various packages from different places it turned out that you would stuff your own envelopes. In other words, if you applied the most rigid parsing to the sentence, you really would earn money stuffing envelopes.

The problem came when you asked what envelopes, where they came from, and with what were they to be stuffed.

A similar application, by way of example, would be to say, "Earn money mailing packages in your spare time." Apply an extreme formal context to the sentence and it can ALSO mean, "start your own business, develop a sales process, then when you have a minute, go to the post office with your orders and mail them to your customers."

The key to the scam is that you have to start a business, make it viable, get customers, fulfill their orders, then YOU go to the post office for YOUR purposes. When you do that, you`ll ALSO make money.

So technically, I think they can get away with the advertisement. In exchange, you get a 1-page white-paper about how to convince others to send you money. When you then put up your own advertisement and people send you money, you really will earn  money stuffing envelopes---filled with the 1-page instructions on how to get someone else to do what you`re doing.

It`s like that guy a few years ago selling his program for placing classified ads. An example of stuffing envelopes is to say, "Send $1 and SASE (self-addresses stamped envelope) for important information about how to save hundreds in income tax."

You then get a 1-page explanation about how to order hundreds of free pamphlets from the IRS or some other government organization. Place ads everywhere, and when people send the dollar, send them the free (to you) pamphlet. Since they`ve included a pre-paid envelope, it comes down to literally stuffing envelopes in return for making a dollar.

i did research on this once too... it was a total waste of time... i was like 17 at the time... oh the good old days...

-m@!
this rocks!



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You mean if I send money to Nigeria, I won`t actually get the $20,000,000 they promise? LOL