Camera Riches

MAKE HUNDRED'S PER DAY WITH YOUR
CAMERA AND WE SUPPLY THE FILM!!!

This particular "opportunity" can have many variations. You can probably think of many ways to earn money with your camera. Get a friend to dress up as Santa and take pictures of all the kids that "line up" to get their pictures taken. Hang around tourist destinations and take pictures of the happy travelers and sell the pictures to them. You can get many good ideas for using your camera at many books in the library.

These ads lead you to believe that if you send them a roll of film with the pictures they are looking for they will send you $239.45 or whatever AND the best part, they supply the film!

In actuality, if they are a legitimate company, and you get anything, you will find out they are a film developing company and if you PAY to have your film developed BY THEM, you will receive a free roll of film. They will probably also include a booklet about how you can make money with your camera! SAVE YOUR MONEY (and go the library.)

Medical Claims Processing

ELECTRONIC CLAIMS PROCESSING "One of the Hottest Businesses of the 90's"

This too, is a legitimate business and one worth exploring but I have an idea that will get you started for next to nothing, an idea that can be applied to many opportunities.

HOW IT WORKS...

When you go to the doctor or dentist and use your insurance, there are forms to fill out, if they want to get paid. There are now two ways to handle these forms. The slow way and the fast way. The slow way is to have someone in the office fill out and mail in the paper work. The fast way, you in this scenario, is to do it by computer. The clients get paid much faster doing it electronically and that is a big selling point. You get $1-$3 per claim and the average client could have 50-100 claims per day. It can add up to a lot of money.

The main problem with this business is the amount of money it takes to get started. It can be from $5-10,000 for the computer programs and education.

My mother retired from nursing management recently and I looked around for something for her to occupy her time. She knows lots of doctors and would have an edge in signing up clients for this business. I knew I'd never get her to go for that kind of money so I got creative. Figuring that there were a lot of people out there that tried this for awhile and dropped it, I went searching.

I looked in the yellow pages under "Billing Services". I called all the numbers that looked to be smaller operations. If they answered in the name of the company, I knew they were probably still in business and excused the intrusion and hung up. If the number was disconnected I made note of the address and used a Phone CD to get a new phone number for that address if available. When I reached someone and determined they were not in business any more, I explained I might be interested in running their medical billing business for a split of the profits.

Keep in mind that these people have spent thousands of dollars in time and money for something that is sitting in the bottom of their closet doing nothing. I am presenting them an opportunity to recoup and maybe make a profit on that investment. I got at least three people to agree to the arrangement I described. Unfortunately mom wasn't too keen on the idea so I dropped it.

The point is, you can do the same thing with almost any business. If you can't find them in the yellow pages, advertise: "I will run that small business you have sitting in the bottom of your closet for a split of the profits" You'll get some calls with an ad like this!

Record Video Tapes At Home

RECORD VIDEO TAPES AT HOME AND EARN HUNDREDS PER DAY!

If you think about it you could probably come up with many things you could do with you VCR to make money. So when you see an ad like this it could be any number of things but one is most common.

HOW IT WORKS...

Before the proliferation of video cameras all that was available for recording your cherished memories was the family movie camera. After the film was used up you had to take it to be developed. Then you have to set up your movie projector & screen to show the film. This is a hassle when compared to the simplicity of the video camera.

The "opportunity" here is to convert these old films to the easier to handle videotape and it is a legitimate service but one that is more practical for video stores. I actually converted my father's old film. I simply rented the converter box from a local video store.

You can do the same thing if you want to try this business. Don't buy anything until you determine if there is a real need for this service in your area.

The opportunity sellers will tell you all about the secrets to getting customers but you can learn all about marketing from many good books at any library or bookstore.
SAVE YOUR MONEY!

Find Lost People

EARN THOUSANDS FINDING LOST PEOPLE

This is very similar to the MIP program. Every state has an Office of Unclaimed Funds and you can earn thousands finding the owners of these funds! Or not.

HOW IT WORKS...

Let's say when you are a little person you take $10 you have saved up and go down to the local bank and open up your first savings account. You go down to the bank every week and put in a portion of your allowance. After a few years of doing this you move out of the area without remembering to close your account and take your money. After X number of years without any activity and without being able to find you, the bank will give the money to the State Comptroller's Office who oversees the office of unclaimed funds.

You will be promised thousands per month "helping" people recover money that is rightfully theirs. The problem is the rules vary by state but in general it won't be easy to get these lists, if you can. In NY you can find out WHO is owed money but not how much. So you could do all the work for a $10 fee. It will be very difficult to convince those you can find that there isn't a catch.

Like the MIP program the major problem will be FINDING those that are owed money. The "opportunity sellers" will try to convince you that it is much easier that it actually is. Women get married and change their names. Forget trying to find a John Smith. Too many of them. SAVE YOUR MONEY!

Process Mortgage Refunds

EARN UP TO $1,000 WEEKLY PROCESSING MORTGAGE REFUNDS

This is another one of those businesses I call "if You can Find'em and Convince'em You Might Make Some Money. In this business you will be dealing with the federal government and the companies selling this "opportunity" stress that fact to add credibility.

HOW IT WORKS...

There are several government mortgage programs which are in place to help people get mortgages outside of the normal banking channels. It is basically an insurance program. The government is guaranteeing the bank that if you default the government will pay the loan.

When you get one of these loans you have to pay a Mortgage Insurance Premium (MIP). When you pay off the mortgage or get a conventional mortgage you are entitled to get your MIP back. Trouble is, the government "loses track" of some of the people they owe money and then publish lists of these people they can't find.

The government has a finder program, whereby you get these lists and if you can find the people and convince them that you are legitimate, you can collect a fee. I believe that fee is limited to 25%. A big problem is getting the people to believe that you have found money for them, without explaining where you found it. By telling where you found the money you risk the possibility of the person going around you and getting the money without paying you anything.

The important thing to remember is you don't have to pay anyone other than the government to get these lists. They will tell you that they hold the secrets to finding the missing people. These secrets are skimpy at best and the same and more can be found in any bookstore or library. Look for books on finding lost people. Use the Internet to search databases of phone numbers.

We Buy Newspaper Clippings

WE BUY NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS $435.78 WEEKLY!!

Another legitimate business. What are the chances you'll earn hundreds per week? Not very high unless you spend hundreds in newspaper subscriptions.

HOW IT WORKS...

When I was a student at Siena College in upstate NY, I worked in the alumni office. Occasionally the student workers would sit down with stacks of local papers and scan each page for any mention of Siena College and clip it out. Typically these would be in wedding announcements or job promotions. The alumni director would then follow up with a congratulatory note.

There are companies that do this type of thing for many clients who are interested in anything in the media written about them anywhere.

There will be differences in how these companies operate but the basics are the same. Like many of the "opportunities" you will be required to put up some amount of money to confirm you are "serious".

If they are a legitimate company, you will be given a list of their clients, clients who want to know when they are mentioned in the media. Your "job" is to watch your local paper for any mention of the clients, WHEN (and if) you ever find one, send it in and collect your money. It won't be very much. You'd have to collect a ton of clippings to collect the hundreds they promise.

What you are likely to get from these "opportunity sellers" is a directory of clipping services. Don't forget too, that they have lots of people scanning their local papers so if you aren't the first one to send in the clipping you are out of luck! SAVE YOUR MONEY!

Collecting Judicial Judgments

$10,000 Per Month Collecting Judicial Judgments!!

I suppose you could consider this a legitimate business but it takes a special breed of person to do this and having a 300lb bodyguard wouldn't be a bad idea either.

HOW IT WORKS...

You can sue anyone for anything. One of the most common of these civil lawsuits is landlord/tenant in nature. Your tenant moves out in the middle of the night owning you over $1000 in back rent. You go through the steps to sue and if the tenant doesn't show up in court to defend himself you will likely be granted a default judgment. You win! This is recorded in your local county clerk office. Now what? You have to collect and this is the hard part.

You do have several options and the laws vary by state. You can garnish his wages and/or his bank account and a few other things. The problem is he didn't pay rent for a reason, chief of which is probably no job and therefore no need for a bank account. So you drop it, safe in the knowledge that this judgment will show up on his credit report and make getting credit very difficult for him.

When you send in your $89 to learn about this business "opportunity" they will tell you to go to the clerks office and take down the info on judgments that are 3-5 years old or longer and haven't been collected. Contact the judgment holder and have them assign it to you. Now you are the judgment holder. The "deadbeat" now owes the money to you.
Why would the judgment holder assign it to you? They have either given up and/or lost track of the deadbeat. These companies will suggest you contact the holders of older judgments for just this reason. They will be easier to sign up this way. A "benefit" to you of judgments this old is that the deadbeat my have had a change of luck and now have the funds to pay the judgment.

You will have made a deal with the holder of the original judgment to pay him a percentage of any funds you collect. Incidentally, interest does accrue on any unpaid judgments.

Unfortunately the sellers of this "opportunity" are overly optimistic about your chances to make money in this business. Some things to consider...People who are owed a lot of money will be very reluctant to assign that right to someone else. Therefore, you will be chasing judgments in the thousand dollar range mostly and chasing is a very good word to describe it. Just because you get some assignments it is no guarantee you will make any money. You now have to spend money to find the person, pull a credit report and various other things to collect on "your" judgment and this could all lead to a guy that still has no money.

These companies will tell you it's a numbers game, find he has no money and move on to the next one. They are right you can move on to the next one but to get that next one you have to go to the clerk's office research who owns these judgments, contact them, convince them to assign it to you and then on you go to find the deadbeat.

That is a lot of hard work and YES anything worth having is worth working hard for but to promise you $10,000 per month collecting on these things is ridiculous. You will be much better off leaving this business to others. SAVE YOUR MONEY!

Vending Machines

VENDING or "It Took Us 2 Hours to Count All the Quarters in Our Machine"

This is one of the biggest, if not the biggest area of fraud in the get rich
quick arena. The sellers of this stuff have gotten more creative in their
packaging but it all remains the same. It is VERY unlikely that you will EVER
make back your original investment.

HOW IT WORKS...

The premise is simple and similar to the approach with the 900 lines. If you
have 10 machines and each machine makes ONLY $10 per day, you make $3000 per
month! Not bad at all. It would be even better if the machines could sit in your garage and earn that money but they can't. You have to find a place to put them.

If you are lucky enough to know the owner of 10 office buildings you are set.
Have your friend put the machines in the buildings and watch the money roll in. Maybe. Just because you get your machines placed is no guarantee you will make any money.

Do the math. If you have a bubble gum machine that charges 25 cents per gumball, you will have to sell over 40 gumballs per day to make $10. I say over 40 because the gumballs aren't free AND perhaps most important is the fact that it is likely the owner of the building will want a commission on all your sales! That's a lot of gumballs to sell per day before you get to $10. In fact, that's a lot of gumballs per week! Remember too that you will first be trying to recoup your investment. So, if you pay $3000 per machine you must sell a ton of product before you ever start making ANY profit.

Vending machines have gotten more sophisticated lately. They blink, sing and even cook. All gimmicks that add to the cost of the machine but not necessarily to the effectiveness. They will also encourage you to give a percentage of your profits to a worthy cause and put that somewhere on the machine. "This will encourage people to use your vending machine!" Right. And that is one more hand wanting payment, in addition to you, the building owner, and the gumball seller. Oh by the way, guess who sells the gumballs? The machine seller, of course! SAVE YOUR MONEY.

If you insist on giving this business a try, look in your local paper for people selling theirs. Be on the lookout too for ads that offer to sell vending routes. If it's an 800# beware. Individuals selling vending routes probably will not have an 800# and why would anyone sell a profitable route? If you can't find any that way, advertise yourself. WANTED: Vending machines. I know personally of a very intelligent man, a man who in fact used to run a well known federal government office, who has three six foot high vending machines, that cook pizza, in his garage, brand new! "Never got around to placing them." A classmate from high school & college has just purchased several small vending machines. They look great and come with nice wooden stands. Stands that have to be assembled and stained! I wish he had talked to me first but I wish him well.

In closing, I'm reminded of the joke about the guy who owned change machines...he wanted to buy more machines because he was only breaking even!

Help Homeowners Save Thousands

Help Homeowners Save Thousands On Their Mortgages by Helping Them Set Up Bi-Weekly Mortgages! Practically Every Homeowner Needs Your Services. Millions of them!

Bi-Weekly mortgages are a legitimate product in the banking industry but you don't have to pay $395 to learn about the business and your "clients" don't have to pay you or anyone else $395 to set one up.

HOW IT WORKS...

Most people make their mortgage payment once a month. A bi-weekly mortgage means you would pay half your mortgage payment every two weeks. In effect you are making an extra payment every year. The math is as follows: 52 weeks in a year, so there are 26 two week increments, you make 26 half payments, which equals 13 full payments which is one more than you would have made paying once per month. (12).

It is very true that you will save time and money doing it this way. Just how much you will save varies but you will save.

The business "opportunity" involves you charging $395 (or whatever) for setting them up in a bi-weekly mortgage. You send the parent company $50, they'll do the paper work and you keep the rest! Wow. Five of those a week and you're talking some real cash.

I'm sure you get some beautiful four color manuals and advertising help but just think about this for a minute. You are with a client and she is fairly intelligent. She says "well couldn't I just send half a payment to the bank myself and not pay you the $395?" You stutter and stammer and use the company line for just such an objection but YES in fact she can do that and if smart WILL do that. I hope, at least she will thank you for providing her with those wonderful printouts showing her how much she will save with a bi-weekly mortgage. It's the least she can do huh? SAVE YOUR MONEY!

900# Riches

900#'s If you get ONLY 5 calls per day and average $10 profit per call, that's over $1500 per month in your pocket for doing next to nothing AND you can do this from your 250 sq foot apartment while you watch TV!!! What if you had 2,3,4 different 900#'s? Now You're Talking Real Money!!

I can't argue with any of the math in the above paragraph and that's the nicest thing I can say about the 900 industry. No doubt people are making money at it. There are legitimate uses for them. Even the Better Business Bureau in some states use them! BUT the ones you see on the infommercials are looking for mindless robots to do the advertising for them.

HOW IT WORKS...

These companies will tell you that yes, you can go to the time trouble and expense to set up your own 900# but "we've done all the work for you!" "We have the 900 lines all set up. We have psychic lines, horoscope lines, sports lines, dating lines you name it we've got it!"

Yes they do have it all and YOU are going to waste your money doing the advertising for THEM. They will tell you all you have to do is place tiny little ads in hundreds of newspapers and collect your check. Callers will have your special PIN number from the ad and they will punch it in so you get credit for the call.

They will also suggest the Internet. "There are over 10,000 bulletin boards and you can put your message on everyone of them! AT NO COST!!!" If you had the time you could, but your computer would also explode from all the hate mail you would get in return for posting your commercial message.

Again, look in your local pennysaver to see how many ads there are selling the same old 900#'s. STAY AWAY. SAVE YOUR MONEY!

FACTORING-DISCOUNTING INVOICES

This is an area that is often coupled with the discounted mortgage business. Again, it is a legitimate business but is not for the little guy.

HOW IT WORKS...

Many businesses allow their good customers to pay later, 30, 60, 90 days, whatever. In some cases the businesses can't wait that long for their money. So they go to a funding company to factor their invoices. Let's say they are owed $100,000 due within the next 60 days but they need the money now to buy a new machine. They go to a factor who offers them $75,000 TODAY for the right to collect $100,000 in 60 days. I'm just using these numbers as an example. I have no idea if they are realistic. The factor must offer less because there is the chance that some of the money won't be collected for any number of reasons.

You as the middle man go to the factoring company and get the same $75,000 quote. You then go to the business that wants to sell the invoices and say I've found a company that will pay you $70,000 for your invoices. If they agree to that, you have made $5,000 just like the discounted mortgage example.

As I said this is a legitimate business. Deals like this happen all the time and that is precisely why you being successful at it is a long shot. I'd bet that the people who buy these programs and do make money right away had some special circumstances to begin with. That is, daddy owns a manufacturing business and always factors his invoices or something like that. SAVE YOUR MONEY.

Send us names...we send you money

WE'LL SEND YOU 50 CENTS FOR EVERY NAME & ADDRESS YOU COMPILE AND SEND TO US...SEND US 500 NAMES WE'LL SEND YOU $250...SEND US 2000 NAMES WE'LL SEND YOU $1000 IT'S THAT SIMPLE! NO TRICKS. NO GIMMICKS!

If you're like me you have visions of sitting down with your thick metropolitan phone book and "compiling" thousands of names for thousands of dollars per day!

HOW IT WORKS...

First of all you have to send in around $30, to be sure you are "serious" and for the complete information package. These companies tell you they are in the business of renting mailing lists to businesses who want to reach specific types of customers. For instance a garden seed company wants to reach gardeners, so they buy a mailing list of people who subscribe to a garden magazine.

You will be providing a valuable service to them by helping them expand their database of names. A database that is already huge but yes you can help make it bigger! Somewhere in these ads is probably a sentence similar to "we'll show you no cost advertising methods"
Wait a minute...advertising? I thought I could sit down with my phone book? Nope. You will have to categorize these names into various interests. You'll have to place an ad for your own "get rich quick schemes" or recipes or weight loss method or whatever else you can think of to sell. When you get a response, THAT is what the company is looking for from you. The name & address of the person responding and to what they were responding.

So what if you don't have your own "get rich quick schemes" or recipes or weight loss method to sell? No problem. All your ads will be looking for is interest. "Write (or call) for FREE information" As long as you don't ask for money, you don't have to send anything and you haven't broken any laws.

No doubt the most common "no-cost" method of advertising they will suggest to you is the Internet. "There are over 10,000 bulletin boards and you can put your message on everyone of them! AT NO COST!!!" If you had the time you could, but your computer would also explode from all the hate mail you would get in return for posting your commercial message. They might also suggest putting up flyers at the local grocery store. OK. Think now. How often have you copied down an address from a grocery store flyer?

I know what you're thinking. I'll put my phone number up there and they can tear it off and call me. OK. They do that. What happens when you don't send the FREE information? They'll call you and ask where is it? You don't have it, remember?
A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME & MONEY.

But just for argument, let's say you do all they say and you collect 500 names of people interested in losing weight. What do we remember from the original ad? They already have HUGE databases of names. What does that mean? They probably already have alot of the names and addresses you have given them. So, you won't be getting paid for those will you? Nope. SAVE YOUR MONEY.

Assemble Products At Home

ASSEMBLE PRODUCTS AT HOME FOR $100'S PER DAY!!

Doesn't this sound attractive? Especially to those confined to home for whatever reason. I have a friend who went for this "opportunity" and I'm sure her experience is typical.

HOW IT WORKS...

Naturally you have to purchase the materials to assemble, from the company, AFTER your initial deposit to insure that you are "serious". Then you simply "assemble the products, according to our specifications and return them to us and we will pay you $X per piece"

The key phrase is that last sentence is "according to our specifications". If you are diligent enough to actually assemble anything it is very likely that what you have made WILL NOT meet their specifications. You are then out all the time AND money you have invested. BUT, you can buy some more material from them and try again. I'm sure your second batch will be better, right?

My friends assignment was to make earrings, each consisting of dozens of very small glass beads. So small that they were difficult to handle. It took her half a day to make one and the company only would consider batches of 200! She quit after one earring. That's longer than I would have lasted. Can you imagine having done 200 of these, only to be told "sorry they don't meet our specifications but try again, you are so close!"

SAVE YOUR MONEY!

Buying Paper - Discounted Mortgages

BUYING PAPER-DISCOUNTING MORTGAGES....

This opportunity can be called many different things but it IS a legitimate business. Unfortunately, there are some that will promise you thousands of dollars per week in this business.

How It Works:

You want to buy a house but you don't qualify for "conventional" or bank financing. That is you can't get a traditional mortgage for whatever reason. You go to the owner and say "I have the 10% down payment but I can't get a mortgage, could you hold the note?" You are in effect asking the current owner of the house to be the bank and hold the mortgage. You would then make your payments to the owner. The owner would do this for one of several reasons including, they own the house free and clear, don't need the money and would like to get a monthly income stream or they like you and would rather you get it than the motorcycle gang that's looking at it. Reasons for doing this could be infinite. Anyway it happens and is the basis for many real estate programs which we'll cover later.

So time has passed and you've been making your payments faithfully for five years. At this point the note-holder (former owner) decides she needs an influx of cash to move to Florida. She can ask you to try for a conventional mortgage or she can sell her note.

You still owe $80,000 and can't qualify for a mortgage so the note-holder contacts some funding companies to get a quote for her note. She finds a company that will give her $50,000 TODAY for the note. She can either take that offer or continue to look around. If she accepted the offer, you would then make your payments to this new company.

This becomes a money making opportunity when you put a middleman into the picture. You advertise or perhaps you know the homeowner. She comes to you and says she wants to sell her note. You go to the funding company and they tell you they will pay, again, $50,000. You as the middleman go to the homeowner and tell her that you have found a company that will pay $45,000 for the note. If she accepts you have mad $5,000. How? The funding company has agreed to pay $50,000 for the note. The owner has agreed to accept only $45,000 so you get to keep the balance, in this case $5,000. In fact, the less you get the owner to accept, the more you will make. So, if you get the note-holder to accept only $40,000, your fee in this case would be $10,000. In most cases the note-holder will not know how much you are making and it's probably better that way if you are making $10,000 on a deal this size! You won't have many friends if you treat them like this.

There are several companies, some even doing infommercials, that will teach you all about this business and GUESS WHAT?? You don't have to go out and find your own funding companies. You can bring your deals to these companies and they will give you a quote that you can then bring to your customer. Nice of them huh? What they are doing is getting themselves thousands of "ears & eyes" all around the country. You pay for all your own ads and there is no guarantees that the deals you bring to them will be accepted. So you could do all that work, spend all that money in advertising, and still have nothing to show for it.

Shortly after one of these infommercials runs you will see many "We Buy Mortgages" ads in your local pennysaver. That's a problem. They will sell their package to whoever calls with their credit card. So you and your neighbor could be placing ads in the same paper and chasing the same deal.

This type deal can also be done with lottery winnings, insurance settlements and any other structured settlements. So if you win $70 million in the lottery but don't want to wait 20 years to collect the money, you could sell your right to the yearly payment, for 35 million now. As the middleman you might be able to make a nice commission on this one!

As I said, this is a legitimate business but you don't necessarily need any of these companies to get started. They are in effect saving themselves millions of dollars in advertising by having you do it AND they are charging you to get started.

Any mortgage broker worth their salt will know how to get you a quote on a privately held mortgage. You can find out who holds these mortgages at your local county clerk office or if your are lucky enough to know a real estate agent involved in some of these deals, they can point you to the owners. You could contact them and ask them if they might be interested in selling their note. There you have it. The whole business in a nutshell.

Live Like A Millionaire

LIVE LIKE A MILLIONAIRE. LIVE IN EXPENSIVE HOMES, & DRIVE EXPENSIVE CARS WITH THE INCOME YOU MAKE NOW!!!

This sounds great doesn't it? Who wouldn't like to do all this ad promises? Know what? I've done it. It works. It's called house-sitting and you can do all of the above UNTIL the owners get home and then you have to move back to your cardboard box on the street corner!

The problem with the riches promised in this business is that you will likely be very unsuccessful if you rely only on advertising. People are not, if they are smart, going to let a complete stranger watch their most cherished possessions. The people I house-sit for are people I've known for years or they know people I've known for years. My first job included a brand new two-door Lexus! When people saw me driving this, the first question is "where did you get that?" I explained I was house-sitting and that has led to regular jobs of anywhere from one week to two months.

By virtue of the fact that they can afford a house sitter, you will likely get nice houses and nice cars to watch. If you do want to drive their cars it is likely you will have to accept a lower salary but if you don't have a car that's OK I guess.

The point about this business is that until you are VERY well established you will not be able to move from job to job smoothly. This means you will have to have a place to live between jobs. This, again, is a legitimate business but it is never as easy as they describe in the ads. This is a referral business and will take you time to establish. If you don't normally run in the circles of the "rich & famous" it will be a challenge to get clients but you now know the basics of this program.

Stuffing Envelopes

WE'LL SEND YOU $1 FOR EVERY

ENVELOPE YOU STUFF & RETURN TO US!

This "opportunity" has been around for decades. The 90's version will cost you in the neighborhood of $35 to get started, which is small change when you consider you could easily stuff 500 envelopes per day and if the ads are correct that's $500 per day every day!!!

HOW IT WORKS...

When you send in your $35, IF you get something back from the seller it will include an advertisement for something that you must duplicate. You then stuff these advertisements in envelopes YOU supply and them stamp them with stamps that YOU pay for and then you place labels or hand address the envelopes. Did I mention that you had to pay for the labels or come up with the addresses to mail? OK you've done all that. No doubt your costs up to this point have been under $1 per piece. So if the company will pay you $1 for every envelope you stuff and return to them, you've made a profit right? WRONG!

The catch is when they say "return to them" they mean the person you sent it to must return it to them with an ORDER! They have to get money from those envelopes you stuff and mail or you get nothing. You will be in the mail order business. In the mail order business a 1% response is phenomenal. So if you mail 500 letters, a 1% response is 5 orders. So you have "returned" 5 envelopes to the company and will receive $5 for all your hard work.

This all assumes that you get anything at all for your $35 to start off with. The company may take your money and disappear. SAVE YOUR MONEY!!

THINK!

Why would anyone pay you $1 per envelope, which could easily be hundreds per day, when they could hire someone at minimum wage to stuff the envelopes?

Utility Bill Auditing

No this doesn't involve a job with the IRS. Auditing for our purposes is the act of reveiwing bills for any errors. The most common bills that are audited are utility, freight and hospital. You as the auditor will go over these bills with a fine tooth comb looking for any overcharges in favor of your client. You then present your findings to the companies that made the errors. Your client will receive a refund and you collect a percentage of that refund, usually in the 50% range. In addition, depending on your agreement, you may be entitled to 50% of the savings for a time-period after your audit. That is, if the client would have continued to be overcharged, had you not found the error, you will get 50% of what they would have been overcharged for a time-period agreed upon. If you are auditing for a big company that can be a fairly big prize.

Auditing is a legitimate business and as finding new clients go, one of the easier jobs you'll have. Why? Your approach is simple. "We'll review your bills for any overcharges, if we find any you pay us 50% of the overcharge, if not you owe us nothing"

The challenge lies is finding the right kind of client. Obviously the bigger the better. The bigger they are the bigger their bills are and the more likely they are to have errors. If I was getting started in this business I'd definitely utilize the PLAN outlined in Chapter ? I would also concentrate on utility bills because they are generally higher than frieght bills and thus the opportunity for higher commissions.

Hospital Bill Auditing is an area you should be very careful in trying. The people selling you the program will say that over 90% of bills contain errors or some high number like that and it's probably true. The problem is if the error means you were charged for 3 aspirins when you only had 2 there is not very much commission involved there and not worth the time. You'll have to sift through a lot of hospital bills to find one worth your time. Stick with utility bills, buy the program form someone who couldn't make it fly and you can make this a nice business for your self.

Find Scholarship Money!

MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN FINANCIAL AID & SCHOLARSHIPS

GO UNUSED EVERY YEAR! MAKE THOUSANDS EVERY

MONTH HELPING STUDENTS CLAIM THAT MONEY!!

I don't notice too many of these "opportunities" around anymore. That tells you something right there. One of the big ones was investigated by the Federal Trade Commission, which found that they had promised to grant only 200 licenses in the US but had actually granted 17,000 at $495!!

HOW IT WORKS...

It makes sense. If so much money is going unclaimed there must be a market for a service like this. Trouble is that number hasn't been accurate for decades.

The search for college money can be one of the most stressful times in a students life. College is expensive and any help is always appreciated. Go to any library or bookstore and the books on scholarships are nearly a foot thick! They are poorly categorized so you really have to go page by page to find the money you may be eligible to receive.

Along comes a company that will do the search for you BY COMPUTER! What a timesaver! They tell you that there are scholarships for all sorts of wacky qualifications. If you were born on Lincoln's birthday in Illinois on the third floor of the hospital there is a scholarship for you! If you are a left handed softball player there is a scholarship for you! If you want to study insect migration patterns there is a scholarship for you.

These are exaggerations but there are scholarshiops for some crazy things. I've seen the application forms these companies make an applicant fill out and in no case was there the questions...

1 Were you born on Lincoln's birthday in Illinois on the third floor of the hospital?

2. Are you a left handed softball player?

3. Do you want to study insect migration patterns?

So there may be these wacky scholarships but unless you know where to look you'll probably be out of luck. The companies will provide you with an impressive list of scholarships but the only qualifying they do is gender and perhaps geographically specific. That is they will eliminate any scholarships that are for only one gender (assuming you are not that gender) and if you say you want to stay on the west coast they'll eliminate any not on the west coast. They will probably use a few more criteria but you'll basically have a list of scholarships that ANYONE could qualify for! Sure they've made the list a little smaller but it's still a lot of applications to fill out when you are competinf with the whole country fro the scholarship.

BOOKLETS FOR CHARITY...

GIVE BUSINESSES FREE ADVERTISING AND HELP
CHARITIES ALL WHILE MAKING THOUSANDS YOURSELF!!

Like many of the businesses listed in this book, this one is a legitimate business but you don't need to pay anybody for their "secrets". These can be found in almost any library or in the following paragraphs.

HOW IT WORKS...

The biggest company involved in this type business is Entertainment Publications. They publish a huge book and are very reputable. You probably have one of these publications in your area.

The "opportunity" here is to produce your own booklet. Simply go to area businesses, explain that you will give them a free coupon in your booklet if they will offer something of value on the coupon. (10% off, buy one get one, etc.) When you have at least 20 advertisers, go to printers and get prices for producing your booklet.

The next step is to approach charities who are interested in raising money (and which aren't?) to see if they may be interested in selling your booklet. As an example, the charity sells the booklets for $20, gives you $10 and they cost you $3, so you've made $7 per booklet.

This can be a great business to be involved in but it's not as easy as the "opportunity sellers" would have you believe. For those interested I'll go into how you could do it yourself if you are interested.

You will want to do some investigation in your own area to see how many, if any, competitors you will have. If you don't have any, this may be a great opportunity for you.

The best way to get advertisers is to contact those companies that already advertise. Your local papers, radio and TV are great places to find them. If they have a strong offer in the ad, you could ask them if they'd be interested in putting that same offer in your coupon booklet. You might be able to get your booklet filled quickly this way.

Next step is to contact printers and get prices for printing up your booklet in a variety of different formats.

MAKE MONEY READING BOOKS AT HOME!!

Would you like to have a job that pays you to sit at home and read? Who wouldn't right? Great for the homebound or stay at home parents. This scam has been around for years and makes the legitimate side of this business look bad.

HOW IT WORKS...

Many publishers receive many more manuscripts than they could ever possibly read. In some cases these publishers will hire EMPLOYEES to read these and provide a synopsis of the manuscript. These are entry level jobs at publishing companies and very difficult to get.

It is likely that these "opportunity sellers" are only providing you with a list of publishing companies. This list is likely to be extensive and therefore impressive looking to the uneducated. It will then be your job to contact these publishing companies to determine if they need any free-lance readers. You will be very disappointed in the results.

Keep in mind that these publishers are not going to hire just anyone. You must have some qualifications and even then publishing companies that hire free-lance readers are few and far between. SAVE YOUR MONEY!

See your local library or bookstore for a book entitled, Make Money Reading Books by Bruce Fife, 1993, Piccadilly Books. This is a more realistic look at the business, although it is very difficult to get involved.

GAMBLING or How to Make The Casino Your New Office

WOW! Wouldn't that be great, especially if you live near a casino! I am on a lot of these mailing lists and I'm always amazed how some of these companies come out with product after product after product. If you could actually make $500 per day at the casino, who would have time to mail all those letters? If that last system was so great why sell this one?

Personally, I have tried out dozens of gambling systems. Some I bought through the mail, some I got from books at the library or bookstores. Fortunately I never made it to the casino with any of them. They all reached the worse possible point, with 10 minutes of me testing them out on paper.

In all my research I did discover the secret to beating any casino game...when you lose a bet, simply double up on your next bet 1-2-4-8-16-32-64-128-256 and so on. This is called the Martingale progression and the trouble is at some point you will reach the table limit and be unable to continue your betting progression. Most systems have some variation of this progression and they all fail far too often.

I know of at least two of these sellers that use failing health as a reason to sell their "magic". I refer again to the segment on racetracks: "Let me tell you, If I had a system that made $5,000 per day I'd grab my son, my grandson, my cousin, whoever I knew and trusted and teach it to them!" This is even more true with casinos because you can get a lot more bets made in a shorter period of time. Wouldn't take too long to make the $5,000 and be done for the day.

THINK! If I had a system that really did work (and I've yet to find one that did) I certainly wouldn't sell it because the people who bought it couldn't wait to tell their friends and before you knew it the secret would be out and the rules of the casino game would be changed.

You can get any number of good books at the library that tell you how to play intelligently at the casino but no so far on how to beat it! STAY AWAY FROM THESE SCAMMERS AT ALL COSTS!

MAKE THOUSANDS PER DAY AT THE RACE TRACK!!

Just today I got a letter in the mail with the following headline..."Learn How Wealthy Professionals And Insiders Have Been Winning "Over $5,000 Per Day"...Betting On Secret Horses Only They Know About!"

That's big. Usually they only guarantee $500-$1000 per day so this one looks like a winner! The problem is they are not winners. I have tried many of these "winning" systems only to be disappointed time and time again. Fortunately I never lost any real money at the tracks because they never stood up to testing using old Racing Forms or programs. In fact I probably would have done worse at the track because back-testing is unrealistic in that you are likely to behave differently when real money is on the line.

The smart sellers of these programs will anticipate your question of "if this is so great why are you selling it?" They will have a variety of excuses. My favorite is "my health prevents me from getting to the track anymore, and I'll feel so much better if I can sell my method to you and make a little money too!

Let me tell you, If I had a system that made $5,000 per day I'd grab my son, my grandson, my cousin, whoever I knew and trusted and teach it to them! "Listen Joe, I'm ill and I can't get to the track anymore, If I taught you how to win $5,000 at the track per day would you send me $2,000 of that? You know what? JOE WOULD DO IT! He'd love to and so would you or I. Who wouldn't like to quit their boring old job to spend 5 hours per day at the track earning $3,000 per day (after paying the 2K commission) And this guy could teach it to as many of his friends and relatives as he wants and make $20,000 per day from commissions! He'd have to sell a lot of $50 manuals to make $20,000 per day.

Introduction

The following book is a result of my "unintentional" lifetime study of the "get rich quick" industry. I have not tried everything in this book but when I have I have made note of my experiences. Needless to say I did not get rich quick and I'm sure not many did using the methods in this book.

I can trace my desire to write this book to an ad I read in my local moneysaver. It read...

I'll show you how to get 1 million people

to send you $2. Send $2 to PO Box...

I laughed for 5 minutes and then I got mad. Not mad at the person who placed the ad but at whoever convinced that person it was a good idea to spend their hard earned money to place the ad. Sure you might be able to get one million people to send you $2 but it's going to cost you alot more than 2 million dollars.

This book needed to be written for the millions of people that have lost millions of dollars to these scammers. Not all of the "opportunities" listed in this book are the blatant rip-offs this ad was but some are and you should avoid them at all costs.

HOW CAN YOU BENEFIT FROM THIS INFORMATION?

There are several ways. You can save your hard-earned money wondering "what the catch" is with so many of the prominent "money-making" plans around today. You can also use this book to further your research of something you are interested in pursuing.

Many of the businesses discussed in this book ARE legitimate businesses. The sellers, however, tend to exaggerate the earnings and/or the work involved to earn that money. I hope I will shed some light on these business opportunities as well.