Or maybe the ad will say,
"Don't throw away your order envelopes--trade them for
cash!" Another variation of the ad is “Easy Money! Get Paid
for Sending Us Names and Addresses! No Limit!”
(article continued below ...)
We checked out one of
these name-compiling schemes that we saw on a one-page ad of a
reputable business opportunity magazine. Given the label “name
compilers,” we initially thought that the job entails compiling
all the names in our Rolodex and submitting it to the company. “Easy,”
right? We have lots and lots of names and addresses on our
personal directory and probably we can ask for more from friends
and relatives, too. The company promises to refund the
registration fee (that’s how they call it) of $29 as soon as we
submit our first 200 names. Sounds easy! We can’t hardly wait so
we can start making money with “our name list”
immediately.
In this scheme, the
company will send you some cheap looking run of the mill examples
of classified ad texts that you must publish at your expense in
newspapers or any other publication you may choose. When you get
responses to the ad, you compile and forward the names to the
company, and you will be paid fifty cents for generating this
valuable sales lead for them. Meanwhile, the company will send
"your" prospects a brochure or catalog that describes
one of several moneymaking plans they offer (all legal). For
example, you might place an ad telling people how to make money
mailing letters, and what they would receive from the company
would be information on how to order a manual that will tell you
how to make up to $1,000 a day just for mailing letters. It may be
described as "the opportunity of a lifetime" but is
nothing more than a common mail-order guide which will tell you of
the same “business opportunity” in another way. In addition,
they will clip another flyer or brochure of another “Secret
Revealed” scheme and ask you for another registration
money.
So your participation in
such a program only helps to push the snowball downhill, setting
up more “get-rich-quick” searchers for yet another
get-rich-quick scheme. Legal, yes, but what do you suppose the
chances are for financial success?
Remember this: Your name
will be on those classified ads, and if people are upset with the
material they receive as a result of contact with you, who do you
think is going to get the flack?
Even if you really do
not care about using your name to promote someone else's products,
do you really believe you would make money here? A classified ad
might cost $25-$50 or more. At $50, you would have to bring in 100
prospects just to break even. So, while the company is paying you
fifty cents each for its prospect names you take care of its
advertising bill. Besides, you are entitled to any commission on
the sales they make for their “Success Manuals”. There was no
arrangement for that when you signed up. That is what we call
great economics.
Here is another
variation of this scheme. A mailer from a promoter stated that we
would be paid six cents for every new name we could generate for
them. In the same manner, we learned they would buy only the names
of people who have responded to opportunity or moneymaking ads.
The promoter compiles such names into new opportunity-seeker mail
lists, which he will sell back to the very people who responded to
the ads in the first place. (Examples: those who do circular
mailings, push multilevel marketing programs [MLM], or peddle
useless information.)
Now do you begin to see
why your mailbox is suddenly filled up with junk mail as soon as
you bite on that first opportunity ad or chain letter
invitation?
But, why are they doing
so well? Or are they really?
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