These Devious Get-Rich-Quick Scams Will Keep You Broke

Can you make money online fast? Is it possible to go from broke to millionaire in X days? If so, how could you do it?

A get-rich-quick scheme promises that participants can make money fast with basically no skill, effort or time in a very short period of time. With so many internet gurus talking about these get-rich-quick schemes in the past, some turned to more towards a get-rich-easy propaganda. Anybody can make millions by following a few steps – and you get a blueprint to do so.

This shallow mentality leads to the two main reasons for business failure: lack of funding and no market need. However, we hear stories of rags-to-riches every day. How do we know whether a programs is an opportunity or a get-rich-quick scam?

The Truth About Getting Rich Fast

Get-rich-quick scams are confidence tricks. The con man disguises a cash grab as an investment opportunity, promising fast returns.

Anybody can make X thousands in X weeks, even days. But it requires a lot of upfront work, preparation, and luck. Get-rich-schemes misrepresent how hard it is to make a business work. 

Aside from wasting time, victims can spend thousands on courses that— although they may be informative— won’t help them reach those goals.

But how do you tell a business coach from a scammer?

Many get into business with unrealistic expectations. You buy a course that claims to make you 5K in the first month, no investment needed. What you don’t know is, in order to build that income stream, it could take actually you years.

In get-rich-quick fraud, you find someone with lesser know-how in any particular business niche. You tell them what they want to hear and hide the other information. By the time they find out their mistake, the scammer is gone with non-refundable money.

How much do you lose? It depends on how “serious” you are. Some spend their life savings on a two-day seminar, loans included.

The Rise Of Get-Rich-Schemes

Have you wondered why this scam is so widespread on the Internet?

Getting rich quick is better than slow. That’s why entrepreneurs promise to teach you ways to make millions in a short time span. The catch 22 comes when you combine “quick” with “easy.”

People fall for it because:

Opportunity Or Scam?

Nobody takes an opportunity expecting to lose money. How do you get rich quick for real? 

How To Pull An Effective Get-Rich-Quick Scam

As people become more aware of the different types of dubious offers, scammers need more techniques to trick their confidence and reach the masses. 

Confidence Tactics

There are more confidence trick tactics than there are days in a year. These are just a few examples that illustrate the ingenuity of the con artists – and the gullibility of the public.

The Bait

You start with a legit program making people money. But as more people join, it stops working. For example:

False Community

Scammers fake their social proof: reviews, testimonials, private groups. The fallacy? 

“If so many people talk highly about the program, it must be a good opportunity.”

What you usually find is:

Website Design

Website visuals can disguise a scam as an opportunity. A colorful, professional page full of testimonials will likely turn on your excitement, hope, and greed. The last thing you’d expect is to waste your money. You can find:

Wrong? No, sales pages use them all the time. What’s unethical is manipulating others with lies.

Massification Tactics

Reward Programs

The more people join the program, the bigger the cash grab. Without knowing it, most members work for scammers as sales reps for a commission. You only make money when you find another fool to join the group.

Scammers fool marketers with utopian exponential charts to work for them.

Direct Outreach

Unless you’re launching, a good program doesn’t have to sell itself. People join because it works, and the hosts spend their time improving the product, not marketing it.

Ask any scam victims how they got into it. 

“It all started with a stranger messaging me.” 

The scammer and his affiliates use cold email, social media messaging, and advertising to get attention. Those who join end up practicing the same tactics the con man used to recruit him.

Types Of Get-Rich-Quick Scams

The variations you’re about to read have one or all of these three things in common:

The Sales Partner

A skilled seller holds the secrets to buy low and sell high. They are experts flipping anything: items, properties, and virtual products. BUT they need someone’s help to fund their deals.

1. You invest money on a stranger dealer
2. The dealer takes your money to buy low
3. He resells, makes profits, and shares a part with you

Easy money: this salesman gives you money for nothing. The catch? You’re risking a big amount to get a small reward. The con man can run away anytime.

Web Builders

Newbies fail to understand the hidden mechanics of the business. If you never started one, you may think it’s all about having the best website, social media profiles, a blog, a podcast, and another dozen of unessential elements.

Scammers sell web design to beginners with the promise of making them a return after X time.

“We will design you a Shopify store, add two hundred products on the niche you like, and rank it on Google. You can expect it to make you $600 per month. It costs $800.”

Plug-and-play is the trap of easy. You can’t order a business pack in a few minutes and call yourself an entrepreneur. You pay hundreds for an e-com store with no demand. Your $800 just went down the toilet.

Even worse, you are trapped in the monthly expenses that a store requires for maintenance: extensions, e-store tools, shipping, returns, email lists...

Envelope Stuffing Related

“You probably won’t get rich stuffing envelopes, but many people live off of it working four hours a week.”

Before starting your million-dollar business, you need some cash. And what better way to get it than a quick-and-easy freelance job?

Some variations are data entry, email writing, and virtual assistance. 

Envelope stuffing uses the same patterns as faulty MLMs. You pay for a registration fee or a working kit, and you only make money when someone else buys into the scam.

Pyramid Schemes

Pyramid schemes can make you rich quick IF you created the pyramid or are very near the creator down the hierarchy line. The only people living in mansions are the founders and the inner circle.

You make money as more people recruit after you, but every new layer is exponentially ineffective. Leaders get-rich-quick. New members get-broke-quick. You are the product this business sells.

What if you are an exceptional salesman? The owner controls the money you make on their system. They can kick you out, reduce rates, or change the affiliate program.

High Yield Investment Programs (HYIPs)

One would not be mistaken if he said that 90% of the HYIPs are fraudulent and fundamental to the few that actually work. Real HYIPs are hard to find because:

HYIPs scams use trending topics or new technology as an excuse to make others invest in them. 

“Most programs are scams, but ours is different! It’s based on X recent event that never happened before, and we’re the first ones who came in.”

Unless a trend has real value, HYIPs turn into another pyramid. A legit firm will disclose where your money goes and how they multiply it. If they pay you a 1% return per day, it’s because they must be making ten times more with your investment. This is not easy to do in real world, without taking enormous risks in one way or another.

5 Questions To Always Ask Your Partner

Scammers only show what you expect to see. Unless you make the right questions, you won’t find out the hidden information.

#1 How easy is it to get into?

The lack of entry barriers is a problem, not an advantage. If anybody can compete with you, this amazing income stream won’t last long. 

In a high-demand market, get-rich-easy leads to saturation. Nobody makes money except two or three mainstream brands. 

#2 How much time does it take?

It’s a bad idea to start when:

If it takes no time to start that business model, it’s a trap. If anybody can do it, be ready to spend ridiculous hours on ad campaigns and sales funnels.

#3 What are the most recent results?

What worked in 2019 doesn’t have to work today. That’s why the best courses update every few years and include Q&A sessions.

Step-by-step programs— no matter how specific they are— assume you can make a universal solution work for anybody. Most get-rich-quick programs include social networks, so you can ask successful members how they did it. 

Hearing recent testimonials is a sign the program still works.

#4 What process do you use to bring new members?

Here’s the strategy legit get-rich-quick programs will probably use:

1. You create a brilliant product/service that gets results
2. Create a good funnel and ad campaign to launch the business
3. Overdeliver to your members, and they bring more people
4. You stop advertising because referrals get you all the clients

Here’s what a faulty marketing strategy looks like:

1. They create a minimum viable product
2. They create sales funnels and ad campaigns exaggerating results
3. People ignore it or return the product after finding the truth
4. They cold-email and reach out directly. They make up fake reviews, testimonials, and affiliate reward programs to convince people of something that’s not true

#5 Who is the ideal customer?

Although you work to get paid from the recruiter, you will do better once you know the purpose of your work. Entrepreneurs should have no problem describing an accurate picture of their clients.

If the profile sounds a lot like you, beware. If they are hiring you as a partner and you match with the client description, they can scam you.

“Our target customers are excited marketers like you who want to make a huge income from home.”

5 Signs That You Should Drop It And Look Elsewhere

If you want to get rich quick, you can’t waste your time on faulty business models and pray for results. Avoid these five red flags, and the fraud chance will be slim to none.

#1 Get A Second Opinion

Before checking for red flags, find someone who has experience dealing with get-rich-quick opportunities. If this program is so good, you can’t be the first person to hear about it.

Find an expert with no incentives in this program— because if they’re part of it, you already know what they’re going to say. 

#2 What can you control?

“If you have a plan, you’ll be part of someone else’s plan.”

Put aside the get-rich-quick promise. Do you own the business? Will you create the product to sell? How about the platform you will use? Have you built a customer base?

If you answered “No” for any of these, it’s not a scam per se, but you might not get rich quick after all. Millionaires don’t happen by accident: without control, you can’t create wealth.

If anything goes wrong, the associate is left in the air.

Others can help you, but nobody will make you rich: it’s a personal responsibility.

#3 Where Does My Money Go?

All get-rich-quick scams ask for money upfront: software, memberships, started kits, you name it. If you can’t understand how they use your money, test with a tiny amount.

How does your investment help the company improve the product, make profits, or bring clients? Does it go to arbitrary service fees and marketing? 

Don’t limit to: “you do this, and we pay you.” Business success follows the law of cause and effect. If you can’t see further than your profits, you won’t see the scams coming.

#4 Are They Qualified to Help Me?

Forget about their titles or how professional they are. Do they have the results I want? 

This credibility marker instantly tells you whether you should listen or ignore them. Learn from the rich. Exclude those who got rich by teaching others how to get rich.

#5 Too Good To Be True

No business comes without trade-offs. The best growth comes after you invest heavily in your model. Talking about zero-risk models is like entering a market with no entry barrier: it won’t come off.

We’ve all heard already how amazing the program is. But if the salesman never talks about the downside and risk, he’s selling you a dream.

Can You Get Lost Money Back?

Probably.

Get-rich-quick scams are confidence tricks with high-refund rates. You get a fake refund policy, or the guarantee cancels after you consume X% of their content.

A subtle trick, “planned obsolescence,” involves selling a product that stops being useful right after the refund policy expires. By that time, people have left it on the shelf and forgotten about it.

If you report a scammer, you may get the money back and shut down the scheme.

Foolproof Tips To Get Rich Quick

Want to create wealth? The first rule is to NOT fall for get-rich-quick fraud. Follow these steps; you’ll thank yourself for saving thousands of dollars.

If You Can’t Afford To Lose, Don’t Do It

If you can’t lose money, choose a business that’s free to start. Freelancing and consulting are proven ways to gather funds that only require time and skill. It will fund your future business.

Even if you can afford to lose, choose to lose small and win big. It’s not worth increasing the risks for a better reward. Plus, you only need to get it right once to get rich, so take your time to study the opportunity.

Create An Audience

Once you pick a niche, it doesn’t hurt to market content and get people together. Those followers may not be worth much today, but social capital adds up and makes leverage easier.

Imagine jumping into any business and not having to look for customers. You write a two-minute email or a 45-second video, and that will bring you thousands worth of sales.

The following saves time on affiliate and network marketing.

The CENTS Rule

Market Need Over Demand

Fitness blogs. Bitcoin videos. Social media marketing agencies. High demand doesn’t equal market need: avoid doing what hundreds of marketers do.

Is the market need solved? If not, it’s an opportunity. If someone else has already fixed it and there is still high demand, you should get in anyway, unless the competition is stiff.

Learn The Full-Stack

Two people can get inverse results using the same information and tools. When someone shows you the exact steps to make it in business, you have to model the way they think, not copying their moves.

People who blindly imitate will lose money no matter what, even if the model is legit. Full-stack entrepreneurs will succeed in any model due to these skills:

Faulty programs teach processes, disciplines at most. The real preparation to get rich quickly goes beyond business theory. A self-aware entrepreneur is, by definition, almost impossible to scam.

Patience

Contradictory, isn’t it? You want fast wealth creation. Why would we waste time waiting?

Patience is an investment. You will lose far more time fixing mistakes from bad decisions made without thinking. Once scammed, it takes ridiculous effort only to get back where you started. The way you get rich fast is to move slow.

Value-Oriented

We are not in 2012 anymore. Nowadays, just about everybody has a website, an affiliate program, a sales funnel, a Youtube channel, and a blog. If you think marketing will make you rich, don’t wonder later why it doesn’t last.

Gurus scam you without knowing it: what may have worked for them won’t work for you. Clients won’t make you rich unless you get them results that no-one else can.

The Bottom Line

Not surprisingly, money scams get all the principles wrong. Wealth is not as easy as creating a store, a funnel or an investment program.

Don’t let yourself be fooled, look at potential opportunities with open eyes and read between the lines. What is the goal of the program creator? What does the author of the get-rich-quick scheme have to gain? Are his intentions really honest or just a tempting masquerade?

Legit get-rich-quick strategies can be summarized into:

Even simpler: help millions and you’ll be worth millions.