Don't get caught out by a biz op scam

Sooner or later anyone who is in the market to earn a little extra money working from home will fall into the category of ‘Opportunity Seeker’.

Business opportunities are wide and varied and can range from stuffing envelopes (for which you never get paid) to gambling, horse racing and buying and selling property. The delivery platform can be direct marketing, email or websites.

Getting your fingers burnt comes with the territory.

Its easy to get drawn into parting with your cash when you read just how ‘good’ the opportunity is.

The sales letter is often glossy and slick. A good copywriter is like the writer of a gripping thriller. He paints a beautiful picture and can lead the reader of his words along an ever more magnetic path at the end of which lies the number on your credit card.

If you are considering taking up an opportunity, the universal advice for deciding whether what you’re about to buy is genuine or not is; ‘if it seems too good to be true, it probably is’. The opportunity that promises to make you millions almost miraculously overnight, or in a week, or a month or some other short space of time is a good example of this.

Some biz op offers may be more subtle, but there are still ways to stop yourself falling for the hype and excitement drummed up by the sales material.

The blind op.

A blind op is where the material/sales letter never actually tells you what you will doing to earn the money that the writer promises you. It will tell you exactly what it isn't , often along the lines of:

this is not MLM or the stock market or eBay, or gambling, or horse racing, or anything you have ever seen before…..

Oh really?, have you ever tried to describe what a cow is to someone by telling them what its not….not a dog, not a cat, not a car…..

and you thought there was nothing new under the sun right? so what exactly is it then. You will never find out until your wallet has become a little lighter.

Its often easy to see that you’re onto a blind op quite early on in the sales pitch:

I was flat broke until my friend showed me an incredible way of generating thousands before breakfast, now I have six Porsche's a Bentley red label a yacht in the Med and handful of villas and ranches scattered across Europe and the Americas... blah blah

Guarantees

Think you are protected by a guarantee?

Often, you are expected to actually prove that you have tried this opportunity out for some set number of days before you get hold of the refund. Usually this is impossible.
Lets say you are offered a way to make an obscene amount of money every week driving celebrities around for a few hours. Ok so you have a driving licence, you can get hold of a chauffeurs garb maybe, but where do you buy a Rolls Royce at a discount price for a few hundred? You new business suddenly became unworkable. You walked into a blind op, and cant fulfil the requirements to get your money back.

If you do think that just maybe you are onto a winner, do the following first.

Put the sales letter in a draw and leave it for a few days – the time limit wont expire its just an incentive to panic you into acting quickly. Are you still excited about this Biz op now a week has passed?

Check out phone numbers addresses and post codes with Google maps and other directories (have seen addresses associated with phone codes often hundreds of miles apart)

Read the testimonials. If you can track down a real name name and pin it to town or city, try finding them in the phone book and give them a call.

Check the wording of the testimonial for clues.
'I cant wait to get started on the excellent information you have provided', or 'congratulations on a very well written and informative manual', means nothing. You want to hear that the buyers are making money and telling you how much and for how long.

The watchword is 'if in doubt, leave it out'.

Starting a genuine business of your own is the best way forward. Check out the following three books to get started.

Spare Room Start Up: How to Start a Business from Home

Start Your Own Business (Start Your Own Business: The Only Start-Up Book You'll Ever Need)

Home-Based Business for Dummies (For Dummies)