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Ideas/Section-3
After spending the last
few months investigating certain types
of mail order businesses, it was obvious that some of them were
border line questionable, if not a verifiable scam.
EXAMPLE 1 Collect names for us. We pay
$20 each. Guaranteed!
The truth is, this company WILL pay you $20 for each name you
collect for them. What they DON'T tell you is that each person
has to spend $100 or more by placing an order before you get
your $20.
The customer is led to believe that all
they have to do is get
out their phone books and start sending the company names and
addresses. In return, the company will send them $20 for each
name and address they send them. When they send away for the
details they discover the scam and think everybody in mail order
is operating this way. Result: Mail order is labeled as a scam
and illegal business activity.
EXAMPLE 2 "How to get 100,000 people to send you $10 each.
Send
$1 to..." This is cute advertising, but you have to put a
legitimate product behind claims like this. One of the materials
I found was a book with this title. And you get the book for
sending $1 to the publisher. Some so-called seasoned pros will
abruptly judge this as a scam. To some extent, these people are
not pros. They're just jaded. For mail order neophyites, this
is very intriguing. Besides, it only costs $1 to find out. What
the beginner finds out is that they are expected to run the same
ad in newspapers and tabloids. Other people will send $1 for
information and their mailbox is "supposedly" flooded
with $1
bills. This ad is NOT illegal. It asks you to send $1 for
information and you DO get the information.
These types of ads are all a bunch of paper-passing
_ and I
classify them under the heading of a "Legitimate Scam."
You
can't complain that your order was not filled. You can't
complain the idea is not possible. You can't complain the ad
promised something it didn't deliver.
Likewise, do not confuse scam-sounding ads with legitimate lead-
generation ads." A mail order buddie of mine will run an ad
that
states: "Want to make a lot of money? Call (his telephone
number.)" This is NOT necessarily a scam or rip-off. Since
there
is no cost involved _ it might be worth your time and effort to
call the number and see what this dealer has to offer.
Also, some dealers run ads that don't tell
you what the product
is because they have an entire package of information they want
to send you. It would be too costly to advertise the complete
information in a small 1" or 2" ad, so they run "Lead-Generating
Ads" to bring them inquiries. This is also not illegal and
is
common business practice. You'll also find that real "Lead-
Generating Ads" DON'T ask you for a lot of money up front.
They
only tell you enough about the product to entice you to send in
a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) or $1 for more
information. They are unlike the "Example 2" at the left
that
basically tell you the scam before you order it! (It may take a
little time for you to make the distinction between these fine
lines.)
Many people overlook the power of the printed
word. Instead of
complaining, people should be writing their mail order
publishers when they are ripped-off, providing them with
documentation and a summary of these mail order scams.
Use wisdom. Get your facts straight. Have
documentation to back-
up your findings and submit them! Wouldn't it be great if
everybody in the world were honest? What a wonderful world this
would be!
