I’m often receiving links from someone I know. This time it was to have an opportunity to listen to a webinar that was broadcast earlier in the year if I happened to sign up on a particular website by 11AM the next day. It proposed teaching us how to make 6-figures within 90 days doing online marketing.

by Jean-Etienne Poirrier via Compfight

My scam meter was up as it usually is, but it was free so I figured what the hey. I might pick up a thing or two that I hadn’t yet tried before, right? So, around 4 minutes before 11 I went to the site, put in my first name and email address (throwaway email address), and waited for the link to the webinar, which came about 5 minutes later.

I’m not going to say who these guys are; frankly, they don’t deserve the publicity either way. What I’ll say is that 15 minutes into the presentation I knew they were setting people up for what I’m calling a major scam.

Why do I say that? Because 10 minutes in they showed an example of one of the old default WordPress blog themes where this guy had supposedly written only one post; it was something about gout. In that one post he had one link. He’s never written another post, ever. He only had the one link, and it went to a book on how to cure gout, which he supposedly bought to cure his gout. They said this guy was making $30,000 a month from just that one post and one link for over a year.

Minutes later they showed another thing, this time a one page website. Supposedly the woman that created it had only written one article, telling a story about her puppy and how he was very misbehaving. She had all sorts of problems getting it to do right. Then she bought a book, which she linked to in the article a couple of times, and all her problems were over. The guy on the webinar said she was raking in $70,000 a month just from that one webpage.

Think about this for a moment. How much money do most books make? Heck, my first book is on leadership, but I barely broke even on it over a 7-year period (haven’t sold one since). Either of these books the seminar was talking about making this kind of money would put them way high on the New York Times best sellers list. That’s because one would have to assume that if one person was making that kind of money off a book they didn’t write that the person who wrote the book would have to be making at least half that amount, and other people would have to be making major sales off it as well.

The first guy would be making $360,000 a year off one book from one blog post; the woman would be making $840,000 a year off one book off one webpage. I know the woman isn’t making anything close to that amount, if she’s selling anything at all because I remember being pitched this exact scam back around 2008 through a group whose name I can’t remember now. In any case, I’m betting Stephen King isn’t making that kind of money off book sales online every month; you have to ask yourself who’s buying this stuff.

I’ve heard promises like this often enough. One of the worst things about being online is that people will sell you a bill of goods that sound too good to be true. Think about the top affiliate marketer you’ve ever heard of. Some of them have had million dollar product launches; no problem with that. But how many of them sustain that level of sales longer than a few months off one product?

It just doesn’t happen. And if it’s not happening for them, then it’s not going to happen for every Tom, Dick and Harry that writes only one blog post ever, pops in a link and does nothing else, not even any attempt to promote it. The numbers just don’t hold up.

You want a bit more proof? Check out this video from a guy named Leon Hendrix. Let me know if you’ve ever heard of any of the people in this video, or if you’ve ever been pitched like what you’ll see here:

This is why people get weary of what they see and hear online, or what they receive via email. That’s why many of us defer and want true confirmation of what we see and hear before we’ll buy. This is why it’s hard to trust people.

Unfortunately, I know many people will fall for scams like this, which is actually an attempt to get you to spend bigger money to receive coaching from them. It’s enticing, and it sounds much easier than it is. Truthfully, the most I’ve spent on what I’ll call get rich quick schemes is $47, and it gave me access to over 60 items I could research (most of which, unfortunately weren’t worth a dollar).

Can you make money online? Sure. Is what they’ve shown possible? Maybe one in 500 million times, if that. Don’t fall for this type of thing; always remember that if it sounds too good to be true… well, you know the rest. Always look with skepticism at something you don’t understand by someone you don’t know well. Even if it’s me, though to tell you the truth, if I figure out a way to make millions I probably won’t share it with you. 😀