My Early Follies In The Get Rich Quick Schemes -
Like everyone reading or writing personal finance blogs, I’ve made my fair share of investing mistakes, specifically get-rich-quick schemes. Clearly we all want to make a fast buck when we’re young, that’s all we see on TV! But it is something really you have to fall for at least once (or 4 times in my case) to really understand it and why it doesn’t work. Similar to buying your first car alone when you’re 18. The used-car salesman KNOWS you’re only 18 and likely not sharp enough to know the ins and outs of buying cars. Same thing with get rich quick schemes, they target folks that think it can actually happen. I still have yet to find anyone that has ACTUALLY gotten rich by the scheme.
photo courtesy of Ifup.org
Where did I start my folly. I was 12 years old and when the internet first came out, spam quickly followed and I got in on one of the first pyramid schemes. Send 1 dollar to 5 people and add your name to the list. Example here. I actually did MAKE money on this scheme though. I sent out those 5 dollars with high hopes, and sure enough, I got 8 dollars back in a week! So I sent out another 5 letters with a dollar in it, and got 3 dollars back! Not enough to send out 5 again, but finished up a dollar, so I decided to cash in my chips there! Again with no help from my folks, they were actually for it. Maybe it was because I was staying out of their hair and actually trying something, and furthering my idea that I need to fall for it once to learn.
My second folly was for ol’ Don Lapre – boy did that not work. All placing “these tiny ads in newspapers across the country” did was make me want to subscribe to the newspapers I was adding the ad to in assurance that it actually was being put in there, dropping my bottom line, lower, and lower. I should have known better than to trust a guy that was keying on the fact that I was up at 3am. Catharine apparently agrees.
Next up was Mazu (no link deserved, you can find it if you search for it)- I bought a handful of CD’s (handmade) and books (printouts from an HP Laserjet) that taught me how to make money online and that he’d keep me up to date on his latest make money online seminars, eh, not so much.
Finally I thought I’d give a shot at finding people that the US Goverment owes money to. Why not? I mean hey, the US GOVERNMENT is involved here. All I need to do is find these people and let them know that the goverment owes money to them. All I need to do is request 20-40% of the money they were owed and I couldn’t lose! I’m helping the goverment AND giving people free money! All I needed to do was send “insert scheme owner name here” $150.00 and they’d send me the list of these people! Do I really need to say any more? 
So yea, I’ve gotten a slap or 2 (or 4) on the wrist in my journey so far, but I think I’ve learned my lesson and can probably give some decent advice for most people looking to hit on any of these ideas. Heck, you can give me ANY list of get rich quick schemes and I can probably tell you in one succinct word if it will work. No.
Has anyone had any of these missteps on the way? Feel free to add to this list -
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you about the rich quick scheme, some friends been asking me to join the direct sales. you know right after you joined they just don’t bother to come to you any more. Like asking you how you doing there etc. Sadly I am not active and no interest for direct sales. I just bought some item use personally.