Here are five things that set off my BS-Alarm.

Number 1 BS-Alarm Tripper
"You can make thousands of dollars a week, almost immediately."

There are thousands and thousands of sites that make claims like this. But this kind of BS is not limited to the web. The other day I saw a TV ad where the testimonial guy said he was soon going to be making $20,000 per week. Think about that for a minute. That is more than a million dollars a year, selling products of questionable value. This guy is going from zero to a million dollars in just a few weeks. Maybe Donald Trump can pull that off (at least in his own mind), but not your average Joe Trump.

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Number 2 BS-Alarm Tripper
"No actual product is being sold."

This is not always easy to detect. Many "marketing" schemes claim to be selling "valuable information", but in fact are only selling you the "rights" to resell the same program (ebook, etc.) to other suckers. This is what you might call "the 24 hour plan": I'll sell you a "report" for $5, then you sell it to all your friends and relatives, then they can do the same. Within 24 hours I'll have reeled in lots of like minded "entrepreneurs", and my PayPal account will be stuffed with cash.

In case you haven't noticed, you aren't buying this sort of report because of the information in it. You are just buying it to resell it. The actual content of the report is irrelevant. It could just be a blank report or a page out of the dictionary. Nobody cares.

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Number 3 BS-Alarm Tripper
"We will throw in a bunch of "e-books" worth "thousands of dollars"

Generally speaking, nothing of value is ever given away free. This is an immutable law of the universe. But web "entrepreneurs" are always telling us they will throw in a valuable set of info products, worth thousands, if you just buy their $50 product.

Does this make sense? No it does not. These info products are usually available many other places for free. And the chances are you will download them and then forget about them completely. In fact the whole concept of the "valuable e-book" has been so corrupted by this practice that it devalues ALL e-books. Giving away worthless stuff is not necessarily a bad thing. But it tells me the seller is a hustler and cannot be trusted.

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Number 4 BS-Alarm Tripper
Any time I see the term "downline" I immediately think "scam".

Why? Because this is a term used in the MLM (multi-level marketing) "industry", and generally indicates you will not be selling products, but rather, trying to get other people to sell stuff for you.

This is the dream of every salesman and would-be entrepreneur: "To make money by getting other people to do all the work." I'm not saying MLM schemes never work. Some real world MLM schemes are notoriously successful. But these schemes generally sell real products that we all need -- stuff like toilet paper and whiz wipes. Aunt Minerva is going to buy this stuff somewhere, so she might as well buy it from you -- or your "downline".

But by its very nature an MLM scheme runs out of suckers very quickly. And since most web schemes like this are not selling real products -- that would be too complicated -- the sucker pool is even smaller. The only people interested in buying into these things are people like you -- you know, other "opportunity-seekers" prepared to sell their friends and relatives $5 "memberships". And most people are not interested in doing that. Gee, I wonder why?

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Number 5 BS-Alarm Tripper
"Just register and we will do all the work for you."

I've already implied it a few times, but in case you've missed my main point it is this: There is no free lunch on the web or anywhere else. If somebody tells you they can make money for you without ANY work on your part, they are either nuts or simply lying to you.

Think about it. Why would somebody set up a website, stick your name on it, and then start sending you checks just because you let them use your name? Wouldn't it be a lot more profitable for these guys just to make up names and send the checks to themselves?

Yes, it would. What they really want to do is get you on board so you can start buying their "products" (more BS), and promoting the system as a member of their "downline". Sorry. Not interested.

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I can think of many more BS-Alarm stimulators, but these five eliminate at least 90% of the "opportunities" I've run into. If you have any comments, I'd be pleased to hear from you. Check out my website and drop me an email.

P.S. Notice I didn't even mention the old "here's a copy of last month's bank statement" trick. Enough said.

— Rick Hendershot, Editor, www.small-business-online.com