Clark Howard's Tips

Scams heat up when economy cools down

September 17, 2007

Whenever the economy hiccups, it seems like there are more and more scams being pushed on people.

Has someone recently tried to offer "the business opportunity of a lifetime" to you?

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The Arizona Republic reports that the Better Business Bureau and Federal Trade Commission are getting increased complaints about these bogus business opportunities.

Last year the FTC even initiated a program called Project FAL$E HOPE$ to help protect unwitting investors from such scams.

The pitches that people are getting are very convincing. They're often delivered in hotel ballrooms, but also can come by word of mouth from someone you know. What these kinds of scammers are offering is great wealth -- if you buy their secret system or investment strategy.

Clark wants to warn people that there is no "insta-business." We all want to earn extra income, so the subconscious desire to believe these pitches is tremendous. The pitches can get so intense that Clark describes them as part church revival, part pep rally and all baloney.

If you do get pitched, do some third-party research by talking to the BBB, or going to eBay and seeing if others are doing a protest sale. You'll know it's a protest sale if someone is offering a product or strategy that could cost you thousands of dollars for some ridiculously low price like $1.99. Chances are this person already paid money and got burned, so now they want to warn others.

You can always buy what they're selling for a couple of bucks and investigate its legitimacy rather than paying full price to a scam artist.

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