Over on the Salty Droid site today, he released some audio files and a very strong message about the lack of (seemingly) any accountability for many well-organized online marketing scams. The audio tapes give clear examples of telemarketing fraud happening every day – thousands of times – to vulnerable people who are fed lies about how easy it is to make an online fortune in your pajamas without knowing a thing about business.
I really suggest to give this post a read and a listen – and if you are not familiar with the droid’s stuff, be warned – language on the site gets filthy dirty, and it can become very heated. While not for everyone, it is a site I would highly recommend to anyone considering entering the world of Internet Marketing, and I personally find him to be a very funny writer.
The audio tape is not something the scammers who orchestrate these sales assaults want anyone to hear – because it makes the fraud and deception blatant. Yet the point I got from Salty’s post, is they are not spending any time defending it – they are free to do as they wish, seemingly with no retribution.
Salty’s post and the commentary are going to do a fine job of tackling the topic of the legal aspects of accountability, so I want to talk about this ridiculous message – this unicorn dream these assholes are pushing.
Easy = Experience+Skill
One of the main dreams being sold (aside from the mounds of money everyone makes online), is how easy it all is. “Look: I just turned on a website, and it was just like turning on a magical fountain of riches! I never even look at it for more than ten minutes a week, and make a zillion dollars a year from the beach – and you can too!”
OK – it is true, turning on a website is easier than it has ever been. No rocket science needed in launching a blog or using some other free option to do the heavy-lifting of code writing. But the difference in launching a site and having a successful one is not mentioned. Instead, it is quickly shifted from the work you do or knowledge/experience you need (which is downplayed, obfuscated or even refuted) into how quickly you start earning.
Often, they’ll tell you they are sharing Mysteriously Powerful Internet Secrets that experts use all the time and hide from the peons, and that is why they are successful…and you can too! But there are no hidden secrets like this – it is another lie. Having tricks or tools to save time is a great thing, but it is not the miracle that makes work disappear. If you buy the best lawn mower made, you still have to know how to operate it – and it doesn’t cut the grass on its own.
These vipers are intentionally targeting people who are elderly, struggling or show some exploitable vulnerability – they look for personal pain points, offering the scam as the wonder-salve. In the audio Salty had, the phone weasel quickly uncovered personal financial information he used to pressure his sales pitch. Regarding this poor guy falling prey to it, Salty said:
His desperation is obvious :: but everything Artino says to him is a blatant lie … and he’s totally sold after just a few minutes.
This is what really infuriates me about this shit…greedy manipulation in the guise of “we’re helping you to help yourself.”
And blatantly lying about earning potential and easy is how these dripping pantloads continue to wreck people who show vulnerability and need.
Easy is a lie. Easy is only experience – and without it, your business idea will need to grow – and it is really hard to make a good business idea work and grow. There is a lot of failing, making mistakes, and rough times. And the reality is – most people won’t make the kind of “decent” money online they need to survive. Because work is hard, and so is business.
You don’t start a legitimate business thinking, “I am going to make easy money online.”
If you have a legitimate business, you can promote it really well online, and earning potential can be amazing…but easy is still not going to be part of the equation for you.
A legitimate business requires work and effort and skill and everything that the phone scabs intentionally avoid telling you, as they root through your past for new pain points to salve. Hard work doesn’t fit on their unicorn’s backs – truth doesn’t up-sell – reality won’t get you thru the re-billing turnstiles.
I really hated listening to that audio because of what it represents – it made me mad as hell, again, that these predatory sleazeballs just won’t stop – and that the consumer protection agencies don’t appear to make them sweat nearly enough. But once again I applaud Salty Droid’s willingness to expose this crap and to take the associated risks involved in doing so. If I can add to the spirit of his important work, let me express emphatically, there is no EASY – online, offline or otherwise. If they get you to believe in easy, you are halfway up the unicorn and on your way to losing – not earning – money.
Salty also likes to say “You can’t make money online” and while I laugh at that statement (I make plenty of money online, silly fake robot), I understand what he means by it and for most people innocently answering the phone, I agree. Anyone can make a little bit online for sure – but not the kind of money you are being told. Most of those zillionaires, aren’t, weren’t, won’t be. Call me a hater.
Protect yourself from getting horn-swaggled by these kind of scams through identification of the scammer’s tactics – just remember if something sounds too good to be true, it is likely coming off a well traveled script in a Utah boiler room…and you may already be a mark full of pain points for these con artists to wear down aggressively.
I’ll join what I felt to be the droid’s lightly veiled plea to federal and consumer-protection-oriented powers-that-be: Please make it stop…pay attention.