This is the fifth post in a series of articles that will help you avoid scams and invest your time and money into legitimate business opportunities. You can find the whole series in the Business Scams section.
You Are a Chosen One
One of the most effective methods scammers use to entice people to take up their supposed business opportunity is to call them a “chosen one”.
People like to belong to something, and everybody likes to feel special. Fraudsters often try to hook people in by stating that only a few special people will be allowed to join their business opportunity, and that you could be one of them.
Do you feel special yet?
Welcome to The Club
This technique is often combined with a claim that there is some sort of club. As a member of the club you will apparently receive information that very few people will have access to.
Scammers might claim that the club will be restricted to a certain number of members. But how could you ever know how many people have joined? They could claim that only 500 special people will be given access to the club, but in reality they could open the doors to as many members as they like – particularly if the club is internet based.
You and your 499 fellow club members could be sharing special privileges with thousands more people.
For a Limited Time Only
Claiming that there is a limit to the number of people that will be allowed to join a business opportunity is often combined with time pressure.
While the scammers try to convince you that you are special and have been chosen to join their business, they often apply pressure from another angle and claim that you only have a limited time to make up your mind.
This twin attack can be very effective.
Legitimate Businesses
Some businesses limit their customer base as a way of controlling their administrative functions. They key point here is that these businesses limit the number of customers they manage at any particular time. An example might be an online course that only teaches a few hundred students at a time.
For a business opportunity, however, it is difficult to imagine a legitimate business that could increase its profits by limiting the number of distributors it has. There is a clear distinction between limiting the number of customers a business will manage with the number of distributors it signs up to sell its products.
Next time you see a business opportunity advertised that claims to have a limit on the number of people who will be allowed to join, ask yourself what benefit this has for the vendor.
If there is no clear benefit, claiming that you could be one of the chosen few is probably just a sales tactic to entice you to part with your money.
Read the next post in the series Part 6 – Pictures of Expensive Things
Read the previous post in the series Part 4 – Typical Results Seem Wrong
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