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Encyclopedia > Get rich quick scheme

Get-rich-quick schemes promise high rates of return for a small investment. Most such schemes promise this high rate of return while at the same time promising that they are easy and risk-free. Investment or investing is a term with several closely-related meanings in finance and economics, related to saving or deferring consumption. ...


Most get rich schemes also promise that little skill, effort, or time is required. They often assert that wealth can be obtained while also working at home. Legal and quasi legal get-rich-schemes are frequently advertised on infomercials and in magazines and newspapers. Ones that are illegal or scams are often advertised on the Internet through spam or through cold calling. Infomercials are television commercials that run as long as a typical television program (roughly thirty minutes or an hour). ... A confidence trick, confidence game, or con for short, (also known as a scam) is an attempt to intentionally mislead a person or persons (known as the mark) usually with the goal of financial or other gain. ... Spamming is commonly defined as the sending of unsolicited bulk e-mail - that is, email that was not asked for (unsolicited) and received by multiple recipients (bulk). ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Telemarketing. ...


It is clearly easy to (potentially) get rich quickly if one is prepared to accept very high levels of risk -- this is the premise of the gambling industry. However, gambling offers the near-certainty of completely losing your original stake over the long term, even if it offers regular wins along the way. Economic theory states that risk-free opportunities for profit are not stable, because they will quickly be exploited by arbitrageurs. Nevertheless, many people long for wealth, and find these schemes highly desirable. Gambler redirects here, for other meanings see The Gambler // Gambling has had many different meanings depending on the cultural and historical context in which it is used. ... In economics, arbitrage is the practice of taking advantage of a state of imbalance between two or more markets: a combination of matching deals are struck that capitalize upon the imbalance, the profit being the difference between the market prices. ...

Contents


Legal get-rich-quick schemes

  • Multi-level marketing is potentially highly profitable for those who first start the scheme. However, it is mathematically implausible that all the participants in a multi-level marketing scheme will all become rich from selling to one another. Usually, the lowest tiers of the scheme end up losing money.
  • Work at home tasks such as stuffing envelopes or assembling trinkets. Essentially cottage work; only small fees are paid per piece, and to make real money vast quantities of work are required.
  • Training courses, many get-rich-quick-schemes offer training courses in areas such as real estate, estate auctions, rare coins, or gemstones. Generally they promise that the trainees, after purchasing educational materials costing several thousands of dollars, will be able to locate cheap or discounted items that can then quickly be resold at great profits.
  • Gambling software, get-rich-quick schemes often sell software programs for betting on horse racing or other forms of betting, promising that if run properly they will pick winners. They rarely do and most users lose money. This software normally sells for hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
  • Selling "miracle products" over the Internet, telephone or to friends and neighbours.

Multi-level marketing (MLM) (also called network marketing or NM) is a business model that combines direct marketing with franchising. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Domestic system. ... Real estate is a legal term that encompasses land along with anything permanently affixed to the land, such as buildings. ... A selection of gemstone pebbles made by tumbling rough rock with abrasive grit, in a rotating drum. ...

Illegal get-rich-quick schemes

  • When there is no pretence at selling a product, multi-level marketing degenerates into a pyramid scheme or matrix scheme, which is illegal in most countries.

A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves the exchange of money primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, usually without any product or service being delivered. ... A matrix scheme or elevator scheme is a non-sustainable business model involving the exchange of money primarily for being added to a waiting list for a product. ... A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that involves paying abnormally high returns (profits) to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from net revenues generated by any real business. ... Insider trading is a term often used to refer to a practice, which is illegal in many jurisdictions, in which an investor trades securities of a company (, stocks, bonds or stock options) based on material non-public information which was obtained by an officer, manager, or other corporate insider, during... Advance fee fraud, often also known as the Nigerian money transfer fraud, Nigerian scam or 419 scam after the relevant section of the Nigerian Criminal Code that it violates[1], is a fraudulent scheme to extract money from victims after making them believe they will get an immense fortune. ... Please wikify (format) this article as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... A confidence trick, confidence game, also known as a con, scam, grift or flim flam, is an attempt to intentionally mislead a person or persons (known as the mark) usually with the goal of financial or other gain. ...

See also

A forex scam is a confidence game played in the context of the foreign exchange market against fairly unsophisticated retail speculators. ... Make money fast was a title of an electronically forwarded chain letter which became so famous that the term is now used to describe all sorts of chain letters forwarded over the Internet, by e-mail spam or Usenet newsgroups. ... A confidence trick, confidence game, or con for short, (also known as a scam) is an attempt to intentionally mislead a person or persons (known as the mark) usually with the goal of financial or other gain. ... TANSTAAFL is an acronym for the adage There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, popularized by science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein and promulgated in his 1966 novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, which deals with a libertarian utopia. ...

External links

  • Get Rich Quick Schemes - South Australian Office and Consumer and Business Affairs
  • Washington Monthly - Money for Nothing


 

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