World Ventures?

Last night I received a text from an old college buddy that said "Hey man, I need to talk to you about something really important... can you be by your computer in 10 minutes". Being a good friend, I of course obliged, logged into my computer and awaited his call.

At about 9 o'clock, I get a phone call and he tells me to visit the following website: http://worldventures.biz/ and click number two. I then proceed to watch a twenty minute video clip, with him on the phone, all the while being skeptical and knowing what I was watching had to be a scam.

After watching the video, he asks me "So what do you think? Do you want to be a part of this business opportunity"? I almost didn't know what to say, after watching the video it was obvious to me that the company was either A) A pyramid scheme or B) a tough sell commission job, either way not my cup of tea. I then proceeded to try and explain this to him, but he would not have any of it and seemed offended that I was insulting his new get rich quick plan.

The problem with "companies" like this is they prey on people like my buddy; people that are above the poverty line, but are not faring well in this recession. They charge membership fees to be a "Travel Agent" in their "company" and tell you that you will be able to make a lot of money and go on a lot of vacations. That offer sounds enticing to anyone, but it is especially enticing to people like my friend that work 60 hours a week and barely get by.

The company tries to hook you with a video. They explain that being a member of their "MLM" company is like being a member of SAM'S or Costco, they buy vacations in bulk so that you can sell them cheap and make money as you sell people the product.

Here is the problem:

You are not selling pizza or a magazine subscription. You are not even selling a one time discounted vacation. You are selling a membership to a travel club, and it isn't cheap. You have to be able to convince someone to spend $200 dollars up front and then spend $55 each month to keep their membership before they even purchase their first vacation. Actually you don't have to convince just someone, you have to convince at least 4 someones before you break even each month (a this point they pay your monthly membership). Here are some facts: the poor can't afford this and the wealthy and middle class are too smart to buy into this. You will only be able to sell this to others that are looking to get rich quick and will not look into it deeply.

Any "company" that charges you to be an employee is probably a scam. Yes it is true that when you start your own business you must spend money to make money, but this isn't starting your own business.

$200 (base price) + $100 (to be a sales associate)= $300 up front
$55 (membership fee) + $10 (associate fee)= $65 each month
in one year you will have spent $1080!
(+ they occasionally have seminars for $200 to teach you how to sell more memberships)

This "company" is a great opportunity for the people that own it. They get to make over a grand from each chump they are able to sign up and do so with very little work. For the average American, all I can say is stay far away from World Ventures. As my father always said, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

Hey, at least they give an income disclosure for their employees.

Free frequent flyer miles?

Due to an act of Congress, the US mint is required to have a billion dollars worth of gold presidential or Sacagewea dollar coins in circulation. Since the use of these coins has never caught on (because none of us go to Hogwarts), the US has attempted to make it easy to acquire this currency by charging no shipping for people ordering mass amounts of these coins.

This has lead to a frequent flyer miles scam in which people buy thousands of dollars worth of these coins on their credit card, only to take them to the bank days later and pay off the card immediately. As news of this scam reached the public eye, the US mint put restrictions on purchasing these coins to $1000 worth every 10 days. Still, 3,000 free miles each month isn't a bad way to rack up cheap travel.

The real problem here is a mistake in policy. The US is encouraging the use of an expensive, non-practical form of currency through using tax payer dollars to ship the coins free of charge. There will always be people out there that look to manipulate the system in ways most of us couldn't imagine.

It is the general public that really get harmed by scams like this in that frequent flyer programs will get stricter and their tax dollars get to pay the tab on all the transactions involved in both the shipping and exchanging of the currency. My suggestion: stick to paper money. Many people have switched to credit or debit, but people are not going to go back to carrying a satchel of gold coins.

Yahoo Finance: Fly-for-free