She eventually lost everything.

If desperation and grasping at any straw, however thin, for a chance to make some money are things you don't understand, then you have had a very fortunate life.

I'm not saying there isn't some undermining going on, though. There's a lot of fatalism and learned helplessness that's been integrated into my childhood town's culture, for instance. They see economic downturns pretty much the same as blizzards and biblical plagues; nothing can be done about it, you bear the brunt of it and hope no one you know dies. There is very little faith any one of them can have any effect on the world, and I'm sure that factors into the choices they make about jobs.

That ingrained fatalism makes them susceptible to these sorts of scams, too. If no one person can make a difference in things, then people who are wealthy got that way by chance, not effort and planning. So it makes sense to be on the lookout for your own chance, be it one of these scams or playing the lottery, because there is no other way you're ever going to change your life. That's buttressed up by their own experiences, by the culture in general and by the unacknowledged anxiety all that causes, and it gives these sorts of scams the kind of unhinged credibility religion has.

My uncles were regularly taken in by scams of all sorts and pointing out their past experiences didn't keep them from being taken in again. It was amazing and a little spooky to watch the cognitive contortions going on in their heads when they were newly hooked. Once my oldest uncle ate so many lemons over such a long time he had to be hospitalized, and it was all part of a bizarre attempt at getting in on a health food marketing scheme. So, uh, yeah...

Anyway, in most cases, if a kid wants to do some unusual sort of work and can show that it will result in a stable income, everyone will not only be behind them 100%, they'll be pushing.

I don't have a college degree but have worked a mix of jobs including retail and most recently bank customer service. I'm currently looking for work and will probably end up doing some type of clerical job as a receptionist or secretary. I'm very intelligent but don't have any specific career interests so I'm only working to earn a little spending money and keep busy.

@BZMedia: Details on the specific companies where action has been taken are available in the FTC Press release: [www.ftc.gov]

I had an english prof whose daughter was a top scholar and expert in Gaelic. I'm sure that isn't valuable to some people but she is highly respected in her field and gets paid to do what she loves. I'd hate to think that she didn't achieve any of that if her mother told her it was all a waste of time and education.

These are guys that blatantly steal millions from gullible consumers, and then get off scot free...

I envy you. Here I am ,making an honest living with a "regular" "job" and I have to live on my wages.So please stop telling me how I am a sap for doing things this way. Just keep your "free CD" that explains how I can be like you and buy a new car when mine runs out of gas.

Oh, BTW - stop having your huckleberries tack your signs up on every power pole in my town.I am taking them down just as fast as possible , but with summer here , it's hard to keep up.

Thanks .

I do think that people who get mad just because their child wants to move out of the family area are pretty backwards. My dad (who also left a family like that) was in the Army with a guy from eastern Kentucky who had the same issue. In those areas if you don't leave you're destined to a life of abject poverty. Being a long haul truck driver is having it good, if that says anything.

A shyster is a crooked lawyer. I can't see anywhere in the original posting that indicates that any lawyers were targeted, just scammers.

[ftc.gov]

I just hope they get jail time if convicted and not just fines.

@pecan 3.14159265: I'm just glad that we'll see less ads for "make 5,000 dollars a week" scams. Stuff like that, while I know its not true, just makes me stabby.

Don't you love how those signs are usually handwritten and have at least one spelling error on them? Hilarious!

You hear and see all of these scams with terms related to "stimulus package", "recovery package" etc...

In the end, of course, we see where that landed us.

So they're 2X evil - and MLM that helped feed the mortgage melt down.

Last I heard, I think Citi is still trying to unload them.

@tmyprod: It's that Seattle cost of living...

now it makes a lot of sense why people like this fall for scams. And it's something to ponder.

as an aside, 'shysters' isn't exactly the preferred nomenclature for these folks.

Just like all the other MLM (Multi Level Marketing) businesses are nothing more than a barely legal pyramid scheme. Like Amway, Avon, Pre-Paid Legal, Prime America and the list goes on and on.

I want to know exactly what kind of scam this was.

I actually see this with reasonable frequency in my students, particularly those who come from families where education isn't valued and where the majority of their acquaintances work unskilled jobs. Some of them truly, honestly do not see any value in skills or competencies, because they truly don't understand that there's a difference between someone who's trained in microsoft word/secretarial work/lawyering and someone who isn't. They're generally willing to believe people in the medical field have special skills, but particularly when looking at any jobs that involve "just talking" or "just writing" they see the training itself as a scam because they already KNOW how to talk.

This manifests itself right down to thinking they should get an A in my class for showing up because there's nothing of value being taught, there's no way to judge the quality of people "just writing/talking about ideas, it's not like this is math," and it's just a useless hurdle put in their way to help bilk them out of money before handing them a certification/diploma for something they "already know how to do."

They would absolutely pay for a credential they didn't have to do any work for, because to them, it would be exactly the same as the credential they'd get by getting an associate's degree, but without all the meaningless hoops put there purely to screw with them and without the college scamming them out of money.

They don't even require desperation to send them to that point. Add in desperation, and I think you're going to be catching a lot more people with fairly vague ideas of how credentialing works -- whether that's licensing or whether that's an earned credential. (Recessions also bring out semi-skilled labor who are easy targets for fake licensing scams -- like for plumbers or whatever -- and that will get you in real big trouble. They know how to do basic plumbing work, say, but aren't really aware that licensing is something more than a number on the side of a truck, and some scam outfit offers "licensing and bonding.")

10K a month?!@Shoelace: 10-20K a month?! I wonder if it's a you pay him 10-20K to be "trained" (in raping people financially?).

It really sounds like a scam where whoever it is gets you into a room ... scares you with the "normal cost" of the training, but that they will train you for a lower cost because they like or sympathize with you. Leech you for as much as they can before you catch on they are teaching you nothing or just very basic things, and then dissapear.

I think these scammers need to be shut down permanently. But there's also something to be said about basic common sense and education about how unemployed people are now favorite targets. As a former unemployed person it's heartbreaking to think people are in such bad shape that "Make $5,000 in a week!" sounds reasonable. How one could allow their common sense behind for a get rich quick scheme is beyond me. How people even fall for this is beyond me.