But Wait ... There's More! by Remy Stern

Author:Remy Stern [Stern, Remy]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-03-10T14:00:00+00:00

When Chantal McCorkle appealed her lengthy sentence, her lawyers and supporters described her actions as a “victimless” crime. “Had she been convicted of second-degree murder, child rape, child pornography, or smuggling thirty-three tons of marijuana into the United States, she would have received a lighter sentence,” one of her friends later argued. Fair enough. Even her reduced sentence of eighteen years was an awfully long time considering she was a first-time offender. “Victimless,” though, it was not. Infomercial scams don’t just rob people of the $59.99 they spend to purchase the product; they occasionally defraud people of every dime they have to their name. Get-rich-quick guru John Beck nearly ruined Gabriel Ruiz’s life.

Beck has been a staple on late-night TV for years. He offers a product called “John Beck’s Free & Clear Real Estate System,” which promises viewers that his methods can help consumers “purchase homes all over the United States and Canada for as little as two or three cents on the dollar.” He isn’t that different from the other people hawking real estate late at night. But it happened to be Beck who piqued Gabriel’s attention, and he spent $39.95 to buy the course over the phone.

“When I got it in the mail, I reviewed the material, and what I realized was that the CD-ROMs were basically just other infomercials,” he tells me. Apparently, he’d expected to find the key to making millions in the flimsy package that had arrived on his doorstep: “I started looking through things, and there weren’t any step-by-step instructions. I didn’t have any understanding of what I needed to do next.”

Like other products of this kind, Beck’s $39.95 system doesn’t make him any money. The fee just about covers the airtime to market the product. But it gives Beck an easy mark, someone who can be squeezed for more cash at a later date. “A couple of months went by, and all of a sudden I get a call from someone from the offices of John Beck,” Gabriel says, describing a call he received one afternoon from someone who spoke fluent Spanish. (Gabriel is Mexican American.) The caller introduced himself as Jaydar Salazar. “I told him I didn’t really know what I needed to do exactly. He explained I needed a coaching program to make it work.”

Coaching programs are the dirty little secret behind many of these courses. People who purchase the product are told by company reps that they can’t take full advantage of it unless they sign up for a coaching service, a personal adviser who will guide them to real estate riches. The coaches can tack on thousands in additional fees.

Gabriel’s story isn’t unique: thousands every year buy a get-rich-quick product, then get scammed into signing up for a personal coach. What was so disturbing were the circumstances that led to his fateful phone call in 2004. When he picked up the phone to dial the 800 number late one evening, he was home in bed and heavily medicated. A twenty-three-year-old Marine, Gabriel had recently returned home from the war in Iraq.

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