CCR Notwithstanding, "Too Good to Be True" still rules radio

Chirpy woman gushes about a Work-At-Home Program called Freedom47.c0m-- "I wanted to be with my kids and work at home. I wanted them to have Mommy care, not Daycare. I quit my job and thanks to Freedom47.com, I've been at home for the last seven years with my daughters..."

Guy chimes in, "I just HAD to get out of the business rat race. My wife and I quit our jobs, and now we are home making more than $10,000 a MONTH EACH, thanks to Freedom47.com!"

Wow, sounds super-impressive. So I went to the website. At first, the presentation is quite typical- picture of smiling family sitting on the grass, probably having a picnic or something, obviously blissful in their new stay-at-home-and-make-barrels-of-money lifestyle. Little bullet points tell us that we can "set our own hours," among other inducements. Of course, there's an informative DVD they'd like you to order. Right there on the home page (there are NO other pages) there's an application for the reader to fill out- Name, Address, Phone Number, How did you hear about us?, etc. But here's the strange part- at no point are you told about the "small shipping fee" you must send to get the free DVD or asked for a credit card number. Apparently, they are actually willing to send you the DVD (which, we are told, contains "about one hour of information on our business plan) for free. Very odd.

I hate to be a cynic here, but the combination of the obviously phony "you can make huge money at home" theme (there are only two ways you can make huge money at home- you can start your own web-based business and sell products that the public wants at reasonable prices- which leaves out Internet Speedway- or you can insert yourself into a web-based pyramid scheme in which you become a very adept scammer on behalf of the people above you; I won't mention a specific company by name, but the one I'm thinking of starts with the letter "A," ends with the letter "Y," and rhymes with Highway) and the actually-free information has me thinking Cult. I've heard of such businesses smoothing the way for people to look for information by providing free materials, which ultimately lead to an invite to a free seminar, where the real brainwashing begins. Maybe that "How on Earth are you anyway?" guy who encourages people to "minister" to their families and "minister" to their communities by working from home is involved.

I'm really tempted to order the DVD and provide an update to this post after watching it, but I'm not willing to let the Freedom47.com people know where I live. If maintaining this blog paid my salary, I'd have a post office box that I would use to order "free" material for inspection all the time. But if that were the case, I'd be working from home, and I'd have a Financial Success Story to tell, and I'd be letting you know how you, too, could be avoiding the rat race and making big bucks from home. I think I'd charge shipping and handling for my DVD, though.