You’d think on a Sunday I’d just be sitting back enjoying a truly pleasant, slightly chilly, day here in Las Vegas. But, truth be told, that is far from the truth. I’ve been working my buns off.

However, I did find something of real interest to anyone doing anything online or offline. If you get the Sunday paper, and read the Parade magazine, and follow Marilyn vos Savant, then you most likely already saw this… if not keep reading. (I’m going to paraphrase, but the message is the same.)

While there are loads of people out there only too willing to get rich quick, losing money to scammers may not always be your fault.

Turns out the con game played by (financial) swindlers is beyond devious, and the example given is for stock market swindles (but use your imagination and you’ll see how this could easily translate to just about anything online).

Person X tells and/or emails 1000 potential clients that a particular stock will go up on a given day. In the meantime, he or she is also telling 1000 OTHER people that the particular stock will go down.

He or she has a 50-50 chance of being right, so… once he/she determines which side “won” this person concentrates on that group. Digging around Person X comes up with another stock (or whatever) and hits the group of 1000 that “won.” But, the twist is this time, out of those 1000, he/she tells 500 this new stock is going up; while telling the remaining 500 it’s going down.

The more times he/she repeats this pattern, Person X eventually ends up with a list of people who will believe anything he/she tells them.

Unfortunately, in this case scenario, too often those on the “winning” (read lucky) side, often cough up their entire life savings thinking there is no way this person can be wrong.

The information is then summed up with this:

While this ruse isn’t a pyramid scheme, it does illustrate how easy it is to concoct ways to trick people by preying on their wishful thinking.

The long and short… back to what we continue to advise (and I was once told by a financial advisor) – making money or not is a 50-50 flip of a coin. You can do just as well as the “expert” in predicting what’s hot out there (online or off) as the next guy – if you’re willing to do your homework first.

Stay safe, be happy, enjoy your Sunday!

Related articles

• Whom Can You Trust With Your Money? (abcnews.go.com)
• Financial Scams On The Rise As Economic Suffering Spreads (huffingtonpost.com)
• Planning a Retirement Without Dividends (nytimes.com)