What Is a Get Rich Quick Scheme? Real Or Fantasy?
They seem to be everywhere online, but what is a get rich quick scheme? Are they for real, or just some sort of fantasy created by “gurus”, designed as a way to get their greedy little hands on your hard earned money?
Most of the posts I write on this site are product reviews of make money schemes and training platforms. Quite a few of the make money online (MMO) schemes are promoted as get rich quick schemes.
Rather than just write another product review, I decided to focus on the get rich quick scheme, what it’s about, how to recognise one, and why you should avoid them in most cases.
What Is a Get Rich Quick Scheme Exactly?
An entry on Wikipedia defines a get rich quick scheme as “a plan to obtain high rates of return for a small investment. The term "get rich quick" has been used to describe shady investments since at least the early 1900s”.
Not everything that’s promoted like a get rich quick scheme is a scam necessarily, but many schemes are. Sometimes even legit opportunities will over-hype their own potential, coming across as a get rich quick scheme, but in reality don’t work that way. These schemes might still have something genuine to offer, but make promises they can’t deliver on just to hook people in.
My basic definition of a get rich quick scheme is where something is promoted as an easy way to make money in rapid time, but the results are usually far from the truth.
The Online World Is Promoted As a Fantasy Land Where Making Money Is Really Easy
It is.
People who have genuinely been making money online (or trying to) for a while will know that the fantasy is just a dream and not a reality. It’s really a shiny bubble presented to people who are new to making money on the internet and don’t yet have the experience to know better.
All of us have some experience in the offline world, and even though the internet has been mega popular for about 2 decades now, there are still truck loads of people who have never tried to make a dime online yet.
My point being is that with so many inexperienced people out there still, it’s quite a simple process to portray the internet as being some mystical, magical money making machine, where everything happens instantly and on autopilot.
That’s what the “gurus” would have you believe.
The Tricks Get Rich Quick Schemes Use To Hook People In
Basically people who are trying to sell the unsuspecting public on a get rich quick scheme will use 3 main ploys:
- Make BIG money
- In quick time
- No work required
The buzz word used for number 3 on that list is usually “autopilot”. These schemers love tossing that word about because it sucks people in. It goes back to that fantasy of the internet being some magical realm where money appears instantly out of thin air.
Almost always big dollar figures are tossed about, and everybody wants to know they’ll be raking in the cash in quick time. You’ll even be dazzled with “income proof”, which is so easily faked it’s not funny.
I could quite easily tack a bunch of other tactics onto that list, but those 3 are the main ploys used.
A fourth prominent one would be the use of fake scarcity, where it’s claimed there is limited time available to get on board, or limited spots left. You need to get in quick before you miss out, in other words.
This is used so people will hurry up and pay to join the get rich quick scheme. These schemers also don’t want people taking the time out to do some research on the scheme either. If it’s a scam or a waste of time, something that seriously doesn’t deliver on its promises, people will find that out soon enough after doing their homework.
Can’t have that now, so toss in a nice juicy chunk of fake scarcity to nullify that and get people to hurry up and take action without thinking.
Why Are People Attracted To the Lure of Get Rich Quick Schemes?
Let’s now look at why so many people are lured into these schemes and often fall for scams; scams that look obvious to someone with experience online.
So the first main reason – and this is really the target audience – is newbies. They are hooked in by believing the promises through a lack of experience more than anything, plus the fantasy of the online world like we’ve already discussed.
I think it’s a part of being human to desire big money that’s fast and easy to get. I mean, we’d all kind of like that, wouldn’t we?
I’d say many of us are realistic enough to know that things don’t work that way, online or offline, but there is still a fairly high percentage of people out there who are willing to believe in the get rich quick concept and take a chance on it being true.
Get rich quick appeals to the impatience of people, as well as greed. Another thing it appeals to is the lazy side of people, because schemes are almost always promoted in the following ways:
-
Make money on autopilot
- Push button system
- Work only 5 minutes a day
- Work only 4 hours a month
- Copy and paste system
- Done for you system
That list could go on and on with me quoting all the catch phrases I’ve seen over the years that all basically mean the same thing: Hardly any or no work required on your part to make stacks of cash in very quick time.
We all need money. That’s just the way the world works. Things are getting more and more expensive too, so if we want to enjoy a better quality of life, we constantly need to find ways to increase our income and bank balance.
Also we don’t want to wait until we’re 185 years old before we have enough money to fully enjoy our lives.
This is all natural enough and there’s nothing wrong with thinking or feeling this way, but get rich quick schemes play on these desires and really push them to another level.
The ones that are scammers are masters of telling us what we want to hear. They know exactly what emotional triggers to target and when and how to push those emotional hot buttons.
There is a definite art to it all.
Another thing you’ll notice, especially about scammers, is how long they can waffle on for in their sales videos and not really ever tell you anything about how you’ll be making all this money they promise.
They just tend to repeat the same hype over and over again, but presented in different ways.
All they really do is get people geed up and excited enough to hand over their cash without even knowing what they’re really buying into.
If you are going to take a chance on buying into a get rich quick scheme, then at least choose one that’s for sale on the ClickBank digital marketplace (there are plenty on there). ClickBank offers a 60 day money back guarantee, which very likely you’ll end up wanting to take advantage of.
If you buy into one of these platforms via the scheme’s own website, chances of ever getting a refund if it’s a scam are likely going to be zero.
You have to remember, if something is indeed a scam, their plan is to do everything they can to get you to pay them. That’s their goal. To scam money out of you. In this case, there’s absolutely no chance whatsoever of ever getting a refund when you discover their program is complete shit.
They’ve got what they want – your money – and there’s no way they’ll be giving it back to you.
In the case of something that’s not a scam, but just over-hyped, then you may get a refund, but it’s still iffy at the very least.
Best just not to buy into a get rich quick scheme in the first place, because there seriously is no such thing for the most part.
I Wish Getting Rich Quickly Online Was True
I do really wish the internet was that magical money making cash cow like it’s often made out to be. I’d love to make riches in very fast time and not have to do any work. That would be totally awesome.
I mean seriously, if we’re all honest, deep down just about all of us would want that.
There are ways to get rich quick (to a point), and some of them exist online, but generally these are either total luck, or things you have no control over and can’t make happen.
Ways To Get Rich Quick
Let’s very quickly now look at some potential ways that you could get rich quick, but aren’t scams. Some of these are online and some are in the real world.
Online Gambling – This is one way where you could potentially make some big money in quick time online, but it does come with immense risk. To win big, you would likely have to bet big. Still, it is a genuine possibility.
Win the Lottery – Again, another gambling idea. You can either play lotto online or offline, depending on which lotto it is and where. The odds of getting rich with this method are so slim it’s ridiculous, and you’re not likely to get rich quickly, unless you have beginner’s luck or something.
Inherit Money – Some people find themselves wealthy overnight from inheriting large sums of money or property, but this is not something you can work on or have any control over. Also, you have to wait for (and maybe hope for) someone to die to make your money. Pretty morbid, really.
Run An Online Scam – You could create your own get rich quick scheme and get rich that way. After all, that’s why online scams exists; to make the creator fabulously wealthy at everyone else’s expense.
Get Totally Lucky – This can happen. You might publish an eBook on Kindle that suddenly sells like gangbusters, create a YouTube video that goes viral and makes you stacks of cash in advertising or something, or something else where you just plain get lucky basically. This does happen from time to time, and it’s hard to define why that particular book, video, song or whatever suddenly got popular over everything else. There usually is no logical explanation.
Start a Ponzi Scheme – People joining Ponzi schemes don’t usually get rich out of them, but if you’re the creator of the Ponzi scheme and it gets popular, then likely you’ll get rich out of it.
From the above list, I’m not suggesting you create a scam and con people, or start up your own Ponzi scheme. I’m merely listing the few possibilities of getting rich quick, but none of them are viable in all honesty. They either depend on luck, or require you to be dishonest. Or hope someone dies.
The Reality of How It Really Works Online
Let’s be totally honest.
The chances of you ever getting rich very quickly online are almost zero. That’s just reality.
Sorry if that bursts your bubble.
Now, let’s actually get to the truth here. You can make money online, and you can actually get rich online, but it’s not going to be some overnight success story.
The online world is essentially not much different to the offline world, except you do get access to a global audience, which does offer up loads of possibilities that aren’t available to most offline businesses and money making opportunities.
To make money online takes work, time and often some decent training to teach you the best and most effective ways to achieve your goals.
If you’re not willing to put any effort into making money from home on the internet, then by all means buy into a get rich quick scheme that won’t deliver anything it claims.
There’s no avoiding putting the work in, but if you do, then over time much of your online income will become passive. So basically, do the work now and the payoff and cruisy lifestyle come as a result of that.
You can create multiple streams of income, start an online business, get to the point where you can employ people to do most of the work for you. It’s all doable, but it’s not going to be super simple or instant.
As soon as people realise and accept the truth of that, then the less power and allure get rich quick schemes will actually have, and people will fall for them way less often.
I make more than a fulltime income on the internet from home, and I’ve been doing that for some time now. Click the banner below to learn how I do it.
