Scam Tactics: Sell the Hype and the Opportunity, Ignore or minimize the Reality and the Cost

Scams usually hook you by selling you the hype and how much money you can make (i.e. the opportunity), while minimize or ignore the reality (such as risk, market, etc.) and cost.

I'll just go over some recent examples and show you what sort of **** they had to spread to generate hype about their so-called "opportunity" while ignoring reality.


The "Internet TV" biz clones

In 2015, over half dozen "internet TV box" companies popped up advertising stuff like "watch your favorite TV for free, cut your cable TV bill, watch favorite sports"... etc. They want you to pay them about $300-500, and for every people you enroll (who also pay them $300-500) you earn money, possibly $100 or more per person. They go by names that includes words like "Box" "Stream" and so on.

That's a pyramid scheme, folks. I've covered what's a pyramid scheme before, so I won't repeat that here. Let's discuss the hype instead.

The matter of fact is you can buy TV boxes like these for about $50-75 on Amazon. They are all based on KODI (used to be XBMC) any way, and wholesale from China they cost even less. You can probably hire some kid to program it for you for another $10-25 if you don't to spend time on it. So where does the extra $200+ go? To the company and whoever recruited you, of course.

TL;DR = you got something for $300 (or more).that you can buy for $60 (WTF?!)

AND you can get better and more legal boxes for $100 (Roku, Amazon Fire Stick, Apple TV, etc.)

They all advertise (some more blatant than others) that they can get pay-per-view programs and subscription programs for free. They tell you people are already doing this, boxes "like" this are being marketed by Amazon and Roku and others (except those don't pirate and cost less than $100). They count on you having "heard" of such stuff, but having NO detailed understanding of such. it sounds "vaguely familiar".

What they don't tell you is getting stuff "for free" is actually piracy and that breaks so many laws that you'll be personally held responsible for such.  And it's no joke, there already has been a raid in UK on seller of such boxes. And let's not forget RIAA and MPAA and so on suing grandmas and so on for astronomical sums.

The schemes hyped up the benefits (OMG FREE EVERYTHING!) and potential upside (OMG MAKE MONEY WHILE HELP OTHERS 'SAVE' MONEY!) while minimizing and hiding reality (The boxes cost $60 on Amazon) and risks (it's illegal to pirate and you can get sued).

TL;DR version:

Hype / Opportunity: OMG Make money, save money, no more cable TV!

Reality / Cost: Overpaying by 3-600%, piracy is illegal

Coming next, "cryptocurrency biz"

More Idiots Who Don't Check the Information They Pass On: UFUN Edition

UFUN is a multi-national alleged ponzi scheme that has ties in Thailand, Malaysia, China, and other countries. In the past three weeks Royal Thai Police have swept up a lot of the heads of the company, but the company's real headquarters is in Malaysia, and at least three of the heads escape through Malaysia. One's remaining in the limelight, supposedly celebrating some signing documents with some developement project, while the other other two have fled Malaysia as well. A retired Thai General that's involved has escaped to the US.

Its primary American cheerleader appears to be a guy by the name of Rodney Burton, who gave himself the title "Global Ambassador", and recently posted something like this on Facebook:

The problem is the link was in Thai, and he clearly does not read Thai, as a different link describing the same announcement reads VERY VERY differently. As you can see, same three guys, just a very different angle. Follow me so far? Here's the link:  

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/UFUN-case-a-transnational-crime-police-30259107.html

And a quote from the article:

Suwira quoted prosecutors as saying that the UFUN case would be regarded as a transnational crime if police were able to present to the OAG clear evidence that the company had been involved in similar criminal offences outside the country as well.  

If the attorney-general deems it a transnational crime, the punishment will be harsher than under normal law. The attorney-general will be the person setting the interrogation method and there will be more complicated steps in the probe, he explained. 

For now, police will gather more documents and interview those claiming damages to confirm whether there were criminal offences outside Thailand, Suwira said, urging affected persons to file complaints with police during the May 1-5 holiday period.

So basically, this Mr. "GlobalAmbassador" Burton got it completely wrong. There is plenty of evidence of UFUN's guilt in Thailand. There's not quite enough evidence of victims OUTSIDE Thailand for Thai Office of Attorney General (OAG) to elevate the case to "Transnational Crime" and invoke ASEAN and Interpol international assistance to end this scheme once and for all.

BIG SOLID CASE AGAINST UFUN
PLENTY OF EVIDENCE IN THAILAND

Which proves that if you don't read or understand Thai, you should not pretend to understand what the video actually said. Liar, liar, hair on fire...

Right now there's no mention of how will Thai Police gather victim reports from outside of Thailand.

I personally would suggest that if you are a victim of UFUN outside of Thailand, and have a local Thai Embassy, you should write up your report and ask your local Thai Embassy to turn it over to Thai Police. I can't think of any other way at the moment. If there is an address or such where you can send such reports published, I will update the method here.