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"
