What’s the truth about the infomercials?
A few years ago the suede shoes and pinky ring crowd showed up selling cash flow “seminars” and “boot camps” and “coaching”on TV infomercials, in slick magazines and mass mailings, promising people that notes are the sure path to riches. They tell people: “The note business is easy.” “There´s almost no competition.” (The biggest seminar company actually put this in big letters across the screen in their infomercial! In case you didn´t know, that is an outright lie.) Other claims frequently made: “Many of our graduates make over $100,000 a year.” “You can spend all day on the golf course when you´re a note broker, just take your cell phone, make a couple of calls, and boom! You´ve made $10,000!” They charge anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 and more for a few days of “training,” (which tells you why they think notes are the sure path to riches – their own!). To sweeten the pot, you sometimes receive the bogus title of “certified cash flow broker” or “consultant” or become their “apprentice” or get exclusive access to their lists of notes (all phony, by the way — see the FAQ above) or something similarly bogus when you take their course. The fact is, there is no certification recognized by the note industry. The Federal Trade Commission is going after the infomercial pitchmen, and several of them have already paid big fines and gone to jail.
