It’s like that scene in Wolf of Wall Street where Jordan Belfort is interviewing for a new job at a small brokerage firm and Belfort says, “Hey, come on. Who buys this crap?”
And the guy tells him,
“Well, I mean, honestly mostly schmucks…
they see our ads in the back of Hustler and Popular Mechanics,
and our ads actually say they can get rych quick. [laughs]”
It sounds so ludicrous because when you watch a salesman on the screen tell you it’s all B.S., you know.
You know.
You say to yourself, “I would never fall for something like that.”
True story:
A long time ago, Yours Naivety wandered into a Yahoo Groups forum (remember those?) to join other malcontents.
I was still new to the financial services biz and had gotten involved with a pretty sweet investment deal.
An acquaintance of mine (whom I had done business with in the past) was friends with a retired financial analyst who was getting back into the investing scene.
He was offering what amounted to a private equity or pooled investment fund.
Basically, he agreed to invest our money and in return charge a modest fee for the privilege.
The returns were… amazing.
Anywho, one day I emailed the analyst because I hadn’t received a monthly report.
No response.
Huh.
Ok.
I tried again a few days later.
No response.
My heart skipped a beat.
I had given this man quite a substantial sum of money.
So, you can imagine how anxious I was to have him return my email.
And since email wasn’t working…
You know you start making up excuses like, “oh maybe somethings wrong with the email server. Maybe he didn’t get it. Maybe his Internet is down. Maybe it accidentally went to his spam folder 5 times in a row.”
So I FINALLY got him on the phone.
“Hey John” (name has been changed to protect the embarrassed).
“Hey John, what’s up?”
It’s funny when you say shyt like that over the phone, what you really mean is, “YOU BEEN DODGIN’ ME FOR 3 DAYS!! WHERE THE HELL IS MY MONEY MAN?!?!!!1”
He assured me everything was fine but that if I wanted out, I could get my moolah back.
I decided to take him up on his offer and get the moolah back.
And not a month later, he was arrested for fraud.
Oh glory day.
You really have to be careful out there.
Sometimes, even with careful research… plans go awry…
You really need to look at the underlying fundamentals an whether something makes sense…
Has a company been around for a while or is it a new startup with an (essentially) unproven idea?
Not that you can’t trust an unproven idea… but maybe it’s not a great idea to put a large sum of money into it.
And…
Trust no one (not even me).
In fact, I encourage people to look me up online, see what other people have to say about me.
…the good AND the bad.
And when someone complains about me online, pay attention to whether it’s a legitimate complaint or just feelz.
Do the same for positive reviews.
Talk to my friends AND my enemies (and my frienemies). Hit me up on Fakebook or LinkedIn.
Or not.
Now, if you’re already past the “thinking about it phase,” book an appointment below to have me design a custom insurance plan for you and/or your bid’naz.
Info here: