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Get Rich Quick - Paige Scott

A few months ago, I kept getting this e-mail in my inbox titled “Make $3000 a month selling on eBay.”  Of course, my initial reaction was, “What a scam!  You would be crazy to even look at that e-mail!”  After numerous clicks of sending it to my spam folder, the same message kept magically reappearing in my inbox, so I decided to indulge myself and actually read it.  It read something like this:

-First, buy our cd and we will teach you the ins and outs of making $3000 a month (or more) selling on eBay.

-You can start earning money IMMEDIATELY.

-As soon as you purchase this cd, you will be well on your way to becoming a millionaire. 

-All you have to pay is the shipping and handling of $4.95.

-You must act within the next 30 minutes to get this amazing deal as there are only a limited amount of cds available at this fantastic price.

-You will be on your way in no time living the life you always imagined.  A life of wealth, happiness, no debt, and amazingly enough, you will be super skinny. 

-Hurry, you would be stupid not to take advantage of this offer! 

-If you don’t do this now, everyone else will have bought the cd (that they only paid the shipping and handling for) and they will be well on their way to that extra $3000 (or more) per month.

-If you act RIGHT NOW, we will also throw in 6 extra e-books that will change your life:  Live your BEST life ever; Eat all you want and actually lose weight; Make an extra $150 a day just sitting around in your pajamas; Eat bon-bons all day and look fabulous; Think and grow rich;    Lose all the weight you want in your sleep! 

-At first you only pay the shipping and handling.  Within 7 days, you have the choice to return the cd or you will then be billed $39.95 per month. 

I quit reading somewhere in the middle and clicked the ORDER NOW button.  Why, you ask?  I know, I know, in the past I scoffed at things like this, but my dear husband had just come home recently and informed me that he was not getting his bonus, plus there was no pay raise this year, plus he might actually be taking a pay cut!

I know I should have never clicked the ORDER NOW button.  My God, I was smarter than this.  I had a Masters degree and if there is one thing a person with a Masters degree should know, it is that you never order a get rich quick scheme off the internet when they only give you a limited amount of time to order it.  Also, a person with a Masters degree should ALWAYS read the  fine print  before purchasing anything!

Before even receiving the cd, my life transformed almost immediately.  I began daydreaming about sipping pina coladas on a remote area of a white sandy beach with people waiting on me hand and foot.  I imagined my family sailing away on a yacht.

Actually, I was really thinking about the extra $3000 per month I was going to make selling on eBay just to help with the monthly expenses and paying our bills.  I was walking around with HOPE waiting for this magical cd to appear in my mailbox.  I even had the conversation with Ashley one day (when she called me telling me that they were months behind on their mortgage and that they were probably going to have to foreclose) that I had ordered this cd on how to make an extra $3000 a month on eBay, and as soon as I received it I would share it with her.  Three thousand a month would help her, right?

I checked my mailbox every day that week, sometimes 2 and 3 times a day in case my mailman accidently realized that he had one more thing he forgot to put in my box.  I was getting to days 4 and 5 and my list kept growing as to where I would spend my first $3000.  Day 6 came and went.  Day 7 – wasn’t there something about returning it by day 7 or else, something?  What was that?  Day 8, Day 9………… and then on Day 10, a little white inconspicuous padded mailer came.  Was this it?  Was this what was going to make it all better?

YES!  It came.  I drove from the mailbox to the house faster than I could ever remember and ran inside to my computer.  “Kids, I need all of you to sit in front of the TV and do not disturb me.  I have some very important business to tend to.  Here, take this whole bag of snickers while you are at it!  If you run out, grab the candy bowl out of the pantry and you can have as much as you want as long as nobody disturbs me.  Sure, get some cokes, too!”

I felt like the kid in “A Christmas Story” when he ordered that decoder ring and locked himself in the bathroom to read the secret message.  I popped the cd in and some fancy music came on and the cd revealed that there were 5 whole sections.  Five whole sections to change my life!  Yippee!

Section 1 – The history of eBay   (I skipped that part.)

Section 2 – The different categories and sections of eBay

Section 3 – How to set up a seller account on eBay

Section 4 – What to do after you make the sell

Section 5 – Other things to consider when selling on eBay

WTF?  Where was the part that was going to make me the three thousand dollars? 

I already had a seller account on eBay.  I already knew how to sell on eBay.  I had a 100% feedback rating for 762 past transactions selling on eBay.  I had become an expert going through the house selecting things to sell on eBay.  I had come to realize how much crap we had accumulated over the years.  Every time I thought I had nothing more to list on eBay, new things appeared from the back of the closet or the bottom of the dresser drawers.  Once, to my husband’s utter amazement, I even sold a half used bottle of shampoo.  It was Aveda and it was one of those gargantuan bottles that a normal person would never use in a million years.  (And if you really want to know, my friend’s mom even sold a gold tooth for the cash, so I wasn’t completely nuts selling the shampoo!)

I thought this cd was going to show me exactly what to sell, when to sell it and where to get all the merchandise to sell.  Surely, there was some mistake.  I was not this stupid to order a cd that told me everything I already knew about eBay.  Surely, I wasn’t going to have to look for gold teeth to sell.  Surely, I didn’t get my Masters degree to do this.

But, yes – I did.  And since the cd had not arrived in the 7 days to be able to return it before being charged for the first month, I also paid the additional $39.99 to learn absolutely nothing.

Well, I did learn one thing; there is a reason why you should always follow your instincts on things like this.  I will have to admit that I am enjoying the e-book on How to eat bon-bons all day and feel fabulous.  See, I got that for the $44.90, so I am not all that stupid, right?