You see an advertisement for a free seminar on how to build your business or your wealth online. Maybe it’s not free - maybe there’s a small cover fee, but it’s very small, almost nothing.

Once you get there, however, you find that it’s not a seminar on how to get richer. There might be some genuine financial advice in there, but most of it is pressure to actually buy “packages” of further financial advice or services - usually seminars or “one on one” coaching.

And usually these are all-day events, or several hours long, all sales tactics, shaming the audience for not being as successful as the promoter, and so on. By the time the presenter finishes, the audience is so tired out and wanting to get out of there that they might be convinced to buy anything that sounds good.

And once you do, it’s often a non-functional product, terrible advice, or the presenter never comes through, and you are out money.

How to protect yourself
Always ask yourself this question: “If this person is so successful, why is he running free in-person seminars?”

Remember, booking space costs money (unless you’re maybe doing a free space rental somewhere). Assistants cost money. If you’re rich, you’re not going to be going in-person around the country (or countries) running free seminars?

Research is crucial. If they have a website that is also selling something along the same lines, it’s a good idea to stay away.

Essentially, these con men get rich by selling people seminars and packages that prove to be generally useless. By the time you realize you’ve been defrauded, they’ve moved onto the next batch of suckers.

If you really need good advice on how to get rich or how to promote yourself, there are people all over the world who talk about how they genuinely got there. And there are genuine in-person financial seminars that aren’t sleezy - usually a non-profit or similar renting out a conference room and bringing in a retired financial advisor to theach people how to manage their money better, without any expectation of payment.

Also, this does not cover timeshare scams, which are also a high-pressure sales pitch, but they use tactics similar to this kind of scammer.