I think that Barbie meant that general education doesn’t necessarily help, i.e. both highly educated people as well as less educatied folks get scammed. I don’t think she meant that specific education about scams is useless. But I’m sure she can explain if she wants

As far as ethics goes, I’ve done exactly what you suggested. I was at the Planet Hollywood in Vegas last year. They wanted me to attend a real estate investment opportunity. I told them that I had absolutely no intention of purchasing a timeshare and that I was way too good at math for that crap. They told me that was fine that I had no intention of buying; that they just wanted the opportunity to make the presentation to me and to change my mind. I still declined.

But the reality is that even though you have no intention of buying, the salespeople are usually better than you and many will ultimately buy. That’s why the salespeople are happy to give away the trinkets because ultimately if you don’t show up, they have zero opportunity to change your mind.

Now, it’s a different story if you can’t buy. But as long as you possess the ability to buy, the salespeople are happy to have you come to the seminar even if they have to give away a few more trinkets.

To be fair to Barbie, I think what she’s saying is that it’s possible for even a very educated person to be a victim of a scam. Education can help you spot a scam, of course, but it can’t “prevent” it in the sense that a vaccine prevents a disease.

As for whether or not your ethics would let you take a free meal for one of these presentations, I’d suggest you simply tell the person up front “I’m really not interested in X” (whatever X is, be it a timeshare or a discount club. If he says “That’s okay, we’d love the chance to talk with you and show you our stuff,” then you’re free and clear ethically. I don’t think you have to say “There’s no way in hell I’d ever buy this”. But for your own financial sake, make sure you stick to your guns.

That all said, unlike Barbie, I don’t think an hour and a half of my time is adequately compensated by a free dinner. Here’s what I figure: professionally, my time bills out at about $100/ hour. I consider my free time, my personal life, far more important than my work time, so for an hour and a half of my time, it would have to be a very, very expensive dinner to compensate. If my partner were included, his time would be just as valuable. For people who don’t value their time highly, however, it could conceivably be worth it to suffer through one of these things.

Do you work in scam prevention, like I do? Where did you obtain your information that education has no impact on scam prevention? Do you have some special knowledge about scam prevention/education to back up the claim that education has no impact?

Those of us who actually WORK in scam education and prevention, and actually have some basis of knowledge about it, can show you reams of data validating that educating the public about scams can and DOES dramatically reduce the number of victims who fall prey to it. That’s what many of us do: we devote countless hours working to educate the public about the scams that are out there, how to recognize them, and how to avoid getting trapped. And it WORKS.

Someone who is desperate for a job, and gets approached with what seems like an easy, lucrative and legitimate way to bring in money to feed their family, will often jump at the chance. But if they’ve HEARD of those kinds of job scams before, the moment they see the red flags that we’ve EDUCATED them about, they know to run away. How did they know to run? How did the recognize the red flags? EDUCATION. Getting the word out. Spreading the knowledge.

I resent your implication that the work we do to educate the public about scams has no impact. Just for the record, it’s a good idea to actually have some basic knowledge about a topic before you post something about it.

If you can walk in and tell them that you want the giveaway but have zero intention of buying, and they will still give it to you, that’s a different story. Hey, knock yourself out with that! No deception, no scam. I’m fine with that. But if you have to go in and lie — actually SAY that there’s a chance you might buy, and even PLAY-ACT (good cop/bad cop – wow), then that’s deceptive. That’s LYING. That’s saying something that isn’t true, and obtaining something of value under false pretenses – which is, indisputably, fraud. There is simply no way around that.

But like I said earlier, everyone’s gotta make their own personal moral choices. I take a pretty hard line against obtaining things of value under false pretenses, mainly because of my volunteer work with fraud victims.

I once spent a weekend with my kids at a resort-style campground for free. It was a time-share type situation where you could stay at that campground, or any of their campgrounds around the country for two weeks a year. We were huge campers back when our kids were small, and it was something we were seriously considering. The financials actually worked out pretty well, provided we used it every year for a certain number of years – and we were camping often enough back then that we would have. We came pretty close to buying, but the numbers just weren’t QUITE there. But they didn’t insist we make a decision right then, we brought information home with us, and after adding it all up we decided against it. I felt no remorse for taking that freebie (which would would have cost a couple hundred dollars if we weren’t on the “freebie” thing). But if I knew I had no intention of buying, my personal ethics would not have allowed me to take advantage of it.

I’d agree with much of what you said. I’d nitpick a few points.

1. I don’t see anything wrong with attending the dinner if you have no intention of purchasing. You’re not scamming anyone. They said upfront, no obligation. In fact, you can even tell them that you’re not buying and they’re still happy to have you attend and take the free items.

2. My larger point though is that although people may be satisfied with their purchases, a timeshare purchased from the original developer is almost universally a terrible deal. That’s why they have to either you with free crap to attend the seminars.

Now, I’ve seen some nice timeshares on the resale market which are great deals.

But I think it’s important to note that you can’t just assume that any company that is giving away dinners/shows is a scam.

The reality is that there ARE valid companies selling things of value that use “giveaways” to entice people to view their products. For example, I know lots of people who’ve been very happy with their timeshare purchases. (Timeshares don’t appeal to me, but I they can work for certain people in certain situations.) So you really can’t use “giveing away a free dinner” as a red flag that whatever they’re selling is a scam. However, you CAN use “must buy it now, can’t take materials home with you” as a pretty solid red flag. I would never purchase ANYTHING that I wasn’t allowed an appropriate amount of time to review – and any sales situation in which you must decide RIGHT THEN, and can’t take any materials with you to evaluate, is almost assuredly a scam of some sort.

So if you know going in that it’s a scam, or you have no intention of buying, then your approach is the right one: avoid it altogether. Don’t lower yourself to the level of the scam artists by taking something of value to which you aren’t entitled. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Scamming from scam artists still makes you a scammer.

I do have compassion for victims of scams. I’ve talked to too many of them, and seen what it’s done to them, not to have compassion. But I still want to strangle them sometimes just for being so gullible. But there are lots of people who are simply uneducated about how business dealings work, and are just too trusting. I see this especially in older people who grew up in small towns where everyone knew everyone. You can’t be a successful scam artist if you personally know all your potential victims! People like this often have just never encountered unscrupulous strangers who will do whatever it takes to part their victims from their money, so it’s an alien concept to them. They grew up in an environment in which it was safe to trust. It’s heartbreaking to see them face the reality that they’ve been defrauded by some slick con artist who seemed like “such a nice young fellow”.

The best, and often ONLY, recourse against scams and frauds is education – getting the word out to the public about what to watch out for. Which is exactly what Christopher is doing with this article.

You are right that it can happen to anyone, no matter how smart or sophisticated since a con plays to a person’s greed.

In regards to Bernie Madoff, his con was successful because it was ‘government approved.’ His company was regulated by the government (SEC) and quasi –government (NASD) thus giving the illusion that he was legit since the government was regulating and monitoring his company via on-site compliance reviews, monthly and quarterly reports and etc. There were several complaints filed with the SEC about that were totally ignored by the SEC with the first complaint being filed with SEC back on 1999. It was the failure of the government that allowed Bernie Madoff to run his ponzi scheme.

Yes, he was naive. That is truly unfortunate. Alas, since these scams remain, that strongly suggests that people are falling for them all the time. Personally, I just stay clear of all of it.