THE PITCH

There are so many of these sites that is it overwhelming. They all typically promote a product (usually an e-book) that promises to show you how you can become wealthy. They talk about teaching you things that only the "gurus" know, and how it can change your life overnight. They show you pictures of fancy cars, houses, and even have testimonials from people that have succeeded. It's easy to get started and costs very little (as little as $39.95). You even get a free website to get started. Quite often, they state there is a limited number of products, or seats, or positions available, so you better get started now, otherwise the price will dramatically increase, or you'll be left out.

THE FACTS

Assuming you fall prey to their pitch and order their product, this is only the beginning. Only $39.95 - yeah, right. As soon as you click to order the product, the special incentive comes into play. For a limited time, you can order the enhanced add-on to the product for only $39 more (discounted from their regular price of $99 or $199, or whatever). This offer will not be available if you choose not to purchase it now. This version gives you even more information, more secrets, more of everything - basically telling you that the original product is pretty much worthless, so spend the extra money now and get what you really want.

The free website? Yes, you do get one with basic information on it. These free websites will probably even use Google Ads so that Google pays when someone clicks on the ads. But WAIT! Someone else gets the payments, not you. Why? You have to get the enhanced website for only an additional $10 per month. The enhanced website has the potential to generate a lot more income for you. Of course, what they don't tell you is you have to pay for a full year in advance to get the $10/month rate.

So, let's add it up so far, the base product is $39.95, the enhanced add-on is $39, and the enhanced website is another $120. That's $198.95. And now you have to generate traffic to your website. Don't know how? Well, they have an insider deal on other books and tools - Pay-Per-Click Secrets, Keyword Generator, etc.. Now that you are on their email mailing list, you will be inundated with all kinds of product offers - all offering you a special price because you ordered the first product. Okay, some of them sound good and you order one one for $40. So far, you've spent $238.95 and you haven't even gotten started. Now that you've ordered another product, you are now on another email list and get bombed with more product offerings. And on and on it goes.

The goal it to keep enticing you to purchase products so that they make money - not you. They do this to hundreds, if not thousands, of people who respond to their websites and to those on their mailing lists.

CONCLUSION

Pretty soon, you realize you have spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on products and haven't made a penny. You'll also realize that the only way to try to make money is to do the same thing and try to trick others into buying products from you. Very few people ever make money from these types of opportunities - they just get suckered into spending more and more money. The truth? A few people do make money from these businesses, but they are the minority. Do you want to earn a living suckering people into buying useless product after useless product?

THE PITCH

The premise is simple - become a travel agent and make money selling travel. By joining the organization, you immediately become a travel agent and get all of the benefits of being an agent. You get your own travel website which you can promote to people. The cost? It depends on the type of website or the program you choose. It can be $50 per month, plus some unknown non-refundable activation fee. Or $700 per year for the top level. It varies from site to site. They promise all kinds of travel benefits. Earn even more by being part of the program to sign up more agents.

THE FACTS

Okay, let's get down to what you get. When you join one of these organizations, you may get a Travel Agent ID card (not industry card, but the organization's own card), a website, access to travel booking tools, access to deals, training calls, etc. Quite often, they'll even throw in travel certificates (more on these later) or other enticements. Great, sounds good so far.

Now what? It's up to you to promote and book travel, but you'll soon find out that the people you signed up with aren't interested in helping you book travel or how to get travel business. Why? Because they are more interested in recruiting people as travel agents.  That's how the program is set up. You make most of your money by recruiting people, not by making travel bookings. You soon realize this wasn't what you thought it was.

The goal is to sign up as many agents as possible at the various membership prices and that is how you will make most of your money. Can you make money just booking travel? Yes, but why would you want to do it with program that is more focused on recruiting agents? What they don't want you to know is that you can become an authentic, independent travel agent for little or no cost at all. And that's with reputable travel agencies. That's right, you can get started for almost nothing, but these organizations are charging hundreds of dollars for you to get started. Why? So they can pay out commissions for recruiting more agents.

CONCLUSION

If you want to be a travel agent, be a travel agent. Find an organization that will train and support you to run a travel business. Don't get fooled into "buying" into one of these business opportunities that promise to make you an instant travel agent, but in reality, want you to be a travel agent recruiter. With these programs, you spend money and really get nothing in return because you can do the same thing without paying any entry or membership fee.

THE PITCH

Purchasing a membership package will save you thousands and thousands of dollars on your vacations. How? You'll get hundreds of travel certificates for free vacations, cruises, flights, cheap hotels - everything. Depending on the program, memberships cost anywhere from $1300 to $11,000. Because you can use some of these travel certificates over and over again, you get at least 5 to 10 times the value in travel. If you are looking at the business opportunity, income is earned by selling these memberships. Profits will vary, but typically they are extremely high. For example, $1000 profit on a $1300 membership. Or, $9700 on a $11,000 membership.

Another common component with these programs are the "call centers", which will do all of the work for you. They claim they have professional sales staff to handle all of your calls for you and will make the sales for you. All you have to do is sit back and collect the profits. Of course, there is usually a cost to being part of these call centers, in addition to membership package they highly recommend you purchase.

THE FACTS

When you join, you'll get a collection of travel certificates that you can redeem for trips. Sounds good so far? Unfortunately, what they don't tell you is that most of these certificates are worthless, as they have so many restrictions on them and most of them require extra fees to use them. What they especially don't want you to know is that most of these certificates can be obtained for a few dollars on eBay, or elsewhere on the Internet, and can even cost as little as 10 cents each, if you buy them in volume.

As well, most of these certificates cannot be used when you first join - there's waiting period. But many the certificates have expiration dates on them, so your window to use them has just shrunk because you had to wait before you could use them. And even though you have a lifetime membership, the certificates aren't valid indefinitely. Something else they don't tell you is that many, if not most, of these certificates have activation and processing fees when they are used.

Redemption of these certificates is often a difficult, frustrating and costly process. You can't call any vendors directly as most of these need to be redeemed using a system of mail-in vouchers (with deposits and fees, of course). On complaint websites, it appears that some individuals that purchased these, then booked and paid for their trips, were shocked when they arrived at their destinations only to find out the vendors had no record of the bookings and refused to honor them.

And your free trips? Forget about it - it is pretty much impossible to take any "free" trips because of activation fees, processing fees, taxes and other fees. A free cruise for 2 could conceivably cost over $400 (reservation fee, processing fee, government fees, port charges, taxes, etc.). Paying $400 isn't exactly free.

Income is derived by selling more and more of these memberships and getting people you brought in to sell them as well. Bottom line - you spend thousands of dollars on a membership, find out you have worthless certificates that are more trouble than they are worth to redeem and the only way to make an income is to pitch these same worthless certificates to other people. Not very ethical, is it?

One of these programs recently become mired in all sorts of accusations of lying, fraud and cheating, as members did whatever necessary to keep promoting the memberships and the income program. Members basically were free to do as they wish and in many instances, people were unscrupulous in their business practices. The irony is that many of the "successful" (and not so successful) members of this program, have now joined other travel programs, and many of them will now openly state that the certificates they used to promote were worthless. Funny how they didn't have any problems selling them to people when they were involved.

CONCLUSION

Have people actually redeemed certificates for trips? Yes, probably. For free trips? Unlikely.

In our opinion, programs like these have no real value and are purely set up to take your money. Think about it, if you were paying $1300 for a membership and $1000 was paid out in commissions, that only leaves $300. Assuming the organization running the program wants to keep some of that, how much do you think is left for purchasing the actual product (the vacation certificates)? Even if there was $150 left to cover the cost of the certificates (which is probably high), how much do you think $150 worth of certificates can really get you? Do you really think you can get tens of thousands of dollars worth of "free" travel for $150? Not likely. So basically, you are getting nothing for your membership fee.

THE PITCH

Purchase an exclusive travel membership that will provide you with travel savings to thousands of luxury resorts worldwide. The memberships, which range from $1500 to $15,000, depending on the program that you are looking at. They all claim that you can stay at luxurious resorts and save thousands of dollars compared to using travel sites such as Travelocity or Expedia. One of the businesses also provides members with a travel booking site that will generate commissions if someone books travel through their site.

Regardless of the program, the primary incentive to earn income is sell memberships and to get people you sell memberships to, to sell memberships.

THE FACTS

You know, there is nothing really wrong with selling memberships in itself. The key issue, is what do you get for that membership? Other than to fast track you into the income program, what else do you get? Most of these travel membership programs claim substantial savings for booking at their resorts. You can save money every time you book a trip, and if you don't travel, it doesn't cost you anything. That last bit is kind of ridiculous because if you don't travel, why on earth would you purchase a travel membership?

Can you really save money? Yes, it is true that once you purchase your membership, you can save money by booking at their resorts when compared to Travelocity, Expedia, or some of the other online travel sites. What they don't tell you is that their network of resorts is primarily made up of timeshare units. What they also don't tell you is that you can book many of these same timeshares directly with the owners at discounted prices as well. During our research, we found that it was possible to get the same resorts directly from the owners (perhaps at slightly higher prices), but definitely lower than the Travelocity and Expedia prices they quoted. For example, at one resort, it was $799 for a week stay, but we found we could get the same room for about $900, but we didn't have to pay a membership fee to do that. In some instances, we found cheaper prices at neighboring resorts. One program also claims you won't ever pay more than $799 for a week at any of the resorts, but if you read the fine print, you'll find out that if the resort you want doesn't have any $799 rooms left, you'll have to pay the wholesale cost, even if it is substantially higher. Kind of contradicts itself.

On the business side, one of the programs has such a complex compensation plan that many of its members don't understand it and can't explain it. They just tell you to watch the video. We spoke to different members and got very different explanations. One explanation that was given was completely different from the "official" compensation website video and was clearly more beneficial for that person giving the explanation. Why would you want to be involved with a program where it is so complicated that even it's members aren't clear on how it works?

CONCLUSION

If you want to save money on travel, you can do this with enough research and shouldn't have to pay thousands of dollars for that capability. If you want to book timeshares, you can do that directly as there are many, many, websites that provide that capability. If you want to book travel to other resorts and destinations, you should have the capability and flexibility to do that without paying thousands of dollars.

Bottom line, although you get the ability to save money on travel with your membership, it's not as simple as appears. There are restrictions and in many instances, similar deals can be found without buying the membership.

The interesting thing is that you are not actually getting anything for your membership - only the right to spend and save money. Some would argue that is worth a lot. Wouldn't it be better to get a REAL trip (not worthless certificates either) with your membership and then ongoing savings?

Don't just take our word for it. Take a look at this video clip as shown on MSNBC on July 25, 2008 (first item discussed). More details can also be found on Reader's Digest site at http://www.rd.com/personal-financial-advice/how-to-prevent-money-scams/article83018.html.

THE PITCH

Purchase a personal development and improvement package and change your life forever. This may include CDs, DVDs, books, workbooks, etc. You can also attend personal development conferences and seminars, which may include well known speakers and personalities.

Income is earned from selling the basic package and by selling the conference and seminar packages, especially to people that have already purchased the basic package.

THE FACTS

There are a few different programs in this area. Like the "Internet Millionaire" opportunities, these businesses can suck money out of you very quickly before you make a penny.

So, what does it cost to get started? While conducting our research, we found a website that listed the typical costs to get involved with one of these programs.

• Associate or Member fee - $50 (may include one month website fee)

• Monthly website fee - $40

• Subscription to training and presentation systems - $33 per month

• 800 number voice message system - approximately $25 per month (typical for most programs; not just for this example)

• Purchase of the basic development package - $1600 (they claim this isn't required, but it is much more difficult to get started if you don't purchase a package)

• Adding it all up, basic startup costs are over $2700 the first year, not including advertising and marketing costs.

The bad news is you aren't even qualified to earn any income yet, and until you do, you won't make a penny. Qualification involves passing up sales (varies by program).

Using the same program, a 3-day conference sells for about $8000; a 5-day conference, $13,000. This gives you the right to attend the conferences, but here's the shocking news - YOU STILL HAVE TO PAY FOR TRAVEL, ACCOMMODATIONS, AND DINNERS! Further research will also tell you that they tend to hold these seminars at high end hotels and resorts. What this means is that even after paying thousands of dollars for the conferences, you may still have to pay thousands more just to attend the conferences. Really? A high end resort will likely cost you $200 per night and a decent meal will likely cost $50 per day. On a 5 day conference, that's another $1250, plus you still have to pay for airfare.

Back to the basic development package. These have been reviewed by others. One website reviewer stated that the information in one of these programs hasn't been updated in years and most of the same information can be obtained from reading books such as "Think and Grow Rich", with is totally free. They just present it differently.

And for one of the programs in this arena, you end up paying for everything, even training, and that in our opinion, is just plain wrong.

CONCLUSION

Although you are getting a product with your basic membership package, it's true value can be questionable. Many former members have left this organization because there is tremendous pressure to sell the conferences because that's where the profits are. It is also much more difficult to qualify at the conference levels. Bottom line, too much money out, not enough value in.