If you have a computer and haven’t involved yourself in one of the thousands of money-making programs offered every day on the Internet…What’s WRONG with you?

“In these trying financial times, nobody is earning what they should. We have a program that will put you in the lifestyle you deserve for an investment of just ten or fifteen minutes a day. You’ll be so thrilled with our money-making program that you’ll want to share it with your friends and recruit them into our army of home-based workers, but this is no Pyramid Scheme!”

“Our new multi-level marketing program gives you the chance to make $$$$$$ without selling, without keeping stock, without delivering merchandise or any of the other hassles that go along with other MLMs. How do we do it? WE HAVE NO PRODUCT! Don’t worry: THIS IS NOT A PYRAMID SCHEME! It’s perfectly legitimate, absolutely ethical, totally legal cash-earning incentive program.”

“Sign up today to become one of our Independent Consultants. Our Independent Contractors have a unique position in our organization. Independent Represenatives [sic] make up our entire workforce.”

They all sound pretty tempting. They each promise untold riches. Best of all, most of these money-making programs are so simple that no training or experience is required and – if you believe the pitch lines – you’ll be paid for a job that’s so easy, it’s practically like being paid for doing nothing. What’s the catch? You know the old saying: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Those words were never truer than when considering the ads for online business opportunities.

I received an e-mail this morning from your Average Joe on the street who bumped into an offer, promising big income for entering random license plates into the advertiser’s database. The plates can be from any state – and soon from Canada – and your only other obligation, as an Independent Consultant, is to bring in three more volunteers to help build the company workforce. Average Joe sent me a link to the company’s recruiting site. That home page had three video presentations and virtually no other information –- no real company name or address, no written program information (it’s all contained in the video presentations), no information about the business’ owners. The recruiting video explained the whole program (or explained as much as the owner is going to tell you before you sign up), including the $125 fee for registration and your own web porthole for entering the data you’ve gathered.

The site was a little scary. What was scarier was that my new buddy Joe was interested in the program. On its face, the recruitment site waved some red flags that a lot of such offers have in common.

Where is the company located? One of the most rudimentary expectations we would have of a business website is that it plainly state where the headquarters of the firm is located. If we can't locate the company now (before we've done business with the company), how would we ever locate it when a problem arises? While I suspect this is an American business, in the online world, there's no geography -- the company may as well be in Siberia for all we know -- and that creates a lot of trouble for those who may choose to become involved...or any US agency that would have reason to prosecute the owners of the site.

What does your $125 really pay for? "Registration and the web porthole," the video answers. We're always wary of business opportunities that require an up front investment from "Independent Consultants." Or "Independent Contractors." Or "Independent Partners." Far too many schemes in the past have collected small up front fees and disappeared or provided absolutely nothing for the money. By the way, what's the magic to being listed as an Independent Contractor? (Or Independent Anything Else, for that matter.) The magic is all on the company's side. That means you're not an employee of the company, so they don't have to pay taxes on anything you earn, you have no rights as an employee, no benefits, and the company has no responsibilities to you (except, one might say, mailing a paycheck once in a while, and the BBB’s experience with such offers is that few, if any, workers see their money back).

Why does it insist so strongly that it's not a pyramid scheme? We can answer this one, but it may raise more questions. Pyramid schemes are illegal, and the producer of the video is anxious to show us that the offer isn't. Maybe the program is perfectly legal, but if it's so close to something known to be against the law or unethical practice that you had to produce a separate video to show us that it's not...maybe it's too close.

Why is everything presented on video? The slide show that presents the company’s offer may be designed to be entertaining or otherwise keep the viewer interested enough to hear the entire pitch, but this practice makes it more difficult for consumers, law enforcement, or any entity interested in reviewing the content of the website to communicate concerning specific details, and raises questions concerning the producer's unwillingness to put its policies in print. I've never seen a website before that has no text or doesn't present its offer in writing at some point, if only for the sake of clarity.

Where does the money come from? The site takes the time to point out that there is no stock, no buying or selling -- and in fact says at one point that the company has "no product." (We'd take exception to that. The company may have no physical product you can toss into a shopping cart, but it appears to position itself as gathering information into a central database. The database itself is the product.) If we’re supposed to believe that somebody is making use of the site and reviewing in some way the license numbers, we’d expect those people to be paying a fee to peek at the site, and then the payment for your efforts would make sense. But….

Of what use would the information be to anyone? This isn't an idle question, because if we can't answer who would use the database (muchless who would pay money for the data shown there), we can't answer where the money is coming from to pay the Independent Contractors. Of what use are random plate numbers from random states (and soon Canada)? Who would pay for that information? If your answer is that you don't know, then we need to look back to the possibility that this is simply a Pyramid Scheme (no matter how aggressively the advertiser insists that it isn't). So far, the only money we see trading hands is between incoming Independent Representatives and the company, right? And the subsequent generations of reps pay into the kitty as the chain grows, don't they? Part of the deal is that you get to keep part of the money your reps pay in to join, isn’t it? And they recruit more people, each of whom pay in as they enter. That's about half the definition of a Pyramid Scheme. And, as the site points out, Pyramid Schemes -- no matter how cleverly disguised they might be or how confident the creator is that he found a loophole in the rules -- are illegal.

Last -- and maybe most important -- After having watched the video, do you really understand the company's offer? The information given is pretty general and muddy to expect casual viewers to jump into action after having viewed the video, but that seems to be exactly what the producer expects us to do. "Wait a minute," you may be thinking, "the offer is very simple: You pay the money, input the plate numbers, and recruit new people to join. It's perfectly simple." No, it's not. It's meant to look perfectly simple, but there are dozens of complications that come up if you devote a little brainpower to the program.