What does the price of oil going up have to do with the number of stupid business opportunity buyers and the number of stupid business opportunity plans? As will be demonstrated…everything! This was a ruse that was very popular in the 90's, as business opportunity telemarketing was in its heyday, and, given the current conditions of one market, has seen a resurgence in business opportunity telemarketing. You get a phone call, letter, or email from someone who states they have inside information on a particular market (by the way, I would like to interject a quick message and thanks to those nice people that always send me their friendly letters, postcards, and emails offering their plans about how to make a million dollars in a month or so doing nothing; I have enough of them, no need to send anymore). The plan involves predicting the price of oil (in the past, this could be gold or silver, however, given its price volatility, oil is the “in” commodity and the perfect vehicle for this ruse). Now the broker will tell you that because he is such a nice guy he will give you a free tip on the current pricing of oil and all you have to do is monitor the price and take note of his expertise, and, what do you know, the broker is right, the market did exactly as he had predicted. The same guy comes back with another free tip, and, once again, the broker is right, the market did exactly what he predicted. In addition, the broker lets you know because of his uncanny ability, he is richer by a hundred grand or so. It won't be long before the broker will send you pictures of how he lives the high life with expensive cars, a beautiful home, and exotic vacations, ostensibly all due to his expertise in predicting the market. Now the broker wants to know if you are ready to invest and live the way he does by taking his advice on his next prediction. People send him$1,000, $5,000, 10,000, and some even $50,000. However, investors never here from the broker again and never see their money.

What happened?

The broker will call, mail, or email 1,000 people. To 500 people he will predict the oil market will go up and to the other 500 he will predict the market will go down. No matter what the market does at least 500 people will believe the broker accurately predicted the market. The ruse continues with those 500 people (of course, the other 500 people are never contacted again), who will now receive the second free tip. Once again, it does not matter whether the market went up or down because 250 people were told the market would go up and 250 were told it would go down. So now the so-called broker has 250 people who believe in his ability to predict the market and are ready to invest with. What happens to the 250 investors now becomes clear. The broker tries to extract maximum investment from each one and after he does splits town with the dough (usually hundred of thousands of dollars) and gets ready to perpetrate the same tactic in another town or to another list. So, as a means of facilitating the business opportunity industry and its less-than-noble strategy and tactics, and as the headline so eloquently states; this is why it is more important to have more stupid business opportunity buyers than it is to have stupid business opportunity plans.