Ripped off / Conned / Shafted / Scammed!

Do you have an experience that you wish to share? In the past few years, there has been a massive increase in the the number of ‘get rich quick’ seminars making the rounds… first it was property – how much money you are missing out on by not being part of the property boom! But then the credit crunch hit, as did a wave of sub prime mortgages and defaults. And then suddenly, the property people went quiet. Inside Track (a huge property seminar marketing machine went under). Did they takeyour money with them? A place in their property club was around £10,000.

Next, the bandwagon was stock market trading… and how much money could be made trading online! There were Money Shows, Free events, stock market trading seminars. Spread betting companies were doing open-days to help you set up an account and begin trading. And then when that died down, the next thing was: Start A Business!

The start up business show and business expo’s were held at a variety of locations including Excel in East London to Olympia in West London. There were off-shoots of these shows, such as the franchise show – with vendors with stands selling everthing from a dog walking franchise to cleaning franchises. Asking anything from £5,000 to £250,000 to join their organisation – and they were deadly serious! There were sales / marketing gurus promising to help you make money and live the life – personal development is big business. There was one organisation that would sell you a place in their ‘exclusive’ club for £8,000. They called it a ‘Lifelong membership’ except the life of that company was fairly short lived. They took everyones money with them and the lifetime promise of ‘doing business together’ forever vaporated into a puff of smoke.

Some speakers travelled the world… London, Australia, South Africa… speaking to crowds of hungry people whose only crime, was to just want a way out of the 9 to 5 JOB that they were stuck in.

There were internet marketing seminars and summit whereby hundreds of people would pack hotel rooms for long weekends in London and be gently sold to for hours on end. There was NLP, business mastery, coaching, financial warrior courses – all sorts, all available. And you were encouraged to put the cost onto a credit card because it was worth it! YOU were worth it! This was an INVESTMENT in yourself, in your future.

Inbetween all of this going on a plethora of networking marketing / MLM companies have come and gone. Maybe you got drawn into some? You were encouraged to tell ‘your friends and family’ and to invite them along to ‘opportunity business meetings’ and the dream was passive income, being able to quit your job you hated – you build a team, you duplicate and then you have the money come rolling in. You’ve seen the people on stage, you’ve heard the testimonials, and you are convinced that you can join them!!! But did you?

The book we want to put together is a compilation of real-life stories from people who have lost money in the pursuit of just trying to improve their life. There is nothing wrong with wanting more. Some with make you feel bad and accuse you of ‘falling’ for a giant ponzi scheme, whereas others (like us) will sympathise because we know how slick these sales operations have been. Names can be named, because chances are, they’re in liquidation / bankrupt anyway. A lot of these slick sales people made their money and then just suddenly disappeared into the night… the promised follow up and support was non-existant. After some years away, some will resurface, hoping that this new crowd will forget about their shady past…

So if you lost money – be it in land banking, property that never materialised, in a business deal that turned sour, in something that turned out to be nothing, or whatever the story is… PLEASE share it with us. We believe it is cathartic to share tragedy, as it can bring closure plus help someone out there to overcome a situation that they might be facing right now.

Email in your story to: info@booglez.com

Points to cover:

• What year did this happen?
• Location e.g. London, UK
• Your occupation
• How much did you invest / lose?
• What made you invest in the opportunity in th first place? (did a trusted friend introduce you? did you read an advert?)
• At what point did you find out that you had lost all of your money?
• How did you feel?
• What did you do?
• How has this loss impacted on your life?
• Did you have to borrow money or are you still repaying the debt?
• What have you learned?
• Do you have any advice for anyone in a similar situation?

Please try and keep the piece to 2000 words maximum.

Let us know if you’d be willing to be interviewed for the audiobook version of the book.

Thanks

Booglez

Deadline: 31 December 2018

Expected date of release: 1 April 2019