How not to get scammed, my time between 2020-2021 was the worst time for me to find out about scammers who want to show you how they make millions and you can do it too. My biggest lesson of the time was about how to deal with people who try to sell you things about success.
I never thought I would be scammed by a Tai Lopez knockoff. I am already on my way to wealth creation. The year 2021 is the year I bought my first duplex and published my first book Story of Sufficia (Shameless plug link to the book’s website below). I was and still am on the right track to be successful. I was following Instagram profiles that talked about ways to build wealth.
I will tell you I am a big fan of open source articles on how to become successful and I am a big fan of perpetuation ways to not be a brokie. This is why I am telling you that as I was following a page on Instagram I saw this page I liked say: “If you want to make $2,000/mo. message us for a chance to have a mentorship”. I talked to them, it was a faceless business guru account and it looked so legit.
I started to talk with them, and they skewed it in a way to make me feel as though I had to interview to buy the product they were selling. Like I had to convince them I was worthy. Which is a great psychological trick. I go to buy this “Boot Camp” air quotes, and I start going through it, its all just I was already doing like “Stick to a routine” or “Use Google Calendar”. Basically, I could’ve googled all of this.
He sent me a link to this video of him talking to his “Student” and the kid who was the “teacher” looked young and as skinny as I was when I got out of high school. He told me he was 19. I stupidly bought his course and he had a cool little community on telegram. Julian Ash everybody, google him. He is a scam artist who is like the crowd of money gurus selling you a course. I was a naive 23-year-old.
How do you build wealth and what is the real secret to success? All the value is out there on the internet for free. Nobody can just sell you a course that isn’t on youtube or in a book you can get from the library. You could literally google E-books with ten times more knowledge than a 19 year old who started an instagram business 6 months prior. What is the business? It is a business that sells bootcamps to desparate people who just want to not be poor. He sold me a basic package promising one on one mentorship and as I was half way through the course sent me a message asking if I wanted to join his 1-on-1 package for $2,132.43 like wtf…Where did that number even come from. Luckily I took the payment plan cause I was interested and only lost $150 or so.
I tried a few other things during 2021, I talked to a financial advisor, turns out he just wanted to really sell me life insurance that cost $300/mo. He really kept pushing it when all I wanted was a mutual fund, then convinced me to give three of my friends numbers and goes on to try to scam them into buying dumb insurances like job insurance if they got fired or whatnot. Like geez what a time waster. The worst part is both of these people are younger than me making money off of gullible people.
I promise you although I am not immune I believe I learned a lesson and that lesson is that many people just want to milk every penny out of you. Anyone who promises you the world will give you a pebble. Stay safe and vigilant, know that things like this can happen to you.
You made it to the end! What a real G! Can you do me another favor and send me a time you’ve been scammed? How you learned the hard way?