Do Not Attend Seminars When You Are In Debt
by Mr Credit CardRight now, I am in Atlanta attending a seminar. During one of the presentations, a couple of guys were on stage to present a franchise opportunity.
The opportunity was to buy into a franchise that developed websites and a strategy for the small business owners. I was extremely sceptical of this concept, but hey, some people were convinced. The franchise cost about $10k (thereabouts).
While I was having late night drinks with some new friends that I have made in the seminar, we were talking about the ‘franchise opportunity’ presentation. Most of us laughed at the whole concept. However, we had a friend that just had dinner with a couple of other attendies. He said that his ‘new friends’ were extremely excited about the opportunity and cannot wait to get started. He did not understand the merits of the concept as well.
But what was most disconcerting about his ‘new friends’ getting excited about the ‘franchise opportunity’ was the fact that one of them had $150,000 in debt (mostly credit card debt).
I was shocked to hear that. How could someone who had $150k in debt pay to attend this seminar? How could this person even think about shelling out $10k for this franchise when his priority should be to have a debt reduction? I think the answer is simple and based on two facts. Greed and slick salesmanship.
When you hear ‘how easy it is to make money’, I think your defences will go down. Coupled this with some slick salesmanship, and I think you have the recipe for a gullible person who desperately need his or her finances to be sorted out, to fall for something like that. Even if the concept was great, investing $10,000 when you have a six figure debt is simply financially irrespossible.
Lesson : When you are in debt, don’t attend any ‘wealth seminars’ and fall for ‘opportunities’. Perhaps a better idea is to start a blog about reducing your debt much like Tricia has done with her Blogging Away Debt.
June 4th, 2007 at 13:44
Getting out of debt has to be something like breaking an addiction. First you have to want to. Someone who is that deeply in debt and is out looking for “opportunities” is daydreaming and not really concerned about being in debt.
June 7th, 2007 at 01:15
I think the fact that they were gullible and not very financially savvy is the reason why they had $150k worth of credit card debt in the first place!
“A fool and his money are soon parted!”
June 7th, 2007 at 19:17
Wow! I wish I knew what about sales the way that presenter salesman does. I mean to invest another 10k when you owe out 150k plus in cc debt, is unreal to even think about.
June 8th, 2007 at 13:12
I guess what is missing is how long has he had the $150k debt; is the $150k debt 0%, etc. $150k in cc debt is lots of rewards. plus, he was able to attain that much credit from cc companies, so he has to have had some liquidity somewhere and sometime.