A bright northern New England sun
cut sharply through the cool morning and rapidly warmed the small house where
Bob slept. The birds chirped and the dog barked and mixed with beeps from a
phone that finally worked to pull him out of his bed. Without a job things had
been difficult, but that would all change this morning.
"Hello," Bob answered and
found himself totally mystified. "What is a Home Wizard?" he asked
bewildered. "Oh the online job from Team Mates." Now he had an idea what this was about. He had
been curious about this job. He had never done this kind of work before. He'd taught math as a substitute teacher, but he
was a business management major. "Your home is probably the largest
investment you've made. Put it to work for you." He repeated what this fellow was saying on the phone.
"Sure it makes sense," he replied. "So, how does it work? What
does it do?" He was curious again. "It's a free subscription to a weekly
newsletter about how to put your house to work for you." Again he repeated
what the guy was telling him. "Then we sell him stuff that matches his
answers to surveys about improving the value of his home." "Oh I get
it," Bob said, 'but can't you just
go down to the store and buy the mop or whatever it is that's going to raise
the value of your investment...". "Not this mop." The fellow
jumped on Bob's exact example. "That's the beauty of the program. That's
how and why it works. These items are really good buys. They're made overseas
and they look good and they are really functional. There's a free trial.
Really. No one ever, or nearly ever, asks for their money back. They're
inexpensive and they do work. They're attractive, and so is the packaging.
There are a lot of little tricks that make this work, both for our customers
and for us." "Takes five
minutes and we'll send you all the gear you need."
A few minutes later and Bob was
looking at a web page with a large banner that read: "You're in Business. Congratulations! ...Just five easy steps and
you have your own Online Business"
There he was with pictures of
brooms and vacuum cleaners, towels and detergents, dishware of all kinds,
everything from vegetable choppers to trash cans, and his choice of his sample
assortment, which, by the way, included very attractive cutlery sets and glassware
which were easily worth more than the $49.95 new member start up fee. "Why
not give it a try." he thought and had visions of huge sums of money coming in to his "Pay Pal"
account"
