Avoiding fake ‘Guru’ experts who scam desperate people

Living in the information era, making money or starting a business has become easier than ever for most people. Also, there isn’t a shortage of people online claiming how to make more or less, thousands a week and 6 figures in a month.

Every now and then there are ads popping up saying or claiming about “Achieving financial freedom in weeks or months,” or “Follow my guides to earn a certain amount every [target frequency]”.

Let’s admit it, we’ve all fallen victim to schemes like this. Seeing these attractive ads, we’ve thought to ourselves, “Is this possible for me as well?”

The internet helps boost your business not just locally, but also globally. It is possible in theory to achieve such freedom or income. But the question is, will all these people claiming to be ‘gurus’ or experts really help you?

No matter how hard these people insist on knowing the secrets to a success or financial freedom, they can’t do your work for you. I’m not accusing all experts as being scammers but they are always around us lurking.

How to identify the red flags

The best way these “Gurus” get what they want is by exploiting your emotions. By triggering your money-making mentality, they get you. And they get you really good.

Find the Greed - Meaning, check if they’re sincere or just here for money. They don’t have any free content up on their site and they charge you to get “full access”.

The real ones (mentors or experts), however, have plenty of free materials you might find helpful. And you only need to purchase advanced-level courses.

Flashy.AF - One common thing you can notice all these fake Gurus and experts do is lure you with flashy things. Showing off thousands, cars, jewelry, etc. is the easiest way to attract their potential client’s attention. When you see them showing off, you tend to think that they have everything under control.

But the truth is, it can be faked. You can actually buy stacks of fake cash on different online sites. If instagram models can make themselves look good through ‘angles’, so can these fake gurus.

FOMO - Fear of missing out is utilized a lot. The “Gurus” make it a point to let you know what you’re missing out on. Enter another one of most of our bad habits i.e. wanting to gain instant success avoiding working hard.

Because of that, these so-called gurus make you purchase unnecessary courses or products. The courses are either filled with things you already know or with things that never really help you achieve your goal.

There is always a ‘secret’ - Typically, they advertise or start their talk with some sort of secret and then another secret that requires you to pay as well. Most of these things: Sales, Financial Freedom/Investing, Marketing can be found online either through google and youtube!!

Income reports - These income reports are designed to trigger either your emotions or one’s greed. These ‘lottery winner’ style income reports are designed to attract you like a moth to a light bulb to their funnel and their sales pages where they ‘sell you their secrets!’

This is why Ponzi scams still work today!

Iggy Go, RFP®, REB, is a Public Speaker & Content Creator. Send your questions to: www.youtube.com/iggygo