Be wary of high pressure selling

It usually starts with an invitation to a free seminar held in a posh hotel. The invitees are treated with an impressive presentation and free food. After that, the hard pressure selling comes in - and those who are not strong willed ends up signing for an expensive purchase - for a $5,000 training course on forex or property investment, or a $20,000 time sharing unit, or a $50,000 land banking plot, a $20,000 wine investment or whatever is being sold.

All that is needed is for the promoter to get 5 people to sign up and they will earn enough income to pay for the expenses of the event, the advertisement and the commission payable to the many well dressed marketeers who are trained to identify and work on the gullible investors.

Like some other people, I have been the victim of this type of marketing a few times during my life. Fortunately for me, the amounts of the purchase are quite small. My biggest purchase was a massage chair costing $6,000. Quite likely, the real cost would have been only one third of the price that I paid. In this case, it was not an impressive talk at a hotel, but a glib talking sales person at a sales booth.