NOW, I don’t intend to scare you. But this is a serious matter. Last month, for the first time and for no reason that I could put my fingers on, I decided to check the Internet business offer made by one of our advertisers (definitely NOT by the Eagles Glory company).

 

To my utter shock and dismay, this so-called offer looks like a scam about to happen. I was shivering as I made this terrible discovery. Why? I felt as if I negligently opened the door of the house I was guarding and allowed the occupants to be robbed… well not at gunpoint, thank God!

 

For quite a long time, I’ve been receiving letters from concerned readers, like the one below, asking me to investigate offers in the magazine and confirm their genuineness, before they invest their money. I always replied that there was no way I could undertake that assignment because it would be too time-consuming for us. Rather, I encourage our readers to do what is called “due diligence”, investigate offers thoroughly before they buy into them.

 

For instance, I don’t buy any business opportunity that does not carry money-back guarantee. And you shouldn’t. And I don’t buy into any offer that does not give me at least one month’s money-back-guarantee. You shouldn’t, too. Thirdly, I don’t buy business opportunities that I don’t know the person offering it or have someone I know very well referring the offerer to me. You shouldn’t.

 

On that third point, any advert in SuccessDigest is being introduced to you by the magazine. While we cannot claim responsibility for the offers you buy, we do, however, give our readers the guarantee that should they respond to any advert in the magazine and they are not absolutely satisfied with the offer, we would do our best to ensure that they are given value for their money or they would get a refund from the advertiser.

 

We have religiously kept to this promise as many of our readers will readily confirm. We are able to do this because our advert executives have clear instructions that they must know the identity of anyone advertising in our magazine.

 

I honestly believe that would be a deterrent for any quack, make-quick-money-at-the-expense-of-our-readers advertisers. But I’m shocked that this has not been the case. Some brazen and fraudulent “infopreneurs” have infiltrated our ranks. And worse than that, they’ve chosen SuccessDigest, our sacred marketplace for discovering genuine business opportunities, to con our readers.

 

Let me briefly describe the suspicious offer without, for now, identifying the business concerned. The offer says you can make 240% on a $1,000 investment on the internet business in a year, among other mouth-watering “investment returns.” When you translate that into naira and kobo, it means that your $1,000 (or $1,000 x N140 = N140,000) will fetch you N140,000 x 240% interest in a year, which amounts to N336,000. Can you imagine that?

 

You are assured that you can monitor your investment anywhere in the world. But when you go to the site, all the hyperlinks are not working. At least they didn’t on Friday, July 18, 2003, when I wrote this piece.

 

I’ll stop here for now. I shall be monitoring this “investment scheme”. My advice to this advertiser is to ensure that all the hyperlinks on the site are working as well as make good promises to any reader of SuccessDigest that has invested in the business opportunity.

 

In the meantime, I like to make it clear once again that SuccessDigest magazine is NOT a platform to be used by get-rich-quick scammers to make ill-gotten wealth. The magazine is too sacrosanct for that. Make sure your offer is genuine before you advertise it in this magazine. It’s either you abide by this rule or you go elsewhere to seek your victims.

 

Yes, we need advertisers’ money. But not at the expense of our readers. So watch it?

 

Here’s the e-mail from one of our readers that illustrates my point: “Dear Editor: I  read one of the SuccessDigest issues and saw this advert for making money on the internet. I’ve been a regular reader of your magazine and I have been able to notice that you are practicing Christian principles. Please I do need to verify the genuineness of this biz. Is this biz done legally? As much as I would like to make more money, I would not want to be robbed in any fraudulent biz. Kindly verify and reply to my mail as I would like to join the E-millionaires Club on your RECOMMENDATION – Omolara Ayanniyi ([email protected])”.

 

Pastor (Dr.) Emmanuel Sunny Ojeagbase

First published in August 2003.