There are certain ‘sales types’ who veer so close to Con artists and scammers that you wonder why the ‘authorities’ don’t shut the lying bastards down.
Newly-bankrupt Mark Bryers of Blue Chip seems to fit into that category, judging by some of the material I’ve seen privately and from reports in the media and from former Blue Chip employees and licensees.
I’m engaged in a conversation with friends at present about the latest marketing bullshit from someone local who is much less impressive.
These ‘Operators’ are commonly compulsive liars. Any remotely long-term observation of them shows that they just can’t keep their story straight. They drop back to their door-to-door hustler, two-bit salesman roots and end up telling lie after lie after lie … eventually tripping up.
Sadly, some use a born-again-religion smokescreen to disarm their victims. They loudly trumpet their own salvation and new-found ‘ethics’ (‘I was lost but now I’m found’) as a way to draw people into the net. Some use the ‘I was (financially) lame but now I’m healed (rich)’ con. It’s a bit like the ‘misdirection’ trick stage magicians use to cover their sleight-of-hand.
Sometimes they say the exact opposite of the truth, knowing most people don’t expect bare-faced lies.
When working with Olly Newland to uncover the Blue Chip morass, I recall reading that BC boss Mark Bryers had declared to staff he had arranged deposit insurance with Lloyds of London to cover Blue Chip victims’ apartment down payments. This claim was then reproduced in marketing material and on their website. Never happened. Absolutely not true, the liquidators found. Likewise, the Blue Chip ‘Trust Account’ was just the name of the bank account! The money was gone. Don’t those look like deliberate lies? If so = Con artist.
Nevertheless, while they’re going, their spiel or sales pitch is often very convincing, and their personal ‘likability’ is often very high. They seem sincere. (They’re confidence tricksters, remember?) As George Burns famously said
If You Can Fake Sincerity, You’ve Got It Made
In the US, long time dodgy American salesman/hype merchant Kevin Trudeau was this week sentenced to jail for encouraging his ‘fans’ to email-bombard a trial judge trying him for misleading sales conduct … he’s since been granted an ‘emergency appeal‘. With so much lucre pouring in from his false hope ‘operation’, he can clearly afford to run the legal system through all its hoops.
You have got to ask of these types: Deep, deep down, does he know what he is? I hope so.
Here’s a 20/20 item on Trudeau, well worth watching, in my opinion — especially for the questions John Stossel asks.
For every Kevin Trudeau there are a dozen, a hundred, a thousand, low-rent versions using a dumbed-down ‘I am an expert, you can trust me to tell you all the “secrets” of quick-and-easy success’ con artist pitch. Some of them are slobs, but their victims seem to love them anyway … perhaps for how ‘inspiring’ they are?
From experience, the ‘bargain’ ticket price “buy-one-get-one-free” with “$XXXXXX FREE BONUSES…” and “Go into the draw for a colour television” is just bait to set the trap. Welcome, shark-bait!
A newspaper journalist I spoke to as part of his research into property spruikers told me after attending one of the hyped-up low cost sales-fests:
There are only two kinds of people attracted to operators like this:
The gullible and the greedy.
It’s a shame some people have to get burned to find that out.
