In recent weeks, I have noticed myself increasingly attracted to finding out more about scams that I hear about. My husband got a telephone call from a former employee asking to pitch her "new business," selling credit identity theft insurance and prepaid legal plans. Because of other factors, he declined her presentation. When he was explaining her pitch to me, I recalled reading an article about such companies in the New York Times. Sure enough, included in the article, which was about how "short sellers" are teaming up with the FTC to require network marketing companies to make certain disclosures to new associates, was the former employee's new employer: Pre-paid legal. Now, I personally have nothing to say about Pre-Paid or whether it fulfills the obligations it claims to fulfill. I do know that they are one of the companies fighting against proposed FTC rules that would require them to disclose that most network sellers who join the program will not sell nearly what they are led to believe they will sell.
In further research on the company, just to further satisfy my curiousity, I learned that the company has been sued to mixed results, and that there are a number of web entries that tussle over whether joining Pre-paid is a good opportunity or a rip-off. Anyway, I found the research interesting, so I decided to create a new section of my web-site to help others to spot a rip-off when they see one. I start today with an article from the New York Times, "The High Cost of Too Good To Be True" (November 26th, Sect. 3, p. 1).