Steer clear of drive-bys and other mailshots

Get-rich-quick schemes are strong on aspiration, weak on method

I received an unsolicited mailing headed "Dave, someone's been shot outside our house", which went on to show how Dave "stumbled upon something written down by a multimillionaire" and now earns more than £18,000 a month for an hour or two a day's work from home.

What is this about? BW, Birmingham

Welcome to the world of high earnings without apparent effort. Capital Letters has a whole collection of similar mailshots, all proclaiming a "rags-to-riches overnight" story.

In Dave's case, the drive-by shooting convinced him he was living in a bad area and had to move upmarket.

Jane is making more than £25,000 a month with similarly little effort. And while Dave, Jane and the others have different stories on the surface, many of the paragraphs are identical.

Despite apparently coming from different firms, all lead back to a maildrop address in Caversham, Reading.

And even though each booklet is 20 pages long with plenty of aspiration, you will look in vain for the money-making method.

Each one ends with a standing order form for you to pay £29.95 a month for the "system" amounting to nearly £360 a year.

The system is really simple. You send out flyers inviting money. Once in on the secret, all you then do is send out more flyers inviting others to pay for the plan. The real profit is probably made by the printers and the mailing house that charges for lists. Avoid.
