Over the past few weeks I’ve received two different sales letters claiming to come from “Jim Hunt”.
The first letter came from Streetwise Publications Limited and was selling a £27 per month course called “The Five Secrets“. In this letter Jim Hunt is given the title of “Course Director”.
The second letter came from Lifetime Enterprises Limited and was also selling a £27 per month course. This one was called “Corporate Raider” and was described as a “compendium of secret banking loopholes”. Jim Hunt also signed this letter.
As you can imagine the sales copy from both was extremely compelling and tempting.
In the case of the Five Secrets course I was severely tempted but this one sentence put me off:
“No-one ever got anywhere by being sceptical”
The copy goes on to ask whether the reader has ever met a wealthy sceptic.
Perhaps the copywriter has never watched TV but there’s a programme called “Dragons’ Den” that is broadcast on BBC1. It features a collection of multi-millionaires who listen to pitches by members of the public and then decide whether to invest in their ideas or not.
The whole gimmick of the show is that the Dragons have to be won around – they are sceptical about all ideas until the pitcher puts forward a good reason for them to invest.
These Dragons are multi-millionaires and their wealth dwarfs that of any of the “information publishers” who send out these types of biz opp sales letters. Knowing this it is difficult to understand how a copywriter can claim that there are no wealthy sceptics.
It’s just a silly sentence that has been added to try and make the reader think that being sceptical prevents you from making money in the hope that they’ll sign up to the standing order.
Shortly after discounting the sales letter I eventually found a full second-hand course of the Five Secrets for sale and snapped it up.
The seller was kind enough to include the original sales letter they received – the one that persuaded them to sign up.
Surprise, surprise, it is exactly the same as the one Streetwise is currently mailing out.
And the course has a copyright date on it “Copyright CMS 2000”.
This original sales letter comes from James Edwards of CMS, Reading. According to thisismoney.co.uk James Edwards is an alias of James Sheridan.
Very interesting.
As for the Corporate Raider system the sales letter speaks of special “bank passwords” that you enter into your computer. Apparently when you do this you will receive money within 5 minutes.
It comes from Lifetime Enterprises Limited and certain websites suggest that James Sheridan is a director of this company.
Strange coincidence!
The Corporate Raider sales letter is very compelling and also quite baffling in that it doesn’t actually tell you what this particular opportunity is about.
It says that it’s not a pyramid scheme, not a home business, not currency or commodity trading, not gambling, not property etc
Very interesting that it specifically mentions it’s not currency or commodity trading but doesn’t say that it won’t involve financial trading of some variety.
Therefore, it’s specifically stating what kind of trading that it ISN’T so maybe, just maybe, it does involve some kind of trading.
So what kind of trading would have someone typing in a “password” and then receiving money minutes later?
You would obviously be taking money from somebody else in some kind of trade, that would explain why you receive money almost instantly.
So you would possibly be selling something to another trader. That trader would be paying you for some kind of service or insurance or maybe even to shoulder some risk for him.
Could it be that you would be selling options?
That would explain why someone would pay you money immediately, without you appearing to actually “do” anything.
Perhaps it’s something to do with writing options on shares?
If it were, the “money” you receive would actually come from premiums that other investors pay you to buy these options.
The “passwords” in this case would likely relate to the shares that you are selling options on – whether calls or puts.
Correct me if I’m wrong but when you BUY options you have a limited downside but a potentially unlimited upside.
On the other hand if you SELL options you have an unlimited downside but a limited upside.
Selling options, therefore, can result in massive financial losses if you make the wrong decision.
The pieces appear to fit – passwords, money appearing within minutes, “instant cash, anytime, anywhere”, start with a thousand pounds etc
Maybe I’ll send off and get the first month of “Corporate Raider” free just to see if I’m right.
However, if the “Corporate Raider” Jim Hunt is the same person as the “Five Secrets” Jim Hunt then it may well be that the first lesson doesn’t tell you very much – as is the case with part one of the Five Secrets course.
And to be fair maybe the Corporate Raider course has nothing to do with options trading at all and there is a valid method of receiving hundreds of pounds just by typing in some letters to a website…
In any case it’ll all be revealed soon enough once people receive their first months’ newsletter. The review sites will no doubt spill the beans…
Update 19th February 2013:
If you want the 5 Secrets course but don’t want to wait for 10 months to get it I’ve put my own personal (100% official) copy of the course up for sale here: