… Then I called the next three numbers.
They all had the SAME message. It was a woman's voice, and she started the message with a distinctive “Ya know”. In the upcoming days of phone number investigation, I heard this message dozens of times. The next one was a wrong number, the sixth number was the “ya know” message. The seventh number had a different message, but it had some aspects of the first message, “20-year industry leader” and “tap into mail-order”. This message, too, was an effort to send me a 14-page booklet.
Well. I was stunned. These signs were all over town, in scores of different designs, and they were all the work of one company. A super-secret Fortune 500 company that never put it's name of it's ugly ever-present signs.
Via CamWorld, [1] Work from Home, unwelcome Herbalife Signs [2]
Cam's “amateur Internet sleuthing” comment notwithstanding, this is an excellent piece of journalistic reporting. I've seen the signs here in Lower Sheol as well and have been mildly curious to look into these “work from home” businesses. But the cynincal side of me (or rather, my cynical side channeling my Dad's cynical side) goes: “If you can make tons of money working from home, why promote competition?”
A similar question pops up whenever I see an infomercial hawking money making schemes (“Buy New York City with other people's money!”)—“If you can make money doing that, why tell other people?” It seems to me that there are three reasons why anyone would do this:
If you want, here's a way to make tons of money that I'll give away
FREE!
There are a few simple steps.
Okay, I never said it was a good or legal way to make money (this is satire and is information that should not be used—repeat—this is satire and you should not follow this advice).