Ebay Has The Answer
Inception of the Investigation
Well, firstly, I saw a trader offering users the opportunity for infinite wealth (as he apparently earns ?70k per month) for the small sum of ?29.95, with no less than 8 people buying this information per day. Without being a maths guru you can still establish that is still approximately ?240 in the green. Per day. For forwarding on an e-book? Interesting said I, and thus this investigation was formed.
Initial plans for this investigation were to write my own e-Book, offering claims of wealth and sexual prowess for a modest fee and see how many people buy my magical text. However, Lauren, important as always to find the obvious yet overlooked fault in my schemes was that to sell an e-book, one would have to have an e-book to sell.
An excellent point, so instead of devising my own book of power I changed direction; to find a few examples of these e-books and purchase them to see what information is so valuable.
I Bought Two Ebooks
I purchased two e-books from "reputable" sellers (hold your laughs) and awaited the information that was to change my life forever. The first e-book offered the ultimate system to make money on the internet, and was the first to forward on his pearls of wisdom.
And I Got My Books!
The sheer annoyance I felt when the first email I received was details for a pyramid scheme (namely, I was to register, pay the person who referred me $20, pay another random user $20, and pay the company $10, then my details are entered into the system so that I can receive random payments from other fools). Not exactly what I was expecting. But then, I received a RAR file holding all the information I ever needed to get rich. What I was given, was:
- A manual to the aforementioned pyramid scheme (just in-case I was confused by it obviously)
- A tutorial to how to "beat" online roulette machines
- A "BONUS" e-book explaining how to play blackjack
Urr...
The latter interested me greatly because by this point I had received the e-book from the second seller, which was incidentally, the same e-book about beating roulette. So already, a couple of questions were raised in my mind as to why multiple sellers could dispense the same e-books? And the second question was based purely around the questionable content in these texts.
The Content
The general gist of what these e-books state is that to make money using roulette, you MUST disregard everything you?ve ever learnt about statistics. You must throw numeracy and probability to the wind and instead believe what you?re told (but for heavens sake don?t do the maths yourself). By this, I mean that the e-book states that placing bets on something that pays out 1/3 of the time, and pays out 2:1 of your original stake, you can make money. The e-book even concedes that this actually only gives you a 1/14 chance of making money.
Hold on a second, so I?ve spent money on this book to tell me that if I play roulette, the majority of the time I?ll lose my money? Forgive me but did I not know this already?
Indeed I did. The system tells you to monitor what numbers come out and then to play the statistics to get the numbers that haven?t yet appeared (basically). It uses the fantastic logic that if your first bet doesn?t come out, place the same bet again with double the stakes.
Oh But It Didn?t End There
My grief isn?t limited to the information offered either. The main e-book uses a massive font, is merely 11 pages long (with plenty of images, in their low resolution splendour) and does nothing aesthetically that a blind badger could not. The other e-book is very much more of the same, doing little more than explaining how to install online poker software and offering a chart telling you when to hit/check/fold out of blackjack.
My pyramid scheme tutorial is a barrage of bright coloured fonts on a white background, with wordart (the designer?s kryptonite). It hurts the eyes as much as it hurts my common sense. Do I enter bank/Paypal details into a system offering infinite wealth? Do I put $200 into a casino to fully test the roulette system? I?m afraid I shall do neither; my faith in obtaining infinite wealth through eBay has been shattered.
Conclusion
In conclusion, how can multiple sellers offer the exact same e-book? How can someone write an e-book with such blatant disregard for the rules of mathematics? It comes down to the initial conclusion I made: human greed is a powerful thing. I just can?t find it within myself to capitalise on it (really can?t be bothered writing an e-book worth listing). Yet.
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