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"I'm so excited!  I just can't stop taking pictures!".... or so squealed the successful stay-at-home mom in the testimonial.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

(Oh come on, be a good sport; if you fell for this one, you only lost 59 smackaroonies) (or 47) (or maybe 64)....    (Hey, this a very profitable scam; you've got a lot of options here.)

Like I said, there are a few variations on the basic theme, but the one that got me is pretty typical:

You have to advertise a swell I.D. card to "protect children."  If you find anyone stupid enough to buy this thing for $19.95, they have to fill in a form and send it to you.  Then you PHOTOGRAPH the form with the nifty $2 camera they give you FREE!  You send the film after you find enough morons to fill a roll, and the company sends you the commission (uh-huh) after they make the I.D. cards out of these great photographs. 

Another variation:  Never mind "protecting children".... this one protects YOU.  Your whole medical history on one little bitty "microfilm" that "can be read without magnification" (if your rescuer happens to have perfect vision in both eyes and if your handwriting is clear enough and you spell everything right) (what ever happened to MedicAlert bracelets?).

In fact, I'm sure there are lots of different "products" tied up with this scam.... but it really doesn't matter, does it?  Because the point is not to sell the product.... the point is to sell YOU the "program." 

So what about the product?

Ex-squeeze me??

What ever happened to computers?  And printers?  This is the space age, people!!  (Can you imagine going to get your driver's license renewed and having the clerk whip our her handy-dandy two-dollar 35 mm to take a picture of your application?)....

OH, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

(Has anybody got a box of Depends handy?)

(sniffle)

But don't miss the lesson here, kiddies.... do you see a common denominator?

Once again, these scumbeezles don't have to sell ANY of their idiotic I.D. cards.  They make their entire profit from YOUR investment.... and they laugh all the way to the bank!!

Of course there's a money-back guarantee.... but only AFTER they have bought a certain number of photographs from you, and I don't know too many people desperate enough to actually go through with anything this stupid.  (Now would be an excellent time to read The Anatomy of a Worthless Guarantee).  (Like most of our links, this one will open a second browser window, so you can look around all you like without getting lost; just close the window when you're ready to come back here.)

Just to be sure you recognize this one when it tries to bite you, there used to be a site at www.Phototek.net where you could read an offer eerily similar to the one I fell for.  I used to have a link to the site here, then I killed the link and made you type in the URL yourself.  That's because on 12/14/99 I got an email that said: "To whom it may concern, We are requesting that you remove the link to our copyrighted site www.phototek.net.  We would appreciate you doing this asap!" and the law says I have to honor their request or get my hiney sued. 

Well, that's all water under the bridge, because the site disappeared.  There's an interesting story behind its disappearance.  It seems there really IS a "Phototek," but it's all the way across the country from where this "biz op" originated.  It's a perfectly legitimate photo processing company that has nothing to do with scams or biz ops, and they were able to successfully blow this particular web site out of the water because it was illegally using their trademarked name.  (I confess... t'was I who blew the whistle.)

But don't despair!  You can read the whole story and see two WONDERFUL examples of this scam in action if you just click on over to the FIB bulletin board and read the following post that explains the whole thing.  (And if you ever had any doubt about all these scam stories being "sour grapes," this is a MUST READ, because it explains, in a nutshell, just how far these scumbeezles will go to protect a profitable "program."  Yes, Virginia.... there really ARE some truly yikky people out there.)

Click here to find out how the owner of the now-defunct Phototek.net threatened to sue me for using his "trademarked name" in my article when he had actually "borrowed" the trademark from somebody else.

I can't give you links because he'll be using that pesky "sue" word again, but here are two of the places The Good Mr. Bulik is keeping his photo "opportunity" these days:  www.photowealth.com and www.photocash.com.  (I suggested somewhere else he might keep it, but I guess it was too painful.)

If you'd like to see a picture of "the trademark owner" (BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA) (slap!) (thanks, I needed that), you can find it at two of his other "opportunity" sites:  www.lazyriches.com and www.homebusinesssecrets.com (sorry, can't link, you know the drill).  I confess, I haven't sent him my $31 to get the whole poop on this so I really don't know what it's all about... but if I had to make a wild guess, it would be that he's paying you to find more suckers (sorry, I meant "opportunity seekers") to sign up for the "lazyriches" program program, since the promised $25 per sucker (uh, per registration) is the promised 80 percent per sucker (darn, I keep doing that!).  But I digress, because this really has nothing to do with "photo opps" except it happens to be the same handsome dude running the show.

So... back to the subject at hand.

Are ANY of these "photo ops" legit? 

Could be.  Who am I to say?

and about that oceanfront property in Arizona....

Take me back to the Scams 101 Index!

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