This guy, Richard Dean Neff, at the Walden Superflea & Farmer’s Market was selling fudge pieces for 50 cents.  But that’s not really why he was there.  He was literally marketing a piece of paper — www.wethepeoplework.com — with the promise that if I made a $700+ investment (donation?), I would be granted access to his full business opportunity — www.zoommoneymaker.com.  I can’t explain this more accurately because neither could he, though he wanted to talk all day about it.

Friendly guy, pleasant, down-to-earth.  I liked his apparent economic philosophy and other views and we would have hit it off if we were in a bar, but this was a sell.  The red flag was his need to prove credibility, and the way he did it.  His said to Google his exact name (as above) and it yielded a basic verification of who he was.  He invented some stuff.  He lives in Springville.  Okay. 

The ‘Oh, I probably shouldn’t have given you that other card (Zoom), and don’t know why I did as I don’t give those away to most people ever, but …’ is a typical sales tactic I didn’t catch except in retrospect.  No big deal, I guess.

But when he pulled out his personal letter of acceptance for “Cambridge Who’s Who” I said, unimpressed, “Yeah, there are thousands of those kinds of directories out there.”  He made it sound as if this was a prestigious one (more like infamous), but here’s the end game on this:

When I pushed further and asked if it was associated with Cambridge University, he resounded with a clear, unambiguous “YES” … before quickly closing the binder before I could check the address at the bottom of the letterhead.  Simple research today shows he paid (like anyone else could) to get put into a book no one would bother using except to feign credibility to themselves and others.  It’s an ethically questionable company at best, and not associated with Cambridge. 

Sure his website is nothing but a JPEG, his cards are VistaPrint, and he doesn’t know how to spell “copyright”.  But point blank fact: HE LIED.

Sorry, Richard.  You may or may not be a scam artist, and you may just be using messed-up sales techniques to get investors in your inventions, but you are not credible in my book.  And MY book is far more credible than Cambridge Who’s Who.