At the "free" seminar, I distinctly heard them say, "For just  95 dollars, you can activate any of these businesses." Was I the ONLY one who heard this?? No, it seems lots of people who attended the "free" seminar in various places throughout Southern California heard the same exact thing. In fact, we found 13 of us just within spittin' distance (we never got a chance to poll the whole 200-or-so suckers in the room, but this did seem to be peculiar to Southern California).

Double-huh!!

But we didn't leave.

In fact, we gratefully accepted their offer to throw in an extra Business In a Box absolutely F*R*E*E to make up for the misunderstanding.

On the last day... when we were all a little punchy (another word for "vulnerable as hell") from five days of sitting in our seats from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. with only a short break for lunch which rarely happened before 3:00 p.m. (techniques sometimes associated with brainwashing)... one timid-but-very-likeable little man collected the forms he had passed out on the first day. We all had the option of putting our name on a mailing list he was kindly typing up so we could keep in touch (people tend to get very close very fast when they're shut in a room together and hyped up like we were, and we all thought we were best friends).

 

Well, the Powers That Be got wind of this (he never tried to make a secret of it), and the s--- hit the fan! The main speaker (otherwise known as Mr. Expensive Suit) took his goons up to this man's room and terrorized him. Maybe that's a little strong. I guess "intimidated" would be a better word. In fact, they intimidated him so well that when I called him several months later to talk about one of the biz-ops that had turned out to be a scam, he was still terrified and refused to talk to me. It seems they threatened him with arrest and left the poor little guy trembling in his boots.

A couple of his friends went ballistic and left the seminar early, and Mr. Expensive Suit hurried back to  lecture the rest of us like a bunch of naughty kids (and that's exactly what I felt like by the time he finally ran out of steam, even though I had nothing to do with anything). It wasn't his job to make us like him(!), he said, but to teach us how to succeed. (Bless him for that.) He would dearly LOVE to have us network after the seminar, but their attorneys would not allow it. It would open them up to all kinds of trouble. After all, one of us could contact some trusting little old lady and scam her out of her life savings, and Capital Investment Systems would be liable (perish the thought!).

"Well that certainly makes sense," the rest of us said, nodding stupidly.

 

(It wasn't until much, MUCH later that I learned the real hazards of networking. It isn't dangerous to our well-being, but to theirs.)

We stayed.

And we gave them our money.

 

I bought $1,500 worth of "biz ops" over and above the $2,995 price tag on the seminar itself. Some people spent much more than that. But it was okay, because we were investing in the future. And we knew we couldn't lose.

Why?

Continued in part II.