My $400 mistake with a 'guaranteed' online business course

I bought a course last year that promised to show me how to make money from home. It cost me $400 and said I could start earning in 30 days. After six months of following their steps, I hadn't made a single dollar. The advice was just basic stuff you can find for free, and the 'support' was a broken email address. I used to think these programs were legit, but now I see they just sell hope. Has anyone else lost money on something like this and found a better way to learn a real skill?

3 comments

3 Comments

elliot_gibson271mo ago

Read a whole article about this. They called it the "guru grift." Basically the same story. People selling expensive PDFs with recycled blog post info. Saw one guy who paid for a "secret" Amazon method that was just the public seller guide. Real skills take time. Free stuff from libraries or community colleges actually works.

kelly6381mo ago

Yeah, I fell for that stuff before too.

nguyen.lily29d ago

Totally get what you mean, @kelly638. Got burned buying a "life-changing" course on graphic design that was just a bunch of YouTube links. What actually helped was just doing the boring stuff, like following free project tutorials step-by-step and messing up a hundred times. The local library had these old software books that were way more useful than any fancy PDF. It's slow, but you actually remember the stuff you learn the hard way.