Late Night Infomercials Won’t Get You Out Of Debt
My daughter is going through a period when she doesn’t sleep. Literally. But that’s a story for another time and another blog. 
But because of that, I had the TV on in the middle of the night while pacing around with my daughter, and an infomercial came on. A Kevin Trudeau infomercial. Kevin Trudeau will try to sell you anything, and has theoretically written a book about anything and everything. To me he’s like the ultimate scam artist, for no other reason than no one can be an expert on everything under the sun, although I have other reasons for my assessment which a simple internet search can turn up for anyone. This infomercial caught my eye (and not because I want to buy it). It seems he’s moved into fixing people’s debt problems, for his new book is called Debt Cures.
Seriously, this makes me laugh. If you’ve ever called in response to one of his programs (I have not, but I have talked to people who have) the operator spends the entire time trying to sell you more stuff. And of course, signing up for 15 different programs and 5 different books is an excellent start to being debt free. The whole infomercial seriously made me both sad and irritated and almost laugh out loud. The man made seriously outrageous claims, and VERY questionable math, and was big on reducing your minimum payments on your credit cards. Um, if you only pay the minimum, that’s not going to help so much. He does say that, and then in the next breath is all excited about reducing minimum payments so you pay less. And oh - his claim of reducing interest rates? I can tell you how for free - call the credit card company and ask.
I didn’t watch the entire infomercial - but here’s my unsolicited advice. If you are reading this, you have access to the internet. Read free websites. Read some blogs. You don’t have to pay Kevin Trudeau to get you out of debt. He’s not an expert. If it wasn’t 5:30 am and I hadn’t already been up all night, I’d write a list of actually useful and free websites. But for now - debt doesn’t have a quick fix an infomercial can buy you. You’ll just be in a little more debt after your infomercial phone call.
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September 5th, 2008 at 10:39 am
its not about getting YOU out of debt, its about getting HIM out of debt. he knows that ppl will buy any and everything and this is just his latest get rich quick scheme and itll prolly work because people are desperate right now.
September 5th, 2008 at 10:40 am
ps love your blog and all the help! ive actually used some of your advice and it has helped tremendously
September 5th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
I’m fairly certain I’ve this crap infomercial too. He’s got a panel of attractive women hanging on his every word b/c its… so good? Yeah Right!
I know he’s been pimping products since the late 90s b/c I would always see him on TV at 4am on Saturday nights.
September 5th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
and if he had the key to being out of debt and was rich himself, why would he be pushing cheesy infomercials? LOL!
Good info from you for those who don’t know how some of the scammers work.
Hope you get a decent night’s sleep tonight…
Good luck with it all!
September 5th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Trudeau’s Human Calculator schtick is pretty cool, but as for the rest of his schemes — well, his connections to Scientology make it all pretty dubious, to say the least. A quick Google search of criticism of him and his stuff ought to smarten anyone up quickly.
September 6th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
I agree with TNT - it’s about him getting his judgement’s paid off. Didn’t he have a couple of lawsuits filed over the nature’s cures books? (googling…wikipedia-ing) Yes - he’s prevented from selling PRODUCTs, but free speech allows him to sell BOOKS. Oh, crud…how people skirt the law:
Wikipedia.org: Trudeau was convicted of fraud and larceny in the early 1990s. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sued him numerous times. A court order currently restricts his ability to promote and sell any product or service. However, he is permitted to promote books and other publications due to free-speech protection under the First Amendment as long as they are not used to promote or sell products or services and do not contain misrepresentations.[1][2] On November 19, 2007, a court found Trudeau in contempt of that court order for making deceptive claims about his book The Weight Loss Cure ‘They’ Don’t Want You to Know About. [3][4]
September 6th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
I saw that a few months back when I was up with insomnia. Besides everything else, it seems to me that if you have a legitimate proposition you should be able to market it in something other than what’s widely considered a shady medium (infomercial). Other PF gurus manage to do it.
(Radio show, podcast, blog, tv show, etc.)
September 7th, 2008 at 3:42 am
I have a copy of Mega Memory, if anyone’s interested… LOL
Or maybe I lost in the flood. I don’t remember.
September 7th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Great comments. I had heard that many of the get out of debt and get rich quick schemes use the late night time-slots not only because it’s cheap, but because people are more open to a sales pitch during those hours.