Did I really fall for that scam?

[Mixcoatl]

There’s this plague online lately: “gurus” selling courses that teach you… guess what… how to sell a course to get rich.
It’s like a scam inside a scam wrapped in motivational music and fake promises.
And yeah, I fell for it.
It’s embarrassing as hell to admit it.
I was desperate, already in debt, looking for a way out.
And these people hunt specifically for folks in that exact state.
They know who to target. They’re predators.
I paid for the course.
Lost money I didn’t even have.
Now I’m deeper in debt, my projects are frozen, and the guilt is sitting on my chest like a wet brick.
Not just because of the money, but because I feel stupid for not seeing through it.
Has anyone else been through this?
Or am I the only fool who got sucked into a well-edited cloud of nothing?

[meta_male]

I once tried to buy festival tickets...only had a one day pass, the rest was sold out. I was pretty desperate to get back in so I went looking online and bought the ticket from someone. Hours passed without receiving anything so in the meantime I went looking elsewhere and bought another one. Again, hours passed until I realised I got scammed. Twice. The shame was unreal.

Desperation makes you easy to exploit.

 

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

That's kinda funny actually, I used to joke with people that there'll eventually be someone selling courses on how to sell courses to get rich, I didn't know they actually existed lol

[Joshe]

The financially desperate demographic is huge, so of course there are tons of offers out there to solve this problem.

I'm sure there are some legit courses on how to sell courses. Not all of them would be useless. But I wouldn't even look for courses on how to make money. 

The macro steps for building a course are simple. One sequence might look like:

1. Validate your idea with market research 

2. Make the course

3. Package it well

4. Make it accessible

5. Distribute

6. Collect market feedback and reiterate until you get buyers.

You just have to flesh each of these out.

AI would likely serve you better than random courses. For example, at each phase, you can ask AI "what are the most common mistakes at this stage?" or "what is the likelihood my project would fail and if it were to fail, why?" or "why do most endeavors like this fail?" or "what is the actual difficulty level and level of effort required for this stage?". AFter you ask enough questions and get clarity, the pathway might light up.

Edited Thursday at 05:48 PM by Joshe

[Hojo]

The fact that you fell for it is deeply unsettling.

[oldhandle]

You guys realize Leo sells courses right 

I bought one tbh

[Natasha Tori Maru]

It happens.

Very intelligent people get scammed.

Locksmith scams are one of the biggest. And they are very successful because, as you guessed it, they prey on people who are desperate. Locked out. Pets inside. Late at night. No where else to go. This generates urgency.

When you are in that mental state you are very emotionally charged - this has been shown to interfere with proper reasoning skills. You are in debt. Under pressure. Do not denigrate yourself over this - give yourself grace.

This incident is not a reflection of your capabilities or value as a person <3 

All you need is to remember this, so you can learn.

[Basman]

I've fallen for the exact same type of scam by Brett Jones, a course in making courses. "Old Leo" for those who remember.

The worst part is that you can learn all that shit for free easily. But what I regret the most is the time I wasted. 

For me it was less that I was desperate financially but that I didn't know what to do after graduating what you call high-school in America and not having any interest in any specific degrees.

[oldhandle]

17 hours ago, oldhandle said:

You guys realize Leo sells courses right 

I bought one tbh

Is no one gonna talk about this? You're complaining about this on the forum of a guy who sells courses

[BlueOak]

3 hours ago, oldhandle said:

Is no one gonna talk about this? You're complaining about this on the forum of a guy who sells courses

I don't think Leo sells courses on how to sell courses. As that's what the poster is implying he bought elsewhere, unless I am reading it wrong.

Edited 10 hours ago by BlueOak

[BlueOak]

On 08/01/2026 at 1:58 PM, Mixcoatl said:

Has anyone else been through this?

Plenty of times.
Its not much better when you buy a genuine course or take a genuine step towards a goal and it ends up in the dirt either though.

It's just life mate. You got an education how to spot frauds. It'd have been nice if you were conned or scammed earlier on in life to avoid it now, but either way you learned a hard lesson and either way it feels the same way at 5, 15, or 55. Like crap.

Edited 10 hours ago by BlueOak

[Basman]

1 hour ago, oldhandle said:

Is no one gonna talk about this? You're complaining about this on the forum of a guy who sells courses

Those courses aren't scams though. The course I feel for had less substantive content than the LP course and cost 60 000 dollars. 

Scam courses use so many tricks to psychologically manipulate you into willingly making a bad deal. Success guaranteed or money back, etc. With the course I fell for I had to go through a 30 minute interview. Then the day after the guru contacted me to personally tell I was "selected" for the course, making sure that I knew that he was normally very busy and that he was taking time out of his day to congratulate me while flying in his private plane (his couch).

And Brett Jones is on the lower end of scamminess. A lot of the bigger scammers manipulate you into making consecutive purchases to get the "next level", etc.