The People Selling You a Course

Start with what has been proved

The federal trade regulator, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), polices unfair and deceptive selling. In September 2024 the FTC acted against a group of companies selling online business schemes.

One of them cost buyers at least 25 million dollars, on the agency's figures. It had promised a five-figure monthly income by the second year. What buyers actually got is quoted further down, in the agency's own words.

Another company in the same sweep took more than 15.9 million dollars from people.

Then in March 2025 the same agency went after a company called Click Profit. At least 14 million dollars lost. Management fees of at least 45,000 dollars.

And this is the finding worth reading twice. More than a fifth of the stores it set up earned nothing at all. Another third earned under 2,500 dollars in their entire lifetime.

Not per month. In total, ever.

The part nobody writes

Here is where most pages on this subject stop, because the next bit is not good news.

There is a federal rule built for exactly this. It is called the Business Opportunity Rule. You would think it covers courses. Mostly it does not.

The rule only applies when three things are all true at once. The third one is the one that matters here. The seller has to say it will provide something for you to sell into. Locations for machines. Outlets, accounts or customers. Or it promises to buy back what you produce.

Now look at how a course is worded. Pay me 997 dollars, watch the videos, then go and find your own customers.

That offer does not promise you customers. So it falls outside the rule.

That is not bad luck. That is why they are built that way.

Where the rule does bite

It is worth knowing what the rule does when it applies, because it is strong.

The seller has to hand over a disclosure document at least seven days before you sign a contract or pay them anything. Seven days, before any money moves.

If somebody is selling you a machine round, a vending route or a stock of goods they will buy back, ask for that document. If they have never heard of it, you have learned something useful.

So the checking is yours

That is the honest position. For most courses, no rule is standing between you and a bad decision. That leaves you.

Four questions, asked before any money moves.

1. What do I get, listed, before I pay? Number of videos, length, what happens after. If the answer is only about how you will feel, there is nothing there.
2. Who finds the customers? If the answer is you, then this is information, not a business. Price it like information.
3. What did the last hundred buyers earn? Almost nobody will answer. The silence is the answer.
4. What happens at the next level? Ask what else there is to buy later. Most of these have a next level, and the first price is the door.

And one more, which is not a question. Show it to an adult before you pay. Not for permission. So that a second person has read the same sales page while calm.

The rule that does not exist yet

You may see pages saying the FTC now forces course sellers to prove their income claims.

In January 2025 the agency put out a proposal about earnings claims. A proposal is not a law. It has not become one, and it may not.

So if a page tells you a rule protects you here, that page is describing something that has not happened. Which brings you back to the four questions.

The quiet reason these ads find you

You are searching how to start a business. That makes you the exact person these ads are bought for.

Nothing is going wrong with your phone. You are simply in the audience they pay to reach, and you are in it at the moment you are most likely to say yes.