(Toledo News Now) - Remember the infomercials for the ShamWow and Snuggie? You may have laughed, but they raked in millions of dollars in sales. The government is not laughing now though.
Remember when infomercials were fun to watch? But then Billy Mays died and Vince Offer ran into some trouble with the law. Now, they are less enjoyable and worse, the Federal Trade Commission is pulling the plug on some of them. The golden age of infomercials may be behind us.
We used to get a kick out of watching Billy Mays, and some of his products even worked!
In recent years, though, more and more infomercials have pitched easy ways to wealth. There was The Green Millionaire, who showed how to put solar panels on your roof for almost no cost and then pay no electric bills. Do you remember the smiling people in John Beck's Free & Clear Real Estate System, who got rich buying and flipping houses?
You won't see either one anymore because the FTC has shut them down.
From the doesn't that stink file: Paying money to a get-rich-quick infomercial that ends up draining your wallet.
The FTC has just won a federal court judgment against John Beck's Free & Clear System saying nearly everyone who bought it lost money. It has also shut down and sued The Green Millionaire saying the supposed free book led to an $89 annual subscription.
The one thing these two infomercials have in common is they both claimed you get something for almost nothing.
If getting rich quick was easy everyone would be rich. So you might want to stick with the OxiClean and ShamWow for now, so you don't waste your money.
