Better Homes And Gardens Magazine The Unknown scam Magazine recipe adsI Des Moines Iowa

I call this "the unknown scam" because it's victims have no chance of finding out about it until it's too late. Thank heavens for ripoffreport.com; perhaps it will help me to save others from the same fate.

Unlike Primerica, Amway, Quixtar, or many other
scams, this one is decpetive because there's no
recruiting involved, they simply wait like a spider for victims to fly into their web. The "spider" in this case is the advertising department of Better Homes and Gardens magazine, although I think other magazines share that ad department as well. I was suckered into it thinking that it might be legit because I sought them out and there was no recruiting.

Here's my story. In 1999 I had just failed at my second post-college white collar job. I was almost 34 and desperate to find ways to make money. Remembering something someone had told me years ago, I bought a Better Homes and Gardens magazine and looked in the back advertising section. One page was filled with tiny ads, like you would see in the garage sale ad section of a newspaper. They were broken down into several categories, including "recipes." I saw ads that basically said to send them $3.00 and a self addressed stamped envelope, and they would in turn send you a recipe, perhaps "delicious chocolate cake", or whatever.

So my mind started spinning. I had fantasies of launching a thriving home mail order business from this, and hiring my friends to help process the tons of orders we would get.

d**n was I naive! I was no culinary expert, but I'd heard that if you took an existing recipe and changed three ingredients you could legally make it your own. So I took a recipe for pasta fagiole soup from a diet cookbook I had, changed three ingredients, and came up with "Rotini Italiano soup." I'll admit it wasn't exactly ethical, but I was desperate. I called myself "Chef Ted" and thought I'd do the $3 and SASE ad for my recipe.

I called the woman at Better homes and Gardens (I forgot her name) and asked her about it. She said that tiny ad was $850 for one month! However, she said "but that reaches 34 MILLION readers, nearly 15% of the U.S." I figured if even one tenth of 1% of the readers responded I'd make a killing. She further reassured me that "85% of all people like me renew the ad the second month." Now I started drooling. If that many people renewed, that must mean the orders are pouring in. I'll be rich!

Although I was as poor as a church mouse, I had just gotten an income tax return and blew the whole thing on this ad and a P.O. box to accompany it. She said since there was only one page of ads, there were a lot of people trying to get in, but said she'd let me in because "she knew me." I actually felt priveleged to be reeled in by her! So I paid the money, did the ad, and printed up a stack of copies of the recipe.

There was a two month wait between paying for the ad and having it appear. One month after paying the woman called me back, asking me if I wanted to renew my ad for the second month. She explained that I should do that now, since there's a two month delay between ads and it wouldn't be good to have a gap between ads. Fortunatley for me, I was too broke to take her up on it even if I wanted to. This explained the 85% renewal rate; people renewed before they could realize what a scam this was.

Then my ad finally appeared. But for days, then weeks, I got no buyers. What I did get however, were many of the same offer, over and over again, from different people all over the U.S. The offer had to have been photo copied since they were all identical. They said that "I too was ripped off by this type of ad" but that if I joined their pyramid scheme I could make some real money!

Besides the fact that more people were trying to rip me off, it struck me how they just knew that I made no money without having to ask. They targeted anyone who put out Better Homes and Garden ads.

In the end I got one order from a woman who politely asked me how it worked out for me, since she too was interested in putting out an ad. She only sent me the $3.00 because she wanted the info from me without wanting to piss me off by not buying my recipe. I obliged her with a six page warning.

Technically this is not a scam, since they do exactly what they say they're going to do, but it's damned unethical to take poor people's money knowing they're never going to see a cent in return. I hope that b***ch get's hers someday. Later I found that I had made a mistake on my income tax return and had to pay back to the IRS all of the money I used for the ad and then some. My credit union account still has my account listed in my name as well as "Chef Tud", a mispelling of "Chef Ted" and a constant reminder of that fiasco. I lost my friggin' shirt in that deal and don't want anyone else to have to go through what I experienced.

Ted
DeKalb, Illinois
U.S.A.