Well, being of an inquisitive nature, I watched the video. Now, it did have Morley Safer at the beginning, but there was no reference to 60 Minutes.  So…I started investigating. 

You see, I’m watch 60 Minutes most weeks and I don’t remember them ever doing a story on this company. Since companies know ahead of time when their story is run, I’m sure I would have heard about it from one of my sources.  So, I went to the 60 Minutes web site and searched on AmeriPlan and American Review Series and American Medical Review.  Nothing. 

I noticed that the video stated “American Review Series” so I put that into a search engine.  Here’s what I found in the second listing at http://www.current.org/cm/cm0403cronkite.shtml with an article titled “Cronkite fights ‘masquerade’ that trades on his reputation”.

Here’s what it said in part:

The first caller said he was a producer working on a PBS series with Morley Safer, the CBS correspondent. CSPI, the nonprofit where Cronin works, had been selected to be featured on American Medical Review, the caller told him, and Cronin could put the program on the air by paying an underwriting fee.

“I felt like I was on the receiving end of a scam,” Cronin told Current. “I recognized it as totally bogus. . . . At one point, when I raised concerns about paying for the privilege [of being featured in a broadcast] and whether this would be appropriate for public TV, the producer said, ‘I can assure you that Morley Safer wouldn’t lend his name to anything that wasn’t above board.’”

To Cronin, the pitch may have sounded like telemarketing, but WJMK tried to hide the sound of other producers calling pros-pects, a former employee told Current, by running a white-noise generator in the room.

Cronin started researching WJMK on the Web and soon concluded that the company presenting itself as a journalistic enterprise was really dishing out paid advertisements, including advertorials.

The sad part is that many people will have heard the “we were featured on 60 Minutes” and make a business decision based on the credibility of that news magazine.  Instead, it was a paid infomercial which was introduced by one of their correspondents.

Secondly, this shows why, if you are a representative of a home based business opportunity, you must take it upon yourself to validate any statements you hear from anyone other than corporate.  What do you think would happen if someone joined your opportunities, invested a lot of time and money, and then found out that their decision was based on a lie.  If you read around at http://www.ftc.gov you will learn that representatives can be held liable when they don’t give the facts and that causes people to lose money.

This is another example of why you should also investigate any home business or home based business opportunity yourself. 

Care to comment?  Register on the right…would love to hear from you.