Income 4 Beginners (I4B) is a free ebook download that offers you the money making opportunity of a lifetime. For just $40 you can 'turn your PC into a virtual ATM.' Jon Davies, the founder of I4B asks you to 'imagine that you were giving away for free, something that people were queuing up to get, and then up to 90% of those people ended up paying you for a product you promote.'

Having been hooked into believing that you can make money easily with very little effort, you are quickly persuaded into buying the set of ebooks that you have full resell rights to.

Davies claims that this is a new idea. However, ebooks with full resale rights have been around for years on eBay and online - promising buyers an easy way to make their millions.

Can these make money quick ventures ever work? Clearly for some people they do. Alex W. K. writes that:

"the day I purchased this ebook I made $2000 in 1 week"

Likewise, Steve McGrath has statements to prove that he sold 13 in his first two weeks of business with just a single blog post review of the product. At $40 per ebook, that's $520. Not bad for a single blog post.

However, whilst these schemes will work for some (best of all for those who invent them), most people buy into the dream only to have their hopes shattered by the realization that money doesn't really come all that easily. On a forum, Maxiedecimal confesses to an experience of disappoint that is pandemic for purchasers of these get rich quick schemes:

'I bought it, promoted it, and had about 25 downloads, but I never made a sale.'

So much for a 90% conversion rate. Even those who have made a miniature fortune from I4B admit that 'it's not true' that 90% of people who download the free ebook end up buying the final product.

Ultimately, these schemes can only work for those who buy into them first, when the market is still ripe. Every purchase is another person setting up a website in direct competition, selling exactly the same product. No wonder some sellers have reduced the I4B ebook price from $40 to $5. It is simply unsustainable - as people buy the product demand decreases as less buyers need the product, whilst supply increases - every buyer becomes a new seller. Any high school economics student could analyze this scheme and declare it doomed to failure.

I admit, I was tempted to buy this product. I was seduced by the promise of easy money. But even before I realized that the economics of it simply don't add up, I had to confess to myself that to become an I4B seller would be to become a peddler of broken dreams. I4B is a product that promises much, but, for the majority of its buyers, returns very little, if anything at all.