Just in case you were ever considering investing your hard earned money with the promoter of boy bands, this story is for you. Lou Pearlman, who is best known for his creation of boy bands, ‘N Sync and the Backstreet Boys was also apparently quite the smooth talker. Over the years he has been taking money from unsuspecting investors in a massive pyramid scheme. Pearlman disappeared a couple weeks ago and there is no money to be found. Well, that’s not entirely true. Officials just froze $250,000 that Pearlman was trying to transfer to Germany.
Here’s the thing. I don’t think I’d ever consider investing money with someone like Pearlman. If there is one thing I’ve learned in life so far it’s that just because someone might be good at one thing, it doesn’t mean they are good at everything. Pearlman got lucky with the boy bands. He figured out a formula that was hot at the time and made some money at it. So, there are lots of people that lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to this crook. A lot of them crowded a Florida courtroom on Monday to hear that the chance of recovering their money is very small. Pearlman has been living a pretty comfortable life at the expense of others and officials think that either he has spent most of it, or has it hidden in offshore accounts. Luckily one of the victims did receive an autographed edition of Pearlman’s book called “Bands, Brands and Billions – My Top 10 Rules For Making Any Business Go Platinum.” I’m sure that’s got to be worth at least .99 if they sell it on Ebay.
I need to keep an eye on that Charles Schwab character. If he ever starts really living high on the hog, I’m going to take my money back.
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