Karl Jacobsen

Karl Jacobsen runs Perpetual Cash which is a cash gifting program at perpetualcash.org and also at perpetualcash.us I heard from one of his affiliates that’s he’s the founder of the program and his own home page for the program is the perpetualcash.us domain. I know this because I got a call from a very nice person who had just signed up with him, and wanted their money back but is now out $700 in cash they sent him. This person had lost several jobs due to layoffs and they put their last money in an envelope when Karl Jacobsen told them that’s all the costs to get started.

When he received it they got an email saying they had to pay another admin fee of $200 and start paying monthly fees for voicemail which they didn’t have. Here’s how it’s supposed to work, and why these things are illegal. You sign up, and told to send cash wrapped in a magazine to them and you can’t use the US Postal Service because mail fraud subjects them to Postal Inspectors. It’s the reason why NO cash gifting program will ever accept payment by US Mail.

After that you’re urged to spend hundreds to thousands more in post card mailings (which they do to their lists so you never know what’s really going out) and they also offer a service using broadcast auto dialers (which are now illegal to use on people who haven’t given permission, but what the heck, cash gifting is illegal so may as well do that too). After that people get sent to your pre-recorded voicemail giving the sales pitch to get them to do cash gifting too.

A moment to explain the legalities here. The IRS says you can give a cash gift to someone up to $12,000 and it’s exempt from tax (though you still have to declare all income). The problem is, to meet this criteria you can’t have any expectation of getting something in return. The money you give them is to buy a position in their company so people will send you money.

There’s no product mentioned here, and the US Post Office definition of a pyramid scheme is when money is given, but no goods or services are offered. Now, some have tried to get around this by offering some (usually crappy) Ebooks or taped conference calls claiming they’re worth a lot of money. The problem there is prosecutors aren’t dummies, and if they can’t show they’ve sold these books or recordings for the amount they claim they’re worth, the show is over.

Cash gifting is so many things, it’s fraud, money laundering, tax evasion. The only people I’ve spoken to who tried it were desperate or insanely greedy. The failure rate is incredible for this, and when people fail they’re going to want the money back from you. I’ve reviewed a couple of others like this, but hearing this persons story today made me want to write one about Karl Jacobsen and Perpetual Cash. They sent me the emails that Karl Jacobsen sent them, promising thousands of dollars per week and that he made over $4,000 in the last three days.

This is as bad as it gets folks. The lies in this type of scam get so bad that if you Google search for “this is not cash gifting” you can actually find them all. The methods to market this are just as bad. Using auto dialers are illegal now and I spoke with a guy last week who did $5,000 worth of post cards and made $50 in sales. He’s not even sure how many they mailed at this point or if they took his money and bought something from his web site and actually sent nothing.Please leave a comment if you have your own experience with this.

If you’re shopping for a business opportunity, you’re welcome to head to my Top Pick page and find out the only one I do. It’s not mentioned anywhere on the blog because of the SEC rule that holds parent companies responsible for the claims of their distributors.You can find out there though, and without the spam or sales pitch if you’re curious.

Nick