SINGAPORE — With a ski resort as its backdrop, the video shows a man saying that he travels “every single month” and that his online marketing workshop can teach people how to start a business from anywhere in the world — so that they, too, can enjoy such a lifestyle.

The course, purportedly, will “reveal” how one can take the first steps towards making an extra S$5,000 to S$20,000 a month.

Another video shows a man driving in a car who describes himself as one of the top 10 sellers on Amazon in Singapore, and who has sold more than S$1 million worth of products online in a year.

Such videos, about courses that claim to teach people how to make extra income, have recently popped up all over social media sites like YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.

Interested participants are usually first offered a free lesson.

Mr Marcus Kwek, 24, attended a free preview session on publishing e-books two months ago.

He told TODAY that although he believes the course “might indeed be informative”, he remains sceptical about what it promises.

“In the preview session, (the trainer) repeatedly sells the idea that anyone without writing experience could publish their e-book for profit in under three hours of effort, with the help of freelancers,” Mr Kwek said, adding: “Many attendees sign up, learning useful information, but fail to go about executing them”.

He likened the lesson to a surgeon who “writes down a step-by-step instruction on how to go about transplanting a heart”. “To expect a layman to be able to replicate the steps just by reading the manual, I feel that is unlikely,” he said.

WHY THEY APPEAL TO PEOPLE

Mr Ming Feng Yeap, the head of growth for personal finance app Seedly, noted that these companies often try to sell the viewer promises of a “perfect life while casually talking about their courses and how they made it”.

He said: “These courses appeal very much to Singaporeans because they usually promise a few things that busy Singaporeans are constantly in search for.” These include passive income, the ability to retire early or to become wealthy in a short amount of time without having to quit one’s job.

It is why they are often seen as “get-rich schemes”, a characterisation that the people behind them disagreed with.

Mr Benjamin Tan, the Amazon seller, told TODAY: “What we are offering is real-world education on how to start an e-commerce business by leveraging Amazon as a platform.”

“We have never sold it as a ‘get rich quick’ scheme, but a real business that requires time and effort,” added the 33-year-old, who is the lead trainer at Amazon Lifestyle Academy.

Mr Imran Mohamed Ali, the man who claims that he goes travelling every month, said: “I don’t promise people that they can become a millionaire. But I do make claims about how you can make an extra S$5,000 to S$10,000 every single month because that’s what I do.”

His advertisements have attracted criticism but the 35-year-old believes that this is due to the “indiscriminate placement” of his advertisements on YouTube, rather than the nature of his workshops.

There are people who would vouch for the legitimacy of his course.

Ms Vivian Chan, 27, who is featured on Mr Imran’s Facebook page as one of his most successful students, told TODAY that she attended a two-day digital marketing course with Mr Imran three years ago after she graduated from university.

The workshop, which Ms Chan said was priced at around S$2,000, was attended by about 20 people.

She said that although she was sceptical at first, Mr Imran convinced her that the course would “make a change” in her life and help her achieve what she wants.

Giving her verdict of the workshop, Ms Chan said that it gave her “everything… (she) needed to earn money and start a business”.

She now runs three businesses — an all-female Muay Thai gym, a pain relief clinic and she also teaches others how to start their own business.

Ms Chan told TODAY that all her businesses are profitable. According to her website, each of her businesses generate “five figures”.

After the course, Ms Chan said that Mr Imran would meet her once a week and coach her on how she can improve her businesses. She added that they have remained friends and still meet up regularly to talk about marketing strategies.

“The course was more than useful. It was the mentorship and support that I got from Imran that changed my life,” she said.

HARNESSING THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Mr Yeap, who also contributes to Seedly’s blog, said the trend of companies advertising their programmes on social media is unsurprising as it allows them to “better target a wide range of audiences and the ability to better advertise to the correct audience in terms of demographic and interest”.

He added that social media also allows these companies to deploy “advertising retargeting” at a much lower cost than traditional print media.

Ms Valerie Kor, who is the editor at MoneySmart, an online personal finance platform that allows users to compare financial products such as credit cards and insurance plans, also observed that these advertisements “step up on visuals, music and animation” in terms of format.

“Videos, images, infographics help to demonstrate how the product works and that can be very powerful. Within such platforms, there are also ways to target specific demographics and interest groups so advertisements are definitely becoming more targeted and personalised,” she added.

HOW TO DETERMINE IF A COMPANY IS LEGITIMATE

Mr Vasu Menon, the executive director of investment strategy for OCBC Bank, said that individuals should be cautious if a programme makes promises that appear unrealistic or “too good to be true”.

“To me, anything that promises too much or makes it too easy for you to make money, I would see that as a big red flag. If you have someone offering you exceptional returns at low or almost zero risks, I would say it is better to think twice,” he said.

Mr Menon also cautioned that many of these companies who advertise such courses are not registered entities with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). This means that they are not regulated by the laws administered by the authority and are not required to disclose information about their products.

Individuals should do their research and seek advice from financially-savvy friends and financial advisors on whether the courses they have come across are legitimate, Mr Menon said.

Similarly, MoneySense, Singapore’s national financial education programme, has advised that individuals should check the MAS Financial Institutions Directory to confirm if a person or company is regulated by the authority or not.

The MAS also strongly encourages consumers to check the Investor Alert List — a list of persons unregulated by the MAS who may have been wrongly perceived as being licensed or authorised by MAS.