This comedy scam isn't funny

Are you into stand-up?  Comedy, that is. Well, I am.

Over the past month, I've laughed uproariously at a really great act at my local comedy club. Then I spent an agonising hour and a half at a central London venue, looking at my watch, praying for the act to end, and worrying that if I walked out, I would be pilloried from the stage. 

And finally, I went to one of those black tie events where they have a comedian to give out prizes. He was alright but not great and certainly not to the taste of many in the audience who talked throughout his act.  One told me afterwards the comic had been “too clean” and “not nasty enough about our business” (something to do with investment banking!).

All of these three comedians have high televisuality – they're often on the box. But what these three very mixed experiences show is how hard it is to be a stand-up and how impossible it is to please all of the people all of the time. Loads in the audience loved the one I hated – and they weren't all his family.

The road to riches?

Being a comedian is a tough business. You have to write material, and then learn enough to keep going for at least 20 minutes without a prompt. And that's besides travelling to obscure venues to perform in front of five people. 

Still stand-up has become big business with rock-star style gigs. It's a far cry from the first night at London's Comedy Store nearly 30 years ago where a former colleague did a spot (he lasted two minutes before being heckled off).

So realising how hard it is to be a comedian, and knowing that only a few make enough for a full time living, I was amazed to get a spam email suggesting I could make up to $7,000 a month (about £4,500) “getting paid to make people laugh – even if you can't tell a joke”. It added: “You don't have to be a comedian to be successful.”

Big money in funny?

If the thought of making big money in comedy without knowing how to tell jokes is worrying, the first paragraph of the email was more than enough to raise alarm bells. 

It said: “If you're serious about making money in a respectable, honest, in-demand home-based business that's easy to run with almost

zero overhead, then listen to this: There's big money in funny.”

The warning siren wails when I see the words “home-based business” - it's everywhere online (and offline) selling schemes ranging from pyramid selling detergents plans to pure money generation machines (those “magic” sites where you email loads of people and hope they will send you money for your formula in how to email others and ask for more money.

'Pure profit'

It continued: “The income from this little-known, home-based business can be huge. You can start in an instant and work when you feel like

it. But the best part is, there's practically zero overhead, so almost every dime you make is pure profit.” 

There's a link which leads to a PDF promoting online book “Getting Paid to Make People Laugh” which appears, at first sight, to be the work of John Cantu, well known on the San Francisco humour circuit. Cantu is said to have launched dozens of comedians – film star Robin Williams is the best known in the UK. 

But search a little and you find many similar PDFs on other sites, all selling for $19.97 and – funny this – all claiming to be a brand new book and all claiming to have interviewed Cantu for the book. So it's not a collection of Cantu hints and tips but a write-up of an interview. 

Now here's an even funnier thing – for which I should be paid the extra $7,000 a month right now. John Cantu died in May 2003 – more than eight years ago. You can read his obituary here. He died at the age of 55 after a long struggle with cancer. 

One dead comedian later...

So how do all these people interview him for a brand new ebook? Do they have links to the hereinafter?  Did Cantu come back as a ghost? Even if there was an interview, it could hardly be brand new.  And if you look hard enough on the book's cover shown on the PDF , you'll find a name that is not the alleged interviewer. 

So what's going on here?  Firstly, this is a way to get people to part with $19.97. Then they'll be told to send out the same email and use the same PDF to hit others for nearly $20 – of which some will go to the site where they started. 

And finally, it's a way of building a mailing list of those desperate for easy money and greater security. The PDF promises : “You're earning $700 to $7,000 extra a month. Your financial worries are disappearing. You're able to purchase the extras you and your family couldn't afford before. You're feeling much more secure and confident – and less at the whim of other people.” 

And that's all within “six months (or sooner). 

As any stand-up struggling to make an audience laugh will tell you, easy money and comedy just don't mix. It's really hard work and you'll have to take a lot of knocks. Even then, only a handful earn much. 

But if you're daft enough to think you can make oodles of extra money from comedy without any effort or skill (you need shedloads of both), then the joke is on you. 

Follow me on twitter @tonylevene1