Have you ever been offered a scam job?

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

When I was working in politics, there was a really unusual Republican operative that I dealt with on a regular basis. He liked to pretend he was much wealthier than he really was. He drove a beat up 15-year-old Jaguar, but bragged about it like it was a brand new car. The money was really rolling in, he liked to say!

Dude was shady, but he was one of our volunteers. And we didn't have many volunteers.

Needless to say, our campaign didn't wind up winning. At the incredibly depressing Election Night Party, he came up to me to tell me how terrible it was that our candidate didn't win. But he was very impressed with my work, he said. So impressed that he wanted to offer me a business opportunity.

See, you sell soap, he explained. Laundry detergent. It's some kind of special soap though. It's really good, so much better than the crap you buy in the grocery store. You order it online, and it gets delivered directly to your house.

But here's the thing: You don't actually have to sell the soap yourself. That's not how you make the real money. No, instead, you find someone else to sell the soap. Then you get a cut of their sales. The guy recruiting me would also get a cut. Everybody wins! (Especially whoever gets that sweet-ass soap.)

I thanked him for the opportunity, and promised I'd think about it.

He told me that the soap was good. He knew, because he had a garage full of it.

Soap. Really.