I’ve been watching a lot of shows on Hulu lately, I mean what else can you do during COVID-19 times, right?
Well this is how I ended up watching Undercover Billionaire, the whole idea of the series is to show that the “American dream” is still alive. In the show, Glenn Stearns, a billionaire business man, travels to Erie, Pennsylvania, to try to start a million dollar business from scratch in 90 days.
As an immigrant myself, I really know what it’s like starting a life in the States from scratch, and there were a lot of things in this show that are definitely a fairy tale.
*Spoiler alert* If you haven’t watch this show yet, please stop here and go watch it, or otherwise I’ll spoil this show for you.
They keep repeating that the guy is about to start this journey with only 100 dollars in his pocket. But let me tell you, he has more than that to start, he has a truck that is definitely worth more than 2500 dollars, and a cellphone (a newish iPhone) with unlimited phone service, that would cost at least another 100 dollars a month. In other words this person is starting his journey with a seed money of more or less 3000 dollars. If you have a minimum wage job in Pennsylvania (7.25 / hour), you would need to work at least 11 weeks to get that not considering any other expense like a roof above your head, taxes, health insurance or food to accomplish that.
At the beginning of the show, the guy tries to save money sleeping in his truck, that if you ever lived in a cold weather state, that’s a NO/NO thing to do. Also he started right away to eat Instant Ramen soups the first day he landed from his billionaire life, obviously after having a protein rich diet, going to this survival mode lifestyle he got sick and ended up in the hospital. This is another expense they don’t take in consideration in the show. This ER bill, would be at least 500dlls, that if you are starting from scratch, this 100% would affect your budget. The show just ignores this expense, as if we were living in Canada.
Then the first break of this guy is when he is able to sell some tires he found in an abandoned building. He calls a guy that he found on craigslist, and this guy agrees to meet him in this location (a private property), and then he makes almost 1500dlls from selling stolen tires, really? What if these tires were not trash and the owner of the building just stored them in there temporarily?
I feel that this was also too far fetched. I mean, the idea in general is correct, for myself, I picked up from the curb a nice dinning room table and chairs, that I was able to use when I arrived, but this show wildly exaggerates things.
After selling the stolen tires, then he starts reselling cars to make more money, he buys a Honda Civic for 700 dollars and he is able to sell it later in the same day for almost 4000 dollars, all he did to increase the value of the car was going through a car wash machine, pfff, that doesn’t happen in real life.
He is finally able to find a place to stay, and somehow he gets his lease using a fake name, NO background check, NO credit check, NO proof of income, nothing. And this happens again later on in the show when he buys a house to be able to flip it for the money he needs to start his business. How could you get a mortgage loan without any of this information?
This was the breaking point when I stopped taking seriously this show. I mean, I finished watching the season, you know… COVID-19 times, but please, let me tell you again that the show is a fairy tale.
I’m not saying that the American dream is not alive, what I’m saying is that it takes years of constant work and effort to be successful.
Do you think you would be able to build a million dollar company from scratch in 90 days? How realistic do you think this show is?
I haven’t watched the show but I have read al the blurb about it and was seriously suspicious it was a total scam. Your comments confirm it is. There are other reviews which paint the same picture as you.
Having a TV crew filming him no doubt helped him with his con.