Inside the course targeting young tradies with get-rich schemes

Billy* is an apprentice carpenter from Western Australia who signed up for ABC Academy. (ABC News) Link copiedShareShare articleAustralian tradies and apprentices are being targeted by social media influencers claiming to hold the secrets to financial freedom. Just a few months of study could set you up to earn big, the videos say. In a cost-of-living crisis and an online world shaped by the manosphere and hustle culture, hundreds are signing up to these online courses. Some insist it is the best decision they have ever made, while others told triple j hack it has left them feeling "trapped", "brainwashed" and out of pocket. As a kid, Billy* dreamed of one day having the thing his family did not have much of: money. By the age of 18, he had become an apprentice carpenter; his dreams were simple yet still felt out of reach. "I've always wanted to retire my mum and provide for my future family," Billy said. That is when a network of influencers and salesmen began popping up on his social media feeds, telling him there was a quicker, smarter way to get rich. "That's sort of what they said you could do, if you put the work in." Only it did not work out how he had hoped. "I was just kind of like a fish wandering into a shark's mouth." Triple j hack has been investigating what happens when young people sign up to courses being pushed by influencers that promise to teach them all the skills they need to secure so-called 'location freedom' and financial independence to ultimately 'unplug' from the 'matrix'. A consumer rights advocate said the models being used have parallels to pyramid or multi-level marketing schemes, tailored to explicitly target Australian men in their late teens and 20s. They also warn that complicated company structures used by some of the course providers could leave the young people who spend thousands signing up beyond the protections of Australian law. Hack has spoken to more than 15 young men who were or are involved in one agency behind these videos: an entity known as ABC Sales Agency, ABC Empire or ABC Academy. Their experiences raise allegations of predatory sales tactics, loans obtained under false pretences and a toxic culture — allegations that ABC Academy has repeatedly ignored requests to speak about. But a social media expert said this group was just a drop in the ocean, with social media course sellers spanning everything from wellness and parenting to fitness and finance. A professor of internet studies at Curtin University, Crystal Abidin, said influencers in her studies claim to have had tens of thousands of people subscribe to their courses — earning millions in the process. And while social media algorithms and influencers themselves are highly effective at serving content tailored to the individual, a hack investigation has looked into how just one group is being targeted by these schemes: young tradies. After seeing ABC Academy's videos on social media, Billy decided to give it a crack, signing up for a course he said cost about $10,000 via a payment plan that required instalments of $980 a month. It brought access to learning modules teaching skills in content creation and online sales. And while Billy said there were "amazing people" there — many "stuck in the same situation" as him — the hustle culture took a massive toll. He said he would work until 1am, answering DMs in an affiliate's account and creating his own content, and be up by 6am for his apprenticeship the next day — a pattern that left him "easily the worst physically and mentally I've felt before". "There was an aspect of brainwashing in the sense of sacrificing sleep, sacrificing workouts, sacrificing free time," he said. "And making it sort of like a life-or-death situation in that sense." But there was something else Billy began to notice that did not feel quite right. The courses taught the skills to sell a digital product. But the digital product, he said, that many of ABC Academy’s members went on to sell was the very course they had been sold. "I don't think it's intentionally been set up to be a pyramid scheme, but it definitely can look like it," Billy said. "ABC don't push 'resell our course'; they push 'learn the skills to sell a digital product.' But I feel like the large majority of people in there just resell the course." It all starts with social media content. "Who the hell is realistically going to buy a course that costs about 10 grand, even if it promises everything?" Tom is a carpenter in his 20s from Coffs Harbour, who was looking for a 'side hustle' after being rained out of work. "As Instagram feeds do, they know what you're … going through," he told hack. Tom's feed was full of content like this video by an affiliate marketer for ABC Sales Agency. Marcel Stam is one of the young Australians marketing the course. Multiple sources, including two remote closers who worked on a commission basis with ABC Sales Agency, told hack creators like this get

Inside the course targeting young tradies with get-rich schemes

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