I get a steady barrage of questions about “Freedom Checks,” where someone is promising you enormous amounts of money — potentially making you incredibly rich.

The pitches are about how the government has all this cash that they want to throw your way. But is it a scam???

What are Freedom Checks?

As I’ve explained in the past, the whole concept of Freedom Checks is just a marketing term about you getting involved in what are called MLPs, or Master Limited Partnerships, usually in oil and gas.

These are high-risk ventures that are also typically really expensive for you to be involved in. The chance you’ll make the big money is pretty unlikely. There are few people who will do well.

I’ll tell you who is doing well: The whole pitch with the Freedom Checks — the whole commercial cycle, everything — is about getting you to subscribe to a newsletter, that then tells you about MLPs and the oil and gas industry.

So now that I’ve told you what the real mystery is — it’s about doing this high-risk, high-cost investing in MLPs — you should know if those newsletters are something you really should spend money on in the first place.