‘It’s so easy anyone can do it.’

How many times have we heard that? From having 6-pack abs to flipping real estate all we have to do is watch an infomercial or two to realize all that we want in life is right at our fingertips.

Yet if it’s so simple why are so many of us overweight/obese? Why aren’t we all real estate moguls?

Nonsense you say. We’re far too smart to buy such snake oil. We’ve read the fine print. We know results will vary.

But are we really that smart? Do we really see through it all? Why will we discount the promises of an infomercial yet lend credibility when the same BS is spouted by a ‘reputable’ firm such as Fidelity?

What gives? It’s Fidelity’s latest claim that it’s easy to become a 401(k) millionaire. In fact it’s so easy they’ve provided us with the five habits of 401(k) millionaires (because four habits would be too few and six habits too many – do these people work for Cosmo?!).

“You don’t have to be making a million to save a million. Saving $1 million for retirement might seem like a tall order but our 401(k) participants have done it without earning more than $150,000 per year.”

It’s a super narrative and makes for a great headline. Indeed it’s garnered lots of press for Fidelity such as here, here and here. Could that be their true goal?

The truth, however, is much different as the ‘ease’ with which a 401(k) investor can become a millionaire isn’t, well, all that easy.

Of the approximately 13,000,000 Fidelity-administered 401(k) accounts a total of 72,379 of them (representing a whopping 0.6%) have a balance of $1,000,000+. The bulk of these accounts are held by people earning $350,000+ per year.

What of the people earning $150,000 or less per year? They represent 1,100 of the 13,000,000 accounts or a whopping 0.008%. That doesn’t sound easy – it sounds like a rounding error.

Thank you Fidelity for a wonderful headline and for succeeding in drawing attention to yourself…and while your offer of snake oil is tempting we’ll stick with more tried and true remedies to cure what ails us.

To read an honest yet skewering account – the proverbial fine print – please check out this piece in Fortune from Stephen Gandel.