Psst. Have mutual fund managers got a deal for you. Remember the high-flying fund that was too popular to take your money? Well, all of a sudden it’s willing to accept your check. Operators are standing by.

If this sounds like a late-night TV pitch for miracle cream, you’re on the right track. To their credit, successful managers have over the years closed hundreds of funds to new money. The objective: to avoid having so much money to put to work, which would end up ruining the record and reputation of a once high-flying fund.

When things start turning south, however, the managers often change their minds and begin welcoming new money once again. That’s precisely what happened recently with a number of former high-fliers. Among them: William Blair International Growth (WBIGX), which was down 52% last year, and Oppenheimer Small & Mid Cap Value (QVSCX), which lost 50%. The S&P 500 lost 37% in 2008.

What’s behind such moves? The chief reason: a once hot hand, or hot specialty, has gone stone cold, and investors have started to rush out. Sophisticated investors might be tempted to rush in, because they believe that the best time to find bargains is precisely when a fund is out of favor and reopens.

History suggests otherwise. Funds that reopen have shown little ability to outpace the market, according to a study of 125 equity funds over an 11-year span by Huseyn Gulen of Virginia Tech, Padma Kadiyala of Pace University and P. Raghavendra Rau of Purdue University.

“Investors tend to think ‘Oh my god, I missed the boat the first time, I should have put money in the fund,’” Rau says. “What they don’t realize is that the boat is likely to be the Titanic.”

Among 35 funds that reopened in the last six months, the average total return during the prior year was -40%, 3.4 percentage points worse than the S&P 500, according to Lipper. In other words, by the time they want your money, their glory days are long gone, Rau says.

High fees are another reason to steer clear. Rau’s study found that fund managers who close their funds rewarded themselves by raising their advisory fees 0.04 percentage points on average. This might not sound like a lot, but a $1 billion fund that increases fees from 0.86% to 0.9% will clip investors for an additional $400,000 annually, the study notes. Once funds reopen, they rarely cut back the fees either.

Another problem: Even as new money starts to flow, many reopened funds are hurt by forced asset sales to cover a larger outflow of old money. Balancing the two is like fixing an airplane in flight.

“It all comes down to how good the manager is on the trading desk,” says Russel Kinnel, Morningstar’s director of mutual fund research.

That’s hardly the sort of gamble you want to take with your kids’ college money.

If you’re still keen on getting into a fund that’s put out the velvet rope for the first time in years, it’s probably best to stick to long-term winners like Fidelity Contrafund (FCNTX), which tracked the S&P 500 last year, and Vanguard Health Care (VGHCX), which did far better with an 18.5% loss.