Avoid The Online Scams!
Scams, Scams and More Scams..
Sure, we all know there are plenty of them out there..
But what exactly defines a "Scam", and what are its characteristics?
A scam is essentially a confidence scheme designed to lure people in and take their money. Scams often draw people in by excessive success stories and promises of overnight success. In reality though many creators of scams are just self-proclaimed "gurus" trying to make a quick buck.
The following info will give you a brief outline on scams and potentially save you from feeding the cash-hungry "gurus" who don't care about you at all and only want your wallet's contents.
I've seen Pyramid Schemes, Email Marketing Schemes... you name it... on the Internet. There's no shortage of swindlers out there trying to make profits off of innocent and unknowing web users.
I'm going to endeavour to shed some light on what they are and how to identify and avoid them. I'll limit it to three points that could save you a lot of time and frustration. If an online program or product has one of more of these hallmarks, you should be highly dubious of it and think twice before entering your credit card details on the check-out page.
1. Do You Get a Free Trial Period?
Or at least some insight into the program, so that you can see exactly what you're purchasing. If the answer is "no", then the consequences aren't even worth thinking about.
I mean, when people are shopping in a department store for clothes or shoes, they generally want to try it on before going to the check out. The same principle applies in the online world. So remember to try before you buy. Next question!
2. Can You Contact the Owners?
How can you truly trust something online when you can't even contact the owners? Sure, you're not going to meet them in person (in most circumstances), but you should at least be able to contact them and be entitled to a timely response.
Most creators or owners are busy people, granted, but if they can't give you their time of day to reply to a simple message or email then I wouldn't give the product a second thought.
2. Does this Product Have Frequent Upsells?
A program, product or system should contain everything it claims to. If you purchase a new TV from you'd expect all the pieces and attachments to be there (with the exception of the antenna perhaps!).
Similar principle again, nothing should be lacking. And if you need to fill in several check-out pages just to get the full benefit from the program (don't be surprised to see that many have three or four upsells), then rest assured, you are dealing with a sub-par system. I have no problem putting this into the "Scam" category.
There is a lot more I could say on this topic, as well as other characteristics that constitute scams. These are the more obvious ones, and for the sake of brevity, I won't rattle on any more and will perhaps address these at a later stage.
Note: Originally I edited this post in Word as I often do and was going to post it to my website as a page. But I realised I already had a post on "Scams" which I wrote on my site four months ago. So I thought I'd share it here instead.. (even though it's a bit of a prescriptive and introductory blog) :)
Thanks for reading, have a great weekend everyone!
Thomas
Recent Comments
82
Thank you for this very informative article. I've tried many and lost lots of money and I especially hate upsells. They tell you the product is great and then they tell you, well you really need this upsell to succeed! I've seen as much as 5 upsells on a product. And there they are, on the First page of Google!
Thanks for your contribution, Vel. Wow 5 upsells is a lot, I don't think I've encountered that many before.
Yes it puts us in a tricky situation, especially when they say "If you click the 'No Thanks' button, you will never see this page again"!
I'm glad you've found what you were looking for, I wish you much success Vel.
Great article Thomas. Many people besides those here at WA would benefit greatly by reading your well-written article. Scams occur by the minute across the world. The reasons are, first, many people in the world look to make money anyway they can - and often by the easiest, quickest route.
With the continued growth of the Internet and the number of people on it daily, folks see an incredible number of opportunities to gain "financial freedom" - two magical words that cause many of them to see stars in front of their eyes.
Secondly many of these same people, truly gullible and naive are uneducated in the ability to recognize a scam when it is staring right at them.
You gave a lot of advice in this great article, Thomas. Thank you for sharing it with the WA community.
Jeff
Thank you Jeff, glad you've found it informative!
Yes even people who may be able to deal well with a face-to-face situation (e.g. a salesperson trying to sell, sell, sell) can be deceived by the glitz and glamour of an Internet program that promises "instant success".
If it seems too good to be true, it usually is! Cheers
Great info Thomas. I am creating a new website that is going to deal with a lot of the scams out there. There are a lot of older folks that fall victim. I'm hoping to help stop that.
That's exactly right, Liz. Unfortunately they can target people of all ages, these scammers are good at their craft. It's good to expose these misconceptions by writing negative reviews on your site and then comparing/contrasting them to legitimate programs. Keep up the good work!
Many thanks for the post.
I have learnt from bitter experience always to avoid anything with upsells, although some sellers deviously don't tell you about them until you have bought the first one! But you can usually get your money back at that point, though not always! :)
My pleasure, Chrissie! Exactly, "deviously" is the right word. If there's one upsell I might consider it, but three or four is just ridiculous. Best!
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Thanks Mac01 your 3 points cover 3 things that we see often in scams. Keep up the good work
No worries, and thank you my friend!