Five Common Scammer Methods to Avoid

Poor spelling or grammar in emails: Scammers will often product misspellings in their email in an effort to avoid triggering spam filters for common keywords in their messages - they are savvy and can spell - rather, what you are seeing is a sophisticated attempt to maximize the reach of their messages within as many inboxes as possible. Most commonly the spelling will be off on words such as “pharmacy”, “money”, “gambling” or related “sin” industries that are commonly promoted via spam.

Surrogate representation: Any time that you are dealing with a person who claims they are a stand-in for the person you originally attempted to contact, whatever the reason given (vacation, sickness, etc.), you should be wary and watch out for a possible scam. Always make direct contact with the person whom you intended to work with, as this is the most surefire way to guarantee legitimacy. Seek out references with anyone you work with, and call a company to verify a new employee in case you are assigned a new point of contact.

Inheritance scams: Common scams today are emails wherein individuals claim to be heirs to a fortune that they cannot access. Whenever you get an email like this, you need to invoke your own internal scam watch. Most commonly, they will request your bank information so that they can wire you some money - never give out any financial information. In other variants of the scam, you may be requested to send an initial forwarding loan amount in exchange for the right to a piece of the larger fortune, but you should never send any payment either, especially by wire or cash.

Low, low prices: Often, companies will have offers with prices that are much below the standard market price. If prices seem to low, they may very well signal a scam. You should do due diligence on the background on the company, including verified 3rd party reviews. Quite often you’ll see these low prices on electronics from Asian distributors. Name brand electronics are rarely marked below certain prices, while unknown manufacturer names should also be a source of caution. Even if an unknown manufacturer really delivers, you need to ensure quality, warranties and return policies.

Cheap, fast loans: You’ll often see offers for loans that will pay out nearly instantly - these should again be signals for you to be cautious. Never accept a loan from anyone other than a reputable institution that provides the necessary safeguards and guarantees. Payday loan scams are a common form of scams, especially if they ask for upfront payment or a “good faith” advance. Instead, work with well-known credit companies or banks if you’re in need of short term financing.

There are countless scams on the ‘net but by identifying the most common sources, you’ll be one step ahead of the criminals.

Scams

What is a scam?

A SCAM is a fraudulent attempt to steal your money or to deceive and manipulate you into giving your money to an individual or corporation who doesn't deserve it. A scam typically promises a large return with little or no risk involved.

How do I avoid scams?

Various research has shown that 95% of scams originate from spam (spam scams). With this in mind, our single most important piece of advice would be to ignore all spam. Remember, if it's spam, it's a scam! For more information regarding spam, check out our spam page.

Always be cautious of any company that asks for money even if it looks like a legitimate reason (registration fees, instruction manual etc). There is absolutely no logic in paying to work!

Don't trust everyone. Just as you wouldnt trust a stranger with your money in real life, there is no reason why you should do so on the internet.

Research each company well, checking the whois details as explained in the the tips page, and always ask for a few references you can call. Call each person and ask about their experiences with the company. Avoid PTR scams by checking out our list of paying PTR programs.

Finally, when a good opportunity comes your way, remember, the basic law of nature, what looks too good to be true, normally isnt true!

Do you think you have been scammed?

According to recent statistics from the National Consumer League’s list of Top 10 Net Frauds, online auctions seem to top the list of Internet scams for a few years running. Many people have got scammed on the Internet, but today the scammed person is not necessarily the loser. Stop blaming yourself and fight scams NOW.

Start by reporting scams to the local police, FBI, Secret Service, post office, phone company, local newspaper and tv station, your bank and credit card company, your lawyer and the Department of Consumer Affairs.

Besides, consider reporting scams to the following agencies which are specialised in dealing with Internet scams.

Internet Fraud Complaint Center - this is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), that strives to address fraud and scams committed over the Internet.

Better Business Bureau - file an online complaint against any company or charity that has treated you unfairly. The site also provides a national database of reliability reports. A positive report doesn't mean the company is definately a legitimate one, but on the other hand, companies with negative reports should be avoided.

Rip Off Report - file a report about any fraud or rip off scam you have come across. The report you file will be placed online for the world to see!

The National Fraud Information Center - this site is US based and is specialised in dealing with most kinds of internet and telemarketing frauds/scams.

Fraud Watch International - seeks to reduce the incidence of Internet fraud by educating consumers, shutting down fraudulent and scam sites and prosecuting frauders.

Federal Trade Commission - allows you to file a complaint about a particular company or organization, using a secure complaint form. Although the FTC does not resolve individual consumer problems, the complaint helps in fraud investigation, and can lead to law enforcement action.

ScamWatch - an Australia based site that covers all sorts of scams from financial and investment scams such as pyramid schemes to miracle cures and instant weight loss treatments. Scamwatch keeps a look out for new scams, rorts and rip offs and provides the locals places to report it.

Make Money Online: Three Fast Ways to Make Money Online

Making money online may be impossible for some people, but not for you. Through this article you will learn how to do it fast and easy. So be ready with your bank account, because you will earn a lot of money if you follow these tips.

The first thing that you should do is to increase your website traffic, because you will have more chances of sales or adsense clicks, being visited by more people and more chances to earn money online.

For this you should make as many traffic exchanges as you can, since this will allow you to obtain more visits from other websites. One important thing is to know the type of website traffic you have in order to decide what kind of tools you may offer to those visitors.




Other way to increase website traffic to make money online consists in the promotion of a newsletter signup page, which you should send later a serial of automated emails promoting your product or affiliate products.

The second thing that you can do to earn money online is to carry out a SEO or search engine optimization, a key term used in the web today. This system will allow you to obtain more qualified visitors to your own site when you get a better ranking on the net while they look for something just surfing on the bigger search engines.

Through better positions of your own website in the search engines, like MSN, Yahoo or Google, you may also make more money on line selling and promoting any product you want to launch to the market. The important thing for this is to have current and good content on your website. Write your own articles and publish them in different articles directories like this one you are reading right now.

To earn money online, the third thing that you can do is to start a newsletter or ezine. It does not matter if your web site is large or small, just post the code for newsletters that different websites have onto your own web site.

For example, Google offers “Free Mailing Groups”, an auto-responder system used to submit a newsletter to your subscription list. There are various free scripts that carry out this function. In other words, through this way you will allow people to subscribe for your newsletter or ezine with the latest news you will have about your products and promotions.A free gift might be absolutely necessary in order to motivate your visitor to give you his – her name an email address.