I Get So Tired of Saying It…

Sometimes I really am tired of telling people what a scam is, just to have them come back to me with another one to ask me if maybe (please), won’t this one work? The list of reasons I give them are the same as I gave them before. I don’t want to insult people, but sometimes I just want to scream!

The hallmarks of scams and almost scams are pretty obvious once you get familiar with them. They are things like:

1. Emotional appeals that leave off critical details.

2. “One Page Websites” that give you no background about who is selling it, or how to contact them.

3. Requirements that you leave an email address before you can find out what it is they are really talking about.

4. Financial companies located offshore (they lack financial protections you might expect to have).

5. People who claim to have the secret to wealth who have a non-professional website (using a template driven website that does not have custom graphics, using free hosting space, etc).

6. Unrealistic claims, or claims built around “imagine this” phrases.

7. Cookie cutter websites. They don’t work…. Not unless YOU work a lot first!

8. Lack of a sound product. That means, something that people want, at the price they are asking. A $2 product plus the ability to resell it does NOT equal a $35 value. A membership to a site with “thousands of downloads” is usually NOT a sound product (those same downloads are available free every Christmas). The ability to resell something is NOT a product!

There are a bunch more, and there is no way you can list everything, because someone will come up with another one just as soon as you think you got all the ways they conceal that they are going to rip you off.

Today I reviewed a financial investment scheme where the terms of use stated that you certified that you were not a law inforcement agent, nor an informant for a law enforcement agent, and that you released the company from ALL civil or criminal charges that you might feel you could file against them!

Stuff like that is a huge, screaming red flag! And it was right there, in print, for anyone to read!

If you don’t want to get scammed, read the fine print. Not only that, figure out what it MEANS, not just what they want you to think it means. “Imagine that you got up every morning to find hundreds of payment notifications in your email inbox…” is NOT saying you WILL. They just want you to IMAGINE that you could, and to THINK they are promising you will.

I keep saying it though, with the hopes that maybe it will help someone not just avoid getting scammed once, but help them spot how to never get scammed again.