Common Scams You Need to Know About

There are a lot of different types of scams on the internet. And there are new ones all the time. If you run across one, please feel free to contact me at any time to let me know about it. I will look into it right away.

Always remember that if someone was hiring you to do a job for them, they wouldn't charge you a fee. If they are charging you, then they're either trying to sell you a how-to guide or a list of jobs. Some how-to guides are good, and you can learn from them, but they're not offering you a job. If they present it that way, then they're lying to you. And there are legitimate websites that can help you find jobs that you can do from home, but they can be pretty hard to find. Click here to find out about some real home based work that may be available to you.

For right now, here are some of the most common scams you'll find online:

Online Surveys
This looks like the money making opportunity of the century. All you have to do is fill out a survey online, which will take from 5-30 minutes and you'll get $20 - $50 or more. Fill out 10 - 20 surveys a day and make thousands in no time at all.

The reality is that there are very few surveys that actually pay you for your time. Most of them enter you in a raffle that you'll never win, or give you nothing at all. Usually what you do is sign up with a website that will connect you to all of these survey companies for a fee of $30 - $40. Then they connect you to surveys that make you no money or don't really exist, and they run off with your money. And then try getting your money back, even if they guarantee it. Stay away from any website that wants to charge you for this.

If you like filling out surveys, and you just want to do it for yourself, that's great. You can find many great surveys to do by using any good search engine, and you'll find them for free, without paying someone to find them for you. You may even make a little money or win a few prizes for it, but don't expect to make a living from it, much less the extravagant amounts of money they claim.


Rebate Processing
Here's another one that sounds great on the surface. They offer you a job processing rebates from your home because it's so hard for all of these legitimate companies to process all of their own rebates themselves. So they want you to do it for them. And you get paid by the rebate. OK, but these jobs aren't really jobs at all. They're misrepresenting what they do.

The truth is, they don't employ you at all. What they reall do is sell you a guide that shows you how to do affiliate marketing, but with a twist. They tell you to go to ClickBank and start an account, create an affiliate site that recommends other people's products while offering a rebate for whatever they buy through your affiliate link. So if someone buys product X through your affiliate link for $50, and you get a 50% affiliate commission, then you get $25. Then you send the customer their rebate of, say $10. So you end up with $15 profit. Do it enough times a day and you're set.

That's if everything lines up perfectly as far as the price and commission of every item, and that's not including the cost of advertising for your affiliate site with pay-per-click search engines, which isn't cheap, as you may already know. And it doesn't include the fact that many people aren't going to buy through your affiliate link.

I suppose it's possible to make a little bit of money doing this if you're really careful, but not much money, and certainly not enough to live on. Far from it. Plus, the logistics have to be a nightmare when you need to send a refund to every customer who purchases through your affiliate link. It's crazy and unnecessary.

If you want to get into affiliate marketing, great. Lots of people do it and make a lot of money. And they do use ClickBank, and pay-per-click advertising, and they don't have to refund any of their profits. But you have to do it right so you don't lose a lot of money. Don't just jump in head first without educating yourself.


Data Entry Jobs (or Ad Placement Jobs)
These scams run much the same as the online survey scams above. You find a website that will connect you with all of these great data entry job opportunities for a fee, promising untold riches in only a few hours a day. They'll prey on single parents who want to stay home with their children and work only a few hours, or anyone who's recently been put out of work for whatever reason, or anyone who wants to make untold riches from the comfort of their own home. Don't believe any of these claims.

Most of the time, they show you how to fill out a pay-per-click ad and use it to recommend products as an affiliate. They say that you get paid for each ad that you place, but really you only get paid if someone clicks on your affiliate ad and buys the product you recommend. Then you get a commission. The problem is that not everyone will click on your ad, and not everyone who clicks on your ad will buy the product. Pay-per-click advertising can lose you a lot of money if you don't do it right. By the way, lots of people do it right and make good money as affiliates, but it's not a job like they're describing it.

There are some data entry jobs online, but you don't have to pay to find them. Remember, employers pay you to work for them, they don't charge you a fee to see what jobs they have.


Multi-Level Marketing (MLM)
Also known as network marketing, but most commonly know as pyramid schemes. Some people say they aren't the same thing, but I say they are. Essentially, you get paid for getting other people to sign up to the program. They will then be placed under you in the pyramid. And since it costs money to join, usually a lot of money, you get a percentage of their sign up fee, and most likely a monthly renewal fee as well.

Sounds good, but there are two main reason to stay away from this. The first is that almost no one makes money with them. Usually only the people at the very top of the pyramid make money, and most likely a lot of money. But if you didn’t get in on the ground floor, then you’re really not going to make any money.

The second reason is that with some of these, you get many boxes full of whatever item it is that you're supposed to be selling, like nutrition bars or vitamins or something. Then you're stuck keeping these boxes in your basement or garage while you try to find people to sign up under you in the pyramid who can sell them instead. If everyone is trying to sign up people to sell these items, then who’s actually selling these items?


Envelope Stuffing
Ask yourself this question. Why would someone want to pay me to stuff and mail out envelopes for them when they already have machines that can automate the whole process, and do the job in a fraction of the time? The answer is, they wouldn't. Anyone that offers you an envelope stuffing job in exchange for money is just plain scamming you. These jobs are done in an office or a factory.

Why would they mail everything to you at your home, so that you can then mail it to their list for them? Doesn't make any sense does it? What you will end up sending out is the same letter you just read about making money by stuffing envelopes. You won't ever make any money doing this. The only people who do are the ones you buy the program from. And they will be closed up and onto another scam before you know it. Stay away.


Assembling Crafts
This is a little less common these days, but there are still some websites that will offer you the chance to work at home putting together different types of crafts for them. Of course, you first pay them for the opportunity. They pay you based on how many you finish, but then when you're done, they tell you that they weren't done properly, and they don't bother paying you at all.


Online Lotteries
I decided to include this even though it isn't a job opportunity scam. It is, however, a make money scam that certainly sounds alluring on the surface. Online lotteries are one very slick way of conning you out of your money. They usually work like this:

They make it perfectly free to play, and low and behold you win their lottery just like that. Or they send you an email (or postal letter) claiming that you're a winner, without you having played any lottery that you remember. All you have to do to claim your prize is send them X amount of money on your credit card, or give them some personal information. Sometimes even then you don't get your prize, you actually get entered into another draw. Which takes place in another country, which of course you win, and you only need to send them X amount more to cover expenses, such as bank fees or handling fees or shipping fees, and then you can claim your huge cash prize.

Real lotteries don't ask for your bank account or credit card information, and free lotteries don't charge anything. The only money you pay is the tax charged to your winnings, which goes directly to the government. Legitimate online lottery sites will have instructions for how you will be notified if you win. Be sure to look at your member's area for this information. In most cases, you will need to log in to your account to claim your prize. Doing it any other way is risky.

Have You Been Scammed? Here Are Some People Who Can Help
You can always check out the website of the Better Business Bureau for more information about disreputable companies. Thay have information on over 2.5 million organizations that you can check up on before you give away your money. You can also file complaints against any company that has cheated you or misrepresented themselves. And you can use their website to find the branch that is closest to you. Click here to find out more about the Better Business Bureau.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is a government ageny whose work is performed by the Bureaus of Consumer Protection. It's their job to protect citizens from bad business practices and report their actions to congress. You can file any complaints you may have with them as well. Find out more about the FTC here.

The National Fraud Information Center (NFIC) says this, "Our mission is to give consumers the information they need to avoid becoming victims of telemarketing and Internet fraud and to help them get their complaints to law enforcement agencies quickly and easily." Check out the NFIC by clicking here, or call 1-800-876-7060. Be sure to take a look at their list of the top internet scams of last year.

You can also file any complaints with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). They're a partnership between the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National White Collar Crime Center Find out more about the IC3 here

You can also call your state's attorney general's office to find out if a company has had any complaints filed against them.