Scams Tips

Paid Survey Scams

There are a lot of scams floating around the Internet for sure, but in defense to paid surveys, they're not scams. They're just not very good for earning any kind of real income on the Internet. Well, I thought it was about time that somebody set the record straight about these paid survey sites and the programs that sell information on paid survey sites. I think after reading this, scam or not, you'll probably want very little to do with doing paid surveys online.

First off, let me explain just what paid surveys are for those who haven't heard of them yet. Paid surveys are just as they sound. You sign up with a site and they send you a survey on some topic. It could be your shopping habits, your job, your dating preferences and a number of various topics. For each survey that you fill out, the company will pay you for doing so. On paper, this sounds really great. However, the reality of these surveys is a different matter altogether.

For starters, you just don't get to take a survey. You have to first qualify for them. To do this, you have to fill out a questionnaire, which sometimes even longer than the survey you have to take. This questionnaire will ask you things like your age, sex and employment status. After you fill in the questionnaire, you will then get a message informing you of whether or not you even qualify for the survey. And therein lies the rub of this whole business.

When I first got online, paid surveys was one of the first things I tried. I quickly learned that many of the surveys are geared towards people other than myself. In other words, I didn't qualify. I spend countless hours filling out questionnaires and never even got to take a survey. It was quite frustrating. Finally, when I did qualify for a survey and took it, what I got paid was a joke. And therein lies the final rub on surveys.

Each survey site has a different pay structure so this will have to be a general description. For the most part, the payment is about $5 for a survey that takes about 30 to 60 minutes to complete. Sometimes it's as little as $2 and some sites don't pay you in money at all. What they do is give you what they call credits. Sometimes the credits they give you are quite considerable, on the surface. But then you go to cash them in and you see the exchange rate from credits to cash is something like 1000 credits gets you $10. Usually it takes about 10 surveys to make those 1000 credits. When you compute the number of hours it took you to make that $10 it comes out to less than $1 per hour. Yes, it's pretty bad.

Technically, you can make money with paid surveys, so they aren't technically a scam. However, the amount of work that goes into doing this is considerably more than you are going to make, and that is if you even qualify for the surveys. In the meantime, you're receiving all this junk email of offers because of being signed up with these sites, which is the real reason they want you in the first place.

So, if you're looking to make any kind of decent money online, stay away from paid survey sites.

Work From Home Scams

There are a lot of evil people in the world who pray on those of us who are simply trying to make an honest living from home. Unfortunately, our desperation to earn an income drives us to try just about anything. That's when we are most open to falling victim to some of the most horrible work from home scams that you could possibly imagine. While there are way too many of them to go over in this article, I hope to give you a general idea of what to look out for. Hopefully, this information will keep you from getting taken in.

Most work at home scams actually come in the form of emails that we receive. The details vary, but are usually very sketchy. The person will start raving about this work at home opportunity that sounds just too good to be true. Usually, it will involve processing emails. Now trust me, nobody is going to pay you just to process emails. But okay. Anyway, they go on to say that all you have to do is send $20 to get your kit. Well, to make a long story short, what you end up doing is sending out the same email that you just got. That's right. It's no real job. You're just trying to get people to send you $20 so you can tell them how to get others to do the same. This racket has been going on for a long time. Eventually, somebody will put a stop to it.

Another popular work from home scam is the "data entry" scam. This one is very cleverly disguised and many people fall for it. You'll receive an email telling you how you can get paid to do data entry right from the comfort of your own home. They will then send you to a web site that explains the whole process. Basically it will tell you that all you have to do is fill in a few forms and get paid. They then tell you that to find out what companies pay you for doing this all you have to do is send them some amount of money, and it varies. Anywhere, here is the rub. These are not data entry jobs. All they are doing is sending you instructions on how to use Google Adwords to sell Clickbank products. This is not even close to a data entry job, as they so put it. Many people fall for this and actually attempt to go through the process, many losing a ton of money because Google Adwords is not for the timid.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. As I said, there are many scams. So how can you tell if something is a scam? You really can't until you actually try it. However, here is a basic guideline that I use. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Also, if you have no way of contacting the company or person, then they probably are running a scam. If you do contact them and they don't respond to your questions, again, most likely it is a scam. Use your common sense. If something sounds fishy, stay away.

MLM Scams

MLM, or multi level marketing, has gotten a bad rap of late. As soon as people hear the word MLM, they immediately think "scam" and quite honestly, that isn't the truth. That's not to say that there aren't MLM scams, because there are. However, you need to be able to differentiate between a scam and a legit MLM opportunity. Fortunately, this is very easy to do if you know what to look for. In this article, we're going to explain briefly what MLM is and then point out a legit MLM company and one that is nothing but a scam. Hopefully, after reading this, you'll be able to quickly differentiate between the two.

MLM is a form of business where you recruit people to make sales and to earn an income and then in the process you earn an income from the people that they recruit who make sales for them. Please note the key word here, make sales. This is what differentiates a legit MLM program from one that is nothing more than a pyramid scheme, which is illegal according to federal law. Once you understand how the law works, you'll be able to instantly spot an MLM scam, even though today companies are going to great lengths to conceal these scams.

The best way to explain to you what a legit MLM company is, is to give you a perfect example of one that has stood the test of time. Unless you have been living under a rock, you must have heard of a company called Avon. Avon manufactures beauty products like perfumes and powders. Avon has been around for decades. It is probably one of the biggest MLM companies in the world. Why is it MLM? Because an Avon distributor, aside from selling the products, can get other people to sell these products as well. When they do, they get a portion of each sale from their distributors. This is a perfect example of a legit MLM company. It is one with a real product to sell. Avon is one of the best.

Okay, so then what is an example of a scam MLM company? Well, one of the most recent ones that was just shut down was PAS, of Prosperity Automated System. This company had no product at all. You basically paid $3000 for a web site and then tried to get others to do the same. It was nothing more than a pyramid scheme to get members. There was no product at all. Oh they claimed that you were buying advertising space, which you did with ad packs, but the federal government didn't buy it and eventually shut them down. They are currently in the process of restructuring, but I doubt that they will be able to recover from this.

If this explanation sounds simple, it is. If a company has a product, it is legit. If it doesn't, it isn't. So if you're not sure of whether a company is a legit MLM or not, simply write to them and ask them what the product is that they're selling. If the answer you get sounds fishy or doesn't seem to be a tangible product that you can wrap your hands around, then more likely than not, it's a scam.

MLM has gotten a bad rap because of these scams. Not all of them are.

What's Up With These Nigerian Scams?

I understand that scams are not funny. As a matter of fact, they are serious problems as millions of people are taken in by them everyday. But when I see these Nigerian scams come into my email, I really have to chuckle. How can anybody in their right mind believe any of this for one second? Well, obviously people do fall for these things. So, it is the hopes of this author that after reading this article you will completely understand what the Nigerian scam is all about, know how to recognize it, and avoid it at all costs. If I've managed to accomplish that, then I have done my job.

The reason this particular scam is called the Nigerian scam is because it originates from Nigeria. This is unfortunate for the poor honest people from Nigeria who are trying to make an honest living online. This scam has made it so that these people can't get PayPal or Clickbank accounts, which makes it very hard for them to create their own products and collect payments. This seriously limits their ability to make a living on the Internet. My heart goes out to them and hopefully someday this matter will be resolved. In the meantime, we still have the Nigerian scam to deal with. So what exactly is it?

The Nigerian scam will take on several forms, but the underlying gist of the scam is that somebody has written to you explaining that somebody in their family, either an uncle or brother or sister, has just died and they have inherited all this money. The sum of the money is rather large, usually in the millions of dollars. As you read on, they give some rather vague explanation that they need your help to get this money. Now this is the part where most people should think to themselves, why? Anyway, they go on to explain that if you will help them to get this inheritance they will give you a portion of the money, usually a rather large portion. All they need you to do is give them your bank account details where they can deposit the funds.

The ultimate goal of these people is to get your bank account information so that they can forge letters of credit removing money from your account. These people are very good, and many of them make off with a decent amount of money, depending on how much you have in your account. What baffles me beyond belief is that in spite of how ridiculous these emails sound, people actually send replies giving their bank account information.

As I said, there are many variations of these, some coming from so called attorneys representing the estate. If you see any emails like this, especially if they claim that you can be getting a large sum of money in the millions of dollars range, it is nothing more than an attempt to get your bank information in order to take money out of your account. In a word, be careful.

Just find out what the product is and you'll have it all figured out.

HYIP Scams

You know, one of these days, people are just going to run out of ways to scam others. At least we can hope so. In the meantime, we have a boat load of scams to contend with. One of the biggest on the Internet today is the HYIP, or high yield investment program scam. These are very sneaky and most are very well disguised as legit business opportunities. This article will explain what an HYIP is, why it's a scam, how to recognize one and finally, what to do about it when you run into one. These are illegal. Hopefully, after reading this, you won't fall pray to one of the worst scams the Internet has ever come up with.

Okay first off, let's explain what a high yield investment program is. An HYIP is a program where you invest a certain amount of money. The amount itself doesn't matter, though many of these programs have limits as to how much you can invest at one time. In return for your investment, you are guaranteed a certain return within a certain period of time. The return is usually some ungodly interest rate and the period of time is usually a matter of weeks. In a world where 5% interest would be considered astronomical, when a program like this promises 12% in 12 days, you really have to wonder about the legitimacy of these programs.

Okay, so why are these programs scams? Well, unlike your federal reserve backed bank, these programs get their money strictly from the members who buy into the scam. So if John Doe gets in on January 1, he most likely gets a portion of his money from Jane Smith who joined on January 14. The problem is, because of the compounding of interest, and it goes get very high when people start reinvesting, there is just no way that the company can continue making payments. Eventually, the company has to try to get money from elsewhere. So they go to investors or other avenues, many of which are illegal.

Unfortunately, recognizing these programs isn't as easy as it used to be. Many of them try to disguise themselves behind some bogus product or service, like advertising. But as soon as you see that for every amount of money that you put in you get a percentage return, especially if it's a large return, you can pretty much bet that this is an HYIP scam and you need to stay as far away as possible.

The reason why you should stay away is part of what you need to do when you find these scams. See, the federal government has declared that these programs are illegal, no two ways about it. When they're eventually caught, and they all are, they are shut down. Just read about what happened to 12DailyPro. The worst part is, they are now starting to come after the investors as well, which means you.

So do yourself a favor. If you find one of these programs, don't risk jail, no matter how much they promise you. Not one of these programs ever survived more than a year and most get shut down within a few months.

HYIP programs are not just scams, they're plain illegal.

PayPal Scams

When you're just about the biggest payment processor in the world, at least as far as online payment processing, you have to figure that people are going to try like the devil to scam your members. Well, the PayPal scams are rampant on the Internet. There are probably more PayPal scams than Carter has liver pills. And the scammers are getting very good at this. Some of these emails look darn legit and it's scary as all hell. Well, it is the hopes of this author that after reading this article, you will be able to recognize a PayPal scam quickly and easily and thus not fall pray to one of them. If I've managed to succeed in doing this, then I have done my job.

For those who don't know what PayPal is, it's a payment processor that handles online payments for merchants and people who deal with Ebay. It is without a doubt the most popular payment processor on the Internet. Quite honestly, in spite of complaints by several people that PayPal is just another corporate giant, they really do provide a great service. I would be lost without them. But they are not the problem. The people who run these scams are.

The typical PayPal scam is an email that says something like "we regret to inform you but we suspect illegal activity with your account. Please login below and..." What they do is give you a link to their server. This link will most likely harvest your information that you plug into their system. Like I said, some of these emails are so authentic looking that you are tempted to do this. Once you do, you can kiss your PayPal account goodbye, or at least the money that's in it.

One way to spot these scams is to look at the link in the email itself. If you check it out closely, you will see that it doesn't lead to PayPal's web site. It is disguised with a PayPal sub domain but the whole link will start with something like www.someothersite.com/paypal/someotherstuff.html. This is an easy way to see that it's not really from PayPal even though the email address says it is. Email addresses can be faked. To tell where the email actually originated from, you have to check the email headers.

Of course, if you're unsure of the email in question, simply forward it to spoof@paypal.com. They will reply to you and let you know if the email came from them. If it did, then you can respond to the email and take care of the matter. In almost all cases, the email will be a scam. PayPal will even tell you that they will never ask for your login information in an email. So if you get anything like that, you can pretty well believe that it's a scam.

PayPal scams are all over in many different forms. However, if you follow the simple tips above, you should be able to avoid all of them without a problem. Remember, if in doubt, just notify PayPal. They're really pretty much on the ball.

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