How To Identify A Scammer
- Filed under: General
- Date: May 30,2008
This post I feel is very important for several reasons. The fact that there are so many make money online blogs and websites with loyal readers constantly being taken for hundreds and thousands of dollars. Thats because there are a lot of wolves in sheep’s clothing. So how can you identify a blog or website of a scammer?
Below is a list of some things to keep an eye out for.
- An internet scamming website tends to promote a lot of e-books.
- Someone who regularly promotes products which they have never used.
- Uses a newsletter to CONSTANTLY peddle affiliate products.
- A scam site will never really teach you how to make money.
- Loves to promote products or memberships with monthly fees.
The reason for this is because most (not all) e-books offer little to no information of value, and about 95% of them are trash,rehash and have loads of affiliate links in them. A person who is willing to promote e-books on their blog for amounts of money that can get into the $100 dollar range, which provide little to no real unique information for making money online are a scam.
Someone who consistently promotes tools or products which they have never used. How can you really know what a products value consists of unless you have tried it out? These people once again are peddling something which they don’t know if it works or not and are just happy to make the extra buck off you.
A newsletter is not wrong to have if you actually offer something of value to your readers. A scammer will use it only to spam their readers email constantly with affiliate products which they really do not know have value.
A site that just gives table scraps to their readers, but never really shows specifically how to make money online or tells you to buy a product with will show you how to make money is a scammer. A real make money online blog will show you examples and really teach you in steps how to make money.
This is one of the favorite things of an internet scammer. They love it because they get a kickback on a monthly basis for a worthless membership where they or one of their partners in crime once again throw you scraps of information and leave you feeling empty and lacking real knowledge.
I’m sure there are things that I haven’t added to the list which you might think of if you have dealt with internet scammers or have been even tricked by their schemes, and I encourage you to add them in your comments.
the fact of the matter is that make money online blogs and websites are there for that reason … To make money online. With that being said I pledge to all my readers that as long as I have control of Blogging Zombie it will never promote trash products which I have never used. Everything I speak about here, I have personally bought and use to make money myself. If I wished to I could be like many of these other scammers and peddle anything and everything I can, which would probably make this site a lot more money, but I will never do that. Thats because this site is truly devoted to helping people and teaching people how to make money online.
blogging internet make money scamPopularity: 35%
14 Responses for "How To Identify A Scammer"
#2 is one of the things that bothers me about Court’s site, he advertises 3 very questionable MLMs in his 125×125s. I wonder if he know that them being there does hurt his credibility with some people.
Also, on #2 and using BANS, I wonder how many people who’ve setup BANS sites have both bought and sold on eBay. It’s not a necessity but doing so would give a person a better insight into how things work with eBay.
Nice easy to follow post about identifying spammers. Here’s a tip if you want to get an idea about a website/blog that you find interesting. Sign up for the blogger’s newsletter (or site subscription/whatever vehicle they’re using to get your email) with a throw away email address. Now wait a couple of weeks and see if that inbox fills with trash or not. You’ll get a better idea of who you’re dealing with. Of course there are exceptions, Brad Callen tends to email people to death but his products really are good.
Don’t forget that linking to posts like this one helps us all out, spread the word when you find a phony (but be sure first)
Bruce
Bruce thanks for adding some good points here. A throw away email is good when signing up for anything that might get you a lot of spam, so that is a very good point for anyone that is looking to test a MMO blog.
I worked with those scammers for over two years. Never wanting to let go of the promises but I sure as hell let go of thousands. Thanks Justin for pointing this flags out to people. I never want to see people get financially devastated like I did.
Thank God I never quit the dream and finally found you guys!
I am happy to hear that Denise! Give me a ring tomorrow when you get a chance and we can catch up so i can give you a few pointers.
I fished through a lot of scammers when I first started checking out this whole internet marketing thing. I subscribed to a few of their lists in exchange for free, but totally worthless ebooks. And all they ever did was exactly what you said in the article. They kept pitching more and more products. And each one was supposedly the product to end all products. Yeah, right!
I stayed subscribed to a lot of them out of morbid curiosity for a while, but dumped them around the time I found Vic, Court and Grizz. Funny thing, though. Despite the initial subscription being through Aweber (who is great about complying with CAN-SPAM rules), I wound up getting resubscribed to a few of the more unscrupulous ones a couple months later. This time, through their private mailing list managers. These programs didn’t make it easy to unsubscribe, so guess who got reported to the FTC?
Here’s the link to report spam.
Sure will Justin, Thanks!
I think there is a fine line between advertising a product and promoting a product. In advertising a product we are only responsible to the level of letting the public knows that there is such a product in the market. The public will have to depend on their own wisdom to check out the product and draw their own conclusions. We do not make any conclusions for anybody.
On the other hand, if we promote a product, we come to a conclusion for the people who reads our promotional article. If we are trustworthy all along, they will take our words for it and buy the product based on what we wrote. Therefore it would be unethical for the promoter to draw up conclusions for the product if they haven’t tried it out themselves. They then can be labelled as a scammer.
So coming back to Franks opinion on the Ads in Court’s blog, I feel there is nothing unethical about it unless he starts promoting the product. Adsense shows tons of these MLM and scammers sites and there is no way we can filter out each and everyone if we are to be so holier than thou.
Likewise on the products sold on our BANs sites. We will never know the real quality of the things that we are showing to potential customers. Does that make us unethical? Can we be considered scammers too? Hell no. We are just advertising them. Those who wants to buy will have to form their own opinions and do their own research.
I think this post will help many people avoid the financial pitfalls associated with newbies. Two thumbs up and a zoom.
@Costa,
Imagine my disgust when I happened on a site which showed an Adsense ad for ‘lawn jockeys’ on their content page which by the way, had nothing to do with lawn jockeys (poor ad matching).
When I followed the link, there was a little black jockey. For those of you who don’t know, this is a negative caricature of blacks here in America.
Believe me, I reported this to Google. Does Google agree with this negative, racist stereotyping because they took the money from this advertiser without ever checking out the paying advertiser’s content?
For the record, I no longer see this particular adword ad.
Yet, for both content publishers and advertisers alike, there is a very fine line between advertising and promotional efforts.
Thanks for that link buddy that will be helpful for others that really don’t know where to report something.
Costa there is a line I agree. And a lot of it comes down to …. (A) Are you willing to promote something you know is a waste of money and will not help someone or (B) Promote something that you know can be very useful.
So… Knowing vs. Not Knowing and a caring conscience or a Not caring conscience.
As far as Ebay is concerned, those products are real and tangible. We are specifically talking about making money online websites though and 90% of these sites are junk, and 95% of the products they promote are crap.
I couldn’t agree with your more on this list. I’ve seen one too many of these sites that promote ‘how to make money’ using those methods. yuck…
Costa,
I have a big problem with MLM’s, particularly ones as scammy as the ones Court, and many other MMO bloggers, are promoting. I think that they’re worse, much worse, than the blogging scammers. They exist only to extract money from the unsuspecting marks and leave them with nothing.
Sure, these ads pop up like weeds on Adsense. But you can only marginally control that. A site owner, however, does have complete control over the 125×125 button ads they sell. I hate seeing someone like Court, who I like and respect, participating in these scams by selling them advertising space.
But, to borrow from Winston Churchill…
Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for a million pounds?
Lady: I would consider it!
Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for 10 shillings?
Lady: Good God! What do you think I am?
Churchill: I know what you are, I’m just trying to establish the price!
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