Recently, someone I know approached me and told me that she paid almost USD100 for internet marketing ebooks which she never received. She told me that her objective was to make money online so she felt that it was a reasonable price to pay. She never received the ebooks. I visited the website she went on, only to find out that it’s a ‘fake’ website and doesn’t even exist on who.is.
In this case, she’s been scammed.
There is absolutely nothing wrong selling an ebook for a hundred dollars. You have a product that you believe in and it’s up to someone if they want to pay for it. If you give them a description of what the book is about then it’s all about free market, right?
This person was scammed though because she paid for something and she never received the product, plus there is no way to obtain a refund.
Baby Steps To Avoid Being Scammed Online
- When you receive an email from a friend telling you that they are making money online, you need to be aware that there’s always a possibility your friend’s email address was hacked into or infected by some kind of email malware. Contact this friend of yours via telephone or any other means (not via email) and ask them if they can confirm that it was indeed them who sent the email.
- Do not click on the link. At most, copy the link (e.g. somethingkashfast.com) on the Google search bar and analyze the results of it. Are people talking about it? Has anyone reviewed the site online? Do search results of the site actually exist? Etc. Remember that a search result SHOULD exist, and there should be a good number of positive reviews if you ought to take a risk.
- Avoid payment at all cost. You do not know what you’re getting into, so avoid paying for it. Having said that, if you do have to pay for it, consider using payment processors with buyer protection (e.g. Paypal). That way, you can always initiate a dispute and get your money back easily.
- Do your research. Copy & paste the email content online, ask scambaiters for help (they won’t charge for this!). DO NOT ALLOW YOUR GREED TO CLOUD YOUR COMMON SENSE.
- Remember that there are FREE resources online. Why pay for it, when you can get it for free? There are plenty of websites (blogs, forums, etc.) that will help you out and answer your questions about making money online or how to use the internet in a more effective way. Utilize these resources. Talk to people who KNOW about the internet.
- REMEMBER that just because he’s a guy, doesn’t mean he was born knowing about tech and internet stuff. He will tell you that he does because he’s trying to impress you and you do not know the difference so you do not know any better.
I don’t really know how to do my part in educating people online especially the growing number of NEW internet users here in Seychelles but I really want to do whatever I can and I will.
