Online Scams

What Is a Scam

A scam is an attempt to defraud a person or group, through gaining their confidence and trust, using a strategy to gain financially or defraud money.  That is the definition as described in Wikipedia.  Scams often exploit human characteristics and weaknesses, such as vanity, naievity, greed or low self-esteem, and will stop at nothing to succeed.  The internet has grown at such a phenomenal pace; a search on Google for online scams throws up 1,010,000* results.  So you can see how many scams are online, but affiliate marketing is not a scam.
 
 When setting out to utilise the internet for the first time, either for a business opportunity or for personal growth, it is startling that most people are of the mindset that “someone wouldn’t do that to me”.  You are wide open to so many dangers and  you are likely to come across a scam within the first fifteen minutes of searching for online opportunities.  If something appears to be too good to be true, chances are, it definitely is; it is difficult not to be taken in by these fantastical headlines that scream “want to make a million dollars today”, especially when you are setting out to start your own business.  Most people take up the opportunity to work online because they need to earn money.  Think about leaving your front door.  You open your door, you step outside into the unknown.  We are so good at protecting ourselves when we are out, on our own, or with family, or on holiday.  We take every precaution to make sure that we are safe.  We purchase insurance, service our cars, lock our doors, carry personal attack alarms, don’t walk alone down dark alleyways.  And yet, we open our laptops, login and away we go, into the unknown.  We sign in to all sorts of sites, provide information, display our lives openly on social networking sites, and then wonder why we are taken advantage of.   If we adopt the rules we apply to stepping out of our homes to our online activities, these scammers would probably not even be in the business of ripping us off.  Can we be complacent about being online; just because we can’t be seen?  “The bogey man isn’t casting a shadow; doesn’t mean he’s not there!”
*results for mid April 2010


What Is It Worth

It is estimated by Gartner that 10m people in the US fell foul to scams in 2009.  Consumer Direct in the UK reports that 3m people lose an estimated 850 GB Pounds to scams each year.  The first known "con trick" dates back to 1849 in the US, when a certain William Thompson began chatting with strangers, built up their confidence then asked them if they had the confidence to lend him their watch.  Often, his victims succumbed and he made off with the item.  He was later caught when one of his victims identified him in the street.  The term "confidence man" was used for the first time at his trial. Affiliate marketing is a scam, how many times have you heard that.  But affiliate marketers are laughing ... all the way to the bank.


Five Foolproof Fouls For Affiliates

• Make sure that you remove any associated links to bad products or affiliate program networks from your site; search engines will avoid your site if you are associated with such scams.
• Beware of the affiliate typing networks as most of them will not be able to offer what they promise and it is highly unlikely that you will make quick money from the scheme.  What you will do is tarnish your reputation and link yourself to a spam program.
• The affiliate program should have a promotional incentive initiative whereby you can earn by promoting the program.  These are the best programs as they ask you to put your name to their product; if you are happy to put your name to the product, they are worth joining.
• Check the payment gateway.  Is the transaction going through a third party like Paypal.  Check the Privacy Policy and Disclaimers..  Are there testimonials about the program, are they positive and can they be verified.  Does the program offer contact information, address and if they offer sell products on their site, is the shipping address the same as the company address.
• Join the top networks to promote digital and tangible products, such as ClickBank, Commission Junction, ShareASale, LinkShare, Performics; these are just some of the top networks and there are many more, all offering a really good portfolio of products. 

Failsafes To Filter Fraud

How do you check your affiliate program is legitimate?  Follow the failsafe steps to filtering fraud:

• Research the program.  Affiliate marketing requires at least 65% your efforts to be concentrated on conducting research and researching your research.  Do a search on the program; type into Google “name of program + scam” and you will quickly be alerted to any associations between the two.  Would you endorse the program? 
• Affiliate programs should offer a full and comprehensive package including training, tutorials, resources, tools, market information and support in return for membership.  The membership fee should be a minimal monthly amount, depending on the offer provided by the program.
• How many jobs go in search of people?  People normally look for jobs, jobs do not scream out looking for people; anything that does, has to be a scam.
• Do not part with money for information about the program.  You should not have to pay to consider joining or to receive information.
• Keep track of your progress.  The program should help you do this.  How easy is the recording and tracking process.  Are you able to identify where your revenue is coming from, which clicks are working for you.  If you are able to analyse and track your performance with the tools provided by the program this proves the program is open and honest about your abilities to earn
• Is the program saturated with members, with no direction and limited training on how to diversify.  Does the program have a forum or group. Can you network with other members. 
• Does the program encourage you to promote anything and everything without direction or justification.  Are you guided to success and warned about possible failures.  Is the program interested in your personal success.  Wealthy Affiliate University makes clear that members should promote products/services they know about or have an interest in (if you are passionate about your subject, you are likely to succeed). 
• Does the program offer a well-rounded package.  Will you have everything you need to succeed.  How well and quickly will the program train you.  Is the program offering a well-rounded package such as website builder, research tools etc.
• How quickly are you encouraged to start your business, make sales and gain personal success. 
• Check with the various scam bureaux or you can check with the Better Business Bureau; this is an ethical standards marketplace, listing trustworthy business models and standards; their website will provide you with some useful information.

 Avoid Scams Working From Home

It is imperative that you do your research to ensure that you do not lose out either financially or otherwise. I lost valuable time when looking for an online opportunity because I fell foul to the scams.  When I first came across Wealthy Affiliate I was unsure of the program. I found many articles online stating Wealthy Affiliate is a scam but they were proving that Wealthy Affiliate is not a scam.  Sometimes, time lost can be a greater cost than actual monetary cost, because the time spent investing in a possible opportunity that leads nowhere could mean the difference between a gained and lost job opportunity.  This has happened to me, unfortunately.  I spent a good three weeks investing time, effort and resources in watching bogus videos, training and watching tutorials for a product that had no existence.  If you really want to work from home, do so, but make sure that you will not lose out just for trying. Once, I too believed that Wealthy Affiliate is a scam, and now I know better.

Research the company offering the opportunity.  Can you find them via search engines, are they listed on a business bureau list

• If their contact details include an e-mail address, then e-mail about the opportunity and await a reply within a specific time frame.  If a telephone number is included, such as 1-800 then make sure that a person answers the phone.  If it is a continuous message service, then the business is more than likely bogus.  E-mail asking for a contact name or resource officer who can answer your questions.  Find out who these people are.
• If the opportunity promises you immediate wealth and success for little work, skip right by.  You will never make a million just by stuffing 3 envelopes or even by working for a solid 24/7/365 so don’t go there.  If the opportunity is that good, why isn’t everyone doing it?  If the opportunity is honest about the amount of work involved, give it a second glance
• Do not reply to fraudulent requests for your personal information, divulge nothing, lose nothing
• Do not pay for information to find out about the opportunity.  No starter kit costs, because you would not pay a company to interview you
• Is it a legal opportunity.  You can research if the opportunity advertised is a legal home-based opportunity.  Some business models cannot be run from home due to legislation
• Do not pay for a list of companies that will offer you home-based employment; find your own home-based opportunity.  There are legitimate offers out there, not all opportunities were thought up by vile people wanting to take advantage of your good nature

Scams Target Small Business

Small business is also losing vast amounts of money to internet fraudsters through forged cash transactions, bounced cheques, fake invoices and banking fraud.  Even eBay and PayPal have now fallen foul to the scammers.  It is estimated that businesses affected by fraud increased in 2009 to 64% from 57% in 2006.  The main scams that are driving business under are:

• Business email addresses and domain names are being used for fraudulent activity and to send spam emails

• Trojan viruses are being used to steal business Internet Protocol (the identifiable code of a business network) to commit cyber crime

• Scammers setting up under the auspices of the business to sell non-existent items on sites such as eBay

• Competitor companies using the company name in a search engine tag to drive business away to their own sites

• Adscams whereby frauds will call companies demanding payment for ads taken out in a publication via verbal agreement.  Payment is demanded by credit card over the telephone or by email.  

 No Love Lost : Scam and Spam


It is estimated that half of all emails are received unsolicited; most of the spam we receive will be hard sells for us to purchase the latest product, or to advise us of new and wonderful ways to waste more of our precious time.  Spam accounts for 14.5 billion messages worldwide, with the USA taking first prize for the biggest generator of spam and Korea coming a close second.  Primarily, advertising is the major reason for spam emails, with adult content falling closely behind and financial-related information spam coming third. 
Is spam related to online scams and if so, how can this be proved.  Well, the statistics speak for themselves.  Whilst only 2.5% of all spam is fraud or scam related; however, 73% of this figure is made up of phishing or identity theft.  Spam emailing has led to a loss of confidence in internet communication and the Radicati Research Group Inc, a research firm based in the USA, estimates that spam costs businesses $20.5b annually in productivity decrease and expenses.  Advertising is primarily But some spam emails can be downright malicious and disturbing.  So, how do we prevent being spammed?  There are some steps you can take to stop your inbox from being choked on the nonsense being directed at your personal account:

• Never click on a link or reply to a spam email, do not click to unsubscribe - IGNORE
• Turn off HTML and read messages as text only
• Google and Hotmail block adware, spyware or viruses from being sent to you, don’t change these settings
• Preview messages before opening them to prevent adware downloads
• View message headers, the ‘from’ and ‘reply to’ addresses should be the same if not similar
• Alias email addresses are great for misleading spam lists; they generate anonymous email addresses placing a barrier between you and the spam list
• Do not use your email address for screen name
• Never disclose personal addresses to registrations
• Use a spam filter or blocker
• Adjust your privacy settings to the highest level 

These links will take you to useful sites.  Check out any opportunities before taking them.


Don't pay someone for information to find out about work.  Stay safe out there.


USA:   http://www.bbb.org/us/About-BBB/     and http://www.scambusters.org/work-at-home.html
UK:     http://www.safefromscams.co.uk/WorkfromHomeScams.html  and http://www.homeworkinguk.com

Keep Ahead Of Scams

For more inforrmation and the latest news about scams, see these sites:

Google News : Create RSS feed "Online Scam" to receive a news feed

Federal Trade Commission/Consumer Protection/Web Scams:http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/menus/consumer/tech/scams.shtm

eHow/Scams : http://www.ehow.com/scams/

Consumer Direct/Watch Out for Scams: http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/watch_out/

UK:  http://www.safefromscams.co.uk/WorkfromHomeScams.html  AND  http://www.homeworkinguk.co.uk/

USA:  http://www.bbb.org/us/About-BBB/ and   http://www.scambusters.org/work-at-home.html


Internet Scams To Avoid

Affiliate marketing is not the only avenue to a free bankroll for scammers.  There are many other methods and techniques being developed by fraudsters ever day; as you are reading this, another ten internet fraud operations are being developed.  But this is not all.  There are millions of scams online as the internet grows daily.  Wealthy Affiliate is a scam is definitely wrong.  Look at some of the elaborate scams below.

• One of the most astounding scams is the 419 or Nigerian Scam for the internet marketer.  I first received an urgent e-mail in my inbox at my place of work about six years ago.  It stated that the recipient’s millionaire uncle had passed away and because of certain Nigerian inheritance laws, the recipient was unable to commit to his uncle’s dying wish to accept his entire fortune.  He requested that I provide him with my bank account details in order that he could pay the millions into my account, and I could take my cut for the transaction.  It wasn’t worded in that way, but I was immediately aware of the hoax.  This is just a fraudulent request to obtain your bank details; you will find your account quickly siphoned of funds should you relinquish to any such request, but many people are aware of such schemes these days.  These 419 schemes are probably listed as the number one on any list of international internet frauds.

• Phishing or Transaction Verification.  This is the most common of all internet fraud and it is growing as fraudsters find new and advanced ways to trick the unsuspecting customer into divulging information.  This scheme targets unsuspecting bank account holders to divulge their bank account details for verification purposes due to a possible fraudulent transaction on their account.  The recipient discloses their bank account number and sort code and details and verifies that they indeed are not responsible for the suspected fraudulent transaction.  The fraudster has access to the bank account and personal details of the recipient.  Some frauds prepare web pages including the bank logo, address and details; it is sometimes impossible to tell that these pages are bogus because they are not distinguishable from the banks real website.

• Social Networking sites.  These personal gateway portals are being flouted by scams; fraudsters can now hack into your social networking accounts on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace to gain personal information about you and the people in your life.  About three months ago, a woman who had her Facebook account hacked into, went on holiday abroad.  During her trip, her friends were receiving emails supposedly from her, stating that she was in trouble in a foreign country and needed $3,500 to pay for an attorney to get her out of prison.  The emails stated that she was being held captive and that unless the funds were forthcoming, she would be unable to return home.  Of course, three of her friends paid up, but hadn’t discussed the matter between them, as they were asked not to.  This has to be the lowest scam ever invented, but it worked, and these criminals got away with $13,500 in total.  She returned from vacation two weeks later, non the wiser.  The police were contacted, but by then, the criminals were long gone.

• Bogus Escrow services.  On sites such as eBay, the fraud acts as the go between with merchant and buyer to hold funds until the goods are received.  Some of these services however, are now frauds, picking up the payment and not forwarding on to the seller.

• Prediction scams are becoming more popular, particularly with the advent of the World Cup Football tournament.   The scam predicts results for a match in the next couple of days, the prediction comes true, the emails continue over a short period, and then offers are made for the recipient to purchase the results on subsequent games, they do so and lose money.  The predictions are sent to a number of recipients; of those, some will receive predictions for the correct results each time, and therefore, invest in the scheme.

• Demands for Financial assistance.  Similar to the Social Networking scam; elderly people are being targeted whereby the scammer telephones, stating that a member of the family has been involved in a major accident and medical treatment cannot be forthcoming unless payment is made.   Funds are demanded immediately via credit or debit card.

• Continuous Billing.  Many online scams are taking advantage of the ‘trial offers’ online whereby the fraudster requests a credit card for ‘verification purposes only’ and then charges the credit card with the full amount of the product, or even worse, charges the credit card for no forthcoming product.

• Trojan Virus.  These viruses are sometimes placed on recipient computers, included in promotional offers or urgent emails.  Having infected the users pc, the fraud then offers to repair the computer with specially adapted software, thus making a sale, but destroying the computer anyway, as they very rarely are able to delete a Trojan virus once it is installed.  Another scam whereby the fraud infects the computer with a Trojan virus that records keyboard strokes, thus accessing usernames and passwords.

• ALWAYS report scams.  Do not leave it for someone else to do; they may not, and another unsuspecting victim might fall foul to the scam.  The Internet Crime Complaint Centre (IC3) is a partnership between the FBI, National White Collar Crime Centre and the  Bureau of Justice Assistance.  They develop, refer and deal with cyber-crime and internet criminal complaints about Intellectual Property Rights, Computer Hacking, Theft of Trade Secrets, Online Extortion, International Money Laundering, Identity Theft, and many new, growing Internet  crimes.  It is possible to lodge a formal complaint with the IC3; the process is simple and effective.  

Affiliate Scams


Affiliate marketing is a booming online opportunity to set up your own business and earn inestimable amounts of money.  It is no exception to the scammer.  There are many opportunities to set up as an affiliate marketer and thousands or programs purporting to offer wealth and success are no more than portals for scammers to earn money from unsuspecting newbie affiliates.  These sites look much the same as any site online, however, when it comes to pay day, the site is quickly shut down, the affiliate is not paid and so it goes on.  There are other methods of scamming affiliates though, some that are not so blatant as cutting and running.  These scams include what is known as cookie stuffing.  It is a technique used to achieve fraudulent affiliate sales.  The affiliate earns commission from placing an affiliate link to drive consumers to merchant sites to purchase products.  The affiliate will earn commission from the sale of the product, paid as a percentage, and commission is only payable on conversion, ie, when the buyer purchases the merchants product.  Cookie stuffing is where a fraudulent affiliate uses methods to trick the merchants tracking system into recording that the user has clicked through the link when the user has not done so.  The fraudulent affiliate then obtains payment for that sale.  Affiliate networks benefit from such practices in that they gain from increased amounts of money passing through their network.  It increases the total volume of sales for the network and increases the affiliate commission for which the network can charge the merchant to pay the affiliate.  Whilst networks do not advocate this practice, some are slow to act to discourage affiliates from such behaviour; they could take a more pro-active and aggressive stance against affiliates who flout the rules.  The networks are unlikely to advise merchants when cookie stuffing has been used to gain the sale commission, because the network would have to refund part of that commission for the fraudulent transaction, and this means a decrease in revenue for them. This could have a long-term detrimental effect on the entire industry, as merchants become less willing to pay commission to affiliates.  Whilst the network might gain, the honest affiliate is not being earning commission for the sale that is rightly theirs and the merchant is paying over the odds an may choose to decrease commission rates paid to affiliates to make up for this loss.


Other affiliate frauds are prevalent and they come in many forms.   It is important to think logically when considering any opportunity.  With affiliate marketing, the key to ensuring that you are not entering into a fraudulent practice, is to remember that a merchant will never pay commission over and above what they will make in profit from the sale of a product.  It is imperative that you look at the commission being offered and if it is proportionately far higher than the merchant’s profit margin, it is a scam, and one that needs to be avoided at all costs.  As a guideline, this is what you should expect to earn in commission; products offered by networks such as ClickBank will pay in the region of 2-15% for products; 5-30% for software and as an example, an e-book will provide a lucrative commission of 10-50% of the total sales value. You have made your sale, but what happens when you await your cheque, only to find that it arrives, you go to cash it, and it bounces.  You need to remove the links from your site, trace the company, but by all accounts, it will disappear, never to be heard of (in the same format) again.  This is where you need to conduct a few checks of your own first, before jumping at the first opportunity that appears to offer a quick, lucrative, but almost unbelievable, opportunity.  Firstly, check the contact details on the site.  If there is no contact information leave well alone, and preferably, more than just an unrelated e-mail address.  In the first instance, it is wise to perhaps consider e-mailing the affiliate program before setting up to sell.  


When selling products on ClickBank, for instance, you should always check the refund or returns rate.  Check for testimonials or reviews about the product you wish to promote.  Check the link to the product; if the link comes back with ‘account deactivated’ or you get an ‘error 404 return’ upon clicking the link, avoid like the plague; you know that this vendor is unable to honor the agreement of the affiliate program and you should make a note of these merchants and keep a list.  Make sure that their information, banners and fresh content is being updated, especially for a product that screams “the best product since...”.  Use this model for other networks and steer clear of the bogus programs.


Techniques used by cookie stuffers include stuffing links attached to images, metatags, external scripts, popups, JavaScript and PHP manipulation.  More advanced methods are developed by these bogus affiliates such as developing scripts containing algorithms which make it nearly impossible to be detected, such as URL cloaking.  There are many software applications to fight cookie stuffing, most of which cost money.  Alternatively, all you need to do is continually empty your cookies, refresh your page and find the cookie stuffers this way.
There are many affiliate programs out there purporting to offer wealth and success, but how many of these can prove their methods?  There are so many facets to affiliate marketing and so many techniques and concepts can be used to harness the power of the internet to earn residual income, so it is crucial for anyone wanting to set up as an affiliate, to do research before deciding on any program.   How do these scammers get away with internet fraud when their computers are identifiable?  This is where proxy servers come into play.  Your computer is identified through an internet protocol (TCP/IP) address; your ISP provider assigns you an IP address each time you connect to the internet.  This IP address includes information about your location.   These IP addresses can be manipulated through the use of a proxy.  This is a computer that is placed between the client and server and all requests are addressed to this computer.  This proxy can be used to speed up network traffic and lightens the load on the server.  These are usually transparent proxies; they do not mask your IP.  However, proxies can be used to mask your IP and these are anonymous proxies.  Socks proxies provide much greater anonymity as the source cannot be located.  These are used by fraudsters to set up fake bank and PayPal accounts for illegal transactions.