Online scams

When looking to make money online, you are very likely to come across Internet scams, some of which are more obvious than others. Before you sign up for any online money making site, you need to ask yourself a few questions;

• Does the offer sound to good to be true?
• Do you have to respond very quickly before the offer runs out?
• Do you have to pay money upfront for a service or to buy your way into the "scheme"?
• Are you pressured into making a purchase before the sale price goes up considerably?

If the answer is yes to one or more of these questions, then there is a good chance that you are dealing with a scam. Online scammers, often under the disguise of a legitimate looking business, lure their victims in by promising untold wealth in return for very little work. The scammer's website will often have testimonials and pictures of people looking smug, in order to further convince you that they are genuine.

Before committing yourself to any online money making scheme, type the website address of the company followed by the word "scam" or " fraud" into Google or any other search engine. Look carefully through the results and read all reviews of the site carefully. Some of the scammers have caught on to this tactic and have now set up fake review sites. If you are in any doubt then email the website owner and also look up the domain hosting information on whois.net for further info about the site.

In my next entry I will dig a little deeper into online scams and look at a few particular sites in more detail.