10 Tips on Avoiding Online Scams Aimed At Entrepreneurs

[Rich Grads]

Woe to the 'work from home' would-be entrepreneur who leaps before checking to make sure there are no sharks circling in the murky waters of online business opportunities!

More often than not this hapless individual will be taken advantage of, lose hard earned money, and in some cases will become so dispirited that she or he will never again attempt to become a small home based business entrepreneur!

Yet if you follow these 10 tips on avoiding online scams aimed at entrepreneurs, the odds are good that you will follow your dream!

1. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. No, you cannot make money while you sleep or rake in a six figure salary working three hours a day in as little as two months.

2. All the marketing information you need to learn is available online for free. There is no need to buy an e-book or subscribe to a service that promises to share with you the secret to online success – as a matter of fact, there is no secret to online success!

3. If the website advertising the scheme looks unprofessional, the person you will be dealing with also will be. Remember that each online entrepreneur with a website is not only selling their product and business but also in a very real sense themselves by way of establishing authority and credibility. If the website you are visiting is plagued with spelling errors, mistaken information, and facts that cannot be checked, then this is the kind of individual with whom you will end up doing business as a down line rep.

4. Any product that is advertised on a website which seems to ramble on endlessly in a variety of differing fonts about how great the opportunity and the product are is probably a scam.

5. Any website that posts images of checks allegedly earned by the marketer who is looking for a down line is probably faked and thus represents a scam.

6. Millionaires do not advertise on the ‘Net in broken English looking for entrepreneurs to learn their business and thus pass on their business secrets. This is a scam.

7. Products which are faddish by nature may not be scams, but they have no future. These kinds of products usually are weight loss related, although sometimes they may also fall into the service sector, such as mortgage loan consultant.

8. If you have to invest money prior to being able to explore the business opportunity and research it to your heart’s content, proceed with extreme caution. Although it has been said that some legitimate businesses operate that way, the vast majority will not require such a financial commitment and risk on the part of the entrepreneur.

9. When signing up for a multi level marketing opportunity you will most likely be required to purchase a starter kit that contains your samples and other materials. Yet you should not be required to keep a certain amount of inventory on hand. In other words, if you are asked to buy $100 or $1,000 in inventory, you may be getting scammed.

10. Last but not least, if anything sounds fishy, proceed with extreme care!

[my_misyel]

^Thats right.
Don't believe in advertisements saying "you can make a huge amount of money in an instant!"

[byzantium]

Lately there's been some really stupid bandit signs popping up in my city (Sacramento, CA). They say: Earn CEO Income From Home! [800 number here] Don't Believe It, Don't Call! I'd LOVE to know who the scammer is behind those signs so I can shove every last sign up his bunghole. There are a number of different phone numbers and fonts, leading me to believe that many of the signs are placed by people who have been duped. That has to be the stupidest scam ever! Who really thinks that you can earn millions of dollars a year from home? The only people who fall for stuff like that are extremely 1) stupid and 2) desperate.

Then there is the $10/hr FT jobs signs, those are evil, what those people do is lure in youth, fly them 2,000 miles from home, have them beg door to door for $5 a day, and when they're no longer useful they're given a bus ticket that will take them 100 miles, dropped off at a bus station in a strange city where they know nobody, and wished luck. The lucky ones call their parents and get wired bus fare to get home. I guess the unlucky ones become homeless in that faraway city. Those signs are everywhere too. I remember the $10/hr jobs signs from the last recession. there was a news report or two, but that was it. Apparently the people behind those signs have powerful friends, since no action is ever taken.