Webupon

If you’re anything like me at the moment, you’re probably trying to budget as carefully as possible during these recession times. I expect most of you will have encountered the get-rich-quick websites offering a sure-fire method of earning a shed load of cash for doing practically nothing. Sometimes known as Multi Level Marketing these sites mostly promise the moon and deliver a pebble.

I have had the unfortunate experience of being conned back in the 1980’s through the post by a bloke offering a sure-fire way of earning at home using the ‘pyramid’ method of money making. That particular method, for all its talk of ‘thousands can be earned by mailing out to just one hundred people’ and ‘consider the potential’ and so on was eventually exposed as a scam and made illegal in the UK.

Then along came the Internet and scammers galore came out of the woodwork. Research has shown that about ninety percent of these money making sites are absolute rubbish. For example; a site showing pictures of luxury homes, private aircraft, yachts etcetera. All bought with the cash earned by the user of this guaranteed-not-to-fail-method.

Okay, let’s think logically about that for a second; the home, aircraft and yacht – do they belong to the scheme seller? How do you know? Chances are the images were copied and pasted the images from websites – not exactly rocket-science is it? 

Screen-shots of bank statements showing deposits of quite large sums of money. Are you sure they are real? How do you know?

Testimonials from others who have ‘changed their lives thanks to this Angel of the Websites’.

Are the testimonials from users of the method or friends / partners in scam of the site owner? Try this simple method; copy a testifier’s name then call up a search engine and paste it in along with the word ‘scam’. See what pops up and don’t be too surprised if some names are found on other websites or are connected with the scheme owner.  

Then the sting in the tail. This method can be yours for only…uh oh. suddenly alarm bells start to ring. Sometimes the amount is not that high but if you consider the number of hits per day on that site and if only one percent of those hits generate a buyer you’re still looking at a considerable sum of money.

But of course if you’re unhappy with the scheme after purchasing it or it doesn’t work as you hoped it would. Well then, don’t worry dear buyer, the scheme owner promises to refund your money. How do you know that’s what will happen? Assuming it does, how long will it take? How many times do you have to contact the owner to actually get a refund? If it eventually transpires that your cash is refunded, consider this. Between the time your money laughed its way into his/her back account and the time it was withdrawn to be paid back – how much interest will it have earned hmm? Not much you might think, but if enough is in there, even if eventually withdrawn again, you might be looking at quite a few quid. Another point to consider is that if the schemer puts the money into a high interest account then repays you from his/her ordinary account – what about the interest earned then? Your money being put to work in somebody else’s bank account then returned to you – talk about unmitigated gall!

How to avoid these scammers then? Well for a start; operate a zero tolerance policy where shelling out your cash is concerned. Sites like this one don’t ask for money and do pay reliably. So what’s to stop others?

Next; always suspect and always go to scam report websites and look for the names of the site you’re about to join.

Finally be careful about sites who say ‘there are so many scammers out there, it’s difficult to know who to trust – well you can trust me’ – riiight! Just because there’s a photo of him in a nice jacket, shirt and tie doesn’t mean he’s reliable. Also watch out for ‘fake jobs’ scams, one website I visited reported that these scammers would pay with forged cheques.

Basically it’s a matter of using a bit of common sense, if it seems to good to be true it is.