For the summary of this article, please scroll to the bottom of the page.
Please Note:
I am writing this article from my own knowledge. This article is most likely not going to be the authoritive source for identifying scams online, but it is a real person's record of observations and thought processes used to decide if something looks a bit dodgy and perhaps avoided when pulling out the bank details or credit card numbers.
Yes, scams online are a dime a dozen - for the first 14 days. First let me define what I am calling a scam:
I am using the word scam in this article to represent any sort of online business, "free" or small payment trial offer, "get rich quick" scheme, Nigerian Princess inheritances etc. Basically if, in the end, it costs you money and you weren't aware that said monies would be taken from you - I class it as a "scam".
So a scam could present itself in an email, as an ad on a website, come through a message over a chat program, be a sticker at a set of street lights down the road, be word of mouth from someone you know and/or more. There's so many of these sort of things trying to get your money it's unbelieveable.
Who is most likely to fall prey to the scam?
I haven't done any major research on this but I've a memory in my head that, especially with get rich quick schemes, it is usually people that don't have money to start with! They want to get money (because they have none) so they are more likely to try these things. So this is rule number one to remember: If it sounds too good to be true - it is too good to be true. Someone will logically conclude that it seems too good to be true, but the emotional (greed) kicks in and tells them to try it - DON'T.
How can you identify a scam site?
If someone asks me "look at this is this a scam?" first thing I do is look at the website. Now look to the right and look at the scroll bar. If the scrollbar takes about 10 Page Down keypresses to get the bottom of the page stop wasting your time looking at it. Practically every multi-level marketing scam I have seen has a template website like this. It is pages and pages long ranting on about how fantastic "the product" is and how this person now lives on an island having the life they dreamt of and its all because they did this thing and they don't even have to work and they are now willing to pass the secret to success on to you so you too can have the life you dream of...
don't fall for the bullcrap.
Pages like this will:
- Tell a story about someone's life and what they used to do
- Always advocate how fantastic the person's life is now that they took up the offer of the website
- Sometimes claim that you may have to do a little bit of work, but the pay to work ratio will be tremendously in your favor
- Sometimes state it will not cost a thing at the start, and by the end require postage cost to be paid. This ends up being a snowball effect and since the user has already invested some money, they keep paying more and more to get the "kit" or whatever the stupid product is
- Usually have clone websites on the internet
- Never actually tell you WHAT is being sold to you. It will usually be a "product" or a "kit" or some other stupid thing like brochures or motivaional manuals.
Other things to look for on websites are to look at the story being told and try to identify inconsistancies. For instance, I saw a weight loss website for some Acai berries or something. These Acai pills have had international recognition, common quoted as being shown on Oprah. This, for some reason, automatically puts people in a frame of mind that these things must be good and must be legitimate. Scammer's paradise.
Processes to identify a possible scam
So my wife finds this website and shows me. (Visit the site here)
First thing is it's a dodgy looking website that's obviously generated off a template. (By this I mean, the formatting and layout of the website is similar to most other websites you would end up concluding are scams.)
Next thing is all the usually "before and after" photos found on most weight loss pages. I was immediately suspicious on the before and after picture. The woman on the right doesn't look like the woman on the left at all. The claims are saying this happened in 4 weeks - frigging lies.
Next I picked a locale failure in the site. It says, "Hello, This is Michelle here, and I'm from Brisbane." but the website is saying she lost so many pounds, and that she weighed this many pounds. What's the problem here? This girl looks about my age or younger, and is living in Australia (assuming she has always lived here). Australians with this demographic do not talk in pounds. They talk in kilograms. Of course, we could argue she is American or European and is just living in Brisbane and measures in pounds.
So far I have three reasons to close the window. So I continued scrolling down. The claim is this woman lost 35lbs (~17kg) in 4 weeks (4.25kg / week consistently). Already suss on the before and after picture, down the page is a picture of a woman's fat stomach being measured by a doctor's instrument. Again, I said "there's no way she lost that gut in 4 weeks and looks like that [in the bikini]". As far as I'm concerned that is not possible.
So to finish off, I said to my wife, "select any sentence in the page and copy it to the clipboard". Then we go to Google and we search for that sentence in double quotes. When we searched for "I just thought I would share my story with you in the hopes of inspiring you" we got these results. As you can see if you look at the results this template website is littered all over the internet. At this point, I concluded it was a scam site. Usually sites like this (that have clones) end up being multi-level marketing systems which suck in general.
Finally, you can also Google for the product name with "scam" after it. Usually you will get websites established to exposing scams online with users giving personal warnings and experiences in the comments.
Please note that I am not saying the product advertised in the linked site does not work. I wouldn't know if it does or doesn't. But why does it have to be sold from a website like this? Why doesn't Acai berries and Thermo colon cleansing have an official site they sell from like other products such as make-ups and specialized creams like TriLastin? Whatever the reason, the rule to remember with these type of products is to use caution when purchasing. Are you buying from an established company that offers a product, for a set price? Will you be roped into paying every month if they automatically ship another batch of the stuff? Will you be charged a "membership fee" after 14 days? These are the sort of dodgy tactics the scammers use that real businesses do not need to use to sell their products and make money.
In summary, here's how I identify scamming sites:
1. Look at the website - if the layout is all too familiar it is probably a scam.
2. Look at the content and logically analyze it - are there sensational claims? Does it sound "too good to be true"? If so, it probably is. Look for signs that identify templated sites (like Australian's recounting their experiences in lbs and not kg).
3. Copy and paste a sentence from the website into Google, enclosing the sentence in double quotes. If the phrase is from a template site, it will be all over the internet with different names and different photos. The content of all these pages will be exactly the same except for a few details like weight lost or money made.
4. Google for the product name with "scam" after it. Eg: dazzlewhite scam to see if the established scamming sites have records of the product.
5. Ask yourself if this product has an official seller online. Search for this. If they don't, why not? Would the reason be that the product is not so reliable that a large company is not willing to spend the money marketing it, so it is passed into the domain of the scammers?
http://alicesdietblog.com/adbld-r.php
http://shirleysdietjournal.com/experience/index.php
http://www.weightlosscute.com/stories/3/index.htm
Different websites, different names, different places, different wieghts ... SAME PHOTOS.
The "comments" at the bottom of these pages are also bogus. They are generally nearly the same comments on each site, the comment that asks "Hi such and such I live in the same place as you how long did it take to ship?" if you look at the page source, the location is loaded via Javascript into the comment (because the website is frigging bogus) and the submit button to post a comment simply loads a dialog window that says "You comment is submitted for moderation". It doesn't submit anything to anyone.
These websites are the latest breed of scam sites that offer a product at a "trial" cost or for "free" and if you don't cancel them within 5 to 30 days (and generally you CAN'T cancel them in that timeframe due to failing websites, bogus email adress and phone numbers etc.) they will automatically continue shipping them to you at some ridiculous price you would never even consider paying for. Of course all will be charged off your credit card.
These websites really I think should be illegal, the business model that they are a front end to is decpetive and should be made illegal in my opinion.
Ha! Here's how you scam the scammer. Order the "product" then instead of trying to cancel the "membership" call your credit card company and block the company that billed your for the initial shipment. Now if they ship you anything before deducting from your credit card it is their own stupid fault. Of course they can't deduct from your credit card as they are blocked, so they should cancel your "membership".
This sounds good in theory, but these scamming mongrels actually bill under numerous names so to call and say "block this company" probably won't work. No doubt it would be highly illegal under Australian law to bill under different company names to evade credit blocking but who knows where these types live.
They are often referred to now as the "DazzleWhite" scammers as DazzleWhite was the first product they did this with. Now there's Acai Berry pills, Colon cleansing, Hoochi Koochi Green Tea and who knows what else? Apparently it's the same set of people doing it with new products. The comments on OzRipOff.com have people trying to find who and where they are.
What's even worse is I'm pretty sure ads for these mongrels appear on Facebook, and probably a lot more high traffic sites online! Ever seen the "1 Rule to a flat stomach: Obey" ad? That's these guys.
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