I received an “Internet Business Offer” letter in the post today that said I could make $1,000,000 within 9 months by using social media.
Normally I would have thrown such trash right into the recycling bin, but then I realized many people may not realize what a scam this sort of offer is.
It inspired me to tell you how to spot scams so you can avoid terrible mistakes with your online business.
The letter continued…
…work from home
…no risks involved
…it costs nothing
…no selling
…no website
…no product
And no need to set up a business.
Wow! That sounds too good to be true.
And guess what?
It is!
Of course, this type of sales letter NEVER tells you EXACTLY what you are getting.
In fact the letter says words to the effect of: “Because what I want to give you is completely free…I won’t go into the specifics”
They just have emotive adjectives in big red bold text or yellow highlighting like ‘genuine, honest, no exaggeration, financial freedom…you know the sort of words that are used.
$3,000,000 In 2 Years
They add a few testimonials and a few pictures of the person on an exotic beach somewhere or in front of a fast car or big mansion.
Oh and don’t forget some images of your bank account showing the tens of thousands of dollars coming in every day.
Within 2 years, they said they had made $3,000,000!
And they are giving you the product for FREE!
Now, honestly, how much would you give if someone said, “you’ll make $3,000,000 in 2 years?”
$10,000 ?
Perhaps, even $100,000?
We all would wouldn’t we?
But it’s just poppy-cock!
So, here are the 10 Warning Signs an Internet Business Offer is Too Good to be True…
1. Offers that look too good to be true.
If the offer boasts you can make thousands of dollars within weeks, do not believe it.
Starting an on-line business takes time, hard work plus a lot of knowledge. It could take up to 6 months before you see much of a money return for your efforts.
2. No money back guarantee.
If there is no money back guarantee, stay well clear. All genuine offers give a money back guarantee. This statement doesn’t work the other way around…if they do offer a money back guarantee – it doesn’t mean it’s a genuine offer.
3. No contact or personal details.
If there is no name, no email, no photo of the owner behind the offer, it’s another sign that they are hiding something.
4. Use of big mansions and fast, flashy cars images.
You know the ones I mean. They stand in front of a flashy car or huge mansion saying “I just purchased this for cash!” Yeah, right!
5. No real description of what the product is.
This is where they keep you guessing. They don’t tell you exactly what you are going to get. If it’s genuine – why don’t they?
6. Very short limited offers – buy within the next hour or you lose out!
This is another sneaky trick. In most cases, the offer is still available hours, days, weeks later and it still says ‘buy within the next hour or you lose out’.
If the sales page has no integrity, the owner doesn’t!
7. The word ‘secret’ is used far too many times
Listen closely…there are NO SECRETS to making money on-line. So, if someone says they are going to sell you some ‘secrets’…don’t believe them.
8. Images of their checks or PayPal accounts with huge amounts of money
More images trying to show how much money they have and how much you COULD earn. Don’t believe the huge sums involved. Images can be easily changed to show such huge amounts.
9. Huge price drops
Another ‘trick’ by the scammers. This product is worth $4,997 but you can get it for $27. If it is worth (and it won’t be) $4,997 they would sell it for that price.
10. Long sales videos
This is a personal favorite of mine – NOT!
Long sales videos with no fast forward button or time length of video showing. I just have to listen to all the hyped up rubbish before I can see the price.
Over long…over hyped…and often overpriced!
The most important part of this post:
There is no “silver bullet’ to making an income on-line.
There are so many factors involved and you only have to get one of them wrong and all your efforts are wasted.
How To Build A Profitable On-line Business
Building a successful and profitable on-line business is about:
. Choosing your niche and ensuring it sells on-line
. Design/layout/build of your website
. Getting more and more visitors
. Deciding what to sell – services, products…
. Treating your on-line business…as a business
And many, many more factors!
Hyped-up Sales Letters Never Deliver The Goods
While a hyped-up sales letter can stir your inner emotions and get you thinking “It’s free…what have I got to lose”, it will NOT deliver.
How do I know that?
Because in my early days of building my own on-line business…I fell for such hyped up sales techniques.
I was a newbie, I was inexperienced, I was thinking…”I have nothing to lose”.
Oh and when they say ‘free’, they don’t really mean free. You might get the first part for free and then the next part(s) will cost you $1997!
With all this in mind, take the time to do a lot of research BEFORE you part with your cash.
Find an experienced expert who can help you.
In the end, you’ll be the proud owner of a successful on-line business.
For more help with your on-line business, please write to me using my contact page. Click here: Contact
Andrew is a website builder and helps small businesses with their on-line presence…so they can grow their customer list and increase sales. That’s it! That’s what we do each and every day.
That’s right, these kinds of posts/letters/mails just try to lure us by making use of emotional words with some images and figures! I am one of the victim of these kinds of scams and I am well aware of these risks! I wish if I could have read such post 3 years ago! Thanks
Adrian,
You are not alone – I’ve fallen for such products as well!
Andrew
Sound advice Andrew. Thankfully, more people are becoming wise to these tricks. I don’t know how these scammers are profiting as they must surely be getting found out quickly.
Wade,
I think they profit from the newbie…who believe their scams!
Andrew
Corinne
We need some sort of law that makes these types of adverts and sales pages illegal.
Andrew
What most of these offers leave out is you have to work to be successful. So many people get lured in thinking that success is some magic button.
If someone said you can make $100,000, but you had to put in 200 hours over the next 3 months I could believe that.
Tyler,
I agree about the hard work.
Not sure I agree with you on “If someone said you can make $100,000, but you had to put in 200 hours over the next 3 months I could believe that.”
That’s only 2 hours per day and $500 an hour!
That would sound like a scam to me!
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
Personally – When the thought pops up in my head that it is too good to be true – Most of the times it actually is. Don’t get me wrong – Every now and then you are surprized at something you buy – whether a service or a product. I tend to believe in the proverb that states: “If you pay peanuts – you get monkeys”
Anton
I think being surprized when you buy something is rare these days. perhaps that’s why it is a surprize!
When was the last time you were surprized when buying a product or service?
Thanks,
Andrew
What’s a shame is that these scams make you question everything; the good and the bad. I received a check yesterday that said it was part of a Google settlement. I was about to throw it out, certain it was a scam, when someone told me it was a legitimate lawsuit and certain Adsense users were getting reimbursed. I would have never believed it. Those darned scams almost cost me $4.39!! 🙂
Great story, Kathy!
I agree with you…on-line scammers make it harder for us genuine business owners.
Andrew
They are getting smarter, and making it more difficult to figure out who is legit and who is a scammer. The obvious ones are make thousands in a day, but the more subtle ones have it down and people are more likely to be taken. Of course the beauty industry does this all the time as many women know. You get a trial of a skin cream, and then find out it’s over a #100.00 a month on an automatic shipment!
Michelle
I wouldn’t know about the beauty industry but I’m sure most industries have their scammers!
Andrew
Great post Andrew. I to have gotten these letters. The ones I really don’t like are the video ones you talked about. You can sit there for an hour watching and listening to the video.
I don’t listen to videos that don’t let me know how long they are anymore, learned my lesson on that one.
Hey, Kathy you did better than i did. I only got a check for $.63. Really want am i suppose to do with that. LOL
I know it is better than nothing, but the gas to take it to the bank probably cost me more that the check is worth.
Thanks Andrew this story needs to be told over and over again.
Blessing to you always,
Debbie
Thanks, Debbie.
$.63 check! Must have cost them $5 to print that!
I HATE those long sales videos!
Andrew
Great advice, on a hard topic. As Einstein has observed, the difference between genius and stupidity, genius has its limits. I certainly performed way off genius when purchasing how to make money online products in my early online days. But even for guys like me who don’t learn what mistakes not to make until they made them, your advice by itself will eliminate the majority of them, providing us with more time for being the genius in us :-]
~Beat
Beat,
We do have to learn from the mistakes we make.
One of the easiest ways, I think, is to only buy products/services from people you know or when someone you know has recommended them.
Andrew
The saddest thing is that these gimmicks actually work! People keep falling for them …
Mark,
very true but I do think it is becoming less and less something that works.
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
I can relate to that. I’ve received too many of them. Some even use geolocation code to make the promise more believable.
For example: A mother of 3 children at (your location base on your ip address) quietly earn $(huge amount) … blah blah blah
And the funny thing is, it shows pictures of western blond lady and I live it east.
That story…made me laugh!
Nice share, Raymond.
Crazy world!
Andrew
Your right Andrew, it most likely did cost them 5 dollars to print it let alone the 44 cent to mail it.
guess the lost money on that one.
Debbie
It genuinely makes me sad that people get away with scams. I’ve been scammed in the past, like many of us have, and of course online is just the latest place these things happen.
Occasionally I’ve found a diamond of a course but it makes it hard for those with genuine courses to be visible online and shout above the noise of the often well funded scammers.
Joel,
Eventually, the good guys…the ones with the genuine courses will win through. It just takes time.
Andrew
I agree with this advice 100%. I bought stuff early on that had some minimal value for a huge price. I did not get rich and did not get a flood of traffic but lost a flood of cash. I don’t learn easy and did this more than once. If you are new to internet biz, listen to this advice and write it down, it is some of the best advice you will receive.
Bruce,
I think the majority of people on-line have been misled in one way or another.
It would be so nice if we could stop such scammers.
Andrew
Soooo true. For me number 7 (The word ‘secret’ is used far too many times) was funny 🙂 Instead of “secret” they also use “special” very often.
Yes, ‘special’ is another one overused, Wojtek.
Andrew
Any business offer should tell you what exactly you will be doing and how you will be making money. If they are just showing figures with no clear way of how they did it, or how you will be doing it eventually, then it is a clear scam to rob you off your money. Never engage in this offers.
John
…it’s a shame so many do, though!
Andrew
Hi,
I received many such emails which are obvious that they are spam. I mastered the art of identifying which are useful and which are dangerous. In fact, I receive at least 5 such mails everyday. We know that there is money out there on net but there is no shortcut to that.
Amit form iTechCode
Amit
What do you look for when identifying spam ones?
Andrew
Oh, such valuable information! I hope that many of the people who read this post are able to avoid these scams. Because wow. The sheer volume of scammers out there is breathtaking.
Amy
I think there are more scammers that honest people out there…when it comes to internet marketing.
Andrew
I’ve seen a lot of offers which was too good to be true AND much more people who didn’t know that! The list is really helpful, I’ve shown it to my friends and will place a link on my blog.
Thanks, Michal – I appreciate that.
I think at some stage most of us have fallen for such scams.
Andrew
this is one of the very interesting posts i read
its soooooooooo true
those people are only trying to steal money from those who wish to be rich
personally i have a success story but my marketing methods are even close to what those people are doing
thanks so much for the warning
i agree with you 100%
All I can say, Andrew, is amen and ditto.
I’m just glad the majority of junk I bought did have money back guarantees, and I took advantage of them. I learned early on to evaluate whatever it was quickly and get the refund if it didn’t turn out to be worth anything.
Great post and so important!
Sherri
I think your approach is in the minority.
Many people buy, stick it on their hard drive and never look at the product.
Madness!
Andrew
P.S. btw, I have done that – not looked at a product I’ve purchased
Hi Andrew,
One of the best things I learned from my mom is that before engaging in a business or an offer is to first ask myself whether the offer is too good to be true, and if it is, then I should just simply back away. I have seen these ads many times and I just hope that no poor bloke has ever fallen for these deceptions. Sadly, the people who are the most desperate are the ones who fall for such scams.
Felicia
You are right…”Sadly, the people who are the most desperate are the ones who fall for such scams.”
Andrew