The First Scam I Uncovered

There are a million scams lurking around on the internet. I sure hope you've never been the victim of one, but chances are you've probably noticed a least one scam. A lot of these scams can be luring and tempting, but they can also easily be detected...if you know what you're looking for. I'm very passionate about alarming people of various internet scams, in hopes that they will save their money (and eventually put these scam artists out of business!) For this reason I would like to take the time and inform you of the first scam I discovered.

I was in the comfort of my own home, searching around on the internet for various wholesale information and companies. There are literaly thousands of "wholesale" services on the internet offering discounted, bulk items to be resold using eBay. To me this seemed like a great opportunity to earn a full time salary at home in my underwear...and really, that's what we all want. Anyway, I received an email from a "wholesaler" that claimed to have a small yet successful electronic business. At a first glance this person seemed to be a legit supplier of very well priced electronics. He provided me with an eBay ID, web address, and a few comforting words.

The first part of the puzzle that didn't fit came when I searched for his ID on eBay. The ID showed up with a very large number of positive feedbacks, but none of those feedbacks were as a seller. That seemed somewhat suspicious to me, I contacted him and was told that they were looking for resellers of their products for that reason they didn't sell on eBay. I thought to myself, well, I guess that is a decent explanation.

I asked many questions, many of which were answered. The only questions that he "forgot"/avoided to answer were questions of personal information (phone #, address, etc...). I also was concerned because the seller was located overseas and there is not a lot of recourse in case a problem a rised. I let him know and he directed me to an escrow service. He reassured me that by using escrow neither parties would be able to scam one another. Ideally escrow services are very secure. They collect the buyer's money and won't release it untill the seller has lived up to his end of the bargin. Basically they are an unbias police in any deal. However, anyone can set up their own escrow service...and often they turn out to be a lot more biased than promised. He directed me to http://www.global-parcel-service.org and at first glance this "company" looks to run a legit business.

After I thought about it for awhile I realized how fishy a company with a UPS-like logo that I've never heard of. I typed in a few variations of global parcel service into the Google search engine and to my astonishment there were very few results. The only results I received were message board posts of http://www.global-parcel-service.org being a front for scams!

The lesson of the day is to do your research! And...as a rule, I NEVER trust any escrow service other than the most reputible http://www.escrow.com.