If you are an investor looking to truly double your money, you might want to look into HYIP or high yield investment programs. This type of investment always carries a high risk, but when you consider the potential profit, you might find that the risk is well worth it. High yield investment programs have always been around, but have become even better known in recent years as investing online has become more and more common. Despite the risks, many investors continue to take advantage of the awesome selection of HYIPs out there to double their money.
Choosing your HYIPs is something that has to be done on an individual basis because what each person will feel comfortable with is different. There are HYIPs out there that show very little in way the way income, but have high risks. On the flip side, there are HYIPs out there that show a lot of promise for profit, yet they have the same risks associated with the programs that don't guarantee much in the way of profit. You'd obviously want to stick with the second choice if you can tell which HYIP would be more profitable than the other. The key to getting involved in the right type of HYIP is research. Though it may be exciting and easy to just jump at a very promising looking program, you'll want to put the brakes on for long enough that you can check out the company. You want to stick with companies that offer high revenue, but only if they actually payout and give you access to your currency. Do your homework to make the risks worth it; otherwise you'll end up losing money! The more you participate and research HYIPs the more familiar you'll get with the tricks that many of these programs have to keep your money.
If you've invested in high yield investment programs in the past, you know what to expect in the way of scams. If you have never participated in an HYIP before, you'll be want to be extremely careful when first getting your feet wet. Because there is a lot of money to be made with an HYIP, scams are often associated with this type of investment. There are people, and even companies out there, who want you to invest and event to make money, but then they won't want to give any of it back. This is where the research that we mentioned above comes in really handy. Even if a friend or business acquaintance recommends an HYIP to you, you should still research it to be sure it's something that you feel comfortable with. If after looking into it you feel as though the investment and possible income is worth the risk, then go for it. If you do not feel this way, simply do not invest. When it comes to your money, you shouldn't feel pressured to invest at any time. Often, these scams will require you to invest is something that does not even exist, and then, the fraudulent people are off with your money and that of other investors!
Choosing the proper HYIP is something that you will need to do very carefully, and you should only do if you feel completely comfortable with the risks associated with any one investment. Even the most legit HYIP should be approached with caution, and followed up by extensive research. You have to remember when looking at HYIPs that even those that are not scams cannot promise you much in the way of a return. The potential to make a lot of money relatively quickly is there, but it is not a guarantee. Because there is no guarantee when dealing with HYIPs, the more you understand the investment, the better chance you have to succeed with such an investment.
The bottom line is that you stand to earn a great profit with an HYIP, but there are extreme risks and even scams associated with this type of investing. If you know what to expect when you get into the high yield investments, and you know what to look for through research, you'll probably be fine. If you get into an HYIP because you've just heard that it's profitable, you stand to lose a lot of money! Invest smart.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Scam, Fraud and Phishing - How To Avoid The eBay Plagues
If you surf around a little on the internet, you can't avoid hearing of the countless people, that have been scammed at eBay. It seems as if scam, fraud and phishing mails have become the plagues of eBay nowadays.
It's easy to complain about all those desperados and defrauders on a gigantic platform like eBay is one. The eBay empire is a hard to be controlled multi billion dollar business and a fun flea market at one time.
If you have been ripped off, in most cases you can kiss your money goodbye. It's much easier and the best option to avoid being defrauded.
Being a buyer on eBay, it is essential to look at the feedback of a seller. Analyzing the feedback is helpful preventing scams. Sellers who have a large history of sales and a rating of about 98% positive feedback are usually professional to deal with. More than 2-3% negative feedbacks should be a red alarm. The same thing applies for those who do not have feedback ratings at all. But even if you are careful in this point, it is still possible that a scammer has hijacked an account that has positive feedback. Do your background research, knowing as much as possible about the products and the sellers is the best way to protect yourself.
As a buyer you should always make sure to have read the entire product description on an eBay listing. Things to look out for are disclaimers, damages, current item condition, and others. If this information is not specified, it would do well for the buyer to contact the seller regarding such. By the way: if the seller does not respond at all, take your hands off! The price is the next critical point. Think a bit about the value of the item you are interested in. Do a quick research on eBay and the internet. If the price for an item is too good to be true, it not only probably but certainly is. My advice: Auctions at outrageously low prices should be taken skeptically.
As a seller, you can easily avoid many scams with by carefully choosing your payment method among the existing payment processors. eBay owns Paypal, and in most cases accepting only Paypal is indeed the payment method you should use. In case of trouble this way the buyer must dispute a charge back through Paypal.
What you hardly can avoid as a seller is a buyers bidding scam. This type of scam is run with two cooperating separate eBay accounts. A very small bid is placed on your item using the first account. This is followed by a very high bid placed by the second eBay account. This high bid discourages other bidders Seconds before the bidding ends, the high bid is cancelled by the high bidder, leaving the low bid as the winning bid.This bidding scam you can only be avoided by setting a reserve price.The lowest bid that can be placed will be the same as the reserve price that you set.
As both a buyer and a seller, also beware of spoofed emails which appear to be from eBay. The email may claim that you need to verify your information, and ask you to login to your eBay account, using the link provided. If you follow that link, the site looks exactly like eBay, but it is actually a scam to get your eBay login details, as well as your credit card details.
In this connection, one point is obvious: the passing away of common sense. It's a phenomenon not only on eBay, where more and more people disregard the most simple safety rules in handling their eBay-accounts -- wether they are buyers or sellers.
Let us just look at this example: even if you have more than one email-address, would eBay ever use another than your registered email address to send you a members question? It is easy for you to checkl it. Just go to youre my-eBay-site and look, if there is a message for you. If not, delete the mail you've got or report it to eBay.
There are many, many scams and phishing mails which never would damage anyone, if folks would act only a little more carefully! So the most simple advice really is: be careful, use common sense and you will already avoid the majority of scams and frauds, wether you are a buyer or a seller on eBay.
It's easy to complain about all those desperados and defrauders on a gigantic platform like eBay is one. The eBay empire is a hard to be controlled multi billion dollar business and a fun flea market at one time.
If you have been ripped off, in most cases you can kiss your money goodbye. It's much easier and the best option to avoid being defrauded.
Being a buyer on eBay, it is essential to look at the feedback of a seller. Analyzing the feedback is helpful preventing scams. Sellers who have a large history of sales and a rating of about 98% positive feedback are usually professional to deal with. More than 2-3% negative feedbacks should be a red alarm. The same thing applies for those who do not have feedback ratings at all. But even if you are careful in this point, it is still possible that a scammer has hijacked an account that has positive feedback. Do your background research, knowing as much as possible about the products and the sellers is the best way to protect yourself.
As a buyer you should always make sure to have read the entire product description on an eBay listing. Things to look out for are disclaimers, damages, current item condition, and others. If this information is not specified, it would do well for the buyer to contact the seller regarding such. By the way: if the seller does not respond at all, take your hands off! The price is the next critical point. Think a bit about the value of the item you are interested in. Do a quick research on eBay and the internet. If the price for an item is too good to be true, it not only probably but certainly is. My advice: Auctions at outrageously low prices should be taken skeptically.
As a seller, you can easily avoid many scams with by carefully choosing your payment method among the existing payment processors. eBay owns Paypal, and in most cases accepting only Paypal is indeed the payment method you should use. In case of trouble this way the buyer must dispute a charge back through Paypal.
What you hardly can avoid as a seller is a buyers bidding scam. This type of scam is run with two cooperating separate eBay accounts. A very small bid is placed on your item using the first account. This is followed by a very high bid placed by the second eBay account. This high bid discourages other bidders Seconds before the bidding ends, the high bid is cancelled by the high bidder, leaving the low bid as the winning bid.This bidding scam you can only be avoided by setting a reserve price.The lowest bid that can be placed will be the same as the reserve price that you set.
As both a buyer and a seller, also beware of spoofed emails which appear to be from eBay. The email may claim that you need to verify your information, and ask you to login to your eBay account, using the link provided. If you follow that link, the site looks exactly like eBay, but it is actually a scam to get your eBay login details, as well as your credit card details.
In this connection, one point is obvious: the passing away of common sense. It's a phenomenon not only on eBay, where more and more people disregard the most simple safety rules in handling their eBay-accounts -- wether they are buyers or sellers.
Let us just look at this example: even if you have more than one email-address, would eBay ever use another than your registered email address to send you a members question? It is easy for you to checkl it. Just go to youre my-eBay-site and look, if there is a message for you. If not, delete the mail you've got or report it to eBay.
There are many, many scams and phishing mails which never would damage anyone, if folks would act only a little more carefully! So the most simple advice really is: be careful, use common sense and you will already avoid the majority of scams and frauds, wether you are a buyer or a seller on eBay.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
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.
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.
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