A scam to avoid
Every now and then I'm going to take a bit of time to warn you about some of the scams and schemes that take place, designed to fleece hard working people out of their money. This one has been around for years in mail order, and it's recently found its way onto the internet. Most of you will laugh when you read about it, but believe it or not, many people each year let their greed get the better of them, and fall prey to this rather ridiculous scam.
When this scam was run before the internet, you'd go to your mailbox, and see a letter that was mailed in a brown paper bag with a stamp from Nigeria. There would be a very official looking letter inside, supposedly from some high ranking government official who was looking to flee the country with a substantial sum of money, but needed an American bank account to transfer the money to.
In exchange for use of your bank account, you'd get half the money. And it wasn't "small potatoes" they were talking about either--usually it was in the neighborhood of $10 to $20 million.
As amazing as this sounds, people actually fell for this, and sent the "high official" the information to access their bank account.
Of course what happened was, no deposit was ever made--but a substantial withdrawal was.
Why would people ever give their bank account information to a "high Nigerian official?" It's simple, really--they're blinded by their own greed. Also, they start thinking to themselves, well, what if it isn't $10 million--what if it's only $100,000.00- that's still a lot of money, and I'd be happy with that.
As you've probably seen, this scam is still going strong today, this time via the internet. Sometimes I get two or three emails a day from some "Nigerian official" or "European heiress" offering me millions of dollars in exchange for my "help." Obviously the whole thing is a fraud, and not worthy of paying attention to.
You've probably heard the saying, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." Actually, I think that's a dumb statement, because most people don't have the background to know what "too good to be true" is. If I tell someone they really can make thousands of dollars a day with their own online business, they always say, "Hah, I've heard that one, and it's too good to be true, so it's BS." But they don't have the knowledge, skills, background, or self image to make a correct assessment of that statement, which I happen to know is reality for many successful online marketers. A much better saying is this: if there's no value delivered in exchange for money, than the deal is not worth pursuing. Greed is not what makes a business successful, it's fair (or more than fair) exchange of value. Everyone I know who makes thousands of dollars a day online, delivers great products or services to their customers who come back and buy more. Their customers would only do that if they felt they got good value for their initial purchase--if they felt they were scammed they would never buy again.
The marketplace has an interesting way of correcting itself. So, if you wonder if something is a "scam," ask yourself if you're getting fair value for the money you're putting up, and if you can count on the other party to deliver what they promised. Do this with every purchase, and your life will quickly improve.
Let's get to it...
Mr. X.
Group M Marketing
Kimble and Kennedy Publishing
When this scam was run before the internet, you'd go to your mailbox, and see a letter that was mailed in a brown paper bag with a stamp from Nigeria. There would be a very official looking letter inside, supposedly from some high ranking government official who was looking to flee the country with a substantial sum of money, but needed an American bank account to transfer the money to.
In exchange for use of your bank account, you'd get half the money. And it wasn't "small potatoes" they were talking about either--usually it was in the neighborhood of $10 to $20 million.
As amazing as this sounds, people actually fell for this, and sent the "high official" the information to access their bank account.
Of course what happened was, no deposit was ever made--but a substantial withdrawal was.
Why would people ever give their bank account information to a "high Nigerian official?" It's simple, really--they're blinded by their own greed. Also, they start thinking to themselves, well, what if it isn't $10 million--what if it's only $100,000.00- that's still a lot of money, and I'd be happy with that.
As you've probably seen, this scam is still going strong today, this time via the internet. Sometimes I get two or three emails a day from some "Nigerian official" or "European heiress" offering me millions of dollars in exchange for my "help." Obviously the whole thing is a fraud, and not worthy of paying attention to.
You've probably heard the saying, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." Actually, I think that's a dumb statement, because most people don't have the background to know what "too good to be true" is. If I tell someone they really can make thousands of dollars a day with their own online business, they always say, "Hah, I've heard that one, and it's too good to be true, so it's BS." But they don't have the knowledge, skills, background, or self image to make a correct assessment of that statement, which I happen to know is reality for many successful online marketers. A much better saying is this: if there's no value delivered in exchange for money, than the deal is not worth pursuing. Greed is not what makes a business successful, it's fair (or more than fair) exchange of value. Everyone I know who makes thousands of dollars a day online, delivers great products or services to their customers who come back and buy more. Their customers would only do that if they felt they got good value for their initial purchase--if they felt they were scammed they would never buy again.
The marketplace has an interesting way of correcting itself. So, if you wonder if something is a "scam," ask yourself if you're getting fair value for the money you're putting up, and if you can count on the other party to deliver what they promised. Do this with every purchase, and your life will quickly improve.
Let's get to it...
Mr. X.
Group M Marketing
Kimble and Kennedy Publishing
