Avoiding Scammers

[mahesh2k 0]

This thread is about avoiding some scammers if you’re working online either part time or full time. I’ll explain how you can protect yourself while selling or getting some freelance work or simply some selling of your stuff.

 

Protecting from scammers while selling domains, sites and design etc stuff:

 

Before you give any service like domain, site or design, content you need to find the escrow service that can help you solve the issue if any arises during the deal.

 

escrow?

There are many meanings of escrow term; i’ll stick with meaning that we’re dealing with here. Escrow person or company will be one who middle person is making sure that deal is transparent and there is no panic and cheating on either side. Escrow service takes fee from both side and they ensure success of the deal.

 

Sites like flippa, elance and other freelancing or selling sites ask you to always communicate on channel they provide. So stick with that, if buyer or seller asks you to use MSN/Skype then avoid it and stick to channel that freelance or escrow site provides. Any deal you do outside this window will break you down and you’ll get into scam. It’s better to spend money on escrow and middleman taxes than getting scammed by those buyers. Of course if you’re selling illegal or unworthy product you’ll choose short and fast road and your chances of getting scammed are more.

 

If you’re seller then make sure that you use escrow service, and only transfer site or service when get upfront payment or with acceptance of escrow agreement.

 

1. If you’re buyer then make sure that you get your service as per the deal. Don’t be jerk and ask for more than what you posted in requirements, if you want to add something more to service f*—g pay for it. And if the service provider, designer is not working as per your requirement then make sure you clear that to escrow service about this. Always keep the channel of escrow on your side as it saves many legal hassles.

2. Don’t go by the stars or testimonials of the service or person on the freelancing or selling/buying site. Any known person can misguide you and turn you down in way you can’t assume. Keep yourself open to any possibility and always demand for transparency.

3. Ask question to seller before you make purchase or have project requirement. More questions you get answered before the deal it’s better for you.

4. Never accept the offer of chatting or skype for the deal. Always go by the route of site where you’re making the deal. If the site is not offering escrow service then you need to pay for the service from outside, this costs a little but saves getting scammed.

5. Host your files on site which take fee from you for sale and that way you can protect yourself from those scam buyers.

 

Protecting from PayPal scam:-

 

1. Don’t use PayPal as buy or purchase medium of digital item product. This is because many people will download your product and then ask for a refund which many times paypal gives back to buyer as it protect more buyers than sellers.

 

2. If your product costs more than 20$ then better to go for the shopping cart software like cc revenue or other payment gateway solutions.

 

3. Avoid 7-day or 30-day refund like sales pitch because this will backfire you than help you on sales.

 

4. If your product is downloaded and used as torrent seed/file share by warez person then make sure you make list of those people who refund you money and post your product on forums/torrent. Take the IP address from the file sharing network and then file abuse report to them also ask them to give details of the person who uploaded stuff to their network (rapid-share and mega-upload can give you with request) and by getting those details you can trace the person and then open issue in PayPal help and file abuse against that person to get your money back.

 

5. If your file from network is got hacked and used on warez then sorry, you’re out of luck with refunds. You can only get your revenge by taking their files down. Remember with IP address you can chase them to some extent for money but not always.

 

6. Don’t accept offer of personal payment or even give anyone personal payment. Let them pay some tax for paypal. Rules are rules why break for one and complain when someone breaks your rule?

 

Protecting yourself from buyers/sellers in content sales:

 

If you’re purchasing articles, PLR, blog posting, forum posting or commenting jobs then make sure you use medium where you deal is monitored. With posting of jobs in digital forum, SEO-chat etc. you can’t guarantee about the people who are doing jobs for you.

 

When you buy article/plr stuff which is custom then make sure you input that content into copyscape or other duplicate content finder service that will allow you to check the stuff. If there is grammar or copy mistake then ask the seller to correct it. If not correct and content found to be scraper then report it to site about it.

 

I’ve lot more to share and i’ve taken care of some general advice here and there are no outgoing links cause we can’t edit post here later so i want to make it general advice than advice related to some site.

Edited March 7, 2010 by mahesh2k (see edit history)

[webishqiptar 0]

I have made some research on avoiding scammers, which are increasing in number and this is due to economical and financial globe crisis. Anyone dealing with things like these must be aware of. With identity theft affecting millions of people every year, and those numbers just continue to lift each passing year, it is vital that people are understanding how to defend against these criminals who come up with all sorts of ways to cheat, and steal your money and identity from you. Being that said, I am going to cover the main way that criminals steal personal information online, phishing fraud. First, let us look at just what this kind of fraud, so that you can learn to identify it and avoid it. Mainly it comes in the form of an e-mail that looks like it sent to you a solid and reputable company that you are part of like Facebook, your local credit union, even Ebay or Paypal. This is where the anxiety starts, because the criminals go to great pains to make these emails look legitimate, so many people accept that they come from the business or institution. However, some things that you can search and just be aware of that may help you avoid giving your information to the wrong people. Most importantly, you should always be cautious when it comes to e-mail you receive from any company or institution that you are part. Make sure you know what their policies on what they ask you, because many will never ask you your personal information in e-mail. Another thing you can ever do if you're asked to go to a particular place, it will make sure to type in the main website address is typed in the address bar, rather than click on any link in the email. NEVER do not click no link in the email like this. If a company or institution you are familiar with or related to the actual needs you to contact them, then it can be done through their site. A few other things to be aware of - firstly, most of these types of emails all caught spam filter that comes with most providers of e-mail addresses. However, none of these programs are able to keep 100% of the malicious messages phishing scams from getting to you, so hard to take care of communicating with all the emails. And finally, here a list of some kind - respected companies and institutions, consumers and clients who were influenced in these types of scams so that you can fully appreciate and understand how dangerous these criminals can be - tax authorities, Bank of America, Capital One, Twitter, Ebay, Paypal and Hotmail.

Edited March 7, 2010 by webishqiptar (see edit history)

[mahesh2k 0]

Just wanted to update this thread about the currency exchange scams on internet. If you?re going to transfer your liberty reserve or alert pay cash in order to get bank check or western union then you need to know few things:-1. Unless the currency exchange person has reputation in some forum or system, better not exchange the money with him.2. Avoid currency exchange companies which are not certified with some escrow or have business for longer term.3. If any website is not having credibility and safety related instructions while transfer then avoid those companies.4. exchangezone.com is one site that offers safe exchange and if you follow rules as per their faq/ instruction then you can expect safe exchanges.5. there are some currencies strict pay, moneybookers, perfect money and stormpay which are not quite reliable and there is lot of hassle while transferring money ( as of 2010, not sure what will happen in future) so stick with alertpay, liberty reserve, paypal. 6. If the payment processors are not working for your country then you can use plimus, google checkout or 2checkout. (2checkout has lot of issues) or amazon WS money transfer.