SCAM - - a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation…

We are all afraid that some business we get into mightturn out to be a scam. But sometimes the personal needsof individuals outweigh the thought process needed torecognize that something could be fraudulent. Many peopleare looking for ways to make extra money and the Internetcan provide many ways to accomplish that need. But it canalso provide an easy vehicle for individuals to losetheir hard earned dollars.

We recently did some research on a program that we wereinterested in and found that the entire operation wasquite questionable. While we couldn’t prove that it wasoutright fraudulent at this point, we saw enough risksto say no, we are going to put up any money. We alsoadvised the 90+ people who joined based on our referraland most have told us that they are passing it up too.

Sometimes all it takes is to do a little checking on yourown behalf. Sure it takes time but if you invest a littleof that time up front you may save a lot of futureheadaches. Sometimes when you do a couple of checks youmay find that a lot of the work has already been donefor you and is posted on sites that are available for yourreview.

The following are some sites and suggestions you mightconsider in checking that program out that you areconsidering. These are by no means all that are out there.You can go to one of the major search engines and searchon scams and find many more resources.

Victims Against Scamshttp://pub31.ezboard.com/fvictimsagainstscamsfrm60

International Council of Online Professionalshttp://www.i-cop.org/pledge/1029.htm

In an effort to keep fraudsters from slipping through thecracks, the US government has created The Sentinel. It’s anonline database of all sorts of information regarding Internetscams and fraud.http://www.consumer.gov/sentinel/

The Better Business Bureau Onlinehttp://www.bbbonline.org/

Internet ScamBustershttp://www.scambusters.org/

The National Fraud Information Centerhttp://www.fraud.com/

The Federal Trade Commissionhttp://www.ftc.gov

Look at a program and ask yourself some of these questions:

Is the product something that I would be proud to sellor promote? If the answer is no, then stay away.

Make sure that there is an actual service or product that youwill be selling. If you are just going to get paid for everynew member you recruit, then it may very well be an illegalpyramid or ponzi scheme.

Is there contact information easily available at the site?Do they show their email addresses, street address, names ofprincipals, company name, telephone number? Send them aquestion and see if you get an answer or an automatic reply.

If you have a address or telephone number go towww.yellowpages.com or www.whitepages.com and check them out.You can use the telephone number and do a “reverse directorycheck” which checks the telephone number and gives you anname and address if one is on file.

Check out the web site’s domain name athttp://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whoisJust enter the domain name i.e., whatevername.comand you can determine who the administrative contact,normally the owner, where they are located and howlong the site has been registered.

Do they offer you a free promotional site for youruse with your own personal referral code? If you have topay your entry or membership fee and then find out you haveto pay another $100 or so to get a promotional site andemail advertising package, and that is the only way theyallow you to promote it, be leery. They are making theirmoney up front. I don’t believe that you should have topay a company for basic promotional tools to promote theircompany. They can take the expense off as a business expenseif they are for real.

Of course you will still have to make an informed decisionon your own after doing your research. But you may findenough information from any one of these resources or allof them to sway you one way or the other. Just make aninformed decision before you spend your hard earned moneyand resources.

Joe Reinbold, Publisher of Home Income QuarterlyE-dition, a free weekly on line marketing newsletter. Tosubscribe just mailto:subscribe@homebizlink.com Or visitThe Entrepreneur’s Home Business Link where you will findthe solutions to your home business needs at:http://www.homebizlink.com