The Signs of the Scams

Are you interested in making money online? No doubt if you just google these terms, you would find hundreds and thousands of hits. There are many programs out there that claim to be legitimate, but the sad truth is that a whole lot of them are not. 

I have started examining the industry since Dec 24th 2011. The system abounds with here today, gone tomorrow scams. It is said that 9 out of 10 network marketers lose money. Major scams include ponzis, Illegal pyramids, doublers, some HYIPs (High Yield Investment Programmes). As I have studied them, even trying out a few with small sums, I began to see a pattern.

The major red flags, in no particular order, of online (or even offline) businesses are:

1. Owner. Many scams do not have an identifiable owner, as they 'hide' from litigation. This is one of the first things I look for. Other things are more glaring, but this is the first big sign for me as once this is not known, everything else normally falls down.

2. Product. Many of them do not have a substantive product. Just a promise that if you put money in, you get more back ... eventually. 

3. Customers. Non-members have nothing to get from the program. You have to pay and also refer many others to join before you receive anything substantial. Some pay you purely for referring others. This is an illegal Ponzi.

4. Longevity and recyclability. They do not last longer than a few months. I actually saw one startup and shutdown in about 3 weeks. Many of these that do pop back up under a different name later on. And the gullible still jump on.

5. Location.  Many do not put up their base of operations on the home page. This leaves the diligent researcher to do more digging. Searches via whois and other tracking tools come up with domain names that may not match with the purported opp, or even if it is, the address is faked. The people do not want to be found.

6. Contact Info. There is no support line, help desk or even an email address for several of them.

7. Compliance. Many do not seek any compliance with legal processes for running a company. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have published guidelines for online businesses, including affiliate marketing and network marketing companies operating in the US. This was revised just earlier this year and is available online.

8. Taxes. It's quite obvious that scammers are operating outside the law, so they don't charge or pay taxes either. If a business is operating in a country/state, and does trade with another member of that country/or state if US, taxes are usually charged for registered businesses.

9. Financial. Major financial companies want nothing to do with scammers. Thus the process for registering with them is rather lengthy, involved and detailed. So you would not see many scammers providing you with a payment card from MasterCard, for instance. 

10. Withdrawal. Many may show you an accumulation of money in your online business account, ewallet or wherever your earnings are stored for distribution. However, when you attempt to withdraw it to your bank, you get nothing.

While there are more categories to look for, these are the major ones. with all these red flags appearing on so many programs, it is amazing to see so many people still pushing money into them. It's absolutely incredible! I have asked many I meet online to do their due diligence and many don't care to do so. Some even say that knowing who the business leaders is not important. Scary!

So, before you join any program, ensure that you do your due diligence on the above points. My other reviews in future posts would include the above areas. In this way, you would learn how you can make technology work for you - for online income!


Michael Amann

CXC inadvertently encouraging software piracy

I have an issue with CXC's IT coursework, giving SBA's based on Microsoft Office with no alternative.

My 15-yr old son is currently preparing to write CXC exams in May/June. Some of the subjects would have their final marks based on coursework assignments (SBA's), generally due between now and May. He recently got an SBA from the IT course, requiring him to design a mail merge system in MS Word, Excel and Access.

As I do not own the MS Office Suite, I downloaded the trial edition on my netbook just to facilitate his ability to do the coursework. He went by a friend's house so they could work together on it. Unfortunately, while there they came to the realization that the Trial Office edition does not include MS Access. So they went on the friend's system only to get a Genuine Advantage error preventing Office from starting, tipping me off that they had a pirated copy of Office installed.

Many students in the Caribbean may not legitimately have MS Office installed on their home PCs. So they would be forced either to buy it (>TT$2,500) or get a pirated copy from someone so the homework could get done. Some even go so far as to download a 'cracked' copy from certain sites on the Internet, exposing their systems to dangerous trojans or viruses.

This is not right. I refuse to install pirated software so my son could do his homework. In any event, MS Office was never on any booklist, nor was it stated as a pre-requisite for the courses. So why issue an SBA assuming he has it?

Why should CXC favour a commercial package as part of coursework? If the student needs to learn Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Database, etc. a generic free application suite should be used instead. Good suites include OpenOffice, LibreOffice, KOffice or even GoogleDocs. If students happen to have legitimate the Microsoft Suite, they can use that if they wish. Focus should be made on the application genre, not a commercial product!

The argument that the working world uses MS Office is not a good argument. Most people learn to program using Pascal, although professional coders use PHP, Java, Python, C++ and other commercial languages. Why don't the students use another equivalent such as OpenOffice to learn the office productivity software? It is totally free and easily accessible, and can be used on PCs, Macs and Linux systems, thus not locking down students to any OS. They can use it on any system they have and can freely copy it on as much systems as they need without violating any copyright. It is also widely used in educational systems and governments in Australia, Europe and Great Britian.

Why do we have to institutionalize a commercial package in the Caribbean syllabus? This is encouraging piracy as most would not buy this package if it did not come pre-installed on their systems.

As an IT professional, I have lost count of the amount of times that people have come up to me asking if I had 'a copy of' Office 2007 to install on their system. I would tell them the cost of the package and they would 'bawl', but still beg for me to put it on for them anyways. I still put on OpenOffice.org and in many cases they see that it can do all the major things they need to do, including reading and writing in Microsoft file formats. I may alo point out cloud services such as GoogleDocs or ZOHO Office that can also facilitate all their application needs. Yet, in spite of my efforts, aome clients still get a pirated copy from someone else and install it anyway. You see, the 'syllabus' specifically mentions 'Microsoft' products.

Even if it is said that Microsoft has a downloadable free trial edition of Office 2007 or 2010 online, good for 25 uses, thus sufficient for completing the coursework, the SBA requires MS Access which is not included in the free trial. What is the student left to do? Find someone to pirate and edition that includes Access.

It is wrong to institutionalize piracy in this way.

It is wrong!!