Getting Scammed Online Seems To Be Never Ending

[the best of the best]

About one month ago, I got an email from a david_scott19@lycos.com asking me if I wanted to become a secret shopper for him. So believing him I gave him my home address ,my email address ,and my name. I received an envelope in the mail a few days later with a printed paper telling me what to do and where to go, Plus a check for $1788.10 for being a secret shopper . My commission for doing this was $200.00 and $1500.00 were to be purchased onto 3 different green dot money pak cards and to send the report back to him in an email along with the pin numbers off of the back of the green dot cards, so,being an honest and trusting man that I am. I went about doing what I was told to do and purchased the 3 $500.00 cards and emailed everything back to him just as I was told to do.Then about a week later I received another package with another check in it, I took this check up to my bank to deposit it into my bank account,luckily my bank ran that check and returned it to me as being fraud. That meant that the first check was fraud as well. Now I am stuck with a bank account that is majorly overdrawn. People may laugh at me about this,thats ok,but this really happened to me. Some people are to good to be true,like me I am a brutally honest man and believe mostly what people tell me. From what I can tell there are more scams online than there are legitimate offers. I wish there was some way of removing all of these scams and get back to being truthful,because all of the scams out there are making all the good guys look bad.If something is not done about this problem the internet is going to go down .

[paulserban]

Daily, in my inbox (or spam) are coming tens of offers like that. I report them like phishing to spam@uce.gov hopping somebody will do something with this scammers.

[Darren Olander]

Sorry to hear of what happened to you. Unfortunately even when scammers like that are caught, there are always more of them.. the best way to defeat them is to stay educated and careful on such things and try to let others know. Thanks for sharing.

[Matt Koshko]

Yikes, sorry to read this happened to you! A very similar process has been used for years, targeting people whom, like yourself, are too kind to think someone would scam you. In fact, online job boards with opportunities listed as 'remote' have seen the same tactic used.

 

As Darren stated, stay educated and certainly don't be afraid to ask questions. Heck, feel free to post in the discussions here if you're unsure of a situation - we can at least give you our opinion.

[aronprins]

So sorry to hear this man!

I personally never do anything that gets in my mail cause from the 1st moment I'd consider it to be a scam.

 

Read yourself into online marketing and mail scams.

Good luck man!

 

Cheers,
Aron

[Johann]

So sorry to hear this things  happened

Thanks for sharing.

Johann

[Shon Jimenez]

I've been where you are now. Back in 2004 I had an eBay business, notice I said I had. I was selling music equipment that I was able to get real cheap and one day I sold $4k to someone in Chicago. They sent me a money order. I deposited it, and shipped the items. Two weeks later after I had spent the money, my bank calls me and says I owe them $4198. The money order was fake, a counterfeit.

 

They threatened me with legal action if I didn't return the money within 24 hours. So I called the police department and filed a complaint of fraud against the buyer. They determined that I wasn't apart of creating the counterfeit money order, but I had to make my bank whole. It took my 6 months to fix that mess and I quit selling on eBay after that deal.

 

It's a sad reality that there are 10 scammers for every honest person. People become blinded when it comes to dealing with money.

 

About 5 years ago I answered an ad in the paper about a "job" that dealt with receiving cashiers checks and submitting them to the proper recipients. I knew that was a scam right away. I went ahead and let them send me the cashiers check so I could turn it over to the authorities and try the shut down the person who placed the ad. We took the cashiers check to the bank and had the bank check it and sure enough, it was a forged cashier check drawn off a real account, some poor persons bank account who had been compromised.

 

So now I live by the rule that if someone contacts me about sending me any time of money, it's a scam. Hell, you can't even sell your car in the paper without someone from overseas trying to tell you they will send a money order for $5k over so the rest can go to a shipping company. That's a scam. Don't fall for these things, even if you really need the money bad. It will always come back to you.

[Francisc Mos]

This crooks are making more money than the honest people do,and when they get caught if they ever do,they get a slap on the hand. And now after the global financial crisis ,we find out even the biggest banks behave dishonestly.SO where and whom to trust anymore?IT looks like Old Held Values are Dead. 

[Maria McCarthy]

Sorry that happened to you, Paul! These things always happen to the nicest people. Like  Matt said, when you are nice... it's hard for you to believe others could be so cruel. Tough lesson to learn. My thoughts are with you.

[Guest MarketingYouControl]

 

 

It's a sad reality that there are 10 scammers for every honest person. People become blinded when it comes to dealing with money.

 

 

 

Where are you getting this made up number?

I think it is not even relevant how many honest people are there

in relation to dishonest people.

 

The real problem is "you" - the true "yourself" (not you personally Shon, everybody including ME!).

People do NOT "become blinded" - they ARE BLIND and not willing to educate themselves 

and rather believe "fake" strategies from people who have no proven track record in coaching

other people or being a role model that can be followed.

 

My antidote is to get people read the book "The Millionaire Fastlane" from MJ DeMarco because

it uncovers the "guru" problem that is behind MOST of those strategies and things.

 

The root is in faulty thinking and believe systems in the first place - why people fall for scams and

non-working solutions. And I am not talking about "positive thinking" stuff here.

 

I personally did fall for a lot of faulty products and scandalous companies over the last 20 years

online - however (like you can see my review here for example about the Twice Confirmed Traffic 

guys!) - I always did learn something from them and in most cases got my full money back with them!

 

http://www.marketingcheckpoint.com/topic/468-avoid-twice-confirmed-traffic-at-all-cost/

 

Conclusion: Don't blame the "Internet", BLAME YOURSELF.

 

Yes that hurts, but it the true problem.

 

Don't beat yourself up though - just face the fact that you bought into something

that you should have thought twice about it. Change your thought process and educate

yourself with REAL business strategies instead that work.

 

There IS NO SHORTCUT to success, it always involves the process of

Betting YOURSELF - the more YOU grow, the more your bankroll and your success will grow!

 

 

 

[Shon Jimenez]

You must not get to see behind the scene's very much. When working with the police to help stop some of this stuff we found thousands of sites selling stolen credit card, bank info, your social security number. Don't be nieve. There are far more crooks online trying to make a living the easy way, then there are honest people trying to make an honest living. 

 

The number is not made up out of thin air. We did a lot of work tracking down, not only the owner of the sites selling the credit card, bank info, but we also went after the people buying the info. I think you would be really shocked to see just how many people there are trying to buy and sell your social security number/bank info.

 

We found our own info on 30 of the sites we found. So don't think someone not out to scam you, me and everyone else in this room. I could give you a list of these "secret" rooms and you'd probably find your own info in there. They had over 200 million records for sale on just one of those sites.

 

 

 

Where are you getting this made up number?
I think it is not even relevant how many honest people are there
in relation to dishonest people.

The real problem is "you" - the true "yourself" (not you personally Shon, everybody including ME!).

People do NOT "become blinded" - they ARE BLIND and not willing to educate themselves 

and rather believe "fake" strategies from people who have no proven track record in coaching
other people or being a role model that can be followed.

My antidote is to get people read the book "The Millionaire Fastlane" from MJ DeMarco because
it uncovers the "guru" problem that is behind MOST of those strategies and things.

The root is in faulty thinking and believe systems in the first place - why people fall for scams and
non-working solutions. And I am not talking about "positive thinking" stuff here.

 

I personally did fall for a lot of faulty products and scandalous companies over the last 20 years
online - however (like you can see my review here for example about the Twice Confirmed Traffic 

guys!) - I always did learn something from them and in most cases got my full money back with them!

 

http://www.marketingcheckpoint.com/topic/468-avoid-twice-confirmed-traffic-at-all-cost/

 

Conclusion: Don't blame the "Internet", BLAME YOURSELF.

Yes that hurts, but it the true problem.

 

Don't beat yourself up though - just face the fact that you bought into something

that you should have thought twice about it. Change your thought process and educate
yourself with REAL business strategies instead that work.

There IS NO SHORTCUT to success, it always involves the process of

Betting YOURSELF - the more YOU grow, the more your bankroll and your success will grow!

 

 

[Guest MarketingYouControl]

Shon Jimenez - I am far from naive. People ordered a Ferrari in my name, software I have developed is being sold with cracked licenses, I have seen it all. In fact I am not even using Facebook to protect my identity. The reason why I did post a reply was actually the original title of this subject of the post which was:

 

Getting Scammed Online Seems To Be Never Ending

 

And my focus of my answer was: in order to be stopped "getting scammed" you need to change YOURSELF - in fact, Shon, there will be always people who will try to scam people and there will be people who will try to "steal" your business and identity, but that is the wrong focus in order to "defend" youself against those scams.

 

You know there are many "anti-scam"-websites out there but often all what they do is telling people what does not work and in the end it looks for people as "everything out there is a scam". When it comes to protect yourself against scams the only thing is to develop YOURSELF as a person and add real business know how and not looking for "quick solutions" and "quick fixes" to get rich without efforts.

People fall into the belief that it is possible to get something for nothing ("get rich without any work"), and forget that there are "get rich quick" strategies that work (BUT: not "get rich overnight rich" and not "get rich without putting work into it".)

That was the intention of answering the post.

 

In focusing on the SCAMS and the scam artists and companies the focus is on the wrong part,
you have to focus ON YOURSELF.

If you CANT resist though to educate yourself about scams read

the book from Simon Lovell:

How to Cheat at Everything: A Con Man Reveals the Secrets of the Esoteric Trade of Cheating, Scams, and Hustles

[John Priestley]

Thank you all for sharing. Who said, "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is."?? I know you can't always be sure, but there are lots of signals. If you have won something and you haven't entered a competition - if you are asked to pass a cheque through your account and send money on (the authorities love this types of money laundering and will jump on you eventually) - if anything smells a bit fishy, it probably is and it is best to leave it alone. That is my two-pennies' worth (smile).

 

Have a good one, John.

[Vic Bilson]

Sorry to hear you got ripped off.  It seems to be more common these days as scammers are pretty much freely operating on the web.  You've got to really do your due diligence before getting involved with anything.

[mlksjr74]

About one month ago, I got an email from a david_scott19@lycos.com asking me if I wanted to become a secret shopper for him. So believing him I gave him my home address ,my email address ,and my name. I received an envelope in the mail a few days later with a printed paper telling me what to do and where to go, Plus a check for $1788.10 for being a secret shopper . My commission for doing this was $200.00 and $1500.00 were to be purchased onto 3 different green dot money pak cards and to send the report back to him in an email along with the pin numbers off of the back of the green dot cards, so,being an honest and trusting man that I am. I went about doing what I was told to do and purchased the 3 $500.00 cards and emailed everything back to him just as I was told to do.Then about a week later I received another package with another check in it, I took this check up to my bank to deposit it into my bank account,luckily my bank ran that check and returned it to me as being fraud. That meant that the first check was fraud as well. Now I am stuck with a bank account that is majorly overdrawn. People may laugh at me about this,thats ok,but this really happened to me. Some people are to good to be true,like me I am a brutally honest man and believe mostly what people tell me. From what I can tell there are more scams online than there are legitimate offers. I wish there was some way of removing all of these scams and get back to being truthful,because all of the scams out there are making all the good guys look bad.If something is not done about this problem the internet is going to go down .

I once was going to do the same in 2010 and 2011, this was before I found a real internet opportunity. The secret shopper was a thought for a while for me, I'm from a small village in the Bush of Alaska so that secret shopper was not for me. If I was from the city or town I may have done that, but I'm glad that never happened. Thanks for the info. about that and sorry you went threw that bad experience, in was we all make a bad mistake in our life, but we learn from them.

[John Priestley]

Are there legitimate secret shoppers or are they all scams? has anyone got experience of earning anything this way?

 

Best regards, John.

[Steve Man]

That's very off putting for you the person responsible needs a baseball bat taking to his legs and break all his bones in his hands to help stop him typing any more scams. This is the only thing they will understand. Please do not be put off by these scammers there are more good people online than bad.

[Edwal Richards]

Real sorry to hear about your incident. There are so many scammers out there we just have to be very wary and be diligent when choosing our opportunities.

[Guest Clare Johnson]

Sorry to hear what happened to you but appreciate you sharing your story so that others can learn.  Once bitten, twice shy...life is a learning curve, hey.

[xiqual]

Not fair at all, but...

as other members said,

now you will SURE pay attention to 

warning signals. 

 

First rule of Reality: "There's NO FREE LUNCH."

[John Priestley]

Is there a single place where people can register scams so that it is easier to find out what to avoid?

 

Best regards and looking forward to hearing from you soon, John.

[Jerry Iannucci]

Is there a single place where people can register scams so that it is easier to find out what to avoid?

 

http://www.imreportcard.com is pretty good.

[John Priestley]

Look before you leap, that's what my mum used to say (smile).

 

Have a good one, John.