Make money online? The most useful site on the internet. Wealth Matrix Review
If you’re trying to make a living online then you’re exploring a veritable minefield, seemingly designed to part you from your money and give as little in return as possible. Here are 10 real strategies that will help avoid trouble and even a few that will help after a bad experience.
So, if you’ve lost your job and there’s no sign of another anywhere, you might be wondering if you can make money online. The answer is that plenty of everyday people already do, and you can too. Inevitably this will mean buying information or products online to further your learning curve.
Make money online - methods examined; Wealth Matrix Review
It doesn’t matter whether you’re new and nervous when considering a financial transaction on the internet or an old hand, there are pitfalls aplenty. However a little caution goes along way and if you know a few simple warning signs you can be a lot safer.
1 - ‘Make Money Online’ Websites and others.
Problem: When purchasing from a make money online website, try to locate any ‘contact us’ information. If you cannot find any ‘contact us’ information in the sales page or in the web pages, you can be certain there’s no way to ask for help, or your money back. Transactions with ‘make money online’ web sites need a little more caution than others.
Solution; The answer is simple; don’t do business with a company without contact information. A posted email address and a street address are poor quality contact information as they can be faked, but a phone number is a big plus for your protection. An address can be a wild goose chase but if you phone their number to confirm someone is present you now have information that police can verify.
Problem: When paying through a website, be alert to a page that says they accept Clickbank or Paypal or any other financial transaction site, but when you are further into the payment process somehow you are not on the official pages of any of those companies. You are being either the victim of an outright theft where you’ll receive no product at all, or the company is selling a defective or poor quality product and wants control of the many refund requests, or they have been banned from using Clickbank/PayPal/other.
Solution: Watch the URL or search bar at the top of your screen to see that the web address stays correct for the company you’re using. You can often report fraudulent or problem url’s to the correct company. For example problems can be reported to PayPal at spoof at paypal.com.
Any website that officially includes Clickbank, Paypal, is a site you can trust. These companies provide straightforward refunds in the event of legitimate complaints.
2 - Fake or Clone Websites
Problem: Fake websites are ones that cleverly resemble large commercial sites we all may already know of, but if you glance at the url or search bar at the top of your screen you’ll see that the url has changed from the right one, sometimes only slightly.
Don’t be tempted to look around the site or contact them, they will almost certainly have malware, viruses and other software creatures that will try to get your passwords from your computer even when you’re no longer signed onto the culprit. Sites that are often cloned are; paypal, banking sites, any financial movement site.
Solution: Watch the url or site address closely. Sites that are clones will have url’s similar to the real site in order to deceive us, but they can easily be spotted. Anything between the www and the .com other than the company’s proper name indicates another site entirely. Eg the word security or sign on page added to the company’s name between the www and the .com illustrates a fake name.
Example good; website.com/signon, or website.com/security/account
Example deceptive; websitesignon.com or websitesecurityaccount.com
3 - Internet Auctions
Problem: Sites such as EBay or Craig’s List rely on the trustworthiness of people using their services but it’s not hard for dishonest people to become a member using false information and once your money has been sent you receive no goods.
Solution: Paypal offers some protection and recovering of funds if they have confirmed the seller’s home address, however a simple trick can help tremendously. When you’ve bought something and are in email contact with the seller, request a phone number ‘just to confirm a detail or two’, and then call that number. If they disappear later, then police will confront the identity registered to that phone number. It’s not perfect, but better than showing the police an address that leads to an empty lot.
4 - Reviews, General
Problem: Product and personnel reviews abound but be wary of most. A small percentage of unethical ones deliberately malign a good product or person and then push their own agenda. Many others have better intentions but have been composed to promote a blog or website and often come from well meaning people promoting their own business, but they are less than objective and the headline isn’t telling the absolute truth.
Solution:Reviews online nevertheless can be useful. In reading reviews look for the factual descriptions of what the business does and how it does it, then try to decide if the type of internet business will suit you and be objective about the writer’s enthusiasm
5 - Fake Reviews
Problem: You’ve just bought something on the internet, or are considering it when you begin to notice numerous ads that claim, or appear to claim, that product X is a fraud or a scam.
Solution: If you click on the ads or follow their links you’ll find only a line or two about the alleged offender but a lot of promotional material with links to product xxx. These are not real reviews, only advertising, you can safely ignore them, and if you bought product xyz you don’t need to worry.
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6 - E Mails
The Big Problem: You know there are fake emails promoting a variety of fraudulent schemes, and also emails that bring viruses, how do you know what is safe and what isn’t?
The Simple Solution A: There are a few simple tricks that give a lot more peace of mind. If you receive an email you weren’t expecting, ignore it. If the email you weren’t expecting also has an attachment never open it. Delete them all, unopened if you’re able to.
The Simple Solution B: All major email services these days provide anti spam protection and also an option called ‘filters’. Make sure your anti spam box is ticked for on. When or if you notice spam emails in the inbox, send it to the spam box. This teaches your computer the phrases you consider to be spam related, and as time goes by it learns to send them to the spam box automatically.
Use the email filters: The option called filters on your email service is very useful. You can make sure emails from any source you nominate, goes directly to any folder you create. ie mail from Mary will go to a folder called ‘friends’, or perhaps ‘Mary’, or perhaps if you don’t like Mary, they go straight to the trash file. You have the options within the filter set up to tell them what to look for and where to end up. Within a few weeks you can steer most of the spams and scams away from your main email, and be mostly free of email worries.
Problem: Tall Stories etcetera. Emails asking for funds to help a friend you know by name have recently been launched. It’s a new scam that involves breaking into several email accounts for your address and your friend’s name. The email always says to keep it quiet, and not to mention that your friend needs money or he’ll be embarrassed.
Solution A: Make certain you ask around to find out if your friend really is in trouble.
Solution B: Email scams are always discussed on the internet. Search on Google, Yahoo or MSN under the type of email subject you’re asking about, and add the words scam, or scam email? You’ll be surprised at the wealth of information others just like you are willing to share.
Problem: Somehow you do end up with an email virus, now what?
Solution: Don’t worry, they can all be either cleared away or isolated/quarantined. Employ normal anti virus techniques, see number 10 of this article. It is also possible to somewhat immunize your computer against various viruses, giving you some protection against viruses that take you by surprise.
7 - The Better Business Bureau
Problem:You’ve spent money and afterwards discover you’ve been taken for a ride.
Solution A: Before you get into a problem…always use consumer complaint agencies to do a little research, it only takes a minute. The Better Business Bureau is probably the best overall, as well as TheRipOffReport.com. Also consider USA state agencies like the Attorney Generals Office website, they’re often a focal point for complaints from local state residents about fraudulent businesses. Use the USA based agencies for reference even if you’re in another country, they have a large pool of information to work with.
Read any customer complaints to decide for your self if it sounds like a difficult customer or instead reveals a companies repeat patterns of refusing refunds or refusing to address complaints in general.
Be very wary of companies that have numerous requests for unfulfilled refunds, it’s an indicator the product is not adequate, the advertising has been misleading or the product is not what you expect.
Solution B: You’ve lost money, now what? Go to the BBB and the Rip Off Report to find out what action others might be taking against the company. Join forces with other victims. File your own report on the problem, even if you’re the first. Document and takes notes of every interaction you have with the company while seeking a refund. Contact the FBI. This sounds like overkill but they track crooks over long time periods while they build a case. Contact your state Attorney Generals Office, there will probably be others in the same position, join forces with them. You will also probably find that many companies are required to lodge a large amount of cash as a bond against complaints. Even if the company won’t refund you, an Attorney Generals office has the authority via court actions, to take from that bond to refund customer complaints.
Solution C: Ask for help from your credit card company. If you purchased anything with a credit card you have 12 months to cancel the transaction. You will have to make a declaration as to why. If you’re having repayment problems on your credit card and at least some of the debt is from a bad transaction, a credit card company can aggressively go after the funds and create prosecutions. Fraudulent companies love to use earnings disclaimers, however they are widely seen as a screen to hide behind, and despite the strong wording the disclaimer may have little authority, especially once a credit card company with real lawyers gets involved.
Solution D:Lastly, if you’re truly upset, do some thorough research. You’ll be surprised what a trail of broken laws crooks leave, things like not paying taxes ( and therefore keeping the business in the wife’s name), or conducting an improper business across state lines. There might be a number of federal agencies who would love to hear your complaint and where the crook can be found. Do your due diligence and you’ll make friends in law enforcement.
8 - Nevada Registered Companies
Problem:You’ve found a tempting product but when you do a background check the company has had numerous addresses across the US in different states, and now is doing business from Nevada.
Solution:Do thorough background research. Be very wary of what you’re getting into. Consumer protection laws in Nevada are fewer than most. Many fly by night businesses and con artists do business from Nevada to make prosecution as difficult and unlikely as possible. Contact the Attorney General’s office in Las Vegas for more information.
9 - Viruses, Virus Protection and EBay
Problem: You visit a popular website and later your computer starts misbehaving. If it’s EBay you’ll notice unauthorized activity such as false listings and cancellations, your listings get mysteriously scrambled, and your password won’t let you back into your account.
Popular websites are notorious for being targeted by the bad guys who infect them with key stroke counters and other malware. EBay is one of the best known and most widely used, and abused. Extended surfing of ebay will attract the attention of malware. If your EBay account is also linked to Paypal and Esnipe and others, the virus will go there too, waiting for you to sign on.
Solution 1: Don’t surf EBay while signed in to your account. If you see items that have your interest, write down their item number and make a list. Later, sign back on properly, but don’t surf around, simply go to the items and save them to your watch list, the idea is not to create too much attention getting activity.
Solution 2: If you do get invaded, delete any affected sites from your bookmarks/favorites list, then thoroughly put anti virus programs to work, and remember to use a good defrag program when finished.
You can re-save the sites to bookmarks when the virus is gone.
Until the virus is cleared do not use other sensitive sites such as for banking or credit cards as there is a risk the virus is waiting to learn those sign on passwords and user names too.
Solution 3: One common virus will also cause an ‘expired security certificate’ to appear. You’ll be unable to log on without negotiating certain instructions. The answer is that the virus has probably interfered with your computers clock/calendar settings. On Windows XP this is in the lower right corner of the screen. Right click and go to ‘adjust Date/Time’, and make it read today’s date. The out of date security certificate problem will not reappear.
Solution 4: Also remember to change the user name and password on every directly affected account before using them again.
Design a complicated password, the hassle of using it is more than offset by the trouble you’ll avoid.
Solution 5: Often overlooked is that prolonged ebay surfing will log jam your computer, making it run slower and slower and more erratically. Each item you open becomes a layer of information your next search has to negotiate. The layers build up until even the fastest computer gets well, constipated. The answer is to close out of EBay around each 15 minutes and check back in for more surfing.
10 - Discovering a Scam
Problem: You purchase a service or item from a website company. You discover on your payment information that instead of the payment going to the company name it is instead going to an individual, either the company owner, his wife, his brother, his crooked partner, etcetera.
Solution A:A payment that goes to an individual and bypasses the business name is highly suspicious. If the payment is received by a person in an Asian or Eastern European country chances are pretty good you’ve been scammed and the money gone. However alert the payment processing company such as PayPal and they may be able to get a refund and ban the crook from their services. If the crook is in a western country ie UK they may go to a prosecution when they locate the person.
Solution B: If the payment is going to an individual, not a company name, and you’re also not getting what you paid for, then go to as many government agencies as you think appropriate. If a business or person is not what they seem there will be a reason for it. Contact the tax department, the Attorney Generals Office, and the FBI. Take action.
Conclusion - Protection
Problem: You see several cautionary points combined in or around one business or web site that you’d like to do business with.
Solution: Stay away. Good businesses simply don’t accumulate multiple complaints of these types.
Protection:
A - If you’ve been scammed, don’t be shy, contact law enforcement, even if the problem is in another country. Many internet scams originate from the UK. The UK also has very active enforcement against scam artists. Even if your transaction details are lost or faked, simply telling the police the amount involved can identify a fraudulent transaction and lead to a prosecution.
B - To get feedback about a ‘make money online’ product visit ‘Warrior Forum’. This is a large active site that discusses various online money making techniques, you can ask others for feedback about your product of interest.
B - To do a product or company search;
Better Business Bureau under consumer business reviews.
To do a product, company or person search;
The Rip Off Report under consumer and search by company name or person.
C - Use the internet to research before buying anything of real value or high price. Use search terms such as; ‘product X scam’? ‘Product x consumer reports’, ‘product X complaint’.
D - For virus clearing and protection search for; ‘free anti virus software’. SpyBot, AdaWare, AVG, are just a few of the good, free programs available. Set one up to be immunize your computer, and to do a once per day scan of your system.
E - To help your computer get back to speed search for; ‘free defrag program’. Auslogics has a good product.
The most useful site on the internet if you want to make money online, Wealth Matrix Review