Look before you leap

What is the one thing that an Internet scam aims to do? Simple answer: separate you from your money. Solution: look carefully at any offer to help you to earn money that requires you to pay the company anything at all that seems excessive.

Paying for value received is one thing, paying for the benefit of being able to sell someone else's products is a benefit only to the company. It is also a warning to be careful.

That does not mean that all companies asking you to pay something for membership, services or products are scams. It does mean that you should check carefully.

Costly experience teaches lesson

This advice comes from my own costly experience. I, and thousands of others, paid from $1,900 to $44,900 each for Internet malls. The more you paid the greater the guaranteed annual income if purchasers worked a minimum of 10 hours a week. The top package was guaranteed to earn $200,000 a year, or your money back.

We should all have smelled something strange when, for a Wilmington, Delaware company, our payment had to be transferred to an Israeli bank.

No income, no response to all my e-mails, no return of my money…nothing at all.

It was not until that point that I decided to check the company out on the Internet. That's when I learned the lesson I am about to teach you. Before you pay a single red cent to take part in a business opportunity, check the company out on the Internet. Complaints show up on Google, Yahoo! and other major search engines. They are also easy to find on any of the following websites:

www.billingtracker.com/ http://badbusinessbureau.com/ www.scam.com/ http://netscams.golden.net/

You can register your own complaints at any of these sites, and you should. You can also register a complaint at http://www.ifccfbi.gov/index.asp with the Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC). It is a partnership

It's been said often enough that if an idea looks too good to be true, it probably is. And I have to admit that $44,900 for a guaranteed $200,000 a year for 10 hours' work a week is too good to be true. But they were so convincing.

'Maybe' is no guarantee

Look carefully for phrases that say 'you can earn…' or 'projected income is…' Read them wrongly and they appear to be sure-fire promises. They are professionally written to give exactly this appearance to the unwary. They mean absolutely nothing in a legal sense.

Check the Better Business Bureau, though it will only tell you about ongoing disputes, not those that have been settled. Check with the BBB in your locality and in the community in which the company's head office is located.

But perhaps the most reliable route is to ask trusted friends who have been involved. After all, if they have made money and received support, training, and complete answers to questions, the chances are that the business is legitimate.

That does not mean to say that you will make money with it, but the chances are far better than they are with a scam outfit.

Remember, if they want a serious amount of your money, keep your guard up and get ready to run at the slightest sign that something is fishy.