To help you decide what is feasible and desirable for you to pursue you need specialized in depth information. That is especially true when it comes to choosing which income production opportunities to go for and which ones to avoid like the plague.
There are so many out there and so many different gurus making all kinds of claims, it can be very hard to separate the legitimate and real opportunities from the snake oil covered scams and ripoffs just trying to separate you from as much of your money as possible as fast as possible.
There are far more of those than there are legitimate real opportunities that can help you build a real business and help you build a better life. So many people do get scammed.
Here are 12 Ways to Help You Identify a Scam
1. High Earnings Claims – They flash bank statements, income statements and related imagery onscreen claiming you too can make this kind of money almost immediately.
2. Turnkey System Requireing Little to No Work – That is total B.S. and a very red flag warning to you! think about it, if there really was any such thing as an “automated turnkey money machine” then why would they even be trying to sell you anything? They wouldn’t because they would just be printing all the money they could ever want or need with their own “money machine” turn key automated system themselves.
3. Anyone Can Be Successful Doing It! – They claim it is EASY and that ANYONE can do it if they just follow the system and the process and of course pay the fee to get access to all that. Yeah, right! In reality not everyone can do everything. People have different skill sets and levels. They have different work ethics too – and all these and other factors play into who will be successful and who will fail – even with ligitimate real income production opportunities. Not everyone will be successful at anything – period. So if they are claiming otherwise then you KNOW they are already LYING to YOU!
4. No Contact Information – Or fake non working emails or message systems. Send them a message and ask a question and see if you get a response at all. If they are collecting email addresses they are required to at least have a PO Box address – if that is missing it is another major red flag!
5. Vague and Sketchy Description – They talk alot and say nothing. They do not like to tell you specifically what their “Secret Sytem” is actually going to help you do. They are very intentionally vague on details. Are you selling rpoducts they created, selling other peoples products as an affiliate, recruting members into the system or some combination – or doing something else entirely? If so – what SPECIFICALLY will you be learning to do? If theydo not and will not clearly explain that much – then you might want to seriously consider skipping their so called “opportunity”.
6. Excessive Urgency Offer – They claim extreme scarcity and pressure you to act NOW – or lose out on some super duper deal. Often there will be a countdown clock clicking down before your offer runs out. Yet if you leave the site, clear your browser or log in from another computer – the available number of “opportunities” has not decreased and the same silly ass countdown timer starts all over again. This is shady and scammy and is certainly a RED FLAG WARNING to you that you need to proceed with extreme caution or turn around and exit now!
7. High PressureTactics – Many scam and ripoff programs will use every trick in the book to pressure you into acting immediately to but their course or membership. Even then they will be trying to upsell you before you even buy anything.
8. Long Sales Pages With Little Specific Information – They like to use flashy and long winded sales copy that rambles on forever. It may have videos and other links to audio recordings and webinars. None of it will get you many if any details about what they are actually claiming to teach you to do. There will be plenty of grand claims of big money and getting it fast with little work and “anyone can do it!” hogwash.
9. Want You to Hop on a Call, Zoom or Skype – Then they bring on another person (mentor/sponsor/coach) what ever they want to call it – the other person is more experienced and supposed to be a better closer. That means be better at getting you to fork over your card information, and there are two of them on the call to help each other make sure that happens.
10. Making Any Specific Earnings Claims – Any program, course, system or Guru that promises you or heavily insinuates that you can make hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars using their stuff is full of it, and very well be violating the laws designed to protect you by doing so. The truth is that even a great program or system has one huge variable and that is YOU. So nobody can guarantee you any specific amount because it depends on two things – one is the system being feasible and the other is you actually using it correctly and doing all the work to get results and even then other things impact that.
11. FREE Trial Offer That Isn’t FREE! – Some offer you a free trial then as you try to sign up for it they want some kind of processing fee or other payment. That is NOT free so they lied right off the bat. Others use various deceptive tactics to lure you in with free enticements only to hit you hard with high pressure up sells that are hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
12. No Real About Information – Some scammers do not even have any about page or any real information on the page if they have one. Others use pictures of other people they get online and make up a fake name and a fake story and put in on the about page. If you cant find that person on facebook, linkedIn and other social media – be wary and be cautious because it is probaly all fake.
Seperating the Good From the Bad
It seems like it might be very hard to do, and in some cases it may be. But for most of these bad actors, their schemes and scams won’t stand up long if you take a few minutes to look behind the curtain.
Having said that – there are some things that both the ligitimate and the scammers both use – and that makes it a bit more confusing at first glance. But look deeper and it soon becomes clear enough for you to tell them appart.
Ligitimate programs usually have plenty of real free content that offers you valuale information. There will often be a site/blog with lost of posts and articles and content spanning a long time, somtimes many years. There may also be a YouTube channel, facebook group, facbook page and a linked in page.
The more online presence they have the better.
Just keep in mind even that is not fool proof either as some of the biggest scammers do have massive audiences on multiple platforms accross all kinds of social media too – yet they are still scammers. Some are big name famous people too. In their case – if they are indeed scamming people – there will be dozens, hundreds or even thousands of BAD REVIEWS all over the place on them if you look for them.
They also are the ones who mainly try to push high ticket very expensive stuff – and even that will have more upsells that will start almost immedaitely and continue thorugout their program – if you fall for it.
Just be careful – especially with the big ticket items.
Final Thoughts and Opinions
There are pleny of good courses, memberships, events and other resources out there that can truly help you do better faster.
But NONE of THEM Are Magic – none of them are SECRET and NONE of them can make you rich overnight with no work necessacry either.
Look for real programs, systems and courses that tell you the truth – and the truth is it will take time and it will take hard work and even then there are NO GURANTEES that you will make money or be successful.
That will alwasy depend on YOU even with the best training and the best systems available.
I also do not believe any beginner at anything online needs to be paying hundreds or thousands of dollars on initial training. Again there are plenty of free and low cost options available – start there. Find out if you like the businees, niche and doing the work befoe you invest a ton of money and time.
If you do like it then get good enough to generte some income – then reinvest that money back into your business including getting addiotion training and resources as you need them and sayou can actually afford them.
Never borrow money for a course or a business opportunity! just dont.
Other people disagree and say that is the first thing you should “INVEST” in even if you have to borrow it – and I strongly disagree with that. Of course it is your life and you can decide to do whatever you want – but many people just go from pan to fire desperatly trying to make money they need to survive. If you are in that bad of shape you do not need to be financing anything, not in my humble opinion anyway.
Save up and pay cash or pay with a debit card etc..
Best wishes for all you do in busines and in life, and let me know if you have any questions.