Great Online Business Opportunities vs. Outright Scams
Copyright 2006 East Tech LLC
It seems there are more and more online business opportunities
that come our way each day. There are also many more scams that
present themselves each day, so we need to be careful when
deciding to do business with these companies or not.
If you're like most folks, you have a full-time day job but you
want or need more money to live a better life. Many of us work
day to day, barely getting by and just want that little extra to
make our lives much better financially. With the latest
technological advances like faster internet access and cheaper
computer prices, more and more of us are able to get online
today than ever before. With this access, we are able to see so
many more online business opportunities we wouldn't have had
access to just a few short years ago.
With this also comes risk. With more great opportunities also
come more scams. More thieves think of ways they can prey on
folks to steal their hard earned money and do it over and over
again. If you're like me, you get assaulted with e-mail after
e-mail trying to scam you out of something. Whether it's a phony
e-mail claiming to be your bank or someone trying to sell your
Rolex watches, these scams are all around us. We need to be very
careful about the websites we visit or the links we click. You
should never reply with any of your private information to any
e-mail, whether it be from a company you do business with or
not. Legitimate companies will never ask for this information
and they will never ask you to click a link to go modify your
personal information.
When researching online business opportunities, you need to do
your homework. Don't just search for "money making ideas", click
on a website and sign up for a program without researching it
first, no matter how great the opportunity seems. One basic way
is to open up a web browser, go to Google and search for the
company name along with the word "scam". If you start making
hits, read some of the threads. If there are many people out
there trashing the company, then stay far away from that
opportunity.
A great research tool to use is called Alexa. Alexa is a traffic
research tool but can be used for much more than that. You can
search on website to see what the Alexa rating is for certain
websites, what reviews, if any, have been written about the
company and possibly the owner, address and phone numbers. Lots
of nice little goodies you wouldn't be able to find elsewhere.
Another way would be to use companies like NetworkSolutions and
their WHOIS service. In their WHOIS directory, type in the
website URL of the company you're researching. See who their
hosting provider is. Are they keeping much of their information
private? If so, this could be a red flag. This is not always the
case however since the world is full of people who like nothing
more than to cause problems for web sites, most companies these
days prefer to keep their information private.
As with all investments, there are risks. Don't invest more than
you can afford to lose, start small and build up your accounts
as you earn money in the programs. If you follow these simple
recommendations, you will do well. Don't get too attached to any
one program. Even if one of the programs pays well and seems
like they will be around forever, remember nothing lasts
forever. Even the best run, well intentioned businesses can
fail. Just remember these important points and your winning
investments will easily outweigh the bad ones.