How Online Money Making Scams Make a Fool out of Innocent People

                           

Have you seen those online money making ads where someone is claiming they have earned hundreds of dollars in just one day while sitting comfortably in their cozy home? We have seen them as well. Such ads are just one method of tricking someone, actually there are many, many ways crooks put in practice in order to trick innocent people into giving them their hard-fought earnings.

Today we will uncover those deceitful methods so no one can make a fool out of you.

Everyone wants to live comfortably, in an environment he/she loves, the environment of home. Working from home is a charming way to earn because it guarantees more time with friends and family, no requirement of suiting up, waking up early or working during predefined hours. You feel like your own boss

Yes, working from home is a charming way to earn, and if someone tells us that we could earn a good amount of money while staying in home, we can’t resist temptation.

We have all been there, and most of us have been fooled by tricksters and that’s why we are writing this article so that you don’t meet the same fate.

There are many ways crooks can try to trick you, let’s cover them all one by one.

Get Paid to Click or Fill Forms

This is where the crook will tell the victim, i.e. you, to visit certain websites or click on certain advertisements, and you will earn. Then, he will tell you that you need to pay him a certain amount of money in order to get registered.
This is one of the most common type of frauds in the developing countries such as Pakistan. Here are a couple of example scam websites:

In form filling, they will ask you to fill X number of forms daily and they will pay you the money. Usually, they will ask you to fill the forms with untrue data.

Sometimes they even tell you that if you visit/like/follow certain Facebook pages, you’ll make money. The truth is:

How to avoid this scam: Never pay in front. Never write anything fallacious.

Pyramid and MLM Schemes

This setup has been around for over a century now, but in the cyber age, the scam makers started finding much more audience than they did in pre-internet era. Soon, these programs got banned in most of the developed countries, such as USA, UK, Canada, Switzerland etc., even the developing countries are banning it officially. These developing countries include Sri Lanka, Turkey, Iran, Malaysia, Colombia, Nepal and many others.

These programs work in the following fashion:

You will be asked to buy a piece of paper. That piece of paper can be called “shares”, “product”, “merchandize” or anything else. Basically, that’s just a piece of paper or shield. If you buy it for, let’s say, $10 then $5 will go to the person who sold you that paper, and $3 dollars will go to the person from whom your seller bought it from, and then remaining two dollars will go further up the stream, so the money flows upwards in pyramid style.

How do you make money? Of course, by selling papers exactly like the one you bought. The scam organizer will tell you to sell it to your friends and family so that if you sell papers/products worth $100, you will get $50 and rest of the amount will go upward in the pyramid.

This plan is impractical because real money is not being generated, people are just finding other people to pay them their money. What will happen if the whole world signs up??? This is the reason this plan is banned in so many countries.

How to avoid this scam: Never take part in a program that bases on economic bubble, i.e. which is impractical. This MLM “product” is practically worthless even if you have paid a sum of money for it.

Phishing

This is internet’s deadliest scam. In here, the victim receives an email from a seemingly legitimate sender, such as your bank. That email will tell the victim that his/her bank account has been frozen because of “suspicious activity”. It will ask the victim to click a URL that will seem like a legitimate URL of the official website, but actually that URL will take you to the scam website. There, the victim will be asked to verify the credentials. On that verification process, the crook actually acquires all the important info.

Image: Wikipedia

Such scams try to get access to victim’s bank account, social media account and other important info from which they could really bring him down on his knees.

How to avoid this scam: If you receive such an email, always call the bank and confirm if they actually sent it. If you receive such an email from Facebook or any other social media website, leave a message on their support desk and they will guide you further.

You Have Won!

This scam has become common these days. This is where the victim will be told that he/she has won a lottery or grand prize in a lucky draw. But the trick will be that the victim will have to provide his/her credit card number, or he/she will have to pay a small amount of money in order to withdraw the grand prize.

These days, many crooks have started calling people on phone with the same kind of ‘you have won’ news.

How to avoid this scam: It’s simple isn’t it, don’t pay anything. When you win a real lottery or grand prize, they don’t ask you to pay anything.

Nigerian Email Scam

Even though this scam has gotten a bit outdated, it is still out there so you need to be aware of it.

Here, the victim receives an email, usually from Nigeria but it can be any country in the world, containing a letter from a dying millionaire (usually woman). She tells the victim that she saw his profile somewhere and really liked him. Now, as she is dying and has no close relative, she wants to give the victim all of her money!

Another way of nailing a victim, is to tell him/her that the sender of the email has received millions of dollars, and now she (they usually use a woman’s name) is looking for an expert. For some odd reason, she finds you, the victim, an expert and she is willing to control of all of her money.

Then the con artist asks the victim to open a combined account in a multinational bank so that she could deposit the money. Obviously, the victim has to deposit a significant amount of money for opening the account… when he does, the scam organizers withdraws all the money from the other side and closes the account, leaving the victim no proof that he has been scammed.

How to avoid this scam: Don’t open a combined account.

Summing up

We have discussed the scams and frauds that are ruining lives around the world. But there are always a few signs that should you follow, you can avoid being fooled.

1. Never pay in front. When somebody gives you a job, they don’t ask for money, they only pay.
2. Never take part in a chain-based program where you sell practically worthless products.
3. Never ever share your important account info, such as passwords or secret codes with anyone.
4. Never believe you have won a grand prize if you didn’t take part in a lucky draw.
5. Never give someone else right to operate your bank account.

The conclusion is that people can work online, but they have to take the work just like regular jobs. We usually get scammed when we are looking for shortcuts, a quick way to make money. Everyone is looking for a quick way but we should make sure that our way doesn’t lead us to disaster.