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The Good and The Bad

  • Written By: Jay HS
  • 10-22-2007
We had a short break and will resume the updates on our site very soon. Nevertheless, I don't think anyone who is new to the various scams would ever be scammed if similar ones come along with different storyline. For example, 419 scams, fake checks, lottery scams, job scams, etc are similar, except that the storyline and "fake names" stated in the email may differ from time to time. Once you get a hang of these scams, you should be able to spot new ones easily.

Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach him to fish, he will learn to feed himself for a lifetime. We thank anyone of you who have care to share about our site with your friends so that they are aware about various scams. Though our list of scams are not comprehensive at this point, we have covered the most prevalent ones on the internet, as well as some localized scams.

There are some scams which are not quite easy to confirm at "face value". That is to say, it is not possible to verify if an offer is a scam unless we reply and ask for more information regarding the "offer". Take for example, someone emailed me recently asking if a particular job offer via email is a scam. We are unable to reply to some of these because there is no way for us to tell unless we communicate with the "employers" and find out more. Scammers are not stupid and they may not use the same old mails and tricks for the scam. I will be writing a short article of what I think might be a good way of determining if a job offer is scam.

Basically, anti-scam isn't rocket science. We don't need a college degree for anti-scam. A professor can be scammed, while a school drop-out who is street-smart may be able to spot scams easily. It just requires some common sense, due diligence, and control of your greed. There is no free lunch.

Yesterday, a marketer at a local shopping mall invited us to attend a presentation by a vacation club, in return for discounted lodging at a well-known hotel group. In the past, we had attended several time-sharing programs to get several rolls of free films, but were "forced" to buy a holiday package for several thousand dollars instead. Though we stubbornly refused to buy the package, we heard there were some who succumbed to the pressure and regretted paying for it.

So did we attend the presentation yesterday? Yes, we did, but why? After the first experience, we asked the marketer questions like:

We: Are we obligated to buy the vacation package?
Marketer: No, you do not have to buy the vacation package.

We: Are there any hidden conditions, or do we need to pay anything to attend the presentation?
Marketer: No, this is just a 90 minutes session for the presenter to share with you about the vacation club.

We: Is this a "Time-Sharing" program?
Marketer: No, this is not a time-sharing program.

After we attended the "presentation" by the sales consultant, he said that this IS a time-sharing program, but it is unlike the "bad ones" that we have heard previously. He went on to explain the details of the vacation packages, lifetime savings, and locations, etc. Due to the cost of the packages, we told him that we have decided not to buy the packages. Although he looked a bit sad, he did not continue to pressurize us to buy and he politely ushered us to the counter to collect our discount voucher as promised. In the end, we left with a great impression of the company and agreed that we may come back to buy the package if our bank account allows.

We should not always assume that "everything" of the same nature is a scam. Watch out for tell-tale signs. In our case, we decided to attend the presentation despite the bad experiences in the past because the offer came from a reputed brand name with hotels located in the prime area. Although the marketer who "sold" us the presentation lied that it wasn't a "time-sharing" program, we believed that he did so because the same system has a bad reputation due to misuse in the past.

Its just like "network marketing". Some people will associate this with the word "scam". However, those who care to open their eyes and find out more, will not miss out the terrific opportunities offered by the good companies.

Is "investment" a scam? We cannot say that, we but can say that there are
- good investment and bad investment
- good buy and bad buy
- good network marketing and bad network marketing companies
- and in this case, good time-sharing programs, and bad ones.

Is Email bad? Have you been receiving scams and spams? There are good emails, and bad emails. we hate scammers and spammers not because they hurt us with what they are "selling", but we hate them because they are wasting our time to sieve through to find the "good emails".

The same applies when you try to seive out the scams in the real world, be it network marketing, time-sharing, etc. If you decide to rule them out altogether, you might miss out some really good stuff.

Just my opinion.



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