The FTC recently announced they are cracking down on fake news web sites that are designed to appear as if they belong to legitimate news organizations, but in reality were carefully crafted advertisements aimed at misleading consumers into opening their wallets.

It’s about time!

While this crackdown is specifically aimed at sites that promote acai berry weight loss pills, I’ve seen similar pages that promote all sorts of questionable products like “miracle” wrinkle cream and work from home scams.   They’re pretty easy to spot once you know what to look for, but they are crafted well enough to fool the typical web surfer.   Even my wife was almost taken in by a site that claimed a stay at home mom right in our town was making $6000 a month following their “system”.   Fortunately, she asked for my opinion and I quickly spotted it as a scam.

How to Avoid Getting Scammed by a Fake News Site

The fake news site my wife stumbled onto looked legitimate on the surface, but it didn’t take long to pull off the mask and expose it as a scam.

The site was designed so it would have the look and feel of an actual news site, including a navigation menu that should lead to various categories such as Business, Sports, Technology, etc.  But when you clicked on each of those categories you were brought to a sales page promoting the product this local woman supposedly used to earn a fortune in her free time.  Deceptive linking like that is clearly a red flag, but that wasn’t the only one.

Next I looked more closely at the picture of the woman in the article.  Maybe it’s because I’m a blogger, but I immediately thought the picture looked like a stock photo.  So I used the reverse image search tool at Tineye and found that same image plastered all over the internet.  It was clearly a stock photo and if the woman was fake there was little doubt the same was true of her incredible profits.

Other things to look out for…

My wife was on a legitimate news site when she saw a link to this fake news site.  That’s a clever trick they use because they know if you’re on one site that you trust, you’ll probably trust a site they are linking to…especially if that site appears to be another news site.  But if you look carefully, that link was probably labeled (albeit discreetly) as an advertisement.

Another thing about that link that hooked my wife was the fact that the woman in the article supposedly came from our town.  I guess she figured, “If she can do it why can’t I?”  And I’m sure that’s what the scammers were thinking too when they designed it.   It’s actually quite easy to use a script that looks at your computers IP address to determine what town you live in and use that town in the header of an advertisement.  Millions of legitimate companies use such technology to advertise their services to local consumers using Google AdWords.  It’s not surprising that scammers would use similar technology to mislead consumers.

Finally, many of these fake news sites include the names and logos of major media outlets like ABC, NBC, USA Today, CNN, and Consumer Reports, and falsely represent that the reports on the sites have been seen on these networks.  But keep in mind that anyone can right-click to save an image and then upload it to their website.  Using these logos without permission is clearly copyright infringement, and using them to mislead consumers into thinking they are endorsements is fraud.

As part of my continuing series of scam alerts, today we’re going to look at the ever popular envelope stuffing scams.

I’m sure you’ve come across ads promising that you can work from home stuffing envelopes and get paid anywhere from $500 to $3000 a week.  These ads come in our mailbox, newspapers, magazines, and even our email inbox.

Someone who is hoping to quit their day job or even just earn some extra money on the side might be tempted by these so-called legitimate envelope stuffing jobs.  Unfortunately if you take a closer look you’ll see that all is not as it first appears.

How Envelope Stuffing Scams Work

The scam starts with an advertisement placed in the newspaper, or perhaps an unsolicited email.  You read the headline promising you’ll earn hundreds or thousands of dollars per week for stuffing envelopes.  Sounds like a great idea for making money in your spare time!

So you send off your $29.95 processing fee along with a self addressed stamped envelope so they can send you a starter kit.

In a week or so you receive your started kit which is surprisingly small.  In fact it often consists of only one piece of paper.

Your starter kit simply instructs you to place newspaper ads or mail out fliers offering the same “deal” that suckered you in.  That’s right, now you will become one of the scammers too!

The envelopes you get paid to stuff are the ones that are sent to you by people who have read your ad and are looking for their starter kit.   The only time you’ll get paid is when someone new falls for the scam and sends you the $29.95 processing fee.

Doesn’t sound like the deal you were signing up for does it?

A little common sense would go a long way in helping you avoid envelope stuffing scams.  Just think about it.  Why would a company want to ship all of their mailings and supplies to you and then pay you an exhorbinant rate to mail them?

There are machines that can stuff envelopes automatically for pennies.  Or the company could just hire temporary workers for minimum wage.  It just doesn’t make any sense when you stop and think about it.

By the way a newer version of the envelope stuffing scams is called the data entry scam in which you pay a fee for a starter kit which simply tells you to place advertisements for their company.  You can read more about that one here.

The other day I shared a tongue in cheek post claiming that I was about to give up blogging for good because I was on the verge of inheriting $20 million from a long lost Nigerian relative.  Although I did receive one email from a concerned reader warning me I was being scammed, I think most of you caught on pretty quickly that I was just kidding around.

But scams like these are no laughing matter.  Did you know that internet based scams cost consumers an all time high $559.7 million in 2009?  That’s more than double the amount from 2008, which means that the scammers are winning.  If you want to avoid being victimized you need to familiarize yourself with some of the most common web scams so you know how to avoid them.

Make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed because over the next couple of weeks I’m going be posting a regular series of articles detailing some of the most popular web scams, how they work, and how to avoid them.

Am I really willing to walk away from SMT after all the hard work I’ve put into it?  Let me explain what has happened and then you’ll understand why I might do just that.

This may sound a little hard to believe, but a few days ago I was contacted by a delegate inside the Nigerian government.  They have actually been looking for me for some time and they were quite relieved to have found me.

It seems that around 72 years ago a Nigerian woman had an illegitimate child with an American man who was traveling in her country.  Apparently that man was my grandfather’s older brother!

The child was orphaned as a young boy and grew up in extreme poverty.  But through hard work and a few lucky breaks he managed to rise to prominence and become a powerful man in Nigeria.  He also amassed a small fortune for himself.

Unfortunately he was never able to have any children and so he when he died there were no heirs to inherit his estate.   I can’t give you too many details yet, but between you and me the estate is worth in excess of $20,000,000!

Now there are still some details that need to be worked out.  The Nigerian minister is waiting for approval to disburse the funds and there is some kind of Monetary Release Fee that I have to pay, but after that they’ll be able to transfer the money right into my bank account!

So with a windfall of over $20 million headed my way, I’m not sure I’ll have time to keep up with this blog.  I’m going to spend some time traveling and living the good life. But I think I’ll keep the blog anyway…I enjoy it too much to give it up now.

It should only be a few more days before the transfer is completed, I’ll post again with an update.  Keep your fingers crossed! 

Today’s article comes from Mr Credit Card of www.askmrcreditcard.com and he is going to talk about how to spot a credit card scam. If you are looking for a credit card, I suggest you check out his best credit cards offers section.

Credit card scams are almost as old as credit cards themselves. The good news about credit cards is that the card holder is not responsible for most instances of fraud. You are protected from paying for any unauthorized charges and your only responsibility is to notify your bank in a timely manner. The burden of proof always lies on the merchant to document that you have in fact authorized the charge or charges.

The bad news is that there are plenty of ways that scammers can still try to sneak charges past unsuspecting cardholders. The classic case is when a fraudulent charge is brazenly attempted in the hope that someone will not take the time and effort to read every line on their bill, notice the charge, and call their bank to dispute it. The odds are in fact pretty good that a small but significant percentage of cardholders will not notice a charge, especially a small one. Sadly, many people will just pay their credit card bill on the assumption that all charges are legitimate.

How does a scammer get your credit card number?

The easiest way to obtain credit card numbers is to hack a database of a merchant. By obtaining numbers in bulk, criminals can make a lot of money by charging small amounts to thousands of accounts. Other ways to fraudulently obtain account information are through the lifting of information off of a card at a restaurant or hotel where the card may be processed out of your sight. Finally, credit cards are still stolen via good old fashion pickpocketing and break-ins.

A close cousin to fraudulent charges is the pre-acquired account scam. The idea is that instead of stealing your account information, a scammer can merely purchase it from a company that you legitimately did business with. On the internet, this may take the form of a pop up box that is offering you something that is seemingly free. In return, the fine print specifies that you are authorizing a third party to charge your card perpetually. Many otherwise reputable companies willingly participate in this scam.

Offline the scam takes the form of a mail solicitation, again offering you some sort of free service or perhaps even a check. The check is covered with fine print that indicates that cashing it will enroll you in some sort of travel or shopping service. The service is of questionable value at best, and your credit card will be charged every single month. Typically, the check will bear the name and logo of the otherwise reputable company that you originally gave your credit card to. The idea is to make you think that the offer is legitimate and is somehow backed by the known company. The fine print indicates that they are merely using the account information that the other company obtained, and that the scammer is really a separate entity. Sadly, these scams remain legal, while some credit card processors have vowed to crack down on them. Furthermore, such practices are against credit card merchant agreements, but the credit card processors often don’t care.

How Do You Avoid Being Scammed?

The easiest way is to avoid being a victim of a credit card scam is to review every line of your credit card statement every month. This is not as easy as it sounds. Many people rely on their credit cards for day to day purchases, and their credit card bill can contain hundreds of transactions a month. Worse, even legitimately authorized transactions sometimes look suspicious because the name on the statement may not be recognizable. Nevertheless, you still need to sacrifice several minutes of your time every month to scrutinize your credit card bill. This should be seen as a necessary activity that is part of the use of a credit card.

There are also a couple of credit card issuers that allow you to generate a one-time credit card number when you make a purchase online. That way, it adds an extra level of security. Issuers or credit cards that have this feature include Discover Card and Citicards.

Credit cards are an incredibly convenient financial tool and their security far exceeds the risks associated with using cash, checks, or even debit cards. They are incredibly secure, but they are not perfect.  Almost by definition, people who have lost money from credit card scams are not aware of it. The key to avoiding scams will always be the proper detection of fraudulent charges, and your timely notification of your bank.

Every year, thousands of aspiring writers are fleeced out of their hard-earned money by poetry scams.

The perpetrators of the poetry scam rake in millions of dollars each year by promising fame and fortune to unsuspecting victims. No one knows for sure exactly how much money is involved, but estimates put the figure somewhere between $6 and $10 million every year.

How The Poetry Scam Works

You’ve seen the advertisements for various “poetry contests” hosted by organizations with impressive names that certainly sound legitimate (the names keep changing and there are far too many to list here). You’ll find them in newspapers and magazines, in your mailbox, and even in your email. 

The poetry scam ads offer large cash prizes and promises of publication. There’s no entry fee. All you have to do is submit your poem for consideration by a panel of experts.

A few weeks later you receive a letter in the mail congratulating you for achieving “semi-finalist” status. You glow with pride as you say to yourself, “Wow! I must be a better poet than I thought!”

And that’s not all. The letter goes on to say that your poem has been selected to be published in a special anthology of the very best poems submitted. You feel like you’re going to burst with excitement.

And this is where the poetry contest scam really kicks in…

It turns out you can order your very own copy of the anthology for just $49.95 plus shipping. For an extra $19.95 they’ll publish your biography alongside your poem. You can also buy a copy of your poem mounted on a plaque or recorded on cassette by a professional reader.

This may not seem like a scam at all, until you realize the following:

1. Everyone who submits a poem to the contest becomes a semi-finalist and receives the same exact letter you did. It’s a form letter designed to make you think your poem is special so you’ll hand over cash for their merchandise.

On an episode of 20/20, an entire class of 3rd graders submitted poems to a popular poetry contest. Every single one of them received the same letter.

2. Your poem won’t be published unless you purchase a copy of the anthology. It will simply be put on a waiting list indefinitely. But don’t worry, there are plenty of other poets out there willing to pay to be included (enough to fill dozens of anthologies each year).

3. Since when do you have to pay a publisher to include your poem in a book? If you’ve ever dealt with a reputable publishing house you know that they must pay you in the form of royalties in order to publish your work.

4. Those who have ordered the anthology report that the book is of questionable quality. Rather than a high-end edition you’d be proud to display, the book seems as though it was slapped together with no regard to formatting or quality. To minimize printing costs, the poems are printed in the smallest possible font to ensure up to a dozen can be squeezed onto each page.

And the grabs for money never end. You’ll be offered a membership in “exclusive” organizations for poets. You may even be told that you’ve been nominated for the “Poet of the Year” award. Of course there’s a hefty fee if you want to attend the award ceremony.

The more books, cassettes, and other garbage you buy the more money is raked in by the scammers.

What’s the Solution to Poetry Scams?

Use caution and common sense. There are legitimate writing and poetry contests out there. But you should do some research before entering one. Search the internet to see what people are saying about it. Look for complaints or other tips that the contest is a scam.

Remember that some legitimate contests do charge an entrance fee to cover administrative costs as well as the expense of the financial prizes. But you should not have to pay to be published, and you should not be constantly be pressured to buy something.

I got into an argument the other day with a buddy of mine who is looking for a way to make some extra money. He had been looking around the internet in search of a reliable way to make a few extra bucks each month. After spending a few late nights searching he stumbled onto an idea he liked. It was a data entry service that claimed it would pay him to type simple information into a couple of fields. He could do this right from the comfort of his own home and he’d get paid every two weeks.

This immediately set off the alarms in my head. I’ve seen people fall for data entry scams before and I didn’t want to see it happen to my friend. As I tried to explain it to him he got very upset. He claimed I was trying to put down his idea because he hadn’t consulted me first. I strongly suspected he was making a mistake but to keep the peace I kept my mouth shut and wished him luck.

This morning he called to apologize. He told me he had been had and that he should have listened to me. I managed to fight the temptation to say “I told you so” and asked if I could write a short article about his experience. If you’ve never heard of data entry scams then let me explain how they work so you can avoid getting burned by them.

Most advertisements for data entry jobs lead you to believe you’ll be helping one or more companies enter data into a database or other computer system. When you see these ads you probably think its a form of outsourcing like a medical transcriptionist. All you have to do to start earning a steady income is send away for their information package (and pay a small fee).

But when you get the package you realize you’ve been misled. You actually signed up to be an affiliate of the data entry service itself. Your information packet instructs you to sign up for Google AdWords and place ads for their service (this is where the “data entry” comes in). When someone clicks on your link and signs up you get a commission.

Now this in itself is not wrong. There’s nothing wrong with affiliate marketing and you can make a lot of money doing it. But the scam is that this isn’t what you signed up for. Its blatant false advertising because they never told you:

1. You could have signed up to be their affiliate for free.

2. You’re not doing data entry at all. You’re purchasing advertisements.

3. You have to pay for those advertisements.

4. There’s no guarantee you’ll ever receive a single paycheck.

In my opinion these data entry scams are nothing more than a way to take advantage of people who are looking to make a few extra bucks in their spare time.  A year or two ago these services were banned from Clickbank but I’ve seen them popping up with other payment processors here and there.  

Buyer beware.