Drop Shipping America - the New, Legal, Global Scam

There was once a time when one could make a living off placing classified ads in magazines and newspapers like:

Send $2.99 and a self-addressed envelope to xxx for the 11 Most Important Rules to a Richer Life!

What you got was a two-cent mimeographed copy of the Ten Commandments with the Golden Rule added at the bottom as bonus. The ad had not lied, assuming you use the correct interpretation of 'Richer Life,' and pretty soon everyone was doing it, or some variation of it, until the general public caught on, and after that, no one did it anymore.

But that's not actually true. They still do it. They just find new ways.

I suppose we could go back farther than that, even back to the days of the old west in this country where roving peddlers moved from town to town trying to sell their answers to the dreams of the locals; whether it be a remedy for the common cold, or a deed to some land that most assuredly possessed an untapped wealth of gold nuggets in its streams, or a miracle hair tonic, or a potion or pill that will make your sex life better than it ever was before (okay, I guess that one's still a hot commodity even today), there have always been people willing to take your hard earned and diligently saved money, if they can figure out how to get you to give it to them, and then disappear leaving you wondering how people could be so ruthless and uncaring, and how you could have been stupid enough to be taken in by their ruse.

Well let me tell you, love ain't the only thing that is blind.

Hope, passion, desire...and greed, can all have their vision of site funneled to an unsafe, narrow existence.

You don't have to be stupid to be taken in by those that feed off our emotions. If you have a passion for something, a desire to make something work, a hope of accomplishment, be whatever it may be, you are a target, you are a mark. Someone out there would love to sell you your dream and be long gone looking for new dreams to sell by the time you figure out it was actually a nightmare you bought.

Today we have become wise to most of the "Miracle Healers" and "Get Rich Quick" schemes that still seem to refuse to completely die off. I mean after all, let's face it, no matter how far the general public advances in their awareness of ruthless scammers, identity thieves, and dream peddlers; there will always be people who were born yesterday.

But one thing that never dies is the desire to do better. Even if one has obtained their latest goals (key word there being 'latest') and feel a certain amount of comfort in acquired routine and satisfaction, it's only a matter of time before comfort and satisfaction evolve into complacency and boredom. Desire seeps in and brings with it hope. The shields built from routine are let down and your life and dreams are once again exposed and fair game to those without a conscious.

In today's world more than ever, we have opened up a huge new portal for these peddlers of dreams, or more aptly titled, dream thieves, in the form of the World Wide Web, the Super Highway, the Internet. No longer do they need to travel from town to town while trying to stay one step ahead of their angry, distraught, misled customers, and sometimes the law, but they set up off-shore accounts and false email addresses. They learn how to copy or create elaborate looking web sites that are filled with the answers to your every question...sort of...almost.

And the best part is, they don't have to go seeking us out anymore, we seek out them.

I know, I know. Who'd be that stupid? Who couldn't see through the fact that what they offer is too good to be true? Who doesn't recognize the fact that, after emailing for more info and getting an almost instant response, after talking to a friendly and enthusiastic representative on the phone, the amount it costs to join the program happens to be just about precisely the amount you were prepared to invest in just such a venture? In this day and age of information and talk show radio and Oprah Winfrey, who could be blind enough not to see that everything is simply too perfect?

Hope is just as blind as Justice.

Desire is no less blind than Queen Mary I's three mice (who weren't really dismembered and blinded as told in the nursery rhythm, or even mice, for that matter. They were actually three men and were burned at the stake...but certainly rendered sightless, nonetheless).

And passion is as blind as love.

There are far too many scams already in progress and far too many new ones being invented right now to even begin to point them out specifically, but I did want to list a few basic guidelines, questions we should stop and ask ourselves before giving our emotions the helm, and point out one Internet scam in particular that is currently sweeping the planet, the drop shipping business.

Over the last 20-30 years, with the world and local populations increasing rapidly and good jobs being harder and harder to find; with gas prices and crime rates climbing the scale as though in competition with one another; with home schooling becoming more a choice of safety rather than ethics; it's no wonder so many people have become so susceptible to the dream of working at home.

At some point in the past 20 years or so, you might have paid anywhere from $10-50 to some PO Box to find out how to make money stuffing envelopes, or making doll house furniture, or maybe you bought into the "How to Buy Real Estate With No Money Down!" infomercial, or Don Lupre's 1-800-CAN'T-GO-WRONG Classified Ad and pay-by-the-minute phone dating services. I mean, you were curious, it was only $20. Why not give it a go, see what it's all about.

And I'm sure there are a few people out there stuffing envelopes for a living, but they didn't pay anyone $20 to find out how to do it. And I'm sure Don Lupre made some money with classified ads and 1-800 numbers at one time, but if it still paid off, he'd still be doing it instead of selling the idea to anyone curious or desperate (or blind) enough to buy it. (I hear nowadays he's into some "super vitamin" scam.)

But for the most part, the envelopes come in fast enough to make a few bucks a week; the doll furniture is so small and requires such precision to qualify for payment, you end up making about ten cents an hour; and trying to sell 1-800 services through classified ads is almost as promising as selling vacuum cleaners door to door in a major metropolitan city.

But today, due the Internet, the promise to work at home has reached a new level. The Dream Thieves have been handed a new playing field where relatively speaking, as many people were born yesterday as were not. New people are getting on that ramp to the Super Highway every single day of every single year. More and more people are straying away from the domain of their email and venturing out into the World Wide Web.

And what is one of the first places everyone ends up finding themselves?

eBay.

Anything and everything you could possibly think of, let alone want, available at your fingertips. You feel like a kid in a candy shop.

Maybe you buy some things. Maybe you even sell some things. It's so easy, anyone can do it! And look! Powersellers! People make a living at selling stuff here. Anyone can be a PowerSeller! Anyone can work at home! And look at this! If I pay $29.99 to this web site, I could get access to the same wholesalers as these PowerSellers and make a living at home! I could quit my job inside of three months! eBay has MILLIONS of customers a day! And Wow! If I am serious about it, I can pay anywhere from $500 to $15,000 more (depending on how much I have available) for coaching and training and secrets! It's so easy anyone could do it and I can SEE a lot of people that are already doing it so it can't be a scam! It's perfect!

Yes, there are indeed powersellers that make a decent living selling things on eBay, and there are people that make a living watching movies and talking about them on TV, and there are people that make a living going to the moon. Believe me, none of the paid $29.99 for the opportunity.

To be a PowerSeller on eBay, you need an inside line, not a drop shipping company. Companies like SMC, Premiere Products, Doba, Auctions For Income, and Simplx.com have sprung up by the hundreds, thousands even. Every single one of them is out to take advantage of your desire to join the modern day gold rush called eBay. They are building sites as meaty as the buzzard stripped bones in the desert; as substantial as the town fronts in old black and white spaghetti westerns; as luring as the neon lights of Vegas, but as unfulfilling as the $2 whore that grabs your arm the second you enter.

These sites are playing on your hopes and dreams of financial freedom. Joshua Lee, owner of Simplx.com, is doing so well that he has several companies, all offering the same thing, all with different names (of which he denies are his despite his name appearing on all of the business licenses). But just like the old "Rich Life" routine, they pretty much give you what they say they will, it just doesn't end up being what you expected.

What you get when "joining" any AND ALL of this type of wholesaler, or drop shipping, or "Learn to be a PowerSeller" sites (if you get ANYthing at all) is pretty much the same across the board. You get access to a warehouse that has a bunch of off-brand products that they will drop ship to your customers after you sell them on eBay. Depending on the "level of your membership" (the amount you were willing to fork over) you might get more or less access, better or worse 'extra charges for handling and storage', and different degrees of promised coaching.

Once again, as Don Lupre probably did make some money back when he started his classified ad campaign, I'm sure the first few people that discovered these wholesale warehouses that aren't really wholesale but just sell a lot of off-brand stuff cheaper than their name-brand counterparts, probably made some decent money off all the new folks joining eBay that were still getting their feet wet in the vast ocean of the Internet...back about 10-15 years ago. But today, that just isn't possible. There's too many people that have the same dream, the same hopes and desires of building that business at home and having no idea what that business should be. There're too many people discovering all these false fronts and empty promises from the Joshua Lee's and Don Lupre's of our world. So you made it into the warehouse. You listed a cheap product. So did 500 other people on eBay and some of them are even more desperate than you and taking a loss to build up some customer support while they look for a better deal...which they ultimately will not find.

So pay a little extra, the nice representative suggests. Get the coaching. We'll tell you how it's done! You can't lose!

The coaching is an hour, two if you act real dense, of motivational speak and common sense instructions (like, don't sell things out of the warehouse we provided you, go to businesses and find out what they will let you sell, find friends and family that want to sell stuff on consignment, look for your breakthrough product). What?!?!? I thought you were going to SHOW me what to sell! I thought you were going to hold my hand until you MAKE me a PowerSeller!

Sorry. We show you how, which you could have probably figured out on your own if you'd just thought about it and done a little research, but you paid us to do it for you and let you know what we found out. You now know what it takes to become a PowerSeller. It's up to you to do it. You also have access to our warehouse, if want to use it, though as you know, we don't advise it. Your ultimate success is now up to you.

As a result, eBay is essentially making a killing on thousands of us wannabes trying to figure out the secret to being a PowerSeller and ultimately giving up but only after listing a couple hundred dollars worth of crap that won't sell because everyone and their mother is already trying to sell the same thing from the same place! And the Joshua Lee's of the world are laughing all the way to the bank...with our dreams and hopes in their back pockets.

In this case, however, it is even harder to see clearly. There ARE PowerSellers on eBay and they DO make a living at it, but they didn't pay anyone to make their store succeed. They worked hard at it themselves and they did lots of research. They found their sources on their own, and more than likely, not with the help of Google or any other Internet Search Engine. And it most likely didn't happen overnight.

There are three easy rules to abide by to prevent you from falling into the traps of Dream Thieves.

First of all, some old words of wise still hold true in this case, "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is." Anyone that offers you the answer to your prayers for a price and cannot prove to you first that he is the one and only true God, is probably a fraud.

Do not pay for any type of services or memberships. If a company truly wants you to move their product for them online, they would be willing to pay YOU for your service. Anyone charging you for the privilege of increasing their own revenues is probably only increasing their revenues by charging you for the privilege.

Finally, no matter how legitimate or perfect an opportunity may appear, do your research. The whole world is at your fingertips once you access the World Wide Web and information can quickly and easily be gathered to help you make good decisions. Places like Associated Content offer articles on just about every subject under the sun (and a few beyond it, as well). Find out what others have experienced or have to say about a particular product or service. Sleep on it. Don't make hasty decisions.

And remember, if you are seeking opportunities to use the Internet to work at home, with just as much hard work as it would take to start a business anywhere else, it can certainly be done, but keep in mind that the goal is to make money, not to spend it.