You Deserve to Be Scammed

Voltaire once said - "Common sense is not so common." I don't think it's ever been more true, especially when you look at the rate in which people are being scammed online. I've heard of people being scammed over the phone, email, and various websites. So, what the hell is your problem? Why do you keep falling for the same routines?

While some of the scams may not be as obvious, I have to wonder when we all lost our ability to detect bullshit?

Here is a short list of some of the more common scams -

multi-level marketing
the majority of the diet and fitness industries
work at home "opportunities"
selling anything to the elderly they don't want or need
most drop shipping sources online
any request for money that seems to good to be true

Do you really believe that I make $5,000 a day processing emails? If you do, then you deserve to lose that $19.95 application fee.

If you want to start a business, there are avenues to do that. The first thing you might try doing is buying a book on starting a business and actually reading the entire thing. Buy another and read it. Repeat the process until it registers with your head how much work is involved in being a successful entrepreneur. Unlike these scam artists want you to think, you don't just get to be rich with no investment and little effort.

The same thing holds true for losing weight. Do you want to lose weight? Well, you could go about it the same way - read a freaking book. I'm reading two books right now on nutrition because I've spent so much of my life in the dark. That's where it starts - you read, read some more, and then put it into practice. Exercise is also something you might try.

Also, I've been selling on eBay since the late 1990s. The sellers on eBay now are a much different breed than they used to be. Shopping on eBay used to be like going to a cool garage sale, but now it's so crowded with the same mediocre crap that at least half of the people are selling the same product, trying to undercut each other, and write boring eBooks on how they made their millions as a seller on eBay. What people don't understand is that once a particular practice has been around for a certain amount of time, new people coming in have to change their strategy, and especially with eBay, their products. Don't go into it thinking you can just copy and paste. You have to be creative.

What's the moral? Don't buy someone else's snake oil. Chances are good that it smells like crap, tastes even worse, and will give you a rash.