FP - How to Avoid Getting Scammed (read before it's too late!)

[mrgreen]

Thank Bryan for these tips. A very complete "buyer beware" You know, as I was reading your pointers, it also reminded me of some of the same advise that craigslist offers to the users of their site.

At the end of the day, I'm guessing it's better to walk 100 times before you find the right one.

[mvfullbavk33]

Thanks for this I could have used a wile back when I was starting out and believed everything I was told. And about "Paying too low" , it's true you get what you pay for.

[MojoFlip]

Hmm.. Actually, that was a question about myself Lol. PayPal does not accept my country and I cannot use it 'legally'. Since I can't use it legally, I don't want to use it at all. Due to that, I've lost a lot of good deals as the other person would only pay through PayPal. PayPal really should start accepting all countries.

Hi JS92,

You can sign-up for AlertPay. I had a buyer from part of Romania and he said PayPal doesn't work for him and requested me to setup an account in AlertPay, so I went ahead and created an account. Well, he disappeared after that... just one of those days.

Point is, AlertPay seems fine for that part of the world and I find it to be just as good as PayPal. Just that we aren't used to it only...

Mojo

[BrettM]

Re-reading this...

7. Seller demands payment via unsafe/dodgy channels.

And last but not least, I've made it a rule to NEVER deal with sellers who demand payment via Western Union, MoneyGram, Liberty Reserve or other similar means. For buying, I use ONLY PayPal, Escrow or direct Wire Transfer...

How is direct Wire Transfer different then Western Union, etc. for making payments from a risk point-of-view? Wouldn't a contract and domain-in-hand be the same if I were to use one of these services vs. Wire Transfer?

Thanks for elaborating!

[Bryan]

Re-reading this...



How is direct Wire Transfer different then Western Union, etc. for making payments from a risk point-of-view? Wouldn't a contract and domain-in-hand be the same if I were to use one of these services vs. Wire Transfer?

Thanks for elaborating!

Simply put - Western Union / MoneyGram are far more "scammer friendly" than high street banks, hence making WU/MG the preferred payment option for scammers. The reason for this is that, in many countries, WU/MG agents are extremely "relaxed" when it comes to identifying the receiver of funds (very often allowing people to use completely fake details and hence remain anonymous), whereas the vast majority of banks, even in 3rd world countries, are very careful when it comes to identifying their customers.

So while it's true that bank wires are similar to WU/MG transfers in the sense that they're irreversible (with a few exceptions, i.e. if the receiver of the funds gets their account frozen), at least you can rest assured that you've been given correct details (name and address) and therefore you can pursue legal action if necessary.

[StreetJammer]

I got scammed 3 times endup loosing 40K + ,
Now im pretty vigilant

[Makeit]

Great points Bryan...love the info on view source to find GA on site.
Thanks.

[Makeit]

StreetJammer do u mind sharing some examples with other members maybe we can all learn from that.
Thanks.

[bealive]

Hey all!

There's already been a lot of discussion / questions about the relatively high chance of getting scammed when buying sites (especially when buying through more dodgy marketplaces, such as DigitalPoint and a few others) so I decided to post this quick how-to to help out some of you.

While the post relies on my own experience, and I'm quite happy to say that by taking the precautions I will be talking about I've never, ever been scammed myself (even though I've done a lot of buying), it's still by no means conclusive and you should always keep your guard up.

So here goes - the Top 7 Warnings Signs:


3. Seller unwilling to disclose (enough) statistics.

Another very typical scenario, especially on DP and other free marketplaces.

Always try to get Google Analytics stats - and not just (fakeable) PDF proof but actual access to the seller's Google Analytics. It is extremely easy to give someone read-only access to your website stats - all it takes is logging on to GA and adding new user. And there is virtually no excuse not to do it as you won't be able to mess up anything (you will be given read-only access) and you won't be able to sell any other sites associated with this account either!

There's also many buyers who simply don't have Google Analytics installed and offer stats provided by tools such as Awstats and Webalizer. There's two things you should bear in mind when dealing with this kind of stats:

1) Since most of these tracking programs are installed on a local server (as opposed to GA which is on Google's own server) and analyse raw log files, rather than actual live visits, they are extremely easy to manipulate with. So whenever you're about to buy a site that doesn't come with GA statistics, you should do a bit more research to see if the site really is getting the kind of traffic it claims to get. Check statcounter (data is not accurate but will give you an idea), check their Alexa rank, make sure that they actually rank for their main keywords on Google etc.

2) Another cool trick is to go to the site, open the source code of it (usually right click anywhere on the site, then "View Source" will do), press CTRL+F and type in "analytics". If you then see Google Analytics tracking code then this means that the site in fact DOES have GA installed. And the seller who is trying to tell you that it doesn't is simply full of it.


As usual - comments/additions are more than welcome!

Take care,
Bryan

This post is really good Bryan. I hi-lited the part that proved to be a great help to me. The CTRL-F 'analytics'. I did that to my own site. I thought I had installed the GA plugin on my blog. OOPS! I missed it.

So my 1st project for today is get the GA plugin going.

thanks again.
RT...