The Truth About Scams (for real)

Okay... at least half of us working online know that scams exist, if only because we have taken that famous "baptism by fire" and lost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to learn this.

Mind you, 99% of the people not working online assume ALL online business opportunities are scams.

But... here's the truth. And I have learned this through two trials: in both cases it was true. Two for two: not a huge field of reference, but enough to convince me of one thing (AND THIS IS IMPORTANT):

MOST SCAMS ARE NOT PERPETRATED BY THE COMPANIES!!

Rather, most scams are perpetrated UPON the companies. Now, think about that. And, yes, bear in mind that I am working only from a reference of two REPUTABLE companies. (There are still a lot of companies out there that knowing perpetrate scams, too.)

How does this happen? My guess is, one or two hackers finds a way around the company's security and proceeds to exploit it. Or, if the company is unwary or has been hit by some misfortune, they tell others about it and it spreads.

In fact, companies are MORE likely to BE scammed than to scam.

Why?

For the pathetic reason that, just as liars are always the first to suspect others of lying, so honest people are the last to think in terms of scams. And, because of that, security is often lax. And, as my son sagely once put it, "where ever there's money, there's someone trying to steal it."

But, trust me... the hackers/scammers ARE thinking in terms of how to hack into or otherwise scam a company-- and, why scam a few people (especially, why draw attention to yourself?), when you can scam a whole company-- and leave the company looking like the villians.

In fact, it wouldn't surprise me at all, if certain large corporations hired these very people to discredit their smaller competition... but that goes along with "paranoid conspiracy theory" that the large companys online are trying to wipe out the independents.

At any rate... the next time you think about signing up for a business opportunity and you're doing your famous "due diligence"... take the time to look at the company in terms of possible breaches; and ask the company founder a few questions about their security. Make sure it can't be hacked/scammed. Look at it yourself, for potential chinks in its armour and either pass it up or point any you find out.

And if you're thinking about starting a business opportunity yourself... when putting it together, think in terms of security measures. Seriously.

It only takes one hacker or scammer to destroy a company that thousands depend on-- and, remember Enron and Lucent... this is true both offline and on.

The difference between traditional and credit based safelists is...

In a word, traffic.

Well, traffic, yeah, but also motivation for each member of a credit-based safelist to actually OPEN those emails. Unlike the old-fashioned safelists, where the safelist would actually ADVISE their members to "remember to delete the emails in your email account..." Not, "remember to read the emails..." Whew!

Now, a credit-basedd safelist is completely different. Like the traffic exchange concept, in a credit-based safelist, in order to be able to send emails at all, you must first earn credits. And, apart from buying them, the only way to do that is by opening the emails sent to you and clicking on the credit-links.

Voila`! A very in-effectual form of marketing transforms into a VERY effectual form... in some ways much better than Traffic Exchanges. Why is that? Because, unlike traffic exchanges, a marketer has a LOT more control on the email content and does not need to know HTML in order to participate.

Also, sending a new message each day is pretty easy (apart from the whole composing the message business). The only trouble is, so many go about it all wrong... and never see much in the way of results.

That is what the first part of this series is about... understanding what safelist marketing is. This is also covered in my ebook, Tracker Mo's Bootcamp (found in the side-bar), and you can get it much faster -- along with a lot of other great information -- or you can wait until I post it here.

After going over that stuff, I also plan to include a review of all the safelists I use. I may even rank them, too.

Anyway, that's the difference... traffic, effective marketing. Oh, did I mention that, in most cases, safelists also offer free memberships? Traffic Pro List offers a free membership that pays (had to mention it: you don't see that everyday).

More later...

The Traffic Pro List Connection

Remember that old shaver commercial? Not sure of the brand (it might have been Shick), but the commercial started with this older guy talking about how great the product was... and ending, with him saying, "I liked it so much, I bought the company."

Well, as I've mentioned here before, I liked safelist marketing so much that I, too, bought the company-- well, one anyway. Traffic Pro List. And, just recently, I added the links to this blog and my main site to the side-bar in the member's area of TPL. So, if you're a TPL member and this is the first time you're reading my blog, welcome!

Also, in honor of this, I will be focusing on safelists for my next few entries. You see, I still market heavily with safelists-- credit-based only, of course.

And that may be the first of my blogs on the topic: the difference between credit-based and non-credit based... because the difference is remarkable. Stay tuned...