Scams and Limited Markets

Scams and Limited Markets

What is a scam?
-a dishonest way to make money by deceiving people;
-a confidence game or other fraudulent scheme, especially for making a quick profit.
It is a scam if NOBODY makes any money from it (except the fraudster).

What is NOT a scam?
If you do not profit, but other users do, it is not a scam.
You need to have provided the time and skill required to make any product work.

Read reviews before buying
I have saved a lot of money and time by Google searching
‘review + product name’ or ‘review + product creator name’.

You need to read the first 3 pages of results to find independent reviews,
as many are written by affiliates, using text supplied by the creator (and not objective).

Reviews are useful to understand the product:
is it what you need and are you capable of operating it?

Better reviews will explain the upsells (oto) and the value they add.

If you have booked a webinar, check the reviews so that you will know the
product and price.

For you, no purchase means no loss to a scam.

Criteria of a scam.

Legit-Review.com applies the following
6 criteria in reviewing products:
1. Are they providing so many false promises, or not?

2. Real Users’ Experience Rating.

3. Is there any Honest Money Back Guarantee or not?

4. If they have any Scam Approach or not?

5. Our Expert Team rating after using.

6. If there are so many OTOs, UpSells, DownSells ?

1. Are they providing so many false promises, or not?

This is not easy for the buyer to know, unless the promises are too incredible.
Key promises are that ‘a newbie can do this’, ‘you do not need a site, list..’
can secure a sale and have to be true.

One of the key failings of products is their inability to generate traffic without
depending on spamming.

As most newbies lack a list, traffic has to be resolved for the product
to be of any value.

For most products, I will need support.

Often, I send a question to the seller during the launch period.
I am amazed that many questions either are never (!) answered,
or take 3-4 days to receive a reply.
From this, I can judge that support will be substandard.

2. Real Users’ Experience

For a new product, only insiders (including beta testers) will have had a chance to evaluate it.

You need to wait until late in the launch period, with the hope that independent reviews will be published.

If none is found, you have a choice:
buy it with the discount and bonuses,
or buy later when reviews are available.

You might find reviews of the product creator. If the creator has an excellent reputation for value, this is probably going to be a quality product.
If the reputation is negative…..

3. Is there any Honest Money Back Guarantee or not?

This seems straight forward, as you see one at the foot of each sales page.
However, some vendors do not pay out, or use delaying tactics.
My sites were with a reputable host, which abruptly terminated hosting in the
middle of the year. (I am now happily hosted by D9.)

A refund for the refusal to continue hosting? No.

If you pay by credit card, in some countries, you can reclaim from the
card company.
Otherwise, you need to check the rules of the market: JVZoo, Warrior+Plus, etc
and Paypal for resolution.

4. If they have any Scam Approach or not?

Webinars provide opportunities to avoid searching questions, as well as creating
the greed atmosphere with luxury cars, houses, pools, sun tans
(I do not mean to boast = I do mean to boast).

Webinars give you little written information to review afterwards.

In contrast, you can check a sales page and email the vendor.
Which affiliates are promoting it?
If Partnership to Success folks are involved, I am happy.
If not, I am wary.
Checking testimonials is useful (even if it is often boring) to understand
the challenges and how the product (and buyers have met them). If the
testimonials lack product detail, you may need more assurance about the product.

5. Our Expert Team rating after using.

You may have to wait for this until after the launch period, but some independent reviewers move quickly.

6. If there are so many OTOs, UpSells, DownSells?

OTOs, UpSells, DownSells are components of a sales funnel, which is needed to grow a profitable business.
Once the buyer has bought the initial $9.95 product, other more-expensive products are offered.

The issue here is whether, or not, the initial product can fully function
without buying other products.

In an honest sales funnel, the additional products will make the initial product work better, faster or provide additional sales, but the initial product should not need other products to operate as promised.

If this is not the case, the buyer might have to spend $50 or more to buy the combination of products to function.

A lesser issue, but sharp practice, is to offer an upsell at $49; then, if it is refused, the same product combination is offered at $29.

This is cheating any buyer who paid $49. An honest downsell is to reduce the $49 package, by a bonus or two, to offer it at $29.

Reviews often identify this cheating and save you money.

Limited Markets
These are not scams, but offer buyers less than they might expect.

Arbitrage (risk-free profit):
This is buying in one market and selling in another market at the same time.

Apart from having to buy as well as sell (twice the work), a risk-free profit appeals to most of us.

I teach arbitrage and it always disappears quickly.
You have to be fast in and leave before the rest arrive.

There is no mass market for arbitrage.

Also, the software designer/seller has a head start on you for the same business.
We have chosen making money online as it has millions of potential buyers.
The buyers are far less in the following examples:

Domain Names
A number of professional firms operate in this market. Between them, most of the arbitrage opportunities have been recognized and eliminated.

Why do you think that you will repeatedly find what they cannot?

The only people interested in robinjoyce.com are me, those who share my name
(and want a website with our name) and speculators who want to hold us to ransom. Nobody else!

Today, we can use another suffix (mine is .site) to avoid dealing with the speculators.

Also, the speculator has to buy, or control, the domain name. This is an investment in inventory.

Done for You System for Physical Goods- Arbitrage from Selling Books

A new service received a large amount of coverage about 6-9 months ago.

It is a done-for-you system of buying books cheaply from US book stores and selling them to Ebay/Amazon in the US.
You rent the software, anywhere in the world.

It will identify where you can buy low and sell high (arbitrage), you make the buy/sell transaction and they will transport the books for you.

Risk-free profits! Nothing could possibly go wrong, could it?
I left this great opportunity alone, possibly missing out on earning a fortune.

My reasoning:
The software designer/seller has a head start on you for the same business (books).

Everybody was focused on the same books sector
– market saturation
– too many people eating from one plate.

Even if everything is done for you, the risk is yours.

You are dealing with only two buyers:
Ebay and Amazon, who control (and can change) the price.

Complaints reported:

1. Profit margins falling to almost nothing (standard in arbitrage opportunities).

2. Postal delays, books arrive late, and Amazon has cut the price.

3. Long time to find opportunities.

I would add:

if anything went wrong, I am 8-10 time zones away, possibly asleep, and have
few US contacts who can help in such operations.

Finally, from the complainant:
‘I will be requesting a refund but they had some funky 365 day refund policy implying they weren’t going to refund anyone until they had tried the system for 365 days.’

I suggest that you fully understand how such novel systems work before investing
and know who is responsible for what.

Done-for-you does not guarantee that it is risk-free and trouble-free.

If you see Arbitrage and/or Risk-Free Profits in a promotion, be skeptical,
very skeptical!

Review and understand products before you buy them.
You will be glad that you did.

Profitable business as it should be done
Buy from the top IM people. They have earned their reputations from providing value
to thousands of satisfied customers. Following their methods brings you success.
The place to start is on this website. Check the wonderful products NOW!

Also, there is an excellent complementary product, which is the complete works of
a leading UK internet marketer with a global reputation:
Michael Cheney ‘s 7-Figure Franchise is the best compilation of his work and the only external course material John endorses on his excellent Partnership To Success program (on which I am privileged to be a student).
It will make you serious money.
Check it out here: 7-Figure Franchise
Click here:
www.robinjoyce.site/likes/7ff

Sincerely,

Robin Joyce

This is a Guest Post written by Robin Joyce, if you would like to be considered for a guest post, please contact me.