Business Opportunity Scams - The bargain eBook Store - turning a lemon into a lemonade

By Peter Yexley

The worldwide web abounds with business opportunity scams, get rich quick schemes and simple honest ideas that are just 'pie in the sky' dreams.

The classic ones are where so-called 'dot com retired millionaires' have made so much money from their internet business that they want to 'give away' all their secrets for beer money.

Then there's the 'bankrupt to billionaire' where some guy accidently fell upon a business opportunity whilst he was filling out a phone, claiming his social security money and just beore the bailiffs arrived he was making hundreds of thousands of pounds, dollars, euros or whatever currency his business opportunity resides. Nobody can protect you from getting your fingers burned because there are some really good sales pitches that actually sound good, and true ..too good? To good to be true? And you know the old maxim, if something sounds too good to be try, it probably is.

I once read an article - 'FIVE WAYS TO SPOT AN ONLINE SCAM' and it turned out that article was a red herring to promote an online scam!

Some business opportunity advisors warn us not to part with any money up front. What is 'upfront'? If the business opportunity offers no details and is a secret that will be revealed upon payment, then it is good advice, don't pay for a mystery. You would certainly be buying the sizzle and not the sausage!

It may be that you are asked to purchase a tangible item such as a sales kit, instructions or stock that you cannot possibly start the business without, then an upfront fee is unavoidable as long as you know what you are getting for your money and you receive the items as described. On the other hand you may be asked for some sort of application fee or administrative fee. If you are not getting genuine product samples or sales tools then never pay any money upfront.

Sadly, business opportunity scams affect the genuine business opportunities and often it is difficult to safeguard yourself. Sometimes a misunderstanding can lead to a genuine ethical business opportunity being interpreted as a scam for no other reason than the investor didn't understand the full offer. The other aspect is sheer misrepresentation of what could be a perfectly viable business opportunity but the vendor 'over-egged the omelette' - over sold it and made it sound too easy. Thus, the investor thought he/she was buying a turnkey business that once it was in their hands, money would pour out of it.

All businesses need effort to get started, they need marketing and promoting. Online businesses need to be found in major search engines so as much as an investor may be told that the profit is instant and will flood into your account overnight, we all know it won't.

Look out for the term 'resell rights', this generally means that you are reselling the item you have bought, over and over again. So, you are buying a business opportunity package where the product you have bought is the product you are selling.
Often to justify this in your own mind, you convince yourself that you are a smart guy and you bought it! - Therefore a lot of very intelligent people will do the same. You might be lucky and get your money back but as for all those zeros on the end of the pound or dollar sign...forget it. A classic example is an eBook store.