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The eBay feedback system has long been the backbone of the eBay.com buying and selling system. The system enables users to ascertain important information about who they are dealing with, by examining a users’ previous transactions, and then deciding whether or not this is the type of person they want to deal with.

Simply put, if a seller has ripped off, annoyed, and/or stolen from other people, or if the seller has a reputation for sending damaged, broken, misrepresented, or otherwise sub par goods, they will have negative feedback, and users should avoid them.

How Feedback Scammers are Cheating the Feedback System

The following are just some of the ways today’s scammers are circumventing the eBay feedback system:

How to Protect Yourself From Feedback Scammers

So how do you protect yourself from scammers who have circumvented the eBay feedback system?

First off, and this applies to almost every tip below, you should always closely examine your sellers feedback. That means you don’t just look at the number of positive and negative feedback a seller has, but rather look at the feedback comments, look at who the buyer and seller were, look at what was for sale, find out how much the item sold for, and determine whether the seller is now selling similar items at similar prices.

• Look at Feedback Comments:

  If your seller has a lot of overly positive comments, or just a lot of similar feedback comments, they may be involved in feedback exchanges or leaving feedback for themselves. Most scammers don’t leave original feedback every time when leaving themselves hundreds of feedback.

• Look at Who the Buyer and Seller Were:

  The first reason for this is that a person can buy 10,000 items on eBay, get 10,000 positive feedback, yet never sell ever sell one thing. If an eBayer has lots of positive feedback, but it’s all for buying and none is for selling, be just as wary when dealing with them as you would a seller with zero feedback. After all, they are just as new to selling as a zero feedbacker.

  Secondly, if the seller has a lot of buyers, but all the buyers have only 1 or 2 positive feedback, there is a large chance that the seller is selling to him or herself. Be especially careful if your seller’s buyers only have 1 positive feedback, and that just so happens to be from the seller him/herself.

• Look at What Was For Sale:

  Never buy from sellers who have obtained feedback from things like: five cent recipes, e-books, wholesale lists, free items, or feedback exchanges and purchases. If a seller has to fake his or her feedback, are they really safe to deal with? (In case your wondering, the answer is NO!)

  Also, lets say your seller has been selling 5 and 10 cent items for over a year. They may have 10,000 positive feedback, but now they all of a sudden switch from selling 5 cent items, to big ticket items. Yes this person may have come through with small ticket items, but they can still take your big ticket purchase and run with your cash.

• Find Out How Much the Item Sold For:

  As mentioned above, be careful of sellers who have a wide difference in item prices. If a seller has sold 50 expensive computers to 50 satisfied buyers, you’re likely in a safe situation. However, if the seller has sold 50 five cent items, you not in such a safe place.

  Also, some scammers prepare for a big score by selling small ticket items like stamps and baseball cards to build up positive feedback. They then use their good reputation to sell big ticket items (hundreds or thousands of dollars in value) and then dash with your cash. If someone only sells baseball cards, and then starts selling laptops out of the blue, be a safe consumer and ask why?

• Beware Private Feedback and Private Auctions:

  Private feedback and private auctions should also bring up a red flag when it comes to any eBay transactions. Feedback portfolios are designed to show how trustworthy a seller you are. If you are hiding your feedback, you are hiding how trustworthy you are. I doubt there are many sellers with great feedback, that they don’t want others to see. Likewise, if a scammer is buying feedback, chances are he or she doesn’t want his or her buyers/potential victims to know about it. If a seller has a lot of private auctions, or private feedback, ask them why. If they don’t give you a good enough answer, don’t do business.

 Learn more at www.jpcservicesinc.com

During my internet research travels I ran across this site that seems to be a good resource http://www.ripoffreport.com. Below is part of there home page.

"Victim of a consumer Rip-off? Want justice? Rip-off Report™ is a worldwide consumer reporting Website & Publication, by consumers, for consumers, to file & document complaints about companies or individuals who ripoff consumers.

Unlike the Better Business Bureau, badbusinessbureau.com / Rip-off Report™ does not hide reports of "satisfied" complaints. ALL complaints remain public in order to create a working history on the company or individual in question; unedited."

My initial feeling is that it is a good resource. As always your feedback is welcomed.

This is a great article that I found on the FBI's website http://www.fbi.gov/ that to my surprise is a very informative site. I don't know why I'm surprised. It's probably because of the whole suspicion of "big brother" thing and the fact that I have worked in government systems and seen the extremes of bureaucracies first hand. None the less it is a very good site and article.

In the market for a new job? The Internet has made it easier than ever to find one. It’s also made it easier for criminals to find you.

Think about it: what do you do when you apply for a job? You give out all kinds of personal information: your name, address, home and work telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, sometimes even your date of birth and social security number. Just what you’d want to know if you’re an identity thief or other criminal.

It’s no wonder we’re investigating all kinds of cases involving online job scams. Here are a few examples we’ve seen of what can happen to you:

• You respond to an online job ad. You’re contacted via e-mail for a fake interview. Then, you’re asked for bank account information in order to “direct deposit” your paychecks. Guess what? It’s all a ruse…and the crooks drain your account.
• You get an e-mail from a recruiter or company that’s hiring wanting to know all your personal details for a pre-employment background check. Same drill—that information is used to steal your identity.
• You post your résumé online with your social security number and other personal information. Criminals find it and use the information to get fake credit cards and loans…in your name.
• You respond to an online job ad for a “correspondence manager” or “import/export specialist.” You’re hired…and asked to ship products for your employer overseas. Turns out, it’s a reshipping scam. The items you shipped were purchased online using stolen credit cards…and you’ve shipped them illegally to thieves in Nigeria and other countries.

What can you do to avoid being scammed? We recommend you practice safe surfing by taking the following steps:

• THINK TWICE about telling all on your online résumé. Do you really need to provide detailed personal information? Consider posting your résumé more anonymously…with an e-mail address as your primary contact point.
• NEVER provide a potential employer with your bank account or credit card information, a scan of your driver’s license or other ID, or a detailed physical description of yourself. That’s just asking for trouble.
• NEVER pay upfront for any job opportunity (they’re supposed to be paying you!) and never forward, transfer, or wire money to a prospective employer.
• BE WARY of job listings with misspellings, grammatical mistakes, and terms such as “money transfers,” “wiring funds,” “package-forwarding,” and “import/export specialist.” Those are big clues that something is amiss.

And what if—heaven forbid—you do fall for one of these cons? Do damage control immediately: first, close all bank and e-mail accounts linked to the fraud. Then, contact the three major credit bureaus to place fraud alerts on your credit files and to regularly monitor your credit reports for unusual activity. Then, help us clean up the ‘net by reporting the fraud to the job site where the scam was posted and by filing a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center.

For more anti-fraud advice, see our Common Frauds webpage and the LooksTooGoodToBeTrue.com website.

Visit us at http://www.jpcservicesinc.com/ 

By: Jim Degerstrom

You need to be careful browsing through online turnkey offers to avoid serious financial loss. Everyone has at least one horror story involving online scams, and some are more personal because they were a victim. Once I receive my check for $14,000,000 from Nairobi I can retire from writing advice for small business owners and designing web sites. Wish me luck!

Consider the line from the movie "Field of Dreams" saying "If you build it, they will come". This does not apply to websites. Online, the P.T. Barnum adage "There's a sucker born every minute" is too often the case when it comes to purchasing a turnkey online business. Think before you hand off your hard earned cash. You could become victim of an online scam.

In the real world, individuals with novice internet skills are becoming victims every day. An honest person is more apt to believe what they read online because it's in their character to trust things in writing. Stories of instant wealth with turnkey websites help perpetuate the elusive dream, especially when the reader has little or no business experience. Let's examine a true case involving one of my clients, and the extreme nature of what can happen.

Imagine this single Mom, struggling to make ends meet while living off the proceeds of a real estate sale, and she encounters a variety of online ads filled with exaggeration and promising the opportunity of a lifetime. Over time, and before meeting me, she purchased 7 prepackaged web sites for a variety of online products and services thinking that money would roll in automatically. To put her online marketing in perspective, only recently she grew more comfortable sending and receiving email.

Her total cost for 7 sites exceeded $10,000 two years ago with zero profit to date. Most of the sites were cookie cutter turnkey subdomains with insignificant search engine ranking. In general, the top level domains were poorly coded with grade school level graphics, so each of her sites had serious problems with credibility.

When questioned about the lack of sales, most of her sources replied blaming her for the poor performance because she wasn't promoting and marketing the site. Any person with bare email skills, no previous online marketing, and ruthless predators taking advantage of novice online entrepreneurs, all adds up to disaster. The ones selling advice about how to make money are often the only ones making money. Read on about how truly outrageous this situation became.

To get started, one company required payment of $2500 by EFT to transfer funds immediately from her bank account to theirs. One year later, they renewed her site without any prior notice, and withdrew $2500 again. Believe it. I know because by this time I was contacted to create a super site as a portal page to introduce the other 7, and she asked for advice on how to handle the $2500 withdrawal.

Here are some tips to help you avoid online scams when considering an online turnkey website.

1. Look at the web site and reflect on your first impression objectively. Your visitors will decide within 5 seconds if your product or service is credible and worthwhile. If your reaction viewing the parent site is not favorable, move on.

2. If you decide to review their web site further, look for signs of exaggeration. Pages overloaded with adjectives claiming or exclaiming success may be overselling in an attempt to convince you that you'll be the next millionaire.

3. Next, do the owners or managers of the online opportunity give their real names, physical address, and phone numbers? If all you find is a postal box address and nothing to identify who's taking your money, don't do it.

4. Never consider buying an online business unless you personally have the experience to market and grow the product or service. Very few people make it rich quickly without effort and a considerable commitment of time and energy.

5. Don't believe ads that offer something too good to be true. Avoid the pressure to act now. There is no urgency handing over your life savings until you perform some basic research.

6. Check for comments from satisfied customers. Testimonials from unhappy buyers are never published, so save your energy and skip over those unless you're in the mood for some entertainment, and enjoy reading fiction.

7. Join a forum to get advice and feedback from other honest people like you. Search Google for "online business marketing forums" and visit several to see reviews of online opportunities from other users.

8. If you are going to distribute a product, think twice if the site requires you to pay in advance for inventory, offers a bonus if you sign up more distributors, or has ANY advance fee requirements.

Keep an open mind as you review different concepts, and think twice before you believe what you read online. Another downside to a turnkey website is you own a site that is most likely a clone to 100's or perhaps 1000's of pages covering the same product or service. Making a positive first impression includes being unique. In most cases the turnkey site is a fixed design, so you probably have zero influence on the look, and no chance of revising the content.

In summary, caution and research will be the key to avoid being victimized. Shortcuts to wealth are rare. Real success in any online business requires long hours and hard work. The turnkey website for an online business may look too good to be true. It probably is. Your success depends on having a popular product or service that people need, presenting your offers on a credible and attractive site, and finally getting traffic to your web pages to make the sale. It is not easy. It can be done.

Promising winnings or earnings

Making the consumer feel stupid for not going along with them

Providing nothing unless the consumer makes an appointment

Providing only partial disclosure and obscuring facts or sources

Telling victims they must make an on-the-spot decision to avoid missing an opportunity

Pressuring the victim until he or she gives in and commits

Offering to share "inside information"

Telling consumers that the product or service is legal

Advising consumers to borrow money or cash in retirement funds to invest in the products

Using a name that sounds like a legitimate or respected brand or business

Claiming to be a charitable organization and playing on consumers' guilt

Selling poorly understood products, especially financial products

To learn more go to www.jpcservicesinc.com