Lottery VS. You

So this entry is a little different than what I'm usually talking about, but interesting nonetheless. I was thinking recently about how much money people spend on the lottery, hoping and wishing to hit "the big one".

I work with people who buy powerball tickets every time there is a drawing. Usually they buy at least 5 $1 tickets. Now the Powerball has 3 drawings a week. So if you add it up $15 a week times 52 weeks, you get $780.

Can you imagine putting that money into starting your own business? Instead of hoping to hit it big, you are actually working towards a real opportunity to make real money. I started my own online store 8 months ago for less than $500, but that doesn't include future marketing costs. I think realistically you could start up for under $1000. That's just going without buying your lottery tickets for a year. Not a bad trade off if you ask me.

So next time your in the grocery store or gas station, and you look over at the powerball machine, stop for a second or two and make a choice that might just change your life.

It's You VS. The Lottery, Which One Will You Choose?

Product Scams On Craigslist

So like a lot of you, I frequent Craigslist. I've actually purchased 3 things off of there, and have found most of the people on there to be pretty honest with what they sell. What I want to talk about are craiglist scams.

Last year right after Christmas, I decided I wanted to buy a new t.v. Either an lcd or plasma. So I decided to check out craigslist and see what people were selling. There were some really good deals, and some "too good to be true" deals. Which obviously tempted me greatly lol.

So I found a person claiming to have a 42" brand new plasma t.v. for like 2-300 bucks. Now if you know t.v's at all then you know that is nearly impossible to find unless it's broken or something like that.

So I inquired anyway. I got an email the next day saying if I was interested they would immediately send it out via ups or fedex, something like that. So I said ok. I figured what can it hurt.

So they emailed me a couple days later with a pdf file image showing the "shipping label" which looked to be authentic. Now when I went to track the shipment, of course it never showed up. So I called fed ex and they told me that they had a record of the label being printed, but it hadn't been shipped yet.

That right there told me....SCAM

Anyway I didn't lose any money thankfully, and a few months later finally got my t.v. with a lot of overtime work and it was brand new. It makes you appreciate it more when you really have to work for it.

So there you go friends, just another thing to watch out for. Don't be fooled by these shipping labels that people print to make you think they've ship your product.

And on another note, when dealing with craigslist, always meet in person and pay cash and see the actual product.

Until next time.

Local News Story About Work At Home Scams

So one of the local news stations just did a story about work at home scams. Funny coincidence since I just started this blog. It was really short only like 5-7 minutes but was very informative. So much so that I thought I'd post about it and share some with you guys and gals.

It started by a woman telling the news that she got some letters in the mail claiming that if she just stuffed a bunch of envelopes she could make $800,000 in only 3 months.

WOW that's stinkin awesome right? WRONG?

She wrote her attorney general and they researched it only to find out that it basically looked like a pyramid/multilevel marketing scam. This is straight from the attorney general themself.

So this is not a good route to go when trying to work at home

KGW.COM, the news channel that ran the story, listed some actual legit home business that were mostly home based call center work. Now people will say "don't always believe everything on the news" but they said these places were free to sign up. So it might be worth more investigating.

Convergys
Speak Write
Arise
Alpine Access
Working Solutions

The last part were 4 tips from the BBB when looking for work at home jobs and watching out for work at home scams.

1. Do you homework

2. Company should be listed on the BBB website

3. If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is!

4. Beware of an offer that requires and up-front fee!

I thought this was a perfect time for a news story like this to come out. With the economy the way it is, more and more people are looking to work from home but don't know where to begin. The thought of losing our hard earned money on a home business scam, scares us all.

For the full story and video from the news segment check out http://www.kgw.com/news/specialreports/stories//kgw_112008_news_work_home.1d04ece47.html

Nigerian Scams

So I was checking out one of my new favorite scambusting blogs scam victims united. Their link is in my trusted resources.

Anyway they shared a story about an email Nigerian Scam, that a woman from Oregon lost $400,000 to. This really hit home because I too am from oregon and I too almost fell into that trap one time. Not the same nigerian scam but one similar.

Now this one was actually very sneaky about it. I found this person through one of those date sites, like match.com. This was long before I was married, so don't worry lol.

This person would send me pictures of a really hot "model" as they called themselves made up an elaborate story, and then after talking a while said she really wanted to come see me in the u.s. So I gave this person my address and they sent me a money order for some crazy amount. It of course had a Nigerian bank name on it.

So I asked this person why do you need me to cash this for you when the bank is in africa. Obviously they gave some bull crap answer and since then I never talked to that person again.

I was one of the lucky few, who got out before I got hurt, but I know many of you haven't. So keep a watch out for these nigerian scams. Delete the emails and be strong.

Click on the link to the story to read the whole thing http://www.katu.com/news/34292654.html

Money Making Infomercials....I mean Scamfomercials!

So recently I started workin the night shift during november, and I'm usually up late into the night after I get home. I am very lucky that I get to see all these money making infomercials out there.

I feel the same way about these as I do when I get all those "male enhancement" emails. It amazes me how many people seem so concerned about the size of my hooha.

These infomercials really think that for $29.99 they can make you thousands. There is the old saying "you get what you pay for". So think about that before you fall for one of these scammers. How good can the product be if they are selling it for $30.

I fell for one of these products years and years ago, when I was a naive 19yr old. I bought this program for $29.99. All you had to do was place a "tiny little ad" in 1000's of newspapers and watch the money roll in.

What they don't tell you is that when you call to buy the product, they immediately try to upsell you on $600 1-900 phone lines. Like psychic lines, date lines etc etc.

Now maybe this type of business isn't technically a "scammer" but not good business nonetheless.

So later on in years I did more research on the person who was pedaling this crap and found out he had a less than stellar reputation. So before any of you jump into something you see on t.v. make sure you researc, research research the person.

I won't mention this guys' name but it rhymes with SHMON SHMAPRE

Please guys don't fall for all the crap out there!

Fraud Alert

Hey everyone I found a site through Chris Malta's blog that deals with helping people avoid scams and frauds. They are working with the FBI on getting "fraud alerts" posted at banks to help consumers avoid counterfeit check fraud. So please check out the site below. And download the pdf and ask your local bank to post the fliers.

Scam Victims United

Help spread the word.

10 Steps For Creating an Online Store

So I thought I'd share with you the steps I took while trying to start my own online store. It's definitely not the only way to go, but it's the way I chose to go. Your results may vary.

1. Registered a general partnership and doing business as name with my state.

2. Applied and received my federal tax id/ein

3. Registered a domain name and set up hosting (I actually suggest waiting on choosing a domain name until after you've decided on a product niche to go into.

4. Do your market reseach. Find out what people are looking to buy. (What you think people want, might not be what they actually want.)

5. Once your research is done and you've decided on a product niche you want to try selling in, you must find "true factory authorized wholesalers" to supply you with the products. Beware of the scammers and middle men out there. There is only one trusted source I use. They are Worldwide Brands and they are the only Ebay certified product sourcing solution.

They have a directory of 1000's of suppliers for various products.

6. Once you find a supplier, you contact them and tell them you'd like to sell their products on your store. They will then set you up an account and you will have access to their product prices.

7. Set up a sales platform. There are many to choose from. You can start with a Yahoo Store which is very easy to set up and has a minimal monthly cost. You can start selling on Ebay as well as Amazon. What's good with these two platforms, is that you have some already built in traffic to your site. The last way and the way I went with is building your own custom site.

The pros for this, is that you can control every aspect of your design and shopping cart, but on the other hand, you don't have the built in traffic of a yahoo store or amazon, or ebay. Also it does take more time and effort.

8. Once you have a storefront up, you need people to find you! You must advertise. You have various options with that as well. There is Google Adwords. With adwords you pay for ads that show up when people search for a specific pre-determined keyword or phrase. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad.

There is SEO, or search engine optimization. This is a much longer process. This is where your site shows up in Google's search results when someone types in a particular term. This kind of advertising is FREE, but takes much more of your time.

The last one I want to focus on is "Social Marketin" it's basically the internets version of word of mouth. There are many sites like squidoo, hubpages, youtube, ezine articles and many more where you can post your content and place links to your e-commerce store. So when someone reads an article you post and they want to learn more about your products, they can go to your site.

9. Set up a merchant account. A merchant account is a company that allows you to take credit cards on your site. It's very important to have one. Paypal is a good way to start if you're on a budget.

10. Customer Service/experience. This is probably one of the most important, if not THE most important aspects of starting an online store. When you start getting people into your store, you have to give them a memorable and great experience. You have to offer them something they can't get anywhere else.

As a small business owner, you have to go that extra mile for your customers. This will keep them coming back more and more. And really the first sale isn't the most important sale, it's the continual sales you make, based on the trust you gain with your customers.

So there you have it guys, these were the steps I took to get started. They aren't necessarily the only steps or the best steps, but you can get a good start from there. This was just my personal experience.

Take care and good luck. It's not as hard as you may think.

How to Recognize the Warning Signs of a Scam!

Hey guys and gals. As I promised, I'm gonna keep this blog updated with great content and resources that I find. I'm a new home business owner, and like you I'm always looking out for the "work at home scams". They're everywhere, and I don't want to fall for them and I don't want you to fall for them either.

I got a video here from one of my trusted sources. His name is Chris Malta. If you haven't heard of him, well you should. Anyway I won't talk him up too much because I don't want to sound salesmany. But check out this video and you'll see why I trust him.

If you like this video, his site is full of others. ALL FREE!

See more Free Videos at ChrisMalta.com!

Learn to Avoid Ebiz Scams!

Thanks for visiting my new blog. I started this blog to help new ebiz owners like myself stay clear of all the scams out there. Before you go and spend your hard earned money, I hope you check out this blog and the information on it. It just might save you some headaches.