FBC – 152- How To Avoid Getting Scammed On The Internet

How To Avoid Getting Scammed On The Internet.

Today I want to talk to you about one of the most common scams on the internet that's costing innocent people hundreds of thousands of dollars. We are going to discuss what that kind of scam is and also how to prevent it.

I got a skype call from a guy who actually contacted me ages ago and he wanted to sell one of my drop shipping sites that I'm not using anymore.

He was like, oh, you know what? I can actually sell that stuff for you. I'll take care of everything. You know, the listings and dealing with the buyers and stuff like that. And you don’t have to do anything and then I'll just get a percentage of the sale. So I was ready to close it. I don't have anything to lose.

And it's actually been months now, with nothing from this guy.  So I wanted to close the store because I'm not doing anything with it. And today, the guy actually sends me a Skype saying, oh, man, how's it going? I have a potential buyer and stuff. I need you to answer a few questions. And maybe we can get a sale.

So I spend some time answering the questions and everything. And beforehand we agreed that, you know, when the payment is made, the payment was going in my pocket. And then afterwards, I was going to give him his cut. So I was very clear on that. I said, you know what? The money is going in my account. And then afterwards, I will give you your cut.

So the guy now tells me, “Oh, you know what? We are in a hurry. So I asked the guy to send me the money. And then afterwards, I will send you your cut”. And I was like, “NO NO, this is not working for me. We agreed that it was going to be the other way around. I'm really not comfortable with this because, you know, it's not your reputation that's on the line, it’s mine”.

How To Avoid Getting Scammed On The Internet

So I was like, well, you know, just have that person amend the payment. And this is when he tells me that, ah, you know what the payment is Western Union!

Now, what do you mean Western Union? I mean, Western Union is known for scams. Every possible scam you have on the Internet will involve Western Union. So basically, I spent what I thought was going to be a few minutes explaining the guy that, you know what, you need to you need to cancel that Western Union and then we're going to use an escrow account, which is basically a third party that's going to receive the money to validate, like, OK, we received the money.

So we change the registrar and everything. So the ownership of the website to the buyer. And then once they confirm that it's done, they can they can release the money. You know, it's safer for everybody and me. I was like, dude, let's use escrow. All right.

But he didn’t want to cancel the payment and didn’t want to use Escrow. And he wouldn’t give me any information about the payment, so I could sort it out either.

So I decided Well, there is no way I'm actually going to do business with you, because you see, basically what he wanted was to give me a partial information about the about the Western Union payment.

And how that works is that you send money to someone, you give them some information and they go to the office to collect the money. Right. But there are so many scams with this thing where people will give you some information. But actually, when you get there, there is absolutely no money.

So I was telling the guy, dude, here is the thing here. Here's what’s going to work me. I said, let's go to escrow. Give me the information and I'm going to get there and get the money. And the thing is, I have to go and get that money in cash. It's more than like ten grand or something.

I will go there. I will get the money. And once they have the money and the money is in my bank account, I will change the ownership of the website to you. All right. But that's the only option.

That's it. Because Western Union is known for scams. So if someone wants to pay something with Western Union. I mean, unless you know that person like personally, you've met them and all that stuff. REFUSE! OK. And just the same thing. If you want to buy something online and they ask you to make a Western Union payment, refuse it.

So anyway, so the dude was like, “well, you know what? It's my way or the highway. If you're unhappy, the deal is off”. I'm not actually I'm not going to run the risk of transferring the ownership of one of my domains and one of my websites and stuff to some random dude.

And the fact that he wouldn’t change the payment option and wanted the site transferred first, made me very suspicious. He was the broker. It doesn’t work like that. The seller gets the money first, and then gives the commission after the event.