July 5th, 2008
Identify A Forum Scam
I would say that almost everyone venturing online (even offline) long enough has been scammed at least once. Doing business in forums is no exception. Unfortunately, there is no way for us to identify a scam 100% before every transaction. What we can do is to minimize the chance of conducting business with these unethical group of people. I will highlight some of methods to help you identifying common pitfalls.
No free lunch – Investment Scam
If you have been conducting businesses in the forums for at least a few months, you will have realized that there are offers helping people to double their money from time to time. What the member will do is that he/she is able to make a profit through investment and you can send over a few hundred bucks expecting returns up to 100% in next month.
You will be surprised at how many people will fall into these traps over and over again. In my opinion, the risk involved is very high as you are trusting some stranger to double your investment. You will be better off investing that amount of money into educating yourself like buying books or purchasing materials from other reputable Internet Marketers.
High Reputation and iTrader does not always correspond to high reliability
Allow me to explain the reputation and iTrader system in case you are not unsure of what it is. In most forums, there is this reputation system that allows you to leave good ratings to other forum members to encourage good posting in the forums. As for business transactions, we use iTrader system. So high reputation will mean that you have been helping and providing valuable content in the forum and high iTrader will mean that you have been dong lots of reliable trades.
Just like all things in life, reputation and iTrader can be deceiving. A lot of scammers actually build up an above average profile before triggering their real operation in the forums. You should be careful with members that bears a high positive feedback within a very short period of time after they joined the forums. One way to identify this is to check out their forum join date.
Go for product or service reviews
Perhaps the most effective way to identify a scam offer is to see the product / service reviews by senior forum members or the forum moderators. This is possible for most products and services and is highly recommended because of its unbiased nature. This may be difficult for other types of services. For me, I sometimes go for monthly payment and monitor the service progress at the same time. If you still feel insecure about a trade, leave it.
Have you been scammed before? You can share your experience in the comment area for us to learn as well 
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