eBay Money Making Unveiled Part 3

No pictures today, I'm afraid - try to console yourself with the fact that it's because the scams I'm talking about today are a little harder to spot. So far, we've talked about eBooks and Casinos.

Generally, the type of thing you'll see on eBay (and around the internet, as we'll come to find) will consist of a very, very long listing telling you that the seller is making hundreds or thousands a week. There will often be large, colourful letters, and possibly also pictures of cars, mansions, often 'beautiful' women. Undoubtedly, there will be an obligatory screenshots of PayPal or a company called ClickBank showing the money rolling into the account.

There may even, if you're lucky, be a testimonial or two from other satisfied customers.

What is always strangely absent is any information about what these businesses are. Let me enlighten you:

Firstly, think it through - a guy or gal somewhere in the world is making several thousand a month, and they're selling their secrets on eBay for between £0.99 and £24.99. Now, they are starting to try to explain this away as "it's a big market" or "I want to help the 'little guy' ", but it will never make sense...

...until you realise that THIS is how they make so much money - selling on a guide telling you to sell a guide about how to make money by selling a guide about how....etc.

This is also the basis of many of the websites that you'll find by typing "make money online" into Google and checking out the ads on the right hand side.

Tomorrow, the other things these businesses can tell you to do that don't work as well as they say, and how this fits into the images of "ClickBank" accounts in eBay listings and on websites. For tomorrow, we start talking about "affiliate schemes"...

'Til then!

eBay Money Making Unveiled Part 2: Casino Scams

Here is another of my screenshots from eBay highlighting some cons:
Here, I'm highlighting "casino" scams. The ones in the picture here are fairly direct, but others will hide themselves away as offers to double your money in the first day, or make a continuous stream of income "without selling a thing".

The offers to double your money are fairly spurious. The way it works is that you open an account at an online casino who, as a special offer, match up to 100% of your deposit. Naturally, there is a catch :)

The catch here is that they won't let you withdraw the money until you have placed a certain number of bets - often in the region of $2500 worth of bets. And since they only match your deposit up to a certain amount, the "double your money" thing isn't really kosher.

But the sellers of such information still maintain that they have a system to beat the casinos. One of the most popular is this one (paraphrased):

"Go to a roulette wheel, and place the minimum bet of either black or red. If you win, claim back the money, and make another minimum bet. If you lose, double that bet, and keep doubling until you win."

This is normally accompanied by some statistical information to back up the claims. The idea is that by doubling your money each time, you not only recover your lost bets, but also make a small profit.

Problem is, it only works in theory. Not in practice. This is because tables have betting limits to prevent exactly these kind of systems.

Remember, with all casino-type games or gambling: the house always wins

Don't fall for these scams, guys.

Tomorrow, other "make money online" eBooks. The day after, buying a website business from eBay.

See you then!

eBay Money Making Unveiled

Ok, so it has taken me a while to get this started! But bear with me - I'm now updating more regularly.

So today, let's talk about the money-making scams on eBay. Here is a screenshot that I took today:


There are currently 2,333 results for a search of "make money" on eBay's UK website, so it's probably worth exposing the 99.99% of it that is either misleading, or an outright scam:

1. "I'm selling my eBay business"

What these guys and gals are selling is the chance to sell eBooks. eBook business sellers can also be identified by using codewords like "the biggest selling item on eBay" or words to that effect.

So what you'll receive is a bunch of eBooks that you are meant to list and sell. So in addition to paying for the "business" that is being sold to you, you will have to pay for the following:

- eBay listing fees: with so many eBooks flooding eBay, you probably won't sell the majority of your listings. And those that do get bought will probably end up being resold in competition with you. And considering the low cost that you will have to sell them for, you'll probably end up making pennies, or even a loss

- Selling Manager Pro: this is a premium service offered by eBay for a fixed monthly fee. You will often be told that you need this to run your business, and certainly, it is necessary to run the business on "autopilot" since it automates relisting, processing of feedback, etc. More importantly, it is the condition of all guarantees attached to such businesses that you have to do everything that they tell you to. So you'll have to fork out £5.99 a month (in the UK) to run your "business" and make this back with profits.

- eBay Shop: setting up an eBay shop means that you can store a permanent inventory for a monthly fee and recurring fee for maintaining your stock. This is often one of the ways to becoming a PowerSeller, which, contrary to the listings of some of these sellers, isn't the big deal it seems when all you sell is eBooks

- Electricity! Seems bizarre, but bear with me here: one of the keys to these businesses is telling you that they can be automated; "run your business on autopilot", "earn money while you sleep" are all key indicators. This is an easy one to expose. Using Outlook or Outlook Express, you can set up rules on how to handle your e-mail including by looking for keywords in the subject. Doing this, you can automatically send replies, thus delivering eBooks the second they are bought. Fiddly to set up, but doable. But remember, to offer the 24/7 service, you'll have to have a computer on all the time - that will rack up a power bill quite quickly!

So there are some of the hazards that cover about 30% (a FreddyP(tm) estimate) of the money-making plots on eBay that don't really work.

The next post will handle the Casino scams on eBay - these include things that offer to make you a fixed sum of money overnight. Then we'll handle all the remaining scams for sale on eBay, and then we shall brave the world beyond one website, and start to tackle the world wide web.... :)

N.B. These posts should not reflect badly on eBay itself - it would be unreasonable to expect them to patrol and check the legitimacy of all these money making schemes.