Beware The Four Letter "F" Word!

Beware of Web Sites Bearing 'Free Gifts'
by Chris Malta & Robin Cowie

If they're offered after the sale, they're NOT free!

One of my best friends, someone that I’ve known since I was a teenager (which seems like a long time ago!), had a great collection of T-Shirts with some of the funniest slogans on them that I’ve ever seen. One of my favorites was his T-Shirt that read: “If You Can’t Dazzle ‘em with Brilliance, Baffle ‘em with Bull****” (You can probably fill in the blanks quite easily!)

There are a tremendous number of web sites selling Information on the Internet who are doing just that. Completely lacking in anything even remotely resembling brilliance, they are spending a great deal of effort, and seriously taxing their few active brain cells, in order to Baffle you into buying sub-standard Information Products.

We are in the business of providing Product Sourcing information to Home-based Internet Businesses. We publish The Drop Ship Source Directory, a Directory of brand name Wholesale Suppliers who are willing to Drop Ship those products directly to your customer from the warehouse, one at a time, at wholesale. It’s an excellent way to do business without spending a ton of money on stocking an inventory.

We also publish The Light Bulk Wholesale Directory; a Directory of genuine Wholesale Suppliers who are willing to sell small bulk quantities of products to Home-based Internet Businesses at larger bulk quantity wholesale prices. We’ve worked very hard for years to provide absolutely honest and complete information.

However, there are other information providers in this business who are either too lazy to do the time-consuming research this business requires, or are just outright scam artists looking to cheat you out of your money. They have a wide range of methods they use to Baffle you into buying from them, but one of the most obvious is Free Gifts.


Two Kinds of Free Gifts

1.) Free Gifts given to you before the sale are usually a good thing.
We do that ourselves; we offer a very comprehensive Free EBook that gives you a tremendous amount of FREE information on starting your Internet Business. We give you that for free, no questions asked, no personal information required, and you never have to buy anything from us. THAT kind of Free Gift is OK, because it really is Free!

2.) Free Gifts that are promised after the sale are the thing to watch out for.
They are designed to make the offer look so attractive to you that you simply cannot turn it down. They are, in fact, given to you because the main informational product itself is so lousy that it’s creators feel that they have to suck you in with after-the-sale freebies, or they’ll never sell anything to you at all. However, in order to get all these Free Gifts, you have to buy something first.

Here’s how these scam artists work:

They pitch their junk Informational Product to you with all kinds of wonderful promises, telling you that you’re going to make incredible amounts of money very quickly. That in itself is not true! NOBODY makes incredible amounts of money quickly on the Internet. In the real world, it takes time, patience, and work!

THEN they tell you that if you order their information, they will include “$750 Worth of Bonus Free Gifts!” with your order, or some such ridiculous statement. They tell you that you will get Marketing Information, Email Generation Software, Important Articles and Reports, Expensive EBooks, Bonus Wholesale Guides, etc., etc., for FREE, after you buy their product.

Freebies that you only get AFTER the sale are there for two reasons:

• They make you think you're getting much more that you are paying for, when in truth you are not; you can pick up that stuff for free without buying anything. All that Free Stuff is just that; it’s FREE, it’s garbage, and you can find it all over the Internet for nothing, without having to pay a cent for anybody’s products. The scam artists certainly do not pay for it; why should you?

• They are a distraction. The scam artists are counting on the very good probability that you will spend so much time with, and get so caught up in all that extra free stuff that you will forget that the original product you paid for is junk, and you'll never bother to ask for a refund!

So Beware of Informational Web Sites offering Free Gifts after the sale, folks. There is a reason for it, and it’s not a good one! Maybe they should also offer a T-Shirt with those “gifts”…I know a guy who can suggest a good one…



About the authors: Chris Malta and Robin Cowie of WorldwideBrands.com are the Writers and Hosts of The Entrepreneur Magazine EBiz and Product Sourcing Radio Shows.

Are You Ready For The Ride Of Your Life?

You are headed for an amazing ride of thrills, chills, action, and adventure. The best thing I can relate it to is a roller coaster at an amusement park.
By Steve Foss

Congratulations! You have made the courageous decision to be an independent businessperson and sell products to the general population. You also made the very wise decision to have a large part of your marketing strategy be online selling through your web site. What you may not have realized yet is that you are very close to being in a position for the damn to break and business to start flooding your way. But you better get in, sit down, and fasten your seat belt or you might get swept away with the unprepared. And I’m talking about online sales for Christmas 2006.

Internet sales for Christmas 2005 exceeded everyone’s expectations. Analysts expected there to be a 15% increase over 2004 with sales approaching 20 billion dollars. After all the wrapping paper settled, online sales were up 24% over 2004 with sales surpassing a whopping 30.1 billion dollars. Everyone expects the numbers for Christmas 2006 to be just as good. Read what the pros say about it here:

Did you say 2006 looks great?

Did you say 30.1BILLION (with a B)?

It’s August and there are some things you should be doing RIGHT NOW to insure that you are ready to capitalize on the massive amounts of business that will take place starting after Halloween in October.

1. Make sure you have selected the right products to sell. Do all the competitive analysis you must do in order to cash in on the gift giving frenzy.

2. Have your drop shipper relationship solidified. Make sure they are able to handle the type of volumes needed for aggressive online retailers. That partnership MUST be a well oiled machine before orders start coming in, or you will find yourself having a miserable holiday season filled with serious customer service issues. Get it done today.

3. Have your web site built, evaluated, and ready to go. Make sure it is going to keep customer’s attention through captivating content once they get there, and not let them leave until the sale is consummated. A professional website evaluation from our company is a must.

4. Take care of the business end of things. Think about the money flow. Is your shopping cart functional and easy to use? Is your accounting system able to handle the volume? Are you prepared to take the next step and enter the big leagues of e-commerce sales?

5. Get optimized…fast! If you haven’t started your rise to page one of the major search engines, you had better get started immediately. This is a process that doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a couple of months for your relationship with people like Google and Yahoo to get beneficial. Also start your link exchange program with other sites that will see high traffic during the Christmas season.

6. Finish the journey! If you have no idea what I am talking about, you haven’t been on the journey. It is a step by step process that will walk you through everything I have listed above. Get in the portal, sign up for the journey, and finish it. The good book says “having done all, stand”. So do ALL, and then stand.

I spoke with a person one time who was a small business owner about their Christmas sales. What they said floored me. He let me know that he makes enough money in a two month period to pay all his bills for a year. He said that he “played the other ten months”.

Can you hear the click, click, click as you approach the start of the Christmas season roller coaster ride? Remember, if you make only one tenth of one percent of all the sales that will be made this holiday season, you will walk away with almost half a million dollars. Why not you? Seriously! Now go get busy!

Gym Sweet Gym!

Does your "To Do" list for today include things like:

1. Growing a successful business,
   
2. Juggling all your roles, and
   
3. Building the body of a Greek God or Goddess?

Those things may be easier said than done. Most people realize the need for and benefits of an exercise program. But when they are starting a business, finding the time can be challenging. Here is a program we can do from our home office that will be a great way to keep us feeling alert, alive, and strong.

Exercise for the deskbound

Take a short break from your routine to relieve some of the back pressures you may feel while sitting at your desk all day. These exercises can help relieve discomfort and prevent injury. First, get the energy flowing through your body. Inhale fresh air through your nose; pause and exhale it out of your mouth. Do this six times. Lift your arms high above your head to stretch your muscles and then lower your arms. Relax and repeat. These moves help your body relax and increase your circulation. Now you're ready for some back relief.

Strengthen Back and Buttocks

* Bend your knees slightly as you stand with hands at your sides.
* Tilt your upper body forward as you push back your arms and buttocks.
* Raise your head and shoulders.
* You'll feel it in your back down to your legs.
* Hold this position for 15 seconds.
* Do this three times.

Relieve Lower Back Pressure

* Exhaling, slowly lean forward, drop head toward knees, and let hands drop at ankles. Hold 15 seconds.
* Inhaling, unwind, slowly bringing up the head.
* Exhaling, stretch arms toward ceiling.
* Do this five times.

Strengthen Upper Back and Shoulder Muscles

* Lift hands to shoulders.
* Keep elbows down as you push shoulders back with your arms.
* Hold this position for 15 seconds.
* Do this three times.

Relieve Back Tension and Stretch Hips

* Stand with feet apart and knees bent.
* Crouch your body as low as you can without pain.
* Hold this position for 15 seconds.
* Do this five times.

Stretch Abdominal and Chest Muscles

* In a standing or sitting position, place your palms on your lower back.
* Stretch back your upper body.
* Hold this position for 15 seconds.
* Do this three times.

Adapted and reprinted with permission from Parlay International, which publishes information resources on a variety of health and wellness topics. For more information on Parlay publications, call 1-800-457-2752.

Don't Bite The Bait or You'll Get Cleaned!

It looks delicious and inviting but there is always a hook inside. And the people who want to steal your money use a sport called "phishing" to try to get it. Here is one of the most innovative ways they reel in the uneducated.




Electronic Federal Tax Payment System Cited in New E-mail Scam

The Internal Revenue Service is warning taxpayers to be on the lookout for a new e-mail scam that uses the Treasury Department's Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS) as a hook to lure individuals into disclosing their personal information. The system, which is used by more than six million taxpayers, allows businesses and individuals to pay all their federal taxes online or by phone.

The new e-mail scam, fraught with grammatical errors and typos, looks like a page from IRS.gov and claims to be from the "IRS Antifraud Comission" (sic), a fictitious group. The e-mail claims someone has enrolled the taxpayer's credit card in EFTPS and has tried to pay taxes with it. The e-mail also says there have been fraud attempts involving the taxpayer's bank account. The e-mail claims money was lost and "remaining founds" (sic) are blocked. Recipients are asked to click on a link that will help them recover their funds, but the subsequent site asks for personal information that the thieves could use to steal the taxpayer's identity.

"The IRS does not send out unsolicited e-mails asking for personal information," said IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson. "Don't be taken in by these criminals." Additionally, the IRS never asks people for the PIN numbers, passwords or similar secret access information for their credit card, bank or other financial accounts.

This latest e-mail scam is the first one known to reference EFTPS. The IRS has seen a recent increase in these scams. Since November, 104 different scams have been identified, with 22 of those coming in June, the most since 40 were identified in March during the height of the filing season. Many of these schemes originate outside the United States. To date, investigations by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration have identified sites hosting more than two dozen IRS-related phishing scams. These scam Web sites have been located in many different countries, including Argentina, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile, China, England, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Singapore and Slovakia, as well as the United States.

Other scams claim to come from the IRS, tell recipients that they are due a federal tax refund, and direct them to a Web site that appears to be a genuine IRS site. The bogus sites contain forms or interactive Web pages similar to IRS forms or Web pages but which have been modified to request detailed personal and financial information from the e-mail recipients. Tricking consumers into disclosing their personal and financial information, such as secret access data or credit card or bank account numbers, is fraudulent activity which can result in identity theft. Such schemes perpetrated through the Internet are called "phishing" for information. The information fraudulently obtained is then used to steal the taxpayer's identity and financial assets. Typically, identity thieves use someone's personal data to empty the victim's financial accounts, run up charges on the victim's existing credit cards, apply for new loans, credit cards, services or benefits in the victim's name and even file fraudulent tax returns.

When the IRS learns of new schemes involving use of the IRS name or logo, it issues consumer alerts warning taxpayers about the schemes. The IRS also has established an electronic mailbox for taxpayers to send information about suspicious e-mails they receive which claim to come from the IRS. Taxpayers should send the information to: phishing@irs.gov.

More than 8,000 bogus emails have been forwarded to the IRS, with nearly 1,300 forwarded in June alone. The IRS's mail box allows taxpayers to send copies of possibly fraudulent e-mails involving misuse of the IRS name and logo to the IRS for investigation. Instructions on how to properly submit one of these communications to the IRS may be found on the IRS Web site at http://www.irs.gov/. Enter the term "phishing" in the search box in the upper right hand corner. Then open the article titled "How to Protect Yourself from Suspicious E-Mails" and scroll through it until you find the instructions. Following these instructions helps ensure that the bogus e-mails relayed by taxpayers retain critical elements found in the original e-mail. The IRS can use the information, URLs and links in the bogus e-mails to trace the hosting Web sites and alert authorities to help shut down these fraudulent sites.

However, due to the volume the mailbox receives, the IRS cannot acknowledge receipt or reply to taxpayers who submit their bogus e-mails. The phishing@irs.gov mailbox is only for suspicious e-mails and not for general taxpayer contact or inquiries.

For information on preventing or handling the aftermath of identity theft, visit the Federal Trade Commission's consumer (http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft/index.html) and OnGuardOnLine (http://onguardonline.gov/index.html) Web sites. Click on "Topics" to find the identity theft and phishing areas on OnGuardOnLine.

For information on identity theft prevention and victim assistance in relation to tax administration, visit the IRS Identity Theft Web page which can be found on IRS.gov. Enter the term "identity theft" in the search box in the upper right hand corner.

For schemes other than phishing, please report the fraudulent misuse of the IRS name, logo, forms or other IRS property by calling the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration's toll-free hotline at 1-800-366-4484.