The radio station receives endless scam messages offering the chance to work with Chinese companies.

Occasionally there are some in Mandarin Chinese.

With Google translate on-line free of charge – it’s easy to see what the message says in English.

“AI Intelligent One Click Matching”

“Email reading opens the sharing status background to grasp in time”.

“One click addition of overseas business opportunities”.

Well maybe – it’s not so easy after translation.

Further reading shows the email is trying to interest the recipient in new software that collects contact details from on-line sources.

Pathetic.

If you work for a Chinese company would you really choose to send out millions of emails in Mandarin to non Chinese companies?

Only a moron would consider that good Marketing

We wont be following up on this

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

For much of this year, there have been huge numbers of spam emails relating to a Flight Simulator game and to Wood Working plans.

These message seem crazy as they are so frequent and sent to the same people and surely if someone wants to buy a Flight Simulator package they will have done so and why would anyone in their right mind buy thousands of wood working plans, supposedly to start a instant carpentry business.

But these two products are very very popular on Clickbank.

Clickbank is a marketplace for people selling products online (mostly digital products) and people wanting to make money by helping to sell those products as affiliates of the seller. These people earn commission for each product sold.

Typically an affiliate will use a website (their own or other people’s) and send out emails to attract people to a website that sells the product (sometimes  called a sales landing page).

This marketplace works well for a lot of people but sometimes very high commission is offered on stupid products and the world fills up with spam.

e.g. Ted’s Wood Working Product offers 75% commission to affiliates getting people to visit Teds sales page and buy the product.

The original sales pitch is for thousands of wood working plans for $69 but then there’s an upsell and more sells and the average purchaser ends up paying over $125 in total.

Ted’s Wood working claims to be number one 1 in Clickbank’s home and garden category for 5 years running, so people flock to try to sell the stuff and the world is full of stupid emails claiming you can make huge money making wooden objects within days of reading the plans.

e.g. 2. Virtual Pilot 3D Flight Simulator offers 70% commission on sales and claims sellers make an average of $88 per sale including upsells and more sells.  They claim to convert page views to sales at the rate of 8% so eight in every hundred people visiting the sales page go on to buy the product.

Again, people flock to sell this product and the world is full of stupid emails claiming this software can make you a real pilot or is good as actually visiting the places depicted etc. Idiots use any line to try to get people to the sales page.

Oh to rid the world of spam!

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Shopify is an online service that enables people to create online shops and conduct ecommerce. It is one of the biggest on the Internet with more than 1 million stores in 175 countries.

These stores are generally very safe to purchase from, but there are scammers targeting this market and the most common scams are:

Scammer Drop Shipping (a.k.a The Triangulation Scam)

The scammers create a Shopify store, apparently selling real products. However, if you place an order they then buy the actual items from a genuine Shopify store using stolen credit cards and the items are shipped to you.

This way the customers get the products and will keep buying. However, the genuine Shopify stores that supply the goods get nothing but trouble when the credit card payments are reversed.  They lose on the product and the payment.

Duplicate Shopify Stores

Scammers find recently created Shopify Stores that appear to sell new products and are successful and they create one with a similar domain name, claiming to sell the same original product. They copy the images and descriptions etc. The scammers either sell cheap copies of the real products or just take the money and disappear.

Fake Payments

A customer makes a purchase on a Shopify store and requests an invoice from PayPal (i.e. outside of Shopify). They claim to be unable to complete the payment because of technical problems on the Shopify store.

The seller sends them a PayPal invoice and receives a notification from PayPal that payment has completed. However the notification is fake – payment has not been made. The seller ships the goods then finds out there was no payment.

Fake Returns

The scammer buys a product from a genuine store then buys a counterfeit or poor quality copy from an illegal seller. She then returns the fake goods to the genuine store using the genuine purchase documents, claiming the quality is not as advertised and demands a refund.

The scammer then has the genuine product and her money back and can repeat the process.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

Across the world many millions of people use Amazon every day – it is safe and a business phenomenon.

But, there are always scammers trying to get in on the act and although Amazon go to great lengths to keep scams off their site, some get through and you need to stay vigilant and be aware of how these scams operate.

#1: Phishing Scams

Phishing is where a scammer sends fake messages, pretending to be from Amazon and tries to get your personal details. In this case they target businesses, assuming they are likely to be Amazon as sellers and try to get control of your account.

The messages contain links that appear to be valid but are to a fake web site that pretends to be Amazon and will ask for your account details and credit card information.

Amazon has introduced two-step verification code to circumvent the increase of phishing scams and it is wise to protect yourself by enabling two-step verification.

#2: Fake Reviews

There are various ways that fake reviews can benefit criminals but in this case fake reviews can be used to damage a competitor. This can destroy a seller’s reputation and is illegal.

#3: The Inventory Tie Up Scam

A criminal can tie up your stock by placing a very large order, sitting on the goods then returning them at the last minute.

This costs you money and potentially lost sales to other customers.

#4: Replace and Refund Scam

Returns and refunds are an inevitable part of any business. Amazon is very much on the side of the customer so will issue refunds without the need for goods to be returned for examination.

#5: Failed Delivery Scam

A buyer purchases your product and then says that the item never arrived. He claims for a refund while sometimes they have actually received the product.

#6: Listing Copy Infringement Scam

Some sellers have found that Amazon has changed their listing. This can happen where criminals organise to make complaints and claim that a listing is inaccurate. Sorting out these kinds of problems will take time and lose you business.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.