Tips for avoiding credit repair scams

Most of us have seen the claims: We can help you repair your credit. What most of these advertisements are out for, is to get your money. In fact, consumers who have credit problems may very likely find themselves shelling out hundreds and even thousands of dollars to unscrupulous frauds who claim to be able to help.  These tips for avoiding credit repair scams can help you stay out of trouble and not spend your hard earned dollars for nothing.

Know your consumer rights

Debtors should be aware of their consumer rights granted under the Consumer Protection laws. Many consumers are not aware that they may request their credit reports free of charge one time annually.  In fact, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) worked with the three major credit bureaus to allow consumers this right. Do not fall for advertisements that offer free credit reports with the subscription of other services.

Know the statutes of limitations

Collection agencies call consumers on debt that they have often forgotten about. Some of these agencies use “strong-arm” tactics to get debtors to pay something on old debts. The primary reason for this is that the collection agent is only paid if the consumer makes payments, the secondary reason is that a payment restarts the statute of limitations on the debt. Make sure you know the debt statute of limitations in your state.

Understand your rights to dispute

Consumers have the right to dispute any information that they believe is erroneous on their credit reports. This does not have to be done by an attorney or a “credit repair company”, it may be done by the consumer at no charge. Credit reporting agencies are required by law to respond to all disputes.

Know the signs of a scam

The following are some hints that you may be facing a credit repair scam:

• Upfront payments - the company is asking the consumer to pay an upfront fee before they do any work. The FTC states that these agencies are to be reported as there are prohibitions on fees.
• Misinformation - the company does not advise you of your rights to remove certain items on your own or tells you to not contact the credit reporting agency. Consumers are always able to contact credit agencies for information regarding their own credit reports.
• Suggests fraud - any company that suggests the debtor dispute valid debt or apply for a new social security number is likely not legitimate. Any agency that suggests that a consumer dispute legitimate debts should be reported to the Better Business Bureau or to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

When a consumer receives a solicitation for a credit repair service, they should be provided with a copy of the Consumer Credit File Rights under State and Federal Law. This document explains the consumers rights and helps protect them against fraud by credit repair scams. Consumers who have any questions about information can contact the FTC for additional information.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, consumers have a right to receive a contract that clearly spells out what the credit repair company intends to do on their behalf. It is important to note that under specific laws, credit repair companies cannot request payment prior to performing the services promised to consumers. These laws provide that credit repair agencies specify in the contract exactly what they intend to do and the fee for each service.

Credit Payoff and Repair Scam

As many of you know, I spend a fair amount of time on LinkedIn groups largely because there are so many diverse people on the network. However, one of the biggest problems with LinkedIn is anyone can post anything they want with little (or no) danger of getting banned. One of the posts I've seen is a group of people promoting a "Government Grants for getting out of debt". I'm here to tell you, it is NEVER going to happen! 

Here's the "overall" gist of their message "When looking to pay off credit card debt, one of the most overlooked options many people have are government grants. Many people do not look into these grants because they simply do not know about them. However, the government sets aside billions each year just for this purpose, to give them away. If you are one of the millions of people who are suffering from credit card debt, you definitely want".

Well, there's a reason that most people don't look into it and don't know about them. It's because THEY DO NOT EXIST. I've written about these government grant scams before, but unfortunately, I see these guys are back in full force. What particularly amuses me about this one is the folks who are claiming they are legit.

Like the LAWYER WHO LIES TO PEOPLE on a regular basis and rips them off for simple things they need for their website like Terms of Service and Privacy Policies. I've written about this con artist in the past too, this guy charges you over $2,000 dollars to "LICENSE" a TOS and PP. Seriously? Get a life pal!

Here are some informational articles about these Government Grant Scams that can help keep you out of trouble!

Free money from stimulus? Are you kidding? Web sites offering grant money from the government are bogus

Advertisements Promising Debt Relief May Be Offering Bankruptcy Directly from the Federal Trade Commission 

The bottom line is there is NO easy way out of debt. You'll get out the same way you got in. One payment at a time.

Do you know how to avoid WAH Scams?

If you're considering getting involved in work at home opportunities, it's important that you know how to avoid work at home scams.

Unfortunately, legitimate work at home positions, while certainly available are often buried under piles of scams. One of the very first things you can do, is to research any opportunity before you sign up. All too often, work-at-home companies are in reality only trying to sell you a list, much of which turns out to be information you could have obtained free, or worse yet scams themselves.

The Common Sense Approach

A good rule of thumb, is that if it sounds too good to be true it probably is! In fact, make no mistake about it-working at home is no cakewalk and it certainly is no get rich quick scheme. If you have somebody approach you and tell you how they made $1,000 a day, think again!

Stop and consider the rate you would have to be making in order to make $1000 for an eight hour day. The reality, for many freelancers is set at the bottom of the scale, you'll make about $50 a day and at the top of the scale perhaps upwards of four times that. I'm not saying, that there are not people who are making substantially more than that.

However, any "legitimate" work-at-home position that's offering you $1,000 a day to "do nothing" can only be a scam! Sadly, thousands of people each week are taken in by this type of promotion. The promises are endless, turn your Twitter account into an ATM, do data entry for upwards of $50 an hour, make thousands of dollars a day with AdSense-you get the picture.

I'm not saying, that these tools don't work at all, but you cannot make a living doing these things. What I am telling you, is that success will not come overnight, and it most certainly will not come from you doing nothing! If you do decide that working at home is what you prefer, they are many legitimate opportunities out there for you. If you elect to use Twitter, you must use it in conjunction with something!

Watch out: Pay to Tweet

While there are companies like Magpie, and others who will "pay you to tweet" the fact remains that they come with some serious restrictions. Consider this-Magpie will in fact provide you with an opportunity to earn small amounts of money for "targeted" tweets. There's a catch, only 15% of all the tweets that you send can be automated. Let's assume that you want to send 100 tweets over the course of a day-that means that only 15 could be automated. It takes a substantial amount of time to send out 85 tweets. Do you really want to spend that much time promoting your blog, articles, etc. on Twitter? Since the earnings on Twitter are literally pennies, based entirely on page views you certainly are not going to want to spend hours a day manually sending items to Twitter.

Affiliate Marketing

Then of course you have the opportunity to get involved with affiliate marketing. Understand, that AdSense, Amazon Associates, and other similar programs are affiliates. However, for every one like this, there are thousands more that are promoting literally getting involved in selling only their product. The bottom line with most affiliate programs, is you are not so much selling a product as you are selling a program. This works much like multilevel marketing-you sell someone who sells to someone else. At some point, there is a saturation level although admittedly that saturation level must be very high, but the fact remains that in order to do this requires long, hard hours. This is probably not how you want to invest your time when you decide to work at home.

There are hundreds of legitimate work at home websites, that offer you legitimate opportunities. I'm not suggesting to you that every job you find on the legitimate website is going to be legitimate. In fact, you will from time to time run into an unscrupulous buyer. Please understand they are the exception!

Although some freelance sites do charge fees, it is very simple to find out if those fees are worth paying. On the flip side of that, there are also several who do not charge fees. For those who are just getting started, I strongly recommend working with the no fee sites first. This will help establish you, and if you feel the need to branch out later, then you can investigate some of the paid sites.

Not every work at home opportunity that requires payment is a scam. However, avoid the programs that promise you the world, promise you unlimited income, and promise you that for only $9.95 you to can start your own business and make $1000 a day. While I cannot vouch for the validity, this blog "Work at Home No Scams" does seem to have a significant list of opportunities that do work.

The Work-at-Home Success Bible: A Complete Guide for Women: 

Undress for Success: The Naked Truth about Making Money at Home  

Why it is easy to fall for work at home scams

Behind the cloak of legitimacy

Internet scam games are pretty common, even back in the late 80s and early 90s, there were hundreds of them that were rampant. Today, Internet scammers are more prolific than ever and they are preying on people who are smart enough to steer clear of fake product offerings.

But the story remains

Unfortunately, many work at home scams hide behind a cloak of legitimacy. They "claim" to have been highlighted on popular television stations, claim a "relationship" to popular websites and display other signs of being legitimate. Unfortunately, you do have to spend some time digging around these sites to find the "real story".

Taking advantage of bad situations

While it may not be readily evident, when the unemployment rates creep up, more scams tend to rear their ugly heads. This is largely because these con artists depend on people being desperate enough to try anything to get money in their pockets. It's not just work at home scams that seem to get worse, it's a whole host of other scams that become more prevalent including mortgage fraud scams, credit repair scams and even cheap gasoline scams. It never seems to end.

People need something to believe in

I am of the mind that most of us feel that people are good in their hearts. Unfortunately, some of these scam artists actually wind up getting conned by someone else and then sharing their scam with unsuspecting people. I equate this to brainwashing - Remember the old shampoo commercial that was "if you tell two people and they tell two people....and so on and so on....". These scams depend on people to fall for "thin" air and pipe dreams. Some are extremely clever and tell you that you need not worry about spending a red cent.

A new twist on an old scam

Some of you may remember the scam back several years ago that "claimed" to be willing to compensate members for referring other members. The "general" idea was that you signed up for free, you signed others up for free and the site would then "share profits from advertising" with the members.

This scam was taken to entirely new levels when the company launched their site after getting more than 200 million dollars in venture capital funds. The trouble started when members started spamming information about the site all over the Internet promoting the benefits of the program. That program for those who do not remember was All Advantage. You can read the All Advantage Edgar filing and see for yourself what that model looks like. So you see, Internet marketing scams are not new, they've been around at least since then!

People still get conned

Ironically enough, there are still people who get conned into signing up for these types of scams because it's easier to depend on someone else to offer them a "turn-key" way of making money than it

How freelance writers can avoid scammers

There are few things that are more frustrating for a freelancer than discovering that they have been scammed. Unfortunately, the Internet has opened up a door for those who have less than ethical practices. Freelance writers (like other freelancers) need easy tips to avoid scammers on the Internet. Here are a few tips that can help every freelance writer avoid scammers.

 1. Ask for references - When you are accepting an assignment for the first time, it may help you to ask for a reference to someone who has worked for this publisher (or buyer) in the past. While this does not always guarantee that you will not get scammed, it is a good starting place. If a buyer (or publisher) is willing to provide you with direct contact to a person whom they have worked in the past chances are that you are not dealing with a scammer. One word of warning however, this is not foolproof. Too often, scammers do not work alone. Ask for some form of proof that the person has been published with this buyer (or publisher) before taking them at their word.

2. Upfront Payment - While it may result in your being offered fewer freelance writing assignments, it is sometimes helpful to request a token payment up-front. This can be as small an amount as 10% just to show good-will. Not every buyer (or publisher) will agree to this, but if they do chances are you're not dealing with a scammer. It's important to be aware that not everyone who refuses is guilty of being a scammer either, some publishers (and buyers) simply have had bad experiences with up front payments.

3. Research - Find out as much as possible about your buyer (or publisher). Ask for a mailing address and/or telephone number before you begin working. Either of these should be easily verifiable by doing an Internet search. Legitimate companies regardless of the size generally have a verifiable address and/or telephone number. If you find anything at all suspicious, run don't walk as you may be the next victim of a scam.

4. Written Agreement - Although not foolproof, a written agreement can help protect you from freelance writing scams. Carefully review any written agreement and check it's validity against not only the laws and regulations in your state, but also the laws and regulations in the buyers state. Freelance writers often find they have avoided a scammer by demanding a written agreement from the buyer (or publisher).

Sadly all freelancers must work their way through the myriad of scammers that are trying to get something for nothing. As a freelance writer, you can avoid scammers by following your own best instincts and trying to do as much research as possible before you agree to do an assignment. Nothing is guaranteed but, with a little common sense, freelance writers can avoid scammers.

Cram the Cult Down Your Throat

OK I admit, I stole the title for this post from a comment I found on a site that was calling out scams. Don’t you love it? I hope the user will forgive me, the quote was from FOUR years ago. However, I’ve run into a situation where this is really a great title for this particular post and here is why. A few weeks ago, I tripped over a well written HubPage about the latest and greatest scam business opportunity online. In fact, I found it to be so well written that instead of spending more time and energy rewriting a review of my own, I decided to simply put a tiny bit of commentary on this blog and I linked to that HubPage. The scam opportunity is called Wazzub. Then, I ran across this Hub by another hubber calling Wazzub a scam.

So you are probably now wondering why I chose this title to call out the scam Wazzub site here? Here’s why:
The cult of stupidity I’ve seen so many comments defending scam Wazzub and claiming that it cannot be a scam because it doesn’t cost anything to register. Folks, they do not care that you are not spending money, you’re giving them the best capital in the world by simply registering and conning convincing others to join! Your email address is the REAL value behind this scam site, they need emails to make their scam program work. PEOPLE are using your private information to perpetuate the myth they have a REAL business opportunity. YOU ARE HELPING THEM!

Why is Wazzub a scam? Look folks: It’s as simple as this. Do your own damned research if you don’t believe what you have already seen. This guy who is behind the Wazzubb scam program has been around the Internet for a long time. Trust me when I tell you that someone who has made “millions of dollars using this simple to follow program” IS NOT GOING TO SHARE HIS PROFITS WITH YOU. STOP BEING STUPID.

The "mastermind" (Gee DaCosta) behind this is an oldie but a goody who has been involved in several other money making schemes over the years. In fact, I found information almost four years old:

Gee added a classified ad: The Easiest Cash Program The Net Has Ever Seen! 4 years ago
Gee blogged about: The Easiest Ca$h Leveraging Program on the Net! 4 years ago

Google, Twitter and Facebook 

Please Wake Up and Stop GETTING SCAMMED

While it's possible to run into trouble regardless of how much you check into things, I wanted to

prepare a list of common flags that you can use while you are searching for work at home opportunities. Some of these are pretty easy to identify but just in case, you should keep yourself clear of this particular red flags:

• Upfront payments - You know, regardless of what you've been told, you don't have to pay money to make money.  Now there are a few exceptions, such as payment for a domain name or web hosting and the rare freelancing site that charges a membership fee. Otherwise, there is simply NO good reason to pay for information through upfront payments.
• ClickBank - I'm so sick and tired of seeing these "products" that it's not even funny anymore. If you see a "work at home" product that has to be purchased through ClickBank, avoid it like the plague. They do nothing at all to vet these programs and inevitably, what you're going to find is some generic bullshit that you can easily get on nearly any site that offers a variety of eBooks. Trust me, you can pay the same amount for them.
• Doesn't accept PayPal - That's probably because they are in violation of some sort of policy set out by PayPal.  I've never figured this out, but almost every scam I've run into avoids Paypal like the plague. There has to be some reason.  I've had a PayPal account for about 10 years and have never had a problem with anything I've ever purchased using this method. I've even gotten refunds on a couple of things that turned out to be "less than what I ordered" shall we say.

Other red flags

Sorry I am not that stupid

So today was not one of my better days, it was largely non-productive (as was yesterday) but, I managed to tick a few folks off so all is not lost <grin>. And I am certain that once this blog post gets read that there will be a few MORE people ticked off so let’s get moving! I did get a message today in Gmail (which is not associated with this blog I might add!)….offering to “exchange links” with me. Basically, if I linked to their site, they would link to mine. Now the interesting thing is that they chose THIS blog to ask for a link on.

The reason I find this so surprising is that this particular blog, for whatever reason, has 0 PR. Not sure why, it simply does not. Course it’s also still relatively new and I haven’t exactly been working that hard on keyword rankings either. Given that I’m only getting 30 – 50 page views a day, that’s probably a factor. Whatever. Back to the point….

So, let’s get started: As I stated earlier – why would anyone want to link to a PR-0 site from a PR2 site? Mystery but whatever. Who is Leinka Mills? Well, we’re not so sure because if you do a Google search on her she comes up as a spammer who is well known for sending out this EXACT email for a variety of sites. OK so let’s see if she actually owns these sites….ummm not so much. According to Who is records, the sites are owned by someone who uses the email: neoblade2001@gmail.com (like that is so real *ugh*). …. So let’s take a quick look at these sites….first of all, I find it highly amusing even that she / he / it has not included an actual LINK to either of these sites in this email. Makes her look like less of a scammer/spammer I guess. Wait though, it does get better….Of course, this “person” is working on some freaky link building scheme. They’re not asking you to pay for linking but they are TRYING to suck link juice from you to make sure that their scams get promoted. Oh! Did I say scams? Yes, I found more than one. Let’s take a look at two links I picked out of their website <ready?> You can look at the others and determine for your self what the deal is there but the two with the red arrows intrigued me.

So tell me who buys a URL that reads like this? http://www.onlinemoneyme.com/ seriously? This is the “best way to make money online (not)” website. Of course all you will find on there is a link to the “instant payday” program that tells you how to attract other scammers suckers people to do the same thing and you of course will make thousands of dollars a day (same crap, different name)….so let’s look at the OTHER site that promises “Make Mass Money”…. +First of all, the site name actually matches this time. But the site will eat your eyes out of your head. It brings UGLY to a whole new level – because I don’t want people to have to click through to these scumbags, I’ll show you a quick clip: And, here’s the kind of English you can expect

Thanks For Coming To Are Site. Here Are Some Great Software. Tell Everyone So They To Can Get These Software For Free Why They Last. We Post New Software All The Time So Make Sure You Check Back. Thanks Agian

So I checked out their three links without clicking on them, I simply rolled over with my mouse and GUESS what I found:

HERE’S WHAT THE WORST PART OF THIS SCAM IS:Join these sites for free (supposedly tested sites right)
1. Zip Nada Zilch – proven scam
2. WAZZUB - another (unproven) scam
3. AW Surveys – and their TOS is fascinating with this clause (and I quote directly) “(L) Yearly Earnings: The maximum amount that can be claimed during 1 fiscal year (Jan 1st to Dec 31st), is $550. Amounts over this must be held to the next fiscal year to receive payout.” … which means they are scamming the IRS!

 So lady/sir whatever you are…. take your spam someplace else and when you are interested in getting links from legitimate sites you should vet your scamming buddies better. Important note: It appears that as of May 6, 2017 these sites have disappeared from search engines and now show as unused. This is GREAT news for those who are looking for legitimate work at home opportunities.  

Work for free today

People have to be really stupid to fall for bullshit advertisements like this but I saw at least one person whining “I paid my money, I did the work and I didn’t get paid”. Really?? You would be smart to try READING before you spend money. However, since I like to give even the most idiotic questionable work at home site the benefit of the doubt, I decided to do some digging around on my own. You first saw my write up in our last post about fake work at home jobs that cost plenty. Well, I found one on the same site that is even more egregious than this one (go figure).
Scam artists
This company claims to be an outsourcing company that assembles jobs and offers them out. What’s fascinating about this scam  I’m reviewing called “10 minute job work” is the requirements.  They run under the name "Rackspace Outsourcing" (note this link goes to the BBB) which is funny in the extreme.  The website names are all over the place and some are located in the US, others in Canada and still others in India.

Upfront payment

First it’s laughable that you would have to pay someone to secure a job. There are plenty of sites like oDesk for example where you can register for online jobs and not pay a dime. This particular scam site claims to be offering specific jobs such as “10 minute jobs” which is giggle worthy – but if you are looking for 10 minute jobs (which are called micro-tasks by the way) you’d be better off reviewing Crowd Cloud which also does not charge a fee and you can do as many or as few as you’d like to do and get paid DAILY. Guess what – they don’t charge anything for registration either.

This bunch of scumbags site requires that you pay something — of course it’s not really evident how much you are paying since the “plan” requires a payment of $99 while their FAQs say it’s $55. Either way you are getting screwed ripped off.

Stunning Survey Stupidity

When will people ever learn? I received a comment on a not very flattering post calling out oDesk Customer Service on my other blog. The comment of course did land in my spam folder as it was riddled with links. Richard, Richard, Richard…before you spam websites with your comments you might want to make sure that you are not running the risk of getting called out as a con artist peddling some sort of bogus program.

Without showing you the entire stupid comment, I’ll just show you the beginning of it so you can see what I was seeing: “If you want to make $20-$50/hour and up to $3500/month of your time working at home part-time then this is the most important message you’re ever going to read…” Cool in 70 hours a month (that’s just about 2 weeks), I can earn that much money? Show me the way! (head slap).

Of course as most of you know by now I cannot resist going to these sites to see what phony program they are promoting and of course, this was not any different than most. Except you want to talk about morons. I have to admit that while I am not a grammar or punctuation cop, I do definitely look for blatant misspelled words. But this was worse than most….get a load of this puppy: I have a ton of faith in a work-at-home opportunity that cannot spell business correctly. Go figure.

But the point is that his “opportunity reviews” are full of scummy offers too. The first post is about a site that pays you for surveys. The site claims to belong to Jay Stiver. When I checked his photo in Tineye it’s on about 25 other sites (half of them are non-English sites) and he’s everything from an Affiliate Marketing Guru to a stock market trader; of course there’s something else too that we typically call a con artist . So I’m here to call out the immediate lie that I see on the site, namely “This is the only legit survey site online, so if you are interested in making hundreds per day just giving your opinions then make sure you check this out.“. 

Dumb way to learn how to use coupons

Now for those of you who follow this blog regularly, you'll remember that my research over the last several posts has been focused on two sites that are offering work at home opportunities that are supposedly "pre-screened" according to their own tagline "The Work At Home & Home Business Opportunities Outlined Below Are Presented Only After Careful & Strict Review".

What we're finding is that these are about as screened as the sand on the beach.  My dog could do a better job "reviewing" these because if this is their idea of "careful and strict review" they certainly missed the boat! In particular, these sites are called scam Work at Home Digest and scam Work at Home Business Opportunities (which is by the way up for sale).  As part of my continued insistence that SOMETHING on one of these sites might be legitimate, I continued to plow through their "offers". So, today, I found this one:

Hey let's face it, we ALL spend

too much money on  groceries right? So why not take advantage of this and see what happens right? Well I clicked through and something rang bells in my brain. You see the site name is Coupon Queens and I knew I had seen that name before. But where?  Well it took me a few minutes, but sure enough, I found that the company "Information Net Source" which has this stellar F rating from the BBB has that listed under their list of scam money making sites.  You can see that here:

 

Now I don't know how many people get sucked into this one every month but let me say this about that: Once you "click through" this site you wind up on yet another site called Smart Couponing System.

Now frankly, if you are keeping house, doing regular grocery shopping  and have Internet access WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD YOU NEED TO PAY ANYONE $37 TO LEARN HOW TO USE COUPONS. Honestly, are people that STUPID or is this con artist stupid enough to think that we don't know where to find free coupons. Honestly people if you WANT coupons you DO HAVE OPTIONS that are FREE (ya imagine that free).

Scamming those who want to earn

Today I got yet another email telling me how I can “Make Hundreds Per Day From Home”. That was the “subject”. Of course, I can’t help myself even though I am more than aware that this is yet another get rich scheme and I’m on another spammer’s email list. 

That of course didn’t stop me from opening the email only to have it say “Make Money While Drinking Coffee – Click Here”. Ya right! I never would “click through” because you know that can only get you onto yet another list so why take the chance. I simply hovered over and got the “primary” email address (minus the scumbags referral link) and went to see for myself. I found pretty much what I expected.

Here’s what I earned in my account today!

These sites are partly so insidious because they tell you just enough to fascinate you. As skeptical as I am, I still find myself fascinated with the hype that these guys spew and as you know I’m not quite that gullible. One of the things I pride myself on in fact is that I’ve never gotten caught in one of these traps online but that doesn’t mean that I’m smart necessarily, more persistent and more than a bit lucky. I am really tired of these sites that promise to tell people how they can make hundreds of dollars a day by setting up a website and loading it up with garbage and then selling products that they may know little (or nothing) about. It doesn’t quite work that way.

No joy in mudville

The problem with these sites is that there are so many of them that you could literally spend twenty or thirty hours a week tracking them down individually. Not only is it time consuming, it’s downright depressing! Years ago, someone told me that those who can do and those who can’t write about it ….. wonder what they’d think of me writing.... Nonetheless I’m going to provide some “generic” tips for avoiding these types of scams because they are everywhere and while there is SOME legitimacy to their claims, the fact remains that much of the “information” they are claiming to sell you can be found for next to nothing. Not to mention, with some careful planning, you can create these income streams on your own without falling for these supposed “guru’s” techniques.

The problem with these sites

The biggest problem with these sites is that they are everywhere. Nearly all of them promise you a 30 or 60 day money back guarantee. One of the challenges with this is that (a) they almost never have a good contact name on them, (b) there is seldom a telephone number and (c) inevitably you are going to wind up being told that all refunds are processed through ClickBank. Unfortunately, what will ultimately wind up happening is that you’ll have waited too long!