Online Scams: How To Avoid Getting Fooled

Beware of the three ways of getting fooled into giving up your money through seemingly innocent money-making schemes. Scams are all around us and it can be found in every single area of life, but more so in such areas where the risk is greater such as when dealing with credit cards, bank accounts and other activities which involve sending or receiving money online.

The Bank/Credit Card Email Scam:
If you get an email asking you to sign up to your bank account or credit card through the email because your privacy is under danger or just to receive a free gift or something: BEWARE! Do not sign up through the internet address provided in the email. If the email does make you anxious, go to the bank or credit card site using the address you know already or through searching the search engines.
How Does This Scam Work?
The senders of the email know that only a very few will sign up but that is all they need. When you signed up to the bogus internet address, they got your user and password. Now its time for them to party!

The Missing Millionaire Scam:
If you receive an email saying that they represent a dead or missing former ruler, high-ranking official or businessman from an African, Gulf or even Russian: BEWARE! They offer you a chance to earn anything between one to five percent of ten to fifty million. And for your co-operation only. Don't get sucked into this, for though they speak of giving you money, they will receive cash and from your account.
How Does This Scam Work?
They will ask you for your bank details in order to transfer the cash and then they will use that to transfer a small amount. Now, once you trust them, they will ask you for more personal and secure details because they "need" that to transfer the entire sum in and out of your account. What they won't tell you is that they will transfer all the money out from your account: theirs and yours.

The Make Money Fast Scam:
This is the most innocent of the lot, but that is also why it is the most dangerous. These are so-called companies that advertise that if you only sign up and use their system, you will mint money. Please do not fall for such schemes. They will pay you some money but then once trust is built, they will fleece your bank account. Remember that quick money scams are the surest and fastest way to lose all your money!

Conclusion:
Whatever you do online, always remember that the internet is not a safe place. Treat it like you would treat any other business venture and bring up your guard. If you play it safe and check out the companies before committing, you will be able to guard yourself against losing money to crooks.

Shopping Online – Protect Yourself

These days, there are great bargains to be found by shopping online. Many items that previously were only available in stores are now being bought and sold online every day. Books, cds, DVDs and electronics are all growing in popularity as online purchases. Then there are things like flights, hotel bookings, car rentals and the like that are which are well established in the online shopping world. More and more stores are putting up websites that allow you to make online orders and even supermarkets now let you do your grocery shopping online and they’ll deliver the goods to your door.

Added to this growth in stores and other big business websites, there are also millions of small traders offering you goods online too. Online auction sites such as ebay are experiencing phenomenal success. These types of purchases however carry the risk that you do not really know who you are dealing with but you have to give them sensitive financial information in order to pay for your purchases. You are forced to choose between buying from small sellers and then trust them with your card details, or forgo the opportunities they offer and deal only with large and trusted names.

Payment Sites

This problem has been recognised and that is why it is now possible to shop online from lots of small sellers while maintaining your privacy and keeping your financial information secure. There are payment sites with the most popular probably being paypal, that are set up specifically to deal with issues like these. Indeed, paypal is now owned by ebay, which shows the link in importance between the two services offered by these companies.

What websites like paypal allow you to do is pay open an online account for free. You can then transfer money into your account using a standard credit card payment procedure. The advantage of this is that while you are providing your card information to paypal, this is the only company who you are giving this information to and since they are large and therefore, hopefully, trustworthy, your privacy and security should be safe.

Then when you make all your various purchases with smaller, more anonymous traders, all you do is make the payment through paypal and this avoids all the dangers having to give all your sensitive data out again and again. It is another example of how using credit cards online are becoming safer and more convenient.

E-Banks that Accept US Casino Players

Recently, the US Federal government banned online casinos from operating in America by making it illegal to transfer money to them through any US bank or payment system. As a result of this law, most of the popular online casino networks such as Party Gaming and PlayTech left the United States. Overnight, online casino players found themselves being chased by the Federal government.

But, after a fortnight, the online casino industry came up with a solution and new online casinos started taking root. These began to operate under a different business umbrella, and by doing that, rendered the transfer of money to and from them legal. A major part of this was enlisting electronic banking systems that would accept this new clarification and start doing business with me. Listed in this article are the electronic banking systems that accept players from the United States that wish to play in online casinos.

The Payment Systems You Can Use:
1, 2) MasterCard and Visa:
The most popular credit cards in the world, you can use these for depositing money into your casino account. But, please note that the casinos do not deposit your winning through your credit card. They use one of the other electronic payment systems. This is also the biggest reason why you should refrain from using your personal credit cards today for gambling.

3, 4) Visa Delta, Visa Electron:
These are debit cards that one can use to deposit cash into their casino account. By debit card, it means that the money you pay through the card, is immediately withdrawn from your bank account. This is a comfortable option, but here too, you cannot receive money into it.

5) Neteller:
Based in the UK and traded on the London AIM Stock Exchange, this e-bank company is one of the major independent electronic banking entities in the world, and it allows players to transfer money to and from an online casino.

6) Neteller Instacash
This is Neteller's version of the Debit Card, and, in fact, it is just like any other debit card with one difference. To use, InstaCash, you have to pay a small amount. But, most casinos will offer to pay this for you, so read their regulations.

7) EcoCard
Based in the European Union, EcoCard offers a wider range of electronic banking solutions than the other e-banks. Other than the regular card and debit system, you can decide beforehand how to create a flexible financial account. Because they use a wide network of banks in Europe, transactions made through EcoCard are quick and efficient.

8) FirePay
This e-banking system is solely web-based and carries out its transactions just like a debit card. You place cash into your FirePay account, and then, you can use that money to pay or deposit into your casino account. While it will not cost you a dime to open an account, you will be charged a minimal amount each time you transfer money from your bank account to FirePay.

9) Moneybookers
All you need to open an account is an email address! This e-banking system uses transactions from your credit or debit card or your bank account to whichever company you wish to move your money to. Regulated in the UK and run by Gatcombe Park Ventures Limited, this is one of the relatively new e-finance companies that allow transferring money to online casinos.

10) eWalletXpress:
Owned and run by Navaho Networks Inc, eWalletXpress is a new electronic payment system that has been created to answer the need for US players to transfer funds to online casinos.

11) 900Pay:
This is a completely different e-banking system. Instead of charging your bank account or your credit card, 900Pay charges your telephone bill for all your financial transactions. This is one of the fastest methods of electronic payment because you do not have to go through a long and detailed sign up process. And, if you were wondering, this does work to fund your casino account.

Business service offerings and liquidity

“Being all things to all people” sounds good, but in most cases it reduces the liquidity of a business. Business liquidity encompasses the number of prospective buyers, the business valuation, and the amount of time required to market the then close the deal.

• The most liquid scenario is a co-located web hosting client base, with no data center, offices, or employees, and only one owner/decision maker. This type of business can be under contract to be sold within 48 hours. (Post ‘Letter of Intent’ due diligence, contract preparation, integration plans etc. all take a bit of time.)

• The least liquid scenario is a web hosting company, which offers design services, has offices, a data center, and offers related services such as access, marketing services etc.

Valuation Difference:
Something I have seen many times is the owner/decision maker on the sell side has heard web hosting company valuation formulas and wants to apply that formula to his company. Inevitably the owner is disappointed when the offer comes up short in their mind, and passes on what actually is a fair valuation.

Design Services:
The decision to staff up and start offering web design services to complement the pure play hosting recurring revenue is a huge decision with regards to the effect on business liquidity. Of course design services can be a natural fit with hosting clients by helping to reduce client churn and up selling existing clients. However, the value of the revenue and cash flow generated from one-time design jobs is no where near the value of the recurring hosting revenue and cash flow.

Negatives of design departments when it comes time to sell:
• From the buyer’s perspective, acquiring the entire company and keeping the design efforts going is risky. It’s 50/50 whether the key design people will stick around after closing … regardless what they or the seller states. In addition, if you have to replace key people, the new staff will not have the relationships with the client base.
• From the buyer’s perspective, acquiring the entire company then canceling the design efforts is usually a risky decision as well. There are offices to deal with in addition to staff which needs to be let go … both time consuming and detrimental to the existing client base.
• My estimate is for every 20 buyers of a pure play hosting company, there are only 1-2 buyers for hosting design shop combo’s.

Internet Data Center:
Investing in an IDC may increase the value of the entire company by an enormous amount over time, but definitely reduces the liquidity in the short run. Typically smaller web host co-locate in the beginning, then at a later date acquire their own data center. In turn, the company will then offer space to other smaller host hence creating yet another service offering.

Owning an underutilized data center reduces the number of one type of buyer … the “cash flow buyer”, yet invites a new category of buyer, the “asset and cash flow buyer”. The later buyer is looking to both grow through acquisitions and make the swap from co-location to owning the data center. The less remaining capacity of the data center, the more of a cash flow type deal it will be, hence usually more liquid.

Adsense That Works

People unconsciously ignore ads, not because they aren’t interested in the products or services that are being offered, but a natural instinct to focus on the material they’re reading and block out “distractions”. Remember: they’re on the web to look for information. That can be a particular song they want to download, an article on their favorite celebrity, or a chicken recipe they can cook for dinner. They’re concentrating on that issue, and their minds are quickly filtering out whatever seems to intrude on that search. That includes the background noise of the room they happen to be surfing in, and the visual noise on the web page.

Ads are said to be “visual noise”, and ironically, the larger (and more obvious) the ad, the more likely it’ll be ignored. That seems to go against all instincts of advertising—bigger should be better, right? That may work on a highway, when a looming billboard will catch your either whether you plan to look or not, but on the Internet, there are just too many ads. As a gut-reaction, the eye skips over anything that looks like the “traditional” advertising banners, regardless of the text contained in them. That’s why if you look at the studies, 468 x 60 ads, and the 728 x 90 ads, actually get the lowest click through rate.

But the challenge of Adsense is to make people read the ad, and click on it. How do you accomplish that if the brain automatically dismisses your message as “junk”? Simple: by not looking like an ad, and then inserting yourself at the point where people would be most interested in what you say. Then, website viewers not only notice you, but see you as a valid solution (or at least, a possible solution) to a pressing problem.

The Color of Money

Traditional graphic design principles will tell you to use bright, contrasting colors to get somebody’s attention (it’s also called the “bright neon sign” phenomenon). But for Adsense, you get better results when you take the subtle approach and blend into the page that you’re on. Instead of looking like an ad, you are seen as a valid editorial content: as informative, helpful, and credible as the article they happen to be reading.

That’s why your ad background and its border colors should be the same color as the web page on which it’s located. If your website’s white, then your ad assumes that color; if it’s blue, then you know what shade to pick. This isn’t sneaky, it’s reader psychology. Advertisers in magazines have been doing it for years—not copying the color, but the font of the magazine pages. Readers are then more likely to continue reading the ad text rather than skipping it over it because it’s “not part of the page”. By the time they realize that it’s an ad, they’re intrigued by the benefit being offered (and if they aren’t, at least they know about you—much more than what you would have accomplished if the ad had been dismissed). By applying this principle to your Ad Sense, you get better results.

Another trick: use the standard blue color for your links, but make the advertiser’s URL (the domain name below the ad text) in a very unobtrusive color and size. Combine this trick with making the rest of your website content a non-traditional color that is not as noticeable as blue (for example, a dark green), and you have a more subtle way of drawing attention to your Adsense links. Readers will gravitate towards the link, thinking that it is a neutral and objective way of finding more information, and click. And you know what that means for Adsense revenues.

Location, Location, Location

As they say in business, location is the secret to success: be where your market needs you (and in this case, reads you). For example, avoid placing ads on the left or right periphery of the page: people don’t bother looking there, since the webtext flow is from top to bottom. Unless a photo or other graphical element pulls their eyes to the side, there is no reason for them to look beyond those margins. Plus, Internet users are conditioned to look for content in the center— so you also have to be in the center to be deemed “valid content”.

This rule is particularly true for people who have a very specific question or concern and found the page by typing key words into a search engine. They are not interested in anything outside that query. To get their attention, place a large rectangular ad above your content (for example, the top center column) but below the title. Then, choose a message that is related to the key words that were probably used. For example, if it’s a website about “widgets”, and your article is a review on the latest “blue widgets” then Ad Sense on “Find Cheap Widgets Now!” would have a high percentage of clicks.

Why does placing Ad Sense underneath the title work so effectively? Because there is an immediate association with content. Your website title summarizes the topic or concern, the text expounds on it, and your Ad Sense is sandwiched within those two very important elements. You would not get this kind of click through if you placed it above the title, where it’s perceived as literally “outside” the topic and hence, irrelevant or secondary.

Since Google allows you to put three ad blocks, where do you put the other two? At the end of the content, preferably above the Author’s Box. This reaches the educated, and perhaps slightly more cynical reader, who had preferred to read up on the topic and is now ready to make an intelligent, informed decision about what products or services to buy. You can place a third ad block at the side if you have a short article or are concerned about cluttering the site. Otherwise, put it within the content, catching visitors who may be quickly bored with the article and may not reach the end of it, and is willing to “click away” from the site (and hopefully to the advertisers).