The Best Advice to Making Money Online…Don’t Lose it to Investment Scams

The following is a guest post by Bryan Sayers, who writes on the topic of online forex investments. He welcomes your questions and comments to this post.

Perhaps the biggest misconception among those seeking to make money online is that it’s easy. An easy buck! However, in reality, generating income online requires the same diligence and hard work as making money in any other entrepreneurial venture. Having this mindset alone can help a person avoid many of the investment and financial scams that litter the web. In this article, we will identify several red flags that often appear in online investment scams.

The Guaranteed Return

The biggest red flag in an investment opportunity is the promise of a guaranteed return. If a website or financial product ever promises a guaranteed return, it is one of two things. One, an outright scam in which the seller is intentionally attempting to bilk you out of your hard-earned money. Or two, a seller who is ignorant of the true nature of financial markets and finance in general and believes they have stumbled upon the golden secret. Either way, you want to steer clear of the situation. The world of finance is unpredictable. A basic tenet of market theory is that anything can happen at any time. Thus, no investment is 100% secure.

Cheap Sales Language

Earn Huge Profits in No Time At All!! Work Next To Your Pool From a Laptop Computer!! 6 Days of Work To Earn 3 Months of Pay!! Many investment scams prey on our desires for financial success and independence. Scam artists are fully aware that anyone looking at their advertisement is looking at it because they want to make money and they want to be financially independent. So instead of sharing the practical steps to generating lasting wealth, including hard work, discipline, diligence, content-area expertise etc, they instead appeal straight to our emotions. When you see this type of cheap sales language accompanying an investment opportunity, let is serve as a warning sign.

Transfer of Funds

Any investment opportunity that requires you to wire transfer funds to a certain bank account should be treated with the most extreme levels of caution. This can apply to several different types of investment scenarios.

First, let’s examine financial brokers. Many people who are seeking to generate money online become interested in the possibility of trading financial markets. It should be understood that financial markets are heavily regulated by government agencies including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trade Commission (CFTC), and the National Futures Association (NFA). The best wisdom is to conduct business only with firms and persons registered with these organizations. Although registration with these government agencies is not a guarantee against fraud by any means, it can greatly reduce the probability. An individual should exercise great caution in ever depositing funds with a “broker” that is not registered with any of these agencies. The reason is because these unregistered brokers can simply close up shop any day, and run off with all the deposited funds in their firm. That means you, the investor, would be out of all your money.

Second, let’s briefly examine a request for money. Any investment opportunity that requires you to wire money or send goods to an undisclosed destination should be avoided. These scams are rampant on online advertisement venues such as Craigslist.

The requirements to making money online are no different than making money in any other business venture. It takes hard work, discipline and time. It won’t happen overnight. Simply being aware of the few red flags discussed in this article will help people navigate the sometimes murky waters of online investments and business opportunities.