We have all seen the scummy and scammy internet marketing scams that aim to defraud pretty much anyone who is unlucky enough to fall for their link bait; but who are these fraudulent masterminds and how much money do they actually make?
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Well first let’s look at why it works. There are a few basic emotions that these scam artists play on.
Laziness
Inherently, people are lazy. People take shortcuts and would rather (in general) find the quickest easiest way of achieving a goal than to actually do the hard yards and earn it! These online scammers pray on that human trait and expose it.
Pride
Their methods make it sound as if this is the best, most well-kept secret on the history of the planet and that you are actually smarter than everyone else for finding this gem of an opportunity.
Community
We like to feel like we belong. Scammers play on this emotion and feed off of it like it’s candy. They lure you in and make you feel like you are part of an exclusive club with smoking jackets, wood panels and butlers who call you “sir”.
So essentially the rationale behind this post is to talk a little about those who are giving real internet marketing types a bad name. The traditional sense of the phrase refers to those guys who are practicing SEO; SEM; social marketing and content marketing (i.e — the good guys). But there are also con artists doing their level best to take your money away from you.
In short, they are the “gurus” who are trying to sell you a cure-for-all; make money while you sleep solution that is going to radically change your life. There is no such thing — at least not in any legitimate form.
There is an internet marketing circle in the United States where these guys have literally made millions upon millions of dollars.
To flesh out this picture; the “internet marketers” who form the “syndicate” are the major players; the guys who get rich. These are the guys who come up with the scams and lay the foundations to get it into motion. The “boiler rooms” are, for all intents and purposes, the call centres that are filled with “pressure salesmen” who will hard sell you into the ground; playing on your emotions and make you feel like you are doing them a favour by buying their product. The “companies” are the fronts who these people say they work for. This is so that if you search their company name online, you find something real, something that reassures you that this is a legitimate business. Within these companies you then have some specialist salesmen who again complete the circle and are the face of the companies.
The syndicate all work together; this is to create the illusion that this incredible offer that they have for you is truly legitimate and that; because more that one company is trying to sell it to you; it cannot possibly be a scam!
Once they have you hooked; they take everything that they can and give you nothing but an empty bank account in return. Their methods are incredulous and their morals are severely lacking; often guised as a hedonistic view of philanthropic entrepreneurialism.
The general rules still and always will apply:
- Never give them your credit card or banking details.
- They are not your friends (they are the trench coat wearing sycophants luring you with lollipops into their windowless van, lined with tear-stained mattresses).
- Get rich quick schemes don’t exist — if you think it is too good to be true — then it probably is.
While I have never been caught (thankfully) in any of these schemes; I do implore you to share your stories with anyone and everyone who will listen to make sure that the syndicates are exposed and that more and more people are made aware of how unscrupulous the villains of internet marketing can really be.
