Business Scams get Personal

Keywords for this post:
Business Scams

Well, I got flamboozled. I am considered an expert on online business scams, but I done got took. Drat.

At least it didn't cost me anything but my pride.

I got an offer "too good to be true." That should have tipped me off. A well-known site and its non-profit partner were offering to send me a disk of really great information in exchange for taking their little survey. Their little survey consisted of 20 or so questions about me and my business, with sales levels, etc. As I do with all "surveys", I told them about another company entirely. Maybe that's why they wouldn't send me their little goodie.

At any rate, it was well over a month ago, and my promised disk never materialized.

In truth, I don't know whether or not the well-known site and its non-profit partner are involved or not. There's just no way of telling. Like all good scams, they left no trail for me to follow.

I feel smugly content in knowing that I didn't breach any confidential company information, and gave out nothing more personal than my address, which is on my website anyhow.

This experience remind me, too, of the pitfalls in actually believing "surveys". If this had been a real survey, and the results had been tabulated, the stats I gave would have been really wrong. Goodness knows how many other companies would have provided equally shakey numbers. (You know, there's just stuff you don't want to share with the world.)

So be wary of gifts too good to be true. And be wary of online survey results. Both are probably bogus.