However, many of you looking to start a business on-line also have a big fear of being ripped off. And yes, there is very good reason to fear being ripped off! There is a good chance you will be ripped off by some half-witted money-making scheme. The fact is that there's even a chance you will be ripped off by someone who doesn't even know he's ripping you off!

"But how can you be ripped off by someone who doesn't even know he's ripping you off?" you ask. Many people with no real product create one by taking someone's advice -- often extremely bad advice -- and compiling it into an info product. By passing this along to you in an e-book or manual, and giving you a "clear road map" they not only waste your money...they make you worse off than you were before you started. This is true because you will waste time, money, and energy trying to make something work that has absolutely NO chance of working.

For example, business of "making money, teaching others to make money, by teaching others to make money" is one of easiest ways to make money. Agreed, there is a large market for this product. But, it's also a very dangerous place because common sense is often over-ridden by greed and very deep-seated dreams and ambitions.

So how do you avoid being ripped off? The BEST way IS using your common sense. Ask yourself if something makes sense. Also ask yourself, "If person telling you how to do something has really discovered secret, why isn't he using it to get rich!" There are very few "real secrets" -- information travels very fast on internet. Yes, there are many proven methods and techniques that do work, but if you look hard enough you will see them in everyday application. Go to any famous "guru's" site and make sure you see that he is actually using what he teaches.

Avoiding getting ripped off involves, to an extent, learning who you can trust. A trusted friend who really cares about you simply won't give you bad advice. A trusted advisor won't recommend bad products or services to you.

Here is a very big challenge I am faced with weekly: I get lots of people sending me trial versions of their products or review copies of their books. They want my "thumbs up"...my recommendation. I know that if I give this recommendation...this testimonial...and product is not extremely good -- I will cause harm to a lot of people. I also know that I will destroy one of my most valuable assets...my goodwill, AND reputation I have spent six years building with my potential on-line customers. So, I'm COMMITTED to closely guarding that trust, and putting my clients' best interest FIRST. You need to make a similar commitment BEFORE you even open your business.

Until you develop a few trusted friends whom you can call or email for recommendations, learn to ask a lot of questions. If you are thinking of buying a product or getting involved in a certain business -- ask around. Discussion boards are a good place to ask what people think about a given product or service. Ask in a way that you won't be perceived as trying to promote product yourself, because that type of post will simply be deleted. Also ask in a way that you aren't bashing a product or individual. Discussion board operators don't want legal hassles from a post on their board unjustly harming someone's business.

Also, just spend a lot of time surfing relevant discussion boards. Read hundreds, if not thousands of posts already there. There are boards set up just to warn you about rip-offs. My favorite is Friends In Business board. This board was started by a lady who got ripped off, and years later it's perfect place to go to find out about hundreds of scams. That's sole purpose of board. In fact, you should add this board to your bookmarks. It's:

There is a new breed of web site traffic brokers emerging in interactive marketing world that are brokering qualified traffic to highest bidder on a CPC ("cost per click") basis. Traffic brokers bypass tried and true business processes by flipping business proposition 180 degrees. They don't find clients and then optimize their web site for search engines; they do it other way around, by developing and optimizing their own domains for top tier search engines and then reselling this traffic by redirecting it to a destination of their choosing in real time.

So, is this process illegal or unethical? It's hard to say. I don't believe these processes are more disingenuous than what's occurring with hidden "sponsorship listings" via top tier search engines, including Yahoo, MSN, LookSmart, Overture, etc. The latter are now starting to take up lion's share of first page on search results -- these results are viewed tens of millions of times per day, with many people unaware that results are "sponsored listings."

To muddy digital waters even more, marketing services companies are starting to offer "trusted feed" traffic to companies who want to buy qualified traffic on a CPC ("cost per click") basis. This process is just starting to take hold in marketplace and works by a marketing services firm contacting a prospective client and offering them "trusted feed" search engine listings on a top tier web site like MSN or LookSmart on a CPC "cost per click" basis. They (the marketing services firm) then build web site pages for their client that are based on their in-depth knowledge of what search engines want and then submit these pages to search engine/directory's editors who then review sites, give "client" a top tier listing site and then share in CPC trusted feed revenue with marketing services firm.