Several Red Flags for Spotting a Phony or Scam

The world is full of phonies and scammers these days. They use various mediums such as phone solicitation, spam email, magazine and newspapers ads, TV infomercials, and plain old snail mail. They are constantly searching for their next victim. Like P.T. Barnum once said, "there's a sucker born every minute", so there's a plenteous pool.

To all of those potential victims, I offer some tips for spotting phonies and scams. There are several red flags you need to watch out for. Any of the following is almost always a dead giveaway that you have encountered a potential phony or scammer:

1) Someone claims to possess "secret" information. In today's world there are very few true secrets left. The news media is all over just about everything that goes on. Any information that someone tries to keep secret quickly gets exposed and reported to the world. Also, ask yourself, "why isn't the mainstream media interested in that 'secret'?"

2) A person repeatedly states that his/her extraordinary claims are "absolutely true", "not a joke", "completely accurate", or something else along those lines. If their claims are genuine, then those claims should stand on their own merit. Constant repetition of statements meant to reinforce the validity of their claims would not be necessary.

3) Someone's claim is not realistic and doesn't make sense. Remember what they say about things being too good to be true? Someone once showed me an ad in which a "home developer" was looking for people to build homes for and only wanted $500 up front. Curiously, he said he preferred those with bad credit over those with good credit. Obviously, he knew that people with bad credit are often the most desperate and gullible. He was eventually prosecuted for running away with more than $ 1 million in stolen "down payments."

4) Someone is spouting conspiracy theories. First, take a look at those people who believe in conspiracy theories. They are the same ones who believe pro wrestling is real. Do you want to be grouped with them? Second, as is the case with so-called secrets, any real conspiracies would be exposed by the media in a very short time. Major conspiracies such as those that some people are constantly alleging could never be kept secret for very long. At a minimum, the media would be interested in following up on that person's conspiracy claim, if it indeed it had some semblance of validity.

5) A person uses religion to try to convince you that they can be trusted. Their sales pitch consists of the repetitious use of words and phrases like "praise the Lord", "hallelujah", "God bless you", "glory to God", etc. If you ever encounter someone like this, hold on to your wallet and run the other way as fast as you can. True Christians would never use their religion as an advantage to try to increase their sales.

6) Someone claims that his/her get-rich-quick scheme, weight-loss program, etc. is "easy." Anything worthwhile in life requires effort and is never really easy. Besides, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it and people wouldn't be struggling to make a living and/or lose weight, for example.

7) A person makes wild-eyed claims that his/her product (that you have never heard of before) is "amazing" or "revolutionary." If it were actually "amazing" or "revolutionary", someone other that person and his/her minions would also be making that claim about the product.

8) Someone wants to sell you their "system" for making money that will make you rich. The obvious problem here is that if their system is so good, why are they wasting time telling you about it and trying to sell it to you? Why aren't they using that great system to make money for themselves? The truth is that their system for making money consists solely of selling suckers their system for making money!

Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, and trivia buff from Hopewell, VA. He also serves as a political columnist for American Daily and operates his own website - http://www.commenterry.com - on which he posts commentaries on various subjects such as politics, technology, religion, health and well-being, personal finance, and sports. His commentaries offer a unique point of view that is not often found in mainstream media.

Times Online
WTA tour to allow on-court tennis coaching
Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom - 17 hours ago
On-court coaching will be allowed at all women's tournaments next season, apart from the four grand slams, in a move that will not please the ...
WTA to Feature On-Court Coaching Washington Post
WTA approves coaching during matches San Francisco Chronicle
WTA Tour allows on-court coaching next year The Associated Press
New York Times - ESPNall 224 news articles

Boston Globe
No Weekend Off for Irish Coaching Staff
Fighting Irish Insider - 3 hours ago
By Mike Frank While the Irish football team had the weekend off last weekend, the Irish coaching staff was once again very hard at work working on ...
Football Recruiting: Wood, Stockton highlight impressive 2009 ... Observer Online
Notre Dame still trying to return to prominence Gary Post Tribune
Countdown to Kickoff: Pat Kuntz’s new look WNDU-TV
Boston Herald - Bleacher Reportall 90 news articles

Vancouver Sun
Running games, coaching stability give AFC South the edge - NFL
ESPN - Sep 4, 2008
By Paul Kuharsky The Colts are known for their passing game, but RB Joseph Addai scored 12 TDs last season. The NFC East can certainly make a reasonable ...
AFC South: Peyton's place on top Vancouver Sun
all 38 news articles

Carte seeks Riverside baseball coaching job
Daily Mail - Charleston, WV - 1 hour ago
Carte, who won 183 games in eight seasons with the Black Eagles, has applied for the Warriors' head coaching job. "Once you are a head coach, ...

Coaching Demons no worry for Eastlake
The Canberra Times, Australia - 15 hours ago
BY MERRYN SHERWOOD During the week they are a coaching team but on weekends Nathan Clarke and assistant Julian Farkas take on different roles in Eastlake's ...

Game 2 better than Game 1? — Coaching cliche has ring of truth
Livingston Daily, MI - 6 hours ago
Take Fowlerville, which won its opening game easily, only to see the coaching staff immediately begin to worry about a Lakewood team that gave the Glads ...

Measuring the impact and value of executive coaching
Reliable Plant Magazine, OK - 1 hour ago
Executive coaching is a business strategy that is gaining favor in organizations that give serious attention to developing key talent. ...

First Malayalam DVD on cricket coaching launched
Hindu, India - 23 hours ago
Kochi (PTI): Former India wicketkeeper Syed Kirmani and film actor Suresh Gopi jointly launched the first Malayalam DVD on cricket coaching by former Duleep ...

MEN'S BASKETBALL: Cards finalize coaching staff
Ball State Daily News, IN - 18 hours ago
Newberry was promoted from director of basketball operations to an assistant coach Wednesday to finalize the Cardinals coaching staff for the upcoming ...

Dynamic Sports Training Announces Semi-Private Coaching. Grab a ...
PR.com (press release), NY - 5 hours ago
Dynamic Sports Training announces the creation of a Semi-Private coaching package. This new package will allow more people to take advantage of quality bike ...

Wind Chimes and more...

Windchimes for great gifts!

The Value of Career Coaching and Its Effect on Productivity