Almost any field has potential for scammers and it seems internet marketing has at least it’s fair share.

So how to not get scammed?

The first thing is to apply a “does it seem to good to be true?” rule.

I’m guessing it’s something in our evolutionary history that makes us attracted to bright shining objects whether they’re relatively rare substances like gold and diamonds or less rare substances like “ending soon” perpetual sales.

There are whole NLP (neuro linguistic programming) books on techniques to push sales buttons in prospects minds.

Top class copywriters push those buttons frequently.

And even lesser copywriters can do quite a good job of getting us to order something even if we don’t quite know why.

So apply the “too good to be true” filter to any sales page.

And don’t surf the web one handed with your credit card in the other hand!

Pictures of yachts and fast cars are giveaway for someone selling dreams.

So are promises of rapid income.

Especially if the “income” figure is precise – that actually ticks boxes in our minds that it must be true.

“Over $1,000” is actually less believable than $937.26 and will likely get more sales.

Google do this on their keyword tool search data – they use seemingly precise figures for searches but if you sort the results by search order you’ll soon see that thos numbers are in bands with nothing between them.

So if someone as supposedly trusted as Google thinks it’s OK to bend the truth, you really need to beware of real sales pages.

The higher something reaches on your too good to be true scale, the faster you should click the back button.

Price doesn’t alway equate to quality

If you’ve skimmed or read Influence by Robert Cialdini, you’ll know that one of the short-cuts we use is price.

If something is more expensive, it seems it must be better quality.

Otherwise they wouldn’t charge the extra money.

A lot of the time, that’s true.

It costs a lot more to make a Rolls Royce than a low-end Ford.

But it’s not always true.

Especially if you’re being promised things that, on close examination, don’t add up.

Like a personal consultation with a guru who says they rival Tim Ferris in only working a few hours a week.

Or an invite that comes through the post that claims you’ll be face to face with the founder of a world-wide program.

I’ve had a few of those over the years that have caused me to re-evaluate what I think of the person’s teachings.

As usual for me, no names but the one I’m thinking of is a highly successful businessman and published author who preaches financial independence.

A lot of this is down to gut reaction.

But it’s also in certain price brackets – you know you’re not going to get any personal time that isn’t really just a high pressure sales pitch if you’ve only paid a handful of dollars for a product.

At the high end – many thousands of dollars – for a coach, there’s a very high chance you’ll get to speak with the named person.

It’s the middle ground that’s awkward to gauge.

Anywhere between $50 and $5,000 is a quagmire.

And I know that’s a wide range.

I’ve been on a $67/month group coaching where I got around 30 minutes one-on-one time with the coach and effectively got extra one-on-one time (albeit with eaves droppers in the form of other coaching students) any week I cared to ask a question on the group call.

I’ve spent $500 on coaching that promised it was going to be individual but turned out to be simply videos and PDFs. They didn’t even bother to make a sales call to me.

I know someone who spent several thousand dollars to be coached and ended up with a “coach” who knew less about internet marketing than he did.

Sorry to say but it’s buyer beware.

Check the reviews online

Worry if all the reviews are glowingly positive – you simply can’t please all the people all the time. A friend ignores any Amazon products if they have 100% 5 star reviews on the basis that they’re probably false – that’s maybe cynical but a good rule of thumb.

Maybe worry if you can’t find any reviews at all and the price is high. Most people lurk rather than review things so if sales are relatively low – as they’re likely to be – then there’s a good chance no-one has put up a review.

Hunt around for some lower priced products to do your research instead.

Use reviews of their other products as a good substitute. Paying special attention to any issues with customer service or prolonged absences from replying to support tickets.

Beware reviews that are thinly disguised sales pitches – read or watch a few reviews for new launches on YouTube and you’ll soon be able to spot those!

Sleep on it

This has worked for me on numerous occasions.

So often what seems a good idea when you first reach a sales page seems just plain and ordinary the next day.

I tend to leave sales pages open in a new browser tab and come back to them if I feel especially drawn to do so. That process alone cuts out a lot of things and I weed out the ever-growing tabs when Firefox slows down more than normal.

Countdown clocks often reach zero and then either stop counting down or go negative or – even sneakier – re-start from scratch.

There are scripts that always refer to the current day or whatever. A simple “refresh” will show you those.

Generally keep your wits about you

We all get taken in every now and then.

Not just in internet marketing.

Most households have a few gadgets gathering dust that seemed a good idea at the time, worked but were too fiddly to use, etc.

It happens.

Don’t beat yourself up about the occasional “wrong” purchase. It’s part of the learning curve.

But do read the small print to make sure that free trial doesn’t turn into a constant drain on your credit card. It’s not as easy as it should be to dispute that kind of thing but it’s very easy to ignore the fine print.

Thanks to Amanda Murdoch for inspiring this post after she posted a link to a Forbes article.

Feel free to add your thoughts and comments using the box below.