How do scammers flourish? How do we stop them?

First off Alibaba.com is not a scam!!!! This is a B2B Marketing web site. China Suppliers and Trust Pass Members pay a fee for the ability to ADVERTISE on this site. This is not Ebay its not Taobao. There are no auctions here.

The scam has been around since man realized that there were greedy, not informed, not schooled, other human beings that were looking for something for nothing. We hear about email scams, lottery scams, and business scams. What is the single most thing that entices people to respond to these scams? MONEY - In the form of something for nothing or almost nothing.

Rule of thumb - If its to good to be true, IT IS.

Every product made has a minimum cost to produce. If you don't have a clue about a product or service you want to buy how can you make an informed decision?

EXAMPLE: Apple has been successful for many years. They come out with the iPod it costs X amount of dollars to produce. However to make money they must mass produce the item. They mark up the item 20-30% for sale on their own sites which becomes the MSRP. However, in order to market them around the world they sell them to authorized distributors for a 50% discount on the MSRP mark-up who in turn sells them to retailers or VAR's (Value Added Re-sellers) for a price around 7-12% of MSRP depending on quantities ordered. If you follow this progression of formula's you would find that a retailer would be making about 7-15USD on each 4GB iPOD they sold. Here again they are not making vast amounts of money from selling 1 or 2 but because they are selling hundreds. Also its a clear fact that most of them oney made in electronic's is on the accessories not the actual products themselves. Like replacement headphones docking stations, iPod surround sound.

This process is followed by all companies with Brand names that have no self distribution. Therefore if you see Name Brand items advertised for more than 10-15% off MSRP price you need to be highly suspect of the seller and exhaust all avenues in completing "Due Diligence".

STOPPING THEM

1.) Eliminate the greed in yourself.
2.) Be informed, know the product.
3.) Exhaust the available resources for confirming trade partners.
4.) Never do first time deals via the internet alone.
5.) Get a pre-shippment inspection done by a reputable service.
6.) Don't pay until you recieve the inspection. If they want 30% in advance tell them you need a factory audit first.

Inspections are honored by real suppliers and manufacturer's it also sends them a signal that you are a serious buyer. Lastly understand that you can not buy a branded product from anyone other than the manufacturer or factory authorized distributors and VAR's