Do's and Donts - Beware of conmen

[JayFCF]

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Quite a few people are complaining off being ripped off. I've compiled a list of do's and dont's that I feel may help you when dealing with new companies.

Do:

Be as transparent as possible to potential customers.

Offer a small free sample if you want but not too much (I can tell from just 10 lines if something will be good or not I dont need 1000)

Offer references of companies you have supplied to

Ask for references of companies they have bought from /sold to in the past

Ask members on this forum if they have dealt with company x in the past.

Visit their company website

Take a full address and check it out. Companies House lists all Limited companies in the UK

Take email addresses, telephone numbers and ask fo the name of another individual in the company that you can speak to should they take an unexpected holiday or fall sick.

Have signed contracts and purchase orders in place.

Save all email communications between yourself and buyer / supplier incase you need to refer back to them at a later date.

DONT:

Be tempted by unrealistic offers. (Someone saying i'll pay you £500 a lead for product x when everyone else is paying £70 could turn out just to be a ploy for you to send leads)

Rush into the first deal you find, make sure you've done everything above and if it all checks out go ahead.

Delete email correspondence you'll need this in the future. If things go wrong

Pay money into personal accounts. Use business bank accounts wherever possible.

Post negative comments about companies on here regardless of how you feel. (This could have an adverse accect on you if you decide to take matters further).


TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS IF YOU FEEL THEY'LL RIP YOU OFF THEN THEY PROBABLY WILL. A LOST DEAL IS BETTER THAN LOST MONEY.

Feel free to add things if I have missed anything out.

Remember just before Christmas its easy to chase the big bucks but at this time more and more people are trying to earn a few quid by doing nothing to warrant it.

On a lighter note:

Not everyone in the industry wants to screw people over. Do your homework and good things will happen

Cheers

James

ABC Finance

0161 975 6148

[pallavi]

Hi there,

You have a great post my friend. Here are some of my facts and suggestion on affiliate program. Building an affiliate business is one of the easiest ways to start a business online. You don't need your own products, you don't have to provide customer service, and in fact, you don't even need a website. If you want to earn real profits from an affiliate business though, then you need real strategies for getting traffic and earning profits.

Now, if you're already a member of an affiliate program, the next thing you need to do is work on earning more commissions. If you really want to earn more commissions, here are three strategies that will help you begin to earn, or earn more from affiliate programs:

1. Know which affiliate programs are the best to promote. Selecting the right product or products to promote is crucial to your success.

To select the best products to promote, there are several factors you should consider. These include finding programs that have a generous commission structure. If you're having to sell a lot of a product to generate small commissions, you'll have to work a whole lot harder.

Make sure you know who your target market is and go where that target market is to promote. You also want to make sure that the programs you choose have a solid track record for paying affiliates, as well as having a solid track record for sales. Some sites, like Clickbank, can tell you how well different products are selling.

With thousands of affiliate programs available for you to sell, you can afford to be picky about what products you promote. Although as an affiliate, your reputation is less at stake than the merchant's, you want to be careful about what programs you promote. If you've built a list, as well as a relationship with your readers, your reputation is still at stake, and you want to make sure that you offer your readers good products.

An easy way for you to promote affiliate programs is through free ebooks and reports. These can be reports offered by the merchant, or a short report you've written about the product you're promoting. This can help you distinguish yourself from other affiliates, especially when you write the report yourself because you are giving the reader new information other affiliates are not offering.

Offer tips in the report about how to use the product. Give readers more information about the product. Put yourself in the reader's shoes. What questions can you answer in your report that may not be answered in the sales letter?

2. Give away your free report to those who subscribe to your list. This is really easy to do because all you need is a lead capture page and an autoresponder to do this. Once you set up the lead capture page and autoresponder, all you have to do is drive traffic to the page.

You can also offer follow up messages on the product to give readers more information. By offering followups to your initial contact, you are building a relationship with the subscriber, and you are more likely to convert the subscriber to a customer.

Once you get the subscriber to sign up for your list and download the report, then you can send the subscriber to the merchant's website. You can also publish an online newsletter or ezine for your list. Not only will you have a chance to promote your initial offering repeatedly, but you can also promote other offers. Let me caution you though, you want to make sure that you offer plenty of good information in your ezine.

An additional advantage of publishing an ezine is that you can also use this content for your website by creating an archive of your ezines. This also gives you an opportunity to promote to your new visitors.

3. If you want to get traffic fast, then try pay per click advertising. You can test your ads first by using some of the lesser known pay per click search engines that offer free credits. By testing your ads first, you'll find out what works best for promoting your affiliate products.

Build your list, offer your potential customers more value than your fellow affiliates, and test your promotions, and you can easily increase your commissions.

Cheers

[Mr_Alfonso]

The dos and don'ts of applying for finance

1. Don't pay upfront brokerage fees!
With so many mortgage brokers offering their services to help you find a loan to meet your needs, it is not necessary for you to pay a brokerage fee! The mortgage brokers are paid by remuneration by the lender with whom they arrange your finance purchase with.
Accomplish Finance will help you find a loan that suits your needs from our panel of lenders as a complimentary service.

2. Do make sure that you deal with an Accredited Mortgage Consultant.

3. Don't fall into the trap of 'Honey-Moon Rate Specials'
Honey-moon rates are offered by some lenders to attract new customers. Not all honey moon rates are beneficial, after the honey-moon period is over your rate may convert to the standard variable rate at the time which may be a higher rate. That's not to say that all 'honey-moon' rate products are not worth considering, Accomplish Finance will sort through our panel of lenders to help you find a loan that may offer 'honey-moon rate products' that may have an ongoing long term benefit to you.

4. Don't forget to check the comparison rate schedule.
By law under the Uniform Consumer Credit Code (UCCC) it is a requirement that you are provided with a comparison rate schedule to accompany your loan proposal and or application. The comparison rate schedule is designed to give you the true cost of the product that you are selecting, by allowing for upfront fees and charges and ongoing fees on top of the interest rate offered into one rate. This will help you compare the true costs of different products offered by different lenders allowing you to make an informed decision as to which product will meet your needs. A comparison rate schedule will state a warning to make you aware that other fees and charges may not be included in the comparison rate schedule that you may need to take into consideration when selecting a product.

Warning; this comparison rate applies only to the example of warning or examples given. Different amounts and terms will result in different comparison rates. Costs such as redraw fees or early repayment fees, and cost savings such as fee waivers, are not included in the comparison rate but may influence the cost of the loan. Fees and charges are payable.

5. Do ask about early termination fees.
Early termination fees are better known as 'Deferred Establishment Fees' (DEF). If you choose to repay/ or refinance your loan within a certain period after you obtain your loan, you may have to pay a (DEF). This fee can vary from lender to lender and may depend on your chosen product. Accomplish Finance will disclose to you if a (DEF) that is ascertainable at the time of your application is applicable to the product you choose, to help you decide on the right product from our panel of lenders. Other conditions, fees and charges may apply.

6. Do make sure that you seek independent legal advice from a solicitor.
It is advisable to seek independent legal advice from your solicitor before signing a contract to purchase. Your solicitor will let you know what special conditions you may need to be aware of.

7. Do disclose correct information on your application.
To help us, help you with your application it is better to disclose all relevant information upfront. If you let us know of any problems such as paid or unpaid defaults, we may still be able to help you find a lender that meets your needs from our panel of lenders. Remember you are signing a declaration.

Regards

[pallavi]

Thanks friend fr the contribution....

This will surely help people in long run. Keep posting and keep us updates :tup

[Data-Located]

So what your saying is that your also intending to ruin good business for self employed people like me?

I for one am not a limited company. I don't have a website nor will I provide you details of when or where I chose to go on holiday. I also can't certainly predict when I'm going to be ill either. On the up side, I will drag myself out of bed and deal with my clients accordingly rather than other sick notes that work for some of these bigger organizations!

Although you mean well by putting up this statement, I also feel that you are going to ruin a lot of business for people like myself which is very unfair.

At the end of the day, I provide a service and a very good one at that. All my data/leads come from trusted sources and I also work in connection with some very big clients.

Not only that, I also work on a trust basis and that is something I always sell or try to prove before providing anything. This may be done by small samples, testimonials or simply getting to know my clients firsts.

In all fairness, this is a no win situation. I know people who have been ripped off by LARGE companies including myself and its a hard pill to swallow so it works both ways.

At the end of the day, if we are all in this game we will see a wrong-en coming. Just by talking to someone, I can tell whether their products or business are genuine or a complete duff.

Lets take into consideration that not EVERY person is a rip off. There are smaller companies like myself out there that do offer a good service. It's some times more often than not the bigger organizations that like to take the p1ss by not paying for stuff and I could name and shame 10 of them from this website.

Kind regards,

Data Located.

[MY-LOCAL-ADVISOR]

Just wanted to bump this post.. as i feel some of the newbe's might find it of interest

[JCBawcombe]

Sound advise from you James - look forward to meeting up with you tomorrow.

We here at the Phruit Towers are DMA accredited - this kite mark should offer any buyer confidence in what we do here.

When I was a self employed broker for a few years I found myself on the wrong end of a few dud deals - the industry does attract a certain type of person - fly by nights!!

However, I will back up Data Locators feedback here that not all small brokers are milky bar kid rip off artists....

just use your common sense guys 'n' gals...

Keep up the good work young James!

JB

[Pokemonhunter]

I see that you have mentioned clickbank and you have provided detailed information. That's good. I was looking for a way to make money online and I found clickbank. I am 17 years old and I can't find out how old you have to be to join. If you know that I can't join it due to my age, can you please tell me if there is an affiliate program that I can join that is free and pays by check?

[CrazyBird]

There are some really interesting comments and as I buy a lot of data, can relate to them. It can be difficult when buying data from any business, small or large, and from experience haven suffered more problems with data brokers that are 2-10 employees in size.

The checks I always put in place is that a company has a DP and CCA license but references / feedback from other trusted suppliers is the best way.