How to Judge Websites, Offers, and Opportunities Online as Trustworthy or Scams

How do we judge offers and opportunities as legit or scams? What can we do to never get scammed again?

I'm Jerry Banfield and based on my experience as an entrepreneur online for 8 years making millions of dollars working with hundreds of companies and hundreds of people. I'll give you my tips and experience today that will show you how to never get scammed again. How do you always verify if anyone or any website you're working with is legit?

I'll give you 10 different tips to do this today.

From my experience outside of all the companies and people I've worked with, I seldom get scammed. The times I was most likely to get into scam situations were when I first started my business. The 10 ways I'm going to show you work so well for me that I easily and effortlessly not only avoid scams for myself, I spot them easily for my friends and family too.

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For example, a recent family member was considering buying a business. They gave me the price and a quick description of the business. I said nope. No way. I wouldn't pay 10% of that asking price for it.

Tip #1 to verify the legit offer is to always ask other people for feedback.

Ask as many people for feedback as you can. Don't decide anything by yourself. The easiest way to get scammed is to decide things by yourself, to not ask anybody else for feedback or opinions.

I'm grateful for the live streams I do I have lots of opinions and feedback that I can trust.

For example, I had a friend. He was telling me about BitConnect a couple of years ago and I told him easily and obviously that it was a scam. In fact, he said it was a scam and then somehow ended up putting a lot of his money into it and he lost it.

It was easy to spot that as a scam because of tip # 2. He had the opportunity to ask me what he did. I said scam. He put his money into it anyway and he lost it.

Tip #2 to verify the legit offer is to look for transparency.

Always look for transparency. If you're considering working with a company, who owns the company? How did it start? Look for details.

I spotted a scam that a friend got into easily because he gave me the website and I looked at the website and the website had no information about the people behind it. To me, that's an easy, obvious scam.

If you're proud of what you do like me, I put my stuff all over everywhere. It's all Jerry Banfield. I am proud of what I do. I love it. I'm transparent about what I do. I put it all out there.

The scam situation consistently will not put it all out there. If you are looking at a company and they don't have any “About” information, that's really sketchy.

Let’s take a quick moment to define what a scam is because there are some situations where people say "scam" and I'm like that's not really a scam. The definition of a scam is:

A fraudulent or deceptive act or operation.

It's a scam and the words that are associated with us to deceive or to defraud. If you are talking about verifying a legit offer and rather it's a scam, the key is whether there's fraud or deception.

Now, there's a big difference in fraud or deception verses you didn't use properly. Those are two big differences.

I'll show you on my website, for example, I've got an “About Page” that talks a lot about me. I've got a life story. I've got all kinds of blog posts. This is an indication of trust.

If you go to a company website and they don't have anything that shows who's behind the company, almost always, it’s either a scam or poorly set up.

I spotted this for a friend. He was putting Bitcoin into a website that said it magically had some kind of trading bot or advantage and guess what? The friend lost all of his money.

I told him it was a scam because if this was legit, they would be putting their founder and their team on it. They will show you the basics, at least, of what they're doing and they didn't do any of that and he lost all of his money.

So, the first tip is to always ask other people for feedback. The second tip is to look and see if there should be transparency, especially on the website. Who are the people behind whatever you're using and how did they get there? If there's no transparency, that is either sketchy or poorly set up.

Tip #3 to verify the legit offer is to see whether they accept credit card and PayPal payments?

I have avoided losing my money on scams several times at the beginning of my business because they accepted PayPal and credit cards.

One sure way to spot a scam is if they don't take any reversible payment methods, especially if this is kind of a scale. If maybe just a company's not set up or can't get payment processing, any one of these may not be a sure indication of a scam but the more of these you put together, you've got a sure scam.

If you don't want to ask any of your friends about it, if your friends tell you it's a scam, they don't have any transparency on their website, they don't accept PayPal, stripe, or credit card payments, you see the more of these tests that are failed essentially, the more of these 10 things that are not satisfied, the more certain it is a scam.

Scammers know that if you're taking something like PayPal or credit cards, they are easy to reverse and not good to use for scamming because your account can get shut down easily.

During the first year of my business online, I paid $800 and something for some Facebook Likes that they were not what they promised. They said, these were the real users from the USA and I looked and that was not the people who were liking my page. It was BOT outside of the USA.

Therefore, I paid with PayPal and I got my $800 back very easily.

If you're paying with cryptocurrencies, you're paying with wire transfers, you're paying with bank transfers. If you're paying with ways that don't allow you to reverse a transaction, that's usually really sketchy.

At the same time, you want to be able to use credit cards. You want to make sure and pay with PayPal or credit cards as much as possible. For example, I just got my air conditioning done. I was working with a contractor that I'd known for a year. He had come over and fixed my air for free. The year before that and the first payment I made, he took half upfront and half when it was finished.

I paid half of it with a credit card and then paid the other half with cash. Therefore, at a minimum, I can easily get back half of my money if there's an issue and I could have paid all of it on a credit card but it was a 3% discount and since the air conditioning was successfully installed in my house, I felt very safe paying in cash.

Therefore, always pay with credit cards or PayPal anytime you possibly can because that will avoid you losing your money.

Tip #4 to verify the legit offer is to check your mindset.

If you think sending someone $3,000 is going to make you some quick money and you're not sure how it'll work, that's a good indication you might be getting into something scammy. If you're in a place where you're hoping to take advantage of something or anything like that, you're asking to be scammed.

For example, when I started my business, I was shopping around for “How to buy Facebook Likes” instead of getting them through some legit method like having people like my page, I was shopping around for ways to shortcut the system.

Guess what? I bought from 2 different companies who both violated what I've already said in the first place. Since I used PayPal, I got all my money back and they both offered scams because as we look at the definition of a scam, a scam is a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation.

That means, the website I bought from said I was going to get something and they did not deliver what they said they were going to deliver me. Therefore, that is a scam.

The reason I got into those scams is because of my mindset. Instead of thinking how do I do a good job for people, how do I help someone else and give them something really valuable in my page, I was thinking completely about what I wanted to do.

I want a Facebook page likes. I don't want to work hard for them. Let me see how I can shortcut it and I've spotted this for friends thinking well, I'll just give this person Bitcoin and they'll just give me more Bitcoin. I'll just put a bunch of money into BitConnect and they're gonna give me more money somehow.

Then all of a sudden, all of the money's gone.

If your mindset is what I can get, how can I get it, you're very vulnerable to getting into a scam situation because that's the same mindset the scammer is thinking about. The scammers are in the same mindset.

The scammer is saying, how can I get what I want? How can I take somebody else's money?

The law of attraction in the universe means if you're thinking of something you will be attracted to similar situations where people are thinking of things. When I think about how I may help someone, it's unlikely I will be attracted to getting into a scam situation because I'm attracting people like Shelby on Mixer who just said: “Hey, I saw your stream at the bottom and I thought I'd help you out”.

I'm thinking how may I help you and give you something valuable. I'm attracted to someone like Shelby who's on the same wavelength as hey, I'll help this guy out. Nobody's watching his stream on Mixer. Like attracts like. If you're thinking, how do I get money from people and how do I get what I want and how do I take that money and if you're thinking all about what you want, you'll get attracted to someone else who not always will it be a scammer but you're more likely to get attracted to someone who's thinking the same way and if you do that enough you'll get sucked into a scam.

Therefore, the 4th step to avoid getting into a scam is to check your mindset. Is this all about you and what you want? You've got to watch the rationalization. Our minds will tell us that yes, I'm in this to help other people but are we really in it to help other people and this goes back to also asking other people. Other people will often give you some good insight.

Tip #5 to verify the legit offer is to check your expectations by going in the door.

A scam or something deceptive will often be based on your expectations and this is the one that makes a big difference.

A scam is a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation.

That means the person intentionally sets it up to deliver something that they're not going to deliver. For example, when I bought Facebook Likes in 2012 from a website, it said it was going to give me real profiles from the USA that were targeted to what I was doing.

There were no real profiles. They were BOTS. They were not from the USA and they were not targeted to what I was doing. It's a scam. When you go into something, think about what you're expecting.

If you're expecting to give someone $3,000 and they're going to give you $6,000 back without you knowing how that happens, you're likely getting into some kind of scam.

If you're looking to pay someone to do something that seems very difficult and you're expecting this massive pile of results and you don't get them, that might not be a scam. That might be an issue with your expectations.

What I see most commonly people talking about scams is not a scam by definition. They are either unrealistic expectations or just not well-delivered expectations. For example, a Youtuber with about the same size following on YouTube as I tried to sell me on a $6,000 Youtube course.

I'm not calling a $6,000 course a scam because that's all about expectations and it's not set up as far as I can see to be a scam. It is set up to deliver real value. Therefore, if I bought a $6,000 course and didn't do anything with it and didn't find any helpful information, I would not qualify that as a scam because that is based on my expectations.

If I bought something for $6000 and I had really high expectations for it, those expectations might exceed what the course was sold as.

Now that somebody is having a course that's helped a lot of people, that doesn't mean it's going to help everyone in particular. Consider your expectations going in and if your expectations are likely to be disappointing then it may be a legit offer for other people but it's not a legit offer for you specifically.

For me, I see a $6,000 Youtube course not a legit offer because, with 2500+ videos on YouTube, I have a lot of experience. I don't need a $6,000 youtube course to tell me how to make videos when I already know how to do it and I can learn and watch other YouTubers for free and then I can schedule individual calls.

There's a lot I can do. I don't need a $6,000. But that's the kind of situation someone could get into and say, "Oh, this was a scam, it wasn't legit."

If all of the previous conditions have been met then it comes to your expectations. If you think buying a $6,000 course is going to save your business, to me that is an expectation that you've put yourself in and on a product you're buying.

It’s not reasonable. It's not deceptive or fraudulent. It's not scamming and at the same time though it's not legit for you. If you think you're going to buy a $6,000 course and it'll save your business, no it's coming down to you in doing a good job.

In fact, if a $6,000 course would work for you, you could also just do the work and learn from yourself and you wouldn't need the $6,000 course. If the course doesn't work for you, there's no point in buying it anyway.

I've never bought an online course that costs more than $500. I've paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for contractors to help my business, but I've never bought an online course for more than $500.

The only reason I bought the $500 course is that it included a one on one call with the creator and that one on one call led me to get interviewed on a podcast that goes out to a very valuable audience.

Tip #6 to verify the legit offer is to compare the price to either the skills and knowledge or the relationships you get out of something.

Almost everything that's worked well for me online comes down to skills, knowledge and relationships. If you're buying something and it's not obvious what skills or knowledge you get or what relationships you get, that is a very good sign that it's a scam. If you're not seeing the relationships or skills you get out of buying something, it’s a scam.

Tip #7 to verify the legit offer is by taking time to research them.

Take time between when you see an offer and when you take action on it. One of the key ways that scammers are likely to get you is by trying to force some kind of quick action. Some kind of immediate action. Some kind of immediate action is desirable to stop you from taking time to research, stop you from taking time to talk to your friends and make you lead into this fear that if I don't take action now this will be gone.

Almost all legit offers will be there tomorrow. The price might be a little bit higher sometimes, it might be a little bit lower sometimes but almost all legit offers are here to stay.

Scams often won't be around tomorrow because as the scammer needs to move or gets arrested and goes to jail, then the offer will be off the table.

Therefore, take time to research. Take time before putting in action and the more it costs. Take some time to make the decision always on one day at a bare minimum period. Now, the less it costs, the less you need to do this.

For me, if something is under $100, I don't put that much thought into it because what I've seen is, if you want to make a lot of money, you need to think about a lot of money.

If you're obsessing about a dollar here and five dollars or ten dollars there, then you don't have the time and energy to think about the bigger money.

I focus on a $1,000+ and I focus on bigger amounts of money. Therefore, I'm not going to support a whole bunch of time and energy into something like $100 because if I'm using PayPal or credit card to pay for it, I can always get my money back if it turns out to be not what I expected.

Therefore, you want to work there even more on bigger price items. For example, when I went through the sales pitch on the $6,000 Youtube course, they gave you a $1,000 off if you bought it within 24 hours with the goal being to encourage you to have some kind of artificial scarcity to take action immediately on it.

Even with all that I've made, $6,000 is a big purchase and that's not something I want to decide within 24 hours. With something like that, I need maybe a month or two to see if in a month or two that still seems like a good idea.

Therefore, the easiest way to avoid scams is just taking some more time.

What I've noticed is my mind changes rapidly. What today might seem like a great idea, tomorrow might seem stupid. Therefore, often with time, we'll just save you from getting into a scam or sketchy situation.

Tip #8 to verify the legit offer is to always get some kind of payment upfront especially if you're providing services to someone.

You might think usually from the buyer’s point of view about getting scammed but the main way I've encountered scams is from being a seller and having buyer’s then do fraudulent chargebacks or from buyers.

So, for any of my services, if you go to Uthena, I always charge upfront for my services because I've provided a lot. I've met all the other conditions on this. Therefore, to protect myself from scams, I charge in full upfront for whatever I want to do.

If someone wants me to make a sponsored video, you need to pay in full upfront on my website. If you want me to do something for you, you need to pay my full hourly rate upfront.

If you want some kind of an ad, for example, on Uthena, I have these new ads that I'm offering you. There's a sidebar ad and there's an ad at the bottom of the page. These are seen by thousands of people every day. You pay upfront for that ad and then you get the ad placement.

Thus, I always cut and I started doing this very early on with services because it was so unnecessarily nerve-racking to wonder if someone was going to pay or not.

Therefore, if you're providing services, always make sure you've got the payment before you do hardly anything. For example, when the company came to install my air conditioning, they made sure I paid half up front to verify that I at least had the ability to pay off. Always collect at least half up front if not full payment, especially if you're using credit cards or PayPal to pay.

Buyers can charge back and therefore there's no reason not to collect full payment upfront. It's very easy to get scammed if you just deliver everything and then hope for payment.

For example, where I used to live there was a dishonest developer and the developer agreed to pay a whole bunch of contractors hundreds of thousands of dollars. The contractors did all the work and the developer didn't pay not because from what I saw they couldn’t pay, they just realized they could get away with not paying and they left the contractors out hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The contractors didn't get it from my understanding of any upfront. They went and built all the houses and then the developer just didn't pay them. Therefore, always get some kind of money upfront to verify at least you've got half.

I learned that very quickly. I don't even know if anyone ever paid me, I very quickly learned though to make sure you collect payment upfront and use the reversible payment method because that's the best for everybody.

Tip #9 to verify the legit offer is to think about the person or the company you are doing business with.

Think about how you're helping meet their needs. This kind of goes back to the 4th tip to check your mindset.

Check your mindset if you're thinking how can I get what I want and if that's all you're thinking then you are likely getting a scam situation.

If you've already checked your mindset, think about how you can sell it to help someone else, then number nine thinks specifically about whoever you're working with and think beyond just the transaction itself.

Think specifically about the person or company you're working with and how you can help them. For example, when I hire contractors on Upwork, I think that I'm very grateful. I'm helping them earn some money but I also realize by me paying them to do something, I am taking up that time, that opportunity for them, I might be blocking them from something better coming along.

Therefore, as an employer, it's my responsibility to make sure that the person I'm working with really enjoys and is doing a good job working with me and is happy with the hourly rate because if they're not then that's not good for both of us.

You want to be in a situation that's good for both people.

When I was buying fake Facebook likes in 2012 for somebody who was using some fraudulent or dishonest scheme, who was presenting them one way and then giving me something else that's not good for anybody. That was a waste of my time. That messed up my facebook page.

If the seller has been honest and said I'm going to give you a bunch of fake bot profiles from Indonesia, do you want that for $800? I would have said no and yet I wasn't thinking about how I'd be able to help the seller. I wasn't thinking about how good my money could do them. I wasn't considering anything about them. I was only thinking about myself.

When I do these live streams, when I do these videos, I think about: how can I help you? I'm imagining you saving thousands of dollars avoiding a scam because you watch my video. I'm imagining you having that extra time and energy to put into something else and to make a contribution and do what you want to.

So think about whoever you're dealing with. For example, when I had friends buying into these various crypto scams, they didn't seem to mention that much about how they were helping the other party. They didn't seem to be thinking that much about what they were giving and what they were doing by empowering someone with a whole bunch of money to then use it dishonestly or to say, Oh, that's okay. I'm gonna give you and trust you with this money even though you haven't done much to earn my trust in return.

Lots of times it's very good when you want to help people fail at things that aren't worth succeeding.

I'm grateful that you and the people watching with you have been very good at helping me fail at things that aren't worth my time. Sometimes I get mad at my audience. I get mad like, come on, I'm so excited about this. Why won't anyone watch? Why won't anyone get excited about this?

I'm grateful today that you as a viewer are very thoughtful on whether it's conscious or subconscious of what I need to succeed at. My audience is somewhat ruthless. You as an audience and the people with you are somewhat ruthless about not letting me succeed in areas where I don't need to succeed and helping me do well in areas that are really helping you.

So make sure it's a symbiotic relationship. If you're giving somebody money who's going to spend that on black market stuff, that's not helping anybody.

When I am helping in the areas I need to help in, the audience helps me back the most. Sometimes it's frustrating to look out and see someone else where the audience is just throwing in thousands of dollars in donations providing massive help to them. I do a live stream with no donations and hardly anybody's watching.

Often that can be helpful when I need to be going and doing something else and today I've got a lot of good experience on how to not get scammed, how to verify legit offers and this is something that I can make a huge difference by sharing.

Tip #10 to verify the legit offer is to be willing to quit on something that's not working.

In other words, think about something failing and not working ahead of time. For example, one of the most annoying emails that aggravated me, there was a lady that sent me an email about 5 or 6 years ago. She said Jerry, I spent $9,000 on a course that was a little more than a WordPress tutorial and some affiliate marketing program.

I was like, WOW. $9,000 on a worthless course that you could have watched some YouTube videos and got the same information. That's not the interesting part.

The crazy thing is that she emailed me in the context of, “Jerry, I want to work with you. I want you to help me advertise the affiliate program links I bought and make it work”.

She wanted to make this scam work. She was willing to pay me more money to try and not make her $9,000 mistake. She was trying to prove herself right because she felt like it was a scam. She said, it wasn't worth anything and yet she was willing to pay me more money to help her with her Facebook ads.

I said you don't need my help. In the email she said, I still can charge this back on my credit card. I said you don't need my help, just charge that back on your credit card. Tell the seller you want a full refund or you're going to charge it back on their credit card. If you don't get a full refund, just charge it back in your credit card.

Now, here's the best. This lady emails me like a month later and says, Jerry, are you available? I'm still interested in doing some Facebook Ads for this program I bought. I’m like, are you serious?

You knew this was a scam. You knew this wasn't legit. You knew it wasn't good and you just wouldn't quit anyway. Now that's admirable in some instances. It's admirable persistence. My sister-in-law’s dog last night, we kept putting him out in the garage because he saw me and he bit me before.

Now, I'm afraid of him biting me again. I'm working on that because if I'm thinking if I wasn't afraid of him biting me again, he wouldn't bark and be afraid when he sees me. He was put in the garage last night when we were having dinner.

We tried all these different methods to keep him in there because he managed to break. There was a cat door in the garage door and he managed to come in through it. The dog last night pushed a big thing we put in the way. He hit the cat door so many times that he was able to open it. He just kept hitting it repeatedly and moving it a little bit until he could open it and come inside.

We switched it and put it on the other side. He managed to push it out of the way and come back in. That kind of persistence is admirable but at the same time it also will drag us down and annihilate us.

For example, as I put on my page here that says 5 years sober. I put in over 5 years because it was really hard to get 5 years sober because I loved drinking so much and I was persistent.

I remember taking my first drinking at 18 years old and feeling life is good and all of my problems are gone and then I kept drinking after that and kept going after that “life is good feeling” no matter how miserable the consequences got.

My persistence made it extremely difficult to stop drinking because I kept trying again. I'm like, Okay. I'll just have liquor drinks at home by myself and play video games and I won't cause any trouble.

• I won't get into a fight at the bar.
• I won't go in my car to get my gun this time.
• I won't get into trouble.
• I won't get thrown out of a bar or nearly get arrested.
• I won't lose my job this time.
• I won't wreck my car this time.

Look, I'll just stay at home, not drive, order food, play video games and what can go wrong? Then I woke up the next day with a chainsaw on the couch. I was like, I did not see that one coming and it will never happen again.

Look, I'll drink tonight and there's no way I'll chainsaw the couch or drive while drinking or go out to a bar or cause any trouble online or get into online gambling.

The last time I drank, I realized despite my best intentions, there was no way I could stop because my persistence would dictate that I'd have to keep trying to drink again and see if I could get it right and I literally needed divine intervention and help from hundreds of people and from God to Alcoholics Anonymous to reading inspirational books and man I still go to AA every day. I still pray every day.

Persistence can get us in way deeper than just a little bit of curiosity.

As I talked about with the lady, she spent $9,000 and something that appeared to both of us to be an obvious scam and she still wouldn't quit. She wouldn't just give up and get a refund. She had to keep going. She had to keep getting into it.

Therefore, what might be more important than all of these will be willing to back out of things that aren't working. If you can't back out of something or leave something, that's not a legit offer and if something you do can't fail, that's not a legit offer.

What I can say about my friends that got hit with crypto scams, they only put money in that they could afford to lose. Now for a friend that was $60,000 in BitConnect, which he lost all of and another friend that was a few thousand dollars into a different crypto scam. They did put money in and they could afford to lose.

What I've noticed is even doing myself this year, I've been spending money and I've just gotten to a point where I've spent so much money. I can't afford to lose any more. Therefore, It's time to stop spending the majority of the money I've been spending.

The key thing with staying out of scams and judging offers is, is this something you can afford to fail at? Is buying a $6,000 Youtube course something you can afford to fail at?

For example, I've got a partner program. It's several hundred dollars a month or $6,000 to join for life and have a bunch of one-on-one calls with me. This partner program offers tremendous value, gets one-on-one calls in a private Facebook group and at the same time it's not for everybody.

If you can't afford to fail my partner program then it's not for you. What happens if you put $6,000 in my partner program and,

• Don't schedule one-on-one calls
• Don't show up for group calls or the workshops
• Don't post in the private Facebook group

In that way, it's not right for you and if you would look at and say well, if that failed for me, I don't know what I'd do. That's a good way to verify, at least for you personally, that it's not legit. That's one of the reasons I didn't put in the BitConnect. Even though I could see it was an obvious scam, I could also see if I put it into it.

If you look at the endgame in life, the final score reads zero for all of us. No matter how many followers you have online, give it long enough and you're back to zero. Nobody knows you. You're in a different body or you've got another name. You don't remember that you used to be Jerry Banfield and did all these videos before. It looks like someone else now.

If you look far enough ahead in the future, everything is gone and therefore, if you can't afford to lose or fail at something, you don't want to get into it.

Hit the subscribe button if you have not already somehow on YouTube. Turn the notifications on so you can see when I'm live and/or if you've not already, you can hit that follow button on Facebook. Make sure you want to see the posts, hit see first on your news feed and/or turn the notifications on.

The best way we can get connected and get to know each other better, if you'd like really personalized advice, if you'd like me to really listen to you, go to jerrybanfield.com. I've got workshops. These are new. I just started offering these and they are doing really well.

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For example, in a workshop, the people who are in the workshop will talk probably 50 minutes of the workshop and I'll talk about 10 minutes. So, if you want to do the workshops, click on that workshop button.

You can get a 1 hour online workshop with me for $27.81 and I'm available to listen to what you have to say for that hour. Since I've just launched these, some people are getting into workshops that nobody else is even attending which is great. It's like a one-on-one call for $27.81.

If you want the best experience, go to jerrybanfield.com, click on workshops and pick out a workshop you want to go to. If you want a guaranteed one-on-one call, you can do that.

If you want a one-hour online workshop where up to 27 other people can come then just click on this. Set a time zone. You can see which workshops are available and these are all video calls as well that you can join with zoom.

You can also if you're in St. Petersburg, Florida, you can come in person. You can come in person to see a workshop with me. It's called The Jerry Banfield Show Live. You can come see me in person if you're in St. Petersburg, Florida and buy a ticket to do that here.

Thank you for reading this post to the end. I love you. You're awesome. Hope you have a wonderful day and I'll see you in the next post and livestream.

Love,
Jerry Banfield

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