I’ve Been Scammed (Of My Trust Online)
How to build it back again
The Internet is a fun place, though sometimes equally misleading.
I was reading my emails a couple of days ago when two mails from the same account showed up back to back.
I subscribed to this writer a week ago only, and that’s why I was excited to read the issue. I thought it’d be a newsletter, but as soon as I clicked it open, I was greeted with sales and promotions. It put me off, but I thought, “Okay, let’s read it, anyway.”
I opened the mail at the top. It was worse than I expected. Maybe I was not the target audience, or it was straight-up garbish because it felt as if the writer was in some kind of hurry. In a hurry to sell the “limited spots” he had for his course or something.
I wanted to unsubscribe. But I thought of giving him another chance. But damn, it disappointed me even more. The writer was being salesy and spammy earlier, now he was being all scammy and fraudulent.
In one mail where he says he got 100M+ views, just two days after that, in the next mail, he says he got 207M+ views.
Like, wait, what the heck?
He is using the word millions as if he owns it and has the liberty to use it anywhere and everywhere he wants.
The moment I read the next email, I lost all my trust in him. Every sane person would. I unsubscribed immediately.
What to do when you lose trust in someone?
It’s all too common to encounter false promises on the Internet. Deciding who’s deserving of your trust and placing it in the right people is of utmost importance.
Some gurus will promise you thousands of dollars of monthly income if you buy their ebook worth $10. Or a sure-shot way of getting millions of views, or how to crack a platform for a $100 cohort-based course. But be vigilant; a lot of offers are a total scam.
I’m not saying you should not buy an ebook, or not join a course. There are some absolutely wonderful people out there who have the expertise and knowledge, and you can buy their stuff and learn from it.
The one thing you must keep in mind is that you should do your due diligence before making any purchase online. You should interact with the seller’s content and see if it is promising.
For example, in my case, had I bought his product just when I visited his website, I’d be more or less scammed. Instead, I subscribed to his free email newsletter. I wanted to see if it was truly a right fit for me and if should I trust this guy for whatever he’s selling.
Closing Thoughts
We all learn from our mistakes and experience. This one was an eye-opener for me as I saw how potentially near I was to make a wrong purchase.
Just imagine how bad a course would be if the emails he’s sending are this fraudulent. It’s all the money going down the drain as soon as you checkout.
This incident taught me a lesson: never trust something that sounds too good to be true. If someone promises exceptionally good results in a short duration of time or with little to no effort from your end, s/he might be a fraud. Be careful.
If something sounds too good to be true, it simply is too good to be true.
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