About 3 months ago I received an email from a woman she wanted to start an online business, she had already purchased a website and needed products. As most of my members know I like to talk to my members via telephone, or email. Don’t ask me how I can keep track with the amount of contacts that I do, but I pull it off.  I am horrible with birthdays though.

The lady was a single mother of 2 she was unemployed and she wanted to sell products online to help support her children. I ask her where she got her website from, and how much she paid for it. Mainly out of curiosity as we were just about to start our e-commerce website program. What I hear next is unbelievable $12,000 . Yes that is twelve thousand dollars.

She actually got a crash course e-commerce training as well she proudly announced and 100 links for her website to “shoot it up the search engine”. In reality she got ripped off as the 100 links you can buy from a real seo company for all of $8.00 and the course was basic one on one questioning that we do for free.  About a week later she comes to me and tells me that they did not even build her a website. They gave her a website builder and told her to do it herself. So for $12,000 dollars this single mother of 2 who saved her money for months received a few phone calls, a website builder, and 100 links.

I have now seen this same scenario 5 times this year.  What do you tell these people ? I am sorry but you just threw away your life savings to a scam ? The credit card companies are not assisting these people either because they had to sign an agreement stating they fully understood what they were paying for. Don’t get me wrong some of the fault has to be placed on the consumer for not checking up on the company, and for doing it to begin with  but this kind of garbage is what is wrong with the internet today as it is.

I fully believe that their has to be an e-commerce redesign, and a system set in place to fully monitor these companies, and every e-commerce website should have to register with them. From the drop shipping companies, wholesale companies, to the smaller e-commerce websites as well as the major ones. I believe if their is not a way to add trust to e-commerce it could very well self destruct.

I was reading a post the other day about how a website was ripping people off with a fake I phone scam and the Atty general of one state was trying to take down the website. The site was still up last I  checked seems they were only taking Western Union payments and people were trying to buy these I phones. I have absolutely no idea why as the site appeared to have been made by a 4th grader, but needless to say it happened and it shouldn’t have . Their are quite a few things that a person can do to protect themselves from these type of things happening. I think the most important one is to Google the website and see if any bad stuff comes up.  Also do a whois and look at the age of the website if it is less than a year old use your judgment wisely.

I will stress this as well just because their may be a complaint does not always mean they are bad. Take Ebay or Pay Pal for instance. Between the 2 of the  companies they probably hold the worlds record for complaints, but they deal with millions of different people everyday. Some people love to find any reason they can to complain. I have worked with the public, in sales, and in customer service all my life, and it can be very difficult to please everyone. I have had people from the first second they sign up start cussing at me for no reason, and I will instantly end their memberhip, and send them a refund as that is just something we do not tolerate. As we are here to help people, not to be their stress release .

Luckily that has only happened twice since I have been online. I can honestly say that the members of The PowerSellers Union are some of the nicest people I have ever met in my life. That is why I get so frustrated when I hear of good hard working people getting ripped off.