You know, it’s getting to the point where I am almost ashamed to be associated with this industry. Everyday I hear stories about people being ripped off by other marketers. The offenses range from non delivery of services to outright theft of their own material. This article is going to show you how to avoid things like this from happening and also tell you what to do if it does happen to you.

Let’s start with prevention, because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. At least that’s what my mother, God rest her soul, used to say to me. Anyway, the first thing you want to do before you buy anything from anyone online, whether it’s a product or a service, is research that person completely. If there is any dirt to be found, you’ll find it. Go to Google and look up their name. If you don’t know their name, look up their site name. Get as much info as you can. No info doesn’t mean they’re clean. It just means they haven’t been reported yet. However, if you find a lot of glowing testimonials, chances are they’re pretty safe.

What do you do if you’ve already been ripped off by another marketer? Well, you have several recourses. One is to confront the marketer directly and threaten to report them to the authorities if they don’t refund your money, take down your product or whatever it is they’ve done. Sometimes the fear of the law is enough to get somebody to back down. If that doesn’t work, move on to plan B.

Plan B involves one of two things depending on what was done. If it was non delivery of services and you paid money, simply request a refund, not through the marketer but through the payment processor who processed the transaction, such as PayPal. If it was through your credit card, simply notify your bank and request a chargeback. These chargebacks really hurt marketers and if they get enough of them, they could get their accounts shut down.

If the offense was theft of your product or content and the marketer put the content up on their site, simply contact their hosting company and issue a cease and desist. Most reputable hosting companies will immediately notify the site own to pull the content or be in danger of losing their hosting. The only time you may have a problem with this is if the hosting company is outside the US.

There is always recourse for being ripped off. You don’t have to sit back and take it. The few simple tips above should, in most cases anyway, bring you some satisfaction is resolving the matter.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

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