The internet is both a valuable tool and a horrendous liability. If you believe everything you read, you should probably refrain from accessing the world wide web at all. Scammers are out there in every nook and cranny of the internet and they are ready to steal your money, your personal information, and anything else they can collect to take advantage of you.
Thankfully, for those willing to consume information on the internet with a grain of salt and a bit of common sense, there are some solid techniques to ward off disaster. For those looking for investment advice on the internet, here are a few trips to help ensure that you won’t be succumbing to a scam. They all involve a lot of work and time on your part, but doing your homework ahead of time can mean the difference between a good investing experience and a very bad one.
Do Your Research
So you’ve found a person online who wants you to send them some money once a month and they will give you tips on which stocks to buy and sell. Don’t simply take the information on their site as gospel. Instead, look for reviews of their service on other sites. If you find Paul Mampilly’s investment site and like how it looks, just type Paul Mampilly scam into your Google search. That search alone will produce a wealth of independent sites that will give uncompromised reviews of Paul’s services. Be careful about which sites you choose to believe.
Again, do your research as far as which sites offer the most comprehensive and independent reviews. The information is all at your fingertips with simple searches. You simply have to do the work and don’t cut corners.
Use Your Friends Wisely
When in doubt, utilize the advice of family and friends to make decisions on who to trust with your money. Ask around at work and the local diner. Phone your cousin that has a lot of money and ask if he uses a guy or a site or a service or a psychic to help him make money in the market.
The point is, by asking around, you may not only gain valuable tips on who to choose, but you may also gain valuable tips on services or sites to avoid. In short, learn from others’ mistakes instead of making your own. Nothing hurts worse than telling a sob story to a friend who went through the same experience and would gladly have warned you about it ahead of time.
Trust Your Gut
No matter how many good reviews you may read for a certain site or person, if something seems fishy to you, don’t use it. The gut instinct may only kick in after hours of research so again, do your research. But once you have, trust your inner critic when you get to a site and he or she says to move on. After all, it’s your hard-earned dollars that you’ll be investing. If you aren’t comfortable with an individual or a site for any reason, find somewhere else to go. The great (and sometimes not-so-great) thing about the internet is how many options you have.
Researching and choosing an internet investing option is not for the faint of heart. It will take hours of research. It will involve pestering your family and friends with questions regarding their experiences and prior knowledge. And it will involve trusting your instincts to make an informed decision. Utilizing these tactics will serve you well in researching any type of internet service to avoid scams. And if you still just want to believe everything you read on the internet, the advice is still to stay offline.
