Scammers, spammers & spivs

I got an email yesterday from a journalist who wanted to know about scams and dodgy websites. Basically the question was: “Is there a resource you use to understand whether something is right, wrong or just a scam?”. Well there isn’t any particular website, but if there was it would be likely to be instantly out of date because you simply can’t keep up with the Nigerians, Romanians and Russians, let alone your local Wide Boys.

But having a think about it, I came up with a number of ideas that I’d thought I’d share.

Commonsense
The old saying goes: “If something looks too good to be true it probably is”. I tend to trust my nose, eg. if an eBay reseller has 900 recommendations that are all positive, one line long and made roughly six seconds apart – things probably aren’t squeaky clean.

Emotional Google Searches
I like to do a Google search with an emotional term next to the piece of software I want to research, eg “Jomsocial crap” brings up discussions in web-based forums where real users let loose – rather than someone paid to do a review. The weight of public opinion is useful.

The Australian Communications & Media Authority – ACMA
ACMA has some nice stuff on current scams, spam and eSecurity here. Obviously it’s Australian centric and will always lag behind what’s actually happening so commonsense should also apply rather than using this as a definitive resource.

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission – ACCC
The ACCC has a specialty website called Scamwatch that’s here. Although useful, like the ACMA site, it will always lag behind real life, so see point one (apply commonsense).

The Australian Securities & Investment Commission – ASIC
ASIC also has a specialty website, known as FIDO.

This site tends to focus on dodgy investment opportunities, such as computerised horse race betting schemes, etc. It’s a great site but again – don’t forget to apply commonsense.

All this brings me to two other questions, both around when is information dodgy or a scam, or is it simply just a bit of spin?

Question 1. What if the dodgy information came from a “trusted source” like the government?
The answer is that the Australian section of Wikileaks is a fantastic resource for getting another perspective on Government Announcements.

That is of course unless it gets blocked on us downstream.

Question 2. Does a high Google ranking equal more authoritative content?
The short answer is no. Consider this: say I write a blog on a brand new topic. If you write an article on the same topic and link to me because you want some external validation – I now rank higher than you on Google. Because I am now the number one ranked person on Google for that topic, others are much more likely to link to me because I am on top – further increasing my lead. I become an authority on the topic, not because I am right, but because I wrote on it first and a computer algorithm liked that.

So there’s lots of good stuff around, but never let it get in the way of commonsense – no matter how good the Nigerian Investment opportunity looks!

To read more Brendan Lewis blogs, click here.

Brendan Lewis is a serial technology entrepreneur having founded: Ideas Lighting, Carradale Media, Edion, Verve IT, The Churchill Club, Flinders Pacific and L2i Technology Advisory. He has set up businesses for others in Romania, Indonesia and Vietnam. Qualified in IT and Accounting, he has also spent time running an Advertising agency and as a Cavalry Officer with the Australian Army Reserve.