subject: Drop Shipping: How Not To Get Scammed On What Seems To Be A Genuine Deal [print this page] Although business scams have been around since Adam was a boy, the coming of the Internet is like manna from heaven to the con man, and has allowed them to multiply a thousand fold.
Some of the old tried and tested scams used to be done by news paper and magazine advertising and include chain letters, envelope filling, pyramid schemes etc.
Most of these are done through the Internet now by scam websites and e-mail. These are not 'get rich quick' but 'get rich immediately' schemes which ask for money up front to get you started.
One of the most common scams on the Internet these days is the drop shipment scam, where the seller does not keep the goods on hand but passes the customers order and shipping details on to a wholesaler who then sends the goods on to the customer direct. The seller makes his profit on the difference between the retail and wholesale price.
Or rather that is how it is supposed work.
As in all of these things, there are unscrupulous con men (and women) who sell drop shipper lists on the Internet through online auctions and websites.
These give the names of companies that drop ship but many of these could be the same company but with a different name or worse still, the solitary chap with a phone and no products who uses yet another drop shipper list to supply and ship the goods. This last drop shipper is the victim of the scam.
The customer pays the seller who then pays the man with phone and the last drop shipper who did all the work and supplied the goods, shipping etc. gets nothing.
Many people that buy drop shipper lists from the Internet become victims and hardly ever make the money they are led to believe they can; unknowingly they help the unscrupulous drop shippers to make huge amounts of money.
Most of charge a membership fee for access to their price list, the victim has then to try to sell their products by advertising on the Internet or on online auctions, at their own expense of course, where they eventually lose their money.
The idea behind this is that drop shippers can sell their goods without doing any advertising, therefore not being held responsible for poor and shoddy goods, get money from their victims through membership fees and yearly contracts and make huge profits into the bargain.
Don't be put off using a drop shipper, all drop shippers are not scammers but the moral of this tale is to choose yours very, very, carefully.
