An Easy Way to Prevent Being Scammed

You're an RVer, I'm an RVer. Neither of us likes to be scammed. We'd rather spend our hard-earned money for accessories for our rig or for fuel so we can explore new places. Yet there are those who would take our dollars from us in a dishonorable manner. This article gives one way to avoid having it happen to you.

We all like a good bargain when we can find one. I've yet to meet an RVer who doesn't, even if they're driving a top-of-the-line and beautiful Class A motorhome.

Here's an example, based on an offer I recently received. First, it appears to be a great bargain: a free lunch or dinner, an MP3 player, and a 90-minute "conference" on "Internet Marketing Strategies" for only an investment of my time. The official tickets we received, one for me and one for a guest, were impressive; they even had the reservation ID printed on them.

Because I sell an RV accessory on the internet, I'm interested in internet marketing. I thought, "Hey, I can always learn something useful! And my wife has been interested in an MP3 player, so let's go!" I called the specified 800 number and made a reservation for the lunch-time conference.

Being of a cautious and conservative nature, plus remembering what my friend Chuck always said ("It's always good to have one more answer than they have questions,") I thought I'd see what I could learn about the sponsoring company.

Google, here I come! I Googled the name of the company plus the word "review." Was I surprised! Over thirty-seven million references!

The very first one listed was a review of the company's conference and workshops. It also contained hundreds of comments by those who had attended either the conference or the workshop or who had invested in the products they were selling.

Nearly all comments were negative; those which weren't were neutral at best. Many of the responders had spent thousands of dollars with the company for websites. The websites, reportedly, were anything but simple to get up and running and support was essentially none existent.

After reading the comments and the reviews of the conference and workshop, I decided that our time could be much better spent doing almost anything other than getting involved with that company. Besides, I probably would have just sat there and gotten more and more upset by what I heard. I'm retired and don't need that!

I called the reservation 800 number and canceled.

The moral of this little story: Research companies with which you consider having any kind of relationship. It's so easy to do on Google or other search engines. It might save you frustration and dollars, lots of dollars.

On the positive side, such research might lead you to an opportunity which sounds honest and legitimate and is worth considering. They can't all be bad, can they?

Let's concentrate more on the recreation part of our lives and avoid stress, frustration, and out-and-out rip-offs. That's why we have RVs, isn't it? A quick check on Google might help.

Copyright 2009 by Keith A. Williams

The author is a part-time RVer who is retired from a regular job. He fills his days flight instructing, creating websites, and providing a very useful product for RVers: the RV Awning Travel Lock.

He lost his awning to a wind gust and installed an RV Awning Travel Lock. He was so impressed with its effectiveness, appearance, and quality that he now markets this product over the Internet at this site: http://awninglock.com. There, you can learn what really can happen to awnings and how to prevent it.