Unfortunately, the Internet is not always a safe place and there were many cases when unscrupulous individuals created fake sites and scammed hundreds and thousands of people taking their money and not giving them anything in exchange. Such a case was recently disclosed by the journalists from CBC News on http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2009/12/16/edmonton-oprah-sues-alberta-internet-entrepreneur.html?ref=rss:  it’s about a fake internet entrepreneur named Jesse Willms who created a couple of sites with the only goal to scam people. For example one of his common practices was to offer a one month membership for free, but start charging ridiculous amounts of money starting with the second month without asking for any other confirmation and without sending any further notice about this. Although not illegal (because the visitor in fact had the possibility to cancel their subscription before the end of the first month) this practice is definitely not a fair one and it lead to more than 1,000 complaints against Willms company on BBB (Better Business Bureau) and a few lawsuits, including the one initiated by Oprah's production company.

That’s why we recommend you to be very cautious when you encounter companies that:

-          are not located in an important country (that’s because many scam companies decided to operate on countries that don’t offer any fraud protection);

-          don’t offer contact information on their site or if those information are not trustful (like a P.O. box address or a wrong phone number);

-          only take orders in cash (for example requesting you to send money via Western Union, Money Gram or wire transfers); instead try to find companies that accept credit cards or PayPal payments since on these payment methods you can contest the transaction if you’re scammed;

-          ask your credit card information when signing for a free offer or membership.

Now we don’t say that all companies doing this are scammers, but we really advise you to take everything they say with a grain of salt.