In this article, I narrate a true story of an encounter I had with an online scam artist in a Lagos cyber cafe. I then offer – for the benefit of online entrepreneurs – my insider’s perspective of strategies they employ to convince total strangers to part with their money. That is, after all, what we’re all trying to do online as entrepreneurs. In truth, we’re all marketing to a potentially unlimited online audience of STRANGERS, who we’re hoping will decide to send us their money! The only difference is that unlike the scam artists, we’re good guys

If You’re Over 20 and Have Never Received an Email from Internet Fraudsters, You Must Have Been Living on Mars!

Victor Oladokun, presenter of the Turning Point TV show once remarked, that there is hardly anyone on the planet who uses the Internet that has not received an email scam letter from Nigerian Internet fraudsters.

They break through virtually every conceivable barrier to invade people’s email privacy regardless of efforts to keep them out.

Thankfully, efforts to stop them – by educating potential targets/victims and increasing security monitoring – are now yielding fruits. People are smarter in dealing with them.

An Interesting Cyber Café Encounter With a “Suspected” Online Scam Artist

Monday 2nd January 2006, at about 9.00a.m. I’m in a cyber cafe somewhere in Shomolu area of Lagos state in Nigeria, uploading updated web pages to my website. I’ve been at it for over thirty minutes, but despite it being a new year, it appears the poor internet connection speeds from 2005, have been carried over.

Another thirty minutes later, I give up, and decide to call the attention of the friendly cafe engineer to my need for speedier access, if possible. He expresses surprise, saying other customers are not complaining.

I point out that they are mostly either checking their emails or chatting online – those being activities requiring little bandwidth compared to mine, which involve uploads of over 80 files – some of which are up to2 MB in size.

He takes me to another PC, logs in using his administrator password and does some checks. Nodding in satisfaction, he tells me this system has more RAM than the other – apparently suggesting the other PC’s lower RAM was the problem. I say “Oh, great :-)”.

Quick Tip: When you’re paying for a service and not getting what you want, don’t keep quiet. Ask for help. No reasonable provider will call you a trouble maker for demanding good value for your money. And like it happened above, they might have a solution!

So he asks me to login using my purchased ticket ID and password. I try to do that, but all I get is a message “This ticket is already in use!” Not believing my eyes, I try again, this time checking to be sure no typo errors are made. The same message appears!!

Suddenly, the operator – who is still with me- taps me on the arm, puts his finger to his lips and motions for me to follow him. We get back to his desk and using the café management software on his PC, and my unique ticket batch number, he identifies the PC on which it’s being used! Then he walks over to the guy (mid-twenties), crouched over a terminal in a corner of the room.

To cut the long story short, we establish that the young man used some creative process to capture my ticket ID and password while I was working on my terminal. He quietly accepts to logout, and leaves the café. As the operator proceeded to reboot the PC, I noticed multiple chat windows open, with different profile photos – and names like “Janice”(a guy bearing a gal’s name – complete with photo too)!

A closer look confirmed my suspicion about what he was doing. He’d apparently tapped into my ticket time to continue his conversations with about 4 different people – ALL abroad. If I had left the café instead of asking for help from the operator, I would have returned to find my browsing time used up!

Why (and What) I Believe We Can Learn from Internet Fraudsters

Okay. Let’s get a few things clear. This is not an exposé on inside operations of an Internet Fraudsters’ network.

So don’t expect me to read details of how they operate here Having said that, at the end of this article, I do offer a VERY simple, yet powerfully effective tip for immunizing yourself against internet scams – of ANY kind. So you might learn something – still!

From years of casually observing this group of people, and also being on the receiving end of their “marketing” campaigns, I’ve noticed a consistent pattern. And in my estimation, it reflects the fact that they have developed a system that works for them.

In business marketing, a system that works, is one that generates the leads and sales you need. It is in that sense that I feel we can learn at least Five (5) lessons from these guys.

1. Identify Your Target Audience’s Hot Buttons

When exchanging emails or chatting with their “targets”, these guys use subtle questioning, to learn what to say to get their target more interested. This is a very powerful concept – and it helps them decide whether or not a “target” is worth pursuing or not i.e. via the answers s/he gives.

The visitor reading your article or web copy will often be a stranger. And when he sends you an email (or calls you), you will know little or nothing about him.

But you want to develop effective question asking techniques to uncover his/her hot buttons. And that’s what you weave your offer around, to close the sale. Once you do that, most times the prospect ends up becoming a buyer.

So, we must learn to use questions to unearth the deeper motivation of our prospects. Jason Leister teaches this art of asking questions quite well. He has an ebook that has received rave reviews from thought leaders in marketing. He used to sell it, but now offers it FREE – as I explained in this past issue of my speaking IDEAS newsletter.

2. Develop Methods That Save Time & Effort

Most times these fraudsters know little or nothing about the person(s) they exchange emails – or chat – with. But they are determined, persistent, very quick thinking and intelligent.

Those are very useful qualities to have – but for us “good guys” those qualities must be put to positive and productive (not negative and destructive) use.

These bad guys use aliases of all kinds. We won’t do that – because we’re good guys, and duplicity would do us more harm than good. They prepare photos and profiles to meet the expectations of their target audience e.g. the guy who used a pretty girl’s name and photo.

We can learn from that – our online presence deserves similar treatment e.g our websites, social media profiles etc.

They often use blocks of text copied from (e.g. dating) websites to express emotions that win the confidence of a target. I imagine poor English writing competence makes them do this to avoid giving themselves away. And they do it well enough to get believed!

We can have boiler plate templates for responding to enquiries from potential buyers. I use them – in my auto responders and in direct emails as well.

It saves time, and helps us come across as consistent and professional. That can inspire a prospect to buy from us. If you don’t already use them, I suggest you start doing so.

3. Don’t Fool Around…Ask for the Money!

Eventually, at some point in their “discussions” scam artists begin asking for the money. And they are rarely shy about it. Plus they ask as often as they consider necessary

But they often do so by telling lies (e.g. a relative is dying and they need money to take her to the hospital). They succeed in spite of their lies, because they successfully identify the “target’s hot button. And so they push it, till they get what they want.

That’s where we (as good guys) – again – differ.

We’ll be asking for the money based on the value we’ve shown the “prospect” we can deliver i.e. we’ll do the same thing, but with good intentions – to close our sales.

The problem is that many of us discuss with people our marketing has brought to us, but perpetually avoid (or neglect) trying to close the sale! Funny isn’t it, how what we want scares us so much we’re unable to take it, when we see it?

If you have that problem, get over it as fast as possible. I used to. But not anymore.

A True Story: Just yesterday I was in a meeting with a self-employed professional here in Benin Republic, to discuss my new MS Excel-VB driven audio, video and photo language guide.

Suddenly (after seeing my Excel application’s graphic user interface, and my website where I displayed promotional videos and screenshots of it), he said “Mr. Tayo, I think my website is long over due, and from what I’ve seen here, you can help me build it. How do we get started?”.

Note that I’d gone there to discuss a partnership proposal to market my guide to students in his institution. But in the process a selling opportunity came up.

Within 15 minutes of discussion, I provided him answers to his questions and also got answers to mine –  including agreeing a fee I was comfortable with, and a start date.

What’s the worst thing that can happen if you ask for the money?

The prospect can only say NO. But then at least you would not have to punish yourself wondering what could have been!

So, I’m going to say it again

Learn to ask for the money, preferably as early as possible – so you don’t end up wasting time with someone who’s looking for a free ride in a fancy car (thanks to Will Smith and the Fresh Prince of Bel Air).

4. Team Up Where Possible – and When Necessary

It’s always amazing to see how these scam artists can readily come up with other resource persons as and when needed.

I once read a detailed series of emails exchanged with scam artists. At various stages, they readily supplied names, addresses, and phone numbers (including scanned copies of certificates) of a lawyer and medical doctor when asked.

To put it simply, they had done their thinking and were prepared for any eventualities. So each time the “target” asked, they simply made it happen.

What they did not know was that the individual they were dealing with was simply playing with them right from the beginning: He was smart enough to sniff them out. Many others have fallen for it!

How about you? Do you have everything you need to respond to a prospect ready? If no, why not do that? And if you don’t have it all, why not team up with others who do?

For us, joint ventures and other partnerships can yield useful financial rewards and returns via increased sales, if we carefully evaluate those we adopt.

5. Play the Numbers Game

Lastly, scam artists are so proficient in using the internet to propagate their messages.

These guys successfully clone entire websites of financial institutions to defraud unsuspecting users.

They are often highly skilled in web design and development, and this enables them put their works on autopilot. This is what makes them appear so relentless.

As online entrepreneurs, to make our marketing more successful, we can harness technology and internet in the same way.

For instance, newsletter management systems (like Aweber, Mailchimp, Constant Contact etc) will enable you reliably build a mailing list of potential buyers. Add to that the use of RSS technology to propagate your marketing content from your website and emails across to various social media platforms at the click of a button.

This way you increase your marketing reach and get yourself noticed by more people than you could do by yourself. And like the old marketing rule says, for every 100 people you “speak” to, expect probably just 1 to 3 to respond.

Following up on leads is also crucial. Here scheduled autoresponders can be useful.

Therefore, to get more responses, aim to “speak” to hundreds more. Doing that manually would take too much effort, and time that could be better spent. Use web marketing to achieve the same results, and preserve your health, and sanity

Final Words: A Word of Advice on Handling Suspected Scam Email Messages

If you get an email message that contains an offer that reads too good to be true, follow your gut level instinct. It most likely is TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE! So, delete it and move on. Don’t let your mind play tricks on you. I’d say it takes a great amount of GREED &/or NAIVETY to fall prey to their antics.

Be cold and clinical in dealing with any message(s) that throw(s) up a red flag(s) in your mind. You’ll know them the minute you see them – all the tell tale signs are never hard to miss (e.g. poor spelling grammar – and of course their outrageous offers etc).

The problem is that as human beings, we sometimes encounter these temptations at periods in our lives when we’re most vulnerable.

Quite often it will be a time when we have a need that coincides with the reward being offered in the internet fraudster’s message, such as the promise of easy monetary reward (e.g. an email screaming that you won a lottery you never entered for…oh come on!!!).

Try and remember what I’ve said above, and you should be reasonably safe. Hey I should know: I’m a full blooded Nigerian, born and raised in Nigeria, who has lived and worked in Nigeria for over 40 years!

That is until 1st April 2013, when I arrived in Benin Republic, to begin travelling slowly across West Africa, as a Location Independent Entrepreneur