For years, internet marketing has become one of the fastest ways to make money apart from Forex. More and more people are joining the various home business opportunities believing that they can earn big money easily with minimum effort after being promised by so-called gurus. Unfortunately, their desire has also become an easy prey for the scammers who also saw internet as a potential money making tool. The only difference, they are out to earn at others' expense without giving anything or any value in return.

In this article, I am going to highlight the most common internet scams which eventually became the main reason that made most people sceptical and prevented them from achieving success online. I am also going to show you how to differentiate internet scams from real internet business opportunities that really can make you and I rich.

The first internet scam is lottery. The victim once received an email claiming that he has won millions of dollars due to the fact that his email address was being selected in a random draw. From my experience, most of such emails are written in broken English, inconsistent fonts and letter sizes. Secondly, I do not remember there is such a lottery contest called random email selection. Third but not least, it is ridiculous to accept the fact that Google, MSN and Yahoo are organizing a joint venture email selection contest since they are all direct competitors in both email accounts and search engines.

The second internet scam is Nigerian 419 scams. They are far more serious than lottery as they claimed more victims using its deception. Using a software called email harvesting, they gained access to millions of email addresses around the world and started sending scam messages. Those messages come in various forms such as:

1. Unclaimed Inheritance Funds

The victim receives an email that someone has died in a plane crash or some terrorist attack or natural disease and have left a huge inheritance usually 1 million and more. Since the decreased had no family or his family members also died with him, the funds are in the bank suspense account and unclaimed. Because of this, the victim can claim the funds.

2. Hidden Bank Deposits

In this case, the scammer will portray himself to be the son or daughter of a rich businessman who was killed by some jeolous relative or rebels. He will claim that his or her father have deposited a huge sum in the bank secretly and wanted to transfer the fund out of his country for security reasons. He will arrange the diplomat to deliver the money personally or funds to be transferred via Telegram or bank.

3. Contract Funds

In this case, the scammer will impersonate him or herself as a prominent businessman who wants to invest in another country for business purposes. Just like hidden bank deposits, he will want the fund to be delivered by the diplomat he sent or be transferred from bank to bank.

4. Compensation Funds

This is certainly the most deceptive scam. The scammers will pose themselves as ministers, government officials and even anti-fraud authorities. They will put official logos and even picture of prominent ministers in emails sent to many people

In the email, they will tell the receiver that he or she has been identified as one of the victims of worldwide fraud originated from Nigeria even though the receiver is not a victim at all. They proceeded by saying that in order to restore the image of Nigeria ruined by scammers, the Nigerian Prime Minister offered to award each of the victims compensation. The compensation funds can range from $300,000 to even 3 millon dollars in USD.

The last internet scam is charity. In it, the scammer will portray himself as someone dying from cancer and some incurable disease with a few months to live. His last wish to distribute all his money to charities around the world. To do that, he need a guarantor who will agreed for the fund to be transferred into the latter's bank account and to distribute the fund. The scammer will offer 10 per cent to the guarantor for his or her effort in fulfilling his dying wish.

Whichever category, they are all scams with the intention of conning people of their hard-earned money. To claim those huge funds mentioned in those emails, the receiver has to pay a processing fee again and again. This can go on for months or even years whereby the receiver keep paying but never received a single cent in return. Even if he received a check and some supporting documents, they turned out to be forgery and he can get into legal trouble with the bank for depositing a fake check.

As much as you want to earn good money online, you need to be careful and not easily taken in by those scams. Always check and verify before committing to anything.