A Brief Look Into Different Schemes(The scams)

Scams, when they are pulled off can be pretty impressive, and pretty disruptive. That's why movies like the Ocean's Eleven series do so amazingly. Now I'm obligated to say that you should not plan on starting any of these scams. But it's important to know what they look like, and admire them from afar.

Here are some of the most interesting scams which have been around for quite a while.

Pyramid Schemes

A pyramid scheme is a business model which recruits its members based on a false promise of finding 'financial freedom' or making a lot of money. It works incredibly well because of how the company grows exponentially. But of course, because it's a pyramid, the people at the top of the pyramid are the ones making most of the money. 

Pyramid schemes work based on commissions. These commissions encourage its participants to 'recruit' more people to help said scheme sell its products. The new recruits will usually have to pay a fee to be included in the 'million dollar industry' and be compensated with a product of some sorts. 

It's a little confusing so let's use Joe as an example. 

Joe has decided to join a pyramid scheme after being convinced by a friend that he's going to be rich!

Of course his friend(let's call him Mark) is part of a pyramid scheme of his own, trying to 'recruit' Joe and earn commissions from Joe's money. The commissions will then be split between Mark and the person who recruited him, and the person who recruited that guy and so on. 

Now Mark has multiple Joes(plural of Joe) under his belt. These people are called his down-line. Each of these Joes will begin to build their down-lines, as that's the only way they'll actually make money through the scheme.

Since Mark has already recruited so many Joes, he can now sit back and relax, letting his Joes recruit more people for him, adding to their down-lines and also extending his.

But wait, there's more. The person who recruited Mark has other Marks who are recruiting more Joes and the cycle keeps repeating. The person at the top of the pyramid started this all off by getting several people in his down-line to build his down-line for him.

Nowadays, they disguise themselves as 'Multi-Level Marketing', or 'MLM' for short. MLMs are basically modified pyramid schemes. MLMs are legal, but pyramid schemes aren't.

 MLMs usually can't force new participants to pay a fee, or keep any physical product, but the business model remains the same.

Ponzi Schemes

Ponzi schemes work quite similarly to pyramid schemes. The people at the top are the ones making most of the money, and the rest are just suckers. 

A Ponzi scheme tricks people, usually investors into investing their money into the scheme. Most of these investors are not aware that it is a scheme.

They invest into it expecting some returns, but their money usually goes to the people at the top, end the new investors are simply told that the investment did not turn out as planned. 

The money of new investors is given to existing investors, making it seem like the existing investors are making healthy and consistent returns, when that is in fact false. 

The main difference between a pyramid scheme and a Ponzi scheme is that participants in a Ponzi scheme are usually unaware that it even is a scheme, thinking it's legitimate. Pyramid schemes are also more centered around products.

If you enjoyed this post, feel free to check out my other ones. I post on weekdays, so do give me a follow if you're interested in finance or money.

If I left out anything, please feel free to let me know in the comments or contact me at 'jingrui.wu.2002@gmail.com'

How to Save Effectively

Saving can be tough, painful even. And it should be. If you're not saving like your life depended on it, you're doing it wrong.

But sometimes we just need that extra push, something to spice up our routine. So here are some creative ways you can save. I understand that most people spend straight from their banks/ It's good practice to keep your savings account separate from your spending account.

$5 at a time

One intriguing way I've come across is saving $5 at a time. It goes like this - Save every $5 that you come across. Simple enough right?

$5 notes are perfect to be saved. They are not too common to come across, but not too rare either. Try to save $2 or $10 notes(we don't have dollar bills in Singapore) and you'll likely end up having insufficient notes to purchase items.

Try saving $50 and it'll be too rare to come across and too painful to stash away. 

This is a $5 from a country that I'm not from

Just the Coins

If you don't want the hassle of carrying around coins, start your day with some notes. throughout your day, store the coins in your pocket or  a coin pouch and out it all into a piggy bank at the end of the day.

Don't have a piggy bank and want to save more money? Simply grab a cup or a pail and put all your coins in there.

Keep the Change

Think the first 2 methods are too easy? Try this on for size! This method as well as the next one works well with digital payment/banking too!

Start of each day with a set amount of money in your wallet. ($30-$50 is good)

Spend what ever you need to spend and save the rest. Reset your balance the next day. 
If you find yourself saving more than you can handle, tweak your starting amount by a little. If you find yourself becoming too comfortable, increase your starting amount by a little, but keep your spending exactly the same.

'Tax' your transactions

This is might be the granddaddy of saving. If you've found everything up to this point way too easy, try this out.

Set a fixed percentage of money to save each time you make a transaction or purchase.

In other words, 'tax' your transactions.

Let's say that you decide on saving 20% of every transaction you make. So each time you buy a meal or a drink, you'll have to deposit several dollars.

Doesn't seem like much? That's because we haven't taken into account all the other forms of spending you do - paying for your bills, buying the new apple watch, buying a new pair of shoes, or a new handbag.

Each time you make a purchase, you'll feel an additional sting of having to put some more money away.

That discourages you from making too many purchases too often. It's good to keep this percentage high so that it discourages you from buying high ticket items which you simply don't need. 

I'm a big fan of just keeping your spending to a minimum, and not changing it too much. That way, even if your income changes, the only thing that will be affected is your savings.(this was kinda boring so I didn't really make it a point on its own.)


Thanks for your time! If you liked what you read, feel free to check out my other posts and give me a follow! Leave a comment or contact me if you would like to share or mention anything!

Best Platforms for Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the first thing that most people talk about when they hear 'make money online'. It can be a touchy subject as some affiliate marketers may resort to promoting scams to make some quick cash.

With that said, most of these platforms do have a way of filtering out these products. But please do try to stay away from products which may not be able to deliver what is promised. It pays to be honest with your customers.

How Affiliate Marketing Works

Affiliate marketers usually build a list/following which they can send promotions to. The list usually consists of people interested in a specific niche. Hence, affiliate marketers source for products which fit that list, promoting it to them in hopes of making sales. Here are some platforms commonly used by affiliate marketers.

Clickbank

Clickbank is one of the largest affiliate marketing platforms on the web. The reason why affiliate marketers love using Clickbank is simple. 

The sheer diversity and variety which they can choose from. Clickbank has niches from business, to arts, to self-help.

Many of the products on the platforms are posted by individual companies and not actually created by Clickbank. 

Hence, they have impressive commisions, ranging from 50% to 100% of the product price. Most of these companies have up-sells and cross-sells which they profit from, which is why they can offer commissions of such magnitude. 

Amazon Associates

Amazon associates have been dominating the affiliate marketing space, mainly for it's simplicity and convenience. 

Content creators have been creating reviews or simply linking to products which they use, getting commissions each time a follower decides to purchase through their link.

Amazon does tag customers with cookies. This means that if someone clicks your link and purchases (almost) anything from Amazon, you earn a commission. The duration of the cookies may vary.

What sucks about the Amazon Associates program however, is that the commissions you earn from each product is at most 10%. In fact, Amazon recently cut their commission rates for some categories due to the coronavirus outbreak.

CJ Affiliates/MaxBounty

CJ affiliates and MaxBounty work similarly to Clickbank, except they can also pay you for leads or subscribers, not just sales. Both websites are partnered with pretty big brands like GoDaddy, Square and Norton.

These platforms do also have fishy advertisers though, so do watch out and steer clear of those. You don't want your customers to swim away because a product doesn't work. 

Unlike Clickbank however, you do need a following before you can start promoting. They need you to have a website and some traffic before they will approve you and give you an account. 

If you have anything else to add, do leave a comment or contact me at 'jingrui.wu.2002@gmail.com'.

If you enjoyed this post, check out my other ones! And don't forget to give me a follow!

Effects of the Recession and How You Can Profit

Recently, the global economy fell into a recession. A recession is an uncommon event, one nobody looks forward to. But what exactly is a recession, and why is it so scary?

What is a recession?

A recession according to Oxford dictionary is a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters. Basically, recession = Bad




So knowing that, why is the recession so bad? What are the effects of one and how can we profit from this?

Unemployment claims soar

Due to the sharp dips in revenue companies are experiencing due to the coronavirus outbreak, they cannot afford to keep as many staff and hence, have no choice but to let go of some of their employees.

Over the past 5 weeks, the number of unemployment claims rose above 26 million. This means that 16% of labor force is currently unemployed.

Source: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/jobless-claims

Because the unemployed have less to spend, consumption drops, leading to a vicious cycle of companies experiencing more revenue dips. 

Oil prices went sub-zero

Yesterday, something unprecedented occurred. Oil prices dipped below zero. This happened as it was cheaper for people to pay you to find storage for the oil than to store it themselves. 

This happened due to the fact that oil is traded as futures contracts, meaning that by a specific date, traders would have to actually collect the barrels of oil, which most(regular) people can't do.

This led to a major sell-off as investors and traders tried to close and get rid of their contracts, hence pushing the price of oil 'below zero'.

Cash is King

I promised that I would share about how you can profit from this recession. The truth is, there's nothing much to it. Just make sure you have cash, so that you are ready to buy as the market continues to dip. 

I say 'dip' because it's impossible to tell exactly when and where the market is going to bottom. However, what we can do is pick a few blue-chip stocks and buy them on dips. This is known as dollar cost averaging(bringing down the average price of each stock), which can earn you immense amounts of profits once the bear market ends.

Also look to buy companies with strong fundamentals and healthy dividends. This helps you to build your own stream of passive income for a discount(while the market is down).

If you have anything to add, please to leave a comment or contact me at 'jingrui.wu.2002@gmail.com'

If you enjoyed this post, feel free to check out my other ones and give me a follow! Thanks for your  time!

How I Managed to Build Discipline

From young, I was an extremely lazy, master procrastinater. I could sit on my chair or lay on my bed for 16-18 hours straight and not feel a thing.

My parents have emphasized that discipline is important and is usually what makes a person successful(i'm asian if it wasn't already clear enough). After observing successful people, I found that what my parents were preaching was not far from the truth.

Making my bed

I believe that I learnt discipline through building good habits(enforced by my parents of course). Obviously, this started with personal hygiene like brushing my teeth and taking showers. Habits which I picked up after being nagged at constantly(I practiced them inconsistently though).

After noticing a pattern of successful people having discipline. I decided to be stricter on myself, forcing myself to make my bed, brush my teeth and take a shower. Over time, these activities have become encoded in me, things that I do every single day now. 

What's funny is, I always felt that making my bed was pointless, since I was going to sleep in it the next night anyway, and brushing my teeth was pointless, since I was going to eat again anyway.

After forcing myself to perform such activities, I learned that as pointless as they were, they somehow managed to build discipline in me.

Exercising

After building a routine of making my bed, brushing my teeth etc. into my daily routine, I stated working out after a friend of mine recommended some regiments which could help me keep fit.

Working out to me is not so much to be buff or good looking, rather, it makes me feel that I am doing something productive each and everyday. It also helps boost my mood and relieve my stress. 

Picking a workout that you are able to do everyday without straining yourself too much is important though. Start with smaller reps and lesser sets and eventually work your way up, this is to ensure that it isn't so challenging at the beginning, making it easier for you to soldier through each and every day.

Adding this to my daily routine helped remove the lethargy I felt from a long day.

Finding my interest

Finally, I needed a direction in my life. Having discipline with nothing to do was kind of counter intuitive. finding my interest could also have been what pushed my discipline to the next level.

When I started my E-Commerce store, I woke up at 7am and slept at 1am every single day. Without any alarms, wake-up calls or anything of that sorts. having the discipline built up before this definitely helped, but being truly passionate about what I was doing gave an even stronger driving force. 

If you have anything else to add, please do leave a comment or shoot me an email at 'jingrui.wu.2002@gmail.com'.

If you enjoyed this, feel free to check out my other posts and give me a follow too!

Best Ad Networks to Help You Make Money From Your Website

So you've created a website, and now you have hundreds of people visiting your website everyday(It doesn't matter if it's less than hundreds of visitors, it's good to know this and try it out, it's possible that they'll accept your application!)

Bidvertiser

Bidvertiser is an ad network which allows you to have advertisers place ads on your website. 

They have advertisers who create ads related to your niche which are then placed on your website. 

Pros

Bidvertiser has no minimum number of views needed, hence it's perfect for new websites which are just starting off.

Cons

The downside to this is that the platform is not the most user friendly, and may take a little time to get used to.

Google Adsense

Probably the most famous and reliable advertising network out there. Google Adsense provides content creators with a steady income by allowing advertisers to utilize their service,

Pros

Because Google is such a massive company, we can rest assured that they will be paying us regularly and that they won't just run away with our hard earned money. They also have cookies which allow advertisers to retarget their audiences through your page.

Cons

Google Adsense has many guidelines and rules, leading to it being a little more difficult to get approved. You also do need a higher amount of traffic to get paid higher amounts

BuySellAds

Just like Bidvertiser and Google AdSense, BuySellAds also connects advertisers to content creators.

Pros

They have a user friendly interface, allowing you to navigate pretty easily.

Cons

BuySellAds is not as reputable or popular as Google ads, hence, you won't have big brands advertising on your website.

If you have anything else to add, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email at 'jingrui.wu.2002@gmail.com'

If you enjoyed this, feel free to check out my other posts and give me a follow!

Email Marketing for Beginners

What is Email Marketing?

It's pretty self-explanatory - marketing with Emails. 

Email marketing is usually used to advertise to an audience which is already relatively warm. That this means is that the people you market to are familiar with your brand as they signed. 

How Does One Start Email Marketing?

Email marketing can be used for almost every business. And is an extremely effective way to boost your sales and keep your customers familiar with your brand. But how can you go about doing it?

Find A Platform

The first step is to find an email marketing platform which suits your marketing needs. The truth is, the prices are pretty competitive, so the only differences are the features of each platform.

Here are a few of the more popular ones

- MailChimp(Affiliate Marketing is not allowed)
- GetResponse
- SendinBlue

All of these platforms have beautiful templates for you to use when drafting emails to your customers. I use GetResponse as I am the most familiar with it, but any of the platforms will work. Do note however, that platforms like MailChimp do not allow affiliate marketing emails.

Set up an automation workflow or email campaign

An automation workflow is essentially a chain of emails which you will send to your customers, with breaks in between(you can set this on the platforms - 3-7 days of break works well). 

An email campaign is just an email that you want to send to all your subscribers, or a select group of your subscribers.

Usually, businesses would create an automation workflow which sends people who sign up emails on a regular basis. In this workflow, they usually up-sell or cross-sell products which are related to the products which the customer purchased. Offering discount codes also works effectively in getting your customers to purchase again. These workflows are set up in advance and will be automatically triggered when someone signs up to your email list. 

Campaigns on the other hand, are used for updating your customers. They are a one-time email which is sent out to your subscribers at your command. Such updates could include

- New product launches

- Delay in shipping times, or delays in general

- Discounts/Sales due to holidays

- Blogs

Be sure to keep your email list actively engaged, as an engaged audience would always convert better than a cold one.

If you have anything else to add, please do leave a comment or email me at 'jingrui.wu.2002@gmail.com'

If  you enjoyed this article, check out my other posts and give me a follow! Thank you for your time!

A Crash Course to Digital Marketing Terms Every Marketer Should Know

What is Advertising?

Advertising is essentially the act of increasing the awareness of one's brand by utilizing bigger, more reputable and well-known platforms.

Advertising terms which every digital marketer should know!

Copy

An advertisement(ad) copy is the textual part of an ad.

Creative

An ad creative is the pictorial part of an ad

Lead

A measurement of number of contacts received. For example, one lead could be one email address, or one phone number

Cost per Lead

How much it costs you to get one lead

Clicks

A measure of how many people decided to go to your advertised link.

Cost per Clicks

How much is costs you to get one click

Reach

Reach is the number of people who actually see your ad

Impression

An impression is a count of how many times your ad is displayed on someone's screen

Cost per Impression

How much it costs you to get an impression

Click Through Rate(CTR)

The CTR is the percentage of people who saw your ad and actually clicked on the link you are advertising

Bounce Rate

The percentage of people who leave your website after looking at one page

Return on Ad Spend(ROAS)

How much money you make from spending $1 on advertising. 

Conversion rate

Usually used for sales, percentage of people who purchased from your site. Calculated by taking number of sales/number of clicks.

Cold Calling/Emailing

Calling or emailing potential clients who have no relation with you or your connections. The contacts of these potential clients are usually found through social media. 'Cold' is a term used for anyone who is unfamiliar with your brand

Sales Funnel

A sales funnel is a sequence which seasoned marketers bring consumers through. Traffic usually goes in cold and comes out hot. The beginning of the funnel is usually the clicks, as they get warmer, they begin to add to cart, as they get even warmer, they

Referral/Affiliate

A referral or affiliate is basically a marketer who endorses a brand which they are related to. If anyone purchases through said marketer's link, the marketer earns a commission. 

Market Research

The analysis of competitors and the industry which your business is in. 

Search Engine Optimization(SEO)

A form of organic traffic which uses optimal keywords to ensure that your website is found on Google. 

Have something to add? Please leave it in the comments or shoot me an email at 'jingrui.wu.2002@gmail.com' and I'll be sure to reply. 

If you enjoyed this article, feel free to check out my other posts and give me a follow!

Digital Marketing Tips to Instantly Increase Your Conversion Rate

I've experimented heavily with digital marketing, spending a lot of time and money, mostly on Facebook Ads but I have dabbled in other platforms as well. Here are some strategies many marketers and I find extremely effective!

Blend in

Alright, you may want to brace yourself for this one.

One of the most effective strategies I've used while advertising is making sure my ad... doesn't look like an ad.

I know, I know that sounds ridiculous, but hear me out.

Imagine coming home from work or school, sitting down and taking a nice relaxing scroll through social media. Suddenly you see a post from some random profile you've never followed. You look at their post and realize, oh, it's just an ad, and you continue scrolling. 

In contrast, you sit down, and see something interesting, or closely related to the other posts in your feed. You would be more inclined to stay on the post, give it a read and see what it's about.

People have a tendency to block out ads while scrolling. If your ad looks like an ad, it's not going to be a scroll-stopper. You need something that is interesting, and yet similar to the other posts from your niche. 

Test, test and test

A big mistake I found myself and many others doing was testing one or two copies with one or two ad sets, have that not work out and give up. 

I cannot emphasize how important it is to test, test and test. There are multiple ways you can test different creatives/copies. You can duplicate your ad sets, change the creatives and copies, or you can just use the 'dynamic testing' or 'A/B testing' tool on Facebook. For other platforms like Google, you can just create different campaigns for different keywords.

It is normal for ads to be unprofitable in the beginning. Once you've found your winners, that's when the money starts rolling in.

Utilize Your Audiences

Once you've done vigorous testing and have gotten some sales and clicks. You have to utilize these sales and clicks. It took me a while to realize how important this is, but when I found this out, I increased my profits significantly

Social media platforms usually have some sort of software which you can use to track users on your website. The more of such users you can record, the better. 

Once you have a sizeable audience, you can start re-targeting those that did not convert, and using those who did convert to create a lookalike audience. 

A lookalike audience is essentially one that mimics the interests and qualities of the audience you own. This means that if you make a lookalike audience of people who converted into sales on your page, you would be able to market to that audience, who have similar qualities to people who purchased from you. 

Hopefully you found this interesting and useful. If you have anything you would like to add, please do leave a comment or reach out to me at 'jingrui.wu.2002@gmail.com'

If you enjoyed this, do check out my other articles and give me a follow!

Best Chrome Extensions Every Entrepreneur Should Have to Increase Sales Significantly

When starting or running an online business or a business of any sorts, it's important to analyze what your competitors are doing and see how you can do it better or how you can apply it to your own business. Here are some apps which allow you to ethically 'spy' on your competitors/analyze the market so you can make better, more effective decisions. Don't worry, they're all free!

Facebook Pixel Helper

I like to emphasize the importance of social media in growing a business, increasing sales and raising awareness. Facebook Pixel Helper is a tool which allows you to analyze websites utilizing Facebook Pixel, to help with their Facebook Advertising of course. 

A Facebook Pixel basically tracks users on a website and allows the party which owns that Pixel to re-target said users, in hopes of making sales. That is the main use of it, but there are other uses too.

Although it's main purpose of Facebook Pixel Helper is to help troubleshoot any issues Facebook Ads users have with their Facebook Pixels, there have been other ways savvy entrepreneurs have been using it to their advantage. 

These entrepreneurs use the Pixel Helper to go about looking for websites which do not have Facebook Pixels installed. They then contact the owner of said website and explain the benefits of having a Facebook Pixel, offering to install it for them, for a price of course.

This can then progress into the website owner becoming a client of the entrepreneur who will help the website owner market and increase traffic on his/her website.

SimilarWeb

Website traffic and traffic may be the single most important thing when running an online business. Traffic translates to eyeballs, which translates to sales(or clicks if you place ads on your website). Which is why SimilarWeb is a tool which an online entrepreneur simply can't live without.

SimilarWeb allows you to look at your competitor's websites, and analyze where their traffic comes from. This means that you can go to those very platforms and send traffic from those sources to your website instead. Because your competitor is likely selling a similar product/service as you are, the viewers you get from these sources are likely high-quality and valuable consumers which will make purchases from your website.

Keywords Everywhere

One way of getting traffic, organic traffic is through SEO. A chrome extension which works incredibly for this is Keywords Everywhere.

Keyword Everywhere basically allows you to search Google, and pulls up search terms which are related to the search term you entered. This is extremely useful for SEO, but can also be used for Google Ads too.

You do need credits to load metrics, but you can just sign up for Google Keyword Planner to do it for free.

Hopefully you found this useful! If you have anything to add, just leave a comment or shoot me an email at 'jingrui.wu.2002@gmail.com'.

If you liked this article, feel free to check out my other articles!

What Do You Write About When You Don't Know What to Write About?

I started my own blog a little over two weeks ago and have been blogging pretty consistently, taking breaks only on weekends. Here are some things I found extremely helpful in getting my creative juices flowing!

Come up with a title

Whenever I write(or type), the biggest obstacle I face is coming up with a title. After coming up with a title, I’ve basically done half the work. I would say that having a title is like opening the floodgates of your mind. 

A title gives me a guideline on what I should write about, providing me with a general idea of where I want to take the article. What sucks however, is how long it takes me to actually come up with that title.

The question then would be, how do you actually go about thinking of a title?

Devour *useful* content

When I’m stuck, I usually mope about and watch useful Youtube videos, read, and listen to content which is related to my niche. It may take me several hours to actually come up with anything, but I find that it always helps to trigger something in my brain. On the other hand, I know how easy it is to stumble onto other types of content(*cough* tik *cough* toks) and fall deeper and deeper into that rabbit hole, ending up with you in a sad and lonelier state because you did nothing productive that day. 

Just put that away for a bit and try to focus on your writing. Don’t give yourself the excuse of ‘taking a break’ until you’ve actually come up with a title or done anything productive at all.

Spar ideas with someone

Doing this has been one of the most effective things to help me find a topic to write about(half of my articles are out because of this). I very often talk to my dad about businesses I’m trying to start and things I should write about. 

This helps get me thinking and planning an article which I will write some time in the future. It doesn’t have to be your dad. Find someone close to you who has similar interests to you and your niche and just strike up a conversation. You’ll see that as you talk to that person, ideas will naturally start to form in your head.

Lower your expectations

I know. It sounds strange. Contrary to what school has been telling all of us, I believe that when creating, we shouldn’t limit ourselves by saying, ‘oh, that’s not good enough’ or ‘oh that’s so stupid’. Trust me, I think most of my articles aren’t good enough, but I just post it anyway because I’m 100% willing to learn from my mistakes. If you’re really struggling to do this because you’re a perfectionist, keep this in mind - you can always improve on it after posting it. The point is to get it out there, receive some criticism, and then reflect and improve.

If I missed out anything, please feel free to let me know at 'jingrui.wu.2002@gmail.com'.

If you found this useful, feel free to check out my other posts. Give me a follow if you're interested in joining me on my journey to make a million dollars!

Is scamming acceptable?

I know, I know, it's a stupid question, but I can't say it has never crossed my mind.

In the make money online(or making money in general) industry, scams are literally hiding in every bush, waiting to pounce on us and take our money.


Disclosure: I want to preface this by saying that I would never scam anyone and I do not encourage scamming of any sorts. This is just an issue which I feel should be discussed. You should not ever start a business which does not provide value.

Why is scamming bad?

I'm sure we've all heard of people getting placed in prison because of scams. But those are only the ones who get caught. 

Scams have a negative connotation, and for good reason. Scams are literally defined as 'a dishonest scheme, a fraud'. Which is... understandable. 

Scams like pyramid schemes tragically tear people's lives apart. Desperate, low income people go to faith healers, join pyramid schemes in hopes of finding a way out, breaking free, only to get the remainder of their bank accounts drained.

Of course there are smaller scams like phishing scams, or siphoning a little by little from the rich, without them even knowing. These are not as harmful, but are harmful nonetheless. It's a complete waste of expertise as these people clearly have the skills and expertise to make a decent living for themselves ethically but they decide to take shortcuts. Shortcuts often lead to short-term profits.

I think scamming is unacceptable from an ethical perspective, and I value integrity above all, hence I am always as honest as possible.

Fraudulence is a crime, the law protects the weak from being taken advantage of by the strong. It gives them a chance to stand on their own two feet.

Why would it ever be acceptable?

I mentioned that starting a scam has in fact cross my mind, but I know better than to execute on it. After all, I have been the victim before. I have no one but myself to blame.

The way I think of scams is, getting outwitted by the scammer. People hate scams as it makes them the butt of the joke, when they get scammed, they're the sucker, simply because they were foolish enough to fall for it. 

According to Darwinian theory, it's kill or be killed. It's completely acceptable for you to scam another person, because it's just survival of the fittest(or the smartest in this case). 

So to answer the question, it's acceptable because they're animals with no morals. But, you do have to give them credit, they did manage to outsmart us.




I hope this managed to set your mind straight if you wanted to start a scam. If you have any strong objections, please feel free to leave a comment or drop me an email at 'jingrui.wu.2002@gmail.com'.

If you enjoyed this article, check out my other ones and give me a follow! I post everyday(except weekends) about money related subjects, documenting my journey to become a millionaire in the next 10 years!