Lying and deception: More than you wanted to know

Nobody wants to give their credit card to a liar. So, one-tenth of an offer’s Trustworthy score is about whether they lie. My lying and deception criteria in 2022:

• Any lie or deceptive omission
• Use of altered photos, such as forged magazine covers
• Legal documents that contradict advertised terms

Lies are statements or photos that I can check. Related categories:

• Ridiculous Claims are statements that I can’t check but that are obviously lies; for example, that the X industry is afraid of an advertised gadget and is trying to suppress it and silence the inventor.
• Chicanery is manipulation of the customer outside of the sales pitch; for example, pre-filling an order form for a large quantity of product in hopes that the customer won’t notice.

Altogether, dishonesty makes up three tenths of an offer’s Trustworthy score.

The easiest way to catch a liar is to look for inconsistencies. If an offer claims “10 million sold!” and further down it claims “1.2 million sold!” these statements can’t both be true. I’m not interested in which statement is true. I’m interested in the fact that lying just happened.

The offers I review have an unfortunate tendency to contradict their own guarantee terms. In my coverage of terms, where there’s an overlap between the advertised terms and the “real” Terms terms, I report the real ones. If they differ from what’s advertised, that’s a lie. It may be accidental; perhaps the lawyers didn’t read the advertising, or the copywriter didn’t read the Terms. Yet, nearly always, the lie works to the advantage of the seller–for example, by suggesting that the guarantee period is longer than it really is. Whether a lie is intentional or just sloppiness, it’s reason to reduce one’s trust in the seller.

There’s a type of lie that leverages the reader’s hopes and assumptions. If a seller of desktop coolers claims that their device is an “AC,” most readers are going to translate this as “Air Conditioner.” If I find the same “AC” in China’s Alibaba wholesale website, and the device manufacturer says it’s an Air Cooler, that’s a penalty point. That the complete “text” of the lie didn’t come from the seller doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care whether a deception meets some legal criteria or is “fixed” in a small-print disclaimer at the bottom of the page. If customers are being deceived, I’m calling that out.

Photos can also be lies. Sellers of gadgets sometimes photoshop a magazine cover so it features their gadget. Hello, web merchants! I know some of you subscribe to this blog. Here’s reminding you that photographs are easy to search for on the web. I compare the magazine cover image in your offer to the real magazine cover. If you changed it, that’s a lie.

I’ve seen some other interesting photographic lies. One company that thought their facility was too squalid stole an image of a posh office park and claimed it was their own headquarters; but it was way different from the building at the company’s address. Another thought they needed an impressive staff photo, so they stole one from a larger company, not noticing that many of the employees were wearing T-shirts with the company’s logo on their fronts. Liars aren’t very smart, which is another reason not to trust them.

Some photo-lies fall into other categories of the Trustworthy system.

• A picture of a person in a white coat and stethoscope goes in Chicanery. More important than whether the model is really a doctor and really works for the seller is the use of doctor-images to enhance an offer’s credibility.
• If they’re clip art, the little “social media” avatars in testimonials go in Phony Reviews. (By the way, 99% of the testimonials you see in offers are fake.)

Onerous terms; more than you wanted to know

Onerous terms is the third of 10 components of a Trustworthy score. Terms (Terms and Conditions, Terms of Sale, etc.) are a lot of small print written by and for lawyers. Normal people can safely ignore Terms. Because Terms only matter if you end up in court, and then some lawyer will read them for you. 9D

Wrong. There is one thing that a customer needs to find out about an offer, not before they go to court, but before they reach for their credit card:

• How could you return the product and get your money back?

You can’t be sure how a guarantee works unless you check the Terms. I don’t mean read the whole document; it’s mostly rubbish. What to do:

• Some web marketers kindly place their guarantee’s rules in a short separate document named something like Return Policy. If you find this document, you can ignore the Terms.
• If there’s no Return Policy, do a word search for “Return” in the Terms. You could do this in your browser, or copy-and-paste the Terms into a word processor and search them there.

It’s not safe to rely on advertised guarantee terms because:

• What you see in the advertising is sometimes incomplete, and you need to go to the Terms to fill in the blanks.
• Sometimes the advertised terms and the real Terms are different! Could be an honest mistake. Could be they lied. Anyway, the real Terms always win.

Here are the blanks you’ll want to fill in. (Hello, Web sellers! Please read this.)

guarantee days	guarantee starts when?	ok to open the package?	ok to try the product?	ok to use the product?	restocking fee
?	?	?	?	?	?

• Guarantee days: Should be at least 30, if the guarantee starts when the product is delivered. Longer if it starts when the product is shipped or when you order it.
• Guarantee starts when?: Should be “Delivered” or “Shipped.” If the guarantee starts on the day you order, and the seller is out of stock, every day it takes for the seller to get more stock (from China, usually) is a day of guarantee lost. Also, a seller who’s short of working capital may shelve his orders until he’s collected enough money to pay for a wholesale order (crate, shipping container, etc.) of the product. By the time you get the product, you might not have any guarantee days left.
• OK to open the package?: Should be “Yes.” If it’s “No,” the guarantee days don’t matter, because you can’t look at or test the product. To avoid invalidating the guarantee, you can only store it in its unopened package.
• OK to try the product?: Yes! Not No! Obviously.
• OK to use the product?: I like “yes,” but “no” is understandable. If you test it and you don’t like it, but you don’t damage it, the seller can resell it to somebody else. Of course they could do that even more readily if you didn’t open the package, but that’s just unreasonable; it’s your property.
• Restocking fee: Look out for this hidden cost of an exchange or return.

A few other terms to check:

1. Auto-ship | subscription: Does the company have an auto-ship service that automatically ships and charges you for a refill every month? What triggers it, and how would you cancel a subscription?
2. Arbitration: If you have a dispute with the company, and you’re limited to requesting individual arbitration to resolve it, then you can’t join a class-action lawsuit or group arbitration. That’s an encroachment of your legal rights.

Other review sections related to Terms:

• If Terms are hard to find, hard to read or very long, I cover that under Chicanery.
• If Terms contradict advertised terms, for example the length of a guarantee, I cover that under Lying and Deception.

Ridiculous claims; more than you wanted to know

That you can’t disprove a claim is not enough reason to believe it. The burden of proof is on the speaker. In my reviews of web offers I highlight claims that the seller doesn’t prove and that I can’t disprove, but that common sense tells me are very unlikely. My object is to point out risks to consumers. And a seller who makes such claims is less worthy of your trust. You wouldn’t want to give your credit card to a liar.

Here are types of ridiculous claims for which I penalize sellers:

1. It uses secret military, CIA, NASA, German technology, nanotechnology, quantum technology, etc.
2. It’s wildly popular; “Lots of people are talking about it”
3. It helps you break the law, cheat on your grades, etc.
4. Giant corporations hate it and are trying to suppress it, make it illegal, keep it out of retail stores
5. They’re suing, harassing, trying to silence the heroic scientist, inventor, doctor
6. The product is going to revolutionize your whole life at hardly any cost or risk

“Emperor’s new clothes” claims

Assertions that there’s something special about a product’s technology (#1) are in this category. Okay, I can’t disprove them; but more importantly, they don’t matter. It doesn’t matter if NASA had some part in developing a “new” mascara. Not only are these claims unlikely, but even if they were true it wouldn’t make a product any better. They’re clothing that’s really nothing.

Popularity claims

People feel safer as part of a herd. Some sellers try to use this natural caution (#2) to manipulate you. When I look closer, it turns out that the only people who are really “talking about it” are the ones who are selling it.

Illegal claims

If you jaywalk and then feel pleased with yourself, you might enjoy a product that claims to help you break the law in a small way (#3). For example, an antenna that “steals” cable TV content. But when I look into this kind of claim, I find two things.

• The product only seems to help you break the law–it’s actually perfectly legit. The magical antenna turns out to pick up movies that happen to be on both cable and free broadcast–just like any antenna.
• Buyers who don’t like what they get hesitate to complain, particularly to a government agency, because they’re afraid they’ll get into trouble for having the “illegal” product. So, they submit to the fraud.

Underdog

Conspiracy theories

It’s satisfying to help right an injustice by supporting the underdog in a fight. Especially if the “bully” is an entity you already distrust, like the government or “giant corporations.” The seller wants you to think they’re a victim or might become one, because a victim has more credibility than a bully. But in this case (#4, 5) the bully is imaginary. The broadcast industry isn’t trying to suppress that magical antenna. If they were even aware of it, they wouldn’t care.

Magical claims

This type of claim is really just an echo of what the consumer was already hoping. Who doesn’t want a cheap, easy, risk-free solution? Like a magic powder that will clean your toilet so you’ll never have to scrub it.

Keep in mind, “If it seems to be too good to be true, it is.”

Suspicious address; more than you wanted to know

My posts reviewing web offers use the Trustworthy scoring system that I made up. This post looks at the first of that system’s components, addresses. (It’s first because I occasionally get email from readers who think I am the seller and demand that I refund their money. Hopefully, by putting the address at the top, they’ll find it.)

Addresses are interesting because:

• I want to show people ways they can find out on their own if a business is risky.
• It looks like some of you dear readers are web merchants. I’d like to help you increase your trustworthiness so everybody will be happy. Stick with me!

Here are the kinds of addresses I’m flagging as suspicious in 2021:

1: Mailbox
2: Work-share or virtual office
3: Located outside of the USA
4: Vacant lot, abandoned building
5: Fake or invalid address
6: The seller doesn’t disclose their address

My object here is to identify risks to consumers (and to have a little fun doing it). A business that has a dedicated facility seems more reliable than one without. They can’t fold up their tent and disappear into the night so easily, which matters if a customer needs support or a refund. So, mailboxes are out. And I won’t approve a virtual office, which AFAICT is just a mailbox with a glamor address. Work-shares are out as well. From a customer risk point of view, a business that rents a cubicle by the day (hour?) doesn’t compare well with one that has its own place to hang a shingle.

An address outside of the US is risky, and here’s why:

• Shipping to and from the US will take longer and be more expensive. You might have problems with Customs too.
• Assuming the seller is located in the same country as their address (what else can I assume?), any dispute would be subject to that country’s laws. A customer might even have to travel there to go to court. That raises the bar for getting legal help to resolve a dispute.

Beyond this point, we’d be looking at serious website-designer mistakes or intentional deception, which don’t make for trust. If there is no address, I have to assume the worst.

What can a web merchant do about their address? First of all, make sure it’s listed in your website. If you have a facility but you just don’t want to reveal it (perhaps it’s not quite presentable?) please reconsider. If it’s your garage, I’m fine with that. At least it shows that you have some skin in the game.

I understand that a new small business may need to make do with a mailbox for a while. Don’t sweat it; your address is only 1/10th of your total score.

How I research an address: Really simple.

• If I can’t find it on the website, I look in review sites that often list addresses, starting with the Better Business Bureau.
• I put it in Google Maps and use Street View to take a screencap.
• Then I google the address to see what other businesses use it; that’s when the virtual offices, vacant places for rent, etc. crop up.

The Trustworthy scoring system; 2022

December 22, 2021: Rather than condemning all sellers who get any complaints as scammers, I assign each seller a score that lies somewhere between “honest” and “criminal.”  If a seller is just overwhelmed or a bit careless, that doesn’t make him a bad person.  Still, you may want to think twice before dealing with an unreliable business.

A scammer is someone who steals your money by trickery or theft.  A product is not a scam.  Altho it’s common for scammers to hype mediocre products, I’ve also seen scams that involve good products sold in an evil way.  So only one element of this scoring system is about the quality of the product.

I’m showing changes from the 2021 scoring criteria in blue.

Scored attributes

Example Trustworthy meter. This seller would have a total score of -7 and be a credit card risk.

In the following list of website attributes, -1 means true (bad), +1 means false (good), and 0 means undetermined.  These scores total to between -10 (deep mistrust) and +10 (highly trusted).  I show a site’s total score by the position of the needle on the Trustworthy scale.

#1.  Suspicious location address: 

Scammers are shy about revealing their location.  What triggers a negative score here:

• Mailbox
• Work-share or virtual office
• Located outside of the USA
• Same address as a known scammer
• Vacant lot, abandoned building
• Fake or invalid address
• The seller doesn’t disclose their address

More about addresses

#2.  Ridiculous claims: Conspiracy theories and other extreme stuff that common sense tells you can’t be true — that, to be honest, you want to believe.  In particular,

• It uses secret military, CIA, NASA, German technology, nanotechnology, quantum technology, etc.
• It’s wildly popular; “Lots of people are talking about it”
• It helps you break the law, cheat on your grades, etc.
• Giant corporations hate it and are trying to suppress it, make it illegal, keep it out of retail stores
• They’re suing, harassing, trying to silence the heroic scientist, inventor, doctor
• The product is going to revolutionize your whole life at hardly any cost or risk

More about claims

#3.  Onerous terms: Evil lurks in some Terms and Conditions documents.  But if the T&C is too hard to read, that’s “Chicanery;” see below.

• Unreasonable obstacles to returning a defective or unsatisfactory product for a cash refund.
• Terms that diminish your legal rights, such as individual arbitration to resolve disputes.

More about terms

#4.  Ads, spam, robocalls: Aggressive advertising; sharing your data with other companies.

#5.  Lying and deception: 

• Any lie or deceptive omission.  If they lie about something minor, they’ll probably lie about important stuff too.  (I overlook ignorance here but laugh at it elsewhere.)
• Use of altered photos, such as forged magazine covers.
• Legal documents that contradict advertised terms.

More about Lying and Deception

#6.  Chicanery: 

• A website that’s designed to confuse you, make you decide in a hurry, or hide important information
• Legal documents that are hard to find, hard to read or too long
• A picture of a doctor

#7.  Phony reviews: 

• Testimonials.  If I see more than three on-site testimonials, that’s suspicious.  Social media identities are sometimes purchased or stolen and used to create this sort of fake content.  I have no practical way to check them.  So, more than three testimonials automatically costs the seller a point.
• If I find that any testimonial writer is a made-up person, that’s a point lost.
• A disclaimer that an offer is advertising automatically costs a point if the offer includes reviews.
• Reviews by shills; masquerading as impartial advice, these are just advertising.  Any “review” with a prominent link to the seller’s web page is a shill because they get paid for their referrals.

#8.  Crummy product: It’s typical for scammers to boast about a mediocre product’s quality.  But keep in mind that a good product is no assurance that the offer is not a scam.

#9.  Overpriced: I don’t insist on the cheapest price.  But a price that’s 150% more than Amazon’s price gets a -1 from me.

#10.  Bad service: The seller ignores emails and doesn’t answer their phone.  So, their assurances of fast customer service and easy refunds are empty.

Unscored attribute: Unauthorized charges

Credit card theft is the most dangerous web scam. If I find complaints about unauthorized charges, then the seller’s score no longer matters, because I just don’t trust them.  I show this result with a red stop-light labeled “CREDIT CARD RISK ALERT” on the Trustworthy meter.  Unauthorized charges include:

• Charging a higher price than advertised
• Charging more than once for the same item
• Charging for items the customer didn’t order
• An unannounced subscription to an automatic refill (auto-ship) service
• A hidden monthly membership fee for a newsletter or “discount club”
• Failure to use HTTPS (encrypted) protocol to protect your credit-card data from snoopers

Even if I don’t see complaints about unauthorized charges, I may consider the seller part of a company that has this problem. This can happen if:

• The seller’s address isn’t a mailbox (or it’s Robson Print And Ship), and
• It’s the same address as that of another seller associated with unauthorized charges

The Trustworthy scoring system; 2021

April 8, 2021: Rather than condemning all sellers who get any complaints as scammers, I assign each seller a score that lies somewhere between “honest” and “criminal.”  If a seller is just overwhelmed or a bit careless, that doesn’t make him a bad person.  Still, you may want to think twice before dealing with an unreliable business.

A scammer is someone who steals your money by trickery or theft.  A product is not a scam.  Altho it’s common for scammers to hype mediocre products, I’ve also seen scams that involve good products sold in an evil way.  So only one element of this scoring system is about the quality of the product.

Scored attributes

Example Trustworthy meter. This seller would have a total score of -7 and be a credit card risk.

In the following list of scam-site attributes, -1 means true (bad), +1 means false (good), and 0 means undetermined.  These scores total to between -10 (deep mistrust) and +10 (highly trusted).  I show a site’s total score by the position of the needle on the Trustworthy scale.

#1.  Ridiculous claims: Extreme stuff that common sense tells you can’t be true — that, to be honest, you want to believe.  In particular,

• It uses secret military/CIA technology
• It’s wildly popular; “Lots of people are talking about it” (new)
• “They” are trying to make it illegal (new)
• It helps you break the law, cheat on your grades, etc.
• Giant corporations hate it and are trying to suppress it
• it’s going to revolutionize your whole life at hardly any cost or risk

#2.  Suspicious location: Scammers are shy about revealing their location.  What triggers a negative score here:

• Mailbox
• “Work share” office
• “Virtual” office (new)
• Located outside of the USA (new)
• Same address as a known scammer
• Vacant lot, abandoned building, etc.
• No address

#3.  Onerous terms: Evil lurks in some Terms and Conditions documents.  But if the T&C is too hard to read, that’s “Chicanery;” see below.

• Unreasonable obstacles to returning a defective or unsatisfactory product for a refund.
• Terms that contradict advertised terms or reasonable customer expectations.
• Terms that diminish your legal rights, such as disallowing class action suits.

#4.  Ads, spam, robocalls: Aggressive advertising; sharing your data with other companies.

#5.  Lying and deception: 

• If I find that a seller lies about anything, that costs them a point.  If they lie abut something minor, they’ll probably lie about something that is important.  (I overlook severe ignorance here, but laugh at it elsewhere.)
• Use of altered photos, such as forged magazine covers; one point.

#6.  Chicanery: 

• A website that’s designed to confuse you, make you decide in a hurry, or hide important information. (formerly “Obfuscation.”)
• Legal documents like Terms and Conditions that are hard to find, hard to read or really long.

#7.  Phony reviews: 

• Testimonials.  If I see more than three on-site testimonials, that’s suspicious.  Social media identities are sometimes purchased or stolen and used to create this sort of fake content.  I have no practical way to check them.  So, more than three testimonials automatically cost the seller a point.
• If I find that any testimonial writer is a made-up person, that’s a point lost.
• A disclaimer that an offer is advertising automatically costs a point if it includes reviews. (new)
• Reviews by shills; masquerading as impartial advice, these are just a complicated form of advertising.  Any “review” with a prominent graphical link to the seller’s web page is a shill.

#8.  Crummy product: It’s typical for scammers to exaggerate a mediocre product’s quality.  But keep in mind that a good product is no assurance that the offer is not a scam.

#9.  Overpriced: I don’t insist on the cheapest price.  But a price that’s over two times the going rate on Amazon gets a -1 from me.

#10.  Bad service: The seller ignores emails and doesn’t answer their phone.  So, their assurances of fast customer service and easy refunds are empty.

Unscored attribute

Unauthorized charges: If I find that a seller is stealing from credit card accounts, then their score no longer matters, because I just don’t trust them.  I show this result with a red stop-light labelled “CREDIT CARD RISK ALERT” on the Trustworthy meter.  Unauthorized charges include:

• Charging a higher price than advertised
• Charging more than once for the same item
• An unannounced automatic subscription to an auto-ship service (typical follow-up to a “free trial”)
• A hidden monthly membership fee for a newsletter or “discount club”
• Failure to use HTTPS (encrypted) protocol to protect your credit-card data from snoopers
• If the seller’s address is the same as that of a known scammer who’s stealing from credit card accounts, I consider them the same person and turn on the red light.
  

Details about the Trustworthy scoring system for web offers; 2019

Here’s a detailed explanation of my Trustworthy scoring system for web offers as of January 2, 2019, including some minor revisions. If this all seems too complicated, just shop on Amazon!

Rather than condemning all sellers who get any complaints as scammers, I assign each seller a score that lies somewhere between “honest” and “criminal.”  If a seller is just overwhelmed or a bit careless, that doesn’t make him a bad person.  Still, you may want to think twice before dealing with an unreliable business.

A scammer is someone who steals your money by trickery or theft.  A product is not a scam.  Altho it’s common for scammers to hype mediocre products, I’ve also seen scams that involve good products sold in an evil way.  So only one element of this scoring system is about the quality of the product.

Scored attributes

Example Trustworthy meter. This seller would have a total score of -7 and be a credit card risk.

In the following list of scam-site attributes, -1 means true (bad), +1 means false (good), and 0 means undetermined.  These scores total to between -10 (deep mistrust) and +10 (highly trusted).  I show a site’s total score by the position of the needle on the Trustworthy scale.

#1.  Ridiculous claims: Extreme stuff that common sense tells you can’t be true — that, to be honest, you want to believe.  In particular,

• It uses secret military/CIA technology
• It helps you break the law, cheat on your grades, etc.
• Giant corporations hate it and are trying to suppress it
• it’s going to revolutionize your whole life at hardly any cost or risk

#2.  Suspicious location: Scammers are shy about revealing their location.  What triggers a negative score here:

• Mailbox
• New: “Work share” office
• New: located outside of the USA
• Same address as a known scammer
• Vacant lot, abandoned building, etc.
• No resolvable physical address

  

#3.  Onerous terms: Evil lurks in some Terms and Conditions documents.  But if the T&C is too hard to read, that’s “Obfuscation;” see below.

• Unreasonable obstacles to returning a defective or unsatisfactory product for a refund.
• Terms that contradict advertised terms or reasonable customer expectations.
• Terms that diminish your legal rights.

#4.  Ads, spam, robocalls: Aggressive advertising; sharing your data with other companies.

#5.  Lying and deception: If I find that a seller lies about anything, including making up testimonials, that costs them a point.  If they lie abut something unimportant, they’ll probably lie about something that is important.  (I overlook severe ignorance here, but laugh at it elsewhere.)

#6.  Obfuscation: A website that’s designed to confuse you, make you decide in a hurry, or hide important information.

#7.  Phony reviews: 

• Testimonials.  If I see more than three on-site testimonials, that’s suspicious.  Social media identities are sometimes stolen and used to create this sort of fake content.  I have no practical way to check them.  So, more than three testimonials will cost the seller a point whether or not the writers are actual persons.
• If I find that testimonial writers are made-up persons, that falls under “Lying And Deception” above.  So, a long list of fake testimonials will cost the seller two points.
• Reviews by shills; masquerading as impartial advice, these are just a complicated form of advertising.  Any “review” with a prominent graphical link to the seller’s web page is a shill.

#8.  Crummy product: It’s typical for scammers to exaggerate a mediocre product’s quality.  But keep in mind that a good product is no assurance that the offer is not a scam.

#9.  Overpriced: I don’t insist on the cheapest price.  But a price that’s over two times the going rate on Amazon gets a -1 from me.

#10.  Bad service: The seller ignores emails and doesn’t answer their phone.  So, their assurances of fast customer service and easy refunds are empty.

Unscored attribute

Unauthorized charges: If I find that a seller is stealing from credit card accounts, then their score no longer matters, because I just don’t trust them.  I show this result with a red stop-light labelled “CREDIT CARD RISK ALERT” on the Trustworthy meter.  Unauthorized charges include:

• Charging a higher price than advertised
• Charging more than once for the same item
• An unannounced automatic subscription to an auto-ship service (typical follow-up to a “free trial”)
• A hidden monthly membership fee for a newsletter or “discount club”
• Failure to use HTTPS (encrypted) protocol to protect your credit-card data from snoopers
• If the seller’s address is the same as that of a known scammer who’s stealing from credit card accounts, I consider them the same person and turn on the red light.
  

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