Online scams don't always carry the label that they are scams. It's more like a genuine plea or earnest request. Spotting an online scam is difficult as it often targets the most gullible people, such as teenagers, senior citizens; work at home moms and those who are desperate to make money without much effort.

There are several scams thatok

are being operated today and it is almost impossible to think how these scams are carried out successfully. You may think we live in a society where people really know what they do and are not that daft to really get caught in a scam. But these scammers have master minds and can even take candy from a kid!

Here are a few useful tips on how to spot an online scam.

- Scam artists know that people are looking to make quick money with a little effort and would do any thing, even stuffing envelopes to earn quick money. There is no way you can make quick money.

- Never accept cheques that are sent to you for a large amount of dollars and asking you to return a percentage. It is possible that the percentage you keep is a fake.

- Once you spot a scam report it.

- Scam emails have poor spelling and lots of grammatical errors. The words are jumbled into capital and simple letters. - Work at home jobs, with a hefty registration fee and upfront payment.

- Money to be sent to African countries. Most scams originate in African countries and are breading grounds for scammers. They know all the tricks in the trade and they could even cause physical harm sometimes.

- Never trust dating websites. Firstly they become very friendly and then once they have won over your confidence they start asking you little favours which turn out to be big favours like borrowing money which they never intend to pay back.

- There is little or bogus contact information. Often there are P O Box addresses and mobile phone numbers given as contact numbers. If it's a foreign site check the prefix of the telephone to make sure that the telephone line is a regular telephone number or a mobile phone number.

- Never trust sites that show proof of payment, such as a cheque displayed in the name of a person they claimed to have paid for the job.

- Dating scams often carry very attractive pictures of the man or the women. This is not their real pictures, if you research you may find that the profile picture is someone else's profile picture and is featured on another dating website.

- The message, email and letter you get are not personalised. Scammer don't have time to personalize correspondence and may refer you as 'Dear Customer' or 'Dear Subscriber' etc..

- Never open emails that are from an unknown sender or a subject lien that you don't know anything about.

- Never sign up for anything that you don't want. Don't sign up for information or things you feel you might need in the future.

- Never respond to emails with special offers, when you know you never really requested for the offer or want the offer in the first place.

- Never respond to strange emails querying about the product you are selling. These people will offer to pay you more than the price you are actually selling at and ask your to refund the excess and scam you in the process

- It sounds too good to be true.