I teach people about avoiding scams… then I got scammed.

It was only when the verification came through from my bank. I suddenly thought – “this is too good to be true” (it was for something I knew is not available anywhere, and it was offered at 1/3 of the original price).

I felt like I had done all the checks. I had looked up the site on trustpilot.com and scamadviser.com and searched for known scams from the company – it all checked out (they were, of course, using a legitimate company’s name). The very fact that I thought I needed to check them out so thoroughly should have been all the red flag I needed.

But having done the Tech-checking, I realised I had not done the, “does this make sense?” checking. What was my gut telling me?

Basically, I wanted it to be true, so I ignored the signs.

At the final moment I cancelled the verification and went back to the site. I simply clicked on their Facebook, Insta, and Linkedin icons and… all went back to blank pages! A basic check that I had failed to do.

It’s embarrassing, especially as I spend a lot of time telling people about how to avoid scams, but it does highlight how easy it is to be fooled.

The advice – question everything and always listen to your inner voice.