Before you buy a course.
Someone is selling a way to make money online: a course, coaching, a mentorship, a side hustle, a “done-for-you” store or a trading academy. Check it here before you pay.
was reported lost to job scams in the US in the first half of 2024, including “task” jobs where people pay to unlock earnings that were never real.
US Federal Trade Commission, December 2024. Read the data
Nothing you type here leaves this phone or computer. There is no sign-up, and nothing is saved. Turn the wifi off and this page still works. Many courses are honest and useful. This page helps you spot the warning signs that consumer regulators describe, and it is not legal or financial advice.
Check the sales pitch.
Paste the advert, the sales page, the video caption, or the message someone sent you.
Before you pay, ask for these in writing: the full price including every monthly fee, tool and upgrade; how many buyers earned back what they paid, and how much a typical buyer earns; and the refund policy. An honest seller can answer all three.
What it would take to earn it back.
Put in the real costs and what you would keep from each sale. The sums show how many sales it takes before the course has paid for itself.
Courses often show sales figures, which are the money customers paid. What you keep is much smaller once platform fees, payment fees, the cost of the product, delivery, returns and adverts come out.
If you already paid.
Do not pay anything more. Not for an upgrade, a “mastermind”, a fee to release earnings, or a loan or credit card someone offers to set up for you.
- Ask for a refund in writing, by email, quoting the seller’s own refund policy and the date you paid. Keep a copy.
- Phone your bank or card company if the seller refuses or does not reply. Ask about a chargeback (reversing a card payment). In the UK, a purchase between £100 and £30,000 paid partly or fully by credit card may also be claimed from the card company under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act.
- Stop any repeat payments to the seller. Before You Pay shows how, step by step, and writes the messages to your bank and to the company.
- Keep everything: screenshots of the advert, the sales page, the income claims, messages, receipts and the refund policy, before anything is deleted.
- Report it to the consumer body where you live.
Offers to get your money back: someone who contacts you promising to recover what you lost, for a fee paid first, is running a second scam aimed at people who have already lost money.