Anatomy Of A Scam How to recognize a fraudulent sales pitch before it costs you.

How to recognize a fraudulent sales pitch before it costsyou.

As she picked up her home-office phone in Naperville, Illinois,Barbara Brabec's first impression was that the man's voiceon the other end held sincere concern. He claimed to be callingfrom Visa International, then said, "I'll bet youdon't know that if you give your credit-card number out overthe Internet, you can't get your money back after 24hours." This sounded like news to Brabec, who listened furtheras the man described a type of credit-card insurance he was willingto sell her for $3 per quarter or $12 per year. When he asked forher credit-card number, Brabec's intuitive credibility alarmkicked in. "I don't know you," she told him. "Ineed to check out your business further." The man gave her atoll-free number to call back--but told her she could only call atcertain times."When I asked about the times, he said he had tofree up the computer to get my file online."

Today Brabec, author of Homemade Money (see "WorthReading" on page 10 for ordering information), a book thatincludes a section about homebased-business fraud, laughs at howclose she came to becoming the victim of a scam. "When Itracked it down, I found he was using a business name that belongedto someone else," she says. "During the phone call,I'd also temporarily forgotten that even if somebody getsaccess to your credit-card number and makes fraudulent charges, themaximum fee you pay is $50. So no one would need credit-cardinsurance."