The question "When is a Scam not a Scam?" brings forth a lot of other questions. The question came to me after listening to two phone conferences from people in the same company where there were, what appeared to me to be, contradictions as to the purpose of the company. So, I thought, is this a scam? What about when you go to buy a car and the salesperson takes your keys and your drivers’ license and 3 hours later you still haven’t gotten them back? Have you been there? Were they pulling a "scam" on you? This happened to us once in Hawaii. No one has gotten these items from us since then unless we were definitely trading cars.

We had a vacuum cleaner sales person come to our house once, and I really liked the cleaner, but Hans (my husband) and I needed to talk about the financial end of it. When Hans went out of the room, the salesperson said to me, "If you want it, you can convince him to get it." Well, that was the wrong thing to say to me. We said "No", and later bought from someone else. But – was the first salesperson using a "scam" when he tried to pit me against my husband?

The word "scam" was not in my vocabulary as I was growing up. In fact, when I looked in my high school dictionary (which I still have), the word "scam" was not there. I then went to a current dictionary… Merriam-Webster: "Scam, origin unknown - a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation "

I also went into Google, and was amazed at the items listed. Some are actually the landing page of some companies. So I wonder if Google is saying these companies are "scamming" us; otherwise, why are they listed under the word "Scam". Some of the others will give you a list, for a price, of companies that are "scams".

Have you ever done due diligence to research a company in which you are interested, and were astonished at the number of comments that were listed against the company – even to the point of considering it a "scam". Are these just disgruntled individuals, or do you think they may be right?

Another example - when I talked with a relative about a network marketing opportunity, she made the comment that she was of the opinion that they were all "scams". She believed that the last person who gets in is the one who loses his/her money, and she could not live with herself if someone she sponsored were to end up losing money. Are there "opportunities" that let the "last" person lose money? Would that be a scam?

I acknowledge the fact that there are actions that have deliberately "scammed" people by getting money from them for purposes other than that for which the individual was aware. The manipulation of stock prices without the necessary capital to back it up is definitely within the definition of the word "scam". There were irregular accounting procedures that boarded on fraud involving Enron and its accounting firm and they declared bankruptcy. The Enron shares dropped from over $90.00 to just pennies. That action, too, falls within the "scam" definition.

So, when is a Scam not a Scam? Does it depend on your interpretation of the word? If, in your considered opinion, you do not consider your company as doing anything deceptive, and everything is "above board", and you are happy with your association, regardless of what those other people have said, it is not a Scam.

If I receive any other definitive explanations, I will surely write another article that may more readily

discuss "When is a Scam not a Scam?"