These offers usually promise or guarantee money, credit or valuable prizes. According to Sorrell, consumers should look for solicitations that appear too good to be true, and toss them immediately. If you don't, and you respond to one of these schemes, you're likely to get taken. Magazine subscription offers that ask you to call for information about a contest, prize or sweepstakes.
Prize offers that require a purchase.
Tickets for international lotteries. It's illegal to buy or sell tickets for international lotteries by phone or by mail. Plans that offer commissions for recruiting distributors, not for making sales. These are pyramid schemes. Pyramids will cost you money because they inevitably collapse.