I’ve been getting a lot of emails from people that seem to be about to get involved in potential money laundering schemes or payment processing schemes.

That got me to thinking about a pretty quick 2-step process that could help people avoid such schemes in addition to the normal advice that has already put out.

This technique would apply mainly to people searching places like CraigsList for work – not people who receive unsolicited emails offering them jobs – which already have big red SCAM flags written all over them.

Now, any time you’re told to collect money, take a percentage and forward it on, you can be nearly certain that you’re dealing with a payment processing or money laundering scheme. But for those of you who aren’t convinced or run into scammers who move beyond the keep and forward type deal – there’s another quick thing you can do.

It has to do with the fact that money-laundering operations often copy legitimate websites and set up a fake storefront when recruiting potential “employees” (victims).

Very quickly, here’s what you can do:

1) Put the website domain into CopyScape.com. Check to see if there are other sites that show up in the listings. You’ll still need to visit them to see if they are a copy of the site you originally put into CopyScape.

2) Next go to whois.sc. What you’re going to do here is put the domain for any sites that look the same into whois.sc and check the “creation date” of the domain.

3) If the creation date of the domain offering you the “employment” is newer than one of the other domains – then there’s a good chance you’re dealing with a money laundering scam.

Note: that doesn’t mean if the domain offering you the employment is NEWER than another domain, that is NO guarantee that the site is safe. You should still follow the Rules and commen sense.

And as previously mentioned if a company wants you to take your cut and forward on money that is almost ALWAYS either a payment processing scam or a money laundering scam.