Fed up with Scams
If you have been online for a while I am sure you have run in to all different kinds of scams, especially when you were just starting out to make a living online.
Over a year ago, by accident I clicked on some link of what was supposedly to be an “investment opportunity†offering a 10% profit on money you would put in the program, the wonderful thing about it was that it would only take a day to get your money back, plus the 10%.
Yeah right, I thought, nobody is going to return that kind of money in a day! But… it did stay on my mind and like many others, I thought it would be fun to see what happened, after all, greed is what keeps these programs up and running… greed and stupidity I should add.
So, I put in a few bucks to play and surprise surprise, the next day they had actually sent me my bucks plus the 10% profit, which they had promised. I repeated the whole thing and after only a week or so, I had actually made a whopping $223 profit, paid into my egold account!
I decided to call it a day, not wanting to get overexcited and way greedy, losing the money I had earned. Instead I started talking about this program with a friend of mine because I could just not figure out how this was actually possible. He got all exited about it and decided to try it too, only with a bigger amount even after
Warning I was not really sure how it all worked, just that it had worked for me.
I got a call from him the day after he put his money in, saying that he was trying to log into the website in order to cash out, but that the website had disappeared… Now, you might have expected this turn of events, the saying “if it sounds to good to be true, it usually is†proved right yet another time.
We did continue to invest this kind of programs though; he even started a blog because of the whole scam Ponzi schemes and has learned a lot about investing the “right†way and actually making money on it, but learned it the hard way.
Nowadays, after personal experience with all different types of scams, ponzi schemes, pyramids and the lot, I see programs popping up which are a lot harder to recognize as such.
For example programs for which you are required to write reviews on whatever you decide yourself, and they are actually sending flat rates of a few bucks into your account for only a few minutes of your time. Great to see your account growing only until you reach your pay out minimum and find your account cancelled or banned for reasons nobody can explain. There are many variations on this one, especially with getting paid to read, getting paid to write, job opportunities you need to pay for in order to enrol and start making big bucks and the list goes on.
So today I just wanted to send out a little warning, before signing up for anything, before sending your money to some program which offers you big bucks when you participate, before spending hours and hours clicking mails, writing comments and the lot, do a search engine check on the program combined with the word “scam†…
It will save you a lot of time, sweat and money!
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My name is Mirjam and I welcome you to my blog about personal growth and the things I think about. I´m on a journey of improving my life and I hope you will drop in often and participate. Thanks for visiting!
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Allen Taylor
Thanks for the heads-up.
If I was to stumble on that programme, I probably wouldn’t even dared to try it out.
Cheers,
Alex.
Alex at Net-Entrepreneur.com’s last blog post..Best Example of Thinking Outside the Box
you’re an idiot .
no real investment would give you back 10% in one day.
your deserve to get scammed if you can’t think straight.
Welcome to my blog, “bob”
I did not lose my money, got out before they disappeared in thin air
I might be an idiot in your book, atleast I have the guts to be sincere
WOW!
Good to know! I guess we all have some little thing called “greedy.” Aren’t we?
I was once click on some banner telling me to get $10 back without paying anything. You simply provided your credit care information to verify you age.
OK. I realized that my credit card were charged for long distance call to South Africa!
So I guess there is no free lunch!
Good lesson to learn!
Smiles That Made My Day’s last blog post..Sweet Smile - No longer looking like a little girl
chuckles @ Terence …. sorry man, we all have to work for our money
And eventhough it made me look like an “idiot” (as “bob” so kindly pointed out) I do believe it is important to share that you always have to do a background check before sending somebody your money!
Mirjam:
I think it’s better being an idiot and become smarter than being an genius at beginning and did some stupid thing later.
You are right. I think we need to see from the 5000 feet before I invest our valuable money on something we are uncertain.
Smiles That Made My Day’s last blog post..Sweet Smile - No longer looking like a little girl
I think you are right Terence, I prefer making mistakes at this point in time rather than making them down the line, atleast now the “investments” are always small and worth the experience.
Something i have been researching is called Wealthy Affiliate. I can’t find bad info about it. I feel like “an idiot” for even considering it. It sounds good though. You can quit anytime. It costs $30 a month and you get a lot of research tools. Sure it is all available for free online but you have to search for it. I have read that some people have used it for 2-3 months to learn all they could and then quit and took what they learned and used it for their online business ventures. I’m seriously considering this. There are so many affiliate programs out there and ways to make some money that it feels like a maze. I figure that I’m willing to spend 1-3 months trying it out to see what happens.
Has anyone tried wealthy affiliate?
Notice it is not a link so I am not trying to get you to sign up under me or some such nonsense.
Owen’s last blog post..Changing the address on our carte grise!
Hi Owen, I have never used the Wealthy Affiliate, because of what you point out yourself, most information online is available for free already. Try to see if you can get hold of those people you read about who have been using it for a few months and see whether it was worth it;)
Last few months I have been reading a lot of blogs about affiliate marketing, and there is a lot of useful information out there which can really set you on your way, without paying money ahead. Whatever way you decide to go, the most important thing I think, is actually spending your time in a productive and constructive way and stick with only a few things to begin with and really give it a go, working hard on marketing the products you feel will do well and are comfortable with to promote.
Many times people give up or call something a scam, only because they are not willing to put in the time and effort needed to make any money out of affiliate marketing.
Before signing up, try to find out what exactly it is that you will be receiving, whether there is a refund policy etc.
A lot of programs popping up are actually not interested in offering the tools you think you will be getting out of the program, but instead they are affiliates with hosting companies, offering “free moneymaking websites” (templates, articles etc for you to make money off, or so they claim, which you can all find online for free anyways) only to cash in the huge bonuses some hosting companies offer to their affiliates.
I hope anybody reading this, who does have real experience with Wealthy Affiliate will contact you and share their point of view
Cheers!
You know how many of these type things I tried before I actually found something that made money. I even believed I could make cash by filling out surveys for a while.
I eventually settled on affiliate marketing. It’s up to me what to promote. It takes work (one indication of something not being a scam).
I tried all sorts of things for a couple of years. Most profitable month in that period was about $400. Now I can add a zero to that and make it the average month.
It takes a while and you have to be stubborn.
I signed up for those survey programs aswell, but never really spent a lot of time on it, since I am supposedly not the surveyer they are looking for, living in Spain
Great to hear that affiliate marketing does work, and that you are making a good living out of it. Sure does give me hope.
I know it will take time, planning and a lot of effort, luckily I am quite stubborn too
my biggest challenges are getting my shattered mind in place and my impulsiveness under control, but I am determined to succeed. 
Thank you for commenting, I have become a regular reader of your blog
(thanks to entrecard I think)
I think we all have heard and said, “if it’s sounds to good to be true, it isn’t”. Problem is that when money is involved , we tend to ignore that adage. Some folks are just gullible and naive and scammers have a field day with them. I like when people post their experiences for others to learn from…so thank you.
Before replying, I went to your site and loved what I saw! Since you are on blogger platform and the commentluv does not work for you, I dugg a post and stumbled your site. Great post on surveys for money!
As far as posting on my experiences, I don´t mind making an idiot out of myself once in a while, if it helps others not to fall into the same traps, eventhough the big blogger guru´s say it is a no-no to show your incompetence
Keep up the good work with your blog!
Made me remember back my early days. Was trying everything I could to make money online. Some worked, some don’t. Most of it were scams anyway. The point is to not give up easily, keep up and just focus with what money making program that has worked for you.
It looks like everybody has been going through the same thing at one point in time. Most important is getting out of that “environment” and putting in the hours to investigate how it really works, and like you said, focus on the things that do give good results! Thanks for stopping by
For every type of scam unearthed on the internet, another 10 are created. The people behind them are not stupid and, as you say, many of those caught out by them are just plain greedy.
Scam’s last blog post..Monavie