So, some years back, I was first introduced to make money from home opportunities, I had never heard of this before, but when I found out, I was interested. I found one business that claimed that all you needed to do was post products on sites they have for you, and then sit back and wait to be paid. That's all I needed to do...piece of cake. They didn't care how much you posted, but the more you post, the more you make. That's how the system was supposed to work. I signed up, and they ran my credit and approved me for a $4500 dollar loan that I had to pay at $210 dollars a month until I paid it off. Also I was enrolled in a program that had nothing to do with the business I signed up for, it was a drop shipping university, and I was sent all types of crap in the mail. I told them to run my credit, I never asked for that course which was the reason for the big cost. I just wanted to post products on a website and make money from home. Too good to be true opportunity, they got me because I had no knowledge of the industry. I had no reason to think it was a scam because I saw the add on TV, it was a paid advertisement show.
Well it really sounds like you ran into a particularly new or well-adept scam, because I have to say that I would have probably fallen for the same thing. Like you stated, the more you know about the industry the better able you are to detect these sorts of things, so for that I say thank you for the alert, and spreading awareness is certainly a great tool to use to combat these scams. Thank you for sharing and I hope that we can all learn from it.
You didn't have a chance to sue them perhaps? Scammy schemes have contracts, and if they do something that violate the terms, I think you can sue the hell out of them.
I have been burned by some of these scam sites in the past, fortunately the sums involved were very small on each ocassion. I have learned to stay away from most of these sites that promise exceptional returns with minimal amount of activity. There are some sites that requires you to pay a monthly fee to join their group and carryout some tasks in order to benefit from refferals, however, after you sign up you realise that that the task you have been assigned to earn is extremely difficult to achieve, therefore, all is happening, is that you are being scammed of your monthly subscription.
Yeah, there are tons of people out there who make their money by claiming to teach you how to make money. In most cases, they just take your money and don't teach you a thing (other than what not to do in the future, like falling for their scam). Many also offer products, which usually turn out to be junk. Some have "assembly" jobs, where they sell you a bunch of junk but then never buy the finished product back from you. It's never done quite good enough for you to get paid. I have jumped through a lot of these hoops over the years, and many, many of them are scams and rip offs. Always remember that if something sounds too good to be true, it's usually because it IS too good to be true.
I see these all the time on sites like neobux, and I pay attention to zero of them. I am sure there are one or two out there that actually work. But I doubt I would be lucky enough attract one of the good ones. They are all scams as far as I am concerned, otherwise many many more people would be rich, which they aren't.
Wow and it was a paid advertisement! I'm sorry that you had to experience this and I hope the company is caught real soon. Who knows maybe you can recover some of your money back, but until then keep your head up and thanks for the heads up because this sounds like a well put together scam.
The trouble with these scammers is that once they are found out and stopped, they simply recreate themselves under another name, brand, or email address. Some of them tweak their formula so that they are not recognizable to people they may have scammed in the past. Rinse and repeat.
Yep, we see scam earning sites do this all the time as well. Sometimes, they get outed, but a lot of times, they just move on to their next scam. The best way to save money is to avoid spending it, and that includes when presented with an "opportunity." It saddens me how these people tend to prey on the most desperate people who really need to make some money (and are the least able to afford losing their money). I am a firm believer that what goes around (eventually) comes around. I still hate the idea of people getting ripped off though, so I'm all for telling anyone who will listen when/if I got scammed.
Sadly, if it sounds too good to be true, it generally is. I have seen so many scams online similar to the one that you are describing, and the people or organisations behind them get ever more inventive with capturing people's attention. They especially pry on the vulnerable ones, folks who are unemployed or who urgently need some extra income. My personal strategy or philosophy is to stay away from anything that sounds like a quick and relatively easy solution. There's usually a hook attached somewhere.
It's like these PTC websites, but where they differ from other scam sites is that it sort of takes away the too good to be true thing, because with the investing and rented referral management, you begin to feel like you are earning the money that you will eventually get.
That model of online earning opportunity always throws up red flags for me. Why should I have to pay in order to work? It all seems very backwards to me, paying or "investing" in a site to earn money there. I usually run, not walk, away. Have you ever benefited from such an experience? Was it worth the time and money investment that was required? I hope you eventually made back your money and then some. I see people talking about sites like this all the time, and I wonder how long it takes them to end up making a profit. I haven't heard good things about "rented referrals," but I don't have any personal experience with that.
Some of them will answer that by saying that you often have to invest money when you get a new offline job, but that never flies with me to be honest when it comes to online work. I have never invested money in online work and benefited from it. I was scammed. I have heard good things about rented referrals, but they are tough to manage.
Yeah, that doesn't fly with me either. I have never had to pay someone to work for them offline. I guess I don't really understand the whole rented referrals thing. It seems ... weird to me. Maybe I should gather up referrals so that I can rent them out, ha ha. I don't like the whole referral set up anyway. It seems that for many sites, you won't make any money without them, and it's hard to get and keep them. Even if you have some, you can't guarantee that they will be active, and that is kind of the point. When you're only making a little off of each referral anyway, it just feels counterproductive to pay for those referrals in the first place. I think I'll save my money.
Well, what they mean is that if you get a new new offline, you usually need to purchase little things, like clothes, stationary, and you may or may not have to pay more gas money due to commuting. But for me, that doesn't fly with online work. It's almost like they try to justify the investment by saying that you are going to spend money one way or another, and it is only fair since you would have to do the same for an offline job. Rubbish in my mind though. With the rented referrals on PTC sites, you have to buy referrals and they will click for you for a certain amount of time before they expire, but then you have to recycle the inactive ones to get your money's worth. You also have to buy more before they expire. It can be a headache.
The best way to check whether a site is a scam is to check how long it has been around. Check whether they have a forum and clearly spelt payment options. Then read reviews and check the identity of the people behind these sites. Are their physical locations vague? Do they require financial commitment or a rambling sales pitch? This is how I manage to avoid these sites.
Yeah, I will usually google things that I have an interest in, and if there are more than one search result claiming that it is a scam, the chances of me further pursuing the opportunity dwindles significantly. I am also very wary of reviews, because they can be written by anybody as many times as that person wants under different accounts.
It's really a shame that we even have to have threads like this. These types of scams have been around I think as long as humans have been alive, but of course they change with the times. I still see ads for envelope stuffers, and apparently people are still falling for it. I can remember seeing one for some sort of job where the company supposedly shipped items to the people, who then assembled the items into children's toys. In my opinion, many of the MLM companies that are still around today are versions. Those at the top make the big money, and people at the bottom are stuck putting in all of the hours, and get little in the way of income.
Yep, I've been around long enough to remember envelope stuffers and "at home assembly workers needed" scams too. They used to be posted in classified ads. You'd find them littering the back pages of nearly every newspaper and magazine. Heck, some of them had road side signage as well. I'm sure some of those "employers" (sarcasm of course) have moved on to the lucrative world of internet scams, and they're probably making more money than ever. This is another good topic for saving people money. Don't buy this junk. Don't waste your money on false promises. Use your money to invest in yourself and your future, not some other person's business or worse yet scam.
They put those envelope scams, and scams alike, in shop windows too. One time my mother's boyfriend brought one home for me, and it was obvious it was a scam, but he didn't seem to get that, which I found weird. I agree. Those people have certainly moved onto online scamming. Things are much more remote online.