So we have a new look now at AffiliateScamGuide and we need some more scams to review. Do you have a product you would like us to review before you spend you hard earned money on it?

If you do please contact us

Lets make 2008 the year of eliminating internet scams as much as possible!

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5. Look for unclear statements that contain large amounts of money. E.g. “All e-mails worth $300”. Does this mean it costs the advertiser $300 or earns the PTR member $300? Statements like that are usually vague for a very good reason. A surprisingly large number of PTR Internet scams have bizarre (and often funny!) statements that they use for advertising. One of my favourites is this quote from Numenmail, “all honest members will be paid”. Who decides if they are honest, god? Santa?! If you find any funny quotes be sure to send them to me!

Those are the main ‘on-site methods’. They only take a few minutes to carry out and are well worth the effort. There are other ‘off site methods’ which involve a little research to find out what other people think of the PTR site.

Off-site methods

6. Google the name of the PTR site and have a read of the results. Look for the opinions of people who are not using their affiliate link which would mean they are only saying good things about the program because they are planning to make money out of your sign-up. Admittedly if they are trying to refer you they clearly think the program will pay out.

7. Google the name of the site followed by the word ‘scam’. This will mean your results are bias in favour of those who think the site is a scam but will allow you to dive right in to find out why other people think the site is a scam.

8. Ask on relevant forums but be sure to check the site hasn’t been previously discussed or you will probably only end up with a few angry responses. Many of the Google results from steps 6 and 7 may be forums but don’t believe every member who simply states ‘it’s a scam’ with out giving any reason for their opinion. A good forum to use for this is Scam.com and Mylot.

9. Do a ‘Whois’ domain search using this free tool. It reveals information about who registered the domain and for how long (as well as other details). No damming conclusions should be drawn from the Whois search but a genuine PTR site would plan to be around for at least a year. The longer the domain is registered for the better.

10. If all of those fail to leave you certain about whether a site is a internet scam then contact me with a review request! I will review the site myself and it will be put under the close scrutiny of the Affiliate Programs and Internet Scams community.

Those 10 simple steps can make all the difference in avoiding the scams. I am yet to add a PTR site to the recommended affiliate programs list, hopefully one will emerge soon!

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I had a request to review CompactMails but unfortunately like many PTR e-mail scams it simply isn’t worth a full review.

Why CompactMails falls swiftly into the Internet Scams section for all eternity

Those massive promises of riches have become the trademark signs of PTR e-mail internet scams. The simple rule is if the minimum payout is more than $100 (and even that’s pushing it!) almost definitely an internet scam. If you’re uncertain be sure to check here!

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JobsOnlineToolkit was created by Leslie Truex, a telecommuter who has also worked online for 8 years. It is supposed to help telecommuters to find online work at home jobs.

The JobsOnlineToolkit contains:

Some of those were presented as ‘bonuses’ but they are all the same package. It costs less than $20 and has a money back guarantee, but surprisingly that doesn’t mean it’s worth it.

Useless Software?
I fail to see what software you could possible need to create a resume other than Microsoft Word and as for, “applying online” surly you just need an e-mail account? This software may make it slightly easier in some way but who would try to get a job at an Internet company where they only accepted specially formatted resumes that can’t be sent via email?

Another list Bites the Dust
The list of 100s of website definitely has some value but there are a couple of problems here also. The JobsOnlineToolkit was released in November 2006 which is not all that long ago but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if several of those companies had gone out of business or at least changed their hiring policy. Many must have found enough applicants by now and there is no mention of free updates being made which is something I would defiantly have if I created an e-book of such a volatile nature.

There is no way of knowing (without purchase) what exactly is in the, “40 page resources booklet” but again I am sceptical of it’s value. There are meant to tips on how to answer the interview questions for online telecommuting jobs but this information can be found for free online.

Conclusion
I have been pretty harsh to JobsOnlineToolkit but I struggle to find $20 of value in it. If a Telecommunicator is looking to work from home and online then presumably they have had some experience with the Internet and know how to write a Resume. JobsonlineToolkit doesn’t have an affiliate program and a Google Search reveals a pitiful number of results, which consist of press releases Leslie Truex issued.

This leaves JobsOnlineToolkit in a bit of a no-man’s-land, left in limbo between the affiliate programs section and that of the Internet scams. Because The JobsOnlineToolkit is nearer to being an Internet scam than an affiliate program (it costs money) it will sit in the Internet scams section.

My Confession
I confess I have an inherent bias against ‘real’ work at home jobs. This is because I feel having a job at home where you can’t set your own deadlines, ‘be your own boss’ and channel creativity takes away the whole point of it. If you can’t do any of those things then surly a ‘real offline’ job is better. Blogging is therapeutic and satisfying, and staring your own business is exhilarating. Telecommuting and working for a person you’ve never even met is none of those things and I’m glad I don’t do it!

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It was a close call this month as a lot of Internet scams were exposed, but after much deliberation, digestion and excretion the winner is…

Goldearning! Goldearning is a PTR e-mail site and my damming review of it sent it straight into the Internet Scams section. There has been no need to write a ‘Goldearning update’ but recently the ultimate proof of its scam heritage emerged.

The Goldearning site is down and they don’t exist anymore!

If there is a stronger sign a site is an Internet scam please let me know!

In a way I’m hoping that the other Internet scams sites stay up for longer than Goldearning did because it’s sudden death makes the review of it worthless. However, its death is pretty satisfying. I like to think my review had something to do with it!

Thanks Kelly Dutton (she didn’t leave a link) for alerting me to Goldearning’s passing. She theorised that perhaps they didn’t pay their hosting fees and so were shut down. Personally I think they had squeezed all the money they could out of their little scam and so decided to take their money and run.

Goldearning has gained have the most undesirable position of having its very own “Scam of the Month” link in the sidebar where the link will be to this post. Each month a new winner will be added. That will make Internet Scams quiver in their stolen boots.

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I previously ‘prophesised’ that Fummo would turn out to be an Internet scam, and you know what; I was right. (Don’t look so surprised!). Wyatt, who has actually dedicated his new site to spread the word about ‘FakeFummo’, commented alerting me to what has happened to Fummo since I wrote about them.

When I started this update the main Fummo homepage was still up and running. You could still sign up, create an account and even take offers. I.e. you can still make money for Fummo. However, the forum, which was full of disgruntled members had already closed down and the message that they will be back on the 25th of May was clearly not true. The site had been plastered with Bidvertiser ads, presumably a last ditch attempt by the owners to milk the site for all it’s worth (not much!).

As if my very writing itself had killed Fummo, the Fummo site suddenly went down. Wyatt wrote that Fummo was put up for sale, which may explain the site going down like this because perhaps they fooled someone into buying it.

Conclusion
Fummo has reinforced its position in the Internet scams section. It looks like they have finally met their grizzly end and I hope they stay that way!

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I find with most PTR sites in general, it’s not rocket science to figure out which ones are Internet scams. They either have an insanely high minimum payout, overly lucrative earnings promises, a dodgy looking TOS (terms of service) or in some cases a combination of all three. If in the rare event a PTR site doesn’t have these things and I’m left a bit unsure of it’s genuineness there are always forum threads to look at.

Cash4Email doesn’t have any of these ‘internet scams signs’. There are only a very small number of forum threads, none of which contain anything useful. However, I am 100% sure it’s an Internet scam.

Why?
Because of this quote from the ‘Upgrade’ section:

“The quicker you upgrade, the quicker you start receiving un claimed referrals…lol”

It’s not a joke; the author of Cash4Email is openly laughing at the suckers he’s persuaded to upgrade. On the homepage it is openly shown that there are just 9 upgraded members. Upgraded members allegedly receive the benefit of having a $5 minimum payout (reduced from $10). $41 has been paid out, meaning even if none of the other 741 active members have been paid, only 8 of the 9 upgraded members have been paid at the most. This either indicates the program is struggling to pay it’s members, or it’s owner never intends to pay properly.

In addiction there is no FAQ. The page simply announces that there is a referral competition now on.

The site as a whole looks very unprofessional and tacky. Like most PTR sites that turn out to be Internet scams there are 5 levels of referral commissions below you with very low percentages of earnings (not that the earnings will be paid to you!).

Conclusion
The quoted phrase above reveals the owners unattractive attitude and explains why the whole site looks amateur (they are unprofessional). If in the very unlikely case some payments are actually being made, I’d say it’s still not worth the risk or effort.

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As you can probably guess from its name, Road-Mails is another PTR (paid to read) e-mail site. It has Internet scam written all over it.

On the homepage unrealistic payout claims and promises are made,

If you read those figures and instead of thinking scam! you are exited at the prospect of all that money the ‘upgrade’ section will change your mind. It costs $99 to upgrade to silver membership, which reduces the minimum payout to $50,000. There are other upgrade options, which cost more and reduce payout down to a minimum of $1000. These payout levels are 10s and in some of the upgrade levels 100s of times higher than they should be.

Don’t be fooled by the ‘anti scam society’ logos and PayPal symbols, they mean nothing. There are also a fair number of spelling and grammar mistakes, which doesn’t convey expertise and trust. The most obvious one is in the tag line “The best way to make a big cash.

All these reasons mean Road-Mails is in the uncomfortable position of being in our ever-growing Internet scams category.

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After writing a review of Numenmails.com instead of Numenmail.com,
which was the actual request (I like to think of it as a comic blunder) hype has built as to whether Numenmail will be worth the wait. Lets find out!

I’m afraid to say it took me about 2 seconds to decide that Numenmail falls into the internet scams category. What made this such a fast decision was this on the homepage:

Quite why they put that in such big writing is beyond me. Numenmail presumably think that is a selling point when it the exact opposite. If anything has a minimum payout of more than $200 then it’s almost defiantly a scam; even $100 is pushing it for a PTR site because most pay low rates and unless you could refer a great many people it could take months to reach that amount.

In case you are an optimist/live in a fairyland then $8888 would seem to be a reasonable payout given that each email is apparently “worth $80″. That would mean you would make $8888 from reading 112 emails, something you could easily do in a few hours if they sent you enough e-mails. Sounds ridiculous? There’s more…

Numenmail proved they have a sense of humour by plastering this line across their homepage:

Who decides if members are honest? God? Santa?

General scam signs
As usual there is the option to ‘upgrade’ to get free referrals and a few other ‘bonuses’. This costs $25 and is defiantly not worth it because you wont get paid the earnings from your referrals.

This line in their TOS made me laugh, “Any member sending us gibberish will result in automatic termination of account”… but I was really looking forward to sending them gibberish!

Conclusion
It should be pretty obvious by now that Numenmail is an Internet scam. Their claim to have paid out 890,991,712.00 (USD?) doesn’t help their case. These signs can be used to recognise most internet scams, have you ever been fooled by a similar site?

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“Make Money Online by Selling Your Identity”
by Garry Conn
www.GarryConn.com

How much is your identity worth to you? Thousands of people are giving their identities away for free! My name is Garry Conn, I am a guest blogger here on Affiliate Programs and Internet Scams. I have been doing some design, graphic and SEO work for Matt Jones and while doing the work I took a little time here to read some of the articles that Matt has published on the site.

The thing that scares me the most is the fact that there really and truly is a need for a site like this. It amazes me to discover how many Internet scams are out here in the World Wide Web and how many of these scams are targeting bloggers in the blogosphere.

The real alarming issue is the fact that many of these programs that Matt has revealed as being a scam, could actually be more than just a program that doesn’t really work and pay you money. The programs that are labeled as scams, I have to consider that these programs could have been designed with ill intentions in mind. Meaning, there is a reason why these programs don’t work. And that reason is primarily because they are designed “Not” to make you money online, but to “Collect” your personal information such as, “Your Full Name”, “Address”, “Phone Number” and “Social Security Number” or “Tax Identification Number”.

If you have participated in any affiliate program that turned out to be different from which it was advertised. You should quickly print copies of their TOS, delete your account and start monitoring your credit report to see if there are any changes in it. Unfortunately, if you participate in a scam and your identity information has been collected, it could take years to see something surface in your credit report.

Participating in affiliate programs can be fun and can make a lot of money online… Being successful in affiliate programs can bring you as well as your family tons of enjoyment! But, on the flip side… they can be dangerous. And every time you fill out an online form and submit your personal information, you put yourself as well as your family at risk.

I want to encourage everyone to have fun and be successful making money online by using the various hundreds of different affiliate programs available online; however, before you speed off to sign up and submit online forms that contain your personal information, do take a lot of time to research the program…

If you don’t feel like investing the time into researching a program, you can always check to see if the program has been researched here on Affiliate Programs and Internet Scams . If not, you can count on Matt to research it for you and then post his finding on the site.

Have fun making money online with affiliate programs, but remember that participating in scams can be very harmful for you as well as your family… so be careful and be smart!

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