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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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 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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I had a request a while back to review Engery Mails, (sorry for the delay!). I mentioned in my review of AdsMaker I would not ‘bother’ to write a full review of every PTR internet money making scams site I get a request for, because they simply aren’t worth it.

I hope from my past reviews my readers trust what I am saying and I don’t need to explain why a 200million dollar payout is a scam!

Engery Mails, Scam or not?
Unfortunately it’s a scam again folks. I admit it hides it better than some sits but it only takes one ‘off sentence’ and their cover is blown. The key examples here are:

- $15 000 Dollar Payout
- ‘Upgrading’ costs $200-$500

If that doesn’t convince you then this will, it’s from their ‘Terms’ page:

“Payments will be made within 100 years or a reasonable time after. Admin fee for payout is 100%.”

Energy Mails falls straight into the ever-growing internet scams group. Beware!

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Adsmaker are another PTR -email site. They claim to have paid out exactly 600,000 (I’m assuming USD?) and to have 5,470 members, which averages to $110 per member. This may seem reasonable but they only went online in 2007 (notice the copyright 2007 at the bottom of their homepage) and 600,000 is a lot for a company that is only a few months old.

Worryingly on the homepage they boast that each mail is, “worth $150 - $300 - $450″. Overall the homepage hints ‘internet scam’, but it isn’t blatantly obvious like with many other PTR e-mail programs.

To find the juicy scam material you have to go to the ‘Upgrade’ section. Here a number of ridiculous offers are made, which I would quote to you but they have uploaded a screenshot of the deal, so I can’t copy or paste! Is that a way of ‘tricking the system?’

Anyway, they claim that for only $250 you get this. I have explained next to each one why they must be false:

The Deal

- Free referrals, 50-100 daily. They are the members that didn’t sign up through a referral ID. I don’t doubt that they give you these referrals, but they wouldn’t make it part of the deal unless they knew most of them would be inactive and that they wouldn’t be worth your money.

- 15% more earnings on first level referrals, 10% more earnings from second level referrals. This is a scam for a similar reason as before. They must still be making money from your payment, therefore they are predicting that you won’t re-earn the money you paid to them.

- You account is never deleted. They phrase this as a good thing because it means if you are inactive for over 30 you won’t be kicked out, but it also means if you want to stop receiving e-mails you cant!

- An email account and web hosting from adsmaker for 100 years! How could they possibly guarantee that! The Internet will be completely different in 100 years!

They do make a few other more realistic promises, e.g. access to customer support. However, surely all members should have that.

The main argument they have in their favour is ‘PayPal Verified’ badge which they proudly display.

(Note: This is a screenshot, I am not claiming to be PayPal verified for anything)

The fact that I can slap that up on this site in two seconds shows just how easy it could be to abuse the badge. However, there is no way of me really knowing the truth behind it on adsmaker.

The Word on the Street
adsmaker haven’t been around for long and so there hasn’t been that much talk about them, but I found there is someone in this forum thread and this one here that agrees with me.

Conclusion
adsmaker I’m afraid to say is just like all the other PTR internet money making scams. I’m starting to think “are they really worth an entire review?” In the future when I am requested to review PTR e-mail Internet scams sites I will not write a full review. Instead I will have a conclusion with a few of the most important reasons included. There are quite a few other points I could make about adsmaker to seal their fate, but if any PTR e-mail site offers more than a few cents for each e-mail (yet alone $100s or $1000s) they are an internet scam. Advertisers simply are not willing to pay that much for such little reward.

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1-800-Mail is the last in the long series of request I have had to review several PTR (paid to read) e-mail programs. So far every single one has turned out to be an internet money making scam and unfortunately 1-800-Mail failed to separate itself from the internet scams crowd.

1-800-Mail does disguise itself better than other PTR internet scams. It does this by being more realistic with its promises. For example, instead of offering a $200,000 minimum payout and promising $1000 e-mails, they say that the rate advertisers pay varies and so they cannot give you specific figures.

They have a minimum payout of $125, which is (for a scam site) more reasonable; and for the careless web-user looking too join a PTR this is much more inviting. They do offer to lower the minimum payout if you pay them to upgrade, which normally would shout Internet Scam! but 1-800-Mail disguise this well too amongst other offers that makes it seem more reasonable.

“- Free Referrals - Your referral url will be randomly inserted for surfers visiting the web site without a referral url. (X2)
- 100,000 Free banner impressions
- 2 X 5 Cents solo to all one time
- 10,000 x 2 cent PTC one time
- Payout reduced to $75
Silver member fee is $50 for a Lifetime Membership.”

The detail that it is for lifetime membership leads me to make some damming conclusions:

1. 1-800-Mail know that once someone has paid the money and had such bad results (and realised it’s an internet scam) they won’t come back anyway; and so they might as well make it more inviting by calling it a ‘lifetime membership’.
2. 1-800-Mail aren’t looking for long-term profitability, they just want the cash and don’t expect to persuade people to pay them a second time.

As usual there are a few ‘clues’ on the main site (I wont dignify them with a link) that give the game away.

In the Security section, this is all they have to say!

“1-800-Mail.com has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control.”

That’s it?! All legitimate programs explain in great detail about their security features. I suspect 1-800-Mail didn’t expect their victims would bother reading the Privacy Policy.

Above is the pyramid-esque referral scheme. beware!

The other leak in their nearly water tight ’scam-boat’ is their payment details:

“Once the member has reached minimum payout they may request payment. Payments will be made within 90 days or a reasonable time after.”

A respectable site would give precise information about when payment is made, who decides when a “reasonable time after” is?

In the 1-800-Mail Terms they ironically contradict their advertising policy. The say that “1-800-Mail.com will file charges for recovery of any earnings received from multiple sign-ups” and they say how they do allow referrals to be made via spamming. Nevertheless as an advertiser you can purchase referrals from 1-800-Mail that will sign up at another site of your choice. Presumably these referrals would be inactive and of little real value, not to mention buying referrals would probably be against the other sites Terms of Service.

What does everyone Else think about 1-800-Mail?
1-800-Mail is on these Internet scams lists:
Internet scams list 1
Internet scams list 2
Internet scans list 3

This forum back me up saying that 1-800-Mail is on every scam list. They are well and truly sunk.

Conclusion
Like so many PTR e-mail sites 1-800-Mail is an Internet money making scam and should be avoided. PTR e-mail sites have a fraudulent reputation so be careful when choosing one. I have found that advertising rates can be a useful indicator of a scam. For example with 1-800-Mail they charge only $5 per month for a banner rotation, yet they claim they have 94,007 members. Surely if they actually had that many members a banner rotation would be worth more than $5. I’m all out of PTR e-mail requests so keep the requests coming in!

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I have had a request to review another PTR (paid to read e-mail site) and I’m afraid to say it has all the telltale signs on being an Internet scam. PTR sites are not technically affiliate programs but they do all have referral programs, which many affiliate marketers will be interested in. This PTR is called Danger-mails.

The bad
- Danger-mails always has the dollar sign ($) written after the number (the wrong way round!) E.g. instead of $10 they say 10$. This doesn’t give a good impression. Is it a way to sneak out of paying anyone? I could imagine them saying ‘but we said we would pay 10$, which doesn’t exist so your not getting anything’.

- Minimum payout is “15000$”. Even if everything else on the site looked legit, this detail alone would deter me, but on Danger-mails this is one negative amongst many.

- “After upgrade your money will be transferred to your account”. Anywhere that asks ‘you pay them to pay you’ is almost defiantly an internet scam.

- Danger-mails says that your “Upline need to be at least 80% active to receive referral earnings”. A downline is your referrals, but your ‘upline’ is a rarely used phrase, because it consists of the people ‘above you’ and you have no control over it. 80% is a very high level of activity and it is very unlikely that your Upline will be 80% active.

The ridiculous
If in the foolish even that you do actually pay Danger-mails and upgrade to a ‘Toxic account’ you get to have these wacky rewards:

- Invitation to year-end Member Appreciation cocktail party
- “Free Referrals - Free Referrals - Your referral url will be randomly inserted 15 times per rotation. ( 50-100 Referrals Daily ).”
- One invitation for two to a private dinner with visiting artists or curators

How/Why they would give you 50-100 referrals each day is beyond me, but the cocktail party sounds fun! :p

conclusion
I hope by now it is clear that Danger-mails is another PTR Internet scam. In addition to all the outrageous quotes I have used in this review there are many more on the homepage that shout ‘internet scam!’. For all of the above reasons Danger-mails has not made it anywhere near my recommended affiliate programs section.

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