TreasureTrooper is an Internet PTO (paid to complete offers) program that also has a referral program. See my Review of TreasureTrooper to find out what used to be wrong with TreasureTrooper.

In the past I have always placed CashCrate in higher regard than TreasureTrooper. This is because I’ve found there to be a few more offers available with Cashcrate for UK residents (which I am) and a slightly more attractive referral program. However, TreasureTrooper is quickly closing the gap.

New UK section
A few weeks ago on May20th TreasureTrooper launched their UK members’ section. There are only a few new offers available to UK residents but the main improvement is that existing offers are automatically sorted so UK residents don’t have to go through the entire list and get rejected by most offers, which is what used to happen.

TreaureTrooper has a vibrant forum full of happy members and so although they have not paid me I can be sure they are not an Internet scam. Recently in this forum a referral contest was announced:

“For every UK member that you refer who goes on to earn at least $5 during the month of June, you will get a $1 bonus in your account. In addition, the top 3 referrers for the month of June will receive a $100 bonus! Remember, this is all still in addition to the 20% referral commission that you will make on every dollar your UK referrals earn.”

From my experience with CashCrate these contests work very well I have no doubt TreasureTrooper is, and will continue to experience a boom in members and earnings. The screenshot below shows some of the offers I have available:

Verdict
The rivalry between TreasureTrooper and Cashcrate is now stronger than ever and it is difficult to choose which one to back. Both can be used to make money on the Internet and so I have decided to add TreausreTrooper to the Recommended Affiliate programs list!

Make Money with Treasure Trooper

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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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Fummo is a very suspicious looking PTO (paid to complete offers) site, where the main way to earn is the referral system rather than the actual PTO. The first thing I noticed which strongly suggests Fummo that are an Internet money making scam is that the TOS and privacy policy are non existent (don’t worry I did’t sign up!). There is also no real information about the company, no addresses, no details, nothing.

Fummo claim to pay $5 for every active referral you make. They also say they are aiming to have 400,000 registered members by the 20th May 2007 which is when they ‘go live’ and pay out (apparently). They don’t say whether they are aiming to have 400,000 active members, but if they did it would cost them $2 million!

One immediately obvious problem is the site is fraught with spelling errors, some of which are quite funny:

“Fummo- Free opportunity to make money online!”

To me that implies that Fummo stands for “Free opportunity to make money online”; perhaps they didn’t realise that opportunity stats with an “o” and not a “u”.

Another one is on the homepage, they say:

“receive $5 from each your friend”

It’s obvious what they are trying to say but it doesn’t create an air of professionalism!

Other than picking at spelling/grammar errors, their forum is packed with disgruntled members who’s questioning posts are being deleted and not responded to by the Fummo team.This thread has members questioning Fummo, not being responded to and then agreeing that Fummo is an internet money making scam that is selling their e-mail addresses. If you want more negative discussions then the entire Fummo forum is packed with them.

In addition to all these woes, there aren’t actually any PTO offers to take! The forum members say that there was a single offer that appeared a while ago for $65 but hardly anyone took it. Without any offers all the members referrals will be worth nothing because it’s impossible for them to be active!

The Fummo FAQ suggests that on the 20th May more offers, as well as a search engine will appear. The 20th May is only 1 week away, so I will post an update of what happens then!

Conclusion
The Fummo site is so unprofessional and ‘internet scam like’ that there are only two possible conclusions.
1. They are simply an Internet money making scam and will not pay anyone.
2. It is run by amateur businessmen who are trying (and failing) to create a legitimate business and will fail to make and sustain deals with advertisers, resulting in members either being paid less or not at all.

I am inclined to go with number 1, but given we have only a week to wait and see which is true and a little patience never went amiss. If you are looking for a second opinion, Alex from Blog About Money Online also thought Fummo to be an internet money making scam.

Read the Fummo update here and find out what happened to Fummo!

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In my Review of MediaDollarz I concluded that MediaDollarz is not an internet scam, but there are better paying PTO (paid to complete offers) programs out there, e.g. CashCrate. However, MediaDollarz are gradually breaching the gap between themselves and CashCrate.

I received an e-mail from Alain, a representative of MediaDollarz who fiercely (but politely) defended MediaDollarz and won them some credibility. He argued this in their favour:

“Maybe we don’t have a very attractive referral system as cashcrate and treasure
but starting from March we have run 3 contests (1 referral and 2 earning
contests). We also have a daily payout system. This means you will receive your
payout within 24 hours if you hit the witdraw-button! and you don’t have to
wait at the end of the month to be paid.”

I did actually mention everything there in my review (apart from there being 3 contests, as opposed to the 1 that I was aware of). However, he also clarified the confusion surrounding Media points.

“if you checked the Withdraw page in MediaDollarz, you would find Trade cash balance for media points (10 dollar is worth 100 points)
Example :Apple 1 GB iPod Shuffle Metal (2nd Generation) requires 800 Point
So by completing 4 highly credit offers (range from 20 to 40$) you can reach
80$ and convert it to 800 point + the points assigned from offers
+ points earned from referrals”

I think that is pretty self-explanatory. This just goes to show the value of a representative contacting me about a review. Although I do try hard to write a fair review, I may have made a mistake that needs correcting (like not checking the withdraw page and missing out about converting cash to rewards).

Much like when Peter (IMT Global founder) commented on my review of IMT Global he automatically gained my trust and made me sure IMT Global isn’t an internet scam (I maintain my conclusion about it); and he also cleared a few unclear points up which is always a good thing.

New MediaDollarz Conclusion
As I always thought MediaDollarz is not an Internet scam. I can now say this with more confidence than before and I have no doubt that you can earn money there. However CashCrate still has higher pay rates. My overall recommendation is to start with CashCrate, but if you are looking to join multiple PTO programs then MediaDollarz is well worth a look.

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Mediadollarz is a ‘get paid to complete offers’ (PTO) program, similar to CashCrate and TreasureTrooper. What a PTO program is is briefly outlined in my CashCrate review.

I was requested to review Mediadollarz by a contact on Mylot. At first glance it would seem that Mediadollarz has some potential. It has a simple but functional layout. On the homepage they claim to have 4856 members as well as an earnings potential of $20,890 and 2834 ‘media points’.

Media points are simply an extra form of earnings that can be exchanged for small amounts of cash ($1.50) or electronic prizes. What is interesting is that there are 2834 available, but only the first few ‘media points rewards’ actually cost less than that, which means all the others are not affordable!

Forgive me if I’m wrong, but something’s not quite right there.

The screenshot below is of the ‘three simple steps’ it takes to earn.

I delved deeper and tried to complete a few offers. I started with a big $22 offer where I had to sign up to a dodgy looking site where I was apparently going to get my future predicted by an ‘online psychic’. (The things I do in the name of a fair review!). I did all this and submitted the offer and it told me it had been added to the pending list, but … it hadn’t. It is quite possible I did something wrong, but maybe that means the system should be more simple.

I tried a couple more offers (cheaper ones) but they didn’t appear in my pending list either. This suggests I did make a mistake because if they were out to scam me they would surly add it to my account and then tantalisingly refuse me the withdrawal.

If you do use PayPal/Egold you can withdraw your money each day! Not that I experienced this.

The affiliate program
The affiliate program has three tiers. You earn a solid 15% of your first tier earnings, 3% of your second tier and 2% of the third tier. Even in three their affiliate programs percentages like 2 and 3 are too low to be worth getting exited about. Both CashCrate and TreasureTrooper pay better (but don’t have a third tier). There are also referral contests. The screen shot below shows the prizes from the last contest:

A top prize of $50 is a bit low, but it’s better than nothing of course.

Conclusion
I do not believe Mediadollarz to be an ‘internet scam’. I would not recommend it anyway for a number of reasons.
1. Lower affiliate commission rates than competitors, it is defiantly not a top paying affiliate program.
2. Suspicious media points system.
3. The number of members is less than 5000, which means the program is either very young or hasn’t ‘taken off yet’. This can never be a good thing.
4. Unclear method of offer completion. I can accept that I may have done something wrong, but if I did it should not say ‘it has been added to your pending list’ when it hasn’t.

If you are looking for a PTO program to participate in and promote as an affiliate I would recommend CashCrate, none the above points apply to it. If you want to read my review before you blindly sign up (which would be the wise thing to do!) then you can read my CashCrate review.

Read the Mediadollarz update here.

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UPDATE: This review is out of date!. Read my update to find out why TreasureTrooper has made it to the recommended affiliate programs section.

TreasureTrooper is similar to CashCrate in many ways. It is a PTO (paid to complete offers) site and is one of the affiliate programs that has far more offers available for USA/Canada residents. Offers are still available in other countries but they are few and far between. (I live in the UK and have experienced this first hand).

I will now explain why TreasureTrooper is not only pointless for non-USA/Canada residents but is also annoying and frustrating.

You can see in the screen shot above some of the cash offers ‘available’. I am sure they are all available for USA/Canada residents but for the rest of us most of them are not. What makes TreasureTrooper so frustrating is that you only find out an offer is ‘not available in your area’ after clicking the link to the offer. With a list 100s of offers long with 90% of them not being available this can get very frustrating. To add insult to injury not all of the unavailable offers are flagged as being unavailable even after you click them.

e.g. You may start an offer and get part way down the form and find you have to enter your ‘zip code and state’ (in the UK there are no such things). It then becomes obvious this offer is not available to you either and you have been wasting your time.

On the bright side
1. TreasureTrooper does have 2000 offers available for USA/Canada residents.
2. TreasureTrooper has a mediocre affiliate program (I couldn’t just put a single thing on the bright site could I?!). You earn 20% of your direct referrals commissions and 5% of their referrals earnings. In comparison to CashCrate this is a poor deal but it is better than some of the other PTO affiliate programs out there.

Conclusion - ’scam or not?’
I can say with a fairly high level of confidence that TreasureTrooper is not an internet scam. This does not mean I recommend joining. In fact I would advise non-USA/Canada residents to steer far from it, but the rest of you can earn a decent amount.  CashCrate, however, has a top paying affiliate program with better pay rates, which is why it is in my ‘recommended sites’ list and TreasureTrooper is not.

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CashCrate is a PTO (Paid to Complete Offers) site. It has an affiliate program, which is where I have made all my earnings so far.

What is PTO? and how does CashCrate make money?
CashCrate works with numerous other companies on the net. CashCrate finds offers from these companies and presents them as a list. Often they consist of online surveys or signing up to a website on the net.

My tip
Create a new email address for free at a place like Hotmail. You can then use this address when completing offers and so your ‘real’ email address won’t get clogged up. You could also use it for other PTO affiliate programs.

Below is an screenshot of the list of offers I currently have:

As you can see there are only 4 offers available at the moment for me to complete. This is because CashCrate finds considerably more offers for you if you live in the USA/Canada.

If you live outside the USA/Canada you can still make money with CashCrates referral program. You earn a minimum of 20% of your direct referrals earnings and 10% of their referrals earnings. As you gain more referrals this pay rate increases. At the time of writing this post CashCrate has a ‘bonus’ program, where you earn an extra $1 for each active referral you make. I have made all my CashCrate earnings through this referral program and with the ‘bonus’ offer. This bonus offer is also great because it proves that your referrals are also making money, which is nice to know :).

CashCrate has been running for some time now and has built up a respectable reputation.  I can safely say CashCrate is not an internet scam but is a top paying affiliate program.  The real question here is, ‘Will I be able to make big money with CashCrate?’

The answer is a resounding yes if you live in the USA/Canada. If you don’t (like me) you can still make a decent amount with their affiliate program, but you will have to put a little more effort in.
Start Making Money Online with CashCrate

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