YourFreeProxy toolbar is not free, it's a scam!

I've said it several times before that a major alarm bell is when a website recommends itself as 'as seen on Foxnews, CNN etc'. Your Free Proxy offers to unblock any website anywhere, it's basically a proxy that allows you to download it but is a struggle to remove in the same way that malware is. It claims to be 'most trusted proxy site with 187 million downloads'. What it doesn't tell you (well it actually does in a cryptic way if you read the terms and conditions.. is that it mines your bitcoins.

It does not seem clear whether the paid version does the same. 

Make money online ad - $4,000,000,000 daily turnover - is it a scam?

When I saw this advert, I was pretty surprised and obviously the numbers might be a little exaggerated. Surely $2,000,000,000 would do you quite nicely. Anyway I did a bit of research and it seems that Supertradingonline.com is ran by a stock market wizard who goes by the name of 'superman' on various forums. Whether you decide to fork out on his training or not, depends if you are really smart enough to follow the training and play the stock market. If you have the initial money to invest in it and if you have the bottle. 'Superman' seems to be one of the good guys out there and is simply amazing at finding companies whose stocks rise. 

You can take a look at his twitter account https://twitter.com/super_trades before you go ahead and purchase and also decide if it's definitely the thing for you rather than being blinded by the numbers!

Rejected by WebAnswers.com? Why?

I recently made an attempt to sign up to Web Answers. Webanswers.com is basically the equivalent to Yahoo Questions but they actually pay you a slice of the advertising revenue when you give the best answer. Some people defraud them by establishing other accounts, writing a question and then answering it with another of their accounts. Of course Web Answers are keen to crack down on this understandably but I know it happens as I've seen people boasting about it. It skews the results of the question and gives them a pay day.

Well unlike these folks, my intentions were honourable. I just wanted to test out earning some money on the site and report back the results and yet I was rejected (each application is vetted).

Well here's why..

http://www.webanswers.com/member-agreement.cfm

I'm on the list of banned countries. It seems a bit racist but ultimately it's their perogative. Perhaps they simply can't pay people residing in those countries? 

Postanyarticle.com: Is Post Any Article a scam?

I do not believe Post Any Article is a scam, they have no reason to be. Unless sites hold a high-ranking, there's really no reason to write your article anywhere else than your own blog or website though. Sure they give you a share of the profits but if you wanted to, you could have it all for yourself. A lot of people use websites like Post Any Article to cross-post, this will not bring you much traffic in. Others choose to write about their daily life, which is also not going to bring in a great deal of advertising revenue. 

What you really want is decent content with good keywords. I'm not totally sure how the Adsense model works with sites like Post Any Article because there are bound to be posts that break the Adsense policies before the moderators latch on to it, in that case they could technically lose their Adsense account surely? A lot of readers are there to make money and write and are not likely to be clicking on your adverts.

Either way, the majority of these kind of sites do eventually seem to pack up and while they offer money for putting very little effort into it, I'm of the belief that you'd be better off writing on your own. Of course that can also go wrong, should you not abide to the Adsense rules. 

Why Skip McGrath's Amazon Affiliate Package Is Not Worth It

Skip McGrath is one of the many online sellers offering an e-book on how to earn your riches from setting up a website with Amazon Affiliates. Whilst I'm not going to say it's a scam, buying such a book is a waste of money. There is a whole host of people who buy up these books and don't act on it or don't put enough time in to the final product and then give it up. Setting up an Amazon Affiliate blog or website is not particularly complicated.

All you need to do is:

Set up an Amazon associates account
Find a niche
Write catchy blogposts / reviews in the area of your product
Post the widget (preferably with an image) at the end of your blogpost

The results will vary depending on the items that you are focussing on. Music, for example is not a particularly good idea. Less people buy music than ever before, there's quite a lot of websites that review albums and so it's quite tricky to compete, unless you focus on a less popular type of music. The price of albums is relatively low and as your earnings are commission based, you are better off looking at more expensive items.

So nothing particularly against Skip, I just think that what he's got to say is widely available info, some people act on it and some people don't. It's not as easy as he makes out but it is a feasible form of income. 

How Buying or Selling Amazon or Argos Vouchers on E-bay Can Turn into a Dangerous Scam

If you are into the making money online game - for example through writing, then the time will probably come that you have to many Amazon vouchers and want to offload some on E-bay. 

You will see that there is quite a market for this as not everyone has a credit card. It's a dangerous game to play though. 

If you are a seller beware that:

Hypothetical Situation #1 -The buyer makes the purchase, sends the money over. You send them the code. You check your paypal account a few hours later and the transaction is frozen because the buyer's account is expected to be fraudulent. They've used your code and you don't get the money.

Hypothetical Situation #2 - The buyer makes the purchase and sends the money over. You send them the code. The buyer makes a claim on paypal that he didn't get the item. In the past this was a common occurrence and you would get neither money or code. I believe that this is no longer possible and that's because of situation #3.

There are plenty of people there that see that buying a $100 Amazon voucher for $90 is good business but it's not always the case. If you are a buyer beware that:

Hypothetical Situation #3 - As a buyer you send them the money. You do not get your code. You contact E-bay or Paypal but they cannot help. They do not protect buyers of Vouchers.

This applies not only to Amazon vouchers but to all types of vouchers on E-bay.

Is Flipping4Profit a scam site?

My first thought when I looked at Flipping4Profit is that it was too good to be true. Becoming a member costs you $100 and it's not overly clear what the minimum investment is. It's all very eye friendly the website but there's not enough proof of purchases - documents and the like.

I would not like to say that it's a scam for sure, as I have no proof but websites that specialise in flipping real estate profits are often based on a pyramid scheme. What they do is pretend that the house was sold for a higher amount than it actually was, investors are happy with their returns and word spreads, more people plough money in until one day it eventually collapses.

As with all pyramid schemes, if you get in early you can actually make a profit, regardless or not of it's legitimacy. If you recommend it to your friend's or business partners, you could potentially lose those ties when it all goes pear-shaped.

Is Bubblews a Scam? They closed my account

The latest writing website on the market is Bubblews, they claim that 'the days of sharing ad revenue with the content creators is over', but for how long? Bubblews appears to be a bit of a pyramid scheme. Some people are getting paid out, certainly enough to keep people signing up and keep writing. There is also a downside and a lot of people are very vocal about it.

Out of interest I went over there and set up an account. I read the terms of using the site and steered clear from stealing content or any of the obvious things that would get you thrown off a website like that. I wrote two rather straight forward posts about football on different days. A few days later I logged in and it wouldn't accept my password, I tried to click on 'forgot my password' and I was told that no such account existed. I checked the links to my old posts and they had been deleted, the account was no where to be seen and the $3.00 I had accumulated had vanished in to thin dust.

I had no explanation and never received a reply from them. Even if for some reason they are not a scam, they could do this to anyone at any time. So if you're getting a payout, milk them for what they are worth but be aware that they could pull the income from you at any time, so don't put too much heart into it. 

service@hmrc.gov.uk scam - fake earnings estimation

Today I logged into my e-mail account and was surprised to find the following e-mail:

HMRC Online Services service@hmrc.gov.uk via yourhostingaccount.com

As far as I knew my business was dormant and therefore I assumed that either something had gone wrong or that I was about to be the victim of a scam. A quick google brought up the HM Revenue & Customs real website which clearly states that: 

"HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) will never send notifications of a tax rebate by email, or ask you to disclose personal or payment information by email.

Do not visit the website contained within the email or disclose any personal or payment information.

A selection of fake email addresses used to distribute the tax rebate emails can be seen below:

• services@hmrc.co.uk
• service@hmrc.gov.uk
• service.refund@hmrc.gov
• secure@hmrc.co.uk
• hmrc@gov.uk
• taxes@hmrc.co.uk
• taxrefund-notice@hmrc.gov.uk
• refund-help@hmrc.gov.uk
• service@online.com
• email@hmrc.gov.uk
• refund.alert@hmrc.gov.uk
• refunds@hmrc.gov.uk
• customs@hmrc.gov.uk
• srvcs@hmrc.gov.uk
• alertsonline@hmrc.co.uk
• info@hmrc.gov.uk
• rebate@hmrc.gov.uk"

Teresa T. Smith / Donna Brannen Lottery Scam

I've recently received several annoying e-mails telling me I've won the lottery. The general layout of these e-mails are pretty amateurish and aroused suspicion in me, particularly as I had not entered any lotteries.

The letter is as follows:

This is to notify you that your email address has won won 1,000,000.00 Great British Pounds in the UK National Lottery Promotion organized by the Camelot-Group in which e-mail addresses were picked randomly by Computerized Balloting System, powered by the Internet. To claim your prize, please contact Claims Officer on the email with the claims requirement listed below;
***************************************
Donna Brannen {Claims Officer}
E-mail: camelotoffice@london.com
***************************************
Claims Requirements:
1.Full Name:
2.Home Address:
3.Age:
4.Gender:
5.Tel:
6.Occupation:
7.Country Of Residence:
8.Nationality:
***************************************
Congratulations once more from all members and staff of this program.
Sincerely,
Teresa Smith
Events Manager


_______________________________________________
This communication and any documents, files, or previous e-mail messages attached to it constitute an electronic communication within the scope of the Electronic Communication Privacy Act, 18 UKLN 2510. This communication may contain non-public, confidential, or legally privileged information intended for the sole use of the intended recipient(s). The unlawful interception, use or disclosure of such information is strictly prohibited under 18 UKLN 2511. Any review, reliance, or distribution by others or forwarding without expressed permission is strictly prohibited.

________

Now, a quick visit to London.com will tell you that:

"You will never receive any emails from anyone using a @london.com email address. Any correspondence from www.london.com will always come through our corporate email address egeditor@vlenterprises.co uk or admin@vlenterprises.co.uk

@London.com Email Services



@London.com email services are owned and provided as a free webmail service by www.Mail.com, a 1&1 Mail & Media Company.  The email service is not owned or affiliated with our comprehensive tourist and local services.  Please note that while most people will benefit from this personalized email service, there are some people that are prone to abuse. Mail.com has strict anti-spam and fraud policies for all use of @London.com email. "

Besides, why would Camelot be contacting you through a London.com address organised through mail.com? No other reason than to steal your details and do other untoward things with them. Stay away and don't be gullible!

Do Bukisa pay out or are they a scam?

Writing content is a good way to make an honest but relatively small online income, if you are clever about it then you can re-post the same work on several different sites and make extra money out of it.

Bukisa are more similar to Helium with the type of articles present and they have a system of earning based on what is known as the Bukisa Index. The Bukisa Index seems to pay around $3.40 for 1000 page views according to various sources, however although some people do claim to have been paid out online, I'm yet to know a reliable source that has informed me that they've been paid from this Israeli based site.

I've signed up and posted some stuff and I'll be sure to let you know what the situation is, once I've made payout.

How to remove an adsense URL channel

An important way of measuring a blog's income is definitely the performance reports in google adsense - particularly when it is one of the main sources of income for the blog or website.

It is easy enough to add URL channels but if you are like me and have dabbled with a wide variety of blogs and have since deleted some of them, then you may have numerous extinct blog addresses in your channels, if the website doesn't exist then it will probably not show any results but if you have sold on the domain or someone else has bought it since the expiry date then it will continue to track page impressions.

Removing the channel from the performance reports is quite easy, you need to choose "Specific URL channels" and add the only the addresses you want to show.

Removing the URL from this list is more difficult though,the new Beta version of Adsense or Analytics does not provide you with an option to remove URL's and this can be done.

If the old version is still available to you, then click "Return to Old Adsense Interface" and then choose the "Adsense Setup" tab, click on "Channels", choose "URL Channels", select the ones you want to get rid of and choose "remove checked"

newsdaily7.com scam - work at home mum scam

Recently a common advert that is appearing on numerous places in particular Pirate Bay seems to be an advert saying that "Google pays me £128 per hour" or "Google pays me $76 per hour", it leads to a page that pretends to be the UK version of a News website and leads to the finance page, the other parts of the site do not lead anywhere (news, sport etc), the disclaimer at the bottom says:

"
TERMS AND CONDITIONS CAREFULLY READ AND AGREE TO PURCHASE TERMS BELOW BEFORE ORDERING:

We are not affiliated in any way with CNN, WebTV, News Channel 7, ABC, NBC, CBS, U.S. News or FOX. CNN, WebTV, News Channel 7, ABC, NBC, CBS, U.S. News, FOX, and Consumer Reports are all registered trademarks of their respective owners. � All trademarks on this web site whether registered or not, are the property of their respective owners. The authors of this web site are not sponsored by or affiliated with any of the third-party trade mark or third-party registered trade mark owners, and make no representations about them, their owners, their products or services.

It is important to note that this site and the stories depicted above is to be used as an illustrative example of what some individuals have achieved with this/these products. This website, and any page on the website, is based loosely off a true story, but has been modified in multiple ways including, but not limited to: the story, the photos, and the comments. Thus, this blog, and any page on this website, are not to be taken literally or as a non-fiction story. This blog, and the results mentioned on this blog, although achievable for some, are not to be construed as the results that you may achieve on the same routine. I UNDERSTAND THIS WEBSITE IS ONLY ILLUSTRATIVE OF WHAT MIGHT BE ACHIEVABLE FROM USING THIS/THESE PRODUCTS, AND THAT THE STORY DEPICTED ABOVE IS NOT TO BE TAKEN LITERALLY. This page receives compensation for clicks on or purchase of products featured on this site.
"

To me this basically means, everything on the website is a lie and not to be trusted!

Be the boss, cut the costs - 5 Steps to Frugality

1/ Food

Don't just buy food on impulse, try to plan what you will eat over the week and don't stray from the plan (unless it's free), not only will it do your bank account good but it will also do wonders for your waistline.

Making your lunch for work will be a rewarding experience, no longer will you fork out on often disappointing food, you'll be able to decide what you want and it'll work out cheaper.

I currently eat a banana for breakfast, two small sandwiches and a pot of cottage cheese at work and then have a cheap but filling main meal for dinner. Think carefully about meals that are easy to prepare, cheap and tasty - create about 10 or so meals and then make sure you buy the products when you do your "main shop"

2/ Alcohol

Alcohol is pricey, as is everything related to it - hangovers, drunken food, going out. If your a sociable person you might find it hard to get rid of but giving up is an essential key to saving money. There's plenty of things you can do in your spare time - make an effort to do the things you always wanted to do in this time. There's a good chance there's a free or very cheap option.

3/ Stop buying silly gifts

Perhaps the gifts weren't so silly but a lot of people spend money buying people things, if they are true friends, they should understand your predicament, if they don't then I guess it's only a case of cupboard love and they aren't really necessary! If it's a partner you spend money on, try to do something creative, they'll be surprised and it might just work out more impressive than opting for the easy option.

4/ Traditional entertainment

Television comes cheaply but if you opt to have a wide variety of channels available to you, you'll likely be paying for that option, see what channels you pay for and work out what you really need. Think twice about buying new books, perhaps it's time to catch up on some works by old authors, many old books are in the public domain and can therefore be read online for free, if you prefer a hard copy then print it off at work.

5/ Don't just sign anything

This might look straight forward but it's not as difficult as it seems, if you've registered web domains or pay for something over the internet, it's likely you are not aware that something renews automatically when you don't want it to. Make a paper copy of the dates of these renewals and check a month or so before the end that it doesn't renew itself. Most sites (godaddy) for instance, don't give straight-forward information on how to change the default, a quick google though should usually give you the information on how to switch it off.

Frugality reigns

It seems it's been a long time since my last post, almost 6 months in fact. Making money online is certainly more difficult than I expected - I felt ripped off by sites like bux.to who never paid me out, writing sites such as dooyoo and ciao, certainly help as does Slicethepie.com, blogging for a while also paid it's way. One thing I found though that it wasn't enough to survive on, whilst students being supported by parents might be able to do it, it's not a good method of looking after a family and when the opportunity of a job came up, I found that it was the most simple way. 8 hours a day at work and being able to switch off afterwards certainly has its benefits.

With more money in the bank account, I found that I just ended up spending more though and I haven't really managed to get rid of any of the debts I was hoping to. Frugality it seems is the key.

I once had a Jewish friend, whose spendthriftiness always impressed me, he could go out, travel and barely spend a penny, his fridge was empty but his bank account was doing nicely. He wasn't unhappy and despite being a bit tight at times, he also had plenty of friends. This skill had been passed on to him by his parents and growing up in a frugal environment had certainly done him well.

My parents have always spent what they've earnt and I'm pretty sure that's where I get my lack of money skills. I've been working on becoming frugal though and have to say that it eventually becomes a pleasure rather than a negative restricted feeling.

To make money, you have to spend money. In the next post I shall recommend frugal tricks.

onlinemoneywizard.co.uk - A new scam site out to get you

Another site that just has a failing casino system to offer, admittedly the guy has gone to some trouble to disguise it and it's not as obvious as most of them out there but the predicted earnings and sign-up system are a dead give away. Perhaps the most disgusting thing about this site is the line -

"Our goal is to increase the wealth of people in the Uk in the view
that individuals that apply this system will eventually feel the need to make
donations from there winnings."

Stay away from this one!

Money Siphon System - moneysiphonsystem.com - What A Scam

This has scam written all over it, it's basically a re-packaged e-book on selling on teh internet, all the information can be found for free and there although they do their best to bulk the package out by filling it with lots of useless bits of info too, I'd stay well away from this product.

Given, it's only $4.95, so you won't lose too much but the site itself is a hassle and an obvious scam - claiming to be mentioned on sites such as google, yahoo, msn etc (indeed it is but only because they bought google ads!) and listing numerous dodgy testimonies to try and sell you the product.

Maxbounty - A scam or not?

Maxbounty are a major affiliate and banner network, whilst many people seem to do quite well from it, others are reporting enormous losses and that the company fail to pay or find a way out. Of course the people who are doing well out of it, support it with an unhealthy passion which sort of poses the question that if a company scams one person but treats another one well, how can it be considered a scam.

Obviously Maxbounty also have to protect their earnings and with a lot of people using black hat methods and driving fraudulent traffic to their sites, they need to look closesly at the clicks received. It seems to me to be a case of everyone trying to scam each other and some genuine users losing out in the process.

Look at other options and if you still decide you like the look of Maxbounty, then go ahead but proceed with caution!

GoDaddy discount code - saving is making

I've decided that I will regularly post godaddy discount codes, these tend to vary and they are also updated quite often, sometimes you can get 10% off, sometimes more, sometimes you can pick up a domain name for no more than $2, either way if you are trying to make money on the web and you need some of their services, the chances are that the codes will come in handy. Here's one of the most recent ones:

Type the promo code "gdr0723pl" at checkout and you will be given $15 off on any order of $75 or more.

Review Stream - A review site with a difference

Reviewstream.com seems to be coming in for some bad stick, I was recommended to it by a fellow dooyooer and appreciated the advice. Reviewstream works in a similar way to dooyoo but both its interface and the way it works is quite a bit different. First of all, unlike on Igougo and Ciao, you can't simply copy over your review that you've used there. That's not to say that you can't write about the same product that you have done on here but it has to be original work.

Next up, the layout of the website is pretty scrappy and unlike here where you have a given username, there you have a temporary pen name and an e-mail address which is tied to the review.

It's a common mistake to assume that all review sites want the same material but just because reviewstrea say they accept reviews on everything from Paris to your grandmother's cat, it doesn't mean they'll pay well for it. In my experience - reviews of around 300 words or more of things like restaurants, hotels and airlines will earn you the $2 a review. Reviewstream.com can reject your review if they don't want it or find that it's not specific enough and they may also pay you the bulk rate which is usually $0.40 - if they do want it but it's not as good as they'd like.

Once you've reached the $50 limit, you receive payment - I've not got that far yet but I hear they pay relatively quickly.

I like the facility where you can check the progress of your review by typing in your e-mail address. With a little bit of practice, it's easy to find out what sort of reviews float their boat and make a tidy profit from the site. The payment status is updated usually within 72 working hours since the submission of the review, although in my experience they don't always keep to their promise.

If you want to sign up, click here