BlogCommerce

Very Difficult These Days...

2007-06-27T04:00:00.000-05:00

That is to say, it is getting more and more difficult to make any
cash on the WWW unless one is a major corporation, or has buku bucks
to spend. Many affiliate programs are "free to join", but there is
usually the catch: unless one does a paid upgrade, one is not
allowed to make money. iProfit has now called me twice to ask if
I was ready to invest; I did not even let them get to the question,
but headed them off at the pass saying that if I upgraded in every
program I joined, I would then have no cash to live on!

Then there are such sites as Google, who now own Blogger.
If one reads the TOS carefully, commercial entities are
forbidden to use or join such communities. So where does
one go if one IS a business, even a sole proprietor startup?

If you find the answer before I do please let me know...lol!

When "Free" isn't Free At All

2007-03-18T10:34:00.000-05:00

I'm sure you've all gotten these in your email boxes...

"Congtratulations! You've just won a FREE* Laptop Computer"!
The first time you saw one, you probably got all excited and
rushed to click the link without noting the asterick after
the word "FREE". Other "offers" I've noted included anything
from "free" Gift Cards to a "free" Hi-Definition TV.

That little asterick is there to tell you that the so-called
"freebie" is actually a "fee-bie"; in other words, to qualify
for the "free" gift, you must participate in "sponsor offers".

This semi-scam has been running for at least 6 years if not
longer. Once confined solely to the United States, the UK
now has several outlets for these programs. BEWARE: you may
actually end up spending more than the worth of the 'gift',
plus have your email address added to numerous email lists
due to the "surveys" included in such offers. You may be
forced onto several email marketing lists BEFORE you are even
able to see the monetary "sponsor offers" and be told just
how many you must complete to qualify. Some of the lists
you end up on can and will have telemarketers ringing you
in search of new customers for products you never really
wanted, just said yes to to get through the boring questions.

WHY CAN'T PEOPLE JUST TELL THE TRUTH ONLINE?? WHY DO THEY
HAVE TO TELL SUCH SUBTLE LIES? HOW DID A SIMPLE PUNCTUATION
MARK BECOME A "PROCEED WITH CAUTION" ITEM INSTEAD?

What is it With all the Bots??

2007-01-21T19:21:00.000-06:00

I don't only blog from Blogger.
I have several blogs on other
systems, plus I blog from my
own domains.

The domain-based blogs have
been flooded by spammers
advertising anything from
affiliate programs, to
drug pharmacies, to online
casinos; yet let me advert
ONE affil prog on here and
I get reduced to TURING
NUMBERS to prove I am NOT
a BOT??

GO FIGURE...

Happy New Year all!

Totally Angry and Also Confused!

2006-12-12T07:42:00.000-06:00

My Stormpay account has mysteriously "re-opened".
I do not take back what
I said earlier about SP being no good. It is just a matter
of time to see what new BS will pop up.

Wondering...

2006-12-03T05:58:00.000-06:00

It would seem that someone may have tagged this blog
as a "spam blog". I am now required to do word
verification on each post.

I am very sorry, Blogger admin and staff,
but there is no way that I am in
agreement with this!

I see tons of blogs every day built specifically for
marketing purposes. I now feel I have been singled
out. All I have ever tried to do with this blog is
attempt to give information on various affiliate
programs on the WWW, and their usability and/or
trustworthiness for folks who may wish to use the
many moneymaking options the Web provides.

It will be obvious on first reading that this blog
is hand-written, not auto-posted. Yes, there will
be the occasional affiliate link, but who among Web
marketers does not try to obtain more referrals?

I have never been a fan of and have never used
autoresponders...THERE is your true spam! Nor
do I believe in the use of "bots".

Hmmm...perhaps it is time to change that stance??
(at least as far as email goes...lol!)

Stormpay Throws out Even More BS!

2006-12-03T05:41:00.000-06:00

I tried to log in to my Stormpay account on Friday.
I got the message that "Your Stormpay account has been
closed".

Now as I had never violated SP's TOS, I was mightily
puzzled over this and wrote to the SP admin to find
out why. IF I ever get an answer, I will post it here
(with relevant identifying info removed, of course).

My suspicions are threefold:

A) I had only listed one auction on SP since it became
an aution site only

B) My mailbox was full (but note the support ticket email
came through all right)

C) At this point in time, I was merely a member in order
to earn money via the StormClix program; I was therefore
only taking money, not bringing SP any.

And why indeed should I bring money
to a program that has scammed most of its members, closed accounts and
seized funds left and right?

Whether or not I get a reply is irrelevant at this point in time.
This is hereby my warning to the Net at large:Stormpay is no good!

Activity Requirements

2006-08-27T03:05:00.000-05:00

Some PT sites have a minimum activity requirement. Basically this
means one must log into the site and view/click ads and emails within
a certain time from one's last login.

Yesterday I got extremely angry with My husband. Due to the fact that
he decided to get lazy about his own memberships, I had had to neglect
My own in order to keep HIS memberships alive.

Here are the sites I have lost due to this so far:

TigersAds
Beaus-Bucks
Electric-blue Clicks
Bluecollar Mails

NOW, I must waste even more time going up to traffic engines I am a
member of and taking out PTP (paid to promote) pages I was rotating
on same. What is worse, is at least two of the lost memberships were
UPGRADED ones...sigh.

So I think I will simply make him transfer all monies from his next
PTR payouts to Me through our online processors; I did the work and
HE lost Me income!

As Promised...

2006-08-01T02:53:00.000-05:00

I did say I would give a few weeks to see if the problem with Rotatorqueen was a
server glitch...yes?

Well that is exactly what it has turned out to be; I logged in two weeks ago with
no problems. I will only be using this engine for traffic from now on however;
it is useless as a payment surf!

Webmasters of Scam Sites are Vindictive When Exposed!

2006-06-28T11:08:00.000-05:00

Well Folks...

Do any of my readers remember my expose of RotatorQueen?

I just tried to log in with my registered information and
here is what I got for my trouble. (post title links to original
for those who missed it the first time around)

"Login failed! Possible reasons are:

ID (email) and password don't match

You haven't confirmed your account

Your account has been terminated

Go back and try again or request lost password"

My next action will most likely be to get as much owner information as possible, then
report the site owner to both the BBB of his jurisdiction (provided of course it is a US based site), and the FBI...both for the non-following of the owner's own terms,
and for the vindictive behavior involved when I was deleted for simply telling the truth. The request login information page also seems to be offline...

I will give the owner two weeks and another attempt before I do the stated actions,
in case this is simply a case of a server glitch. But I will tell all that up until
my expose posting to this blog, I WAS able to log in to the site.

Making Cash on the Web...Not as Easy as Some Would Have You Believe!

2006-06-28T04:11:00.000-05:00

I have now tried the following methods:

1) Offering my own services and skills for pay (the most successful to date; also one of the most "iffy" methods, as potential client interest waxes and wanes constantly; without a solid advertising budget, one is at the mercy of such tides of fortune)

2) Creating a "niche" product, and offering that for sale (see above commentary)

3) Joining affiliate and Paid To programs (the affiliate progs seem mostly geared towards taking the affiliate's monies with no promise of return; the PT progs do not pay substantial amts...not to be considered for the backbone of a main income!)

We shall see, with the online payment processors and various government agencies (at least on the US side) interferring, if the ability to make money on the Web at the end of the day is not limited finally to large corporations with a Web presence; I kind of saw this coming when Big Business first came to the WWW, and tried to warn Web-surfers that if Big Business came to our surfing-ground the following would happen:

A) The fun of web-surfing would be at least partially lost to the eternal "mall syndrome" that web-bound businesses would create, and...

B) Eventually the governments of the world would come in and attempt to "regulate"
the Internet.

To date, I have not failed in my predictions...have I?

PayPal Continues on the StormPay Path...Now Who Can We Trust?

2006-06-28T03:49:00.000-05:00

Over one third of the Paid to Read email programs I am a member of have now had their accounts locked or limited by PayPal. It is my current prediction that PayPal will go the way of Stormpay, and become an auction payment processor ONLY by early 2008 at the latest.

Moneybookers has done the same and no longer allows ANY type of Paid To program owners among the ranks of its users. Sustainability for them looks a bit better
however.

Greenzap will be on the skids even sooner; its ownership has been linked to an online scammer who has been ordered by the courts to pay millions in restitution to persons he bilked in previous schemes.

E-gold will not give me my access information because I have moved to the United Kingdom, and my original phone number is now invalid. I may have a solicitor call them before this is over.

I am a member of iKobo; but I know of no programs that use this system.

I have joined AlertPay and am holding my breath...

Programs that have actually PAID! Pt 2

2006-06-07T05:52:00.000-05:00

Today's link in the Programs that have actually Paid series, is Bluebird PTR.
This is actually a site my husband is member of, rather than myself;
but looking at his site commissions, I can confirm 3 payouts in the 4 weeks
he has been a member of the site.

WARNING: If you do not religiously clean tracking cookies out of your system,
this is not the site for you. A typical session on Bluebird produces so many
pop-ups and pop-unders, that a spyware clean is necessary by at least the middle
of each session, and should be done when the session is complete as well.

If You Autosurf for Pay, the End is Nigh!

2006-06-07T05:35:00.000-05:00

PayPal has now labeled ALL "investment autosurfs" as MLM or 'ponzi schemes'.
Owners of such sites are being locked out of their PP accts daily.
Paid to read site owners are likely to receive the same treatment if they
have more than one referral level. PP has disallowed MLM since 2003,
if I am correct in my memory.

Paid to read site owners are jumping on the PP bandwagon by refusing to
allow the referral pages for paid to autosurfs to be promoted on their sites.
Some are also starting to disallow Paid to Promote pages for other
Paid to read programs.

At this rate, the whole "work from home" section of the Net will collapse within
the next 2-3 years, this Paid to member predicts; and with the growth of age
discrimination in the normal job market, (never mind that laws are in place
in the US to prevent this...it still happens; and I happen to live in the
United Kingdom, where if such laws exist they are widely winked at and
generally ignored) it will come to the point quickly that anyone who is
largely too old for the nine-to-five employment market (I am 49, and cannot
find an outlet that will hire over 50 unless it is the local pub chain
Wetherspoon's) older people will soon find themselves hard put for extra
cash unless they made enough while still working to have some savings.

I truly wish us all luck!

StormPay...(sigh)

2006-05-14T06:10:00.000-05:00

Stormpay, as many will be aware at this point, has gone totally to an auction center. No payments may be sent by email anymore; in fact the StormClix section and the Stormpay Auctions are the only way to make money through this site at the current time.

What relationship this has to the recent unpleasantness, who can say?

Programs that have actually PAID! Pt 1

2006-05-14T06:03:00.000-05:00

Today I begin a series of posts pointing out Paid To programs I have actually been paid by. Each title (in this series only) will be a referral link. The first program I have for you is Mesmerizing-Mails. Program does a monthly payout, (paid 9 times already!) and has Paid to Promote for upgraded members.

Please read all Terms of Service before joining any Paid To Program. Some have country-residency restrictions, others will kick you from the member lists if your ISP just happens to use a proxy server. And most PTR emails will be actively blocked by AOL, so if you are an AOL user looking to make cash via Paid To programs, use a Yahoo, Gmail, or Inbox.com addy.

One Year later...

2006-04-17T13:15:00.000-05:00

ID Date Amount Message Status Response
4559 2005-09-21 $58.54 Send the money to....J J Claim amt: $50.00 Paypal email address: h....@yahoo.com NOTE: This site has been named as an online SCAM. I emailed the supposed owner after a direct support appeal was emailed to me last week in query of the scam accusations. I have taken note of the minimum payment time. I will give this request 75-80 days after request before I add my own voice to the scam cry. In case of no payout being recieved, I will not leave RQ, but from that time will use it as a traffic driving system ONLY. J Pending

As all can see, nearly one year after I first requested payout from rotatorqueen, that payment is still pending. We must therefore from here out consider RQ a traffic driving system only. The paragraph above (with my name edited down to initials only), was taken directly from my RT pay-request page. For traffic it is lovely...but do not expect it to pay!

The Sad Story of the Possible Demise of the Paid-To Program

2006-02-26T12:07:00.000-06:00

It would seem that Paid to programs may now only have a short time to live in general.

Moneybookers has made such programs illegal to be paid through their service and is actively locking/cancelling merchant accounts that use it for upgrades and payouts to PT programs. Several programs have stopped using iKobo, apparently for the same reason.

And no one is sure just what is happening with Stormpay; but it would seem the Federal Trade Commission is very interested in having a look at their books.

If Paypal follows this trend, there will be few options for Paid to site owners to use
either for payins or payouts. I will keep a close eye on this situation and report in a later post to this blog.

Reply to a Sceptic!

2006-01-28T07:44:00.000-06:00

Marina said...

"I'm sceptical that email ptr works. I've been though quite a few and it doesnt even pay after I've reached the targetted amount.

Worse there has been a few that shuts down after a few months."

While this is quite true, I have the proof that payment DOES happen. And for those who keep listing the ill-fated Clickbuxx Family sites as SCAMS, I even have proof of payment from one of THEIR sites! I do believe that Hurricane Katrina was the end of the line for Evelyn and Lewis Turner however...they struggled valiantly to get a server going again, but the last time I attempted to access their forum as http://www.gptboycott.net, I got a 'server not found' error.

Without further delay, here is the proof the sceptic Marina has asked for.
(In no particular order, and a very incomplete list at best, as to go through 4 years of payouts would take too much time.) All payments were received through Paypal except where otherwise noted.

payment 1

Business Name:
witchescauldron-mails.com (The sender of this payment is Verified)
Email: admin@witchescauldron-mails.com

Email Address That Payment Was Sent to:

(removed to protect my privacy)

Total Amount: $1.24 USD
Fee Amount: -$0.34 USD
Net Amount: $0.90 USD

Quantity: 1

Item Title:
Commissions Payment

Time:
12:57:35 PST

Status:
Completed

Payment 2

Payment Received (ID #72L52636HS187874N)
Name: Evelyn Turner

Email: turner28@yahoo.com

Email Address That Payment Was Sent to:

(removed to protect my privacy)

Total Amount: $3.50 USD
Fee Amount: -$0.40 USD
Net Amount: $3.10 USD

Date: Jan. 3, 2005
Time: 00:39:31 PST

Status:
Completed

Subject:
Clickbuxx Payout

Here is one on the only other payment processor I am currently using for PTR...AlertPay

Date: 11/14/2005 4:02:45 PM
Reference No: 0970c01086e63
Transaction Type: Transfer received from
Method: Kimberly Cochran
Current Status: Completed
Amount: $0.05 USD
Note: Commissions Payment

This one is from Spare-Dollars.com. 'Nuff Said??

Emails and Mouseclicks that Pay

2006-01-07T07:37:00.000-06:00

There are many online programs promising to pay the user to read targeted emails. Some of these are pure scams, promising impossible earnings of up to $10000 per click or more. Others are frustrating, paying .25 to one cent per click, but not paying out until the affiliate has over $100.00 to claim.

I myself have fallen for a couple of the scam sites in past times. One refused payout is all it takes to get me to cancel my membership, however. In the near future I will be listing some PTR and PTC programs I am a member of. I will post the ones who have paid me first, followed by those I have yet to claim from.

MLM Made Easy

2005-08-15T02:18:00.000-05:00

In the Internet Marketing world, as in any section of the 'Net, there is quality, also lack therof. This blog belongs to one of the owners of a couple of autosurf programs, and exudes confidence and promise.

Newest Program

2005-07-25T17:53:00.000-05:00

Hmmm...we see how this new one, which I actually found on a blog linked to mine works.
Title link is "Pre-launch Secrets".

Fast Action Bonus #1
	Get your hands on Mike Filsaime's And Russell Brunson's Pre Launch Secrets. This is a $97 value and worth the price of this package alone. This package includes a recorded call with transcripts and a special report written by Mike Filsaime.

Keeping up with the programs...

2005-07-25T17:35:00.000-05:00

Today's title link is for BlogExplosion, a traffic engine just for bloggers! I am no longer sure how I discovered either this, nor many other of the traffic-driving and affiliate programs I currently belong to.

Until recently, I rarely used my affiliate referral links. But with the advent of the blog, it seems nearly anything is feasible. So we see what we can do...lol!

Landed and back at work!

2005-06-22T10:17:00.000-05:00

I really need referrals/beta-testers here! The more folks that try this, the sooner I will know whether or not it works. RotatorQueen claims to give $1.50 per 1000 sites surfed. Payout supposedly is at the level of $50.00 or more of earnings, and from date of claim takes 60 days to appear in one's PayPal account.

Referral tier is 4 deep, and the company's claim is that one makes $100 per direct referral that surfs to or past the $30.00 earning level. So far I have 2 referrals and am sitting on the brink of My first $50.00. Of course, I am a bit greedy, and intend to surf far past that before claiming! Also if anyone who has a commercial blog here has heard of this auto-surfer, or has had experience with same, your commentary is requested; I hate programs that are a waste of My valuable time, and since I already have two referrals, if this does turn out to be too good to be true, I would like to warn them also! The title link goes to My RotatorQueen refferal page...I do believe blogs are welcome.

One small note; in order to earn money rather than hits, it is strongly suggested that you enter no URL for this autosurfer to send hits to, or at the most, get about 2000 hits back and then pause or delete your site so that you earn cash instead of hits.

April 9, 2005 -- II

2005-04-09T18:42:00.000-05:00

I am sure many of you are in affiliate programs, out to make money off the WWW as we all hope to do one day. But are you using all the tools at your disposal?

I once had a chain of sites spanning several free servers, called "Staseeker's Web Kiosk" which offered surfing suggestions as to interesting sites to visit, Windows tips and tricks, original multimedia artworks and other interesting tidbits.

In the course of building these, I looked for ways to increase My site traffic and found the first two of many. The first was search engine submission. There are several tips associated with this.

Some beginning webmasters think that keywords are enough to attract search engine robots. The truth is, in addition to keywords adding a description via meta-tags will increase engine listing visits. The link in the above paragraph leads to a multi-engine submission service which has both free and subscription tiers.

The second was Webrings. The preceding link is the most widely known and used webring system. If comments indicate, I will edit this post to include most of the systems I know of. Blog sites can also be members of webrings, and are elligible to use several other types of traffic-driving tools as well.

April 9, 2005

2005-04-09T18:31:00.000-05:00

I have been granted My entry clearance to the United Kingdom. I leave to settle in England in appoximately three weeks. I will take some time to settle in and do the necessaries, then get back to work. YAYY!!!

The title link this time is to My newest Indie Audio site. Enjoy while I dream up more audio sessions.

After This Post,We Wait...

2005-04-01T15:34:00.000-06:00

And today's last entry through title linkage is Traffic Racer. I will eventually find all the traffic engines I have an affiliation with. I anticipate a few hours of just posting so that I have all the links I need.

My Blog Title is a Misnomer!

2005-04-01T15:30:00.000-06:00

I simply cannot afford to join affiliate programs that have a capital outlay attached.
Therefore 90% of the links you will see are to build downlines on various traffic engines, rather than to earn money. Today's newest is ViralVisitors, one of the oldest manual exchanges in existence. As always, the link of the day is the title.

Testing...Testing...

2005-04-01T15:07:00.000-06:00

As this blog is another "test" blog, this time specifically aimed at affiliate programs I belong to, look for each title to contain a link...later possible banners.