In the previous guide I wrote some tips for dealing with the world of Paid-to-Click (PTC) and Traffic Exchanges. Now here are some things that you should be careful about. The opportunities abound, but you need to be careful to not become the prey in this world of predators.
Things you need to be careful about
If it sounds too good to be truth, it very likely is too good to be true.
That is the golden rule in making money online. I don’t know how new you are to the world of making money online, specially to the world of Affiliate Marketing, PTC Sites and Traffic Exchanges.
If you have been here long enough I don’t have to tell you about the many many different scams that exist online. A lot of systems simply exist with the purpose of take something from you. You need to take care of your two valuable assets: Money and Time.
At the end of the day, we all have the same limited resources, and we get stuck or get ahead depending on how good we utilize them; on how good we are at investing them.
Something that you need to ask yourself when you face a new system is: Where is the money coming from?
Normally I consider all of the Bux sites scams, with NeoBux being the obvious exception (but it changed it’s business model long ago, the original business model was not sustainable).
Some sites promise you ads that pay a lot, or a low investment and a huge return of investment. It doesn’t work like that, not for the majority of the people, of course the first ones that get in and do the big investment and the big promotion will get paid, they are needed to “legitimize” the site, so they will get paid well in order to have them taking the screenshots with payments and promoting the site to others.
But the rest of the members will lose a lot, maybe not a lot of money, but definitely a lot of time. Some people do get lucky online and find a way that works for them to make a ridiculously large amount of money, but then some people also win the lotery.
But buying lottery tickets has never been an investment.
Warning Signs that a PTC Site is a scam
The forums are abandoned
If you don’t see an active forum, if the last posts that you find were made a long time ago, it is very likely that the site is death. Don’t waste your time and hope for the best, look for a better alternative.
They come out with “Sister Sites”
Their cash faucet is running dry, so they attempt to open a new one before all the credibility evaporates. The site will stop working short after the “Sister Site” is open.
Publishing proofs of payment is absolutely obligatory
To make the site look legit, they will of course send some payments, but they make it a requirement to share the proof of payment in their forums. Some even say that if you don’t submit a proof of payment you will stop getting paid. This is a huge huge warning sign, before you actually manage to make something out of the site it will very likely be closed. You will request your payment, and it will be in “Pending” forever.
The “rented referrals” are very active
You can see the contrast between the rented referrals in NeoBux against those in other Bux sites. In NeoBux many stop being active after a short time, you do constant recycling of a few nearly every day. In Scam sites, the rented referrals are very good, and a huge bunch of them go inactive at the exact same time.
Those are not real referrals, the site is just playing you.
Unrealistic Premium Plans
You pay for a plan, and it gives you back several times what you pay. This is not sustainable, it will just collapse. Take for instance Traffic Monsoon: you pay USD$50, then you get back USD$55 after a long time. A 10% ROI (Return of Investment) is not unrealistic given that they also sell other promotional packages and that this is an incentive to keep you there seeing ads. They are rewarding your activity in the site.
Don’t get me wrong, it is not sustainable if every member is active and everybody gets to cashout. But that is not what happens, only some stick to it long enough to get paid, so they get paid; the rest quit and don’t ever get paid.
