MLM Scams And Pyramid Schemes

Let me start bluntly by saying I personally hate programs full of hype that promise the moon and never deliver anything more than smoke and mirrors. The thing that baffles me the most is, no matter how many times people hear or read the old adage "it's too good to be true", they STILL fall prey to these scams.

There isn't a day that goes by where I don't see someone in a forum flogging some crappy program promising you'll retire in a year or make 30k a month within 30 days, if only you pay out X amount of dollars. Total BS.

The sales page blinds you with images of flashy cars, huge mansions and fat stacks of cash, but what you actually end up with is a dent in your wallet and being a slave to that program owner by recruiting other suckers into the program under the disguise of an "opportunity". (By the way, I own several cars, including a Porsche, but I didn't get them through ANY program. I worked hard online, the right way, to earn what I have.)

So, how do you tell a legitimate opportunity from an MLM scam or pyramid scheme? Please read this informative article by MLM attorney Kevin Thompson, as it sums up some very interesting points you should consider before joining anything: http://www.scribd.com/doc/17733330/Legitimate-MLM-or-Pyramid-Scheme-How-can-you-tell . You should read it VERY carefully and learn from it. Knowledge is power, after all, right? I'll offer my thoughts on the topic below, but all references in quotation marks are from Kevin's article.

While I'm sometimes blown away by the lack of common sense some people show with what they do online, it really boils down to greed and/or desperation. People WANT it to be true and they NEED the money, so caution gets thrown out the window. They will spend $97 on a product that claims they will make 1000's, even if the sales page itself isn't clear or makes no real sense. I read a Clickbank sales page last year that was a mile long, claiming you would get rich the easy way and never have to worry about bills again. It tugged at the heart strings with images of poor, desperate people and told of how bad the economy is and how you can rise above these problems affecting everyone. The interesting thing to me, though, is that after an hour of reading through all the hype, sad pictures and vague "proof" there was NO indication of what you were actually about to buy...seriously! Was it a program? Ebook? Software? Keys to the kingdom? Not a clue, yet the greedy and desperate bought whatever it was in droves, as it had a very high gravity score at CB. It's the magic beans everyone is looking for. Unbelieveable!

While there are legitimate opportunities, they involve working on yourself more than other people. The MLM scams and pyramid schemes, on the other hand, involve recruiting others into the "opportunity" itself to do better. As Kevin says "If the compensation plan requires you to recruit other participants in order to advance up the pay scale, it's a factor to consider...Or is success described in terms of the number of distributors in your downline i.e. if you get x people below you, you can earn $y. If advancement is explained in terms of recruitment, it's a factor...An easy example is with forced matrix plans. If a plan is 5 x 5, the only way to advance to the next level is to fill the first level by recruiting 5 active distributors".

A legit business sells products to CUSTOMERS...not to each other in the business, and that's one of the biggest factors the FTC looks into when determining what is legit and what is a scam or pyramid that should be dismantled. So, a legit company must have product to sell to customers outside of the opportunity to be legal, and training materials (including your own personal sales website the program gives to you upon joining) do not count because they are not sold to customers, and only distributors use them, so "it’s illegal if the company is paying commissions on the sales of training materials".

Many of these scams also inflate the prices of whatever products they do sell and ask their recruits to buy them as part of the requirements to keep your "business" in good standing in the program. Kevin recommends asking yourself “If there was no income opportunity associated with this product, would I still buy it as a customer?". For example, if a store sells cheap pens for $1 each to real customers visiting the store, then it's legit, but if they sell the same pens for $10 each, and only the store staff is buying them and they get a bonus compensation for recruiting other staff to buy the overpriced pens, then it's an opportunity only to get scammed.

A real example I noticed recently is for a program where the "product" is way overpriced traffic. It sparked my interest because I sell traffic myself, so I looked into it further. I'm not going to mention the program name because I don't want to help advertise it, but it might sound familiar to you. They sell 1000 visitors for the high cost of $10 (2000 for $20, etc), which is far too much. If I charged that much I'd hang my head in shame, as the going rate is $2-5, the higher range being for extra factors, like targeting, control panel, etc.

With that program the product itself is overinflated, but people are pushing it because of the income opportunity. I've never once seen anyone posting about the program for the product itself, because most people have the common sense to know it's overpriced, but it's the "opportunity" to make money that people push, simply to recruit others into it. Also, the program used to be called something else, but changed after only a short time online...yet another warning sign. Legit businesses build brand name recognition and trust over time.

Normal affiliate marketing is fine, where you have an actual product to sell to consumers. I do very well myself selling online game guides to gamers, as an affiliate AND as a vendor. That's an example of a legit way to earn money online, but the rampant MMO scams are steering people in the wrong direction and hurting the overall potential for those people to really earn a living online, like I do.

As Mr. Thompson puts it: "When fraudulent schemes masquerade as legitimate companies, it affects the reputations of all companies in the industry." It's sad to me because I know first hand what it's like to be conned online, but I also know that you CAN legitimately earn online, if you do it the right way and stop believing the hype. Are you up for the challenge???

Affiliate Clickbank Payment Proof

I'm going to focus on the affiliate Clickbank payment proof here because the vendor program is set up differently and I plan to write a post explaining how that works in the future. All CB affiliates get paid every 2 weeks and this is my latest check in the amount of $153.53

Making money with Clickbank is mostly about matching the right product to your audience. I recently wrote a related post about website monetization that is relevant here as well. Basically, you want to find something to promote in the Clickbank marketplace that your own website visitors will WANT to buy. This is important! Get it wrong and you WILL fail!

For example, I've noticed some sites that are very poorly monetized lately. One was a site about depression that had ads for hosting on it (do depressed people suddenly have the desire to build a website?). Another was a site with baby products that had an ad banner for a CB ebook about forex! Unbelievable! Repeat after me: MATCH YOUR NICHE!!!

I'll admit that when I started in affiliate marketing years ago I made the same mistakes, so let's chaulk it up to newbie inexperience. I made NO sales at all until I finally got smart and put up a popular game strategy guide on one of my arcade sites and finally made my first sale. I found out game guides sell VERY well, but I also learned the number one lesson about making sure you spend some time finding the right product to promote. It's well worth the effort.

For those of you getting started with Clickbank, it's important to be aware of the biggest issue that faces all CB newbies: the dreaded "CDR". It stands for Customer Distribution Requirement and states that you must have sales from at least 2 sources (Paypal, Mastercard, Visa) AND 5 different credit card numbers BEFORE you get paid! For some people who only get an occassional sale, this can be a daunting task, esp. when you consider that most sales online come from Paypal and that's not even included as part of the 5 number requirement!

You could actually have 10 sales broken down into, let's say, 6 from PP, 3 from Visa, 1 from MC and STILL not get paid. At a sale a month average it would take you almost a year to earn about $200 and yet have nothing to show for it. I've read people complaining that this was a deal breaker for them and they gave up using Clickbank because of it.

One "trick" that many affiliates do is to simply buy through their own link as an easy way to meet the CDR. If you already have sales and you need that last one to come in to make up the fifth CC number and you're tired of waiting, then just find a product in the marketplace that is dirt cheap (the lowest is 3 bucks) and create your own hoplink for it. Then simply purchase the product through your link using your own credit card. A few dollars is a small price to pay to get all your earnings released to you after meeting the full requirements, if you have over $100 or so tied up there. Consider it like an extra 3% fee to get your check. I personally don't think the CDR is fair, but it is what it is, so it's best just to find a solution around it, since you can't change it.

They also hold back 10% of each check as a “return allowance” to cover any refunds or chargebacks. That rule isn't much fun either, but it's needed when dealing with some products that have a high refund rate, so they have to cover that possibility.

A final word of advice: mask your hoplinks! Some affiliates will attempt to steal your commissions, so it's good practice not to leave your affiliate ID "out in the open". It became such a problem that now Clickbank provides encrypted links in the form of a "hoplink shield", but it wasn't always that easy. Protect your links!

Good luck!

Free Hostgator Coupons

It's obvious that you need your own website to get ahead of the competition when trying to earn money online because you need to be able to control your content to set yourself apart from all the similiar affiliate pages competing for everyone's attention. You need to be unique in any way possible.

I've written an article explaining a simple approach to setting yourself apart from the rest, called "Learn to Earn Money Online Now". Please read that first on this page.

The basic idea is to create a blog on paid hosting where you have complete control over content, meta tags, ad placements, etc. This will attract search engines to your keywords which, in turn, will bring targeted traffic for your affiliate products and promotions (or to your own stuff, if you make your own).

The purpose of this post is simply to provide another Hostgator.com promo code in case the article link is removed anytime in the future. There are a couple of free Hostgator coupons listed there and here is a bonus one that never expires:

4ONECENTHOSTING

Apply the above promo code word at checkout for 1 cent hosting on the "Baby" plan for the 1st month and get started on the road to success for almost nothing!

Stop promoting those same gateway pages that everyone else is doing and start branding yourself as a business! You'll be glad you did when you notice the higher profits and easy traffic coming in!

Leave your competitors in the dust!! :)

Affiliate Degree Earnings Proof

It occured to me that I used to post a lot about the Instant Degrees affiliate program back when I started with them over 2 years ago, but I've never posted any of their payment proof. I remember that my best month with them was around $800-1000 in commissions earned (over $3000 in sales), but this month is a much smaller $184.50. Still, almost $200 ain't too shabby for 1 month on just one network, right?

This affiliate degree earnings check posted here was received a few days ago for what I made last month (they pay monthly) and these kinds of online degree programs work best if you have sites with traffic in the late teens to early 30's age demographic, although it can work for anyone looking for a career boost.

Have a great week earning money online everyone!

WorkFor3Dollars Payment Proof

Well, it's Tuesday and that's payday for the WorkFor3Dollars (WF3D) list builder program, so I thought I'd continue with my earnings posts and show theirs for today. They don't pay by paper check, so I had to show my Alertpay screenshot for this one.

My WorkFor3Dollars payment proof is only $3.12 USD because the cashout is at only 3 bucks, so it never gets very high, and this is from an account under my main one. Still, it's an easy way to make a few dollars and they do payout on time, like clockwork. Even when the admin was away on vacation in the summer a few months ago he still made sure everyone got paid!

Since this program works best by members helping to promote each other, here are a few affiliate links to join under, and rather than ask you to join me, I simply ask you to pick someone else from my team and we can all help each other to succeed!

Links to learn more:

http://workfor3dollars.com/earn
http://workfor3dollars.com/readmore

As always, to your success!!

Work For 3 Dollars Community

I want to make a quick update about the Work For 3 Dollars program. One of the differences I've noticed with them is the community feel and how everyone pitches in to help each other. Most other affiliate programs that you join tend to leave you to sink or swim on your own without much help from other people. That's because you're basically each others competition to get referrals, so why would you help your competitor?

With the WF3D plan, you succeed more if others do as well, so it actually makes sense to help promote your downline because you are also helping yourself! You only need 3 referrals to start making money, and I already have that and have also been paid, so now I want to help others get paid as well.

So, here is what I propose to do. ANYONE who has or will sign up in my downline from here on in will get FREE promotion from me for their own referral link! I have quite a few sites, so that means a lot of exposure to your own affiliate link. Simply email me at the address on the sidebar of this blog to let me know your personal WorkFor3Dollars link and I will add it on my sites for free to help promote you.

The only thing I ask is that you are also actively promoting it as well, as I dont want to waste my promotion space on anyone who isn't willing to also put the time into it themselves. Always remember that you CAN make money online! It's the lazy ones who sign up and do nothing who get nowhere and then they complain about it later. If you got hired to do ANY job and then refused to show up for work, then you wouldn't be paid, and online work is no different.

I'm going to start today's promotion by putting the links of 2 of the people in my downline to help get them started, as they have no downline of their own yet. I encourage anyone reading this to please sign up under one of these links, and then we'll all help YOU to succeed as well!

http://workfor3dollars.com/splash.php?r=payments

http://www.workfor3dollars.com/?r=168andresng