How to Protect Yourself Online from Work at Home Scams
How to Protect Yourself Online from Internet Marketing Scams
How to Make Money Online with “Get Paid To…” Opportunities
How to Make Money Online with a Work at Home Job

And today’s post…

How to Make Money Online with your Own Internet Marketing Business.

Internet Marketing

Internet Marketing.

It’s what I consider my full-time job.

I hate using the term marketing. It conjures up scary thoughts of sales people, cold calling advertisements, just negative things overall. Hang on! Stick with me. What I do has nothing to do with any of that.

I create websites (Keep reading! Trust me!) People find my sites through Google or Yahoo read what I write and if they click on one of the ads on my website, I make money. It can be very lucrative or it can simply be used to earn a part-time income depending on how much time and effort you are willing to put into it.

What is it?

I want to give a quick example of basic Internet Marketing and show you how you’re already familiar with it.

Let’s say your old TV broke and you want to buy a fancy new 60 inch flat panel TV. You head to Google, and start researching which TV is the best value for your money. One of the search results is a review of the new Samsung Mindblower 5000. After you finish reading the review, you click on a link that takes you to the TV for sale at Amazon and you make a purchase.

The person who originally wrote the review and provided you with that link will make a commission on your purchase. Let’s say the price of the new TV is $2,500 and the reviewer makes 6% commission on each sale. The reviewer just made an easy $150 off of ONE review only. There is a lot of room out there for anyone to make a lot of money. Now, this is just one small example and Internet Marketing is by no means limited to reviewing TVs and Amazon.

Did I lose you already? Here’s a quick image to help you visualize the process.

When you become an Internet Marketer, you get to be the person who writes the reviews, gets people to visit your site, and then receives commissions from retailers like Amazon for sending customers their way.

This is basically how I’ve been working full-time from home for over a year now. I follow trends and provide people with the information they’re looking for.

You’ll be watching search engines like Google and Yahoo to find out what people are searching for and then you’ll write articles or create websites to help these people find what they are looking for.

How YOU Make Money

Above all, Internet Marketing is about HELPING people. Your job will be to help people find the information they’re searching for online. You’ll be creating websites (you probably don’t know how to do this yet, but keep reading because I’ll explain) and when people come to your website and click on your ads or make a purchase at an affiliated website, you’ll make money. The amount of money you make will vary depending on the affiliate program you’re partnered with.

It costs absolutely no money to affiliate with a company. You’re promoting THEIR products, they pay you! The best part of all of this is that you’re not responsible for taking orders, shipping items, providing customer service, etc. Your job is to get people to click on your affiliate links. You still give people what they want and you get a paid. It’s win-win.

There are some expenses involved…

Ah, the phrase no one wants to hear.

I imagine there are going to be some people who immediately say “it costs money therefore it’s a scam.” You’re starting a business. You need to invest some money first. I can’t think of a single (legal) business that you can start without putting up some money up-front. If you know of one, please leave me a comment below. I’ve racked my brain and I can’t think of anything.

If you want to become an Internet Marketer, there are a few things you have to pay for. First, if you have no prior experience, you’re going to have to pay for training. You need someone to teach you the ropes and show you what you need to do.

The point I like to make is you want to start your own online business right? Starting your own business, whether it’s online or offline, requires SOME investment. If you wanted to start your own brick and mortar store, just think of the expenses you’d face. There’s rent, supplies, equipment, contracts, legal documents, employees, utilities, taxes, and so much more. You wouldn’t even think twice about having to pay these. It’s just the cost of doing business and of course there are no guarantees. Your small business could easily go belly up in just a few months and leave you thousands of dollars in the red. It’s a pretty common scenario.

That’s why I recommend trying your hand at an online business. You don’t have to invest nearly as much, and you have the possibility of creating an income strictly for you. The thing is, you’re still going to have to invest some money. There is some small overhead, and you need a proper education. You need to learn all there is to know about running an online business. If you wanted to be a doctor, you’d pay to go to medical school, right? You can’t just declare yourself a doctor and start offering examinations! You really can’t treat an online business any differently.

My Top Recommended Internet Marketing Training Program

It’s called Wealthy Affiliate and it’s my number one recommendation to learn how to make money online.

Wealthy Affiliate is a step-by-step training program that teaches its members to become successful experts in affiliate marketing. It is a vast educational resource that will teach you how to successfully become an Internet Marketer by providing you with all the tools and training you would ever need.

It’s the same step-by-step process that I followed to build a successful online business and I’m still an active member in the Wealthy Affiliate community today.

The full name for Wealthy Affiliate is The Wealthy Affiliate University. It really is best to think of it as an online school. It’s not an eBook you download or a piece of software you install. It’s a full-on online course where you can learn from teachers and interact with students. You can login complete some lessons, but instead of getting grades, you make money!

I’ve spent thousands of dollars trying different internet marketing courses for this blog, but have yet to see a program that offers as much as Wealthy Affiliate.

One of the biggest problems I’ve seen with other courses is that they quickly become outdated. Wealthy Affiliate adapts to changes in Internet Marketing and is updated daily both by the owners of the program and the members. New resources are written all the time and you will always have full-access to all of the training materials.

The absolute best part about Wealthy Affiliate is that they aren’t going to try and sell you anything else. Your membership includes everything you would need to start an online business and then some. They offer weekly webinars, video training, website hosting, unlimited support, personal one-on-one coaching, a community forum, step-by-step instructions, and so much more.

What to Expect When You Join Wealthy Affiliate

Everyone who reads this articles wants to know one thing: how long before I start making some money? Unfortunately, this is probably the only question I cannot answer. I simply can’t guarantee you’ll make x amount of dollars in this amount of time and frankly I wouldn’t trust anyone who gives you specific numbers especially if those numbers seems a bit outlandish.

Instead, what I’d like to do is tell you about my new favorite feature at Wealthy Affiliate that will help you get started within your first month.

Success in 30 Days

It seems that a lot of people are geniunely interested in learning how to make moeny online, but don’t really know how to start or feel their technical abilities will hold them back. Wealthy Affiliate has gone through great lengths to help anyone get started with a new club they created called Success in 30 Days.

Each morning, you will receive an email with a list of tasks to accomplish for that day. This will help you setup your very first online campaign and put you on a direct path to making money. Within just a couple of days, you’ll have a niche picked out, a full website up and running, and a handful of articles written. You may even begin to see some visitors and possibly even some money!

I’ve been in contact with quite a few people who have been in the Success in 30 Days Club and they have all spoken very highly of it. The most common comment I receive is that it really helps put things into perspective for absolute beginners. Everyone has also said how EASY it was to get their first website online, even those who describe themselves as “technically challenged.”

The biggest proof that the Success in 30 Days Club works comes from an 80-year old man who wrote an email to me a few days ago. He didn’t know much about computers and mainly used the Internet for email and Scrabble. He wanted to pick up an online hobby and decided to try at Internet Marketing. In less than a week, he had his very first website online and was working on getting visitors. Very encouraging!

The Entire Time While You’re a Member

There are quite a few benefits to joining Wealthy Affiliate, but the biggest one has to be that you will be surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals. You gain access to the community forums. Ever member of Wealthy Affiliate has access to these forums. You can connect with other people, ask questions, read stories, gather inspiration and so much more.

Another benefit is one-on-one coaching. You can email the owners, Kyle and Carson, any time and they will personally respond to your questions. I’ve emailed them both dozens of times and they have both taken the time to help me with my questions and offer advice. Plus, I’m very much an active member too. You can add me as a friend, send me messages, and connect with me on a more personal level. I’ll be more than happy to help you any way I can.

These have all been some pretty general examples. I want to give you some specifics and share with you some of my accomplishments to give you an idea of what is possible when you join Wealthy Affiliate.

Proof of my Earnings

I tend to avoid posting flashy screenshots of earnings here at I’ve Tried That. I’d much rather you signup for a program because it’s a right fit for you and not because you saw a few pictures that contained dollar signs. Nonetheless, I do need to offer some proof that this stuff actually does work.

I wanted to share with you an inside look at a few of my personal affiliate accounts and give a little information about each of them to help you better understand the type of work that I do.

Let’s start with…

I’ll save you the trouble of adding that up. It comes out to $1,243.60. That’s over a thousand bucks over a two week period. These earnings all come from ONE SINGLE article I wrote OVER TWO YEARS AGO. Yes, you read that correctly. That one single article has been consistently making this kind of money for over two years now. It took me only a few hours to write.

I used a few article marketing training guides at Wealthy Affiliate to help me write a compelling article and learned how to properly promote it and drive traffic to it. This was one of my first “big ideas” and has been a cash cow for me ever since.

Next we have…

This is a screenshot of my Amazon affiliate account for the month of January. All of these earnings come from a deal website that I run. I scour Amazon.com looking for big discounts on items. It takes me about 5 minutes to update each morning and hundreds of people visit it each day looking to save some money. I get paid every time someone clicks on one of the deals I posted then buys ANYTHING at all at Amazon.

The idea for this site came from the Wealthy Affiliate forum. A few members were talking about how to make money with Amazon’s affiliate program. Since I love online shopping and saving money, I decided to create a website to help other people do the same. It’s been a huge hit and it’s one of the easiest ways I’m making money online.

Finally we have…

This last screenshot is just a small snippet of my personal Gmail inbox. I recently wrote and released my own guide to sell and it’s been moving quite well. I did a search for all of the payment notifications and you can see the search returned thousands of results.

The guide has been my biggest success thus far and I used a combination of a ton of different Wealthy Affiliate guides to help me write it and promote it. I was also able to get in contact with other Wealthy Affiliate members who had experience selling products and was able to pick their brains and ask questions. These were people who make millions of dollars online each year and they were personally helping ME. I never would have been confident enough to write my own guide, nor as successful at selling it, if it wasn’t for the help at Wealthy Affiliate.

This has just been a small sample of just a few of my earnings. I wanted to give you a personal look into a few things that I’m doing to make money online and give you some proof that Internet Marketing WORKS.

What You Need to Know

Wealthy Affiliate does cost $47/month to become a member.

Yes, it costs money to join. But let’s put that cost into perspective. If you wanted to change your career offline, you’d pay to go back to school or to learn a new trade right? If you were a telemarkter before but wanted to become a heart surgeon, you’d have to pay for years of medical school. You wouldn’t just walk into a hospital and start performing surgery.

So why treat online any different? Having to pay for is definitely the biggest thing holding you back. I know it is. But you’ll be gaining access to the top internet marketing training program in the world for about a dollar a day. If that’s too much for you to invest, then maybe making money online isn’t for you.

But just know this…

• You will be working to build your own online business. Forget working the 9 to 5 and slaving away under a miserable boss to make someone else rich. Learn how to work for YOU.
• You will work alongside me. I’ve been a Wealthy Affiliate member since 2009. I’ll be more than happy to help you every step of the way.
• You will have your very own website up and running within your first week regardless of your technical experience.
• You will have access to unlimited support. The owners of Wealthy Affiliate will personally help you and respond to your questions.
• You will be joining a community and collaborating with thousands of other like-minded individuals (including me personally!) all working to achieve success online.
• You will have access to all updates and changes at Wealthy Affiliate without ever getting charged more.

Join Today and Receive a Copy of My Top 10 Secrets to Making Money Online Free with your account!

I just finished up a special guide for all those who are interested in giving Wealthy Affiliate a shot. It’s a compilation of the ten most important things I’ve learned since launching my own Internet Marketing career almost three years ago and you can have it absolutely free with your Wealthy Affiliate membership.

This is a special offer for readers of I’ve Tried That ONLY! You won’t see an offer like this anywhere on the web. This is a special bonus that I personally wrote. Create an account, log-in, and the guide will be sitting there waiting for you!

The Bottom Line and My Recommendation

Did you know I’ve been running I’ve Tried That since 2007? There are nearly 1,000 posts here. Honest! Take a look at the archives page for proof! My point is, I’ve covered a lot of different get paid to, work at home, and Internet Marketing programs. Of everything I’ve seen, of all the programs I’ve reviewed, Internet Marketing is the best shot a beginner has at making a sizable income online and Wealthy Affiliate is the program to help you get there.

So you want my top recommendation? Come join me at Wealthy Affiliate. You’ll surround yourself with like-minded individuals all working towards the same goal: building a successful online business. You’ll be given the tools and the training to get you on your feet. It doesn’t matter how “good with computers” you are. All you need is an idea to get started. Wealthy Affiliate will even help you narrow down an idea and will help you cash in on it.

I’ve showed you what’s possible at Wealthy Affiliate and I invite you to come join me and take advantage my Top Ten Secrets guide. Add me as a friend after you join. My username on the site is IveTriedThat. Come introduce yourself and feel free to ask me anything. I’ll be more than happy to hear from you.

Click here and sign up at Wealthy Affiliate now!

This wraps up my three day series on how to legitimately make money online. Thanks for sticking with me through all three articles. Scam warnings and updates will resume as usual next week.

As always, I welcome all questions and comments. Thanks for your continued support!

Three words. Three relatively short words. When separated, they don’t really draw out too much emotion. Combine them, and you get a phrase that elicits both hope for a new beginning and a severe fear that what little you have can be crushed and taken away.

Ugh. Right?

Work at Home/Telecommuting Jobs

Today’s post revolves finding actual work at home jobs. I’m not talking about job “opportunities,” pyramid schemes, multi-level-marketing programs or anything else that wouldn’t be considered a traditional job. I’m talking about telecommuting. The act of working out of your home office for an employer. You work a set amount of hours. You get paid a set amount of money. It’s a job. Nothing more, nothing less.

The Internet made working from home possible. It also took the idea, twisted it, and turned it into something that could actually lose you money. Real telecommuting jobs DO exist! I’ve seen them! Honest! And I’ll show you how to find them, how to spot the scams, and how you can get started, today.

What to Expect

Have you ever searched for a job online? It can be a complete disaster if you don’t know what you’re doing. You can be scammed out of hundreds or even thousands of dollars if you aren’t careful.

Scams disguised as jobs claim new victims every day. Be sure to read the following article extensively. Not only will it save you hours of frustration, but it could save you from becoming another victim.

How to Spot the Junk

Before we even begin searching for telecommuting jobs, you need to know how to differentiate between fake work at home “opportunities” and legitimate telecommuting jobs.

It’s best to start with an example. Here are two ads from craigslist, each advertising a different “work-from-home” job:

Job Ad #1

Web Content Writers

Needed Part Time, Full Time, freelance writers. VRO Websites is hiring writers who can rewrite vacation rental descriptions into the VRO Website format. You will incorporate keywords into the content to help with search engine placement. We have a specific process and format that you will follow to create the property descriptions.

We will pay $20 per property. A skilled writer can complete one property in an hour or less; once you have a firm understanding of the format. This is a work at home job, or can be a full time job, hourly job, if you would like to join our staff. We have offices in SE Portland near the corner of Morrison and Grand Ave.

Please submit a resume and writing samples. We will contact qualified clients. We need immediate help, so please list your availability as well.

* Location: SE Portland
* Compensation: $20 per Property Description
* Telecommuting is ok.
* This is a part-time job.
* Principals only.

Job Ad #2

Consumer Driven Health Care

#1 Leading health care provider company in the United States is seeking health representatives that want to work from home.
Our company has been in business for 14 great years with well over 1.7 million satisfied members and still growing.
* Compensation: commission
* Telecommuting is ok.
* This is a part-time job.
* Principals only.
* Please, no phone calls about this job!

Job Ad #1 is for a legitimate job, by which I mean an arrangement in which a company or individual pays you a predetermined amount in exchange for your time and/or skill. Job Ad #2 is a “hook” for Ameriplan USA. I’m not saying Ameriplan is a scam, but it’s definitely not a job that will bring you a known figure in exchange for a known amount of time.

Identify “hook” ads in three seconds or less

Here’s how: pretend you’re in an interview. What if you were in a job interview and the interviewer kept making vague statements about how much money you’re going to earn? What if you asked what kind of work you’ll be doing and he said, “You’ll be helping people achieve financial freedom,” or a similarly vague answer? You’d know something is not right. So take that interview mentality with you when reading work-at-home ads.

The following are red flags in part because you’d never see or hear them at an interview for a real job. Individually, they don’t automatically indicate a fake job or “hook” ad, but ads containing more than one of them are almost certainly selling you something other than a job.

• Vague job description – After reading Job Ad #1 you know exactly what you’ll be doing. But what kind of work will you be doing for Job Ad #2? It doesn’t tell you! Hook ads have to be general because if they were specific, you wouldn’t click through to their sales page.
• Exaggerated titles – If a title uses any combination of the following words, proceed with caution: money, income, freedom, unlimited, or success.
• Vague statements about pay – You’ll earn “commission.” Next time you fill out a credit application, write “commission” in the Income line and see how far it gets you. Real employers know exactly how much they’re willing to pay you, and batting that figure about is a normal part of the hiring process for real jobs. Imagine going to a real job interview, and when you ask about pay, the employer says, “As much as you want to earn! You can live the life you’ve always dreamed of!” You’d see right through him. Online jobs are no different.
• Talk about Big Money – While they never give specifics, hook ads do often tantalize you with large numbers. $500/week! Part time! Up to $100 per hour!
• Exclamation points!!! – Job Ad #2 doesn’t have any, but they very often do. Truly exciting job opportunities don’t need exclamation points. That they’re exciting should be self evident from the detailed description.
• A hyperlink in the ad – Sure, legitimate companies can link to their business Web site, but they often do not. Hook ads need the link because they’ve got to get you to the sales page.

It’s all in the headline

Here’s an actual headline for another craigslist hook ad:

Work From Home $1,500 to $3,000 PT or FT Legitimate & Honest Job!!!

Here’s the thing. Do you believe the guy at work who says he was the funniest and best-looking dude at last weekend’s company picnic? Of course not! In the same way, it never occurs to legitimate employers to tell you that they’re legitimate. Why should they? They are looking for employees, not to prove themselves. If you doubt me, go to your next job interview and ask, “Is this a legitimate job or a scam?” It’s a quick way to end the interview and the funny look on the interviewer’s face might be worth sabotaging your chances.

There are other warning signs, but these are the ones we see all the time. With practice, you can learn to identify them at a glance. Soon enough, you won’t even have to read the article. Most headlines reveal enough details about the job that will allow you to skip the posting entirely. You will no longer waste time pursuing leads that only end up being hook ads.

Using craigslist to find jobs

http://www.craigslist.org

If you’ve never before experienced craigslist you’re in for a real treat. Craigslist.org is comparable to the most populated shopping mall on Black Friday where all the customers are on some form of stimulant drugs, and someone shouts “Everything in the mall is now 99% off!” There is pushing, yelling, fighting, an old lady gets knocked over, three people are hospitalized, and someone is arrested for gang related crimes.

Right now, you probably feel like the old knocked over elderly lady. But, fear not, with this guide you will be the leader of the unruly mob. Welcome to craigslist.

craigslist in brief

craigslist is an enormous, rapidly changing set of classified ads. It’s a city within itself. From advertising your local business to finding a ride across the country, to personal ads, craigslist has it all. At first glance, it looks like an unorganized list of links that serve no real purpose.

Simply put, it is largely overwhelming, especially if you have no prior experience navigating it. But I can assure you that underneath all of that clutter is an efficient, well-regulated work-at-home resource just waiting to be discovered.

How to Search craigslist

Here’s a brief overview of navigating through craigslist for those who are unfamiliar with the site. Along the right side of the main page is the location navigation section. Here are the major cities, states, and countries from around the world listed in alphabetical order.

Selecting a state or province will give you further location options until you can narrow it down to the city or town closest to where you live. After you select a city, the middle portion of the home page will change to your selected city and you’ll see a number of categories from items for sale, to job listings, to personal ads. Clicking on any heading will take you to the list of available postings.

Spend a few minutes familiarizing yourself with craigslist by following the instructions above to get to the List closest to your location. Then, once you’ve poked around your local List, test your craigslist skills with the activities below.

If you can easily accomplish the following three tasks, you’ve got a strong grasp on craigslist navigation.

• Locate a list of subletting apartments in Reno, Nevada.
• Search for available tickets for sale in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Find available writing jobs around Tallahassee, Florida.

Searching craigslist

Now that you understand how craigslist works, you can finally begin your job search. The true beauty of a telecommuting job is that location doesn’t matter. You can be employed by a law firm in San Francisco even if you live in Calgary or Florida. With that in mind, the largest number of work at home job ads will be based in major cities with the most people actively searching those cities. This can work both for and against you.

On one hand, you’ll have more job ads posted in a specific city, making your life easy, but on the other, you have even more competition from others looking to work at home, too. So select a major city, visit the craigslist of that city and begin your search.

• First, narrow your search by industry. You should begin by narrowing down your search because if you just do a generic search for “jobs,” you’ll get too many irrelevant results. Beneath the Jobs heading, you’ll see a long list of industry-specific categories. You’ll want to stay in the category that best describes the type of job you’re looking for. This won’t eliminate the junk ads, but these categories generally have much less junk than the “Etc.” and “Part time” categories. You can also browse every job heading if you haven’t narrowed down your area of expertise first. Just click on the actual “Jobs” title to view every available job posting.
• Narrow your search to “telecommuting.” Once you arrive at the appropriate section, you’ll be able to narrow down your search to just telecommuting jobs by using the search feature located at the top of the section. Don’t bother fling in the search box. Simply check the “Telecommute” check box and click search to pull up ads that list telecommuting as an option. A list of postings will present itself in chronological order starting with the most recent.
• Narrow your search by time. Look at listings from the previous three days only. craigslist ads move so fast that they’re obsolete within 72 hours, at the most. You will be doing yourself a favor by not wasting time waiting to hear back from an outdated ad. Stick to current postings and avoid the headaches.
• Be as specific as possible with keywords. When you choose to put something in the search box (other than just selecting the “Telecommuting” box) be specific. Don’t use generic terms such as “work at home” or “virtual job” because, nine times out of ten, you’ll only return scams. To attract real jobs, use terms such as “writer” or other job title, and type-of-work keywords such as “freelance” and “independent contractor.”

Overview

• Stick to big cities in your search. These contain the most ads.
• Stay in industry-specific sections and keep away from the part-time and “Etc.” sections. They always contain the most spam and hook ads.
• Try to avoid applying for jobs older than 72 hours.
• Don’t use generic terms like “work at home” when searching. Stay job-specific.

Not So Perfect

The only drawback to searching with the telecommute option is that in order for it to be useful, the employer listing the job has to know what it means. Unfortunately, many don’t, and they won’t check it even though it’s an available option and those not looking for remote workers sometimes do check it.

There isn’t a good shortcut around this problem, so you might just have to spend some time reading ads in-depth to ensure that you don’t pass over a golden opportunity or waste time applying to a company that isn’t looking for telecommuters. craigslist is good, but like most things, it’s not perfect. This flaw is more of a minor annoyance. Don’t let it hinder your searching.

Have Others Find Jobs for You

There is always the option to skip the hassle of searching for jobs and have someone else do it for you. I have 3 options below. As you move down the list, more work at home opportunities will be made available.

You aren’t actually paying for a work at home job here. You’re paying someone else to sift through all of the bogus opportunities out there and provide you with nothing but legitimate ways of making money.

1. WorkAtHomeCareers.com
   Cost: FREE!
   The first site is owned and operated by our good friend Eddy Salomon (also of WorkAtHomeNoScams.com fame.) Eddy regularly searches for legitimate opportunities and posts them here. The site is free to use and is therefore sponsored by advertisements. Keep this in mind while you search!

2. 121 Hidden Online Jobs
   Cost: $7!
   This is actually a report that I myself wrote. I researched over 100 different companies and compiled all of the legitimate opportunities into an easy to use guide. It’s only seven dollars and your purchase helps me keep I’ve Tried That running! Highly recommended!

3. HomeJobStop
   Cost: Starts at $18!
   HomeJobStop is best suited for someone who wants to really kick start their telecommuting career. You’ll get access to hundreds of legitimate work at home job ads. It’s updated constantly and you can get a lifetime membership for just eighteen dollars. This is a very powerful tool not to be overlooked.

In all honesty, let someone else do the work for you. Yes, you may have to spend a few dollars but the amount of time you’ll save and the headaches you’ll miss out on will surely be worth it.

Stay safe out there. Please, please, please ask me to look into a job for you if you think it may be a scam. I’ll be more than happy to help.

Back tomorrow with information on building your own online business. Stay tuned.

Some are free. Some cost money. Some are easy. Some take a while to get going. Some earned me a few dollars. Some earned me thousands. One has actually turned into my full-time job. All are legitimate.

Before we get started, I wanted to point out one basic rule that holds true when it comes to making money online. Generally speaking, the easier the work, the less the pay. I made the point repeatedly last week that if someone is offering you a lot of money for little to no work, it’s almost definitely a scam. Keep this general rule of thumb in mind and you’ll be safe.

“Get Paid To…”

Get Paid To (GPT for short) opportunities are all ways of doing simple, easy things online and making some extra money. Remember my basic rule above? These are easy ways of getting paid, so you aren’t going to get paid a whole lot. The good thing about GPT opportunities are they’re almost always 100% free to get started. You’re rewarded for doing simple things online. It’s not brain surgery. You aren’t paid as such. Make sense?

I’ve tried every opportunity on this list and I’ve been paid by every single one. These are all legitimate ways to make some extra money online. I highly recommend creating an account at every site.

Get Paid to Take Surveys

Yes, there are legitimate survey websites out there. Do NOT listen to sites that guarantee you’ll make thousands of dollars doing surveys. At best, you can expect to pick up a few dollars here and there for voicing your opinion. Surveys rarely pay out more than $5 for 15 minutes of your time. Some companies do reward long-term members with higher paying surveys. It’s an easy way to answer a few questions and make a few dollars.

Surveys account for most of the part-time income I pull in. Don’t underestimate the value of online surveys. They do exist and they do pay.

Surveys are given out via invitation. It’s best to sign up for every site below to maximize your chance at getting invited to take a survey. The following sites are all FREE to join. I’ve received checks from all four companies.

Click here and create an account at SurveySavvy!
Click here and create an account at Opinion Outpost!
Click here and create an account at Global Test Market
Click here and create an account at American Consumer Opinion

Get Paid to Participate in Short Online Polls

Instant Cash Sweepstakes is a market research business that will reward you for taking part in short online polls. Every poll consists of three questions and takes only a few seconds to complete. The polls are a mix between member created questionnaires and polls created by businesses interested in seeing answers from a specific demographic. You can take part in up to 5 polls every three hours.

At the end of each poll you are awarded tickets, coins, or cash.

• Tickets – Each day there is a $50 raffle and every ticket you have is an entry into the raffle.
• Coins – Coins can be exchanged for entries into a $2 drawing every few hours. The more coins you enter, the better your chances at winning.
• Cash – Cold, hard, cash. Not every poll you take will land you money, but every now and then you’ll get a few cents deposited into your account.

There are three main ways to make actual money with Instant Cash Sweepstakes. The first way is through the daily $50 drawing. Every poll you take wins you a random handful of tickets (Bonus tip: the more consistent you are with your polls, the more tickets and coins you can earn) and at the end of the day the tickets are pooled together and a winner is selected. I was actually lucky enough to win the $50 drawing a few weeks ago. Here’s a screenshot of the email I received after cashing out my winnings.

The easiest way to make money is to just keep taking the polls. You can randomly be selected to win a handful of change at the end of each poll. (Another bonus tip: consistency in your answers will also allow you to take more polls per 3-hour block, so be honest!) The polls are fun and they’re a great way to kill some time during the day if you get bored. You just need to log in and remember to take them!

Click here and register at Instant Cash Sweepstakes!

Get Paid to View Ads

Here are two programs I’ve been using for a while now, ClixSense and YouData. They pay you to look at ads and websites. All you have to do is click on a link, look at a website, wait a few seconds, and you’ll get money deposited into your account. This is probably the easiest way to make money on this list. As you can expect, it doesn’t pay as well as the others, but it’s still a great way to make some extra money in your spare time. ClixSense alone has paid me over $250. Not bad!

If you join Clixsense, I highly recommend upgrading to the Premium Level. This will allow you to view hundreds more ads and will quickly pay for itself. Remember to refer your friends and family. This one allows for referrals 8 levels deep. Start building that downline!

Click here and sign up at ClixSense!
Click here and sign up at YouData!

Get Paid to Use a Search Engine

This one is a personal favorite of mine. The company is called SwagBucks and they award you simply for using their search engine. Every time you search, there’s a chance you might win SwagBucks and you can redeem SwagBucks in their marketplace for money, gift certificates, or thousands of other items.

Just think how many times per day you use a search engine like Google or Yahoo. Google.com used to be my home page, but I switched it to Swagbucks after I joined. I’m getting the exact same search results, only now I’m slowly making money by doing so.

I’ve actually received over $500 in gift cards from SwagBucks since joining less than a year ago. Definitely join SwagBucks. Here’s an outdated picture of most of my earnings from SwagBucks so far.

SwagBucks is by far my favorite site on this entire list. If you join only one program on this list, make it SwagBucks.

Click here and sign up for SwagBucks now!

Get Paid to Test Websites

UserTesting.com is hiring regular Internet users, just like you, to test specific websites and record their experiences. You’ll be providing feedback to those website owners and showing them how the average person browses his or her website.

You’ll use their software to record a video of what’s happening on your screen and you’ll be able to narrate your experience. The software will track your mouse movements, clicks, and keystrokes and you’ll have to add in spoken comments. It generally takes 15-20 minutes to test a website and you’ll be paid a steady $10 for doing so. This is the best paying opportunity on this list and is definitely the most amount of work. Still, highly recommended.

Click here and sign up at UserTesting now!

Get Paid to Do All of the Above

Finally, we have a program called CashCrate. Really, it’s a giant compilation of this list rolled into one program. You can get paid for answering surveys, participating in polls, viewing sponsor ads, shopping etc. Instead of rambling on about the features of this one, you really just need to click through and check out the website yourself.

Click here and sign up at CashCrate now!

That just about wraps up all of the GPT programs I’ve tried. Please feel free to share some opportunities in the comments below. I’m always open to trying out new programs.

Tomorrow, I’ll cover work at home jobs. Stay tuned.

Can Internet Marketing be very lucrative? Yes, absolutely. Are you instantly going to become a millionaire because you started an Internet Marketing career? No, of course not. Internet Marketing is hard work and you’ll never hear me say otherwise. It takes time to build a business. You can jumpstart it if you have the money (website flipping, PPC ads, etc.) but for the most part, you’re starting a business from scratch. Be prepared to put in some hard work.

Internet Marketing Scams

There are, however, plenty of people who are going to try and tell you differently. They’ll tell you how easy it is to make money online. Starting with…

Push Button Scams

“Push Button” products are all the rage these days. People are running around saying how easy it is to make millions of dollars with absolutely no work other than “Here, use this software, push this button, line your pockets with gold.”

To show you I’m not making this up, here are some ACTUAL screenshots of headlines used by some of these types of products. Yes, these are ACTUAL headlines. These people are really advertising “EASY” ways to make millions of dollars online.

All four headlines have one thing in common (besides being overly obnoxious of course): they’re all advertising “push-button” systems that guarantee instant success.

There’s no real content on any of the pages. There are only made up, elaborate stories referring to proven success that was achieved by the push of a button using some fancy software. The sales pages all refer to hidden, “underground” secrets that were “stolen” from guru millionaires.

The software will usually cost you just a few bucks, no more than a night out at dinner. There’s one teeny-tiny little thing that wasn’t mentioned. The software doesn’t really work as advertised. But hang on! Mr. Secret Giver has another secret to give. It’ll GUARANTEE success for only $197 more. Still not rich yet? How about this fancy new coaching program! Only $2997 and $97 a month for future lessons! It’s a steal and you’ll be rich in no time! PS. Here is a list of 57 other products you need to buy in order to achieve success.

This is more or less the exact path you’ll follow with any of these programs. They lure you in with a cheap ploy, then hit you upside the head with upsell after upsell until they bleed you dry. Even after that, they’ll come back for more with new products, cross promotions and JV deals.

Truth be told, someone will get rich, but it most certainly won’t be you. Building a business online requires W-O-R-K. It takes time, and like anything else in life, it’s not easy. Stay far, far away from any product that labels itself “push-button.”

“Just Pay Shipping!”/Negative Option Scams

Have you seen ads for something along the lines of “Work at home for Google! Make thousands per week with this FREE* training program, just pay $2 in shipping costs!” These types of scams are less prevalent today, but they still very much exist.

Negative option marketing is when you sign up for for a free program, but you just have to pay to cover the shipping costs. However, buried deep in the terms & conditions are two other programs that you automatically get signed into a “free trial” as well. If you don’t cancel after the “free trial period,” your credit/debit card is hit with surprise charges.

The problem is that sometimes you are not told about these free trials, and sometimes you are told but not clearly. It could be months before you realize you’ve been billed. The scammers make it near impossible to cancel and get a refund as well.

A Few Other Things…

Upsells. Well, I’m not entirely opposed to them. They happen. It’s business. I get it. The problems begin when the product that’s being advertised doesn’t work UNLESS you spend money on tons of upsells.

Finally, an easy way to not get scammed is to ask yourself the following question:

“What will I be doing after I sign up for this program?”

You should be able to define the type of work you’ll be doing or the main focus of the program that you’re buying into. If you can’t answer that simple question or you come up with a response along the lines of: “I’ll just be making tons of money! Hooray!” I’d seriously suggest reconsidering your purchase. It may be simple advice, but it’s probably the most effective I have to offer.

Additional Scam Fighting Resources

• The FTC Newsroom – The Newsroom contains all of the latest news from the FTC. It’s perfect for finding out information on the latest scams they’ve uncovered.
• FTCComplaintAssistant – Bookmark this page. If you’ve been scammed online, the FTC wants to hear about it. The more complaints against a scammer the FTC receives, the more evidence they have against them. Do your part and help shut some of these guys down.
• WorkAtHomeNoScams – Eddy has been a friend of I’ve Tried That for years. He’s one of the few people online that I trust implicitly. He always offers great tips on ways to pull in some extra cash. Show him some love and follow a few of his recommendations. You’ll be glad you did.
• WorkAtHomeCareers – Eddy also runs WorkAtHomeCareers.com. He’s constantly updating it with new telecommuting job leads. All for free.
• WorkAtHomeTruth – Another long-time friend of I’ve Tried That is Paul at WorkAtHomeTruth.com. I’ve always admired Paul’s no nonsense approach and excellent video editing skills.

As always, leave a comment and stay tuned. Next week begins my series on how to actually make money online. See you then!

For the first two parts, I’m going to cover the basics scams online. Part 1 will focus on work at home scams. Part 2 will cover Internet Marketing scams. Next week, I’ll have lists on different ways you can actually MAKE money online. More on that next week though, for now, let’s cover…

Work at Home Scams

The absolute EASIEST way to protect yourself online is to ask yourself the following question…

Is this opportunity “too good to be true?”

If you find yourself being promised a lot of money for little to no work, run. Run far away. Trust your gut instincts. They’re almost always right. Making a lot of money online takes a LOT of work, time, and effort. The medium by which you do work is different, but that doesn’t make it any more lucrative.

Check Cashing Scams

Check cashing scams are the most prolific scams to date. They are very elaborate, convincing scams run by networks of criminals. Partaking in one of these scams could cost you thousands of dollars and your identity. Fortunately, these scams are very easy to identify.

With a check cashing scam, you’re asked to receive a check, deposit it into your bank account, and forward most of the amount overseas while keeping a portion of it for yourself as a “payment.” The checks you receive are either fake or stolen and it’s only a matter of time before they bounce. Unfortunately, most banks don’t spot the fake checks and will allow you to deposit them. Federal law requires banks to immediately grant you access to the funds even though they haven’t cleared. This allows you to complete your “job” and send the portion required overseas.

The fake check you deposited WILL eventually bounce. It can take weeks, or even months but that check will bounce. Unfortunately for you, you’ve already wired the money overseas and there is no hope of recovering that money. This leaves YOU responsible for repaying the cost of the check.

Follow this one simple rule: NEVER accept a job that requires you to handle someone else’s money. If an “employer” want you to receive a check and forward the money elsewhere, it is 100% guaranteed to be a scam. Every. Single. Time.

Online Survey Scams

I need to preface this real quick by saying: there ARE real survey companies that DO pay you for taking surveys. The scam here lies with people claiming you can make hundreds of dollars by answering surveys. Most surveys will pay you just a few dollars (I’ve rarely seen a survey company offer more than $5) for 20-30 minutes work. If someone is telling you that you can become rich and make hundreds of dollars per day answering surveys, you’re about to get scammed. There ARE focus groups that do pay well but these are very rare, and you have to meet strict eligibility requirements.

One last thing, NEVER pay to join a survey company. Survey companies pay YOU.

Data Entry/Home Typing Jobs

Like online surveys, there actually are real data entry jobs. However, it’s near impossible to land a real position. Companies outsource data entry work where they can pay workers cents per hour to handle mass amounts of work. It’s very hard to find an actual online data entry position. The scam here are data entry or home typing “jobs” that offer to pay you thousands of dollars for filling in forms.

You’ve probably seen something like this: “How would you like to make $500 per day working 20-30 minutes by filling in forms for companies? All it takes is $50 for training materials to get started!”

This is the data entry and home typing scam you need to avoid. It takes no skill to fill in a form. No company is going to pay you a CEO’s salary just for typing a few lines in a box. Scammers aren’t hiring you for a job. They’re selling you outdated information on pay-per-click (PPC) marketing. Basically, the form you will be filling out is an advertisement order form. The information you’ll be typing is your credit card information. PPC ads can easily cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars per day if you aren’t careful.

It’s best to avoid anyone telling you that you can make a lot of money by filling in simple forms.

Package Reshipping

Package reshipping scams are just a variation of check cashing scams. These are also 100% guaranteed to be a scam every single time.

These scams looks very legitimate. The scammers will often ask you for tons of personal information, copies of your drivers license, and will force you to sign a contract. Some scammers may even interview you over the phone. It’s all for show of course and now some criminal has full access to all of your private information.

You’ll eventually start to receive packages from different companies and you’ll be asked to forward or reship these packages somewhere overseas. There’s one problem here though: the products you receive are purchased with stolen credit card information and identities. You’re receiving stolen property and sending it off to criminals overseas.

Aside from not getting paid for the “work” you do, you’ll also likely get a visit from the police or even an FBI agent depending on who you’re working for. You’re aiding criminals and receiving stolen property. This is HIGHLY illegal. I’ve read stories online where houses are raided by police, computers have been seized and the person jailed until the scam is sorted out. Never agree to receive someone else’s packages. It’s never going to turn out well.

Additional Scam Indicators

Western Union/Money Gram

Any time you see the name Western Union or Money Gram, you can be 100% guaranteed the “job” you are applying to work for is a scam.

I can think of only one exception to this rule and that is that you’re applying to work for a cashier in a Western Union store. Other than that, stay far away from any company that wants you to send or receive money from Western Union. It will seriously be a scam every single time.

Income Calculators

If you ever see something like this…

You can be fairly sure you’re about to waste money. These are designed to deceive you into think you can do a few minutes of easy work and make thousands of dollars. That’s never the case.

Unsolicited Job Offers

I’m generalizing here, but if you receive a job offer from someone who found your resume on Career Builder or Monster, they’re most likely trying to trick you into one of the fake job scams above. This is especially true if the job offer is in an unrelated field of work or if it seems particularly lucrative.

There are enough job seekers out there that employers don’t need to send out unsolicited jobs offers via mass emails. It’s best to just delete it and move on.

Wrapping up Work at Home Scams

Finally, here are just some general keywords you’ll always want to avoid: cash gifting, envelope stuffing, email processing, rebate processing, form processing, grant processing, government grants, payroll manager, payment manager, payment coordinator, or accounts receivable manager.

Keep an eye out for Part 2 on Friday and the “How to Make Money Online” series starting next week. Stay safe out there and please feel free to leave a comment or question below.

I hate winter.

I don’t do winter. The cold. The snow. The constant gray skies. Gah, I want no parts of it. So much so, that I spent an entire day last month planning to move to Australia for the next few months. I looked into plane tickets, dual citizenship and even picked out some nice looking real estate near a beach.

Pipe dreams of course, but man do I hate winter. It doesn’t help that I live in Pittsburgh either. It snows often and the overcast is relentless. I wish I could hibernate to be quite honest.

The mornings are the worst. My bed is fitted with a heated mattress cover and an incredibly heavy down comforter. It’s my own little cocoon that I try to spend as much time in as possible. As you can imagine, getting out of bed each morning is quite the struggle and I wanted a solution.

A few weeks ago I was reading an article on light therapy and how you can use certain lights to simulate sunlight and improve your mood. These lights are widely used to help treat Seasonal Affective Disorder and help regulate sleeping patterns. The article had briefly mentioned “wake up lights” and how they can be effective in helping people wake up in the morning.

Basically, there are alarm clocks which feature bright lights to help ease the wake-up process. The alarm clocks gradually get brighter as they near your set alarm time effectively simulating a sunrise. Your alarm goes off and you wake up to a fully lit bedroom and an energized body.

This piqued my interest since I refuse to do winter and I set out to try one of these wake-up lights. If there’s a light out there that could help me deal with winter mornings, I am going to use it.

Enter the Philips HF3470 Wake-up Light

I started shopping around, comparing different models, and reading customer reviews. The model I ultimately settled on is a Philips HF3470 Wake-up Light.

It is an alarm clock. You set a time for an alarm to go off; however, about 30 minutes before the alarm sounds, the light kicks on and gradually gets brighter. It reaches its full brightness just as your alarm sounds. You have three options to wake up to: music, chirping birds, or a more traditional, albeit less annoying, alarm tone. Your body is subconsciously adjusting to “rising sun” providing you with a much better wake up experience.

I chose this model largely due to the reviews and the price. One feature that really stood out was the user replaceable light bulb. A lot of other models required you to send the alarm clock in to replace the bulb if it ever burnt out. That sounded completely unacceptable. It’s changing a light bulb for crying out loud. I shouldn’t have to send the alarm clock away to change a bulb. The fact that I could service this model myself sealed the deal for me.

I placed my order and said goodbye to my old alarm clock. That night, I went to bed skeptical, but woke up energized. It was quite amazing. I didn’t have to struggle to get out of bed or bargain with the clock for more time. The birds chirped, I woke up to a completely lit room, and I sat up ready to go.

It’s just such a better and more pleasant way to wake up each morning. My typical morning used to consist of a god awful high-pitched beeping to scare the hell out of me in hopes of waking up. This usually followed by at least 45 minutes of pressing the snooze button and hearing the siren go off every five minutes. After I finally convinced myself to get out of bed, I’d plod my way over to the coffee pot and contemplate going back to sleep for a few more hours. It was a struggle each and every morning.

Now my wake up process is awesome. I wake up to a fully light room and birds chirping. My eyes pop right open and I’m able to get out of bed without having to feign sleep for nearly an hour. I still make my way to the coffee pot, but with a spring in my step and a song in my heart.

Okay, that’s a bit much.

But in all honesty, I feel much more awake when I use the wake-up light and have a much more positive mood throughout the day. You know that super heavy eyelid feeling you get each morning? Well, I haven’t felt that at all since using the wake-up light.

Winter mornings have finally become bearable.

The biggest downside is the price. I spent $90 on my Philips Wake up Light. That’s a tad expensive for an alarm clock. However, this is going to be something that I use on a daily basis for years to come. It helps me wake up better each morning, helps me focus on work easier, and has generally improved my mood. For me, it is well worth the price. I would gladly buy it again and am completely satisfied with my purchase.

If you’re like me and struggle with the mornings, I highly recommend trying out the Philips HF3470 Wake-Up Light. You can check it out at Amazon.com by clicking here. It comes with a 45-day money-back guarantee. If you try it and don’t see any results, return it! I started seeing results after my first night with it. This baby isn’t going anywhere. It might not be Australia for the winter, but it sure does help.

A relatively new site (and soon to be a personal favorite of mine if they keep at it) Login Helper has created a simple flow chart to help you determine whether or not the email you’re reading is a phishing attempt.

In another article, Login Helper listed a few good points on how to identify a phishing attack. Here’s an excerpt…

1. Never click on links in emails. Phishing attacks make use of links to lure users to the fake websites. It is usually not a problem to enter the url manually to visit the site.
2. When in doubt do not react or contact support. There are two options when in doubt if an email is legit. Option one is to not react at all and archive the message while option 2 is to visit the website or service manually to contact the support to find out if the email is legit.
3. Do not open attachments. Email attachments are another form of phishing. Many attackers try to sneak malicious software onto the user’s computer system this way. Contact the sender first (not by replying to that email but by other means). Only open the attachment if the authenticity has been verified this way.
4. Do not use information in questionable emails, e.g. phone numbers or other means of contacting the service or organization as those can be fake as well.

All in all, very good advice for an up and coming new site designed to protect users on the Internet. I suggest you browse around the few articles at Login Helper and spread the word to your less savvy friends and relatives.

They tell you Lee is delivering a special webinar–only he does it 15 days after you signed up for the 14 day trial.The phone number in the DVD case does NOT work. When you send questions to the support desk they give lame excuses why they can’t help you and actually ignore your how-to questions.

When I canceled–according to their directions, through a support ticket–2 days before the trial expiration–the next day I got an email saying that wasn’t good enough I had to fill in some form–which I did. With still one day to go, even after I got their confirmation for my, cancellation and still less than 14 days–they billed me! I am reporting then to the Better Business Bureau and sending their cancellation confirmation to my bank. For someone who markets himself as being all about integrity–I See zero integrity for how he runs his business–a real shame as his info has value but no support.

After we posted about Lee’s programs, he responded in our comments section offering to help anyone directly with their cancellations.

To cancel simply visit http://www.getmoremomentum.com/support/ and your request will be processed immediately.

We only want members who want to be in the program and we make canceling as easy as possible!

Alternatively, simply email me direct at lee [at] aimhighermarketing.com with all the details and I’ll take care of it personally.

Many thanks

Lee McIntyre

Lee’s program does have negative option offers (ie. if you don’t cancel your free trial in 14 days you will be charged to join the program) but in his defense, all of this is in plain view in big bolded letters as you signup for his program. However, there doesn’t appear to be any mention of how much this will cost you and the links to the Privacy Policy and Disclaimers are all invalid unfortunately.

Either way, if you’re looking to get in contact with Lee McIntyre personall, you can find him at lee [at] aimhighermarketing.com.

The article does shed some light on work at home jobs, which is why I’ve posted this article. It may be a bit simple, but it is still sound advice to follow. Be sure to read the article in full at the end of this post to learn how to fully protect yourself from a number of Internet scams.

Watch Out for Job Postings That Look Too Good

If you’re out of work or just looking for a way to make some extra cash on the side, you should be very careful about the jobs posted on online sites like Craigslist, because there are scammers lurking there as well. It’s not that Craigslist isn’t a great place to look for jobs, but you have to be careful. Those jobs that say you can “Make $25+ / hour working from home!” or “Mystery Shopper Needed!” and promise tons of money for almost no work—yeah, they are completely fake.

The biggest thing to avoid is anything involving Western Union, Moneygram, wire transfers, money orders, or dealings with any financial transaction. The scammers will ask you to deposit a check or money order and wire transfer the money back to them—and it’s not until later that you find out it was a forgery. I personally know somebody who was scammed out of $12,000 this way.

It is your duty to pass along the information to any of your gullible/non technical savvy friends or family members. A quick read could save them thousands of dollars and could save you from having to hear about their complaints.

The Complete Guide to Avoiding Online Scams (for Your Less Savvy Friends and Relatives) [Lifehacker]

I am; a born skeptic, and a poor one at that.

I was laid off five months ago. One of the happiest days of my life, truth be told. I’d escaped the corporate-America cube farm with my skin! My supervisor, bless her heart, was traumatized by having to let go some of her staff, so I did what I could to comfort her; but, by the time I got back home, I skipped with glee up the walk to the front door.

I was also very fortunate to receive a substantial severance package, so could take my time deciding what to do next.

I started down a dozen blind alleys, struggled back out, and finally found the nexus of my skills, experience, and passion: I can write! That’s great, but it’s notorious for not paying the rent. So, next up was to find market niches and sub-niches that would pay me to do what I love. Check.

Rubber Meets Road.

And that’s where the proverbial rubber met the road. Several months later, I’m still struggling with my web site and with developing a client base. I’m not the only writer who’s learned the hard way how much easier it is to develop business plans and write copy for other people than for yourself. It’s sort of like cleaning the kitchen: darn hard to clean your own but pretty easy to clean somebody else’s (that’s probably the principle behind home-cleaning services).

Are you scratching your head yet, wondering what all this has to do with “I’ve Tried That?”

Well, in desperation, I started looking into all those sites that promise easy money: data entry at home, surveys, product assembly, MLM, follow the marketing guru, buy this book, enter that contest, apply for government grants, find sellers for buyers, warm market, make a killing in real estate. The list is nearly endless, isn’t it?

And that’s where the writer and skeptic converge. I started seeing the same words, the same styles, P.S.es and P.P.S.es, disbelief-suspension strategies, get-it-NOW, and sales tactics used in those too-good-to-pass-up junk-mail offers that constipate our mail boxes in real life.

Running That Offer to Ground

So, I decided to see what I could find out about these offers – I tried to run them to ground. For each and every site I found, I did three things.

First, I read just far enough to figure out the offer and then scrolled to the bottom of the page to skip the rest of the blabber-jabber. I even continued through the multiple pages of the really annoying sites to get to the sign-up part. I clicked either Back or Close when asked for credit-card information, and about half the time a pop-up begged me to stay and offered a lower price or free shipping or some other enticement. Sometimes, I followed the enticement a little further, but was still eventually asked for a credit card, so bagged it. But before giving up, I always looked for phone numbers anywhere on the site or the pop-ups, and wrote them down.

Second, I Googled the name of the offer and appended words like ‘review,’ ‘scam,’ ‘report,’ ‘secretary of state,’ ‘FTC,’ ‘ripoff,’ or ‘opinion.’ Without fail, every single offer turned up in scam-report files, disgruntled discussion threads, complaints, or other forms of warning. To be fair, some also showed up in glowing reviews. But who ya gonna believe – the couple mentions of high praise or a couple hundred people complaining they’d been ripped off?

Third, if I’d found any phone numbers, I Googled them directly. (Enter any land-line phone in the search field in 999-999-9999 format, and Google will try to find it. (Do your own home phone and see what happens.) Guess what turned up? Usually, the number appeared on a call-complaint site. It might be reported to send you to voice-mail purgatory, or manned by rude or non-English-speaking salespeople, or even to be disconnected. In a few cases, Google couldn’t find the number at all.

I’m still a poor struggling writer and born skeptic, but I’m less poor than I might be if I hadn’t run those offers to ground before “investing” in them.

This article was written by Christine Rauckis who also owns and operates Clarity Communications. Be sure to give her website a visit. This is also our very first post in our series of guest postings. Get your articles featured here at I’ve Tried That. Click here for more information.