Are Home Typing Jobs a Scam?

We just couldn’t do it, y’all. Even though we promised here to review home typing jobs, the top search results are so blatantly misleading that we couldn’t bring ourselves to sign up. Not only are we certain that home typing jobs sites are are lying, but we also don’t want to give personal information and credit card numbers to dishonest people.

So we can’t claim to have tried what we’re about to trash. It’s just our collective opinion. Take that for what it’s worth. However, we are writing from lots of experience with sites that are long on hype and short on delivery.

Typistjobs.net is like all the others we’ve seen before. This post is an analysis of the red flags that are all over the site, not an insider’s review of the program.

Can You Make Money with Typistjobs.net?
No. Well, a very few will. In fact, if you choose to pursue the program that you bought, you’ll end up spending money, not earning it. That’s because you won’t be doing “typing jobs” at all. You’ll be doing affiliate marketing.

Why Typistjobs.net?
There are tons of sites offering to sell you the secrets of getting rich by typing at home. The link above includes a list of the top search results for “home typiing jobs,” each of them pretty much the same. Why settle on Typistjobs.net? It’s very simple: because of the gorgeous babe at the top of the page. Oh, be still, my heart! If I’m going to spend a lot of time looking at a site to dissect it, I might as well look at her instead of the cheesy stock photos and ugly snapshots at typingwealth.com.

What You Mean by “Typist Jobs”
When you go to Google looking for “home typing jobs,” here’s what you imagine: You think you’ll get hooked up with some company that needs you to type up paper documents to digitize them. Or maybe a law firm that needs you to transcribe audio files. You think you’ll do, you know, typing. You also believe that, in return for your work, you’ll get a paycheck. That’s what “job” means, after all.

Sites like typistjobs.net know this is what you’re looking for, and they use that knowledge to take your money. They know you’ll ask yourself, “Is this legitimate? Is it really possible?” They also know most people won’t think to ask, “Will I really be doing typing work? Will I get paid by the hour or based on my volume?”

What They Mean by “Typist Jobs”
You see, they let you think that their definition of “typist jobs” is the same as yours. That assumption is what gets people to take out their credit cards. But when you complain that they lied to you, they’ll say you misunderstood. To them, “typist jobs” means: “Creating affiliate ads and then sending them all over the Net.” To them, “getting paid” means: “Commissions you get if someone clicks on your ad and then buys what it offers.”

If that’s what you want to do, go for it. Lots of people make money online with affiliate ads, and if you’re going to get into it, you might as well start by buying from the page with the beautiful woman.

But if that’s not what you had in mind when you searched for typing jobs, run fast, run far. Typistjobs.net is chock full of red flags that shout, YOU ARE BEING MISLED. Here are some of them:

  • It claims you can make “$200, $500,or even $1,000 – EVERY single day, working
    just 15-30 minutes a day!

    It should go without saying, but it doesn’t: life doesn’t work that way, folks. You’re not going to get rich with no effort. Unless you’re Paris Hilton or a smoking-hot 22-year-old female friend of Eliot Spitzer, that’s true all the time.
  • The words, “…doing data entry.”
    In our experience, this phrase is a dead giveaway. It’s a virtual guarantee that you won’t be doing “data entry” in the way you think of it. I once worked at the IRS. Now THAT’s data entry. Those people type so fast it makes you dizzy. And they made about $9 an hour. (See list of approved data entry jobs here.)
  • The words, “…99% of them are total scams!.”
    But this one isn’t. Really! We promise! They pretend to be your friend by acknowledging what you already suspect: that you’re being scammed. This is a “good-cop” strategy meant to tear down your defenses.
  • The “proof” of earnings.
    Every site that tries to sell you a money-making program includes a picture like the one on the page as if that proves anything. But typistjobs.net was less careful than most sites. They left the word “Clickbank” on the graph, which shows that we are in fact dealing with affiliate marketing, not typing. Those may very well be real earnings, but they’re not from filling out forms. They probably come from selling the “home typing” program to desperate people.
  • Real typing jobs have speed requirements.
    If you’ve ever applied for a real typing or data entry job, you know that the employer wants to see proof of how fast you can type. If you’re slower than 70 words a minute, you won’t even get a second look from a potential employer. That’s the nature of real typing jobs. Sites like this one and many others insist that you don’t need any special skills. That’s like a company setting out to hire a computer programmer and saying, “No programming skills necessary.”

Further Proof of Affiliate Marketing
We sometimes take a lot of heat for reviewing a program that we haven’t actually tried. However, when it comes to websites like these, we know what we’re dealing with because we’ve already seen it all. To emphasize my point, take for example a screen shot of a “sample” entry form for your “home typing” job. (It’s found at the bottom of the FAQ page) The site leads you to believe that all you have to do is fill in this form and get paid. What they fail to tell you is that after you fill in the form, you’ll have to spend quite a few dollars in order to get an advertisement up and running through Google Adwords.

TypistJobs.net Ad Group

Google Adwords

Notice the similarities? The screen shots aren’t matching exactly because the sample form used by TypistJobs.net is a few years old. You could say that it’s pretty convenient that they “forgot” to add in the Google Adwords logo, but I say it’s a deceptive ploy to scam you out of money.

The Bottom Line
You likely won’t make any money as a home typist or a home data entry clerk. It’s not you. You’re more than qualified. It’s that the work is often outsourced or you have tens of thousands of qualified people fighting over 1 spot that likely doesn’t pay over minimum wage.

Free Directory of Ways to Make Money from Home

At least two or three times a day, I receive requests for more information on ways you can make money online. True information of this sort is hard to come by as this niche is riddled with scams. I’ve compiled a few lists of ways to make money online, but this is going to be the biggest, most comprehensive list I’ve created yet. I’ll continually update and add to this directory as I come across more legitimate opportunities of making money online.

If you have any opportunities you think I should add to the list, please send me an email!

Now tracking 115 legitimate positions.

SwagBucks
Stop what you’re doing and create your free SwagBucks account right now. It’s 100% free to join and will help you make some extra money doing things you already do online. Seriously. I’ve made over $890 since joining!
Click here and create your account now!

Blogging Positions
Blogging is by far the best and easiest way to make money online. If you’re looking to make extra money using the internet, blogging is the answer. Look here first.
View 9 available blogging positions.

Customer Service Jobs
As a customer service representative from home, you may find yourself answering support calls, doing market research, or even some (gasp) telemarketing. You should expect to find yourself on the phone nearly the entire time while you are working. Great communication skills are a must.
View 17 available customer service positions.

Data Entry/Transcription Work
Data entry positions are incredibly rare. Even if you do happen to land a data entry job, the pay will be so little it will be worthless. Combine that with the incalculable number of data entry scams out there, and you have quite possibly the worst thing to ever happen to working at home. Still interested? You can’t say I didn’t warn you.
View 14 available data entry and transcription positions.

Freelance Writing
Freelance writing allows you to write articles or reviews on pretty much anything and get paid for it. You may not think of yourself as much of a writer, but like everything in life, practice makes perfect. Try freelance writing and you’ll be surprised with the results.
View 20 available freelance writing positions.

“Get Paid To…” Opportunities
This category is for all those “Get Paid To…” ways of making money. Use one or use them all. Either way, I’ve tested them, I’ve tried them, and I’m currently using them to supplement my income.
View 8 “Get Paid To…” ways to make money.

Miscellaneous Opportunities
These job sites didn’t really fit into any other category and there weren’t enough of them to be categorized into their own posts. So, sift through them and see if there’s anything that might interest you.
View 8 miscellaneous ways to make money online.

Paid Surveys
Paid surveys are a great way of giving your opinion and getting paid. A lot of survey companies have taken to the Internet in the past few years and are now willing to pay you to complete surveys online.
View 15 available paid survey positions.

Sell Stock Photography
Get paid to take pictures. Is it really that easy? Of course not, but the following list of sites will help you get started with selling your photography and turn your hobby into an extra bit of side cash.
View 8 available ways to sell stock photography online.

Start a Website
One of the best ways to make money online is through running your own website. Overhead costs are low, profits can quickly start to roll in, and the entire process is a lot of fun. Interested? Well, you should be.
Click here for more information.

Can You Get Paid to Drive? Review of paidride.com

Will Companies Really Pay Me to Drive My Car??

You’ve seen the ads online or maybe in your email inbox: Earn hundreds of dollars per month by driving your car! Or get a free car to drive! Companies pay good money to have you drive a car wrapped in their advertisements!

Just like you, we thought it sounded good. With the price of gas what it is, getting paid to drive would be sweet! I might even drive the weinermobile if it meant more money coming in to my pocket than going out.

If you search online for get paid to drive, you find lots of companies willing to sell you a list, or access to an exclusive member’s area, where you can learn all about the advertisers who will pay you to stick their ads on your car and do your normal driving. It’s simple, you learn. A no-brainer money making activity.

We Tried Paidride.com

So we forked over the $15 to paidride.com. Our $15 bought us a “membership,” which was actually access to the site’s directory of companies that are hungry for drivers. I was imagining what kind of awesome ads companies would rush to stick on my minivan. (Car seat ads? Children’s Book Club? Trojan condoms?)

What’s Inside Paidride.com?

The membership area is a clean list of 14 US companies, three Canadian companies, and five UK companies that allegedly either give free ad cars to drive or pay you to drive an ad around on your car. The list looks good, but it isn’t what I would call high quality. The first link to the very first company is bad. The second link, to the same company’s sign up form, takes me to freecarmedia.com where I read this:

What if I PAID to find out about your company?
If you paid ANY fees to get information about FreeCar Media and our programs than you need to immediately ask for your money back. Registering with FreeCar Media is 100% FREE and always has been. There are many scams being run to capitalize on our name, so please do not be fooled.

The second company listed manufactures the vinyl wrap that goes on ad cars…it doesn’t actually hire drivers, as it states right on its website: “We do NOT offer compensation for driving ads.” Hmm…two pitches, two strikes.

And so on, and so on. I could give you a run down of each company in the directory (for one of which I need to own a semi), but it’s not necessary. I can already see the writing on the wall.

Can You Get Paid to Drive Ads on Cars?

In a word, No. Here’s why:

  • Simple numbers. How many people do you think have signed up for these get-paid-to-drive programs? Thousands, no doubt. Tens of thousands, maybe. Have you seen tens of thousands of ad cars on the road? That means the odds are not in your favor.
  • Demise of the medium. Ads on cars peaked in popularity in the 90s. They are now the domain of very specialized niche advertising campaigns, so fewer drivers are needed.
  • Demographics. Imagine yourself as an advertiser. Say you’re the ad executive for I’ve Tried That and you have a fixed budget to spend on advertising each quarter. You decide you’re going to wrap someone’s car in I’ve Tried That ads and pay the owner to drive it around. To get the most bang for your buck, you want to reach the largest possible number of people in the target demographic. That means you’re looking for a car and driver only in densely populated urban areas with lots of stay-at-home moms and others looking to supplement their income by working from home. With that in mind, are you interested in a driver living in Casper, Wyoming? Of course not. How about a driver who owns a 2000 Ford Taurus? No way. (Because Steve and Joe only want their ads on really sexy cars.)

If you don’t:

  1. live in a large city
  2. drive a cool car
  3. AND drive lots of miles every month

forget about it. Your lottery-like chances have just been reduced to zip.

Don’t Pay for Get-Paid-to-Drive Information!

Also, the common denominator I found in all the companies I looked at that actually do hire drivers was this: it is free to sign up for them, and you can find them on your own. There’s no need to pay for “an exclusive list.” There are no exclusive lists because the information is available everywhere. That’s like paying for “an exclusive list of McDonald’s restaurants in your area!” Why buy that list when the phone book is free?

One of those loooooong-shot applications could take you up to 10 minutes to fill out. In the same 10 mintues, you could respond to legitimate job ads that our ebook teaches you how to find. And your chances of being hired for those jobs are much MUCH better than the chances that Fox TV will pay you to drive an American Idol-wrapped PT Cruzer around Podunk, Iowa.

How Does PaidRide Compare?

I’ve Tried That has been reviewing products since 2007. In that time, there’s one program that stands above the rest. It’s free to get started, has no ridiculous hidden charges, and will help you build a sustainable income from home.

Click here to see our top recommendation.

Make Money Blogging Directory

Now tracking 9 ways to make money blogging.

Blogging Background Information

If you’re serious about making money online, blogging is your answer. Blogging is incredibly easy to do, anyone can become a blogger, and making money with a blog is relatively simple. Will you become rich just by owning a blog? Probably not. But realistically, you could make over four-figures a month with enough dedication and hard-work.

But what exactly is a blog?

Blogs are online software programs, formally known as content management systems, where people can post diary entries about their personal experiences, hobbies, jobs, interests, whatever. Fortunately for you, in order to operate a blog, you need absolutely no prior technical knowledge. As long as you know how to navigate around a web page and you can type into a box, you can easily manage your own blog.

Is running a blog for you? Absolutely it is. I need to reiterate that you need no prior technical knowledge to run a blog. Forget any notions you have linking blogs to coding and advanced degrees of technical comprehension. Those are the days of the past.

How exactly do I make money with a blog?

You can use your blog to make money through showing advertisements, promoting affiliate programs, and creating posts. That’s right. Depending on your popularity, companies will pay you for showing links on your blog or creating sponsored review posts.

I need help setting up a blog.

Well you’re in luck! If you want your own domain name and blog, but don’t want to deal with any of the technical aspects of setting one up, let me do it for you free of charge. All you need to do is follow an instruction set. I’ve laid out a detailed 10-step process (with pictures!) that will show you how to order a domain name and hosting. Once you do that, I’ll handle all of the scary technical stuff and you’ll be left with a fully functional blog. All you have to do is provide content.

Click here to get started now!

Recommended Blogging Programs

Once you get a blog setup, you can use these sites to get paid to write articles on your new blog. Be sure to check them all out!

Rebate Processor Jobs Are Scams!

[See our analysis of Angela Penbrook’s rebate processing offer here.]

Steve is in the shower washing the scam off, so I get to write the full review of rebateprocessorjobs.com. Like absolute suckers, we had to spend $39 of our hard-earned dollars, signed up and prepared to make tons of money. However—surprise, surprise—it’s not what the sales page led us to believe. Here’s the short review: to say that these are “jobs” is a bald-faced lie. It’s affiliate marketing. The sales page says you’ll make $15 per rebate processed. What it doesn’t tell you is that the $15 is what’s left of your sales commission after you send a rebate—from your own money—to your buyer.

Here’s the long review:
Why you’re here
What the site leads you to believe
The truth
Inside Rebateprocessorjobs.com
Other rebate processor “jobs” sites
But Joe, don’t some people make money with affiliate marketing?
Together we can put misleading Web sites out of business

Why you’re here
You’re probably here because you’ve searched for ways to earn money online. The Google gods sent you to sites saying they would help you get a job processing rebates at home. You thought, “Hmmm…that sounds pretty good. I can do that.” But you decided to look around a little to see if the site is legit. You searched some more and that brought you to us.

You came to the right place. Unlike other sites that say “we’ve tried them all and THESE are the legitimate ones,” we are not an affiliate of rebateprocessorjobs.com. We try stuff out and give you the straight truth.

What the site leads you to believe
Rebateprocessorjobs.com targets people who are searching for online jobs or other ways to earn money from the Internet. It counts on you being a little bit desperate and it appeals to your emotions by telling you that your money problems can be over and you can have the lifestyle you’ve always wanted.

It claims that you can make a lot of money by processing rebates at home, and it leads you to believe that this processing is “a job.” Well, it kind of depends on the meaning of the word “job.” If it means “work in which you throw up advertisements all over the Web in hopes that someone will buy from your ad,” then yeah, I guess it’s a job. But Rebateprocessorjobs.com knows that you don’t think of a job that way, so it’s lying by intent. Note to Rebateprocessorjobs.com: Hey! Yeah, you, “Cindy Dalton!” Here’s what “job” means: An agreement with an employer in which you exchange your time and skill for an agreed-upon amount of money. Of course, they already know that. They’re counting on you thinking that. The sales page is expressly written to lead you to believe this.

The site leads you to believe that you’ll get a job processing rebates. You think, like I did, that such a job would involve companies telling you which customer have made a qualifying purchase, and then paying you to do the necessary typing and stuff. This is not the case. The “company” making the sale is you through your Clickbank ads. The “forms” you’ll fill out to “process” the rebates are the fields necessary to send your money to the buyer from your PayPal account.

Rebateprocessorjobs.com also claims:

  • “Make money simply by filling out online forms”
  • Enter the data into the forms that we provide you, click submit, sit back and collect the money
  • You’ll earn $15 per rebate processed
  • You can make this much money:
    2 a day @ $15 each=$210 per week or $840 month or $10,080 a year.
    6 a day @ $15 each=$630 per week or $2520 month or $30,240 a year.
    15 a day @ $15 each=$1575 per week or $6300 month or $75,600 a year.
  • Opportunities like this do not come by every day.

The truth
All of these claims have kernels of truth to them, but they are intentionally misleading.

  • “Make money simply by filling out online forms.” This is a lie. You won’t make money by filling out the forms like you would if it were a real job. You make money IF someone clicks on the ad you created by filling out the form AND THEN buys the product!
  • Enter the data into the forms that we provide you, click submit, sit back and collect the money. Again, it’s far from that simple. The forms are not “provided” for you by this site. They are part of the process of creating a Clickbank ad. And you can’t just create the ad (i.e., “click submit”) and expect to make money. You have to somehow get that ad in front of LOTS of people so that someone will click and buy. There’s no “sitting back” involved.
  • You’ll earn $15 per rebate processed. Yeah, and my grandma’s a super model. Here’s how they came up with that number. IF you sell a $37 product from Clickbank and IF the commission is $23.50, and IF you offered a rebate in your ad for $8.50, the difference of $15 is yours to keep! Woo-hoo! What about the bajillion products in Clickbank that are not $37, and for which the commission is not $23.50? Rebateprocessorjobs.com doesn’t say.
  • You can make this much money:
    2 a day @ $15 each=$210 per week or $840 month or $10,080 a year.
    6 a day @ $15 each=$630 per week or $2520 month or $30,240 a year.
    15 a day @ $15 each=$1575 per week or $6300 month or $75,600 a year.
    This is utter nonsense. As you know by now, you won’t make $15 for each form you fill out, so all of these numbers are purely theoretical. They are only possible IF you put your ads in front of enough people AND enough people click on your ads AND enough of those who click make a purchase AND you’ve chosen Clickbank products with a commission of $15 or more.
  • Opportunities like this do not come by every day. Yes they do. Hundreds of them, day after day after day.

Once you’ve paid your money (which is nonrefundable), you learn the full story. Here’s how it all goes down:

  1. You sign up at Clickbank, an online clearing house of thousands of products
  2. You choose products you want to sell
  3. You create ads for those products
  4. You plaster those ads all over the ‘Net (this step could cost you money)
  5. You somehow get people to see your ads. (the site doesn’t tell you this, nor how to do it)
  6. You somehow get them to click on your ads, not the dozens hundreds thousands of other ads from your competitors (the site doesn’t tell you how to do this)
  7. You only earn a commission IF someone buys the product you’re selling after clicking on the ad you created. Read that again!
  8. You send part of your commission back to the buyer

Wait…where’s the rebate? Where’s the processing? You see the last step? That’s the rebate. The “processing” is when you look at the email addresses of your buyers and manually send them money through PayPal. Not quite the “job” you were expecting, is it?

Inside Rebateprocessorjobs.com
When you pay your $37, you get instant access to the member’s area of Virtual Training Solutions. The first page you’ll see in the “members area” is a list of other money making scamsopportunities. The generous folks at Virtual Training Solutions (which is the “members area” of rebateprocessorjobs.com) give you access to all of these for no additional charge! The links below are to I’ve Tried That reviews on each topic:

If you click on the links in the members area, you’ll be taken down an endless road of the site’s affiliate links: things they are trying to sell you so they can earn the commission.

Continue to the Rebate Processing section and you’ll get full instructions on the steps I numbered for you above. The steps they outline are true, and the instructions are reasonable, but by now, a buyer will have realized that this is not a job like they were promised. There’s no way in hell you’re going to sign up for this bullshit “opportunity” and start pulling in money right away.

Other rebate processor “jobs” sites
Seen one, seen ’em all. Folks, they’re all the same. I don’t care what the url is or what the sales page says. If they promise you big money processing rebates, they’re selling you the same stinky cheese. EZrebateprocessing uses identical images to show you how the program works, so I know the program is the sam. But it charges $197!! If you must throw your money away, I suggest flushing $37 rather than $197. Or better yet, send it to me via PayPal at joe[at]ivetriedthat[dot]com. I’ll at least say, “Thank you” and will still be here in the morning!

Be wary of the following individuals and sites:
Angela Pembrook (or Penbrook) at myrebateprocessor.com (BBB Report: F) (Also see our write-up of Penbrook here.)
Cindy Dalton and Rebate Processor Jobs at rebateprocessorjobs.com/ (BBB Report: F.)
Virtual Training Solutions at virtual-training-solutions.com/ (BBB Report: None.)
Angel Stevens and Process At Home at processathome.com/ (BBB Report: F.)
EZ Rebate Processing at internetprofithouse.com/

But Joe, don’t people make money with affiliate marketing?
Of course they do. A lot of people make some money. Some people make a lot and you can too. If you’re interested in learning how to make money through affiliate marketing, you need the proper guidance. That’s why we highly recommend the Wealthy Affiliate to every beginner who is looking to learn how to make money from home. Read our review on the Wealthy Affiliate by clicking here.

Together we can put misleading Web sites out of business
Scams like this one thrive on ignorance and emotional appeal. You can help put these guys out of business by spreading the word about this post and the dirty tricks of scammers that want to kick you when you’re down.

An Inside Look at Nigerian Scams, Part 3

[This is the last post in our series about Nigerian scams written by Mr. Chekwube Okeke.
Read Part 1 here.
Read Part 2 here.
]

Who Wants to Make a High School Boy a Millionaire?

The Nigerian scam affects not only the westerner who gets scammed, but also honest Nigerians who are in search of legitimate work. I have come across work at home jobs that exclude Nigeria from taking part. Clickbank does not accept Nigeria into their programs. PayPal does not allow people to open accounts from Nigeria). When I make inquiries, telling these online programs who I am and where I live, I don’t get any response from them.

What Kinds of Scams Do They Pull?

Here are some products from the Nigerian scam industry:

The Fake Money Order Scam
Back in 2004 in my university days, this scam was the most popular among scammers on campus. The scammer surfs the Internet looking for a date. Depending on the gender of the person he comes across, he poses either as a male or female. For example, if he meets a white or black female, then he’s a white or black male as the case may be, or if meets a white or black male, then the scammer is a white or black female, and the dating begins. The scammer could be chatting with more than one person at the same time to speed up his chances of getting at least one of them to fall for his scam. In one chat box, he might be a white girl, in another chat box, he’s a white male, and still in another, he’s an African American lady.

The stories the scammer tells his dates are the same especially if they happen to be chatting with a white male. He tells his dates that he’s a white lady visiting Africa for the first time on some archaeological expedition, to visit the ruins of ancient Africa and that ‘she’ is a student of UCLA for example, or any other story the scammer can come up with. The dating may last for days, weeks or even months but the main idea is to get the white guy to fall in love with ‘her’. That’s when the real scam kicks in.

The scammer, when he is sure the white guy has fallen in love with him, comes up with a sad story, telling the guy of something bad that happened to ‘her’ while ‘she’ was on the expedition. Now ‘she’ cant return to the U.S., but ‘she’ came to Africa with some money orders and would like the guy to help ‘her’ cash them and send the money back to ‘her’ so ‘she’ can be able to return home.

An ex-course mate of mine after getting this white guy to say “I love u”, told this guy living in the U.S. that ‘she’ was robbed in her hotel room in Africa and was left with nothing. But wait, the robbers didn’t take her money orders. Could he please cash the money orders for ‘her’ and send the cash back to ‘her’ so ‘she’ can return to the U.S.?

“Why, sure thing!” The white date replied. Why would he allow his ‘beloved’ whom he’s just dying to meet to be stranded in Africa? And so the scammer sent the money orders to him. Another former course mate of mine told me that for this scam to work, the guy would have to take the money orders to the bank and not to the post office. If they are cashed at the bank, the bank in turn will take the money orders to the post office to be cashed. There, they would be detected as fakes and the person who cashed them at the bank arrested. I heard the guy was arrested. He tried to make contact with his ‘beloved’ but it was too late. The scammer scrapped his e-mail address, bought a benze and took friends out for drink to celebrate his success.

The deftness with which these people use information on the net to fool people is impressive. Another ex-course mate of mine pretended to be a girl living in Cuba. After growing irritated and tired of his date asking about the area in Cuba ‘she’ comes from, he simply Googled cities in Cuba and told his date ‘she’ was from Santa Clara!

The Credit Card Scam
Only recently, I saw a credit card for the first time in my life. They are not common the way they are in your country. Before then, though I had never seen them, except in movies, I came to be more knowledgeable about them through this same ex-course mate of mine who received hundreds of them from a hacker friend of his. So many were these credit cards that my friend never had enough time to sift through all of them and check their validity.

He copied the details of each credit card one by one, pasted it on a certain site and tried to make a purchase. If the purchase went through, he would then know the credit card was valid and separated them from the rest. If it didn’t go through he simply deleted the expired or invalid credit card.

Night after night, after I was through studying, we would go the café for some ‘Internet shopping’ and to chat with his ‘dates’ before finally retiring to the hostel.

Back then, I also learnt that most companies do not send items paid for with a credit card to a Nigerian address for obvious reasons. So what my friend did was to give these sites a western address. He has a partner over there who would then send the items to Nigeria. He told me that if he were to sell all he had been ordering at a give away price he would make no less than $25,000.

The Nonexistent Product Scam
“….we are a company looking for distributors and sales agents for our polymeric polyol product. Interested persons should please reply via this mail…..” What you have just read are the lines to a scam invented by this same ex course mate of mine. I call this the non existent product scam. He simply looks for distributors and sales agent telling them his company has a product to sell. He gives them a very large figure of the commission they will make as a way of motivating these distributors and sales agents to get buyers, If these distributors and agents find buyers, they are to pay half the price of the product before receiving the product, and the other half after they receive the product. The buyers pay this advance and ZILCH! ZERO! No product is forthcoming because there was none to begin with!

“What the hell is a polymeric polyol? It won’t work,” I told him. He would only receive replies asking what a polymeric polyol was. He told me I was only being cynical. He was right. He got a sales agent and almost made money from this scam.

The Dating or e-Begging Scam
Are you a westerner searching for love across the Atlantic? You happen to succeed in finding one, and you think you are chatting with an African chick? Think again! You might just be dating a Nigerian hustler who is just waiting for you to say “I love you” so ‘she’ can start making financial demands on you.

Like the fake money order scam, this involves posing as a female. Only here, ‘she’ is not a westerner, but a Nigerian girl. Sometimes, the scammer might send the westerner a picture of the girl he is pretending to be, (even when the westerner didn’t ask for one) just to make it all look real. When the scammer is sure you have really gotten to like ‘her’, it is now time to start asking for money. And would he refuse to send a couple of thousand bucks to the ‘girl’ he loves, who is struggling to make ends meet in a harsh economic environment?

Some westerners might be eager to see their dates through a webcam. “Now the scammer is in for it” you might say. Unfortunately, this is not a problem for the scammer as they are equally prepared for this and can go as far as recruiting their own girlfriends into the scam. “At last” the westerner thinks. He can see his African date through the webcam. What he will not see is the real mastermind behind the scam, sitting right next to the girl, but just out of sight of the webcam, telling the girl what to type on the computer. Finally the chatting ends on a happy note and the westerner goes to bed, satisfied to have seen his Nigerian girlfriend. Poor westerner doesn’t know he is dating a man like himself.

The other side to this kind of scam is much easier: I am a Nigerian man. I browse online dating sites and find myself a female date. I don’t need to lie about my gender or my nationality or where I live. I am doing the normal and regular dating everybody else is doing. Only thing is, I am only dating this white girl because I intend to ask her for some cash later on. This may not look like a scam but it is, when you consider that I am in the relationship just for the money. That’s why we call it the e-begging or electronic begging scam.

The Box of Money Scam
This is my favorite scam. I managed to get the picture you see here from a friend who makes up to 500 dollars almost monthly from this scam. Similar to the lottery scam, you receive a message with the picture of a box of money, telling you that you’ve won it, and an ambassador is getting ready to visit your country and hand you your box of money, but that you have to pay a certain amount to redeem your winnings.

This friend also told me that WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER, (the payment channel through which he receives the cash they send) has warned westerners times without number, not to send cash to people they don’t know in Nigeria. But “a fool and his money are soon parted”. So now we have greedy westerners who keep sending money to strangers in Nigeria, knowing very well at the back of their minds that what they are paying for is a scam.

It’s All About Greed

One reason these scammers are so successful is that the people who fall for these scams are themselves greedy. Like I said, they may have it at the back of their minds that the mails they get are scam mails, yet blinded by greed, they lose money to these scammers. Another reason is that they exploit the trust, honesty and forthrightness that is hallmark of most western societies to their advantage.

How to Detect Scams

There are a few ways to detect if a mail is a scam. It’s most likely, a scam mail if

  • It appeals to the emotions
    If the sender is telling you a tragic or pathetic story about something that happened to him and/or his family, then it is most likely a scam. This is meant for you to have compassion for him and let your guard down’ and be moved to help him do whatever it is he is asking you to do in the mail.
  • It has too many grammatical mistakes or is hardly fluent
    The scammers are Nigerians. They may speak English but “English ain’t our mother tongue”. Some of these scammers do not write good English. Why would a senate president, or a bank CEO, or a finance minister, make such grammatical blunders in his mail? Doesn’t he at least have a secretary whose job it is to proof-read what he writes, including his mails before he sends them out?
  • What they are asking you to do is illegal
    Most westerners may not know this, but some of the help these scammers are asking for is illegal. For instance, they might tell you their father who was a secretary to the federal government of Nigeria was murdered by a dictator and left some few millions in a bank somewhere in Nigeria, and he needs your help in getting it out of the country. Question is, how did his dad (a secretary to the government) come about such money? And why is he desperate to get it out of the country?

Really, there is no one way of spotting scams from Nigeria. Some of these scammers have no other job they do except go to café and send scam mails. For some of them, this is the only thing they do to put food on the table and feed their families. So they will keep coming at you with everything they’ve got until they succeed. You westerners just have to be on guard at all times. Some of my fellow Nigerians that may come across this writeup may hate me for spilling my guts here but I can’t help it.

Nigerians are one of the most gifted and innovative people on earth. Sadly, their ingenuity is mostly used to do bad rather than to do good. A certain talk show host in the U.S. said all Nigerians are fraudulent. In a way, that might be true. We have come to accept corruption, fraud and deceit as part and parcel of our daily lives as you might hear some Nigerians say trash like “I like that so and so governor. Even though he stole money, at least he did one or two few things for my state…” Or “…nobody says they (the government) shouldn’t steal money, but while they steal they should try to do something for the citizens….”

Come October 1 2009, Nigeria will be 49. (A fool at almost )50, we are a people who are docile, cowardly, and thoroughly laid back. Not wanting to struggle to do away with the ultra corrupt government that has long been in place, we are smiling and suffering in silence, preferring only to talk about how corrupt politicians are and how bad the economy is, in street corners, in churches, at news stands, in bars, in beer parlors, and in goat stew joints.

An Inside Look at Nigerian Scams, Part 2

Joe: This is part 2 in our series, “An Inside Look at Nigerian Scams,” written by Nigerian guest poster, Chekwube Okeke. Read Part 1 of this series here.

Who Wants to Make a High School Boy a Millionaire?

I once worked for a man who owned a dry-cleaning outfit. He was a car freak and owned a good number of flashy ones. “He can’t be making that much money from his dry-cleaning business to buy such a large number of cars,” I told myself. A colleague was later to tell me the man had one other business he was into. “The laptop our boss brings with him to work is used to correspond with the westerners he intends to scam,” he told me.

And trying to convince friends to leave such things is out of the question. Especially when you consider the fact that some of them grew up in poverty (the economic hardship having taken its toll on them). Since they have no other legitimate means of feeding themselves and their families, you don’t know how or where to begin to make them see reason.

Some of the reasons these Nigerians give for indulging in scams range from the palatable to the outright absurd. They may tell you that “the white man came to Africa, enslaved us and stole our resources to develop their own place, so we are only taking back what the white man took from us.” Or “Hey, we just want a few thousand bucks from these westerners. After all, their economy is better than ours so it won’t hurt them.”

What Is It Like to Scam in Nigeria?

For me, the sooner I get a PC with an Internet connection, the better. Surfing from a café is a risk in itself. It makes me a sitting duck for the cops who, once in a while, raid cafés and arrest scammers, including, if you are unlucky, people who came to do honest work.

I was once nearly a victim of one such raid. They raided one café after another. They stormed into the café where I was. They bent close to your monitor and if what they saw on the screen didn’t seem right to them, they moved you out into a police van waiting just outside the café to join other scam suspects who were rounded up from other cafés. They ordered me to get up and I was frisked (didn’t know what the hell they were looking for). Luckily for me I was not yet sitting behind a monitor as I was waiting for a free space, because who knows? The Nigerian police are an unpredictable lot and had I been sitting behind a monitor I might have been taken away with the others.

One customer quickly hid the flash drive he had with him (must have contained some scam material). Unfortunately for him, one cop thought he saw him hide the flash drive, but didn’t know exactly where and immediately a hunt for the flash drive started. The cops looked behind monitors, under the café tables, behind CPUs, under the chairs. All the while, the cop was angry at his junior partner (who was closer to the customer when he hid the flash drive) for not being fast enough to “catch these boys,” and at the same time exchanging words with the customer himself, who kept insisting he wasn’t even holding a flash drive to begin with. He kept saying he was in the youth corps and only came to check his mails.

Alas! After some minutes the cop found the flash drive. He was right after all! He did see the scammer hide a flash drive! And in the joy of triumph the cop lands the scammer a very hard slap on the cheek, telling him: “Youth corps, huh? I’ll show you I’ve dealt with your likes before!” The scammer is dragged away and into the police van outside. (The youth corps is a one year mandatory service to the country performed by graduates right after they leave the university.)

Can’t The Authorities Do Something?

Justice was served? Not really. Fortunately for these scammers and unfortunately for the rest of society, the police are also not insulated from the economic hardship and grinding poverty in the country. So they carry out such raids mostly when they are in dire need of money themselves, to feed themselves and their families as they are not being sufficiently paid by the Nigerian government. These scammers are taken to the station where, for as little as 30 dollars or more, they buy back their freedom and our scammers are back at the café doing what they know how to do best!

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), a federal government agency charged with apprehending and prosecuting corrupt government officials and scammers, as soon as it was established, read out a riot act to the cafes that aid and abet scams. So when approaching a café in Nigeria, it is not uncommon to see notices like the ones below pasted at the entrance or on the walls within the café itself:

“IF YOU ARE CAUGHT SENDING 419 MAILS, WE WILL PERSONALLY EMBARRASS YOU.
THEN WE WILL HAND YOU OVER TO THE APPROPRIATE AUTHORITIES.”
[Joe editorial note: I love that! “Personally embarrass you.” Oh, the humanity!]

“THE SENDING OF SCAM MAILS IS NOT ALLOWED IN THIS CAFÉ “
“THE USE OF E-MAIL EXTRACTORS IS NOT ALLOWED IN THIS CAFÉ”

These notices have become so common that even scammers no longer take notice of them. And café owners, some of whom are scammers themselves, turn a blind eye to what goes on in their cafes either because they have become used to the raids and no longer give a damn because they know the authorities are not serious about dealing with scammers and they have to stay in business, or because they make good money from these customers.

And what do the numbers 419 mean? It’s a reference to section 419 of the Nigerian constitution that deals with advance fee fraud. So when you hear a Nigerian say “I was 419ed”, he means he got scammed. Or you hear him say “that guy is a 419” or “he’s a 419er”, it means the person is a scammer. The numbers have since become a synonym for lies, cheating, deceit, fraud etc.

These people also do clean up after themselves. After they are done with the computer, they restart it before leaving the café. I asked a friend why he does this and he said restarting the computer destroys any evidence of scam, making his work untraceable. Simply put, by restarting the computers the scammers are covering their tracks.

Why Isn’t Everyone Doing It?

Please don’t get the impression that’s it’s been a holiday for all scammers. I know people who have been into scam for years, sunk all they had into it and are yet to make it. There are scammers that have been tried and are in the can.

And like every other industry, the Nigerian scam industry has spawned its own terminology. When you hear a scammer use the word ‘MAGA’ (pronounced mahgah) or the word MUGU (pronounced moogoo) he is referring to the westerner he is about to scam or has already scammed. The word ‘HAMMER’ has come to mean to “make it big” among scammers.

Part 3 will discuss specific examples of Nigerian scams Mr. Okeke has witnessed.

Coming Up: Mailing from Home

Can you make money from home simply by mailing out postcards? How about by mailing envelopes? We’re looking at a couple of programs to sign up for, including moneyformailing.com. We’ll give you the inside story.

I’m skeptical, though. The site is full of red flags. For example, the main page is long on hype, short on detail. If you read it you’ll discover that you can be your own boss, earn as much as you want, get checks every week, say goodbye to money problems, and maybe even get your own pony! (Ok, I might have made up that last one.)

But what will you be doing to make all of your dreams come true? Mailing postcards and brochures from home. When someone you send mail to returns a postcard to the company to sign up for an offer, you get 50% of the sale. That seems straightforward, Joe, so what’s the problem? The problem is the questions they don’t answer:

  • Where will I get the addresses to mail things to? Joe’s theory: you’ll have to buy mailing lists.
  • What are the postcards and brochures promoting? The main page doesn’t tell you, but you can find it if you dig for it. They promote work-at-home programs, including…waaaiiit for it…mailing from home!
  • How many postcards are typically sent to make a sale? I don’t expect they would ever tell you this. But let’s compare it to Internet marketing. In that world, 3% conversion is an okay result. That means that for every 100 people that see an offer, three will make a purchase. So let’s say you’re going to send out 100 pieces to make a sale. 100x.35 (first class postage) = 35.00 in postage alone. That’s not including the value of your time to prepare the mailings and send them out. You’ll have to make a $35 commission per 100 mailings just to break even, and I doubt that’s possible.

But those unanswered questions are not the biggest red flag for me. It’s this:

Q: Why don’t you just mail the postcards?

A: We do! We mail as many postcards as we can every day! We’ve been making six figure incomes for years mailing these same postcards. But the demand for these offers is so big that we cannot reach this ever-growing market by ourselves. We have a small office with under 15 employees and more than 500,000 postcards to mail out at any given time. We need your help to get them out!

I call B.S. People who are making six figures through direct mail use mail processing equipment. 500,000 pieces is nothing for the right machinery. Also, when a business has too much work, it hires enough employees to get the work done so it can make more profit. It doesn’t issue an open-ended invitation for everybody who can operate a mouse to come join the industry. Unless, of course, it’s trying to sell something to everyone who can operate a mouse.

Also, it’s not that “demand for these offers is so big” that they can’t do it themselves. It’s that they have to flood the country a foot deep with junk mail in order to find the few who will read the card and then sign up for an offer. And the more people who send out cards, the less expense for them and the more money they make. It’s a win-win! Or at least it would be if it works.

All this is speculation, mind you. Maybe I’m wrong and it really is as easy as they say it is. We’ll let you know.

Can You Make Money Processing Refunds for HUD?

[Note from Joe 7/17/08: If you read the discussion in the comments section below, you’ll see that Darlene was at one time offering her book for free. She is no longer doing so. Visit her at http://www.scmiprefunds.com/shop/ to purchase it.]

How I Learned about Mortgage Refund Processing
I first heard about mortgage refund processing by reading a job ad on Craigslist. Can you really make money as a refund tracer? By getting refunds for people who paid too much for their mortgage insurance? Hey, I’m a helping kinda gal, and if I could make some money by helping, well that would be just as cool as helping people without getting paid. Maybe cooler!

I wrote to the email address listed and received a reply with more information. The reply said that I could become a third party tracer and would have to pay for software, lists, and a manual, and to visit eaglesoftwareservices.com to learn more. Uh-oh. Of course, that’s not a “job” at all because real jobs don’t charge you to work. I felt a little deceived, but was intrigued enough to click the link.

It led me to a presell page that told me a little bit more, but was really just trying to sell me the software, which costs $39.95. The web site left out some important details, though, that were in the email:

  • It doesn’t say that I would need to buy lists of names and refunds for at least $20 per state.
  • It doesn’t say that I would need to buy a manual of instructions to learn exactly how to get people their refunds and get paid.

How is Mortgage Refund Processing Supposed to Work?
I had no idea what mortgage refund processing was until starting on this path. So for those of you who are also wondering, here’s a quick introduction. If you take out a mortgage without a down payment, you are required to buy mortgage insurance so the lender still makes its money back in case of default. The insurance premiums are tacked on to your monthly mortgage payment. When the home is sold or refinanced, you may be eligible for a refund of some of your premiums if your loan was through HUD or FHA.

The problem is that people move and HUD/FHA loses track of them, so they don’t know they have a refund coming. That’s where tracers come in. Tracers (which is what I would be) find those people, let them know they have money coming, help them collect it, and keep part of the money as a fee.

My Experience
So I contacted the guys at I’ve Tried That and became a Secret Agent. They bought the software, I downloaded it, and am here to report the full results to you.

    It’s not “software.” The product you get for $39.95 is actually something like an e-book designed to be user friendly, with buttons to click through. It’s like a help file. Here’s the definition of software: “The programs, programming languages, and data that direct the operations of a computer system.” Word processing programs and Internet browsers are examples of software. This e-book is not.

    What’s in it? The ebook is basically about 4-6 pages long repeating everything that is already stated on the website with a few more procedures, a contract template, and a HUD application template. That’s it!
    Here’s what the “software” tells you to do:

    1. buy hud lists (at a minimum of $20 per state)
    2. make contact with claimant (no instructions on how to do this, no letter samples)
    3. agree with claimant that you will be his or her tracer, sign contract (template of contract provided)
    4. process applications for contract (one template provided)
    5. get paid/collect your money (no instructions on how to do this)

    The e-book does not mention how you can contact your client, but when you get to the end of the e-book, you get an offer to purchase the manual for only $24.99 in which all these instructions will be given to you. Hello! What was the $39.99 for? Junk. The manual is not even sold through eaglesoftwareservices. You must contact another company or send Eagle a money order so they can place the order for you. (Yeah, right. I’m all over that). The manual is available all over the ‘Net for free. If you want to see it, let me know in the comments and I’ll send you a link.

    Not Just Eagle Software Services
    Upon further research, I found that several other websites are offering the manual up front, such as americanrefundservices.com. They sell the manual for $49.95 and their “startup kit” for $16.95. Which I think is what eagle sold us—a start up kit. Other companies are selling the entire kit for $79.99.

    In Search of a Cheaper Manual
    On eBay I found two people selling manuals. For one, the bid starts at $2 and the other has a Buy-it-Now price of $14. Then I actually found the text of the manual online, but it is missing one valuable piece of information: how to get paid. I figured out that you have to somehow collect the money yourself, but I went to another website in which they talk about another method of getting paid by having the refund check sent directly to the tracer, but they are selling their info for $49.99. The manual is available for free at geocities.com/freeebooksus/hudbook.html. I downloaded the info and made it into a PDF file.

    The Bottom Line
    Can you make money as a mortgage refund processor? Maybe. It’s legal, but there are big hurdles you should know about:

    • You will be competing with HUD-sponsored tracers who will do what you do for free.
    • You will have to hide the source of the money from your potential client, or he’ll just go directly to HUD himself and get his money without you.
    • Those owed refunds can do it without you—you’re not necessary.
    • It only works if your client doesn’t know who owes him money.
    • You will have to spend some money to get started. Maybe a lot of it.

    As far as Eaglesoftwareservices goes, this is not a good buy, in my opinion. Everything in the e-book is already stated on their website, except that the sales page “forgets” to mention that you must buy the HUD lists and that you need a manual with the more detailed instructions. Plus, Eagle’s “software” is just another marketing strategy because when you get to end of the e-book they make you offers on other products you can purchase. Oh, and the e-book also comes with re-sell rights, which means that you can build your own website and resell this book yourself. I suspect that’s how Eagle came across it. They are just reselling the e-book because they don’t even have the manual themselves.

    Eagle advertises “bonus material” that comes with your purchase. What a waste! It’s just another e-book showing you how to start your own mail order business. When you get to the end of this one, you get an offer to buy another e-book/software to teach you to make your very own software to sell ebooks. And you get more offers, more offers, more offers.

    I believe there is money to be made here, but Eagle’s product is not worth buying. Money Wasted. Stay posted, though, because I am going to dig through the manual and try to make contact with clients and see what happens.

    Signed,
    Da Fanster
    (this post will self-destruct in 15 seconds. No, really: it will!)

How to Get Your Money Back from Angela Penbrook

Our reviews on Angela Penbrook and on the Rebate Processing Scam are without a doubt two of the most important reviews we’ve ever done here. By offering an in-depth review of what you will be paying for when you buy into the hype, we have saved countless of individuals from throwing away nearly $200. Rebate processing sites are still operational, but there have been reports of dwindling traffic and declining sales. Our review has been spread around the web and we’ve received more thank-you emails than we can count. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to save everyone from buying in. However, all hope is not lost. If you’re looking to get your money back, continue reading. You can have your money back in less than a week.

Help from inside?

Recent developments in our comments that fuel our belief that the Rebate Processing fad is coming to an end. Joseph Ashford, an apparent employee at Penbrook Productions, has offered up his personal email account in order to take the helm in offering refunds to those who are unsatisfied with their purchase.

As some of you may realized, this is Joseph. I have talked to many of the customers that once purchased Penbrook Productions Process from Home. I do everything in my power to refund people. Sometimes it’s harder than others. If you still have not received a refund and demand one but refuse to talk to the customer care people who you talked to previously, please email me, and I will respond with 48 hours. Be it by phone or email. I am the Customer Care Manager, and I take my job very seriously and do it well. If you only want to tell me how crappy my employer is, there is no sense in you wasting my time. I need my time to help people get their money back not to read somebody’s artistic way of using four letter words. my email address is

ccm@penbrookproductions.com

I beseech you, email me so that we resolve this issue A.S.A.P.

Very Respectfully,
Joseph Ashford-

Our Readers Respond
I’ll admit, I was a little apprehensive at first and didn’t want the comment posted for fear that someone was posing as an employee of Penbrook Productions in order to phish for personal information. My partner, Joe, went into talks with Joseph and decided Joseph was genuinely concerned with handing out refunds. It took a few days, but our readers took Joseph up on his offer.

First, we have J. Presley, who wrote somewhat skeptically:

This Joseph Ashford called me yesterday about my refund and was supposed to call me back later on. I called the phone number he left me on the message 949-706-3183 this morning and got a voice message. I left my information on this voice mail. They also give you a Customer Care number to call which I have called at least twice before and have not seen any results. I would suggest everyone call the number above and leave a message for this Joseph Ashford about receiving a refund. He sounded very cooperative but it remains to be seen if he will come through with the refund. Going back through the credit card company before the charges are on there 60 days is most likely the better option to get your money.

And Gina:

Just wanted to let you know that I contacted Mr. Ashford. I sent him an email and quickly called me back. My refund was put through on 5/5 and was posted to my credit card on 5/8. Please give Mr. Ashford a try to get your money back.

The beginning of the end

Joseph Ashford is the person you want to talk to in order to get your money back. Period. Email him and you can skip the overseas call centers, which may or may not result in you getting your money back. Stick with Joseph and avoid 1-800 numbers and we now believe you can have your money back fairly quickly.

While rebate processing looks to be finally running its course, I think it will only be a matter of weeks before another program pops up hyping the same drivel with a different name. Stay sharp, and subscribe to our updates in order to stay up to date on the latest scams.

Recover Money Lost to Scams with a Refund.

So, you accidentally sent a lot of money out for that “job” that was going to make you a millionaire in just a few weeks time only to immediately regret it. The “job” you bought into most likely consisted of a website or book that insists that you spend money to do some form of affiliate marketing. Unfortunately, you were ripped off. There is hope however. Follow this information to find out the best ways to get your money back. Feel free to contribute your story in the comments section. It isn’t limited to just the programs outlined here. If you were able to get your money back from any scam, we want to hear about it and include it in the list.

Rebate Processing Refunds

Angela Penbrook and myrebateprocessor.com Refunds

A number of our readers have successfully received refunds from one of the worst scams we’ve ever seen. Angela Penbrook is running a rebate processing scam that costs $197. One hundred and ninety seven dollars! For complete crap! If you’ve fallen victim to this scam, follow these stories below in order to get your money back.

Numbers to Call

1-866-885-8126
1-888-514-6001
1-800-875-8042 (Warning: possible sex chat line at times!)

Success Stories

From April:

First I called every one of her 1-800 numbers (and if someone needs one just shout out to me. ) I think the Bimbo has 3 numbers. I called all different times of the day and always got that annoying voice then that annoying music, then I just constantly pressed the “0” until I was connected. Then i spoke to 3 different people who were not nice at all and i composed myself very will because they had the upper hand, all of the 3 people took my name, e-mail address, and last four digits of my card that i put it on and my zip code. They all gave me the same confirmation number. A little funny to me so I kept calling and calling back 3 or 4 times until i got them disgusted. For the first few days i would get funny e-mails like we need your info again and i would keep calling back and keep getting the same confirmation number. Then i finally got a confirmation that i would get my refund in 5 to 7 days and i waited 6 and checked my account and my refund went through. I also recieved a confirmation e-mail from her that i was refunded.

From Patricia:

Today i called 1-866-885-8126 or 1-800-875-8042 and pressed “0″ as soon as I heard the Angela Penbrook greeting and in seconds I got a live person. His name was David Peterson. I told him I wanted a complete refund of my $197 and he asked me my E-mail address and name and what zip code I was from. He then told me that i was going to get a complete refund and gave me a autorization code number for it. Then I called back 2 minutes later and spoke to a woman named Rachel who did the same thing and also gave me the same authorization refund code as the previous Mr. David Peterson. I asked for their address and he told me that he couldn’t give me that information but he was in Urban California. I tried calling the Better Business Bureau and they dont do much but throw you on hold forever. I called my credit card company and I was told that the charge is pending and sometimes they know that you caught on to them and the charge gets dropped off as if you didn’t even make the transaction.

From David:

I called the 866 # just like Patricia did.I don’t remember the girl’s name I spoke with,but she was foreign and spoke english,albeit not clearly.She asked for my name,ph#,and zipcode.I complied and she said that the refund should show up in 4-7 business days on my CC.Unlike Patricia,I wasn’t issued a confirmation #,nor did they ask for the last 4 digits of my CC.I have already spoken with my CC company and forewarned them that I will be asking for a dispute or backcharge on this if they fail to issue my refund as promised.If you dial 800-785-8042,it takes you to the same place as the 866# that Patricia gave out.I’ll be checking my CC online starting this evening.

From Joyce:

Hi again to all, Joyce here again with a big smile because after jumping through many hoops, my credit card company notified me today they are giving me what they call a “conditional refund” of my money. Let me fill you in if it will help others. I sent all the info from the purchase of Angela Penbrook’s program to my credit card co. along with filling out an online dispute of the $197 charge. They emailed me about two weeks later, and asked for a complete and detailed letter about the situation, and also any proof from emails, correspondence, etc. and I was to forward all that to another address, different then the one on their website.
So I typed out a two page letter, along with copies of the email, a copy of the portion of her webpage which shows the 90 day guarantee, explained what the work was supposed to be in detail, etc. I never said “scam”. Kept everything very business like and explained that I could not do this work due to other obligations to my family, and since I have a 90 day guarantee, I should be entitled to my funds back. Mailed it off about 10 days ago, and today got the letter from my credit card company, with another page consisting of 3 questions to answer. 1. Exact date of cancellation of the order. 2. Why was order cancelled? 3. What was the merchant’s response when you attempted to resolve your dispute? (easy one, huh) Must sign and return within 10 days and they are “continuing to investigate this matter on my behalf”. So,to all out there please stick to your guns with the credit card companies, do whatever they want you to do,and whatever info you send, make sure you sign it, your own handwritten signature makes it legal. I checked my account on line just before coming here and I can tell you that the minus in front of the – 197.00 looks pretty good!!!!! Hopefully nothing will change. Must get the paper in the mail tomorrow with the info that the credit card company wants.
Hope everyone that has written to this webpage gets their reimbursement too. Thanks so much for all the honest hearted people who are out their pulling for everyone else.!!!

Getting a refund through eSellerate

Several scammers are running their operations through eSellerate. Including, Cindy Dalton at rebateprocessorjobs.com and Angel Stevens at processathome.com. I’ve heard that they can be difficult in refunding money, but be persistent! The rebate processing scam we bought into was through eSellerate and we still haven’t received our refund yet. But don’t lose hope and try the following advice:

I fell into the same trap and have been writing twice a day to the support site trying to get a refund. So today I thought i’d write an email to their payment gateway provider esellerate. They process the crdit card payments. I just described what had happened and within 3 hours I received an email stating that a refund had been made. Their details are:
http://www.esellerate.net
Phone: (402) 323-6600
e-mail: support@esellerate.net

Update: I was able to successfully receive my money back from eSellerate after following the above advice!

Data Entry Refunds

DataEntryBusiness.com Refunds

From Claudette:

I have finally gotten a refund of my $49.95. from Dataentrybusiness. Actually it took some doing: I found this website called eesellerate.net which is what was printed on my c/card account as having been creditted to from my accout and i checked it out online and found that all i had to do was punch in my emailaddress that i used to register with dataentrybusness and Essellerate would email me the account no. and the item no, of the registration transaction that i paid for. I immediately used that info i got from Essellerate and emailed dataentry business requesting my refund, and they immediately refunded my 49.95.

From Mitch:

If you havent already set up a paypal account – do so. That is how I paid for the DEB scammers membership (as Paypal is secure and you are insured)- but it doesnt matter how you paid.

You send a REQUEST FOR PAYMENT to : paypal@esellerate.net (as that was DEB paypal email account) the amount you want refunded and what I did was put in the ‘note’ box – THIRD AND FINAL WARNING. Failure to refund amount immediately will result a formal complaint to Consumer Affairs and Paypal.

Obviously Paypal knows these scammers – because I couldnt believe how fast my refund came through (I lodged it late last night and had it in my paypal account this morning) To those who dont have Paypal – you then transfer the money from your paypal account to your bank account.

HOPE THIS HELPS!
Mich (Australia)

Clickbank and ClickandBuy Refunds

I haven’t found any specific scams operating through Clickbank or ClickandBuy, but use the following forms in order to request a refund from either website.

Clickbank: Customer Service Form
ClickandBuy: Complaint Department Information

Community Project

The list is small as of now, but I plan to update it as frequently as new refund stories come in. If you have a story to contribute, please leave a comment below. We’re always looking for new stories.

Coming Soon: Mortgage Refunds Processing

Can you make money by processing FHA and HUD mortgage insurance premium refunds? I’ve Tried That is about to find out. Or rather, one of our Secret Agents is about to find out. (Note to self: It’s hardly “secret” if you’re publishing it on a blog. Response from self: So?)

According to the people who are pitching this opportunity online, there are hundreds of millions of dollars sitting in HUD and FHA accounts waiting for people like you to find the rightful owners. The money comes from mortgage insurance premiums that are due to be refunded to the signer of the mortgage, but he or she can’t be found. If you find the owner and put them in touch with their money, you get a cut of the refund.

At least, that’s how the story goes. A number of sites are ready to sell you software and instructions to help you get started in your own HUD/FHA Mortgage Insurance Refund business—for a price, of course. AmericanRefundServices.com and EagleSoftwareServices.com are among them.

But what do we always say? “No legitimate job will charge you before you can start working.” We still believe that’s true. But we also know there are some companies out there selling legitimate products that will help you do a job or establish a business.

Fany is our new Secret Agent. She writes:

I replied to this one that I found on craigslist and they contacted me back but they are charging a fee for the software. It sounds legit and I did some research on the HUD site and it states, “Other ‘tracer’ companies are legal. But they do not represent HUD, and they will charge you a fee. You do not have to use a tracer to get your refund, if you are owed one.” The program I want to try is http://www.eaglesoftwareservices.com. I found some forums in which it states that some of these programs are legit and some that say this is a rip off selling you old lists from HUD. I could not locate anything on I’ve Tried That.
—Da Fanster, Private Eye

Doing her own research…bought our ebook, but one of the leads she found is charging her…searched I’ve Tried That for info first. Sounds like a winner! We’re going to sign her up, she’ll give the program a full trial, and we’ll post our results here! That’s what we do here at I’ve Tried That.

Update: Read the full review here.

How to Find Real Jobs Online
Until we get the word back on this program from Da Fanster, why not check out our ebook? It gives you the best information we know about how to find real jobs online. They won’t make you rich, but a couple hundred bucks per month can sure reduce the stress levels.