Make Money Online - Scam or Legit?

Nationwide Biweekly Mortgage Payoff Letter

Now, my last post wasn't really about making money online, but about saving money online, which could be considered the same thing by Ben Franklin ("a penny saved is a penny earned").  And while some might argue that old Ben didn't know much about making money online, clearly some of his commentary does still ring true.

Today's post is about an "opportunity" that I was offered which could be considered, at best, a misrepresentation and at worst a scam.  It was a letter I received from Nationwide Biweekly Administration which sounded pretty good and I actually had the phone in my hand ready to dial when I thought, it is time to do a quick SCAM-check online.  When you enter the name of a company and one of the first listings that Google returns is the Ripoff Report, a warning bell should go off.  But the link I actually clicked on which did the best job of explaining what the Nationwide Biweekly Mortgage Payment offer is about, is this one. 

Funny, it was written back in 2003 and now 4 and a half years later, it just helped me out.  It's nice when the internet works for you, isn't it?   Okay, next post will be about something to make money online and whether it's a scam (or even a grossly exaggerated product) or a legitimate offering.

How to Find a Wii Console Without Losing Your Mind

Like a zillion other people, I have a kid who would like to get a Wii Console for Christmas.  He didn't really think that we would buy one last year when they came out and were sold out and he tried to hide his disappointment when we didn't get him one for his birthday (right at the start of the school year, not a good time to buy your teen new video games).  But now?  Come on.  We have to get one now.  Or so I feel. 

A few queries and I feel that I should write a new song, sung to Jingle Bells tune.

Out of stock,
Out of stock,
No one has a Wii

Yet my son
Must have one
Underneath the tree

So, I started watching Ebay auctions.  In case you haven't watched the Wii Consoles selling on Ebay, let me tell you how this goes.  You search "Wii Consoles" and up come about 20 pages of listings.  "Oh, look, that one is ending in 20 minutes and it's only selling for $305.  That's not bad.  And there's another in 21 minutes also $305.  Mmmm  there's that $39.99 for shipping/handling, but I can live with that."  So you open up a couple windows and start watching those auctions.  At some point in the next 15 minutes a couple more people bid and the price has risen to maybe $345 or $360.  Not great, but you still are figuring that surely you'll be able to grab one of these for a little over $400 total.  When what to your wondering eyes do you see?  Bids pouring in. Final Price $443. 

Yes, $443 + 39.99, the Wii's are pushing, sometimes topping, $500 for the basic unit.  A quick check of the Wii on Amazon offers no relief (though I heard they had them available for regular, $249 price, for about 4 minutes last Tuesday before selling out again.)

So How Do You Find a Wii Console Without Losing Your Mind?

Here is what I did.  I went to Ebay and searched on Wii Console BUT I used the option that says show me only results with Buy It Now and prices below $425.  I found one with a Buy It Now for $400 and actual shipping charges, which since the seller lives about 70 miles away, were only $10.  Wow.  I bought the Wii.  For less than double it's official price, without waiting for hours for a store opening and no more watching those auctions ticking down waiting for the final moments to bid and then..... oops, lost another. 

I duplicated the search I used below, so you can see the results.

I've also heard that WiiAlerts.com works, but requires patience.  Since I didn't have any, I didn't use it.

Well good luck to you and Happy Holidays!!!!

Barry Bonds Scandal: The Truth About Barry Bonds

THE scandal about Barry Bonds, in my opinion, is not whether he lied or told the truth about steroid use.   The scandal is:  why the hell does the federal government care?  Or why do they care THIS much?

Our government has spent YEARS collecting evidence and building a case that Barry Bonds lied under oath and should therefore be sent to prison.  Why?  We’ve got Americans dying in Iraq, Afghanistan.  Hell, we’ve got people being killed on U.S. streets, dying from heroin overdoses, being hit by drunk drivers.  Don’t we have greater crimes to prosecute than that of Barry Bonds? 

Sure, it’s important whether Barry Bonds lied – to baseball and baseball fans.  My two sons regularly debate Barry’s merits, accomplishments and integrity.  I understand why they, who love baseball, care.

But why should our government invest so much into prosecuting Barry?  Because Major League Baseball didn’t?  The government didn’t jump in to help the U.S. Figure Skating Association check out Tonya Harding’s story.

The government has been looking into this since December 2003.  Good grief.  When those investigators look at the last few years, are they proud of the accomplishment?  Is this what they had in mind choosing a career dedicated to ensuring that the laws are upheld and the bad guys are kept off our streets?

If Bill Clinton’s lies under oath about what he did or didn’t do with a White House intern weren’t worth taking him out of the presidency, let alone sending him to prison, then why spend tax dollars prosecuting Barry Bonds?

Mike of Mike's Mets wrote:

Maybe I am in the minority in this opinion, but I would rather focus time and energy on figuring out how to get all of this elaborate cheating out of the game as completely as possible, and for the government to spend our tax dollars in areas like energy and health that will benefit as many Americans as possible.

So clearly, I'm not the ONLY one to think these thoughts, even if Mike seems to think we're in the minority.  What's your opinion?

P.S. Yes, this is slightly off-topic for me, but... scandals and scams go hand-in-hand and we are still talking about money and how it's spent.  Besides, if you can't chose the topics in your blog, what's the point?

Stompernet Simple Chapter Closed, New Adventures Begin

So, I continued with Stomper Simple for a couple months at their $97 a month price.  I was following the activities for about another month, and then jumped on the Mark Joyner 7-Day Business Turnaround offer.  Which, I learned from, but...  frankly it did not deliver what the sales letter had me expecting. 

Meanwhile my finances were so bad that the Stomper Simple monthly charge didn't go through.  It took them a few days to realize and I happened to look around on the Stomper Simple forums and saw that some of the most active posting people were dropping out.   I think a lot of us, myself included, felt like the poor foster children of Stompernet and that responses from Stomper's faculty often sounded a little along the lines of "Just be glad we took you in.  You're able to glimpse some of the greatest players in Internet Marketing here and at a fraction of the cost of our real children (full Stomper members)."

So, one of the items I learned about from the 7 Day Business turnaround was The Warrior Forum.  Wow, now there is definitely a place that has many of the rising stars of Internet Marketing and many also-rans as well.  There is a TON of useful information there, but beware, you can definitely become a career information consumer and buy WSO (Warrior Special Offers) which give great information till the cows come home, but never DO anything with the information.  I have purchased about 10 WSO and some were duds, some were great and some I thought "Wow, I could use this," but I haven't done the actual work yet.

I have vowed that I will not buy another WSO until I put into practice at least two suggestions for traffic generation that I learned. 

Basically the best two WSO that I have participated in and that I now want to focus on getting the most out of, are Traffic Movies - videos that show you how to to generate significantly more traffic, given a 45 minute time investment (recommended per week) on your part.  I LOVE that they qualified the time needed.  So far, I've watched the video and still need to make the 45 minutes to implement action item number 1, but, it is moving up on my to-do list (hey, I had to update this blog first, don't you think?).

I'll write another post when I have some results, but I have to say these particular traffic tips are VERY unique, nothing that I've seen recommended elsewhere.

And secondly I joined Lee McIntyre's, Standing Start Profits membership site.  At $19.97 a month, it's a fraction of the fraction of the Stompernet and it's filled with some of the NICEST people in Internet Marketing.  Wow.  As this cooperative, supportive group exchanges information and aid, this is serious proof that nice guys do NOT have to finish last. 

So that's an update on all I've been up to, while I have NOT been posting.  Sorry almost every paragraph here should be it's own post.  I will try to do better in the future.  Oops, someone told me not to say "try to..." that it is like saying "I will try, but I know I'll fail."  Okay, so, I'll post more in the future.

Till then,
Scam Hunter

The Problem with Money Back Guarantees

I just now realized the problem with Money-Back Guarantees.  You can in fact, get your money back, but we forget that we also spend time with each offering.  If you're buying a product once or twice a year and it isn't working out, that's okay.  But many people tell me that they're buying products more like once a month, even once a week, so let's think about this.

You buy an ebook on making $500 in 5 days.  You read the ebook (1 - 2) hours.  It suggests you find an affiliate product to promote with commissions over $30.  (Time spent 1 - 2 hours).  To properly promote you have to know something about the product and the market (time spent 5 hours).  Now you write articles (for me -- 16 hours, for others maybe 2 - 3 hours).  Submit articles (1 hour).  Check on results (.25 - 2 hours depending on how frantically you keep looking for results).  Decide that this didn't work for you and ask for your money back (.25 hours).  Let's look at what happened.

Reading ebook	1 - 2 hours
Choosing procuct	1 - 2 hours
Learn about product and niche	1 - 5 hours
Write articles	2 - 16 hours
Submit articles	1 hour
Check results repeatedly	.5 hour
Evaluate and request refund	.25 hour
Total Time Spent	8 - 24 hours

So at the end of having tried this ebook, if it doesn't work for you, you can request a refund and LOSE NOTHING, right?

But what about the 8 hours or more that you spent? A full work-day. Maybe two or three full work-days. Now sure sometimes this is going to happen. You try something. It doesn't work. You learn a bit from it and figure you have to fail sometimes or else you aren't trying hard enough.

You have to risk or invest your time in some dead ends to ultimately find the path to success, right?

Yes, I agree. Just don't make the mistake of reading the sales letter

Buy It.... before the price goes up.

Try It, Risk Free for 60 Days

and make the mistake of thinking that there really is no risk.  The question is, if you don't try this product, what else might you invest that time in?

Coupon - VERY Limited Time - Web 2.0 Wealth

Okay, today and tomorrow (August 30th and 31st), there is still time to get $20 off on the Web 2.0 Wealth product which revolutionizes blogging for us non-technies.  If you click on my Web 2.0 Wealth link  and then from the sales page, click on Alex's picture (NOT the picture of any of the testimonial people). Alex's picture is down close to the Buy It button, then you'll get $20 off the purchase price.

Since so far I've found the product matches what is promised, I tend to believe Alex when he says this offer is only through August 31st.

If you are reading this later and you missed it, well it's still a great product. I hope to update soon with my personal results, just having trouble fitting the work in between day job and having a life.

Make Money Blogging - Web 2.0 Wealth Review

It’s almost shocking to hear of a product that’s really unique and when it comes to making money online, phew, then it’s almost unheard of.

Well be prepared for a shock. There is a new product for making money by blogging that is in a class entirely by itself.

Alex Sysoef has created, Web 2.0 Wealth a package that contains a WordPress blog with all the plugins needed and video instruction on how to set it up.

Usually, to setup a Wordpress blog, you would first download and configure the blog itself, then go to the Wordpress site and download each plugin, install each plugin and try to figure out how to configure the plugin. Web 2.0 Wealth saves you hours and hours by including the plugins with the blog code itself – one step instead of 40. The Web 2.0 Wealth videos also show you the optimum settings for bringing traffic and converting that traffic into money from your blog.

When all around people are talking about creating information products in a day or a week, the time and effort that Sysoef put into creating Web 2.0 Wealth is wonderfully different.  Not only is Web 2.0 Wealth an extremely comprehensive and valuable product, but Sysoef beta-tested and incorporated feedback to make blogging “Grandma-proof.”  Anyone should now be able to make money by blogging regardless of their technical abilities or experience with making money online. 

I’m offering a free graphics package to anyone purchasing a copy of Web 2.0 Wealth through this link.  Just send an email to GreatJPGs@gmail.com indicating the email address that you provided to Clickbank on your purchase.  You’ll receive over 100 royalty-free images that you can use on your website, blog, Squidoo lens, etc.  Pictures are on wide range of topics including sports, landscapes, every day objects, famous places, animals and much more.  These pictures have not been available previously and will eventually be part of a professional package that must be purchased.   A few samples were included in the previous post.  This is your chance to get them free, as a courtesy for buying the revolutionary blogging product, Web 2.0 Wealth.

Royalty Free Images

Well I've been off in search of graphics packages with decent royalty free images, preferably a package that comes with resale rights, so if it's great I can sell it to others and earn it's cost back.  But so far I've found two commonly sold packages that contain some decent images and about 14,000 buttons in 12 different colors and 5 different shapes that say "Download Now" or "Buy Now."

Come ON, where are some pictures that I can use in my header or add to a Squidoo lens to jazz it up?  So.....  I'm going through some old photos.  Here, take a look: and I'm creating a graphics collection of mine own.

I've got flowers and snowmen and check out the sea lions.

So anyway, if you are interested in a graphics package, stop back in a couple days. I'll actually be giving some of my photo collection away as a free bonus to anyone buying one of the coolest products I've seen in a long time through my affiliate link.   Yes FREE royalty free web graphics!  And trust me, they will simply be icing on the cake, when you see what you can actually buy....

Stop back.

P.S. Those are sea lions, right?  They live in the Central Park zoo, or did when we visited NYC about 10 years ago.

Who Gets the Testimonial?

So one of the ways to quickly build visible links to your website is to give a testimonial for another product.  The other product owner publishes your testimonial along with your name and website.

Today I planned to do this.  I had run across a $7 product that I actually needed and its function is one that a lot of people need.  So I purchased it and signed up for the affiliate program.  I had even researched the competition a bit.  And since this sales page had pictures of all the other testimonial givers, I went ahead and found a picture of myself which was the appropriate size (talk about counting your chickens before they are hatched).  As I wrote the testimonial, I realized I hadn't used one of the features that I liked and wanted to highlight.  So I went to use it.  Only I couldn't figure out how.  There is a nice tutorial with screen shots, but maybe my version of the software involved is downlevel??  because it didn't look like theirs.  And I couldn't figure out how to use this really cool feature.  So basically.... all of the time spent researching products, signing up for the affiliate program, downloading and trying to use, got me..... nothing.  Once again, I spun my wheels today.  I can contact the owner to get assistance using this feature and perhaps still have a new tool, BUT...  I can't very well write a glowing report about the ease-of-us, now can I?

If I could draw, I would draw a cartoon with a lumberjack in a forest where all the trees have been chopped at, but none of them have been chopped long enough to tip over.  And the next internet product provider walks up to the lumberjack and says "Clearly you need a sharper axe.  Here let me sell you one for....  and it comes with 4 bonuses that I simply MUST tell you about." 

As I sat disgusted with myself for having an unproductive day, the words I had read the previous day

They try to do too many things at once and end up not accomplishing anything 100%

came back to haunt me.  Where had I read that?  ... oh, yeah that was in the ebook that I was making fun of yesterday... Unstoppable Peak Performance, which promised to teach

How to overcome information and idea overload

I had been planning to continue to poke fun at that book by saying it could all be boiled down to the quote from Mike Litman: "You don't have to get it right. You just have to get it going."

Well maybe there is a bit more to the ebook than just that idea and maybe I need more than one sentence to overcome information and idea overload.  Hmm.... 

Today the ideas and products I expected to be winners were not, here is to hoping that some of what I thought was stupid, is not.

7 Day Business Turnaround

Okay, for the last 3 weeks I've been doing Mark Joyner's 7 Day Business Turnaround.  Hmm... 21 days of doing a 7-day business turnaround?....  so I should have done 1.5 rotations by now, right? 

Unfortunately no.  I really LIKE this program and I WISH I could say that I've successfully gotten through my cash crunch with its help.  But I haven't.  I came up with some good ideas and the forum is very active and I've gotten suggestions from that, but, I'm still lacking traffic and sales and $$$.

Mark has several different experts contribute content.  His primary traffic expert is Tellman Knudson.  I think the best piece of advice I got from him was the JV concept and to go check out The Warrior Forum.  It may still pay off.  The worst idea (in terms of results for me) was Tellman's own List Hero.  Somehow in going through the demo, I managed to sign myself up for about 3 of Tellman's lists and he sends them all something every day.  So I was getting 3 - 6 emails a day from him before I unsubscribed. 

On one of the final conference calls, Mark suggested that if you haven't hit your cash injection target (which is the goal to get out of cash crunch mode) that you go back through the whole program again.  Now, I know it sounds like I should have gone through it 3 times, but.... I couldn't devote the full-time focus to the program and so what i've done so far is more like the equivalent of 8 days.

And while the Warrior Forum has a lot of great resources, it also has a ton of great sales people who make offers all the time.  Just today I think I've seen two offers from people who are going to help me overcome the nightmare of information overload that is out there about internet marketing, how?  by providing me with MORE INFORMATION??  Is it just me or do you see the irony in this as well?  And wouldn't buying an ebook to help me who is suffering from information overload, be the equivalent to the old lady who swallowed the spider, she swallowed the spider to catch the fly.....  I don't know why she swallowed the fly.