10 Cryptocurrency Scams That Could Rob You

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Cryptocurrencies have been around since 2009, but only really hit mainstream last year as Bitcoin began 2017 under $1,000 and ended December at a whopping $13,000+. This meteoric rise also saw a similar rise in cryptocurrency scams.

The upward climb was also evident with Ripple, Litecoin, Ethereum (it started at $8.17 in 2017 and reached about $850 by the start of 2018), and other popular cryptocurrencies.

The cryptocurrency craze remains at an all-time high in 2018, despite the rise of cryptocurrency scams and the relentless creativity of scammers taking advantage of people’s interest in everything Crypto.

And because millions of people around the world are taking notice, from average Joes to millionaires like boxer Floyd Mayweather, scammers have a never-ending supply of target audiences to scam.

The Unparalleled Explosion in Cryptocurrencies

A lot of the interest revolving cryptocurrencies come from the Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) the cryptocurrency startups create. Like in traditional IPO (initial public offering), an ICO raises funds by selling a percentage of that currency (hard cash in exchange for tokens) in order to help the startup launch. So it means a lot (up to millions of dollars in funding) to crypto startups whenever a celebrity endorses a particular cryptocurrency.

Celebrity Endorsed Cryptocurrencies

And there are a lot of celebrities heavily invested in cryptocurrencies.

Sure, 50 Cent was lucky enough to have forgotten his 700 bitcoins collected as payment for his 2014 album Animal Ambition. Those bitcoins, which were valued $600 each in 2014, ballooned to $10,000 per bitcoin when he remembered and announced about his treasure in January 2018. (That’s some serious passive income.)

Celebrities like Ashton Kutcher (who is turning into an IT investor genius) and Richard Branson (of the Virgin Group empire) who have bitten the Cryptocurrency bug earlier than the 2017 boom are definitely reaping the rewards much more than those who joined the party late.

But even if the likes of Katy Perry entered the Crypto world only when she sought the advice of Warren Buffett about his thoughts on cryptocurrency in late last year, it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that their investments would triple by the end of 2018.

Warren Buffet & Katy Perry Talk Crypto

However, like every other product endorsed by celebrities, you shouldn’t just buy that product and believe these celebrities hook, line and sinker. Cryptocurrencies are not created equal, and many of them have been proven to be a scam.

Just look at former action star Steven Seagal’s latest endorsement – a suspicious cryptocurrency venture known as Bitcoiin2Gen (yes, that’s Bitcoin with two “i”s) and you’ll understand how easy for “startups” to make claims.

How to Spot a Cryptocurrency Scam

With over 1384 digital currencies in existence (as of January 2018), how will you know which really is “the next Bitcoin” and which is just out to scam you?

There are two common ways investors lose out their money to cryptocurrency scams:

  • First is when hackers attack the coin “bank” (this could be anything from the mining company, digital wallet, exchanges, or even your web hosting provider) and steal coins directly. Just imagine the staggering stats of stolen Bitcoins – about 980,000 bitcoins valued at around $15 to $18 billion has been stolen since 2011 (this includes the $460 million hack from Japan-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox in 2014 that resulted in the company closing shop for good).
  • Second is when the scammers directly contact people to become investors in order to seek “funding” for a nonexistent crypto startup, steal personal details to gain access to your digital assets, fool you into clicking phishing emails, or other devious schemes.

Learning about the existing cryptocurrency scams could lessen the risks involved in investing in this market.

10 Most Common Cryptocurrency Scams

1. Fake Wallets & Shady Exchanges

Because cryptocurrency has to be stored somewhere investors could check it, the first choice is to go with virtual wallets. Not all of these wallets are dangerous, but those fake ones made specifically to steal your savings are. A good example of this is the scam site mybtgwallet.com (My Bitcoin Gold Wallet), which was built so people would associate it to the popular Hard Fork Bitcoin Gold and ultimately steal over $3 million.

The legit wallets are being proactive about this. For instance, MyEtherWallet warned its users and other people that may be interested in downloading the app that a copycat app is rising to #3 spot in the iOS App Store’s finance category.

My Ether Wallet Fake App

To avoid fake wallets, you can either use an offline hardware wallet or choose a service recommended by the cryptocurrency platform.

When it comes to exchanges… they’re everywhere, and are continuously competing to get investors’ attention and earn from transaction fees that come with the service they provide. Many of them are legit but have ridiculously high fees. But the worst exchanges are those that disappear into the night with your coins still stored with them.

If you plan to buy cryptocurrency but don’t know where to go or exchange your altcoins, start with these trusted cryptocurrency exchanges:

  • GDAX – Supports the big 3 (Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin) with 0.25% taker & 0% maker fees
  • Kraken  – Supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and smaller altcoins like Augur. Has 0.26% taker/0.16% maker, but fees can be negotiated if you transact with them regularly.
  • Coinbase – Support Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin. Known for exceptional support.
  • Poloniex – Also supports the big 3 and a whole lot of altcoins. Offers 0.25% taker & 0.15% maker fees.

This is just a tiny list, out of the hundreds of exchanges operating 24/7 around the world. Whether your coins are stored on a digital wallet or on an exchange, the best way to prevent theft is to invest in an offline hardware wallet and transfer them daily. After all, it only takes a few minutes to transfer them back digitally.

2. Crypto Ponzi Schemes

Scammers have also adapted Charles Ponzi’s famous 1920s scheme to the world of cryptocurrencies and is leaving victims left and right. In a Ponzi scheme, the first group of people who invested in a product (like stocks or cryptocurrency) believe that their investment are successful not knowing that the returns they’ve received come from money invested by later investors (and not the product actually bearing fruit).

The most popular Ponzi-styled crypto scam comes from the Mumbai-based company called OneCoin. It ran on a private blockchain managed by Onecoin Ltd and was able to gather $50 million USD within a span of a year thanks to upselling, a strong social media marketing strategy, positive media coverage, and investors’ lack of knowledge about the technology being sold.

The main Onecoin business sold trading-focused educational packages that cost 100 to 118,000 Euros and included tokens to mine Onecoin token in Hong Kong and Bulgaria. The company tried to claim that they were only selling educational material (and not selling cryptocurrency).

By 2016, dozens of countries either banned or released public warnings about OneCoin. In April 2017, OneCoin held an event and was raided by Indian police. 18 OneCoin representatives were jailed for operating a crypto Ponzi scheme, but the company had already moved about $350 million.

Onecoin isn’t the only one. There are over 100 known crypto Ponzi schemes and more will pop up in months and years to come, so research extensively before investing in any of them. 

Don’t believe anyone telling you that you’ll need a “broker” to invest bitcoins for you, or claiming “guaranteed returns” on a cryptocurrency. As with any investment, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

3. ICO Fraud

ICO, or Initial Coin Offerings, is when a newly-invented cryptocurrency is introduced to investors. Like how IPOs operate, ICOs are announced even before the technology or product is truly ready, which means investors only have to rely on a whitepaper.

The Securities and Exchanges Commission is aware of ICOs and the risks involved in them, but ICOs are mostly unregulated, especially since cryptocurrency and altcoins pop up so quickly for the SEC to keep up.

Cryptocurrency Scams: ICO Fraud

ICO fraud can be due to crypto startups overestimating the value of their product, or true-blue scammers aimed at taking advantage of the gold rush.  The most obvious ICO fraud involves a fake company creating a dubious ICO in order to steal any funds investors give them. In December, SEC froze the assets of PlexCoin for promising a 13-fold profit in less than a month. The company raised over $15 million from thousands of investors within a 5-month ICO period.

Because the technology behind cryptocurrencies can be confusing to those new to the market, victims of ICO fraud increase by the year.

It doesn’t help that cryptocurrency has the potential for large short-term profits, so scammers advertising discounted Bitcoins or pre-sale of mining hardware may seem like such a good deal to investors.

The only thing you can do to avoid falling from ICO fraud is to do your own research to triple-check the legitimacy of any ICO you’re interested in. If in doubt, check SEC’s tips on ICO investments.

4. Phishing Scams

Bittrex Phishing Scam

Like any other phishing scams, the scammer pretends to be a legit company and invites the would-be victim to invest in the company. In most cases, the scammer uses a copycat email address and website, Facebook page, or any other branding that may associate them with the real crypto company.

Once a person clicks on the e-mail and redirects him/her to a phishing site, he/she pays for the digital currency thinking the investment would go to the official ICO, only to find out later that he/she has been duped.

It may seem like a pretty obvious scam, but you’d be surprised at the number of people victimized. Chainanalysis reports that about $225 million from 30,000+ investors were stolen from January to August 2017.

Even worse, hackers are now using Unicode to disguise their URLs and make it look like you are on a legitimate website.

Make sure you enable 2-Factor Authentication on every exchange. Use a password manager like LastPass to fill in your passwords as well.

5. Crypto-stealing Malware, Malware Mining, & Ransomware

There are two kinds of malware you need to know if you’re involved in cryptocurrency – the malware designed to steal your coins and malware aimed at stealing PC resources for crypto mining.

With the first type of malware, it could attack your system and steal coins in various ways, from getting it from your wallet, stealing your information, or even bypassing security channels while you’re in the middle of a cryptocurrency transaction.

In both malware mining and ransomware, scammers access another person’s (or company’s) computer. In the first type, there is little to no interaction between attacker and victims since scammers hijack the victims’ PCs and use them to generate cryptocurrency without the victims’ knowledge. Check Point Software estimates that around 55% of businesses have been victimized by crypto mining applications, either from browser extensions, third-party programs, or apps.

Malware mining isn’t going anywhere soon. Just recently, it’s been reported that around 526,000 computers around the world are infected with the crypto mining botnet Smominru thanks to the leaked NSA exploit.

Ransomware is different because scammers access the victims’ PC, infects the system with ransomware, and then demands a ransom payable in cryptocurrency. A great example of this would be HBO’s 2017 dilemma about paying hackers Bitcoin as ransom, or else they would leak a ton of content including a new episode of Game of Thrones. Netflix also had the same problem, but the ransom was the entire new ‘Orange is the New Black’ season in exchange for “tens of thousands of dollars in electronic currency.”

6. Phone Porting

Phone-porting, or mobile phone identity theft, occurs when thieves seize a person’s phone number and tricks his/her mobile provider into giving them control of the victims’ account. Once they’ve successfully do this, they’ll try to hijack a digital wallet and drain its coins.

Unfortunately for the real account holder, he/she would lose everything stored in the wallet since cryptocurrency transactions are irreversible.

Your best bet to avoid phone porting is to change passwords regularly, add a unique PIN and verification question, or perform any other available identity theft protection.

7. Non-Existent Coins

In August 2017, London police arrested a man who ran a call center within the financial district. Apparently, his cryptocurrency business had been cold-calling people to sell non-existent digital currency. Unfortunately, the scam has victimized at least nine unsuspecting investors with combined losses exceeding over 160,000 pounds.

Some scammers use legit cryptocurrency, but with a twist. For instance, Trusted Reviews has spotted that a ton of Facebook ads have been promoting a non-existent funding round for TON, Telegram’s upcoming Bitcoin rival.

Unlike two years ago, trading cryptocurrency isn’t a hush-hush activity anymore. There are plenty of resources to double-check authenticity of cryptocurrencies or digital currency news. Be aware that most legitimate ICOs wouldn’t be cold-calling people to invest. And should that ever happen to you, list down the caller’s name, his/her company name, business address, and other company information available.

Don’t deal with the caller just yet – check with the SEC first before handing over your hard-earned cash.

8. Cloud Mining Scams

Cloud mining is the process of using a remote datacenter with shared processing power that would enable users to mine cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, even without hardware management. Companies offer cloud mining services to people interested in having another stream of passive income, but without learning all the technology involved with mining per se.

Technically, cloud mining isn’t a scam, but because these companies often oversell their services to encourage clients to subscribe to its monthly fee (or sometimes, on a price per hashing rate), and then fail to deliver due to volatile cryptocurrency prices and difficulty of actually mining… it’s understandable that those who were fooled would call cloud mining a scam.

A popular example of this type of cryptocurrency scam comes from cloud mining company HashOcean, which successfully provided the service for an entire year until finally disappearing when they couldn’t pay out users anymore.

9. The Classic Pump and Dump

In finance, pump and dump is a securities fraud practice wherein a person encourages investors to buy shares in a company in order to inflate the price artificially, and then sells one’s own shares while the price is high.

When it comes to cryptocurrency, the prices of major players like Bitcoin and Ethereum can no longer be manipulated. However, hundreds of smaller altcoins are still existing, so be wary about groups of investors (from Telegram, Discord and other platforms) gang up to inflate a cryptocurrency’s value artificially. These groups are known to hold regular meetings and a monthly vote to determine which altcoin they’d target next.

10. Market Manipulation

Aside from pump-and-dump practices, other market manipulators such as spoofing are being used. Spoofing involves “bidding with the intent to cancel the bid or offer before execution.” The idea is to create panic among other traders that somebody with influence or money is preparing to buy or sell.

Spoofing and similar practices aren’t actually scams, but just shady habits you should be aware of, since other people can be doing it to the coin you’re currently trading without letting you know. For more real-world samples of market manipulating techniques, check out this in-depth guide of spoofing and how you can protect your coins from spoofers.

The Bottom Line

Financial analysts have been warning people about cryptocurrency since Bitcoin was launched in 2009. Aside from being too volatile, cryptocurrency is mostly unregulated and unprotected. The SEC isn’t able to go after all of the cryptocurrency scams, but they’re trying to be on top of things by filing complaints against companies or individuals trying to rip people off.

Unfortunately, having clearer rules won’t wipe out cryptocurrency scams overnight.

Human beings have been trying to steal each other’s money for thousands of years, it’s just that cryptocurrency is the latest market they could test their practices out. Your protection against these scams is to do your due diligence, and research everything you can about an ICO or investment opportunity before handing over your cash.

And if you’re serious about cryptocurrency, mining coins, blockchain technology and everything in between, consider investing on additional security measures first. Encrypting the internet with a VPN (virtual private network), buying hardware wallet, and using advanced antivirus program for your phone and PCs can already avoid half of the cryptocurrency scams listed above.

Lastly, as with any investment, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Is PaidViewpoint.com a Scam?

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Easy money. Sure, this usually goes hand-in-hand with small amounts of it, but man do I love me some easy money.

Enter PaidViewpoint.com.

It’s run by the same company that operated InstantCashSweepstakes, which was a favorite here at I’ve Tried That for many years before they closed down. They are a market research company paying you to participate in surveys. It does sound familiar, but PaidViewpoint is putting a fresh spin on things, including guaranteed payments for every survey you’re invited to.

Seriously, you can’t get kicked out of a survey halfway through because you don’t “qualify.” Oh, and you automatically get $1.00 just for signing up. (Details on how to increase this signup bonus at the bottom of this post.)

Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Let’s dive in here.

What is PaidViewpoint.com?

Yes, it’s an online survey company, but it’s unlike any survey site I’ve seen before. I’ll let PaidViewpoint.com explain…

PaidViewpoint is the market research survey site built upon 4 principles:

  • We pay cash for every completed market research survey.
  • We never screen you out once you’ve been invited into a survey.
  • We’ve cracked the code that takes “boring” out of the survey answering experience.
  • Privacy – we never ask you to register your real name or complete physical address.

The most important thing to take away from those four points is the second line. Once you’re invited to take a survey, you will get paid no matter what. The biggest complaint with online survey companies is that a user will be halfway through an hour long survey just to find out he or she “doesn’t qualify” and is subsequently kicked out of the survey with no pay. That DOES NOT happen at PaidViewpoint.com. An invitation to a survey means you’re going to get paid.

You also get paid in CASH for completing a survey. No points or gift cards, but actual money. There is a $15.00 minimum withdraw though. I haven’t yet hit that amount of money, but I will keep you guys updated on how much I make there.

Lastly, we have their privacy commitment. You don’t have to give out your name or home address when signing up, but you do have to call in and verify a phone number in order to cash out your earnings. This is for two reasons: 1. To ensure that you only create one account at PaidViewpoint.com and 2. To ensure that no unauthorized party can login and steal your earnings.

I know a few of you are going to be unhappy about having to provide a phone number, but rest assured, the number is used for verification purposes only. This line is taken directly from their Privacy Policy: “We do use a third party application to dial and send the confirmation code to your phone. At no other time or function on PV is your phone number used or shared.” PaidViewpoint.com makes it clear that your number will not be used for anything other than account verification.

My experiences with InstantCashSweepstakes have been nothing less than stellar. They are running a great company and I feel safe recommending PaidViewpoint.

Click here and create your PaidViewpoint account now!
Use this code when signing up for an extra cash bonus: itriedthat

An Example Survey

While working on this review, I was actually invited to participate in a survey. I decided to grab a screenshot to demonstrate how the site works and funcitons.

PaidViewpoint.com

There are a few things I want to point out. First, we have the earnings bar at the top. This tallies up how much money you’ve earned so far during the survey. Since you can’t get “screened out” of a survey, that money is yours. Off to the right of the survey is how much money this particular question will earn for you. In this case, I earned $0.05 for answering this question.

Next we have the question/answer window. The first black bar is the question that’s being asked with the options below. Pick an option, then click on the arrow to continue to the next question. Finally, we have the time estimation bar at the bottom. This shows you approximately how close you are to the end of the survey. This is a great feature since other survey sites generally keep you in the dark about how much time is left.

Here’s a PaidViewpoint Activation Bonus Code!

The nice folks at PaidViewpoint.com have offered to provide I’ve Tried That readers with an additional sign up bonus. Right now, you automatically get $1.00 just for signing up. As a thank you for reading I’ve Tried That, you can get an additional monetary bonus for reading this review.

All you have to do is signup using the activation bonus code: itriedthat

Click here and create your PaidViewpoint account now!

You’ll see the bonus field after you click on the register button. Don’t forget to use the code itriedthat for some extra money!

Overall, I like PaidViewpoint.com. If you’re a fan of InstantCashSweepstakes, you’re going to love PaidViewpoint. The two programs compliment each other nicely and both are legitimate ways to make some extra money online.

I joined a few hours ago and I’ve already been invited to 3 different surveys and have made a total $1.86 so far today. Not bad considering each survey only took a few minutes to complete. I think I’m going to like this site. PaidViewpoint.com gets my full recommendation.

PaidViewpoint in 2018

This article was first written in 2011, when PaidViewpoint first launched. I have been an active member there ever since and I’m happy to say they still have my full recommendation.

In fact, since I’ve joined, I’ve cashed out over $2,800 in earnings.

Paidviewpoint Earnings

Additional Programs to Try

After you create your account with PaidViewpoint, here are a couple of other similar ways to make some money online. Join them all to increase your earning potential!

  1. Swagbucks – Login, answer questions, take polls, watch videos, make money. I’ve cashed out a couple hundred dollars in my first few months of joining. Absolutely a must join.

  2. SurveySavvy – This is my all time favorite survey company. I’ve cashed out thousands of dollars over the past 4 years from both my completed surveys and referrals. This one is highly recommended.

Do Not Sign Up for the Home Income Profit System

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How would you like to make thousands of dollars in seconds by doing little to no work!? Home Income Profit System sounds great, right! Well EVERYONE IN THE WORLD is jumping on this opportunity and you too can make ridiculous amounts of money by doing next to nothing. Just send me $2.97 and I’ll tell you how!

Now, excuse me while I go vomit.

The Home Income Profit System Scam

The landing page doesn’t say much. There are a few bullet points that tell you there are a ton of people using this system to make money from home and to get started all you have to do is give up your personal information for a free packet of information. You do have to pay $2.97 for shipping and handling, of course.

Home Income Profit System scam

Awesome! You don’t have to know anything, or even do anything, and you’ll be making money in less than five minutes!

The next page has even LESS information, if that’s even possible to believe. There’s no mention at all regarding the work you’ll be doing, how you’ll get paid, what you’ll need to learn, or anything at all for that matter. There’s only a box for you to fill out your credit card information.

At the bottom of the page is this lovely block of text…

You will be receiving your road map to success in the mail.

By placing my order I agree to the Terms of Offer, which explain this order includes the above for just $2.97 shipping and handling. If you enjoy the trial and continue your path to making money, you will be billed a one-time fee of $139.95 and a monthly $4.95 maintenance fee. You may cancel anytime by calling: (877) 863-3088.

The conditions are and I quote “If you enjoy the trial and continue your path to making money, you will be billed a one-time fee of $139.95 and a monthly $4.95 maintenance fee.” What the hell does that mean? If I enjoy the trial. What if I don’t enjoy it? Will they still take the money? Of course they will.

If you dig through the terms and conditions, it says that you have three days to cancel before they start billing you. You won’t even SEE the package for two weeks, but your free trial ends after three days. The whole point of the Home Income Profit System is to hook you into a negative offer option and milk your bank account for as much money as possible.

Stay far away.

You won’t be receiving proper training on how to build a business. You’re basically paying money to get charged more money in the future.

Real training provides you with the resources and support to get started. Real training doesn’t make fake promises of thousand of dollars for no work.

How Does Home Income Profit System 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.

3 Challenges of Making Money Online and How to Beat Them

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Making money online in 2019 is attainable. However, even if the processes are well laid-out by people who have had success before you, you may still experience issues along the way. As someone who has transitioned from an 8-to-5 job to an online gig that turned out into a scam, I’ve had my fair share of issues from making money online.

I didn’t write this piece to scare you. Instead, facing the problems of making money online head on and learning how to beat them increases your chances of actually earning a livable income from stuff you do off the web.

How Can You Make Money Online In 2019?

Before we discuss the 3 work-from-home problems that continue to hinder many people from finding success online, you have to be aware of all the ways you can make money on the internet. The major ones are as follows:

  1. Ecommerce (buying/selling products or services) – Whether you create a Facebook store or build a website from scratch, as long as you plan to sell products online, your chosen online business route is through ecommerce. You can run an ecommerce business with your own products, or go with a dropshipping route.
  2. Affiliate marketing – Similar to ecommerce in that your goal is to sell products, except you won’t need to manufacture items to sell, or even handle traditional store operations (such as inventory or shipping). Instead, you need to join an affiliate program, promote products, and earn commissions whenever you refer a customer to buy.
  3. Blogging – Blogging about anything under the sun can lead to a six-figure income, depending on what monetization options you use for the blog. Since blogging is newbie-friendly and requires very little capital, this is the most popular way of making money online. If you’re not good with words, you can always try vlogging (video blogging) or photoblogging (photography blogging).
  4. Influencer Marketing – There are two ways you can do this – start popular and become an online ambassador to various brands; or start from the bottom and aim to become popular in the future. Either way, once you become an influencer, you’d earn from promoting products, services, information, and so on. And since you “influence” thousands or millions of people, advertisers are likely to pay you for access to this audience.
  5. Service provider – If you’d rather earn by working from home and providing services like programming, app development, copywriting, virtual assistance (or a whole lot more), there’s a vast space for service providers regardless of specialty.

All these five methods are tried-and-tested, but your success or failure won’t just depend on whichever online money-making path you decide to take. Instead, it will rely on various factors and how well you solve the 3 common problems faced by those who earn their incomes online.

3 Challenges of Making Money Online

The best thing about the internet is that it gives you the flexibility to become your own boss without investing your entire life savings. However, to be able to increase your chances of success, you have to overcome these 3 problems of making money online:

1. Information Overload

In the past, people were experimenting on how to earn money from their blogs, or sell products online more effectively. They didn’t have much help, either from other people who could guide them or even resources. Today, you’ll find numerous experts helping you to do these things with a step-by-step tutorial. The problem with this though is that the more information available, the more confusion it brings.

For example, if you decide to focus on affiliate marketing, many experts would recommend that you build your own website. But plenty of people have had success with just a Facebook page or a Twitter account, and thus recommend focusing all affiliate marketing efforts on them instead of running a website as well. Both of these tips are valid and effective, but if you’re new to affiliate marketing, these contradicting recommendations can be the reason why you can’t move past step 1.

It’s easy to tell someone to do their research, but in this age wherein new information is published on a daily basis, how will a beginner decide which information has more weight?

Here’s how to solve information overload:

  • Determine the type of information you need – You can’t stop information from being released into the world, so in order to beat information overload, you have to identify the kind of info you’re looking for. Become super specific during research. You’ll be amazed at how precise the information you gather by choosing to use the term “highest paying web hosting affiliate program” instead of just “highest paying affiliate.”
  • Compile trusted sources – If you’re planning to earn money online for years to come, there’s a possibility you’ll need to perform research again in the future. Every time you do this and discover awesome resources, take note of them and compile into a list. Writers running a tech news blog would save time checking out answers from top blogs like TechCrunch, Engadget, Mashable and so on, instead of just Googling your questions away.
  • Create your own information gathering system – Having a research system would save you a lot of time and since time equals money when earning income from the web. This system would also increase your productivity and eventually, your income. A questionnaire, step-by-step tutorial, or if-when-then system are few examples of an info gathering system that could work for your business.
  • Delegate (if possible) – Once your ecommerce or affiliate marketing business picks up, or you rise in your career as a blogger, influencer or service provider, delegate research tasks to someone else. There’s a reason why most professionals like lawyers, accountants, and so on have junior colleagues who take over data gathering and disseminating for you. This also holds true even if your main income or business is online.
  • Don’t contribute to the noise – Now that you know all about information overload, make sure you don’t overload information as well. If you’re a blogger, influencer, affiliate marketer, or online store, don’t send staggering amounts of information out to the world if not totally necessary.

The make-money-online world has a remarkably quick turnover of hot products or services, industry trends, competition data, or even market changes. Knowing how to streamline and deal with a boatload of information gives you a clearer path towards your online income goal.

2. Scams

Make money online in 2018 by avoiding scams

Scams are the most popular and common problem of making money online, even still in 2019. Scammers will never run out of ideas. Their main source of income relies on fooling other people into handing over their money or valuable information.

While there’s plenty of trusted information that can lead you into actually making money online legally, effectively and (sometimes) quickly, the downside to the make-money-online (MMO) industry is that it is filled with scams left and right.

The only way to keep scams from screwing up with your online business is to become experts in spotting and avoiding scams. Here are several red flags you must always keep in mind:

  • Promises of quick returns – Be careful with any program, eBook, course, marketing tools, or any other product or services that promise quick return. Terms like “get your money back within minutes,” “double your money quickly,” and other get-rich quick scams still exist even in 2019 so don’t let them blind you.
  • Disclosing “secrets” only after paying – It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to succeed in blogging, affiliate marketing or freelancing online. Once you try to find out how to do something, you’ll be faced with experts trying to sell you “secrets” to doing just what you came for. If details are missing from a sales page and promises to disclose information only after you paid, this is a red flag that you’re not going to find any special info afterwards.
  • Money Back Guarantees with a catch – Many programs, courses, or products and services offer trials for only $1 and with money back guarantees. In some cases, the scammer only wants you to enter your credit card details. And if the scammer didn’t use your info for fraudulent purposes, he/she just used this process to pinpoint you as a buyer (instead of just a website visitor).
  • Hidden Auto-Renewal Policy – The problem with many subscription-based services or products, such as membership forums, is that they often come with an auto-renewal policy. While the actual product or service isn’t a scam, hiding automatic renewal policies seems pretty shady especially since many people just cancel the subscription and consider their lost money as a “learning experience” instead of asking for a refund.
  • Missing Contact Details – One of the most obvious red flags of scams is the lack of contact details. Whether you’re buying a product, subscribing to a service, or gathering information from someone, it’s important you maintain a means of communication and a contact person should you require further assistance or flat-out ask for a refund.

These examples have yet to scratch the surface of make-money-online scams. Many scams that exist today have been around for years. Unfortunately, there are no internet police available to man the web 24/7, which is why it is up to you to guard yourself and your business against scrupulous people aiming to steal from you.

3. Procrastination

Stop procrastinating

Making money online as an online store owner, affiliate marketer, blogger, influencer, or even a freelancer offering services means you’re the boss of your online venture. You’ll decide on many of the business specifics, such as working time, breaks, tasks to do, and so on. Of course, this sounds like the ultimate dream for most people.

But if you’ve given yourself too much freedom and have practiced “voluntarily delaying an important task despite being aware that unable to finish that particular task will cause us to suffer,” experts say you’re procrastinating.

Procrastination is a bad habit that affects your productivity, performance and even emotional well-being. How can you make money online with your app development venture if you’re spending half of your day playing video games instead? How can you improve your marketing efforts on your ecommerce store or affiliate marketing system if you’re busy on Facebook instead?

To avoid getting trapped into a cycle of procrastination, follow these few tricks:

  • Change the way you look at the tasks on hand – In most cases, people procrastinate because they are overwhelmed at the task on hand. If you change your perception towards the task (get excited instead of getting scared), it would motivate you to work on the tasks…
  • Divide a huge task into smaller ones – If you’re building an ecommerce site and you aim to launch at a given date, creating a to-do checklist with smaller tasks can help you avoid procrastinating because you get to achieve more tasks than try to fulfill a significant task all by yourself.
  • Practice the Five Second Rule – If you can’t succeed with making money online due to procrastination, you should check out Mel Robbins’ book “The 5 Second Rule: Transform your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage.” In it, you’ll learn how to “hijack” your brain and prevent it from hesitating with whatever task you need to do by taking immediate action within the 5 seconds right after you start a task.

The Bottom Line

If you begin your online money-making journey without getting overloaded with information, faced with scam programs or services, and suffer from the cycle of procrastination, you’re lucky. Your chances of running a successful ecommerce site, affiliate marketing plan, blog, brand, or service are optimistic because they won’t be affected by these 3 common challenges of making money online.

If you feel overwhelmed by the massive overload of information, confused by the number of scammy programs to follow, or plainly lack the drive to reach your online income goals, then I hope the tips listed here could help you become a success story in the make-money-online industry.

Easy Cash Code Does Not Equal Money²

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Easy Cash Code is another one of those systems that promise you the earth with their slick video and marketing, but in essence it is yet another cash maker for the owners and a waste of money for the buyers.

Undeniable Garbage at EasyCashCode.com

The promotional video starts with plenty of genuine looking testimonials, all spouting their love for the system and how they rake in thousands per day.

Antonio, the promoter of on the video, states he will provide undeniable proof that the system works. No proof is supplied of course; just the usual generic earnings reports that could be from anyone, anywhere, that could be selling something completely different. Just as likely it will be the system maker’s profits from the last rip off product they sold.

However, the testimonials are fake; it clearly says so at the bottom that they are actors. That just proves to me to be wary of this product.

I love that the video says it will be removed soon, a generic emotional fear tactic to heighten your anxiety. It’s been up at least 6 months and won’t ever get pulled down unless there are enough complaints about it.

This is perhaps a sideways way of looking at things, but I always think to myself, if they can afford an expensive mansion and an expensive super-fast car, why can’t they afford decent video production that will stop the wind blowing into the microphone? My answer is that it is probably because the house and car are rented. Fake it till you make it guys!

From Broke to Millionaire in Days

The blatant lies and half-truths keep coming with this system sales pitch.  The fake French lady who Antonio helped out of the gutter, who went from “broke to millionaire in days” is just appalling in how blatant a lie it is.

The “evidence” that the guy pushes in your face, “cannot be faked” according to him, but it looks very easily faked to me.

What’s the Cost?

The Easy Cash Code system, no matter the repeated usage of the word free, costs $49 bucks.

I’ll let you in on a little secret about how can find out a lot about a system and whether it is likely to be one that could be genuine and worthwhile or one that is there to try and suck money out of you.

At the bottom of a page if there is a link that says affiliate, click it and have a read.

Affiliate systems are great, you can genuinely make money from them, I do. However, when you get push button money making systems like this, the affiliate scheme often shows the truth behind them.

This is from Easy Cash Code’s affiliate page.

How Easy Cash Code will take your money

What do you make of that? Does it make sense? Just in case let me explain. This system is designed to squeeze as much money out of you as possible, between $396.00 and $686.00 in fact. Once you have made that initial purchase it will try to upsell more products to you which as you can see are a lot more expensive than the initial product.

Often products like these are not event necessary, pretty much like the initial product…

The makers of these systems, offer a high affiliate commission, 60% here, because to them its free money, so it doesn’t matter that they give 60% away, so long as they get visitors who equal potential buyers.

It is that information alone which make me very wary of the Easy Cash Code system.

What’s Included?

Well apart from the big upsells, the actual system is a few guides on how to set up a WordPress website and install the plugin software that you get from Easy Cash Code.

The plugin isn’t too bad but it doesn’t deserve the hype of the sales pitch, it is just a plugin to create squeeze pages, which are sales letters on the internet designed to do a sole act (get someone’s email address, credit card details, etc). The thing is with squeeze pages is that you really need to know how to word them and what to actually do with them. A squeeze page alone will not rake in money, there has to be something behind it, whether it be a product or to build a list to promote products to.

The training isn’t so much training as 3 pdf files from other systems, which have been around for some time. Yes you could learn some stuff from them, but there will be upsells and recommendations to buy other products.

The 6 week coaching is 6 webinars, now recorded which go through the basics and upsell some more.

The Bottom Line: Is Easy Cash Code a Scam?

Is Easy Cash Code a scam? No, I cannot say it is a scam, it does offer something in return for your money. There have even been reports that money has been made with the system, though nowhere near the hyped up figures in the sales video, at most a few hundred a week.

I would advise you to be careful with this though, ideally avoid it if you can as it is certainly a borderline scam.

As a product it seems to be put together haphazardly, with poor quality and very basic information that can be found pretty much anywhere online for free.

If you do decide to put your cash on the line, make sure you don’t end up following the “funnel” or in other words being suckered into buying the additional products.

How Does Easy Cash Code 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.

10 Profitable eCommerce Ideas to Consider in 2018

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Before 2017 ended, I discussed 9 new business ideas – such as drones and urban gardening – that would be perfect for your new online venture. Don’t worry if you haven’t started. 2018 just begun and you’ve got nine more months to build an ecommerce business from scratch to top.

What Profitable Ecommerce Niches are there?

Apparel, food and electronics never run out of fashion, which make them profitable ecommerce ideas regardless of season or trend. The problem with traditional niches is that competition is tough, especially when major marketplaces like Amazon and China-based Alibaba (among others) offer everything under one roof.

But if you’re targeting a sub-niche – along with a special group of people who would be passionately interested in this particular sub-niche – then the rules become a little flexible with your goals and earning potential increasing tenfold.

For example, instead of just selling “kids clothes,” a sub-niche like kids formal would increase a store’s chances of attracting a highly-targeted audience whose main goal online is to find the perfect tux for a boy or an age-appropriate flower girl dress.

Finding the best market continue to be the #1 key to a successful ecommerce site, so for those just getting into this online business, here are must-try ideas this year:

10 Hot Ecommerce Business Ideas for 2018

1. “Buy it for Life” (BIFL)

People are shifting away from budget-buys and saving up money to buy a high-quality item that would last a lifetime. Whether it’s a briefcase, pair of boots, jacket, dog leash, or any other premium quality product that you could pass on as heirloom to the next generation, BIFL items are hot. So hot that they even have their own Reddit and sub-reddits by country.

As with most entries on this list, you can either earn money through affiliate marketing commissions, or build a business from scratch selling your own products.

Regardless of which route you take, the best thing about BIFLs is that it encompasses a wide niche, from kitchenware to fashion, bedroom essentials, and so much more. This niche ticks all boxes when it comes to earning potential, scalability, and profitability.

The awesome thing about focusing on ‘Buy it for life’ products is that affiliate marketing commissions are generally higher because of BIFL’s tag price and luxury-seeking target audience.  Production of any BIFL product may mean higher capital, but you cannot buy the loyalty given by those who are passionate about BIFL.

2. Smart Clothes (Fashion Meets Technology)

This business idea isn’t new at all, but smart technology combined with the fashion industry is gaining traction and there’s no stopping it now.

From theft-proof backpacks that also serve as charging stations with Bluetooth and other gadget must-haves, to an unassuming beanie with headphones built into the woven fashion accessory, the smart fashion niche is on the top of its game with more new inventions being added on a daily basis.

Smart tech clothing merges with other industries as well. Health-related products, such as the OMbra that was designed to check your heart rate and breathing throughout the time you’re wearing the smart bra. There’s even a pair of leggings that check your measurements automatically and recommend where to shop for the best pants to fit you.

Brands are releasing their own tech-infused items as well. iPhone-charging bags, Rebecca Minkoff’s phone-charger keychain, or Jansport’s planned programmable backpack are great examples of technology making fashion smarter and connected to the internet.

You can either promote these branded products, or partner up with a tech startup to build your own invention to sell in the market.

3. Everything Unicorn

If you were studying in the 80s and were a fan of Lisa Frank, you’ve probably lived through the first unicorn fever and loved the splash of pinks, blues, and purples on everything from Trapper Keepers to posters and everything in between.

The love for unicorns have been slowly increasing and reached a peak in April 2007 when Starbucks released its 5-day limited Unicorn Frappuccino.

Since then, unicorns have invaded virtually every niche beyond fashion, accessories and jewelry. You can find unicorn-themed restaurants and cafes, books, home décor, toys, cosmetics and a whole lot more. And instead of just catering to the young (unicorns used to be targeted at teens and below), even adults have gone gaga over the unicorn trend.

Do note that this unicorn trend is expected to lay low sometime this year, as most fads do. However, unlike regular fads, this niche has the potential to get back into the limelight after a few months or years thanks to loyal fan base of sub-niches like My Little Pony.

4. Teeth Whitening or Anti-Snoring

If you’re interested in the health and wellness niches, teeth whitening and anti-snoring products continue to be the most sought after items in this category. You can choose either one, or tackle both embarrassing problems by offering a solution as the heart of your online business.

Even if these niches seem over-saturated, one quick look at the search history will tell you that their demand increased gradually since 2012 and the trend upward will likely continue for years to come regardless of season.

The teeth whitening niche includes popular products like bleaching kits, whitening strips, and charcoal powder. Meanwhile, in-demand anti-snoring items include sleep apnea kits, mouth guards, anti-snoring nose clips, chin support straps, and more. Because these items are focused on solving a serious problem, people eat them up until they find one that works.

Both teeth whitening and anti-snoring niches fit perfectly with a dropshipping business model. If you’re interested in selling products but don’t have the capital or resources to manufacture, check how you can dropship these products from AliExpress.

5. iPhone Repair Kits

Fortune.com reported last year that over 700 million iPhones are currently being used worldwide. And because Apple is gearing up to its 1 billion sale in the near future, the iPhone niche will continue to be a money-earning ecommerce idea for years to come. If you’re looking for a lucrative product for your dropshipping business, check out iPhone repair kits.

The selling power of iPhone repair kits can be seen with a quick search on AliExpress. Even those priced at only $3 or below can become your number 1 money-maker, especially if it leads to thousands of sales.

What’s great with this niche is that it can be expanded into a whole lot of iPhone-related accessories, including iPhone cases that are always in-demand. The only problem with this niche is the fierce competition, which means you’d have to double-time your marketing efforts if you wish to make a dent in this business and compete with ecommerce heavyweights like iFixIt.com.

6. Matcha

Matcha is a finely ground green tea characterized with a more concentrated taste because it came from tea leaves powdered to perfection (instead of steeped as regular teas are). Traditionally, matcha is a type of tea used in ceremonies, but since it exploded in 2015, matcha has been made into a wide range of hot and cold drinks.

Today, matcha has been adapted into various desserts, pastries, and even savory dishes. Even brands like Starbucks, Haagen-Dazs, and Jamba Juice have incorporated matcha into their menus.

In 2016, the global market of matcha was valued at $2.62 billion, which is expected to grow annually at 7.6% until 2025. And since consumers have been increasingly conscious about healthy food and drinks, matcha fits right in with current buyer behavior.

Outlook for matcha as an ecommerce niche is promising, especially since experts don’t consider matcha as just a passing fad. Instead, the “rediscovery” of matcha could lead to an enduring trend and anyone interested in this business has the opportunity to cash in for several years.

7. Specialty Coffee

Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world, next to crude oil. Many people couldn’t start their days without drinking a cup of their favorite coffee. For several years now, coffee lovers have been slowly letting go of traditional mass-produced brands and making the switch to premium-grade coffee even if it is more expensive and more difficult to find.

Of course, the difference in quality and taste are enough reasons for people to choose specialty coffee over store-bought coffee. More local and smaller roasting companies are taking advantage of this increasing demand, which means availability wouldn’t be a problem anymore.

In fact, several subscription-box companies already operate successful coffee stores online.

Even entrepreneurs without a roasting company can build an online store dedicated to specialty coffee. All it takes is a good amount of passion for high-quality specialty coffee, a reliable supplier, and marketing skills to pull off this business.

8. Kitchen inventions

When it comes to the home and living category, the best-selling items are always the tools that make food prepping easier. This is the reason why portable juicers, spiralizers, vegetable cutters, and other task-specific kitchen items sell like hotcakes. And if you check out Google Trends, you’ll discover that this niche is stable all year-round.

What’s interesting with buyers of these kitchen inventions is that they don’t really seek a particular brand, which mean you’ll be able to explore more items without getting limited by certain brands. This niche can also be marketed to a wide range of target audience, from full-blown moms to young adults living on their own for the first time.

Unlike big-ticket kitchen items like stand mixer, espresso machine, and the like, going with smaller kitchen tools encourage more people to buy from your store.

If you’re planning to dropship kitchen products, check out the best-selling kitchen items at AliExpress to get an idea of what other similar items to sell.

9. Electronic Cigarettes

You don’t have to be a former smoker to know the value of electronic cigarettes in this world. And because more and more governments around the world are banning smoking in public, the appeal of vapors, e-cigs, vape mods and  electronic cigarette accessories grows by the day.

Not only do e-cigs serve as a legal alternative to smoking in public, they also have been proven to decrease or totally remove a person’s smoking habit.

The debate as to the effectiveness of e-cigs or vaping continues, but many smokers who turned vapers attest to how their lungs improved with vape use.

Do note that if you ever decide to build an ecommerce site focused on electronic cigarettes and sell vaping products and e-juice, you can’t add Google AdSense to the site. As of 2018, AdSense still lists e-cigs under the tobacco category, which unfortunately, is included in Google’s banned topics.

10. Fake Nails

For those looking into the beauty niche as an online business, consider starting an ecommerce store featuring fake nails. These nails received extreme feedback when it first arrived on the scene, with people either loving them or hating fake nails with a passion.

But today, fake nails already have a special place in the nail design industry and they continue to be a growing trend.

Fake nails sell convenience to its users, since anyone can just “press-on” the nails even without going to the salon. And because there are now hundreds of designs to choose from, you won’t run out of fake nails to sell on your store. Afraid you won’t have the capital to feature as much fake nails as possible? Go the dropshipping route instead.

Ecommerce Ideas with High Profit Potential

Everyone wants to find the most lucrative business idea for their ecommerce site, so I hope these 10 niches help you jumpstart your creative juices.

Remember that most ecommerce ideas with high profit began with just a noble idea. With continuous work and relentless marketing, the idea has blossomed into successful businesses that operate with just minimum work required.

Internet Careers Online Review: Avoid this Scam!

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There are many ways to make money online, but can I tell you a secret? There are no shortcuts!

Just like in the “real world”, making money on the internet takes time, perseverance and a little luck.

That’s why at I’ve Tried That we review as many systems as possible that claim to be able to make you money online easily. You see, more often than not, they turn out the be scams, or at the least not very good.

Today, we have Internet Careers Online by Kelly Scott, and boy is this one misleading.

Internet Careers Online by Kelly Scott

For such a specific product name you may be surprised to learn that Internet Careers Online actually has nothing to do with careers.

Instead it is focusing on a very specific way to make money, something they call “link posting” which I’ll explain shortly.

There are also a number of red flags raised on the sales page for this product which concern me greatly and should concern you too!

Link Posting

First off let me explain the concept of link posting.

The idea is that you place links or adverts online in places like Facebook or Craigslist and when someone clicks it you earn money – or at least that’s what all the link posting scams tell you.

Internet Careers Online - 123

The reality is there is no immediate payment to you when someone clicks the link; instead they need to complete an action after clicking the link, usually in the form of buying something.

When they do buy something you get a commission from the sale. This is called affiliate marketing and is a legitimate way to make money online.

HOWEVER.

Kelly Scott is dressing up affiliate marketing as something it’s not. She is lying about the opportunity, process, earnings, and amount of work required to get started.

“Link posting” tarnishes the tried and true method of affiliate marketing.

Companies Don’t Want This

According to the sales page for Internet Careers Online big name companies like Apple, Dell, Microsoft and Best Buy will pay you to post links on the internet.

They claim that the companies will pay you to do it as it’s cheaper than hiring staff.

Internet Careers Online - apple

This is all utter nonsense!

First off, these companies aren’t “hiring” people to place links anywhere. What you can do is sign up through their affiliate platforms and link to their website from your own. They will then pay you a commission if you send someone to their site who then buys.

These companies aren’t hiring anyone. You aren’t staff. If anything, you’re an independent contractor who gets paid if, and only if, you refer a sale.

The claims made by Internet Careers Online are, at best, misleading.

Ever Heard of Spamming?

The problem I have with link posting scams is that they all tell you to take the pre-created links and post them on Facebook, Craigslist, in forms and other social media outlets.

The thing is you will be one of many people posting the same links on the same sites and you’ll all be doing it without context.

What this means is that you’ll be effectively spamming. It will likely result in you being blocked, banned and labelled as a spammer depending on how vigorous you are at it.

Affiliate marketing works because you create a site or a brand on social media that interests’ people and who people can trust and you promote products to them that they may find interesting.

When was the last time you clicked a random link on the internet, especially in the age of malware and viruses?

On the flip side, when was the last time you listened to someone you know (even virtually) who recommended a product to you?

See the difference?

Internet Careers Online isn’t interested in whether you succeed or not they just want your money!

Paying to Work?!

Internet Careers Online - 97

On the subject of handing over money, the product offered by Internet Careers Online costs $97.

The mantra “never pay for a job” holds true here. In this case, it looks like if you pay to sign up, you’ll be given a position where you can post links and get paid to do so.

There is no guarantee that you will ever make money here. You will be paying for information.

The Guarantee Doesn’t Hold Water

You might be thinking that I’m crazy and it doesn’t matter if you pay out the $97 because there is an iron clad 60-day guarantee.

Well, I hate to break it to you but the terms suggest otherwise.

Internet Careers Online - terms

The terms state that “All we ask is that you examine everything and put forth an honest effort for the first 30-days”.

This is a very vague statement to make and effectively creates a loophole in the guarantee – you ask for a refund, they ask what you did to put in “honest effort” and they say it wasn’t enough so there’s no refund.

I obviously can’t guarantee that this will be the case, but the loophole exists and that should make you nervous.

The Company is Dormant

The company supposedly behind Internet Careers Online, one Internet Careers Online, LTD (I know, inventive right?), is a real UK company.

It’s also listed as a Non-Trading company, meaning it’s dormant and inactive, and only registered back in February 2017.

As it’s non trading, it should not be taking your money!

The Bottom Line

Link posting scams are numerous and I should know as I’ve now reviewed dozens of them.

They all follow the same patterns and none of them are legitimate.

Essentially, they are selling you affiliate marketing training. Affiliate marketing is a real and legitimate business, but it is not as easy as Kelly Scott would have you believe.

In the end, this one will cost you $97 and leave you with a bad taste in your mouth and no clue on how to make money online.

SurveySay Review: Not a Job, Just a Waste of Time

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Didn’t I already give SurveySay a review?

I could have sworn this program looks familiar.

Surveysay Form

Ah!

That’s right. It’s just BigSpot with an even worse logo.

Bigspot or Surveysay?

I wasn’t a fan of BigSpot back when I first reviewed it in 2011 and it doesn’t look like much has changed since then.

SurveySay isn’t hiring, despite the jobs ads.

Odds are, you saw a job posting on Snagajob (another site I recommend you steer clear of) advertising either a part-time, or full-time, ‘Online Survey Taker’ job opening.

There isn’t much more to the job posting than that. However, the ad is currently airing in pretty much every town across America.

While I write this article, there are currently 2,489 active job postings on Snagajob alone.

Surveysay on Snagajob

These guys are busy to say the least.

The job posting is just as shallow as their website. The title and ‘apply’ button both take you directly to the signup form where you can “Start getting paid for your opinions!” just after you hand over some of your personal information…

Is SurveySay a Scam?

Well, yes and no, but mostly no.

Yes, in the sense that they aren’t actually hiring online survey takers.

Instead they are merely collecting your personal information and then showing you a list of survey companies that are currently accepting members.

I filled out the application form with a temporary email just to take a look inside…

Inside SurveySay

As you can see, they are simply listing affiliate opportunities and nothing more.

There is no “job” here.

SurveySay and whoever is behind the mysterious VarsityPlaza, LLC gets a few bucks from each of those companies if you were to fill out an application.

The “no” in the not a scam, is that these companies are free to join. Plus, they are reputable survey companies.

The real problem I have with SurveySay is that you need to hand over some of your personal information just to view a list of companies.

SurveySay was created by VarsityPlaza, LLC and they operate BigSpot as well.

The company does have a solid BBB listing with only one negative review. Their Privacy Policy does state that they do not sell or share your personal information “without your explicit consent.”

While reassuring, they are still requesting your personal information when they have no need for it.

SurveySay and Snagajob

I found it interesting that SurveySay has over 2,000 active job postings on Snagajob when Snagajob only allows employers to post a max of 3 job postings for $249/month.

Snagajob Pricing

At those prices, SurveySay would be paying Snagajob over $200,000 per month to keep their listings up.

We both know that’s not happening.

I couldn’t find any links to the two programs being related, but Snagajob appears to be allowing them to advertise through some sort of partnership.

Snagajob is filled with other affiliate programs masquerading as jobs. For instance, there are nearly twice as many Uber job postings. Uber is free to join and you do not have to apply through a job board to work there. However, if you refer a new driver to Uber, you can get paid up to $2,250.

Snagajob Uber

While not particularly noteworthy, it does raise some questions about the validity of their offerings.

Can you get rich taking surveys?

No.

Absolutely not.

Online surveys have been plagued with the falsehoods that you can make a full-time income just answering questions in your spare time.

In reality, you will spend weeks, or even months, answering questions to even see if you qualify to take a survey. In the off chance that you are invited to fill out an actually survey, you will usually be compensated anywhere from $1 to $10 for 15-20 minutes of your time.

I like finding a random five dollar bill as much as the next guy, but I’m not going to spend a month of my time searching for one.

Treat surveys as found money. Don’t go seeking it out, but if you get an invite to participate in one, and don’t have anything better to do, by all means, fill it out.

But, for the love of God, do not ever pay money to take a survey and do not trust anyone telling you that you are going to get rich overnight filling out surveys.

That’s never going to happen.

Alternates to Surveysay

If you still want to take surveys, I do have an approved list of survey companies I recommend. Better yet, I won’t charge you an email address just to gain access.

Why trust me over SurveySay or BigSpot? Because these are programs that I have used for years, cashed out hundreds of dollars from each, and can verify they are legit.

Here are my top 3 survey companies:

  1. Swagbucks – Surveys are just one part of the Swagbucks experience. You can watch videos, play games, participate in polls, and they all pull in cash. If there’s only one program you join today, pick this one as I’ve personally cashed out over $900 just by using them in my spare time.
  2. SurveySavvy – Here’s your more traditional survey site. They send out surveys regularly and invite you to take part in longer studies as well. I’ve had a few $50+ survey invites.
  3. PaidViewpoint – PaidViewpoint is all about market research. They connect you with surveys that you absolutely qualify for and do not kick you out just before the final question. It’s fun, easy, and well worth checking out.

Those three should keep you busy enough.

The Bottom Line

While SurveySay isn’t technically a scam, it’s still a colossal waste of time.

They are unnecessarily collecting your email and personal information to showcase a list of companies for which they make money if you sign up and join.

I still don’t like that they are advertising on job boards seeking work at home applicants to become online survey takers. It’s misleading to say the least.

Online surveys are just about my least favorite ways to make money online. There are just a million better ways to spend your time, especially if you are looking to start pulling in some real money.

You can also check out my top recommendation here if you are interested in learning how to make serious money online.

How to Spot and Avoid IRS Scams

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It’s tax season again, which means one thing: scammers who are posing as IRS agents are out to get you.

The scam might occur as a voicemail left on your system, where you are warned that legal action is about to taken against you unless you call back and/or pay your taxes immediately.

The scam might also occur through text message, where you are told where to send payment after clicking on a provided link or opening an enclosed attachment.

Don’t do it.

The Erroneous Refund

There is a new tax scam going around this year. It seems that thieves are hacking into the office’s of tax professionals, stealing your personal information, and then filing a fraudulent return in your name.

To the IRS, it looks as if you have personally filed your taxes, so the issue a refund, even though it’s fraudulent.

Now, the scammer has your personal information and will contact you directly, claiming to be from the IRS. They will demand that you return the money.

However, the scammer will have you return the money to them and not the IRS. Leaving you with a fraudulent return filed in your name and in-debt to the IRS for a few thousand dollars.

How to protect yourself

Let’s start with the basics: don’t cash any checks that show up unexpectedly.

If the return was directly deposited into your account, head to the bank and ask to speak with a manager.

For the love of God, do NOT, under any circumstances, mail a money order off to an unknown source.

Finally, and most importantly, call the IRS directly at 1-800-829-1040 (if you are an individual) or 1-800-829-4933 (if you are a business) and tell them you have been a victim of a fraudulent tax return.

Read up on how to best protect yourself from tax based identity theft.

The real IRS tax delinquency process

On the IRS website, you can learn just how the IRS reaches out to delinquent taxpayers. This occurs through a formalized process that never involves unsolicited phone calls or threats of legal action. In fact, the IRS acknowledges that taxpayers have rights, including the rights to privacy and to appeal.

How does the IRS correspond with delinquent taxpayers?

The IRS does not call you.

The IRS sends a formal letter stating how much money is owed per each tax year. In most cases, separate letters are sent for each year of delinquency, going back up to seven years in time.

Each delinquency is assigned a notice (CP) or letter (LTR) number at its top or the bottom right-hand corner. These numbers can be searched by going to the IRS home page.

Taxpayers are notified that they can appeal the amount of money they have been assessed. Taxpayers are encouraged to pay as much as they can, but they are never told they must pay the entire amount immediately, or that non-payment will result in their arrest or a lawsuit.

Should a taxpayer agree to make payment, the IRS provides a payment page with more information. On this secure page, taxpayers can pay via their bank account or credit/debit card. There are other options listed as well, including paying with cash.

More importantly, for taxpayers who have encountered dire financial circumstances, there are several partial payment and delayed payment options available. Those options include making monthly installments, submitting an offer-in-compromise, and even delaying payment altogether.

Such alternatives can be a lifesaver if you’ve recently lost your business, for example, and simply don’t have the needed profits to make payment on your taxes. Similarly, if you’re a freelancer who has gotten behind on your quarterlies, paying your taxes in monthly installments can stop interest and/or penalties from accumulating.

The IRS Phone Call Scam

The IRS scam tax delinquency “process”

In contrast to the IRS, scammers rely on fear and misinformation to coerce taxpayers into paying their taxes right away, and without knowing the full extent of their rights or appeal options. Scammers also use different means to trick taxpayers into paying the full amount they owe, including the following:

Phone calls: IRS scammers will often robocall recipients, telling them that they must respond immediately or face a lawsuit. One such robocall call might go as follows:

This a final notice from IRS, Internal Revenue Service, which is filing a lawsuit against you. For more information, please call immediately to XXX-XXX-XXXX. Thank you.

When would-be victims return calls made by these robocallers, they’re often connected with individuals with very thick foreign accents. Sometimes, the scammers try to have their victims purchase gift vouchers and provide the ID numbers of those vouchers over the phone. Recently, a bunch of these scammers were discovered and found to be working at an Indian call center.

Emails/letters: IRS scammers may also send out emails or letters, supposedly from the IRS, that even contain case and/or letter numbers and threaten the recipient with legal or criminal prosecution if payment is not made immediately. The fraudulent letters are usually superimposed onto legitimate letters from the IRS that were collected from office trash receptacles or other refuse (one more reason to shred/burn your sensitive documents).

When the victim clicks on a link provided in the email, oftentimes a phishing page boots up and steals the victim’s sensitive information such as Social Security number, credit card number, etc. The IRS warns about identity theft via phishing on its website. Alternately, a malware program infects the victim’s computer.

Texts: Some individuals have even reported receiving bogus texts from the IRS. The messages state that legal and/or court action will be taken against the recipient unless he pays the owed money immediately.

Requests for money: IRS scammers next ask that recipients of their calls, emails, letters and texts send money. However, the money is to be sent by wire transfer or through the purchase of MoneyPak or Green Dot prepaid cards. In some cases, scammers have requested that their hapless victims purchase gift cards and just read off the back codes to them.

The government is never going to accept gift cards over cash, and this is noted on the IRS payments page as well. Likewise, the IRS will offer installment payment plans if the taxpayer cannot pay the entire sum by a given date.

What should you do if you are a victim of an IRS scam?

Unfortunately, many individuals are conned every year and end up losing thousands of dollars to IRS scammers. What should you do if you suspect that you’re a victim of fraud?

First of all, contact the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) via the IRS Impersonation Scam Reporting page.

Also, contact the Federal Trade Commission using the FTC Complaint Assistant on FTC.gov.

When working with the IRS on owed taxes, use the IRS.gov site exclusively. Also, make sure that you are not dealing with an IRS subdomain (irs.scammerssite.gov) by checking if your pages all end in irs.gov.

If you have any doubts about your case, call the IRS directly. Their agents work with people directly on the phone. Agents are more than willing to help you sort through your tax questions, and can even provide you with lots of money-saving advice.

InboxDollars Review: A Scam? Can you get paid to read emails?

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Before I start this InboxDollars review, let’s put the facts on the table:

  • We all read emails.
  • We all love money.
  • It would be really awesome to get paid to read emails.

InboxDollars promises just that and they even go as far as to make the claim that ‘Money really does grow on trees.’ But just how accurate are these claims? Can you really get paid to just read emails? We wouldn’t call ourselves professional product and program testers if we didn’t give you an answer to these questions.

You can make money, but that doesn’t mean you necessarily will make money.

Each email that you read will net you anywhere between 1 to 10 cents. But these aren’t emails you would normally want to read. They’re advertisements for various programs or products that would result in InboxDollars making hefty revenue if you followed through and signed up for the program. Aside from emails, you can also “get paid” to play games, sign up for surveys, sign up for programs, shop, and search the internet.

What you aren’t told is that you will need to start spending money first and you’ll receive a measly percentage back on your spendings. This is the hidden truth behind their “get paid to” claims.

InboxDollars Scam

Take for example, this “Deal” offered for LifeLock. You get paid $20 if you spend anywhere from $120 to $324 for a LifeLock membership.

Okay, sure, this might be a deal if you are actually interested in their service and would like some money back, but for 99% of users this “deal” is completely meaningless.

My Results

I’ve been a member for about two weeks now and I have received 14 emails for a total of $0.40 cents. That’s a little less than 3 cents per email. If we take into account the $5.00 sign up bonus and the $1.00 introduction survey, I will need to read approximately 857 more emails.

At the current rate of 1 email per day, I’m looking at over 2 years of reading email just to receive my first $30 check. I don’t know about you, but I have better things to do than click on an advertisement once a day for the next 2 years just to receive $30.

You make a lot of progress really fast early on, but according to our readers in the comments below and some of the reviews we’ve seen around the web, emails start to slow when you approach the cash out mark.

Even worse, there are reports of accounts getting closed right when they are ready to cash out. We can’t confirm these reports and InboxDollars does reserve the right to cancel your account if you violate their code of conduct.

The Real Source of Funds

At this point, you’re probably asking yourself how could they possibly make money by sending out emails. I decided to look into a few of the programs that are heavily promoted throughout the site. Take for example, eBay. InboxDollars will pay you $6.00 to sign up at eBay and place a bid. Not bad right? Wrong. They’re making anywhere between $25-$35 every time a new user signs up at eBay and places a bid.

Stamps.com is also heavily promoted at a $10 bonus just for signing up for their free trial. However, in the event you forget to cancel the free trial after a couple of weeks, you will be billed $15.99 per month and InboxDollars makes $50.

Stay far away from any free trial offers. That is where you will most likely lose a lot of money.

It sounds like users are getting the short end of the stick while InboxDollars laughs all the way to the bank.

I’ve tried that and I don’t like it.

If you have nothing better to do than to read emails (read: view advertisements) for the next few years, then by all means sign up and get started. I do feel that doing anything at InboxDollars aside from reading emails is a recipe for disaster.

In an extreme case, suppose you sign up for the Stamps.com free trial and forget about your account. In a month you will be billed and in the event that you refuse to pay you can have your account forwarded to collections which could have a disastrous effect on your credit score.

This result could yield hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in damages all for a measly $10.

Personally, I’m closing my account.

How Does Inbox Dollars Compare?

If you’re looking for a decent alternative, I would highly suggest looking into SwagBucks. I’ve reviewed them a few months back and I’ve actually made money and was able to cash it out. and give some tips on how to quickly start making some money with them.

SwagBucks does pay you to do a number of things, watch videos, play games, answer surveys, but my favorite is that they pay you just to search the web. SwagBucks gets paid by sending you Google’s sponsored results and, as a thank you, sends some of their earnings back to you.

I’ve switched my main search engine to SwagBucks. They are using Google’s results, so you are still seeing the same exact page you’d see if you searched Google directly. But by going through them first, you can earn some extra money.

I highly suggest that you create an account today. You’ll quickly see why I recommend SwagBucks over InboxDollars. Plus, you get a free $5 bonus just for signing up.

SwagBucks Pays: Here’s Proof

I can’t make a recommendation without offering a little bit of proof that it actually works.

Here’s a look at my total earnings so far: SwagBucks Proof

1 SwagBuck roughly equals 1 penny. So I’ve made approximately $928.78 since joining!

And here’s a peek at my personal cash outs.

SwagBucks Cash Out

You can redeem your SwagBucks for a number of things, but I’ve found it’s best to go for gift cards at places you normally shop. That seems to get you the most value for your “SwagBuck” and if you are as addicted to Amazon as I am, it’s a great way to lower your credit card bill.

That’s right. I’ve been able to make over $900 and it didn’t take over 2 years of clicking links in emails.

The Bottom Line

If you’ve gotten this far, by now you should realize I’m not a fan of InboxDollars.

There are better alternatives out there that have proven track records.

I’d suggest you stick with something else.

I’ve Tried That is a Scam!

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That’s a pretty bold title haha and damn is it eye-catching. It doesn’t exactly seem like good business to advertise that your own website is a scam, does it? I’ve always done things a bit differently here though.

I started this blog in 2007 and started working on it full-time in 2009. It’s my baby. I love it and I love all of you. Without you guys, there would be no I’ve Tried That. Some 3.5 million people have visited this site since I started it. For the most part, people seem to enjoy my work. You guys like to email me or leave comments on my blog thanking me for opening your eyes to new scams.

I used to try and keep track of how much money has been saved by this blog, but the task became very tedious. I’d have to guess that it’s within the tens of millions of dollars by now (mainly due to all my work exposing wire transfer scams.)

But alas, some people are not happy about I’ve Tried That. They accuse me of having ulterior motives (“wolf in sheep’s clothing” comes up as the most common insult) and taking advantage of people who want to learn how to make money online. It sucks, but with 3.5 million visitors, someone is BOUND to get angry every now and then.

So, I decided to collect a laundry list of complaints against the site. Here are the most common complaints that pop up (in no particular order)…

I’ve Tried That is a Scam!

Steve promotes the same products he bashes!

“How can you bash data entry or home typing “jobs” because they sell affiliate marketing training and then promote a company like Wealthy Affiliate that ALSO promotes affiliate marketing training?!”

I completely see the confusion. I’ve called out plenty of programs that sell affiliate marketing training programs and I DO highly recommend another. There is absolutely no denying that whatsoever.

The thing is, I don’t bash a program for promoting affiliate marketing training. Affiliate marketing is one of the few legitimate ways of making money online. I bash programs who disguise the fact that it’s affiliate marketing and overload their sales pages with hype to try and deceive people into thinking affiliate marketing is a quick and easy way to make a lot of money online.

The biggest offenders here are companies that label themselves as data entry or home typing jobs. If you paid money to become a data entry employee, what would you expect? Probably something along the lines of getting paid to transcribe data from paper into digital form, right? Would you expect a packet of information on how to do affiliate marketing? Is that at all related to data entry? No! Herein lies what I advocate against.

Here’s a visual aid to help illustrate my point. The following two programs are both selling Affiliate Marketing training. One is the type I warn you guys against, the other I actively promote. Spot the difference!

Again, both are selling Affiliate Marketing training, but it should be immediately obvious which one is actually going to help you and which one is using insane amounts of hype to trick you into think affiliate marketing is something that it’s not.

Affiliate Marketing isn’t a job in the traditional sense of the word. It’s a business that you start. It CAN eventually become a job, but it does take quite a bit of time and effort. It’s not easy to go from knowing nothing about affiliate marketing to living solely off the income you make as an affiliate marketer. It takes a lot of work. I realize affiliate marketing isn’t for everyone which is why I also make recommendations on telecommuting jobs, and other miscellaneous ways of making money online.

Steve wants you to trust him so he can sucker you into wasting money!

My good friend Eddy over at WorkAtHomeNoScams.com (check it out if you’re looking for more ways to make money online. Eddy’s site rocks!) had this to say…

The fact of the matter is you provide various ways to make money online legitimately. Many are free. But when it comes to running a business it requires an investment in the business and or training to run a business. It’s no different than someone going to school for an MBA. You have to pay tons of money to do that! So why would it be different for an online business.

The issue here is there is a lot of misinformation out there about fees and making money online. Too often sites and people are running around saying anything that requires money is a scam. But what really should be said is that you probably shouldn’t pay for a job but when it comes to a business there is going to be an investment involved. In which case you should still do your research to determine if the business is legitimate.

Smart guy that Eddy. Seriously check out his site.

I’ve covered this plenty of times in the past though. When I say “you shouldn’t pay to start a job” I mean, avoid websites that are guaranteeing you’ll make a set wage doing things like data entry, typing, filling in forms, surveys, etc. If they make it sound like you’re going to be an employee of a company and you’ll make x amount of dollars per hour, but want you to pay some fee up front, they’re most likely trying to trick you into buying information and NOT offering you an actual job.

On the other hand, we have “paying to learn how to make money online.” The distinction here is that you’re paying to learn how to do something that you didn’t already know how to do. You want to learn how to make money online? A good place to start would be to seek out a mentor or a training program. Find someone who can teach you the things you don’t know. This costs money because you’re paying for someone’s expert knowledge. You’re not paying for a job; you’re paying to learn. It’s no different than attending classes at a school. Make sense?

Steve is a millionaire!

Ha. Ha. Ha.

God I wish this one were true.

Did a binary “watchdog” group lead you to this page?

I have extensively covered HUNDREDS of these binary option programs over the last 14 months. I’ve said just about everything I possibly could have on these scams.

I also seemed to have made quite a few “review” sites angry by not actively promoting ANY binary option programs. It’s hard to promote something you willingly know will be robbing people of their hard earned money. The people affected by these programs are the ones who usually have it all on the line and stand to lose the most. I could never comfortably live with myself knowing I was making money in that way.

These fake review sites like to point fingers and claim that I AM the one lying to deceive folks. They essentially accuse me of the exact tactics they are using. It’s definition insanity.

Why I Don’t Deposit Money into Binary Option Brokers

A new binary option program pops up daily, sometimes 2 or 3 open shop, each and every single day. These programs are designed for one purpose: to get you to deposit money into a foreign brokerage account that is not regulated by any U.S. law. Meaning, you have little to no recourse at ever getting any of your money back, filing a complaint, or sometimes even withdrawing the money on the off-chance you win one of your bets.

These programs typically have a $500 minimum deposit. With two popping up per day, I would have to spend $1,000 of my own hard earned money, every single day just to test their claims.

Listen, I don’t need to punch myself in the face to know it’s going to hurt. And I also don’t need to send $1,000 per day overseas to know I’m not going to become a millionaire just by pushing a button or by following some secret algorithm.

Here’s the Million Dollar Reveal…

There’s a program being touted as a guaranteed winner right now. Numerous fake review sites are popping up promoting it. It’s called Fast Cash Biz and they 100% guarantee you’ll earn $10,000 per day on average JUST BY PUSHING A BUTTON.

I am not personally exaggerating this. These are the exact claims made by Fast Cash Biz, taken DIRECTLY from their website.

Here is a screenshot directly from their page…

Let’s think about this rationally for just a second.

If it were that simple to make $3,650,000 per year, why on Earth would I ever advise against joining? We could all be millionaires overnight! There is literally no reason for me to ever say a bad word about this program.

Unfortunately, reality falls far from their claims.

Did you know that Fast Cash Biz pays out $250 in affiliate commissions? That means, any of those fake review sites are paid $250 every time a new user follows one of their recommendations.

Last time I checked, my Fast Cash Biz review was averaging over 100 views per day. If I were to review it positively and recommend that people join it, I suspect I could convert on average 10 people per day. This means, I would make $2,500 per day in affiliate commissions from Fast Cash Biz ALONE. This is close to A MILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR just for one article.

Hey… are you starting to see why so many of these fake review sites are popping up?

And this is just ONE PROGRAM. I have HUNDREDS of these reviews in our database. I am comfortably sitting on millions of dollars worth of commissions if I were to give these scams a positive recommendation.

Why on Earth would I ever advise against joining a Binary Option program? You already know the answer to that…

Because what they claim isn’t possible.

The only people making money here are the scammers suggesting you deposit money into these shady brokers. Not you. That’s all there is to it.

The Good News

The FTC is currently on to these scams. I suspect we’ll start seeing some of these fake review sites shut down in the coming months. Expect to see headlines where they issue millions of dollars in fines and possibly even jail time. It’s happened before with scams I’ve covered previously. It’s only a matter of time at this point.

The claims being made by these programs are also getting increasingly outlandish. Their marketing methods are becoming ineffective and these are last ditch efforts to attract new victims. This is a cycle I’ve seen time and time again. And I will continue to work behind the scenes to make sure these scams are properly persecuted.

On our side, I’ve Tried That has been around since 2007 and has become one of the most trusted voices on the web. I’ve celebrated my site’s 8th anniversary this year and I am happy to continue to work tirelessly for all of you for years to come.

Steve doesn’t care about his readers!

Of all the complaints against I’ve Tried That, this one hurts the most.

If you’ve spent any time on the site or have sent me an email, you’ll know my goal is to protect and help others. I can’t even begin to count the hours of free support and help I’ve given out over the years. My I’ve Tried That email account currently has 65,000 emails in it. That’s about 44 emails per day since starting this blog! That doesn’t even include the times I’ve purged my email because I was running out of space.

It’s greatly upsetting to know that people think I don’t care about my readers. I know I shouldn’t let the opinions of a few upset people get to me, but it occasionally does.

One things is for sure though: I’m going to keep on doing what I’m doing. I’ll continue to point out scams, provide legitimate ways of making money online, offering hours of email support, and just helping out all of you in general. I truly hope this blog has helped some of you.

Enjoy the music as well.

Bottom Line: I’ve Tried That is no scam. Feel free to drown out the naysayers and leave a comment below. I always love hearing from you guys.

Love,
Steve

BigSpot Review: Try These 3 Alternatives That Actually Work

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Ah, the allure of easy money. BigSpot knows their target audience.

I always need to preface my posts regarding online surveys.

It seems that whenever the topic comes up, a few people like to come out of the woodwork to call me a scammer for saying there are legitimate online survey companies. Real survey companies do exist people. It’s not the glamorous $75/hr jobs some websites try and lead you to believe, but if you sign up for enough companies and spend enough time taking surveys, you can easily make some extra spare change each month.

It’s true! Honest.

Also, a legitimate survey company will never ask you for money or to complete offers as part of a survey. These are not surveys, but scams. As long as you know that online surveys aren’t insanely lucrative and you never spend a dime to take a survey, you’ll do just fine.

Is BigSpot.com a Scam?

BigSpot.com, while free to join and use, isn’t exactly a survey company and they do tell you this upfront. Instead, what they’re doing is “matching” you with other survey companies. You fill out a small form with your demographics and they send you a list of survey companies they recommend you join.

Bigspot Review

You do have to decline a number of “offers” (read: spam) in order to get to the list of companies and this is where BigSpot.com makes it’s money. If you’re not careful, you could be giving away your private and personal information to a bunch of companies you’ve never even heard of. You’ll receive junk mail, credit card offers, spam, and just about every annoying type of direct mail offer you can imagine.

While BigSpot says they aren’t selling your information to these companies directly, your miss clicks here could technically count as your consent and you are basically sending your personal information to third parties.

So, I’d have to say that while BigSpot.com technically isn’t a scam, I still wouldn’t recommend joining them.

There is one redeeming quality to the site. Right on the main page is this paragraph…

Will I get rich?
No, silly. You’re not going to get rich taking surveys. You’ll have the opportunity to put some extra cash in your pocket each month and the chance to earn some really great rewards.

It’s a good relief from the usual scams that claim you could be making hundreds of dollars per hour and could even live off of the money you make taking surveys. They’re at least upfront about the income you could expect to earn.

In the end, you don’t need BigSpot. It’s just collecting emails to show you a list of survey companies.

Try These 3 Legit Sites Instead

BigSpot.com isn’t necessarily a scam. It’s not costing you anything, but they aren’t representing themselves fairly either.

You can skip all the hassle of shelling out your private information to a random company and join a few legitimate survey companies directly. Here are three that I highly recommend above the rest:

  1. Swagbucks – Login, answer questions, take polls, watch videos, make money. I’ve cashed out a couple hundred dollars in my first few months of joining. Absolutely a must join.

  2. SurveySavvy – This is my all time favorite survey company. I’ve cashed out thousands of dollars over the past 4 years from both my completed surveys and referrals. This one is highly recommended.

  3. PaidViewpoint – PaidViewpoint is a fun way to pick up some extra cash in your spare time. You answer short three question surveys every few hours. Some surveys were created by companies, other by users. Every survey you take has a chance at earning you cash. It’s fun, easy, and definitely worth checking out.

You can click here and check out a list of 15 additional survey companies. These are all legitimate companies that are looking for panel members to complete SURVEYS. They’re not looking for you to complete offers, you won’t have to spend any money, and you WILL get paid.

Always remember that survey companies aren’t going to be the answer to your financial woes. They can be a fun way to earn some extra money in your downtime, but that’s it.

Don’t join any survey site expecting a windfall of cash. That’s just not going to happen. And anyone telling you otherwise is looking to make money off of you by either scamming you or selling your personal information.

Stay vigilant.