Snoskred on Fake Check Scams and Scambaiting

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They say if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. For those of us who want to work from home for family, health or other reasons the available REAL jobs are few and far between. However, there’s plenty of scammers out there who will prey on your situation and take advantage of you.

Money Laundering

Any kind of job which requires you to

– receive checks and deposit them in your personal bank account.
– receive money orders and cash them
– receive goods
– receive funds into your bank account

and then to

– forward goods on to somebody else
– forward money on to somebody else
– send money via Western Union or Moneygram

is not any kind of legitimate job. It has to be some kind of scam. It is highly illegal. You have no idea where those funds have originated from.

It might be drug money. It could belong to terrorists. It could have been given to you by another scam victim in order to make it more difficult to trace where the money went. The goods may have been purchased with a stolen credit card. But you need money, so you might not think about it too deeply. Believe me, going ahead with a “job” like this this will end in tears.

An important note about checks

Checks can bounce up to a year to two years after you deposit them. The reason for this is because the scammer may have stolen the bank information of a legitimate company and the company may not realise funds have been disappearing until the accountant looks at their books—sometimes this happens only once a year.

If you do bank checks which are stolen or fake, you can be arrested and sent to jail. You will also be held responsible to pay the funds back to the bank. You will have no way of getting the money back from the scammers.

If you think your financial situation is bad now, wait until you’re having to pay money back to the bank for a job you thought was legitimate.

The Tellers Don’t Know

You might even ask the teller, “Has this check cleared?” And you would usually be told YES, absolutely it has, just like most check scam victims this has already happened to. If you ask a teller has this check cleared, you might as well ask your postman the same question. Do you want to place your entire financial future into the hands of that bank teller?

Tellers are generally not trained about clearance procedures. Some bank managers are even unaware that checks can bounce so much later. Until it happens to a customer of theirs, they don’t know about it.

Get It In Writing

Even if you said to your bank, “I want you to put it in writing that this check has cleared,” that will not protect you at all when the check bounces. Try asking them to put it in writing and you’ll find most of them will not agree to do it. I know a scam victim who did get a written letter from the bank manager. When the check bounced, he still had to pay the full amount back. The bank took NO responsibility for the situation.

You Are Unprotected

Credit card fraud used to be a major problem for the banks, but because they are held responsible for charges made on stolen credit cards they have put a lot of work and effort into solving the problem. They are doing absolutely nothing about check fraud because they do not have to pay. The person who banked the fraudulent or stolen check has to pay.

So How Do These Fake Check Scams Work?

I’ve baited a lot of these scammers—so many in fact that I have collected over 5 million dollars worth of fake checks, money orders and travellers checks from them. Here is an example of what the scammers say.

The Scammer Emails Me

Date: 15 June 2007
From: ES Oil and Gas Ltd (google results do not show a company with this name, and scam results)
Reply To: bluegassltd@yahoo.com.hk (note the yahoo.com.hk email address)
Subject: Company Commission Agent Required (there is no such job, unless you are actually selling things)
(this section below is to make it look more legitimate but note the scammer has messed it up and given two street addresses)
From The Desk Of
Mr. Larry James
ES Oil and Gas Ltd
2711 Metrople Square
2 On Yiu Street
Hong Kong.
Tel/Fax: +852-301-71646. (googling the telephone number brings up 3 different names – larry james, carol harvey, george martin lee using this telephone number, all scams)
15/06/2007.
I am Mr.Dannie Wang (sorry, I thought you said you were Larry James?) of ES Oil and Gas Ltd. We are an OPEC members that deals on crude oil, raw materials and export to Canada, America, Europe and Asia. Our company is also into promotions and entertainments. We are looking for a reliable commission agent who can help us receive payments from customers that our company supplies Goods to in Canada, America, Europe and Asia as well as making Payments through you to us. Please if you are reliable and Interested in been a commission agent with our company we will be glad but you have to be an honest and a trustworthy person. Note that, as our commission agent, you will receive some percentage and motivations on whatever amount that is paid by our debtors through you to us. Be informed that THERE IS NO FINANCIAL OBLIGATION AT YOUR END as a commission agent. Please, to facilitate and proceed if accepted, do send your information to the Chief Executive Officer:Name Mr.Dannie Wang.Email:( bluegassltd@yahoo.com.hk ) Thank you for your time as we are looking forward to working With you as you send your response back to us.

Yours Sincerely,
Mr. Dannie Wang

I Reply –

Good afternoon,

Do you have the requirement of hiring someone in Australia?

Cristhin

He replies

(with another name change – this time back to front)

Dear Cristhin,

Thanks a lot for your swift response to our proposition. We are prepared to employ your services as our Representative for CANADA & UNITED STATES as well as EUROPEAN continent, after putting things in place with you and we are also ready to follow every applicable law of CANADA & UNITED STATES as well as European continent. We would be glad to transact with you and having you as our representative for these region.

Before I proceed further let me start by Introducing myself. My name is Wang Dannie, Personel Manager of Blue Gas Ltd In Thailand and Hong Kong. We need a reliable and competent representative to make direct collection on our behalf and acting under the full approval of our firm after all necessary modalities have being put in place between you and the company, Blue Gas Ltd and after entering into an agreement confirming this deal.

We are currently having problems between our local staffs over here in Thailand and Hong Kong and also customers from these regions as a result of language barrier and different cultural backgrounds thereby causing delays in payments from our propespective customers from this region and also as a result of the delays it takes for these checks to get cleared over here in Thailand thereby causing delays in our supply channel.

On the advice of an expert we started making necessary contact, recently, to prospective candidate that will make direct collections on our behalf for a commission of 10% and remitting the balance Of 90% into our account via electronic transfer, so that we can serve our customers in these region more efficiently as a result of the fast means of picking up our cash thereby allowing for a constant cash inflow as well as outflows and making business more profitable and beneficial for all parties involved.

Clients normally make payment to us via Companies check and or Western Union Money transfer, depending on the amount of goods in question which we would instruct them to issue in your favour in the capacity of our representative for this region.

This is exactly how our transaction will hold and We will send you MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING, MOU, which shall make us Legal binding in our transaction with you as SOON as when transaction from our customer commences.
We are very confident to work with you and employing your services as our representative for both Canada / United States . On agreement, You shall be collecting payments on our behalf depending on the client we have at hand and as well as the volume of transaction involved, We normally handles transaction for now to a maximum of USD$700,000.00 and below as the case may be and your 10% will be applicable for any amount of funds collected on our behalf after signing the Legal MOU, attached below and remitting the balance of 90% into an account to be provided for you by the firm via electronic wire transfer.

On the receipt of this mail and the conclusion of these modalities, I shall give further instruction on how to contact one of our clients who is readily available to make payment to us as soon as we are able to attach him to any of our representatives.

Thanking you both for accepting this offer as we send our greetings from our entire staffs as we also await your timely responses.

Regards,
Wang Dannie
Personel Manager
Blue Gas Ltd.

NB: Please fill out this form and return back to us
NAME…………………………………
RESIDENTIAL ADDRESS……………………
AGE:…………………………………
STATUS:………………………………
STATE/COUNTRY…………………………
TEL/FAX………………………………
NUMBERS………………………………
COMPANY NAME………………………….
OCCUPATION……………………………

Please for your information make sure that the address that you filled out in the form that was sent to you is a valid and correct address in which my customer can contact you for immediate payment and document through to you as our company representative, Please you are to resend us you correct address in which contact can be made to you as soon as payment is ready from our customers as both party as discussed

Inaccurate Information

Did you note the company name has changed too? These scammers use so many scammer and company names, they can’t keep it straight. This is one clue things might not be legitimate. Usually people know the name of the company they work for—and their own names!

I’ll let you in on a little secret. I am using a special tool to bait these scammers, and from this point on a computer is writing the emails for me. So it won’t always do exactly what the scammer wants it to do. Like fill in silly little forms like you see above. It does pick up on certain words and responds to them, but from here on in, the computer is in charge and the scammer is along for the ride.

The Computer Replies –

Hello Mr Dannie,

Please clarificationize precisely what this position requires of myself in your next communique and then if I am excited to continue I will provide what you are asking for. I don’t understand what you want me to do with this memorandum of understanding?

I will be jumping with joy to hear from you. Your emails have delighted me so far. Are you single and looking for a wife? Maybe your ship has finally come in, and mine too! Can we share a cabin on the sea of life?

I Hope To Receive News From You Soon,
Cristhin

The Scammer Responds –

Dear Cristhin,

With the receipt of your email. Please kindly note that the MOU ( Memorandum of Understanding is serving as a legal aid for both party involve in this transaction and also serve as terms and condition for this great company.

Please you are therefore advice to send to us your full details so that we can proceed further on this transaction.

We await your immediate response ASAP today.

Best Regards,
Dannie Wang

Hmm, looks like he is not interested in sharing a cabin with me. Oh well. You win some, you lose some.

The Computer Replies –

G’day Mr Wang,

Thanks for your email. It is a gracious pleasure to communicate with someone as beautiful and pretty as yourself. I look forward to your emails as much as I look forward to any pleasure in life. Please explain this memorandum of understanding as I am unable to understand your understanding of it? Do you understand it?

Here are my details as requested.

I am Cristhin Rosamund
I am 42. I am single. Are you Single?
I work as a customer service manager.
Telephone number = (telephone number removed)
I bank with St George Bank.

Mail can be sent to me as follows:

Cristhin
(PO Box address removed; it is a safe mail address)

If you need further details let me know.

Hope To Hear From You Soon,
Cristhin

The scammer goes quiet for about two weeks, and then sends this:

Dear Cristhin,

Please kindly update us on payment made to you by our customer and the said amount is $ 32,565.10 USD.

Please update us immediately today on how you will proceed with company funds and also with all necessary information how you will disburse the money.

The Board of Trustee will look forward to your immediate email today in this regards.

Best Regards,
Dannie Wang

I’ve Got Mail –

The next time I went to my PO box, I found this:

Note the check is not for the same amount he told me it would be for, either: 32,565.10 vs. 35,565.10.

How YOU can help!

If you own a blog yourself, mention this blog post on YOUR blog so all the readers of your blog can be educated on this important topic. Feel free to link to this post.
– Link to this article in my internet safety series which speaks about these scams.
– If you know anyone who has any questions about these scams I am only an email away. However there are some great websites on the internet that try to help as well:

  • Fraudwatchers
  • Scam Victims United
  • Fraud Aid
  • Stumble this blog post with Stumbleupon, if you are a member.
  • Digg this blog post.
  • Email a link to today’s blog post to your friends and family.
  • Now you know about this scam – there are so many others out there. Always ask if you’re not sure. The Fraudwatchers forum “Is this a Scam” is a good place to post a question you might have.
  • Let your friends and family know about the Scam-O-Matic, a Web form that can look at an email and tell you if the email looks like a known scam. Is this email a scam? Ask the Scam-O-Matic.

Please note this quote in the above article by the executive vice-president of the American Banking Association: “Federal law requires banks to make the funds you deposit available quickly, but it’s important for consumers to know that just because you can withdraw the money doesn’t mean the check is good,” said Edward Yingling, executive vice president for ABA.”

A Warning About the Fake Kidnapping Scams

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A few of my readers have written in regarding the fake kidnapping scams that have been running amok lately. Scammers are hijacking email and Facebook accounts and emailing the user’s contacts saying they have been kidnapped and desperately need money wired to them via Western Union to pay for a ransom.

Seriously.

Bridget wrote in with the following…

I am so grateful to get your emails. I read them all the time. I am really thankful that I read the one about the scam of being mugged in another country and asking for money because it just happened a couple of days ago to one of my best friends. However, it didn’t start out that way. Her email was actually hacked a few weeks ago before the scammers attempted to obtain money from her friends and it took on an interesting turn of events.

Here is what happened. A few weeks ago, myself and a few of my closet friends received an email from my friend containing a link to an online Canadian pharmacy from my friend’s email address. Shortly thereafter, we all received texts messages from her stating that she had not sent out any emails and that the email we received was not sent from her and to delete it. We all did that and made sure to check our computers for viruses. She did the same and she also deleted out all of her contacts. Her email address was a Yahoo email account.

However, just the other day, I received a telephone call from one of our mutual friends regarding her and then I received a text message from her stating that any emails from her were not true and to delete the emails. I immediately called her and she told me that when she tried to login into her Yahoo mail account, it would not accept her password. She also told me that a few of our friends were receiving emails from her with HELP!!! in the subject line and stating that she had been mugged in London and to send $2300 via Western Union.

While I was on the phone with her, another one of our friends called her and wanted to know if she was on Facebook because one of our friends was online via Facebook talking to her. It turns out the scammers were trying to pull themselves off as being her on Facebook. Apparently, her passwords were the same for her Yahoo mail account and her Facebook account. The scammers were attempting to reach her friends via Facebook as well. Of course, we all knew that she was not in London because we are planning to have her birthday party this weekend. Finally one of our friends called them out as not being her. Right after that her Facebook account was deleted. I know because she was gone from my friend list on Facebook immediately. It wasn’t deleted by my friend but by the scammers. My friend couldn’t access her Facebook account at all. She has since reported all of this to Facebook. She has taken other steps to prevent this from happening as well.

I just wanted to make you aware of what additional steps scammers are attempting to try and get money. I think it is important for people to know not to use the same password on all of their online accounts.

Also, I think it is important to know that scammers are attempting to obtain passwords by creating fake webpages. I have had my Myspace page hacked before. I believe it was called Phishering or something like that. Now whenever I get a message stating that my password is not accurate I close the browser and try fresh. I don’t ever try to attempt to re-enter my password. My Yahoo page has specific page settings to me only and whenever I open it up and it is not correct, I immediately close it and start over.

I think this was how my friends Yahoo email account was hacked. I also think the first email sent out was a test to obtain her email addresses and to see if people would actually respond to the link. Then they laid low for a couple of weeks. When they saw nothing going on, they decided to take it to the next level. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t know that she had such a close knit group of friends and that we all were planning her party.

This is absolutely appalling. If you receive one of these emails, get in contact with the person who owns the email address via a different medium other than the Internet. Make sure they haven’t actually been kidnapped and let them know their email and Facebook accounts have been hijacked.

Whatever you do, don’t immediately send off thousands of dollars overseas. You’ll never see it again.

Secure Job Position: Another Link Posting Scam. Avoid!

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If you’re new to making money online, you might have an incorrect perception that it’s easy and incredibly quick to generate cash. Sadly, that’s not true but many systems state things like this in the hope it will make you buy them.

For example, take Secure Job Position which states “within 5 minutes you could be making real money”.

Not only that but they suggest you’ll start earning immediately even with no skills or experience. That’s quite a claim to make but the reality is they are targeting desperate people who need extra money and fast.

Long story short, this Secure Job Position program exists for two reasons:

  1. To get you to pull out your credit card and make a purchase without thinking twice about it.
  2. To label you a sucker and to sell you more products in the future.

Don’t fall victim to this crap.

Secure Job Position by Kelly Simmons

One of the first things you encounter on the Secure Job Position website is a form to get your email and phone number. In theory this is to check for availability in your area, but the reality is more sinister.

If the system available where you live? If you live anywhere in America then yes, it’s available. The form is what I call an email harvester in that they are just trying to get your details so they can send email after email and make call after call to you to sell you stuff.

(January 2018 Update: I first reviewed this system in June 2017 and Kelly was quick to notify me that “There is Currently 7 Positions Left In Your Area.” It’s now 7 months later, the glaring grammatical error hasn’t been fixed and those positions somehow still haven’t been filled.)

If you pass this so called check, you’ll end up on the main sales page.

Cookie Cutter Sales Pitch

I’ve seen this sales page numerous times, and it’s virtually the same each time. The only differences are the name of the product and occasionally a different name than Kelly Simmons.

If this system was legit, why would they need to add it under dozens or more different domain names?

Do you see any other business having a duplicate of their site under a different name? No, of course not!

This sort of tactic is to steel themselves against the inevitable burning of one of their domain names due to bad press or worse.

Unethical Tactics

The tactics used in this sales pitch are common, but not something any upstanding marketer would use.

For example, there are several well-known news agency logos on the site most likely used without permission. It states that work from home opportunities have been featured on them, and this is likely true, but the real aim is to suggest that this product has been featured on them, which it has not.

Secure Job Position news

“But it was featured on the news!”

Wrong!

This program wasn’t actually featured anywhere. The news logos you see are not endorsements.

Kelly Simmons is banking on the fact that you will see the logos and skip right past what it says above them:

“Work From Home Opportunities Have Been Featured On:”

And I’m sure they have been, but Secure Job Position has absolutely not. The people behind this want you to see the logos, associate legitimacy with the program, and continue on down the page.

As well as that, there are several scarcity tactics used. This method is common place in marketing, but where most marketers will actually follow through and remove the product, that’s not the case here. This sales page will always say there are only a few spots left, regardless of how many they sell!

Secure Job Position scarcity

Secure Job Position scarcity

A Repeat Performance

Further down the sales pitch is a legitimate news clip about work from home opportunities. This video seems to appear on every single underhand system out there and is used to bolster the idea that this system is legitimate, when in fact the video is old and only talks about home from home opportunities in general terms.

Secure Job Position video

Fake Testimonials

Testimonials can be hard to verify but when they use stock photography for the people and general untraceable names, it should concern you.

In this day and age social proof is an important way for people to tell if a product is good or not, so these fake testimonials are really just trying to abuse that.

Is Secure Job Position a Scam?

Well, yes. But keep reading to find out why.

If you were to buy this $77 program (the price continues to drop as you try and navigate away from the page), what would it teach you?

Well, the general idea behind it is link posting. This is where you add a link to somewhere on the internet and people click the link and you magically make money!

The sales letter pitches it to you as if there are multinational companies begging people to post links for them.

Secure Job Position desperate

Apparently these companies, big names such as Apple and Netflix, will pay you between $5 and $30 per link you post!

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

First of all, if a company wanted links posting in this manner, they would either a) pay someone in a foreign country pennies on the dollar to do it or b) use their in house coders to make an automated system to do it.

No company out there will pay you that kind of money for “posting” a link. As well as that any sensible company would know that randomly posting links on the internet is not only ineffective without context, but also a type of spam!

Secure Job Position calculator

The reality is that this system is based on affiliate marketing: you post your affiliate link, if someone clicks it and then (and this is important) buys something, you get a commission on the sale.

Affiliate marketing as a whole is a legitimate business opportunity and a very effective way of making money online, but it takes much longer than 5 minutes to make money with it!

Internet users are savvy people for the most part so they will not just click some random link, which is why affiliate marketers spend hours, weeks, months and years providing value and building a following of people.

Just because you post a link in a forum/blog comment/on social media doesn’t mean people will click it. At best the site in question will simply remove the link, at worst you’ll be labelled as a spammer and/or banned from the site.

Secure Job Position is preying on your vulnerabilities. They are using hype and non-sense to get you to buy into their system without thinking rationally.

“But they offer a 30 day money back guarantee!”

Their terms state:

6. Refunds: Secure Job Position offers a 60-day refund policy from the date of purchase on the initial enrollment purchase price only. All we ask is that you examine everything and put forth an honest effort for the first 30-days and you may make money – it’s that simple!

I have seen these exact terms used in the past and similar scams use the “honest effort” line to prevent you from getting your refund.

If you have paid them already and are looking to get your money back, their listed customer service line is 1-877-843-6846. Be prepared to put up a fight. It might be better off to just dispute the charges with your bank or credit card company.

Finally…

All you need to do is ask yourself one simple question: if anyone could be making over $1,000 per day by doing something that requires no experience, skill, or expertise, why isn’t everyone doing it?

That tells you all you really need to know about this opportunity.

The Bottom Line

Can you make money with Secure Job Position?

No, absolutely not.

You are going to be sold dodgy, outdated training and when you fail to make any money, they will come along with another program to buy that will guarantee you success again beyond your wildest dreams.

You are simply handing over your credit card information to scammers and telling them “Hey! I’ll buy anything you have to sell me!”

Avoid programs like these, and any ones out there that claim you can make millions overnight with no experience, skills, or effort required. You are setting yourself up for heartache and lost money.

5 Ways to Become the Jack-of-all-Trades Virtual Assistant

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Virtual assistants are the modern-day equivalent of an executive secretary. They should be the jack of all trades, helping their bosses reach important goals, while fulfilling all 101 small, daily tasks that keep most businesses afloat. The VA industry is a competitive work-at-home niche, particularly since most employers are only looking for a single person to fill in the position.

If you’re a virtual assistant and want to get an edge over your competition, here are 5 ways to make your profile irresistible to employers:

1. Be Different, but Learn Everything

The most common tip to stand out from the hundreds of people offering virtual assistance online is to pick a specific skill set, such as SEO. While this is true and an effective technique even today, it shouldn’t keep you from learning new things.

Generally, virtual assistants usually perform duties within a specific category, such as content writing, SEO, digital marketing, social media, audio/video editing, web development, and general assistant tasks that fall under what bosses 1) hate doing, 2) can’t do, and 3) shouldn’t be doing.

If you’re a content writer VA, it’s easy to jump to other categories like social media, admin tasks, SEO, and marketing. After all, most of these categories include some type of research and writing, such as publishing posts on Facebook, hashtag analysis, and off-page SEO (blog commenting, forum posting, responding to posts).

Web developer VAs are a highly tech-savvy bunch. They would be perfect for on-page SEO tasks, graphic design, video/audio editing, e-mail marketing campaigns using advanced tools like Infusionsoft and more.

The best thing about learning new skills as a virtual assistant? With the number of free courses available online, the areas you can specialize in are endless.

2. Portfolio-Building: Document Your Skills

Every work-from-home employee dreams of a stable, long-term employment. Unfortunately, this isn’t the norm for many virtual assistants. As such, you should be prepared to seek another job if and when your current employer decides to let you go. The upside to working with different bosses is that you’ll learn something new, regardless if you had a good experience or not.

Building your portfolio should always be on your mind. It’s best to create a free website from hosts like WordPress.com and turn it into a professional calling card online. Aside from a snippet of your CV, skills offered, and rates, you should also create a portfolio page where you could show off your skills.

For example:

• Web design – logos, avatars, graphics, etc.
• Web content – sample articles, links to published work
• SEO – case studies on link building campaigns, etc.
• E-mail campaigns – A snippet of the campaign made
• Video creation – Embedded video of your work

Some employers include a clause on employment contracts that they own rights to all projects you’ve participated on. Honor this clause. You can still show off the skills you’ve learned by creating your own project.

3. Work On Your Personality

No one is a perfect VA. The earlier you acknowledge that there could be something about your personality or work ethic that you can improve on, the better.

One of the most common problems of working from home is that you literally work alone. If a job requires you to be a team player and work with other VAs and employees, find a way to push forward and learn to provide value as a team member.

Ask yourself these questions as honestly as you can:

• How do you handle criticisms?
• Do you feel threatened with co-employees that do better than you?
• How do you deal with failure?
• Are you willing to leave your comfort zone?
• Can you spot and solve problems without supervision?
• Do you take pride in your work?
• How self-motivated are you?
• Can you easily communicate with people you’ve just met?

Did you discover something about yourself? Don’t worry much about these weaknesses, but give extra effort to improve them from here on out:

4. Learn How to Market Yourself

Marketing yourself doesn’t just involve showing off relevant work samples and your portfolio. You’ll need a bit of planning if you want to get the attention of the right employers. Here’s what you’d need:

• Target market – Find job boards and forums that would showcase your work to interested employers. For example: web designer virtual assistants can go to the Smashing Magazine job board, writer VAs can lurk at the ProBlogger Job Board, and more.
• Unique Selling Point – Determine your USP and take advantage of it. If you’re offering a very specific skillset, such as creating augmented reality Android app, then focus on this USP when marketing yourself.
• Master the art of copywriting – The best way to show your personality, writing capability and marketing skills in one go is to practice writing copy.
• Be up-to-date with trends – When writing a profile, cover letter, or other methods of marketing yourself to potential employers, drop some bits of knowledge that would show how well you are up-to-date with developments in your industry.

5. Be Loyal

Once you land a job you like, be loyal. The wide range of opportunities available for virtual assistants makes it easy for workers to hop from one company to the next. Even if employers don’t say it, loyalty is a highly-regarded trait. If you go well and beyond what is required of your job as a virtual assistant, your loyalty can be rewarded tenfold.

The Bottom Line

Virtual assistants can provide value to a business without the big investment required in hiring traditional employees. VAs know this. Employers are aware of this. But as a virtual assistant, this shouldn’t stop you from reaching new heights, upgrading your skill set, and improving your weaknesses to be the jack-of-all-trade VA no employer could resist.

Top 10 Job Boards for Freelancers

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Networking will only take you so far in your search for freelance jobs; sometimes you just need the critical mass of many potential clients looking for freelancers. Job boards are an excellent place to find that critical mass.

Not all job boards are created equal, however. Some job boards act as third-party agents (i.e., middlemen) between the freelancer and potential client; this is bad because middlemen job boards typically skim a portion of the freelancer’s earnings and make it difficult to negotiate with the client. Other job boards (e.g., eLance, oDesk) force freelancers into a “bidding war” against each another, causing them to undercharge their services during the freelance “race to the bottom,” as quoted by Carol Tice.

On a side note, some “job boards,” like the one recently introduced by Flickr, cleverly hide programmer jobs inside of website source code!

10 Job Boards for Freelancers

The following list provides no mention of middlemen or bidding. I hope you enjoy and profit from my list of these top 10 freelance job boards:

1. Facebook4Freelancers

This Facebook-based job board and networking site is managed by Brian Scott of FreelanceWriting.com and publishes several job listings per day. Most of the gigs are centered on writing and/or editing and cover a range of genres including blogging, ghostwriting, copywriting, e-course development, etc. Some of the posted jobs even call for freelance editors/supervisors that manage other writers and editors. Some of the listed jobs are location-specific, but most allow you to work from home and online.

2. SmashingJobs

This site lists mostly software developer (e.g., Java), programmer (e.g., C++) and designer jobs (e.g., graphic), with about half of them being freelance. The job board itself is part of Smashing Magazine. Perusing the site, I also found jobs for writers, ad managers and consultants. It would be nice to see more freelance jobs posted on this site- but I’m betting a lot of the employed ones eventually allow telecommuting. Smashing Magazine also offers a good number of helpful resources and articles.

3. LinkedIn

One of the reasons I love LinkedIn is its high-quality job board that can be tailored to find almost any position. By going to the jobs tab of LinkedIn and hitting “Advanced Search,” you can use keywords to narrow down your job search and find every “freelance whatever” position that is currently listed. You can also have LinkedIn send you daily email alerts of all the jobs that match your selection criteria. Because clients must pay a hefty fee to LinkedIn for listing an open position, there is little chance of finding spam or scams here.

4. ProBlogger

The name rightly suggests that you’ll find mostly blogging jobs here; however, after perusing (a word that actually means carefully examining) ProBlogger’s job board, you can find lots of other gigs too like website testing, editing, newswriting and copywriting. What I don’t like about ProBlogger is that, on occasion, a content mill “job” slips through and gets posted. Overall, though, the site offers a wide range of writing gigs that pay a decent rate per hour or task.

5. BloggingPro

This site sounds like another iteration of ProBlogger and it kind of is, except that BloggingPro seems (at least to me) to list an even greater number of blogger positions than ProBlogger, with just a smattering of writer and journalist positions thrown in for fun. About 3-4 new job leads are provided on a daily basis. BloggingPro also maintains its own blog (where you can submit a post), publishing lots of useful information there on jobs, writing, social media, etc.

6. MediaBistro

If you’re looking for editing or writing opportunities in well-known magazines and trade publications, then Media Bistro’s job board is the place to go. Many but not all of the posted jobs are location-specific; however, you can also specify that only telecommute positions be shown. Membership on the site is required before you can look over the job listings; luckily, you can sign up absolutely free. Paid AvantGuild membership is $45/year and comes with additional perks like insider information on how to pitch national magazines.

7. SoloGig

This job board is fairly easy to use- you simply input the type of job you’re looking for and in which geographic location. As a freelancer, specifying a location is kind of pointless and you do have the option of just leaving that area blank. Following your site search, about half the jobs that come back are freelance/contract in nature. There are various jobs available, from software development to programming to writing. What I like about SoloGig is that it tracks your keyword-based searches while you go job searching (assuming you sign up with the site); doing so helps the job board adapt to your job preferences over time.

8.  JournalismJobs

Another easy-to-use job search board is offered on Journalism Jobs. You can select for only freelance positions by inputting “freelance” into the keyword area prior to running your search. Most of the listed jobs involve some form of writing or editing; however, I did find forum moderator, market analyst, videographer and application designer positions offered too. It costs clients $75 to create a single category job posting on Journalism Jobs, which helps cut down on get-rich-quick and spam postings.

9. 37Signals

According to 37Signals, heavy hitters like Facebook, Apple, American Express and The New York Times have posted jobs to its job board. Just looking through the site, I also found other big names include CNET, Adobe, Yelp and Bloomberg. The site is very tech-heavy and is probably best intended for website developers and programmers.

10. Online Writing Jobs

By using long-tail keywords like “Freelance Technical Writer” to search this job board, you come up with a quite a number of decent-paying and legitimate jobs. There are some pitfalls, however: the site relies heavily on imported postings from Craigslist, which I consider another “race to the bottom” job board that leads to underpaid (or unpaid) work. Ironically, I actually had better luck on this site when I avoided using the search term “freelance,” of all things.

What about paid job boards?

Are you more likely to find a decent job if you pay for access to a specific job board? I say no. Having been given access to a number of paid job boards, I find that most of what you pay for is the human effort of sifting through publicly available jobs and posting them to one site. However, those jobs are still out there- and can be easily reached by simply searching my above listed sites. In fact, many of the paid-for job boards that I have access to actually mention taking job postings from the above listed sites like Facebook4Freelancers and ProBlogger. To quote Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun.

However, should you wish to try some paid job boards, here are the ones I recommend:

FreelanceSwitch

This site offers some choice jobs that you can click on and read; however, applying to these positions requires a $7/month subscription. Because FreelanceSwitch hand picks some good paying jobs that are limited in applicants due to the subscription fee, you may wish to consider shelling out a few bucks and seeing if this place will work out for you.

The Freelance Writers Den

Carol Tice, a six-figure freelance writer whom I interviewed last month, operates and offers The Freelance Writers Den, where one can access a “no-junk” job board, forum, classes, interviews and other goodies. Because the Den requires a subscription fee of $25/month, I state that its job board is a paid-for paid job board. I recommend this job board because many of its listings are personal referrals by Carol herself; thus, you’d be unlikely to find them anywhere else online. As a side note, I joined the Den last month and have secured two writing gigs already thanks to those internal job referrals.

FlexJobs

This site has been on my RADAR screen for a while and several other freelancers have recommended its job board. To access this site, however, you need to pay $14.95/month to $49.95/year. Still, the fee may be worthwhile if it saves you time on sifting through Craiglist-type spam ads and other low-paying junk.

Will Affiliate Rebirth Give You 100% Free Traffic and $3K-$5K/Month?

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Affiliate Rebirth, which was just relaunched by Grigory Kononenko, Stefan Ciancio, and Shahnawaz Sadiquee, is a video training program for affiliate marketers that makes some bold claims about how much money you’ll earn by setting up websites. In essence, the program claims that you’ll make $3K-$5K/month by implementing its revolutionary affiliate marketing methods.

Supposedly, this program teaches you a completely different method for doing affiliate marketing, making over $1K/week, and not having to pay for traffic.

Yes, you heard right: According to Affiliate Rebirth’s creators, you will learn how to make a sizable passive income using free traffic-generation methods. You won’t even need to do any email or social media marketing.

Does Affiliate Rebirth live up to its hype? I bought this program at its advertised price of $17.70 to learn more.

Inside Affiliate Rebirth

Once my order went through, I found myself looking at the following:

Upsell #1

For $47, Grigory will give you researched information on 10 niche sites you can build right now, complete with affiliate products, keywords, Amazon keywords, and competitor info. This upsell is called the Done-for-You Pack.

Upsell #2

For another $47, Grigory will enable you to copy and paste his most successful niche sites, saving you the hassle of designing your sites and generating content for them. This upsell is called Affiliate Rebirth Elite $60k Case Studies Bundle.

Upsell #3

The third upsell you see is this one, which Grigory says will provide you with secret link-building strategies for your niche sites. This upsell is priced at $27.

Once you get past these three upsells, you’re taken to your Affiliate Rebirth account area, which in my case was hosted by JVZoo. Here, you open up four modules of the following training videos:

Module 1: Niche Selection

Earnings proof (3:18)- In this introductory video, you see the kinds of web traffic that Grigory’s (and his colleagues’) niche websites are generating.

How to find a profitable niche (13:57)- You are taught how to spot great niches by perusing Amazon’s Full Stores and Best Sellers. You are also told to look at big websites and see which products they are pushing.

Criteria to access profitability (12:24)- Grigory goes through Google SERP results and advises duplicating their subject matter for eventual ranking of your content.

Basics of keyword research (6:59)- What are keywords and how do you select the best ones for traffic? Grigory goes through these questions and introduces head, body and long-tail keywords.

Buying intent keywords (6:47)- Here, it is explained that you need traffic generated from buying intent keywords rather than informational keywords, even if that traffic is smaller. Branded keywords are also introduced.

Product research on Amazon and generating buying intent keywords (13:19)- Here, you learn how to do product research on Amazon. Keywords research tools are introduced, including Google Keyword Planner, Long Tail Pro, and SEMRush.

How to find informational keywords (11:59)- Sometimes, you need traffic from users at the very beginning of their buying cycle; this is accomplished using informational keywords. Also, Google rewards pages that have informational as well as transactional keywords.

Module 2: Content Creation

How to create quality content for your niche (11:54)- Quality content is introduced and described.

Conversion tips (6:01)- Grigory explains how to maximize conversion from your generated traffic. Call-to-actions, H2 headings, comparison tables, banners, etc. are all introduced as ways to increase conversions.

Home page layout (3:38)- Grigory goes over how you can best lay out your home page for the most conversions.

Silo structure (4:52)- The idea of categorizing keywords by silo, or category, is introduced. Grigory goes over the concept of keyword silos and how to build them.

Supporting posts (2:34)- The supporting posts link to epic posts and use less popular keywords than epic posts.

Epic posts (4:29)- Epic posts are introduced and described. Grigory also shows example epic posts via his Google searches.

Keyword tips for content (2:49)- Grigory provides additional tips on how keywords can be placed into content for improved SEO.

Get out of Sandbox quickly (3:24)- After your site is launched, it might be placed into the Google Sandbox. This is a location where your site and its keywords are not yet ranked. Grigory explains how you can get out of the Sandbox sooner.

Module 3: Site setup

Site setup (17:10)- A rather in-dept introduction is provided for creating your domain, including selecting your URL, obtaining hosting, generating your WordPress theme(s), etc.

Easy way to set up Amazon monetization (3:14)- In this much shorter video, Stefan instructs you on how to set up and use the EasyAzon plugin for the Amazon Affiliates program.

Niche site checklist (3:09)-  Stefan goes over a few items on your WordPress site, like installing the Yoast plugin, checking your design and logo, having a privacy policy, etc. He notes that you should have at least 15 articles before you launch your site.

Things to NOT do (2:24)- Stefan goes over things you shouldn’t do as an Amazon affiliate, like sending your affiliate link in emails, iframing, link cloaking, using links in e-books, using your affiliate link for your own product purchases, etc.

Boost website speed (2:48)- Stefan shows you how you can easily increase your site loading speed by taking basic steps like leveraging browser caching. Stefan notes that there is a resource (i.e., a quarter page of code) included in the training to help you complete this procedure.

Module 4: Traffic

Getting long term traffic (6:20)- Stefan goes over link-building as a way to get some ranking on Google. He goes over authority links, the relevance of those links, link diversity, and outbound links.

Quick traffic hacks, get traffic instantly (8:20)- Stefan goes over some methods for generating traffic quickly, such as placing site links on product discussion forums.

Web 2.0 links for instant boost in rankings (12:53)- In this video, several different examples are provided on how you can generate relevant backlinks to your nice site(s) by taking advantage of several social media channels.

Scholarship links with high PR (9:47)- Stefan goes over how to get high PR links from educational institutions and other learning organizations.

Infographics links, huge PR (9:28)- Stefan goes over how to insert links into infographics for improved site rank on Google. While this was an excellent tutorial, there was a point in the video tutorial (0:46) where Stefan forgot to edit out some of his expletives (!).

Effective blog commenting (8:39)- Stefan demonstrates how to find websites where you can post quality blog comments and boost your website.

Link building plan for your site (5:34)- Stefan goes over all the lessons of the prior videos and summarizes the strategies that were introduced for effective link-building.

Blog outreach (13:49)- The final video shows you how to target specific blogs in order to get links from them. Guest posting is explained in great detail.

Affiliate Rebirth: Pros and Cons

Like every training program, Affiliate Rebirth has its pros and cons. Here are some of the positive aspects of the course:

Pros

Affiliate Rebirth offers a comprehensive training program for people who wish to create affiliate websites and see them rank quickly.  Lots of time is spent showcasing actual examples of niche sites, link strategies, blogs, etc. There are also additional resources located at the bottom of each video module for further reading.

The program offers a 30-day money-back guarantee that is honored. My refund request was processed within two days, no questions asked.

Cons

Affiliate Rebirth is fairly new and has some rough edges to smooth out before it can become a top-of-the-line training program. For starters, many of its videos feature typed pages of notes that are hard to read. Some of the presenters have rather heavy accents that may be difficult to follow, especially for non-native English speakers. There’s even a point in one of the training videos where Stefan can be heard swearing just before he cuts the video.

The product does not offer a member forum, although it does feature a webinar that one can register for. This webinar might be offered weekly or monthly; the next webinar is scheduled for August 9th.

The Bottom Line: Is Affiliate Rebirth a Scam?

At $17, Affiliate Rebirth is offering up a lot of value for the price. You are given quality information and videos packed full of useful resources to get an affiliate marketing website up and running.

For a beginner affiliate marketer, Affiliate Rebirth offers some good training and examples. More advanced affiliate marketers will probably wish to look elsewhere for in-depth training and strategies. It’s doubtful that, just using the techniques discussed in the base product at Affiliate Rebirth alone, you would come to generate $3K-$5K/month, but you would certainly be on your way towards earning some money through your niche websites.

As for the advertised free traffic, yes, it could be completely free if you did all the work involved in link posting, writing comments and guest posts, etc., but you will then be dedicating a lot of your time towards these efforts. Some of the advertised methods were ways I’d never recommend. I find infographics to be completely useless and blog commenting is only really effective if the blog has allowed dofollow links.

All in all, Affiliate Rebirth is not a scam and is absolutely worth the advertised price.

How to Make Money Online with mTurk

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Mechanical Turk (or mTurk, for short) is one of the oldest micro job sites around. It’s been around since 2005 and has been providing people with a platform to make extra income online by performing simple tasks. It’s backed by retail giant Amazon, so you’re in good hands.

It’s one of those too-good-to-be-true statements where you can work from the comforts of your home in your boxer shorts, pajamas and fluffy slippers and earn real cash. But unlike other scams online, mTurk is legit and has been paying people on time for easy-to-do tasks for years.

Getting Started with mTurk

Mechanical Turk has two kinds of users – requesters (the people who assign and pay for tasks) and workers (those who will complete the tasks). Requesters are the ones who will accept or reject completed tasks of workers. Amazon doesn’t have a say on this, but mTurk simply provides the platform to connect these two category of users.

To get started completing tasks on Mechanical Turk, you’ll need to create an account. But note that not everyone will be accepted. mTurk has an approval process, which has been notorious for denying some users for no apparent reason, but if you’re lucky to have your application accepted, you can continue filling up your account info. If your application gets rejected, you can try again in a few days.

As a new mTurk worker, you’ll be under 10-day probation with a maximum cap of 100 accepted HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks). All workers must complete at least their first HIT to begin the 10-day count. Once you finish the probationary period, you’ll be given a daily cap of 3,800 accepted HITs.

One of the most important parts of your mTurk account is the dashboard. This is where you’ll see your worker ID, how many HITs have been approved or denied, how much money you’ve made so far, and your entire HIT record.

Note that all workers have to provide their tax details and other personal info like driver’s license number, SSN, etc. If you’re not from the U.S., you have to send mTurk a filled-up W8-BEN form.

All About HITs

The HITs are on a first-come, first-serve basis, but requesters will only give you the HIT if you qualify for it. There’s a qualification tab on every HIT, so it’s best to check it out first. These vary completely depending on the requester, but common qualifications include taking a test, completing a qualification HIT, or “approved HITs greater than 500, 1k, 5k, or 10k+.

These 500, 1k+, 5k+, or 10k+ milestones are important, since your approval HIT rate refers to the number of HITs that have been approved compared to the number of HITs that have been rejected.

Qualification tests pay as little as one cent upon completion, but they are important if you want to turn mTurk into a lucrative full-time career.

You can find three kinds of HITs on the platform:

  1. Data Entry (converting image formats, filling out captcha, etc.)
  2. Surveys (Answer surveys from requesters)
  3. Transcriptions (transcribe content)

Some HITs are grouped in Batches (two or more HITs posted in one HIT). Workers should choose HITs carefully, especially if they’re still in the probationary period, since Amazon can close your account if it sees something wrong with your account.

Some HITs must be completed in just 3 minutes upon acceptance. Others have an hour, a day, several weeks of completion time, but if you miss this time frame, it will be counted as an expired HIT. It’s important to note that workers with high expiration rates won’t be able to qualify for HITs with higher pay.

Scripts and Why You Need Them

You have to understand that at any given time, there are millions of HITs available on mTurk. The great thing about mTurk is that you can filter these HITs according to your needs (such as expiry date, reward, time allotted and more).

New workers should familiarize themselves with the platform first, before taking on HITs. Ideally, those in the probationary period should choose easier HITs.

Once you get the hang of mTurk’s platform, it’s time to use various scripts that would take your turking to the next level.

The three must-have scripts you should install and why you should use them:

  1. Tamper Monkey for Chrome or GreaseMonkey for Firefox – These browser extensions allow you to install all other scripts that will make your turking life manageable.
  2. Turkopticon – Available as a Chrome or Firefox extension, this script lets you see workers’ reviews on requesters. This helps you avoid scam HITs and requesters who have made it difficult for mTurk workers in the past. Requesters listed her are given ratings for 4 factors (rewards, fairness, generosity and communication). Workers would be on the safe side if they choose requesters with over 90% ratings.
  3. MTurk HIT DataBase – Automatically records every single HIT you’ve completed.

There are tons of Mechanical Turk scripts and plugins available for workers to use. You can check out a huge list of them here. Others let you auto-refresh the HIT screen automatically, some makes browsing for HITs more effective by personalizing parameters, others alter you via text or browser. Some scripts are aimed at advanced turkers (such as Scrapper or PANDA).

Whichever scripts you decide to use, these tools would help in increasing your productivity, calculating profits, improving HIT numbers, and providing a history of all your HITs. Simply put, if you wish to earn $500 per week on Mechanical Turk, you have to take advantage of scripts.

How Much Can You Earn from mTurk?

The income potential of mTurk may seem week, since HITs range from cents to dollars, but if you give enough time and work your way up to higher qualifications (10k+ milestones), the payment you’ll receive will definitely increase as well. Many turkers have done this as a side hustle to start, but are now banking on six-figures yearly from doing simple tasks.

Withdrawing money from Amazon requires your SSN and address proof. You can request for Amazon gift cards, or have your earnings transferred to your bank account. Your mTurk funds should be transferred to Amazon Payment on your Amazon account, before it will be withdrawn to your chosen bank. Note that bank transfers take 24 hours.

It’s recommended to transfer your mTurk funds weekly, since Amazon can terminate your account for some reason or another and all income you’ve generated from Mechanical Turk will be lost.

There are tons of resources to increase your mTurk income, such as Reddit (/r/HITsWorthTurkingFor), mTurk List, CloudMeBaby, and mTurk Grind, among others.

The Bottom Line

mTurk is a legitimate platform that lets you earn real money from simple tasks. Earning your way up to higher-earning tasks may seem daunting, but you can always do this on this side and focus on mTurk alone once you’re able to earn higher rewards.

It’s an awesome platform, and if you’re still mulling if you’re going to join or not, don’t. Do it now and reap from future rewards by turking today.

How Much Can You Earn Working as an Email Marketing Specialist?

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Email marketing is another career path for writers looking for a niche in the wide world of home-based employment. It takes a special kind of skill to be able to write newsletter campaigns. Aside from the e-mail campaign’s goal of promoting a service or product in hopes of a conversion, the specialist must also balance the art of copywriting engaging content, manipulating a particular target market, creating buzz, and generating leads for the business.

It’s a tricky job, but an email marketing specialist is one of the most lucrative work-at-home jobs available for writers today.

Here’s why:

  • 95% of companies that use a marketing automation program take advantage of the benefits of email marketing. (via Regalix)
  • Over 75% of email revenue comes from segmented, targeted emails focused on a particular respondent, instead of one-size-fits-all campaigns. (via DMA)
  • 74% of marketers claim that personalized e-mail campaigns increase customer engagement. (via eConsultancy)
  • Email is 40x more effective at obtaining new customers than Twitter or Facebook. In fact, about 72% people prefer to receive promos via email, compared to 17% who prefer social media. – (via McKinsey & MarketingSherpa)
  • For every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 in ROI. (via Campaign Monitor)

Companies spend a lot of money in lead generation and use mostly e-mail marketing to acquire targeted leads.

If you’re looking for a career change, or want to explore email marketing as a specialization, continue reading…

Everything You Need to Know about an Email Marketing Job

Email marketing specialists are self-starters. They are exceptionally good at research – from keywords to market research – and back up their email campaigns with solid data. Because email marketing specialists are responsible for solving a particular problem (how to turn leads into buyers, how to add more subscribers, how to encourage people to click an ad, etc.), they must be particularly goal-oriented and juggle several tasks effectively.

As an email marketing specialist, you must have:

  • Top-of-the-line copywriting skills
  • Proven ability to design, launch and monitory email campaigns
  • Ability to interpret email analytics and other relevant data
  • Advanced knowledge of various CRM systems, HTML, CSS, etc.
  • Proficiency in email marketing programs like SalesForce, InfusionSoft, and more
  • Experience with A/B testing

A marketing degree isn’t really a requirement, but can be a plus. If you’re a professional writer switching to this career path, the best way to land this job is to show successful email campaigns as part of your portfolio.

Day-to-Day Tasks of an Email Marketing Specialist

The role of an email marketing specialist involves dozens of small tasks. But they’re all covered under these main categories.

Developing Strategies

  • Content strategy (what every email is about)
  • Campaign calendar (when to send every email)
  • Contact strategy (which target audience receives a particular email or campaign)

2. Creating Campaigns

  • Oversee email design
  • Write engaging content
  • SEO-optimizing links
  • Keeping the campaign’s voice aligned with company’s branding, vision, and sales goals
  • Ensure email campaign’s functionality on mobile and desktop versions
  • Report or fix technical issues related to the campaign

3. Managing Lists

  • Editing contact list throughout the campaign
  • Monitor performance of targeted audience

4. Analyzing Data

  • Analyze campaign performance
  • Identify weakness and strength from past campaigns
  • Create in-depth reports about the email campaign

The day-to-day tasks of an email marketing specialist can vary, particularly if you’re working as a team or alone. Those working as a team member may focus on a specific element of the campaign – such as copywriting or list generation. However, those working alone may need to juggle all tasks on their own to launch an effective email marketing campaign.

How Much Can You Earn from an Email Marketing Career?

Email marketing specialists who are office-based and employed in the U.S. earn an average of $55,000 per year. Senior email marketing specialists (those with over 10 years of experience) receive up to $65,000 annually.

Home-based, full-time specialists can earn $30 to $50 per hour, depending on skills, experience level, and other factors. Salary of freelance email marketing specialists could be higher (if they’re working alone on the campaigns), or lower (if they’re part of a team). Benefits are nonexistent in home-based positions, but in some rare occasions, companies may extend their benefits to remote workers like you.

The Bottom Line

Email marketing is one of the oldest techniques in the book, but companies continue to use it simply because it works. The job outlook of a specialist in this field is high, particularly since no other marketing strategy can compare to the ROI email marketing achieves. There are also a lot of companies hiring freelancers for this role, so if you have mad copywriting skills and the ability to lead successful email campaigns, you can go far in this field and earn a substantial income from the comforts of your own home.

Will TwoDollarClick.com Really Pay You $2 Per Click? Not a Chance.

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If I said to you that I will pay you $2 bucks to click a link, would you do it?

What if I said that you can keep clicking links and I will keep paying you $2 every time?

That’s sounds pretty awesome doesn’t it? Well, TwoDollarClick.com promises you pretty much that, easy money for anyone.

Joining the site is free, and relatively easy to do so. After logging in you are faced with a variety of menus and so the first thing to do is click some links!

Clicking a link will open up a new window where you need to mindlessly stare at the advert for 30 seconds, and then click a number.

My first roadblock came with clicking the number, it said I had clicked the wrong one, but I have no clue which I needed to click. It refreshed, another 30 seconds of my life gone, and I clicked another number. This time an error, accusing me of viewing more than one advert at a time (well there goes that plan!).

Really not off to a good start here.

Next time around it gave me the number I needed to click and I was able to successfully complete it, phew! Heading back to my account page I could see that $2 bucks is now in my account, awesome.

Feeling a little greedy and wondering what I could buy for those two dollars I decided to cash them out.

Oh, wait. I need $1000 in the account before I can cash out! That’s like, 500 clicks! Ok, no pressure.

How it works

Two Dollar Click generates money from advertisers by guaranteeing views and clicks. Then it pays you to click the advertiser’s links. This works well for Two Dollar Clicks as they get money from the advertisers (I believe it is $5+ per click) and only pay out $2 per click. I’m not sure the advertisers get a good deal on this though, as there is less than targeted traffic, but that’s another story.

The Anti Cheating System

The site boasts it has an anti cheating system, but I found nowhere that explained the dos’s and don’ts which is a little worrying, as I can imagine a situation where you have $998 in your account and you make a mistake and wham! they invalidate your account.

The Hidden MLM?

Though I couldn’t get much information on this, one of my pet hates seemed to raise its ugly head, in the form of a potential Multi Level Marketing scheme. In short, you can get referrals (other people) to join using your special link and you get a cut of each click. There is no clarification as to whether or not this is deducted from the persons clicks or if they still receive the $2 dollars.

The site also allows you to purchase referrals (weird) and to upgrade your membership to receive better paid adverts and increased commissions from your referrals. The upgrade also costs a fair sum at $19.95 or $39.95 per month, and unlike the payouts which take 60 days to arrive after requesting it, these fees are taken out of your bank account on time, every time each month.

Is TwoDollarClick.com a Scam?

The most concerning thing about Two Dollar Click is what I have heard on the grapevine. As the payouts only occur at the $1000 mark, it seems there is a tendency to reduce or even stop access to new adverts when an account is getting close to the 1000 threshold.

Their “payment proof” isn’t very heartening either as it’s just a list of usernames (real or fake, who knows) with some data. It simply doesn’t look genuine.

Not only that, but there are numerous complaints about those who reached the threshold still not being paid out.

The Bottom Line

Two Dollar Click looks pretty good until you start getting close to the payout threshold, and at that point the realization comes that this is in fact a scam!

The very lack of detailed information, the fact that it is know that adverts dry up and the subtle MLM system in place makes me advise you that this is most likely a scam and to avoid at all costs!

Sites like these are never going to pay out. No advertiser is going to pay $5 per click for untargeted traffic. It’s just an absolute awful business strategy. The people behind this site (any many other similar sites) are only interested in using you for quick ad revenue. You will never see a dime from them.

If it’s too good to be true…

How Does Two Dollar Click Compare?

I’ve Tried That has been reviewing ways to make money from home 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.

Let’s see how Two Dollar Click compares…

Earn Cash on the Side by Selling Designs at Print on Demand Sites

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If you have a knack for designing catchy t-shirt designs, handbags, hoodies, mugs, pillows, phone covers and other products, there’s a very special place on the internet for you. It’s called Print On Demand (PoD) niche, and there are at least 10 websites that offer useful tools for designers like you to begin selling designs on your own shop. This industry has been around for decades, but has slowly creeped into the ecommerce industry, and is now here to stay.

5 Reasons to Join Print-on-Demand Sites

The Print-on-Demand websites provide a powerful platform for designers without a reputable name yet, or their own store to house their fruits of labor. But there are a couple of reasons why designers have stayed with PoD sites for years, even if creating their own store is a viable option. Here’s why:

1. Buyers Visit PoD Sites Directly

Traffic is one of the hardest things to obtain with having your own website. PoD sites know this. Designers are aware of this. Letting the PoD site handle marketing and traffic makes a lot of sense, particularly for new designers without capital.

2. No Need to Buy Printing Equipment

The problem with t-shirt manufacturing is that you’d need capital to buy printing equipment. But since PoD sites take care of producing the designs for you, you can focus on creating designs for your shop and never worry about broken machine parts, paint requirements, and a whole lot more.

3. PoD Sites’ Fees are Fair

Most PoD sites don’t ask for up-front payments, but earn from every item sold. Designers have some control on how items are priced, and they take home royalties for every one of their designs sold.

4. No Need to Find Distributors and Freight Services

Another benefit of joining PoD sites is that designers don’t need to find distributors of blank shirts, mugs, or other products anymore. They’re also not responsible for shipping the items to customers, which removes the need to find freight/shipping companies completely.

5. Huge Support from a Community of Artists

Every designer on PoD sites is part of huge community of fellow artists hoping to earn extra cash from their designs. What’s cool about this environment is that creatives support other creatives to make their PoD a great experience as possible.

Top 7 Print-on-Demand Sites for Designers

If you’re new to the world of POD sites, and don’t know where to go, here are the top 7 most popular websites that could provide you with a platform for selling your designs.

1. Zazzle

Zazzle is a true-blue American online success story, wherein father Robert Beaver and sons Bobby and Jeffrey Beaver launched the website in 2005 from their garage. Today, Zazzle is the most popular POD site that attracts over 30 millions of designers and customers a month.

What makes Zazzle Stand Out: The company gives sellers tons of customization options. In the marketplace, you’ll find designers who sell art as is, and makers who can personalize products for buyers. Products ordered are shipped within 24 hours, which is always a plus for buyers.

Earning Potential: Royalties range from 5 to 99 percent on top of Zazzle’s base prices. And because Zazzle offers buyers numerous ways to customize products, designers also earn extra whenever buyers opt for a personalized version.

2. DeviantArt

DeviantArt is one of the oldest communities of online creatives. Every member is allowed to post their art and share their virtual “galleries” to the world. It is more of a social network of artists who create designs, animations, videos, paintings, and more.

What makes DeviantArt Stand Out: The DeviantArt Print Service isn’t as popular as other PODs on this list because the website didn’t originally offer this feature. But if you’re a popular DeviantArt member and want to capitalize on your work, this platform is the way to go.

Earning Potential: Arists are paid 20% of the item’s retail price. Earnings would depend on the type of products designers put on sale.

3. CaféPress

Founded in 1999, this website was the ultimate go-to POD site before it turned off its own designers after changes in the pricing structure and terms weren’t received well. The company is still up and running, has fully recovered from the backlash and continues to offer an excellent POD platform to designers.

What makes CafePress Stand Out: Buyers flock to CafePress for customized products because the pricing offered is lowered compared to other POD sites.

Earning Potential: There’s two places you could sell on Café Press – the marketplace (where commissions are default at 10%), or your own CaféPress-hosted store (which offers more flexibility in terms of commissions and offer volume bonuses).

4. Redbubble

Launched in 2004, this Australian-based POD site is one of the most-visited POD websites today. Redbubble has mastered the industry to a T – they even provide returns to unhappy customers (an uncommon practice of POD sites due to the customized nature of products).

What makes Redbubble Stand Out: The categories offered on the store are a lot, from the typical clothing and paper products, to super-niche items like duvet covers (in king-sized!). Aside from direct bank account deposits, commissions of designers can also be sent via PayPal (if that’s something you prefer).

Earning Potential: Redbubble lets designers choose the percentage of their royalties. So if an item’s base price (the amount of production of the item) is $30 CAD, and designers set a 30% makrup on their designs, they earn a $6 CAD commission every time someone buys the $36 CAD (retail price) item.

5. Design by Humans

This website first operated in July 2017 and has since been an interesting platform for both designers and consumers alike. It is one of the few POD business models that has landed licenses from major brands like Star Wars and Marvel.

What makes Design by Humans Stand Out: The company offers design contests (for $1,000 prize a pop) and features an artist’s work on “Shirt of the Day” for a $1,000 award. Design by Humans also has a strong social media presence, which brings in traffic to designer’s stores organically.

Earning Potential: Royalties are fixed from as low as 50 cents for stickers, and as high as $8 for framed artwork. You can check detailed pricing here.

6. Threadless

The company started operating in 2000 and is one of the best examples of successful crowdsourcing. Artists create the designs (about 1,000 are submitted weekly) and an online community gets to vote which designs they want featured. Threadless then weighs the votes, community feedback and their own reviews, then chooses 10 designs to be printed on t-shirts, other types of clothing, and various other products.

What makes Threadless Stand Out: Aside from the unique crowdsourcing model, this POD site also lets artists create their own stores.

Earning Potential: Artists who are chosen for the week’s prints do not receive cash, but are given $250 Threadless gift cards and 20% of the royalties based on net profits. When that same design gets reprinted, the artist receives an extra $500. When it comes to designer’s own store, they are free to price their designs they see fit, and keep profit minus base cost.

Many successful designers join 3 or more sites and house their designs on those POD websites simultaneously to increase potential royalties. Note that other POD sites put restrictions on uploading the designs you’ve submitted on their site to other similar POD sites.

Wrap Up

There’s money to be made in the POD business. And some even turn this side gig into a full-time career. Take Michael Essek as an example, who uploaded his first design on Redbubble in 2014 and earned $50 from his first month, then jumped to a whopping $7,000 by July 2016 with over 1,000 designs across various POD sites.

If you want to replicate his success, there’s nothing special you could do but to start designing, let your creativity speak for your work, and if you’re lucky, turn this into a lucrative career.

FB Freedom Cash System: Is It a Scam?

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Facebook has to be one of the most well-known websites on Earth; after all it boasts over 2 billion user accounts with 1.3 billion people logging on daily.

It’s also highly lucrative as many businesses and even individuals make money via the platform, either through the normal method of using Facebooks advertising system or maybe by being “found” through a viral video.

Such popularity also means that it is also leveraged in many unethical and scam systems.

One particular system I came across recently might well be one of those scams: FB Freedom Cash System (also referred to as Facebook on Fire).

FB Freedom Cash System Stage 1

The sales pitch for this system is broken up into two stages.

Stage 1 is designed to get you interested enough to hand over your email address (in order to send you sales emails no doubt).

It starts off by asking you if you’d like to make $300 per day by “fooling around” on Facebook. This sounds amazing as I’m pretty sure that like me you spend at least some of the day browsing FB. It would be awesome to get paid for things like that!

FB Freedom Cash Facebook on Fire 300

This is literally the first few seconds of the video and I bet it got you interested right away! I have a lot of experience looking at various systems and scams online and I know for a fact that there is no system out there that will pay you $300 a day for browsing the web. If you’re very lucky you might get a few cents per hour for it.

The video reinforces this exaggerated claim by saying that $300 bucks is actually the lower end and that you can make $1,000 or more per day with no experience and for less than an hours work a week.

Are your alarm bells ringing yet? If not they should be. Let’s be realistic here, no one can earn $1,000 a day for a few minutes “work” of logging into Facebook.

FB Freedom Cash Facebook on Fire 1000

The 0.0001%?

According to the narrator, Joseph Magnum, he was in a secret meeting between Mark Zuxkerberg and Bill Gates where they explained, and laughed, over how people are missing out on the $2.8 billion that is “buzzing by you” when you’re on Facebook.

FB Freedom Cash Facebook on Fire 1percent

While you can’t rule out that the person behind this was in the same room, I highly doubt they spoke about this. I see this as merely a ploy to make you envious of people with a lot of money.

Skillset

According to the video the only skills you need to make $1,000 a day is:

  • The ability to click a mouse
  • Basic typing skills
  • High speed internet
  • A computer/smartphone

This is BS. While you can make money with just those skills it will be far less than even $300 a day. Let’s face it, people who make a lot of money have a bunch of other skills from networking, to coding, to being able to see trends and ideas, and much more.

The above skillset is good for data entry and that’s about it.

Psychological Tricks

Sales pitches always contain tricks to target you on an emotional or subconscious level and FB Freedom Cash System is not subtle about it.

FB Freedom Cash Facebook on Fire no more work

As well as that it hooks into your dreams of financial freedom: no more debt, or worrying about bills.

While this might not seem like much it’s designed to make you think about your life and how you deserve better, maybe enough to make you angry or frustrated and to lose an important think for a few short seconds: rationality.

If you’re not being rational then you’re more likely to buy into schemes like FB Freedom Cash System.

Free Money

One of the last things about stage 1 is that if you do hand over your email to get to Stage 2, by watching the Stage 2 video you’ll be given $500 cash.

This tactic has been used on countless other scam sites and I’ve never heard of anyone receiving the money so I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.

FB Freedom Cash Facebook on Fire 500 dollars

FB Freedom Cash System Stage 2

Apparently there’s a guarantee that this video, Stage 2, will be the most exciting video I will ever watch.

I’m not sure about that but I’m definitely keen to get my $500!

You Deserve Better

Stage 2 really kicks the psychological tricks into overdrive, and covers a wide base. Apparently this system is for you if:

  • You no longer want a boss who doesn’t care about you
  • You’re in a debt spiral from hell
  • You’re behind on bills
  • Your work-life balance is slanted towards work
  • If you want to travel whenever and wherever you want
  • If you want to give your spouse gifts
  • If you want a brand new car
  • If you want to pay off your mortgage

These items cover pretty much anyone watching the video!

The Rags to Riches Story

Every sales pitch needs a good story and if the person happens to go from poor to rich as a result of using the system being sold, all the better!

In this case Joseph Magnum was broke, in debt to the tune of $30k and had failed at making money online 32 times.

He was then serving as wait staff at the Tech Crunch after party where he heard Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg in a heated argument. He placed his phone on the floor and recorded the conversation.

Apparently the recording led to him discovering a loophole that made him rich!

Yeah right.

Proof of Earnings

According to the screenshots provided by the narrator, this system has made him over $11 million dollars.

This proof though is no such thing as any screen shot can be edited, even directly on the screen if you know how.

FB Freedom Cash Facebook on Fire 11 million

There is literally no actual evidence this loop hole in Facebook exists or that it can be used to make money.

Testimonials

Social proof, that is other people telling you good things about a product, is a popular way to decide whether to buy something or not. After all if real people say it’s good, then that has more weight to it over a marketer telling you it’s good.

For FB Freedom Cash System uses video testimonials to show off how good it is. It’s a shame that these are all fake, bought for video testimonials!

FB Freedom Cash Facebook on Fire fake testimonials

The 100

Apparently only 100 people will get access to this system, which is BS as it’s obviously a scam system so why would they limit it to 100 sales?

$500

Near the end of the video you’re finally told how you will get you free $500!

FB Freedom Cash Facebook on Fire 500 redeem

Unfortunately it’s not cash in hand. It’s to do with the guarantee. If you don’t make $500 in 60 days, the person behind it will give you $500 dollars so long as you “show you made a fair effort”.

Not only did they lie in saying you would get $500 just for watching but the terms are very loose, and I’m pretty sure no one will ever get $500 as the “fair effort” is so vaguely worded.

A Lack of Terms

Not only is the $500 vaguely worded there’s no actual written terms, guarantee, disclaimer or company information.

Putting your money into a system like this will be basically like throwing it in the garbage.

Security? What Security?

Oh and just to top it off, the actual purchase page where you’ll be adding your credit card details has zero security.

FB Freedom Cash Facebook on Fire no security

This is pretty bad as not only will you have to hope that the people taking your details won’t you blind, but also that other hackers and miscreants won’t get that data too!

The Bottom Line

FB Freedom Cash System is, in my opinion, a scam. They lie from the start, offer false hope and a lot of exaggeration.

Even if their system was at least reasonable, it’s completely unlikely that you will make the sort of money promised with the ease they say you can.

As such I have no option but to recommend you avoid FB Freedom Cash System!

Master Ad Campaigns and Become a Rockstar Social Media Manager

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Many companies know the power of social media and marketing their brands through platforms like Facebook can provide quality traffic, leads and sales. If you’re a pro when it comes to social media, you’ve had successful Google ad campaigns in the past and you’re interested in a career change, becoming a home-based, social media manager can be an interesting position for you.

Should You Consider a Job as a Social Media Manager?

Like most jobs, a social media manager position requires special skills that not just anyone can perform. While millennials were born into the social media world, this doesn’t automatically make them the ideal candidates.

Social Media is an Exciting and New World

If you love the challenge of exploring new things from the ground up, social media is the best space for you since it’s still a young ‘industry’ with plenty of potential for growth.

You’re a Social Creature

Not everyone has a knack for talking to people. If you have that trait and you’re confident that you can speak to anyone no matter the age, gender, or affiliation. The job entails a different kind of customer service, since social media makes communication quicker, so you should have what it takes to handle inquiries, orders, or complaints with grace, even while under the pressure.

Use Your Marketing Background

Digital marketers would be perfect for this role, since they’re already in the know about how the internet works in terms of selling a product or service to a specific type of audience.

What you’d find ironic about this job is that although you’d have to be an exceptionally social being online, you’d be working alone in real-life since home-based positions are usually a one-man’s job. However, if you’re planning to apply to an office-based company, you’ll be leading a team of social media experts.

What Do Social Media Managers Do?

A social media manager designs, implements and monitors social media ad campaigns. He/she is responsible for creating objectives, providing visual content (image posts, ad design, etc.), and ensuring the brand voice is reflected on every content published.

The social media manager also handles long-term content and promotion strategy, which means he/she will be keeping a calendar for all the necessary marketing posts, sale announcement, and more.

Ensuring engagement is also a key role, since those social media accounts are made to build relationships of existing and would-be customers. Beyond engagement, the social media manager must also have a conversion strategy in place, so that Facebook, Instagram or Twitter followers can turn into buying customers.

Day-to-day tasks of a social media manager include:

• Craft content for publishing
• Save to Hootsuite (or similar social media management tools) and schedule posts for future publishing
• Conduct surveys, promos and other engaging gimmicks throughout the company’s social media networks
• Ensure the brand’s online presence is healthy
• Oversee design-related content (for profile pictures, ads, thumbnails, Facebook cover, and more)
• Answer messages and posts from customers across the board
• Plan, implement and monitor ad campaigns
• Monitor trends in social media apps, tools, strategies, etc.
• Analyze ad campaign data and analytics
• Create and review marketing reports
• Track and measure benchmarks of all marketing efforts, such as funnels, ads, social media posts, and more
• Coordinate with other social media team members (video, graphic designer, writers) in crafting content

Are You Qualified?

Ideally, a social media manager should have extensive digital marketing experience, superb written communication skills, excellent time management skills, and analytical skills. You would have to be results-driven and keep up-to-date about current marketing trends, social media and everything about monetizing digital content.

When it comes to experience and technical skills, you should have:

• Social media marketing experience
• Content marketing experience
• Experience in leading high-ROI ad campaigns on Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, etc.
• Advanced knowledge in sales funnel marketing
• Expert in testing practices (such as A/B, etc.)
• Facebook Ads Manager certification
• Facebook Power Editor mastery
• Advanced knowledge of interpreting data and analytics

A bachelor’s degree isn’t a major requirement with this position, but you’ll have an edge over your competition if you have a degree in marketing.

The Bottom Line

The social media manager position is relatively new, but thanks to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and other social media platforms that continue to affect our daily lives, this job is here to stay.

The demand for a social media expert remains high, but those with proven experience in creating and implementing ad campaigns on these platforms have a better future in this field because that’s where the money is. If you’re results-driven and up for a challenging position, the social media manager is a perfect job with a great job outlook.