Rebate Processor Jobs Are Scams!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rebateprocessorjobs.com also claims:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Angela Penbrook? Angel Stevens? A Scam by Any Other Name…

Hey, you! “Angela Penbrook!” We’re calling you out. You are deliberately misleading people desperate for legitimate work so you can sell your “rebate processing program.” We’re gonna expose you.

When we said we were going to review the “rebate processing jobs” that have become popular over the last year, one of the first commenters asked if we were going to look at Angela Penbrook’s system at myrebateprocessor.com or processfromhome.com. Or is it “Angel Stevens?” It doesn’t really matter because both “women” and their claims are equally misleading.

[Update March 10, 2009: ABC News’s 20/20 program featured this scam on March 6. Click here to watch the segment.]

We didn’t sign up for her program because it was $197, while other sites are offering the exact same “opportunity” for as little as $29.95. And because we didn’t sign up, this is not a full review. It’s merely my opinion based on experience and based on the claims on “Angela’s” own website.

Read All About “Rebate Processing Jobs”
If you’re new to I’ve Tried That, you’ll want to click over to our full review of rebate processor jobs. We signed up for one of them and tell you all about what they’re really offering.

After you’ve read that original review, this one will make a lot more sense. It’s the same pig, just with different lipstick.

It’s Not a Job. They’re Barely Rebates
What Penbrook is offering you is not a job. You’re not going to get batches of work from Home Depot of Blockbuster or Netflix. It is internet marketing. And to call what you would be doing “rebate processing” is deliberately misleading. Here’s how the program is supposed to work:

  • The forms you fill out are used to create Internet advertisements for companies selling products through Clickbank, a large Internet marketing clearing house.
  • After you create an ad, you have to get lots of people to see it. You do this by spreading your ads all over the ‘Net. (Psst! That’s called “spam” and is frowned upon in polite societies.)
  • When lots of people see it, some will click on it.
  • When lots of people click on it, some will purchase whatever your ad is selling.
  • Then, and only then, will you get paid.
  • The “rebate” is you sending part of your commission back to the buyer.
  • Lots of Hype, Little Substance
    Here’s a clue you can use to spot misleading “job” advertisements every time: look for the sales tactics. Why are sales tactics a clue that you’re about to be taken to the cleaners? Because the scammer led you to believe that you’re learning about a job. But if you read the whole page, do you have a good idea of what you will be doing?

    Imagine going to a job interview and your potential boss tells you a sob story about how broke he was, how he finally “made it” and how you can make thousands of dollars a day. Wouldn’t you be suspicious he didn’t tell you what work you would be doing? The same principle applies to Internet “job” advertisements.

    Here are the sales tactics Angela Penbrook uses at myrebateprocessor.com. See the looooong page that starts out with emotional hype? See the clock ticking down until your chance to buy expires? Those are designed to sell you something, not to get you to do legitimate work. Do you really think the positions are almost full and that “today might be the last day?” It’s a sales tactic. See the testimonials? See the pictures of riches and happy people? All are designed to push your emotional buttons to get you to click and buy.

    The Full Truth About Some of Her Lies
    $15 per rebate? If you make a sale from your Internet ads AND the commission is more than $15 AND you decide to send all but $15 back to the purchaser as a “rebate,” then yes, you made $15. I don’t know about you, but that’s a lot of “if.”

    Three easy steps? Yes, you can sign up at Clickbank, create ads, and see who has made purchases that are eligible for refunds. I guess those are three steps. But they are NOT easy steps. They’re categories of steps, each one requiring countless hours and clicks. You’ll spend many hours just to get started, let alone the complex steps involved in getting people to see and click on your ads.

    The reasons processing rebates is profitable. These reasons are about halfway down her page, after the table showing how much money you can make. They are deliberately written to make you think companies are dieing to “hire” you to work from home processing their rebates. I hope it’s clear by now that nothing could be further from the truth.

    If You Don’t Believe Me, How About the Better Business Bureau?
    The BBB report has this to say about myrebateprocessor.com:

    Complainants allege false advertising, misrepresentation, inability to obtain refunds, and failure to honor their money back guarantee. Some customers complain that instead of receiving an employment opportunity, they received only instructions on internet sales tactics. Other complainants report they are unable to speak with anyone at the company or that company personnel is rude or fails to resolve their concerns. Most complainants allege the company fails to provide any information or instructions on obtaining refunds. All complaints are pending at this time.

    And this:

    We believe this company’s advertising is deceptive and misleading. They are not directly offering employment. They sell information, not viable work opportunities. In our experience, the only one collecting any money will be this company collecting your $197.00. We know of no work at home offer that has ever generated the amount of income implied or advertised in the offer.

    Scrubbing the Ick Off
    I could go on, but I’ve spent enough time with Angela Penbrook. I need to go take a shower now. I’m so thoroughly disgusted with her deception, I can’t even tell you. Here at I’ve Tried That, we hear from lots of people who are just trying to make a little extra working from home, and they get taken in by lying pages like this one. They usually spend money they don’t have to sign up for programs they don’t understand. Angela Penbrook knows this and plays your fears to make herself rich.

    We’ve written a book that tells you how to find real jobs online and how to spot deceptive advertising like rebate processing sites use.

    [Update: April 5, 2008]
    This is very revealing. Connie in the comments called “Angela’s” 1-800 number to demand a refund. The rep on the other end of the line took her name and information, put her on hold, and then came back and said her refund was being processed. But Connie never signed up to begin with! “Angela Penbrook’s” operation is probably being run from a kitchen table somewhere with a pencil and paper.