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Websurfing & Security Not only during visiting reward websites, but in general, you should always surf the internet with an anti-virus and anti-malware programs installed on your computer. - free downloads. But because reward websites advertise literally thousands of links for you to visit, having an installed 'anti-crap' program becomes even more important.
Scam Websites Although many reward websites are a legitimate businesses, many more of these websites are set up to cheat you out of your time and money. Setting up a website is an easy task and many people do this just to take your money.
Before Joining a Rewards Website Before joining any rewards website there are a few things you can do in order to minimize the risk of being cheated out of your earnings - apply all the following tips, not only one or two: a) Quick-examine the rewards the website promisses. If the rewards, especially cash rewards are too high in comparison with other websites, the website is most likely a scam - note that reward websites that offer prizes instead of cash will offer very good prizes such as TV's and mobile phones and playstations. Remember, reward websites will allow you to make an extra monthly income. They are not designed to make you rich overnight. b) Look for a professional, well designed website. Is the website well designed, with quality graphics and is functioning correctly? Or does it have an amateur look and yields errors more often than less? Professional websites usually indicate that a large support group runs the website and will most likely be an genuine business. c) Is there any sort of social activity on the website, like a forum or a facebook page link? If so, is it active, recent and spam-free? If so, are comments from other members mostly positive? Otherwise denotes a website might be a scam. Lack of a positive, high social activity generally means members are not happy with the website, usaully because it is a scam, or has turned into a scam. d) Join one or more forums on reward websites and ask about a perticular reward website. e) Google the rewards website you're about to join and analyze the search results for keywords like 'rewardssite.com scam'. Search engines can help you deter scam websites by providing quality reviews and experiences posted by other members, and help you decide between mixed reviews.
Offer & Surveys Have Strict Rules Before completing any paid activities, especially offers and surveys, read the rules on each rewards website regarding what you can/need do to make sure your account gets credited for completing these tasks. Reward websites are very picky about their rules.
Highest Bidder Different reward websites might offer the same earning opportunities, be it the same offer or survey, or the same paid actions (like paid for online searching). Look for the website that offers the highest paying reward for a determined opportunity.
Credit Card Verifications Some free offers (usaully the highest paying ones) in reward websites require you to verify a credit card. If you do not have a credit card, try searching online for a virtual credit card website, creating one, and completing these offers.
Getting Referrals Below are listed the most common ways to get referrals and begin earning from affiliate commissions. a) Advertising - advertise your referral link anywhere online you are allowed to, without the risk of being flaged as spam: forums, paid advertising, free classifieds websites, blogging - will let you publicize all your referral links at once -, traffic exchange websites, social websites, emailing your friends, etc. Your referral link can be found in the 'member' area of a rewards website, and has a similar format to: http://www.rewardwebsite.com/id=yournickname. Another common element to advertise, along with your referral link is a proof of payment, normally a print-screen image of your credited account. b) Purchasing/Renting - depending on the rewards website, whenever available, purchasing/renting referrals is another way of boosting you referral count. Note that purchased referrals might become inactive and stop clicking therefore not earn you money. Few websites will allow you to replace inactive referrals. c) Exchanging registrations - register under someone on a rewards website that he/she has registered, while the same person registers under you at another rewards website you are registered at - this is called doing a 'Referral Exchange' and is done mostly in forums.
Unsustainable PTC Websites Unsustainable websites cannot afford to maintain themselves online, as websites need to pay for multiple things in order to stay online, including their domain name and the enormous traffic it generates; An unsustainable site is likely to: a) close down after a few days and not pay any of it's members; b) turn into a scam website - see 'Scam PTCs' below. To see if a website is sustainable you should check their advertising rates and their pay-per-ad-view rates on their "advertisment purchases" section - view the following example for mathmatical clarification! Say i want my ad to be viewed 1000 times. Let's say the website's advertising rate is $10 for 1000 visits. $10 = 1000 cents. 1000 cents (devided by) 1000 times my ad is to be viewed (equals) 1c per ad view. 1 cent per ad is the pay rate. From the moment that this PTC website pays it's users 1 cent or more per ad view it is not making a profit, and is unsustainable.
Scam PTCs Scam PTC websites usually: a) show tens of high valued, self-sponsored ads - see 'Self-Sponsered Ads' below; b) have high referral commissions; c) have thousands of users register in a short amount of time; d) take a long time to process your payment, usually more time than stated of their Terms of Service page; e) have referrals with weird nicknames, like 5453ytt5435; f) may hide your purchased referrals' details; g) are unsustainable.
Self-Sponsered Ads Self-sponsered ads are ads which where not bought by advertisers, but instead are put up by the PTC itself to create content. While most PTC websites have one or two self-sponsered ads set up so not to have an empty ad page, scam websites will fill up their ad page with nothing but self-sponsered ads, creating alot of content and aluring users. You can spot a self-sponsered ad if it a) shows repeatedly on the ad page, on the same day; b) advertises a giant company like Nike (Nike reaches billions of people through T.V. They don't need to advertise to a couple of thousand with PTC); c) it directs you to another PTC or website that also has affiliate links, while the URL contains no referral link. I risk advising you to think with a little logic when looking at ads at a PTC website. Some ads simply make no sense in being paid to be shown; for example, a www.google.com ad. When a PTC website only advertises self-sponsered ads, it is a definite sign of a scam as it has no real advertisers and therefore isn't making a profit. This kind of website is called a Ponzi Scheme - see 'Wikipedia Article on Ponzi Schemes' on 5. Note: Although payments are made with Ponzi Schemes, the amount of money that the website's users make is always higher that the amount of money the PTC has from investments, so Ponzi Schemes are always a definite fail, only depending on how long users continue to invest in it.
Payment Proof Images Members usually advertise payment proofs for their rewards from a rewards website. But seeing payment proofs alone does not guarantee a website's legitimacy. For examlpe, if you see a new, unsustainable PTC with self-sponsered ads that has payment proofs, they are most likely fake and the website is most likely a scam. These websites usually issue a few payment proofs as soon as they launch in order to gain people's trust and gain members. Other facts: a) some users join new PTC websites very soon and immediately invest heavily in referrals and premium memberships. This helps them reach payout very quickly, and post payment proofs, and does not mean the website is sustainable. b) a fake payment proof image can easily be created using Paintbrush.
Passwords & Reward Websites Try avoiding using the same password when registering on multiple reward websites - it is not a good idea to use the same passwords you use for other things like your email account, forum or gaming accounts. Reward websites can be created by anyone, and many reward websites might be scam websites - the reward website's administrator will have access to your login details and can cross test them with other sites he/she knows you've registered at and access your account. Instead, you can create passwords composed of random digits, symbols and letters and let your browser store them.
'$1 per Email' Websites Websites that offer you $1, $10 or more per email will not pay you, ever. Just think like this: if you read 10 emails a day worth $1 each, from 10 different websites, you would be earning $100 a day. Per month, $3000. If it was that easy to make alot of money very fast, anybody could quit their job and live off 'paid to click' earnings.
'Make Your Money Back!' Websites that tell you something like "make your money back in 5 days" are scam websites. These websites wait for people to invest money with them by purchasing stuff from the website. When the site receives enough money to make payments, they will pay their members who invested earlier. Then people that receive these payments invest again. And payments are made to other members. And so on. When people stop investing in such a website, payouts will stop coming out and the website closes. This business model is called a Ponzi Scheme - see 'Wikipedia Article on Ponzi Schemes' on 5.
Terms of Service Terms of service is like the contract that you agree to when you join a rewards website. Be sure to read each webite's Terms of Service page before using it so you know how the website works in detail. This may help you avoid being scammed, as scam websites usually don't follow their own contract.
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