PTC stands for 'Paid To Click' and is a term used to classify websites that pay you to view online advertisements.

Registering at PTC websites is 100% free. All you need is an email address, and an e-commerce account - which is also free. See 'Payment Processors' below.

Values for each advertisement you view widely range from hundreds of a cent ($0.0001) to a couple of cents ($0.05 - in rare occasions), and depend on the PTC you register at.

 

The most common ad values range from a tenth of a cent ($0.001) to one cent ($0.01) per ad.

 

Although low, your earnings will increase drastically by using a marketing method called affiliate marketing, which is a fancy word for inviting people to register at the same PTC you are registered at, using an invitation link. Once someone joins a PTC under your invitation you will start earning a commission based on their own earnings. See 'How to Get Geferrals' on the next section.

 

Another common way to increase your earnings is to upgrade your membership from your standard free one to a premium membership. Premium memberships boost ad earnings and referral comissions, among other things, specific to each PTC.

 

Joining multiple PTC websites is also a good way to increase the money you can earn with PTC.

PTC websites earn money from advertisers, by selling visits to an ad. An advertiser that wants to advertise a service or a product pays the PTC to show his ad to us registered users. The PTC then pays us when we view that ad. A small percentage of money that the PTC receives from the advertiser is retained by the PTC to pay for maintenace (domain name, traffic, and other techincal requirements), and for profit.

 

Paying people to view ads is a win win situation as advertisers get alot of people looking at their products in a short amount of time and we users can make money just by looking at ads.

After registering at a PTC, navigate to the ad section and click on a link. You are then taken to a new web page containing the advertisement and a small timer. Viewing the advertisement until the timer runs out earns you the value of that ad. Note that some ads, more commonly in Paid To Read websites (see PTR on 4.), don't have a timer but will pay you for viewing the ad.

 

It's only after earning a minimum amount of money that you can request a payment. See 'Payment Requests' below.

To be able to receive a payment from a PTC website you must have an account at an e-commerce website. See 'Payment Processors' below. Each PTC uses it's e-commerce website of choice, so you have to register at whatever e-commerce website the PTC works with in order to get paid.

 

The minimum amount of cash you must earn before being able to request a payment is different from PTC to PTC and can range between just a few cents up to a few dollars.

 

After requesting a payment, your earnings will be transfered to your e-commerce account after a certain amount of time. Depending on the PTC, payments are:

 

a) Instant - your payment arrives a few seconds after you requested it;

 

b) Delayed - your payment arrives within the time frame that the PTC has stated in it's Terms Of Service ("TOS" link on each PTC website).

 

Genuine PTC websites usually don't use the instant method; they take some time to process your payment, usually in the time that's stated on the Terms of Service. On the other hand, scam websites (see Scam Websites on 2.) usually use the instant method or if they use the delayed method they take too much time to send you your payment.

 

Apon receiving your payment in your e-commerce account, you can either transfer your funds to your regular bank account (limits are imposed to certain countries, so read the e-commerce's website TOS and see if you country is available to receive payments), or you can use your money to shop online.

Payment processors are online banks. They allow you to have an online bank account from where you can send and receive money, pay for multiple services or shop online.

 

Although free to join, registration is restricted to age and country so check each e-commerce's website before trying to use them. Notice also that some transactions/payments carry a low fee.

 

Some common payment processors used by PTC websites are:

 

        

        

Below are listed the most common ways to get referrals, listed by the most profitable to the less:

 

a) Exchanging registrations - register under someone on a PTC that he/she has registered, while the same person registers under you at a PTC you are registered at - called Referral Exchange;

 

b) Advertising - advertise your referral link anywhere online you see fit and are allowed to (forums, advertising on PTC websites, free classified ad websites, creating a blog and publicizing it - will let you publicize all your referral links at once -, traffic exchange websites, social websites, emailing your friends...). Your referral link can be found in the 'member' area of a PTC, and has a similar format to: http://www.ptcwebsite.com/id=yournickname.

 

c) Purchasing - purchase referrals on the PTC you're registered at. Genuine PTC websites usually don't allow referrals to be sold directly, but offered when you purchase an advertisment pack, or other situations. Read each PTC to find out more.

 

Note that purchasing referrals on websites that don't allow you to contact your referrlas has it's downsides as you might end up spending money on referrals that stop clicking after a short while, mostly because they don't like that particular PTC. You are then not able to contact them with a referral exchange on another website instead.

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 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 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.

Read about a PTC before you invest:

 

a) join PTC forums and ask around;

 

b) use a search engine to read about other people's experiences with the website. You will find results searching for the combination 'ptc website name + scam'.

 

Investing in PTCs:

 

a) when purchasing referrals - especially on new PTC websites-, wait until you get your money back on your first investment. Shortly after you will make nothing but profit.

 

Earnings:

 

a) roughly calculate the potencial earnings promissed by a website, especially if a website offers you alot of easy money. Because "If it's that easy to make alot of money very quickly, and with the less amount of effort, why would anybody need to have a day job?"

Seeing payment proofs for a new PTC website does not guarantee that it is not a scam. If you see a new, unsustainable PTC with self-sponsered ads that has payment proofs, it's most likely a scam website.

 

These websites usually issue a few payment proofs as soon as it launches in order to gain people's trust.

 

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.

 

b) a fake payment proof image can easily be created using Paintbrush.

Try avoiding using the same password when registering on multiple PTC 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.

 

PTC websites (and alot of 'earn money' websites) can be created by anyone, and we have seen that some PTC websites might be scam websites - the PTC 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.

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. Like i said before, if it was that easy to make alot of money very fast, anybody could quit their job and live off 'paid to click' earnings.

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 is like the contract that you agree to when you join a PTC website. Be sure to read each PTC's Terms of Service page before using the PTC (or any other website for that matter) so you know how the PTC works in detail. This may help you avoid being scammed, as scam websites usually don't follow their own contract.

Every single computer has an IP address assigned to it when connected to the Internet. Two or more computers connected to the Internet through one single Internet connection share the same IP address.

Paid To Read - Websites that pay you to receive and read emailed advertisements.

CPM is an abbreviation for 'cost per thousand' (where M is the roman numeral of 1000).

 

CPM is referred when using the Paid to Promote earning options and refer to the amount of money you earn for each 1000 views of your referral link.

Terms Of Service - a sort of contract you agree to when using a website.

URL - URL is a web address, such as http://www.google.com

Spamming is the abuse of an electronic messaging system, such as E-Mail, Forums, Instant Messaging services (Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger...), IRC chats, in-game chat rooms. Every public place online where you are able to reach thousands of other people.

 

A user is considered to be spamming when he or she:

 

- Sends numerous messages (commonly done by e-mail) to people they don't know, with information they did not ask to receive;

 

- Enters a forum and posts the same messages repeatedly;

 

- Posts comments that are clearly off-topic and generally advertising-like.

The price an advertiser pays for each click on his ad.

Recently, PayPal members have reported suspicious-looking emails and fake websites. These emails are not from PayPal and responding to them may put your account at risk. Please protect your PayPal account by paying close attention to the emails you receive and the websites you visit.

 

Please use the following tips to stay safe with PayPal:

 

Safe Log In: To log in to your PayPal account or access the PayPal website, open a new web browser (e.g., Internet Explorer or Netscape) and type in the following: https://www.paypal.com

 

Greeting: Emails from PayPal will address you by your first and last name or the business name associated with your PayPal account. Fraudulent emails often include the salutation "Dear PayPal User" or "Dear PayPal Member".

 

Email Attachments: PayPal emails will never ask you to download an attachment or a software program. Attachments contained in fraudulent emails often contain viruses that may harm your computer or compromise your PayPal account.

 

Request for Personal Information: If we require information from you, we will notify you in an email and request that you enter the information only after you have safely and securely logged in to your PayPal account.

 

Often, fraudulent emails will request details such as your full name, account password, credit card number, bank account, PIN number, Social Security Number, or mother's maiden name.

 

If you think that you have received a fraudulent email (or fake website), please forward the email (or URL address) to spoof@paypal.com and then delete the email from your mailbox. Never click any links or attachments in a suspicious email.

 

To learn more about protecting your PayPal account, please review read more on PayPal.com's website.

 

extracted from PayPal.com

You can report scam websites here:

 

IC3.gov
NW3C.org

 

You most likely will not get your money back from PTC websites, but reporting a scam can be a step to getting scam websites closed.

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