Making Money Online Scams Exposed

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The internet is a gigantic space of commercial activities, and there are thousands of ways to make money online. But as much as there are many ways to make money online, there are also thousands of scammers lurking behind mouth-watering deals promising an easy way to make thousands of dollars on the internet. However, if it’s too good to be true, then maybe it is.

If you are looking for an easy way to make money online, you might fall prey to these unscrupulous elements posing as successful internet gurus. You will be scammed of your money, and all you have to show for your efforts will be anguish and unpleasant memories. Remember that nothing good in life comes easy, so don’t expect to reap where you did not sow. It is crucial to know the popular online scams to avoid falling for the various make money online scams floating around the internet. In this post, you will learn about different types of online money making scams and legitimate alternatives.

Online Typing Jobs

When you search the web, you will see many banners advertising online typing jobs that can provide you money on the side. To be honest, some of these jobs are legitimate, but the majority are phony schemes put together by scammers to defraud you of your hard-earned money. If you are looking for an extra source of income, then the chances are that you are not financially self-sufficient. How would you feel if somebody cons you of the little money you are trying to manage to stay afloat?

These websites paint a fantastic picture of the potential gains of working on their platforms, promising to pay per pages or per thousand words typed. What is odd about them is the hugely disproportionate pay they offer. Why would anyone promise you about $3000 per month for a few hours of typing per day? Is that realistic? Also, the sites usually demand a registration fee and feature a high volume of advertisements. If you notice these things on any website offering online typing jobs, you might be dealing with something fishy.

However, there are legitimate freelancing platforms that offer online typing jobs. All you have to do is register and create a profile as a typist and clients who need your service can either contact you or bid for your jobs. Some popular sites include Fiverr and Upwork.

Data Entry Jobs

It is estimated that almost all data entry jobs on the internet are scams, save for some freelancing sites. Fraudulent data entry job sites offer tasks such as inputting data in Excel spreadsheets and related services. Many of these sites will encourage you to register with them, but you won’t get any jobs eventually.

One of the first things that should ring a bell in your head is a registration fee. It is true that some legitimate sites require members to pay some fees before they get jobs, but these are in the minority. Also, if the pay is not commensurate with the work you are expected to deliver, then it probably is not true.

In fact, most freelancing sites that are legitimate are deliberately designed to pay freelancers the least amount of money for services rendered, but here you are with a beautiful website offering 20 times the normal pay in the industry. All that glitters is not gold.

If you want to do data entry online and make some extra cash by the side, register on a legitimate site that provides a secure platform where clients and freelancers can meet. But remember that the money might not be enough to allow you quit your day job, except when you can take it to the next level.

Survey Sites

Hello! Do you want to work at home making thousands of dollars for giving your opinion? Yes! You read that right!

These type of words are similar to what you will find on dubious online survey sites designed to scam unsuspecting internet users. While some sites actually pay for people’s opinion, many survey sites are scam sites, and you would do yourself a lot of good by staying away from them.

They promise juicy payments for surveys that won’t take you more than ten minutes to complete, offering $2500 per month for completing only surveys. It is hard to find sites that pay up to $100 per survey and even if there are, it is usually for a limited period.

Email Scams

Email scams have been around since the internet became a part of our lives, and you will only fall for it if you are really desperate for money. A random email drops into your inbox, and somebody you don’t know from jack informs you about one consignment that contains a huge amount of money.

Your job is to help them claim the shipment at the courier’s, and you will receive a percentage of the jackpot. They will ask for your mailing address, fax number, and private phone number and warn you not to inform anybody about the arrangement.

Thus begins the unraveling of a huge scam of monumental proportions. If you fall for it, you are in serious trouble. They will start by asking you for small amounts of money, $50 today, and $100 next week, and you will tag along with the promise of a windfall at the end of the arrangement. Unknown to you, somebody in a third world country is playing with your intelligence, and you are game.

These guys are highly sophisticated, and everything about their operations looks too real and formal to be a dud. Whenever you receive such an email promising humongous amounts of money, do well to check out the business name and contact details on the internet. A quick search on Google can help unravel some of the mystery behind these scams.

Binary Options Trading

Perhaps, binary options are the most widespread legitimized scam to ever run on the internet. Up until this moment, thousands of people continue to lose huge amounts of money from investing in highly volatile, mostly deceptive binary options.

Binary options are a type of investment where you bet on whether the value of an asset will increase or decrease within a specific period, which is why it is called binary because the transaction has only two outcomes which are either win or lose. A good example is when you bet on whether a stock will appreciate within a period of five minutes. If the value of the stock increases, you win, but you lose if it depreciates.

There are many mobile trading software that promise mouth-watering returns on investment, even without any input from you. All you have to do is install the app and fund your trading account. But many of these platforms are actually designed to scam investors. In fact, many countries including the United States and Canada do not allow the marketing or operation of binary options in their territories as they consider it fraud. Likewise, in countries that allow it such as the UK and Israel, there have been official crackdowns on the activities of binary options firms after thousands of people reported being scammed of their investments on the platforms.

Currently, debates are going on over the legality of binary options with the operators claiming they are not breaking the law while their opponents maintain that the systems are deliberately skewed against the investor. This does not mean that there are no legitimate binary options firms, but the huge headlines on the sites warning traders they could lose all their investments say it all. Check out my article Are Binary Options Scams?

Pyramid Schemes

According to Wikipedia, a pyramid scheme is an unsustainable business model in which a firm promises people reward for enrolling other people into the scheme. There are no tangible products or services, only a cascading reward system that promises to pay you an incremental amount of money relative to the number of people that register under your name.

But the truth is that some people, especially the earliest people that joined the scheme are the only set of participants that get paid to give the scheme some level of authenticity. The rest are left out in the cold, and the conveners will disappear, with everybody’s money in their pockets.

High Yield Investments aka Get Rich Quick Programs

Another make money online scam are High Yield Investment Programs that promise high returns on investments within a relatively short period. Some are advertised to provide over 200 percent return on investment within a week. They are known as Ponzi schemes and many greedy people who want to make money without working fall for these scams.

Some of these schemes may pay at first to get you hooked, and after you make a substantial financial commitment, they screw you out. When you see schemes that promise high yields without selling any product or providing any service, run as fast as you can in the opposite direction, never looking back.

Do you want to make money online? It’s possible, but making money online requires as much or even more work than making money offline. You won’t fall for many of these scams if you are not greedy, but some people are out looking for legitimate work only to fall victim to online fraudsters. This is why you need to know what is legitimate, and what is fishy. Whenever you are searching for an online money making scheme, be on the lookout. If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.

I hope you enjoyed this post and if you have any questions about making money online scams or you just want to leave your own personal experience, leave a comment below. I would love to hear from you!