Beware of Dodgy Money Making Schemes

There has been a lot of publicity regarding Ponzi schemes following the con by Bernard Madoff in the USA which run into billions of dollars. Even UK banks were sucked into the so called investment with HBOS losing £653 million, RBS £388 million and the Spanish bank Santander £2.03 billion. Unbelievable.

I wrote about the danger of Ponzi schemes way back in January 2007, see Warning: Beware Of Ponzi Schemes. The thing to remember is that 'if something looks too good to be true it probably is.'

This is why at the time I made a fuss about things such as Wealth ToolBox.

It's so easy to get sucked into these sort of schemes - as we've seen, incredibly, even banks are fooled. Be careful!

Good luck,
Mike.

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Proof Of What A Big Joke Wealth Toolbox Is

Wealth Toolbox! I get more emails about this than anything else at the moment - plus my posts on this so called program still get a lot of reads.

I've said it several times before but - do not waste your time getting involved with this. You won't make any money.

First they said they would give everyone $50 and this would be invested on the members' behalf. My amount soon shot up to $350+. Unfortunately some bloggers took this to be serious and I saw it included on money they had made in a month.

I'm sure that they now realise this was a load of old tosh.

Wealth Toolbox have changed the system and guess what? It was necessary to re-join. Okay, fair enough but most people simply couldn't re-join. Every name they (and I) chose was deemed to have been used already. I even tried names such as 'zjglqwrx' but miraculously someone had already beaten me to it!

Of course what this meant was that my $350+ was lost. Now isn't that a surprise! I did previously warn that there wasn't a cat's chance in hell in that any money would be paid out.

I could still, however, join the Wealth Toolbox new system by simply using a name and a password. So I did out of interest.

My 'account' was credited with $5 but within minutes shot upwards to $8 and then more. Wow! This guy sure knows how to make money in his dreams!

But, oh dear! I went to see how my money was progressing today and guess what? The system has been changed again already and that money has also been lost.

Determined as ever I tried to join the new third version.

I used an obscure email address and name but couldn't gain admittance. I had to check my email for an acceptance code to click on. I did this but the code they provided was invalid!

It will be interesting to see what future emails I get to this email address.

My advice again: don't touch Wealth Toolbox with a bargepole, or anything else. Even giving an email address may not be to your advantage.

Move on to something honest that will make some real money but, before you do, here's proof of what a big joke Wealth Toolbox really is.

The founder is/was supposedly a guy called Jason Steele.

In the present guff on the Wealth Toolbox website there are 7 supposed reasons as to why you should join Wealth Toolbox.

Number 5 states: Last year I earned over $100,000 on the Internet and quit my day job. This I presume is Jason Steele talking.

So he made $100,000. If it were true, and done honestly, not too bad but ...

In the first incarnation of Wealth Toolbox he was saying how he 'made $15,572 ... in less than 30 minutes.' This was part of his Forex Power Strategy Course that members could join for $495 - you can see the details here. Unfortunately the video, that goes with the info. has been removed - surprise, surprise!

So here's a man that, with the original Wealth Toolbox, was giving everyone hundreds of dollars, which I worked out would have run into millions in total - if he'd have had to pay out. And don't forget that he can also make $15,000+ in minutes and can tell others how to do this (at a price) but ...

... he only makes $100,000 a year!

It's all fantasy land.

Sorry, I went on a bit longer than I intended!

Here's some of the other stuff I've written about Wealth Toolbox:

Feb 25 2007: Money Making Test Warning About Wealth Toolbox
Apr 19 2007: Six Questions To Ask About Wealth Toolbox

Good luck,
Mike.

P.S. Further to my last post RealRank Is RealUseless Real Rank's lead developer has left a comment. Perhaps this may be of interest.

Wealth Toolbox Revisited

I was looking through a few things today and went to Wealth Toolbox. Remember them?

They put $50 in members accounts (it's actually now $100!) and trade up the money on some sort of Forex exchange and then two years later will pay you all the money in your account. What do you have to do? Nothing! Good eh?

I hadn't looked at my so called account for ages but it was initially shooting up in value: Joined Feb 25 - $50; Feb 26 - $60; Mar 13 - $82,80; Mar 26 - $237.56; Apr 19 -$293.93; May 25 - $306.47; Jul 17 - $317.98 and now today ... $82.34 - whoops!

So looks like the Forex Power Strategy Course they were offering at $495 can't have been too hot after all. One of their examples from their founder Jason Steele was:

'Just to give you an idea of how powerful this stuff is, my most recent trade using this method turned $2,000 into $4,744. That's 237% profit for 45 minutes of work.'

But, of course, anything that looks too good to be true most often is - and this is the case with anything to do with Wealth Toolbox.

I only joined Wealth Toolbox (anonymously) to see what garbage they were churning out. As the small print in their Terms of Service quotes:

"... we cannot and do not guarantee any amount of funds within your account upon maturity."

I'd suggest that everyone steers well clear of this program.

Good luck,
Mike.

Other Reading:
Wealth Toolbox Warning

Don't Scatter The Money Making Seeds Too Wide

I've been looking at some of the money making programs and things that I've joined this year and then never really done anything more about them. Things like Zlio and Squidoo and quite a few more besides.

With blogging it's so easy to keep joining various websites but unless you - or in my case I - do something positive about promoting them it's all a wasted effort. It must be much better to hone in on just a few favourites and really go to town with them - and forget the rest. It's no good doing things by half measures.

The last one I looked at, of the stagnating things I have joined, was Squidoo. I'd actually made some money from it - 25cents!

Squidoo is all about creating various lenses. A lens is really just a page about anything you want and you can have hundreds of these if you wish. When I joined I quickly set up one lens to see how it all worked.

The pages are a little basic but I guess, time permitting, it would be possible to make them look okay.

Squidoo pay royalties to it's members, thus my 25 cents, and this is why some people run dozens and dozens of lenses/pages on different subjects. This is how the website describes their commission payments:

'You recommend great stuff (on your lens). Sometimes you'll recommend a product from Amazon or eBay or CafePress or one of our hundreds of other commerce partners.

Since Squidoo is free to use, we have to run a few ads on your lens in order to keep our doors open. So you'll see a few Google ads and SquidOffers on your lens.

Now, since you're the brain behind the lens, you should get a cut! And better than a cut: you get HALF. That's right. Any time someone stops by your lens and buys a product you recommended or clicks on a Google ad, you get 50% of the royalties.'

How much could you make? It's the same old story - it depends on how much traffic you can generate and then how many readers click on the ads.

This is what Squidoo reckon:

'If you are an entrepreneur, your lens on a popular topic could generate two or five or twenty dollars a day in clickthrough and affiliate income. Which doesn't sound like much, until you start thinking like an eBay PowerSeller and build twenty or even fifty lenses on a variety of topics. Did you know that 750,000 people make a full or part-time living on eBay now? The same effect will probably happen with lenses.'

It's also possible to make cash from introducing others to Squidoo. As soon as your friend earns $15 you and your friend get $5.

To make money it would be necessary to get into involved within the Squidoo community, the various groups and to publicise your lenses. There is potential providing you have a supply of that special, magic ingredient - time!

While I was checking out the 'things' I had joined I thought I'd have a laugh so I also looked at Wealth Toolbox. My initial $50 (which was given free!) is now 'worth' $317.08 ( payable in 2009). Oh and any new members are now given $100 just for joining. Ha ha ha!

My final thoughts are that money making is all about doing something properly. Concentrate on a few things and forget the rest. This doesn't mean we should miss out on any new, genuine opportunities, it just means being selective.

Good luck,
Mike.

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Celebrity Insider - Photos & News. Yesterday's posts include Hilary Rhoda, fashion model; Charley Uchea, Big Brother housemate; Nicole Merry and her split from Theirry Henry and Jessica Simpson

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People Go Where Other People Go (Plus Wealth Toolbox Again!)

While on holiday in Spain my wife and I wandered around a few towns and, in doing so, noticed various restaurants and bars.

"Why is it that some are heaving with people while other restaurants are virtually empty? They all appear to look very similar," asked my wife.

Now there's a good question. Was it the food, the ambiance, the layout?

To relate this to blogging: why are some blogs heaving with visitors and others, that look fairly similar, aren't?

Partly its because people go where other people go. They shop where other people shop, they eat where other people eat, they read blog posts that other people read.

It's all about reputation and, to a degree, word of mouth and recommendation.

Unfortunately building a good reputation rarely happens overnight. It is possible to make things happen quickly, but this is in exceptional circumstances or with the aid of some first class marketing. But even these exceptions still have to build their reputation for repeat and long term business. It's no good being a flash in the pan - I do love a good cliche!

In business it's necessary to guard our reputation and build it up with honesty, fairness and as high a standard as we can possibly achieve.

We have to build our blogs and our reputations on firm foundations. Keep plodding on doing what's right and with time who knows where we may end up - providing we know where it is that we actually want to go.

So endeth todays lesson!

Now this Wealth Toolbox (again). Jason Steele, the founder, has set up a separate domain Forex Power Strategy to market his course and is offering commission of $90 for each $198 sale This was originally to be sold at $495.

Regular readers will know my opinion of the Wealth Toolbox - don't touch it with a bargepole!

Now here's something interesting. Jason Steele says he surveyed 6064 people i.e. members who had signed up with Wealth Toolbox. This means he is 'giving away' $303,200 ($50 to each member). But there's more!

As you know I joined, out of interest, and my $50 is now 'worth' $306.47. So if my account is average Mr.Steele will have to payout 6064 members @ $306.47 which totals ... $1,858,434.

Come on now - who in their right mind would give away nearly $2 million dollars? If he has that sort of money why bother messing about with an affiliate scheme? Answers on a postcard ...

Good luck,
Mike.

Further reading:
Money Making Test: A Warning About Wealth Toolbox
Six Questions To Ask About Wealth Toolbox


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Money Making Updates

Firstly, I wasn't being serious in yesterday's post, as some people thought, more satirical than anything.

Anyway, a few updates on things I haven't mentioned in my Money Making Weekly Reports:

daytipper
At last. My tip has been published and I have earned the grand sum of $3. But what a wait. My tip was approved for publishing on the 14th. of January and then went into a queue. If you are thinking of making money with daytipper be patient - be very patient!

From what I can see it took 107 days for my tip to be published and during this period 975 tips in total were published (and therefore got paid). This works out at about only 9 tips a day being monetised. Present figures show that 1611 tips have been published to date. Nothing wrong with the website but it's not something for serious money making.

Helium
As well as the normal commission Helium have now introduced weekly prizes ranging from $5 to $300. Write the best articles and you could win a prize on top of the normal payments.

I keep saying to myself that I must write more articles for them but somehow I don't get round to it. I quite like Helium though, it's got a nice 'feel' about the website.

Treasure Trooper
This really is a dead loss unless you live in the USA. I carried out one offer for payment in January but it has just disappeared from my earnings. No idea why. This is despite the fact that the website concerned bombards me with junk emails several times a week. It's probably all okay for USA residents but elsewhere it's a bit dodgy.

I have actually now made 25 cents! This has come from referring other members, problem is the full details can't be seen anywhere.

review me
I joined this way back on January 15th but have never had a sponsored post to complete for them. Seems a favoured few do get offers and make some decent money but nothing has come my way as yet. So I'll do one of their text ads: Get Reviewed by this blog for $60 at ReviewMe! Well you never know.

Wealth Toolbox
I know I said I wouldn't mention this again but I've come across one of their videos which you should be able to see here. There's a bit of chat first and then a video of a forex screen. The idea behind this is to get people to join Jason Steele's course - he's the Wealth Toolbox founder. My opinion is the same: don't touch this with a bargepole - read here.

Good luck,
Mike.


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Six Questions To Ask About Wealth Toolbox

I know I shouldn't, but I feel I've got to mention Wealth Toolbox again. It concerns me that people may part with money that they can ill afford to lose. Of course, it's up to us as individuals as to what we do, but Wealth Toolbox worries me.

Wealth Toolbox are now offering a Forex Power Strategy Course at a cost of $495 and say they have 1000 positions on offer. So that's 1000 x £495 for them - a total of $495,000.

The person sending out the emails is a Jason Steele, who says he's the founder of Wealth Toolbox, and he writes:

'I'm looking for a small group of people who would like to learn a simple but powerful investing strategy that has historically generated at least 100% profit per month.'

He also writes:

'Just to give you an idea of how powerful this stuff is, my most recent trade using this method turned $2,000 into $4,744. That's 237% profit for 45 minutes of work.'

Alarm bells should be ringing!

1) Who are Wealth Tool box? They say, on their Terms of Service, they are 'a service of GeoPoint Marketing'. But who are GeoPoint Marketing? What is their address, where are they based, do they comply with necessary financial regulations?

2) Who is Jason Steele? What are his qualifications?

3) Would you really send $495 to someone you don't know?

4) If they are so clever at making money, and getting 237% returns on investments, why do they need to start up a dodgy looking website and tout courses on investing? Wouldn't it be a lot simpler just to make money for themselves, especially as it is supposedly so easy?

5) Why would they want to give members $100 (previously $50) for simply joining? A sprat to catch a mackerel?

6) Why will they take on members as young as 13 years of age who clearly cannot enter into a legal agreement?

There are many, many other questions.

As I've said before, I joined out of interest to see how they work. I got $50 (supposedly) for joining on the 25th of February. This is now supposedly 'worth' $291.93. Dream on! They don't 'payout' until 2009 and by then they will be long gone.

By all means learn about investing but with a reputable company.

Wealth Toolbox? Forget it.

Good luck,
Mike.

Further Reading:
Money Making Test: A Warning About Wealth Toolbox


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Unreal Earnings & Other Stuff

I know I'm a bit of a stuck record on the subject of Wealth Toolbox but I thought I'd show you my supposed earnings with them.

As you can see I joined on the 25th of February and one month later my balance is now shown at $237.56. This just illustrates how utter stupid this program is. What legitimate organisation would want to pay me this sum for simply joining? None!

They are now getting even more into the realms of fantasy as they are presently offering $100 for just signing up.

My post Money Making Test: A Warning About Wealth Toolbox gives my full opinion on this ridiculous scheme.

Moving on to something a little more sensible: Meta Tags.

Now it does seem that for some 'experts' Meta Tags are of less value than in the past. Not all search engines use them, we are told - but the fact is that many still do. I feel, therefore, that it makes sense to use these. They are quite easy to do yourself but you can get them generated for you at Free Web Submission.

The same website also has a Keywords Popularity Checker.

You simply enter, what you consider to be, your keywords and the Checker provides statistics on how often your keywords and phrases are searched in major search engines. It will also suggest other related keywords and phrases that may be of use when creating your posts.

That's all for today.

Good luck,
Mike.


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Money Making Proof

As I received a cheque (check) today - copy on right - I thought I'd dwell on money today and not go off on a tangent as I did with yesterday's post. This is, after all, a blog about money making.

Anyway, the cheque I received was for $105.01 and was from Sexy Ads for whom I am an affiliate. As I've said before they aren't for everyone but they are very efficient and so far I've made nearly $300 with them - which is worthwhile money. I won't go into details about this affiliate program again as I have covered it before with my post Money Making With Personal Ads. You can read the full info there.

Someone asked me about the statistics for my AdSense earnings. As I'm quite happy to give others info below are the full details. As you will see to earn the $126 total has taken me over (censored!) page impressions and (censored!) clicks. To my mind these stats aren't too impressive but I'll stick with Google. I want to find a way to get better results.

Kindly Note: On advice received I have removed the AdSense Stats Page Screen Shot and also the info - it appears that it is against Google terms to show such info. Wouldn't want to fall foul of them - Mike.

While I'm in earnings mode, this week I've also received small payments from PayPerPost and myLot. Again I have previously written reports on these: Build Blog Traffic By Other Bloggers Reviewing Your Posts! and myLot, Money And Referrals. Below are details of the payments, which were both paid via PayPal.



Now on to something I was hoping not to mention again but I feel I must, and this is Wealth Toolbox.

When I look around the blogosphere there now seem to be quite a few blogs that are similar to this one. Some have copied my format and a couple have even copied my posts as well! The point is, however, that I have noticed a few who, in their list of earnings, have included the dreaded Wealth Toolbox. One of them states how he/she has made over $200 from them. Now this is absolute nonsense - they haven't made a thing and, more to the point, they won't. This, so called, program just isn't viable. Please see my post Money Making Test: A Warning About Wealth Toolbox for my full opinion.

The following will show you how ridiculous it all is. For test purposes only I joined, with a specially set up email address, and for doing this I was 'paid' $50.

I have now been a member for 18 days and my $50 has risen to $82.80 - for doing absolutely nothing! That's 65% interest in just over half a month. Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish! As you probably know Wealth Toolbox aren't going to payout for two years. Well of course they aren't - they can't and won't. And, please, they should never be shown as earnings on money making blogs. It is leading people astray.

Okay rant over! I'll say no more ....

Good luck,
Mike.


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