Wednesday, 23 September 2009
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Scam Alert: Don't Fall For Google Profits
In this desperately flailing economy, everyone is looking to make a few extra bucks. My homepage is Yahoo! News, so when I saw an article talking about a woman who had made hundreds of bucks by posting links for Google Profits, I thought, hey, let's check it out. Since it's only $1.97 for shipping, and you get a kit telling you how to make hundreds, I thought it would at least be okay to check out...right?
Wrong.
Friends of the Dollarish community, I write this blog to help you protect your wallets from this seemingly secure system that is actually a dirty, horrible scam. Many of you probably already know of this scam; many of you, like myself, probably do not. Let me elaborate:
Google Profits promises you that by simply posting links for them, you will earn hundreds, even thousands of dollars through their program. All you have to do is pay $1.97 for shipping. HOWEVER. What they do not tell you is that they are also signing you up for two other programs separately--no matter how many times you read the fine print, you will NOT catch this bit of information. After signing up, even if you cancel in the "7 day trial period", you will STILL be charged up to $120--yes, ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY DOLLARS--from these other two programs that you were never aware of!
Not only are the terms and the program itself misleading, but you cannot trust the phone numbers they give you to cancel the account. I did extensive research once my suspicion got the better of me, and half of the phone numbers I tried did not work. Considering it's 4:37 AM in my time zone and I'm only up because I was losing sleep over this, the ones that actually went through are telling me that office hours are over, so I'll have to wait until the morning to cancel.
The only way to "make this program work" for you and to 'earn" money is to post a fake blog encouraging other people to sign up--basically, in order to avoid the "scam", you must scam others. Since I haven't done this part, I have no idea how much you make from it, but common sense tells me its nowhere near what you're paying.
I'm posting this blog in the hopes that other people like me will not fall for this. Call me stupid all you want but to all the poor college students like me, to all the single, struggling mothers, to all the men who have lost their jobs and feel unable to provide for their families...for anyone struggling in this economy...something that SEEMS to be supported by Google (which, for the record, it ISN'T) sounds reliable. Please, everyone, heed my warning and let my mistake be your guide--NEVER sign up for ANYTHING that promises you money online. I don't care if it's Google, Ebay, anything, anyone, it's all a scam, and I feel stupid for ever thinking I could make extra cash this way. Hopefully I can cancel the account before I get charged an outrageous fee.
I hope this post has helped other people that are suffering from this economy. Be safe, guys.
Have you ever fallen for an online scam? Do you know anyone who has?
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- From: x__RainOnHerParade@xanga
- Name: Christy
- Location: Columbus, Georgia, United States
- About Me: Read the Xanga if you actually want to know anything.
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Comments (55)
No shit. I've been smarter than that since I started using the internet.
No such thing as easy money, remember that(especially on the internet)
sorry you fell for it ):
i've always seen that ad and i've been tempted to click on it but the ad itself looked very...low budget so i didn't
The golden rule is that no one needs to advertise for "easy money" opportunities. Regardless of what company is represented as backing what the offer is, if the deal sounds too good to be true, much more often than not, it usually is.
i love how the ad in the top right corner right now says "make money just by clicking"
lawlz.
The only legitimate "make-money-online" programs I have discovered are Swagbucks (http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/averyswife I've earned $55 through this program), which is basically a Google-powered search engine that rewards you periodically for doing searches; MyPoints (earned $35 so far), which rewards you for reading emails, shopping online, and answering surveys; YouData, that pays you for clicking on ads (only about 20 cents per week right now though...I've earned maybe $3); and Ipsos Surveys, that pays you for answering product surveys (earned $5 so far). All together I've earned about $20 per month spending a few extra minutes a day online (and shopping through affiliate sites) so it's not get-rich-quick, but it's a bit of extra spending money.
Yeah I've seen this all over. I thought it sounded promising so I went to google.com and tried to find something about it on their website, and couldn't, so I assumed it was a scam.
Plus google has search engine crawlers, servers that follow every link on every webpage, indexing more or less the whole of the internet every few weeks. Why would they pay some asshole thousands of dollars to "post links"?
There's real ad programs though,which have NO fees at all involved.
i used to fall for scams all the time. there was one year where i was so desperate, i spent about $1000 just for those quick rich schemes. down the drain. after that, i just made sure i was far as possible from my credit card or check book while replying to those ads. lol. not anymore, thank goodness! if it asks you to pay to become rich, it's a scam.
I'm sorry that they scammed you. :( As a broke college student, I sympathize and understand.
I've never really fallen for Internet scams though as I never trust the Internet when it comes to anything money-related; however, people who are very desperate are unfortunately easy targets for these scams. It's so wrong that they're willing to take advantage of people like that, but here's hoping that karma bites them in the ass eventually.
Oh wow.
You're not stupid, you're greedy, and you're paying for it.
@noree_n@xanga - HAHA. same.
good post!
@Uek@xanga -
Actually, I'm not greedy, I'm paying for my mother's medical expenses--which are extensive--while trying to put myself through school. But thanks for the ridiculous assumptions.
Its easy to fall for things like this when they are presented as if they are from a reliable company. Sorry that some of you have NEVER made a foolish mistake and must look down your noses at those normal people amongst us that have.
The point of this blog was to HELP people who may have been as desperate as I am to make money and were fooled by a big company name. Again, sorry that some of you are so high and mighty that you've NEVER done something out of desperation or made a dumb mistake. Kudos to you for being better than everyone else.
...LOL.
My parents ALMOST fell for this until my mom took a look at the fine print.
This program IS NOT AFFILIATED WITH GOOGLE AT ALL. Don't give google a bad name. YOU CAN earn A LOT of money on the internet and not all internet jobs are scams. There is such thing as easy money - once you do the hard work to get there. Be informed.
you fell for that? seriously?
anyway, no use calling the company, you'd be better off calling your credit card company and reporting it as a scam, they'll refund your money.
that happened to me, i saw an ad for a $0.99 free trial for acai berry weight loss pills, so i thought 'what the hell?' but it turns out that you need to cancel your account within a few days or else they will charge you the $80 for it. and then keep charging you every few weeks. and keep sending you bottles. it sucks, i felt like a fool
I've never fallen for an online scam. And, I will say that if something SOUNDS too good to be true, it probably is.
However, I'm very sorry that you fell for this. I'm glad that you're at least trying to get the word out so that people know.
This doesn't sound legal at all. In fact, it sounds reminiscent of a pyramid scheme when you talk about having to scam other people to make the "program" work for you. And that is VERY illegal. And punishable by law.
I would try to find the proper authorities on this. Also, you might want to see about alerting the Better Business Bureau, I think the address (unless I am mistaken) is http://www.bbb.com
If not, a quick Internet search can find the correct site for you.
Also, some news shows (such as Fox News) do have a program set up where they will look into things like this. Usually, it's just companies that screw you out of things, but I have seen them do segments on scams as well! So it might not be a bad idea.
You probably won't ever get your money back. But, you can at least really let them know they messed with the wrong chick this time! And other people would have a better chance of finding out about this particular scam, even if they aren't on Xanga and don't know anyone who is. :)
I would also think maybe it's worth writing a letter to your local newspaper over. Who knows?
Good luck and I hope that you can get these jerks to cancel your stuff. Definitely put Stop Payments on anything trying to access your money at your bank! With most banks you have to pay to put stop payments on stuff, but in this case I would say it is WORTH it!
Sue?
Assume you paid for this on a credit or debit card- challenge the charge. Talk to the issuing bank, provide a copy of the agreement you "signed" (electronically), detail your attempts to cancel the charge and the results, and ask them to reverse the charge based on the fact that the advertiser's deceptive practices = fraud. If they agree, you might be liable for the first $50 if it's a debit card and they can't recover the money... for a credit card, most will refund the full amount if you can show a good reason for contesting the charge.
Experience one learns from working at a bank: Never, NEVER trust anyone who promises you money when you have to pay them first. NEVER give account information, never give credit card numbers, never give anything like that out.
If it's cheap, easy, and free...it would be free. They wouldn't need your money in the first place.
My only advice - it'll be long and drawn out, but email/call your local attorney general's office or the Better Business Bureau and see what you can do about the lack of fine print - I've had to talk to the AG's office before, and they helped me out with dealing with bad business practices.