experiment 3: prosper revisited

so, i've "invested" about $2,000 into prosper so far and am earning a decent return -- 12.91%. while that is far better than something that i could earn in a cd or savings account, it is not without risk. to me, this is a decent place to park some cash, if you've got some that you can be a little riskier with, but it is definitely not a liquid investment.

experiment 5: reverse funnel system

do a search on google for how to make money online and one of the first ads that comes up is for the 'reverse funnel system'. it's a $50 investment that allegedly will teach you the methods to:

shovel truckloads of cash off the Internet
have HUGE profit lines
create at least 7 ready-to-go streams of income
automate your business
generate over $1,000 pure profit within your first 48 hours
make big money while you sleep
generate revenue 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year

it sure sounds like a scam to me, but i'm willing to throw my money in to see what happens and i'll share it here.

etrade

got approved for the etrade affiliate program through commission junction today, so i put it up. so far my commissons have totalled $0.

prosper

well, i funded my first loan on prosper and got a $25 referral bonus. we'll see how the experience goes.

experiment 3: prosper revisited

i have initiated a transfer to my prosper account and used their portfolio plan to see how it works. i took a pretty middle of the road approach and went with their balanced portfolio plan. this allows you to have your loan divided up against multiple borrowers, so that if someone defaults, it's not your whole loan amount at stake.

the whole process took about 5 minutes.

i'll update with progress and returns once the votes are in!

scam 1: online office revisited

so, i actually got signed up with the "online office" and it looks like a check cashing scam to me. i did some research and what happens is this -- you sign up as a 'broker' for these guys and they send you checks made out to you that you're supposed to cash and then transfer the money to them, holding a commission for yourself.

here's a link describing the scam in some more detail and how to identify it -- http://www.bobbear.co.uk/officeonline.html

the deal is you would likely be helping these guys commit fraud and identity theft if you do go through with it. the checks that they will allegedly be sending you are almost certainly stolen and you'll unknowingly be playing a criminal middleman in their plan.

although i signed up, i didn't use my real address. i didn't want any street toughs showing up at my door wanting to know where their money is, but i did create an alternate email and received the following correspondence (i've removed any specific features that might identify the email):

Hello!

Thank you for the collaboration with us. Everything is all right. The
first check was send on your address, which was mentioned in contract
today. Check to the amount of $XXXX,XX. You will get it during one or
three days. For the fast cashing, you may use such services like “cash
check” or “cashing offices” (the commission for the fast cashing you
pay from the sum of our money, they will not exceed more than 5) From
the cashed sum of money you will take 8 percent as your fee. And the
rest you should send to us by Western Union.

OUR COMPANY SUPPORT LINE NUMBER XXX-XXX-XXXX.

HOW ARE YOU DOING WITH CHECK CASHING? WE WOULD LIKE TO REMIND YOU THAT
IN CASE YOU MANAGE TO CASH THE CHECK DURING 1-3 DAYS YOUR COMMISSION
WILL BE HIGHER. YOUR SHARE WILL BE 20 OF THE CHECK AMOUNT. YOU MAY
TAKE 20 OF THE CHECK AMOUNT IF YOU TRANSFER MONEY WITHIN THIS TIME.
IF CHECK CASHING TIME EXCEEDS THIS TIME PERIOD YOU WILL GET STANDARD
8 COMMISSION OF THE CHECK AMOUNT.

ALL COSTS OF TRANSFERRING MONEY BY WESTERN UNION A DEDUCTED FROM OUR
SUM OF MONEY.

Information for transferring money by Western Union:

1)First Name - XXXXXXXX
2)Last Name - XXXXXXXXX
3)City - XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
4)Country - XXXXXX

Please use “money in minutes” service if available

After you have transferred money by Western Union you will be given
the MTCN (Money Control Transfer Number). It consists of 10 digits.

After you make the Transfer please send us the same day an email with
the following data

PLEASE, SPECIFY THE FOLLOWING DATA COMPLETELY
1) Your address (as you filled in the Western Union form):...........
2) Your full name (as you filled in the Western Union form):..........
3) Amount of the transfer:...............
4) Money Transfer Control Number [MTCN]:..........

After we will get money and be certain of your efficiency, the number
of checks on your name will be one in a day. We appreciate the quality
of our partners and hope to work for a long time.

Our company support line number XXX-XXX-XXXX.

who knows if they actually sent a check, but days later i received another note from them:

Hellow

Why you are not answering our E-mails.We have got a contract signed by
you . we called our American partner and they informed us that the check
was forwarded to you . Did you get it? Please, answer at your soonest
convenience. What"s happened?

Awaiting your reply

and another few days after another 'reminder' that was very similar to the first.

in any case, this is not an operation that you want to be involved in! it could end with you in some serious trouble!

experiment 4: free gift card offer

you've seen the popups for free iphones, xboxes and gift cards. maybe you've even clicked them and found yourself lost in a sea of popups and figured it was some scam. well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. i found a promising post that is basically a how to guide on how these things work and how to get them to pay off:

http://bloggingcents.com/2007/11/19/freegiftoffers/

i'm going to give it a shot and see if i can get a $1,000 gift card. if i can, then all i have to do is repeart 1,000 times and that'll take me to the $1,000,000 mark, right?

scam 2: make money quick

i searched for 'quick money' in google this morning and this was the second link that came up, by some company going by the name of team-schuman it espouses the benefits of google adsense and how you can make money using it as a tool. it provides some halfway decent information but then, it takes a dramatic turn and advertises how to make $1000-2000 in less than 24 hours.

there was a form to submit your email to receive free information, which i went ahead and did. we'll see what useful information comes out of it. stay tuned.

experiment 3: prosper

i opened up a prosper account in an effort to see if i can make some money online lending money out. prosper is a person-to-person lending site that allows you to either borrow or lend money. they handle the payments and credit checks and pretty much everything. you basically pick your level of risk and set your interest rate. the concept is that if there is a more personal relationship between the lender and the borrower that would result in lower defaults. i don't know if i believe that or not, but it does look like there is some room to make a decent enough return.

i'm going to lend a small bit of side money now, but what interests me with this setup is that i could actually borrow money on prosper (or somewhere else) at a fairly low rate and lend it out at a higher rate -- an arbitrage play. this leverage would enable you to lend out much more than the money you have on hand. of course, you'd have to have a good credit score for this to work *and* you'd have to be pretty savvy in determining risk / rates / and really become an expert in the loan business.

ing affiliate program

i got approved for the ing direct affiliate program, so i threw it up on the site today.

scam 1: online office

i got an email today just in the nick of time to test out some scams. i was immediately skeptical when i read the email greeting:

Greetings! Our company is registred in the Monster company. We have reviewed your resume and are eager to inform you that we are ready to offer you a vacant position

If you are intrested in getting the job in our company please visit our web-site

yup, typos and all . . . undeterred, I read on:

We looked through your skills and became sure that you correspond to our requirements.MTc 5Yj

Job scheme will comprise the following:

1. You receive payments from our customers (By checks, Money orders e.t.c)
2. Than you fill forms with details of received payments in your Internet Office
3. Transfer money to our main office by requested methods.

could it be that easy? i get payments from customers and *than* i fill forms? well, i could certainly do that, but what would i get in return, you ask?

Your earning will be 8 % of the amount of each completed payment please answer this message with your Сontact Infomation and Attach your Resume to e-mail.

Additionally we are going to effect you $ 1500 as your salary at the end of each month.YjZk YjUz

you better bet that i'm getting my contact *infomation* and resume ready to attach to e-mail!

well, it certainly sounds too good to be true. i spent some time on their website, and surprisingly it is pretty professional looking, except for the typos. and, it didn't require any money for me to sign up. it did ask me to sign a contract, however, which i did online. the contact was pretty typical, but the ceo's name was shulrik holms!

haha, we'll see if anyone gets back to me. all of my info was fabricated, of course. i'm not going to put myself at risk to be a fraud victim.

scams

so, do a search on how to make money online and you'll no doubt find a bunch of 'ads' for how to make a bazillion dollars without leaving the comfort of your home. well, i'm about to embark on some experiments on how well these scams work -- i'm going to start on the cheap side and post my results here. hopefully, some of them will turn out to be halfway decent, but i'm not that optimistic about it.

experiment 2: affiliate programs

today i'm going to explore the world of affiliate marketing. affiliate marketing is a mechanism by which you direct customers to another website and you get essentially a commission for sales on that website. for example, if i were an amazon affiliate and you clicked on a link on my site to get to amazon and made a purchase, i'd get some percentage of the sale.

so, i'm going to sign up for a few of these and chart the progress. first up, you guessed it -- amazon.

1. amazon.com. it was really easy to sign up for their affiliate program. i just had to sign into my amazon account and fill out a very short app, which included giving some data about my site. as you can see, i've already linked to amazon using the affiliate link. the way it works is that they provide a unique id that tells them who referred the visitor in. if that results in a sale, you get a commission. actually, it even works if you use the link yourself, so at worst it's a way to save some money when you buy from them.
2. ebay.com. the signup process was a bit more complicated. they outsource their program through a site called commission junction. it's not as finely tuned as amazon, but it didn't take much effort, either.
   
3. commission junction. since i had to sign up for commission junction anyway, i figured i'd take a look at it. it's a affiliate network, so it sort of sits between an affiliate and a seller and links the two up. they make it easy to sign up with a number of sellers, so you can tailor your ads to line up with your site. but, their site is really, really slow. i almost gave up a few times. i signed up with capitol one, equifax, citibank, ing direct, and lendingtree, but all but equifax and lendingtree have a manual approval process.
   

adsense

it turns out that adsense supports text, image, and video ads -- based on content. according to wikipedia:

Many sites use AdSense to monetize their content and some webmasters work hard to maximize their own AdSense income. They do this in three ways:

1. They use a wide range of traffic generating techniques including but not limited to online advertising.
2. They build valuable content on their sites which attracts AdSense ads which pay out the most when they get clicked.
3. They use copy on their websites that encourage clicks on ads. Note that Google prohibits people from using phrases like "Click on my AdSense ads" to increase click rates. Phrases accepted are "Sponsored Links" and "Advertisements".

here's an example of an adsense video:

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

experiment 1: adsense

it seems like there are a number of ways to monetize your web traffic these days and one of the easiest is google's adsense -- it's an ad serving platform that will put up ads on your blog. it's really easy to use, especially with a platform like blogger, since all you basically have to do is click and you've got ads.

of course, just because you're serving up ads doesn't mean that you're making money. how you make money is you get people to look at those ads, or better yet, click on them. now, there are some provisions that state that you cannot encourage your visitors to click the ads by asking them to, so, what you have to do is drive people to your site. that isn't an easy task, but let the experiment begin!

how to make money online

do a quick search on the internet on how to make money online and you get a whole bunch of links to sites that really don't tell you anything at all. now, i'm not a web entrepreneur, but i have worked at several places that had a significance presence -- and generated a large portion of their revenue -- online. so, i'd like to be able to capitalize on my experience as well as share my tips on how to make money online.

you will *never* read things like: wow, zingo! i've discovered an AMAZING way to generate HUNDREDS or THOUSANDS of dollars in my spare time! just send me $9.95 . . .

instead, i'd like to test my online knowledge and explore how to make money online. i'll rank my experiments and provide reviews on the various things that i try. and, everything you'll find on here is absolutely free.

there are a number of ways to make money online today -- with sites like ebay, craigslist, etc. you can sell stuff that you have laying around the house. you can try to develop something that piggybacks off of popular sites like facebook. you can start a blog and generate revenue through ads or paid posts. you can get paid to answer questions. i'm going to try all of those and more and at the end of it all, i hope that this will be a place that answers the question of 'how to make money online'.