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.