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(Charlotte.com)   Stunning news that web site that would pay you 12 per cent daily return in exchange for looking at online ads may have been a scam   (charlotte.com) divider line
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    More: Obvious  
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7182 clicks; posted to Main » on 11 Feb 2006 at 4:23 PM (17 years ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook



59 Comments     (+0 »)


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madcharlie
2006-02-11 11:24:49 AM  
12 what per cent? I'm not investing my damn money if I don't know what it is I'm getting back.

/drta
 
ottawaboy
2006-02-11 12:19:03 PM  
RIP AllAdvantage
 
TheOther
2006-02-11 1:01:34 PM  
Damn. I read that as '12 cents per day' and thought I was on my way to bangin' supermodels.
 
RyoShin
2006-02-11 1:03:59 PM  
The hayday of Pay-To-Surf is long gone, but not everyone was a scam.

I was a member of... what was it, Speedia? While I didn't earn a lot, I did eventually make enough to reach their check-cutting mark. And I did, indeed, get a check.

If I had spent the time online back then that I do now, I would have probably make an extra $50/month. Not enough to live off of, but enough to buy a new video game or eat out a few times.
 
SockMonkeyHolocaust
2006-02-11 2:21:30 PM  
We figured it out!
We figured it out!
With a pencil and a pad we figured it out!

Twelve and a half percent doesn't buy a hellofalot,
Twelve and a half percent, doesn't mean a thing,
but give it to be every click of every hour of every week,
and that's enough for me to be living like a king.
 
Sparhawk.
2006-02-11 3:27:15 PM  
2006-02-11 12:19:03 PM ottawaboy [TotalFark]

RIP AllAdvantage

That company virtually single-handedly financed my sophomore year of college. I made in total over $3,000 from those sorry bastards. Such a stupid idea that could never possibly work, but I cashed in on it.

The idea of that program was that they pay you $0.50 per hour to have an ad bar on your screen as you surf the web. Then, if you sign someone else up, you make $0.25 per hour that they surf, and it goes down until 4-5 levels deep you're still making $0.05 per hour that person surfs. So when I first heard of the program, I signed up everybody I could possibly find, then they signed up all their friends, and I got $$$.

The principle of the program doesn't even make any sense. In order for it to work out, people surfing the web would need to buy more than $0.50 per hour worth of merchandise from the ad bar sponsors (actually, as much as $0.80).

People were telling me "But that can't possibly work! It's a pyramid scheme", forgetting that real pyramid schemes have the victims contribute money (just like this ad online scam we're reading about now). But a program in which they pay you is foolproof (well, except for the foolish company doing such things).

In fact, I had scanned the first check I had received because my friends didn't believe me:

[image from i25.photobucket.com too old to be available]

Ah, the dot-com bubble, we hardly knew ye.
 
Sussman
2006-02-11 4:13:13 PM  
Very cool, Sparhawk.
 
Espertron
2006-02-11 4:27:39 PM  
Sparhawk

Nice... can't argue with $$$.
 
J. W. Booth
2006-02-11 4:31:21 PM  
Didn't read the article. I was too busy clicking T-Shirt and boobies banners.

/waiting on my check from Drew.
 
Budz
2006-02-11 4:32:20 PM  
Nice biased spin on that article. I`m a member of some of these sites, never putting in 6000$ like the people they talk about in that article but I have made a decent amount. And last week stormpay ( the payment place they mention in TFA) started freezing accounts all over the place and doing chargebacks to peoples credit cards and bank accounts.

more info here (no clicky/poppy sorry lazy)

http://amayesnbuys.biz/balance.htm
 
Raydr
2006-02-11 4:34:52 PM  
I made a nice chunk of change with AllAdvantage too.

In fact, I still have my ecount AllAdvantage "debit" card. I'm travelling right now, but if I weren't I'd be posting a scan of the card. :)

I was never good with remembering things, but I still remember my AllAdvantage ID like it was yesterday: AMJ-627
 
Dimensio
2006-02-11 4:37:12 PM  
I got in late on the AllAdvantage wave, sadly. Only made a few hundred before they pretty much shut down.
 
Seikima
2006-02-11 4:41:12 PM  
Good job, Sparhawk. I get sick of those people who automatically scoff at any kind of business idea they're not used to. I'm as cautious as anyone, but it's not hard to figure that if you're getting money without putting any money in, that's a good thing. Unfortunately I could never get anyone to join any of those things because they weren't willing to see that. So my profits were minimal, and hardly worth the time.

Unfortunately those places always buckle pretty quickly when they realize that there's no way for the numbers to add up in their favor.
 
Hollie Maea
2006-02-11 4:45:21 PM  
Some jackass customer of my web hosting company signed up to have 4 or 5 of these autosurf sites "increase traffic" and they ended up DOSing the site out of existence.
 
tonesskin
2006-02-11 4:46:07 PM  
Epinions was amazing when it first opened. You got 30 cents each time someone from the site looked at your "Epinion" and 10 cents each time a non-member looked at it. I made over a thousand bucks being an idiot. Had I caught onto what was happening earlier...wow. I was busy writing Epinions, but the way you do it is to write one or two then just go to the "new Epinions" and "rate them" so people see you went there. Then they would trade off. I bet there were people on that site that made >$50,000, EASILY.

Then it went down to .03 and .01 respectively. I still was making money. Then they changed it to some other thing and the site is basically dead. There are still people who go there, but I never use the site for advice anymore.

I got plenty from AllAdvantage, too. I remember having like 5 "ad bars" open at the same time with some device that would "move" my mouse all day. Idiots.
 
Sparhawk.
2006-02-11 4:47:41 PM  
2006-02-11 04:41:12 PM Seikima

Unfortunately those places always buckle pretty quickly when they realize that there's no way for the numbers to add up in their favor.

That's what's so funny about this, their business model doesn't even make any sense:

1) Get people to download toolbar by offering them $$$
2) Get advertisers to advertise on toolbar by offering them $$$ (well, more money than they paid you to advertise)
3) ???
4) Profit (?)

So, you've got the regular consumers who only signed up because they want to make money off the advertisers, and the advertisers who only signed up because they want to make money off the consumers. It's like a downward greed spiral: there's no mutually beneficial transaction there.
 
tonesskin
2006-02-11 4:47:44 PM  
Budz

That link is horrible. Even if it was meant to explain things, it just gave me a headache.
 
hoktar
2006-02-11 4:57:59 PM  
Never went with the adbar sites, but I did make a good bit off of beenz when it was in it's hayday. At first their TOS didn't ban multiple accounts so I had about 20 going getting $5 gift certificates every other week. It bought me my first dvd-rom back in 1999 ($150).
 
hoktar
2006-02-11 4:59:28 PM  
Oh, I also got a C&D from Freeride for scamming them, got about $100 before I got too greedy and went overboard, they closed all my accounts right before I was about to cash in and get a new laptop.
 
X-boxershorts
2006-02-11 5:01:13 PM  
RyoShin "Pay enough to ............ eat out a few times."

Eeeeeewwwww.....that's too darned close to rent a doll for my comfort level!
 
Boobies!!!
2006-02-11 5:02:08 PM  
Filter test:
Benjamin Franklin was the Boobiesmaster.
 
JonnyG
2006-02-11 5:04:47 PM  
I have a buddy who has been bugging and bugging for me to get into 12DailyPro. Even up to a couple days ago he was happy about how it was performing. He was, indeed one of the bigger investors there.

He was also into HYIPs and got burnt very recently. No matter what links I sent to show him about possible scams, he ignored.

He has, no doubt lost a lot of bucks. I don't expect to hear much from him for the next while. :)
 
J.Chimpeaux
2006-02-11 5:10:30 PM  
No dotcom scams for me- I am investing all of my cash in Danish Flags
 
Rincewind53
2006-02-11 5:10:57 PM  
A friend of mine just lost money due to this too. I told him in advance it wasn't a good idea. He didn't believe me.
 
orrinbloquy
2006-02-11 5:21:56 PM  
I'm clueless. Was there a scene in a movie where someone said, "That idea's so crazy, it just might -- spectacularly fail and embarrass you for generations to come?!?"
 
Number41
2006-02-11 5:23:52 PM  
SockMonkeyHolocaust: We figured it out!
We figured it out!
With a pencil and a pad we figured it out!

Twelve and a half percent doesn't buy a hellofalot,
Twelve and a half percent, doesn't mean a thing,
but give it to be every click of every hour of every week,
and that's enough for me to be living like a king.

Yay! I played Max.
 
jorg
2006-02-11 5:27:09 PM  
A bunch of people here in Utah got taken by this. However, the local news is portraying the stupid marks as some kind of consumer protection heros rather than the suckers they are. One of the victims is flying to their offices to get answers. I'm anticipating hilarity to ensure.
 
jorg
2006-02-11 5:29:36 PM  
Err, ensue, even.
 
HamHam
2006-02-11 5:31:09 PM  
haha..

my brother was trying to get me to sign up for this a couple weeks ago.

Said no, but his schemes usually end up working (for him.)

To date: Ipod, flat-screen TV, $300 cash, upcoming: laptop.
 
LudditeAndroid
2006-02-11 5:34:25 PM  
I was in on AllAdvantage, too. I made $20 to $30 per month from the first month they started till they went under (they owed me $15 when they went under). I'm just surprised they stayed afloat as long as they did.
 
piscis ferox
2006-02-11 5:39:32 PM  
Wow. *smacks head and mutters* Some people's children...
 
And _that's_the_way_the_cookie_crumbles
2006-02-11 5:43:13 PM  
Sparhawk.: Ah, the dot-com bubble, we hardly knew ye.

Word. Ah, those were the times.

I remember one local .com that had a you-order-a-day-in-advance-and-we-deliver-at-no-cost "business model". Except they didn't have an inventory, an actual store, or really anything except VC money. The whole idea was ludicrous but they did a good job of selling it to investors. Afterall, who is going to order cat chow online when the merchant charges $6 for S&H. So their concept was to offer free shipping if you ordered a day in advance. Only problem was, back then, nobody bothered to think it through. That's why there wasn't a minimum purchase requirement - you could just order a single bag of potatoe chips and have it shipped to you for free.

Yeah, the bubble was great.
 
Alesquire
2006-02-11 5:46:38 PM  
anyone remember stockgeneration.com?
 
pummisher
2006-02-11 5:55:23 PM  
I remember using free dialup internet where all I had to do was have a banner at the top of the screen at all times. It was pretty sweet until too many users logged on and it slowed to a crawl.
 
theeagle
2006-02-11 6:16:17 PM  
If you install this small program on your computer,, you too can watch hundreds of ads a day, until, you will receive a check in the mail, made payable from your own bank or credit card account......fools.....
 
blackomegax
2006-02-11 6:16:48 PM  
stormpay = scam.
 
BlueMcPoo
2006-02-11 6:17:51 PM  
jorg: A bunch of people here in Utah got taken by this. However, the local news is portraying the stupid marks as some kind of consumer protection heros rather than the suckers they are. One of the victims is flying to their offices to get answers. I'm anticipating hilarity to ensure.

That is hilarious. What a hero, spending hundreds of dollars on plane tickets and hotels to talk to some 6$/hour service rep at internet companies that don't give a fark.
 
Alonjar
2006-02-11 6:18:42 PM  
Ah yes, AllAdvantage.

The real trick was randomly generating accounts into your own pyramid, then having a program emulate the adbar to run your own 500 accounts at the same time, 24/7, paying out to your real account which of course sat at the top of the pyramid.

/Cant prove anything...
 
BigDumbGuy
2006-02-11 6:19:42 PM  
There is a ton of free stuff on the web. Of note I have recieved two IPods, a 21 inch LCD monitor, and a wireless router. That and a lot of crap I either threw out or gifted to people. The only cost to me is the risk of spam at an e account I only use for such things.
 
gilbert408
2006-02-11 6:26:04 PM  
IF you want REAL investing but aggressive, you should come up with 25-50K, open an actual forex trading account under a reputable trader, and sign off partial power of attorney. A good forex trader makes anywhere from 10-30 percent a month, and sometimes more.
 
ChrisPC
2006-02-11 6:31:47 PM  
I also made a few bucks from AllAdvantage way back when. Ah, the late '90s. The first time I deposited the check, the teller didn't know what to think. "Is this a website?"
 
SuperDuper28
2006-02-11 6:43:53 PM  
Yeah the late nineties was the pinnacle of a lot of these 'Get paid to Surf' ideas.A lot of them actually worked and the ironic thing was that it was mostly the users trying to scam the companies by cheating and not the other way around.I still remember my friend showing me his program that would move hover the mouse cursor over the ads automatically and randomly click.
 
supaxi
2006-02-11 6:52:26 PM  
Well, I think the "fun" times on the internet are about to come to a close. Once DRM hardware becomes ubiquitous and advertisers get Congress to screw over the consumer even more, everyone will be inundated with craptastic advertising that you can't turn off, unless you pay a huge fee of course.

In order to fight "the man" I will continue to be a leach on the internet sucking up the free content where I can get it and never becoming a totalfark sub#>..^(@($%^&&@ DISCONNECTED
 
nytmare
2006-02-11 6:57:40 PM  
It's automatically legit as long as you're making money at it, right? Surprisingly, some people actually do rationalize it this way.
 
Macthulhu
2006-02-11 7:29:51 PM  
What about places like toponlinesurveys.com? Anybody here ever try the "get paid to take surveys" gig?
 
Good day
2006-02-11 7:30:48 PM  
Who falls for these things?? Honestly. I want to know how many people join who DON'T live in the South.
 
FriarReb98 [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2006-02-11 7:32:31 PM  
But...but... that Kenyan prince was so sincere-sounding....
 
Good day
2006-02-11 7:36:47 PM  
jorg
A bunch of people here in Utah got taken by this. However, the local news is portraying the stupid marks as some kind of consumer protection heros rather than the suckers they are. One of the victims is flying to their offices to get answers. I'm anticipating hilarity to ensure.

Victims my ass. Anyone who joins a program like this knows what they're getting into. Either that, or are legitimately mentally challenged. Like any sustainable, legal program will pay you thousands to autosurf for five minutes a day. That douche also recruited a bunch of people to sign up under him (under his referral link, no doubt). I have no sympathy for these morons.
 
likelyculprit
2006-02-11 7:56:58 PM  
on, silly ponzie schemes
 
Lucky13
2006-02-11 8:47:21 PM  
gilbert408: yeah forex is crazy. so is smallcap stocks. i had 53% jump in one day. and another of my stock went up 9000% in 3 months. not bad eh
 
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