The Freebie Hunt Is On!

We may well be in a recession but there are ways you can still try and get free stuff without having to spend a fortune.

If you feel lucky (or even if you don't), you can try and win prizes. Find out about promotions locally or even online. The best example I can give you is the promotion that was held for 3 days at my local Renault garage and which I participated for free on Monday: all I had to do was test-drive a brand new Renault Megane (without being obliged to buy anything) for my name to be entered in a draw with a chance to win one. I must say I got a little kick out of making the salesman feel very nervous sitting in a car being driven for the very first time by a reckless French woman driver; at least that's the feeling I got judging by the sweat on the guy's forehead!

Another thing I did is join the online newsletter from a national radio (Today FM; I just love listening to the Ray D'Arcy show!) and it turns out that the newsletter they send me once a month has great free competitions: this morning I entered one to be in a chance to win a case of 12 bottles of French wine and another for tickets to a kids' show in Dublin with 2 nights in a hotel.

These are great competions because they are free to join but before you go and join all online competitions, make sure you read all the fine print and don't join a site like this: I came across it a few weeks ago and thought at first that this was a great opportunity but it's only after reading the full terms and conditions that I found out it was actually a mobile phone subscription service: the first text is free but after that and until you unsubscribe, they will send you a text that will cost you €2 every 4 days; a great way to be left without phone credit when you need it the most.

Read the local papers, listen to radio ads and sign up to any newsletters you may be interested in; the more competitions you enter, the more chances you get to actually win something!

No Fee Data-Entry Jobs, Another Scam?

I already talked about data-entry jobs and how I am never joining one of these so tempting opportunities that require an upfront payment but yesterday as I was doing an Internet search I came across some no fee data-entry jobs.

Don't get all excited here because when I say no fee data-entry jobs, I don't necessarily mean that these aren't scams either. There might be some legitimate work at home opportunities out there, but I think it would take a very long time finding one.

Let me explain: the first No Fees Data-Entry Jobs I found required me to sign up to Dubaimlm! I am sure that signing up for an MLM Scheme (free or not) isn't your idea of a legitimate work at home job; it isn't mine either.

I looked for another No Fee Data-Entry Job and came up with a website asking me to sign up to Revolution Money Exchange; I had never heard about this website before but apparently they are yet another PayPal alternative. I am not sure they are legitimate and even if they were, do I need one more online payment processing thingy? I keep wondering why can't I sign up to a No Fee Data-Entry Job that uses Paypal (mmm, I wonder, have they got their Paypal account closed for some reason?).

More links to No Fee Data-Entry point to full pages of Google ads (some for sleazy automatic money-making systems, others for survey websites and everything else except what I am looking for) and a few not-so-legitimate-looking websites containing lots of Google ads and what looks like a list of comments copied from somewhere else with links pointing to the same website (?!); I guess these websites are just looking for some clicks (someone's gonna get their Adsense account closed!).

Well it looks like I spent the best part of my day doing some useless Internet searches and, as the Irish band U2 would say: "But I'm Stilllllll Haven't Found What I'm Looking Fooooooooor!"

I Am Convinced (at last!?) that Numenmail is a Scam

A few months ago I joined Numenmail, a Get Paid to Read Emails/Get Paid to Click program and even though it took me a while before I decided to expose them (I just wanted to be sure!), I can now say this loud and clear: Numenmail is a scam!

Of course it was not realistic to hope that I could earn more than a few cents per day on a PTR/PTC (Paid to Read/Paid to Click) program so when I joined a program like Numenmail that gave me a $800 sign up bonus and $80 per email that I read, I should have known that this was a scam.

Numenmail were very generous with their emails (I got 3 or 4 $80 paying emails plus a good few links to click at $5 each every day) but when I reached the $8888 payout after just over a month reading emails I requested the money to be paid onto my Paypal account and of course it never came!

I gave them the benefit of the doubt and sent them an email enquiring about my money but I was not surprised to get no answer from Numenmail.

It is now 61 days since I have requested my $8888 payout (it would have been nice to get it!) and the website states that payments are sent within 30 days of being requested so I can now safely say that Numenmail is a scam.

If you would like to have more details about this website and follow my progress on Numenmail, visit the Squidoo lens I have created especially for this purpose: Can I Really Make Money Reading Emails?

P.S. I may never get paid by Numenmail, but at least I will make sure that I earn indirectly from them, with my Squidoo lens (wicked, I know!); it is time for me to start spending the balance of my Numenmail earnings (about $20,000) on advertising on the site!

Do You Google Scams?

Yesterday I received an email from Home Survey Workers claiming I could earn up to $1433 per month with their survey and group focus program.

Maybe it was the fact that the amount shown wasn't extraordinarily high, or maybe because it was not a rounded amount like $1000 per month or $100 a day (I get those a lot!) that made it look a little more credible than the scam offers I usually get. Anyway, I checked out the website and even though there was a registration fee, this was very small and I almost signed up!

The fee was $2.95 instead of $64.95, which seemed like a good bargain but luckily for me something inside me made me think of Googling the website before signing up.

I performed a Google search for Home Survey Workers scam and I found a lot of links from people who had apparently been scammed by this website. Some said they had not got the expected high amount of survey opportunities while others said they had never got their money back even though the website states that unsatisfied members can get their money back if they claim it within 8 weeks. One person even said that the company does not exist!

There were also a few positive reviews, but I assume that those who wrote them were simply trying to get referrals; one thing about the information that can be found on the Internet is that it is far from being 100% accurate as so many people try to make money from scam programs like this one.

Forgive me for not including a link to Home Survey Workers but I just can't see why I would want to direct you to a scam website. As for data-entry jobs, I don't think it's right to pay for something when you are supposed to be the one who gets paid. I know that $2.95 is not a lot of money but I'd rather use it on a yummy chocolate bar than an online scam!

High-Yield Investment Programs: Have You Been Ponzied?

Since I have been a member of Numenmail, a Get Paid to Read Emails website which I am still trying to find out whether they are an honest site or a scam, I have come across a few High-Yield Investment Program websites promising huge interest rates for money invested with them.

When I saw a website offering me to invest as little as $1 to earn 100% daily interest (this is just an example, I saw one offering a 5000% daily interest rate for a longer term investment), I was very tempted to invest just $1 and see what happened, but I had a better idea: I did a bit of Google research instead.

These High-Yield Investment Program websites often state that their investments are ideal for people with no experience about stock trading or no investment knowledge: yeah, right, of course they pick on the "newbies" because these are the less likely to have Googled High-Yield Investment Programs (HYIPs) and therefore are much less likely to know that most of these are in fact illegal!

Although not all High-Yield Investment Programs are scams, the ones that promise you a much higher return than average are likely to be Ponzi Schemes, and might even land you in jail if you start promoting them. I guess this is the reason why I haven't seen any using Adwords!

Ponzi schemes rely on their investors to recruit new members (sounds a bit like MLM to me). Instead of using legitimate investment schemes to earn interest for their members as they lead them to believe, the scammers use their latest recruits' investments to add to their funds. When investors ask for payment, they usually get a proposal to invest their money in an even higher-return investment and when too many people ask for their money, the scammers just runaway with the money, never to be heard of again (until the authorities catch up with them).

I can't help myself thinking that if Tony Soprano tried to make money online, he would be very successful running a High-Yield Investment Program website. To end this on a more serious note, the fact that Numenmail allows HYIPs to advertise with them only helps reinforcing my belief that it may be a scam.

I Have Reached Payout!

A few weeks ago I Joined Numenmail, a Get Paid to Read Emails website that promised me big bucks for very little work (if you call clicking a few links while I read a magazine or check my emails "work").

I have been updating my Squidoo Lens: Can I Really Make Money Reading Emails? regularly with my earnings and after only 30 days, I reached my $8888 payout!

I have requested my money to be paid on my Paypal account, which should take a maximum of 30 days if it turns out that Numenmail is an honest programme after all. I don't want to encourage people to join this website expecting big money, since a company that pays you $80 to stay on a website for 3 minutes sounds very dodgy to me and am I not the only suspicious person, if I believe the comments that have been left on my Squidoo lens so far.

If I do get paid, I will make sure I let everyone know by writing a big happy post here and on my lens (after doing some shopping!); if I don't get my $8888, it won't really matter as I never gave this company a cent, but you can be sure you will hear about it too!

Type at Home Scams

I just came across Type at Home Scams while I was updating my Squidoo lens. There are very good lenses out there, and this is one of them.

Before you join any of the Type at Home, Data-entry or Paid Surveys online programmes, you should visit this lens: this could save you a lot of time and money. Type at Home Scams lists about 200 websites that will gladly take your money and leave you high and dry. The author of the lens claims he has made money out of 2 Data-entry programmes, which are listed in the lens as well (not as scams). I am not including the links here as I don't want to take away his leads in case he gets paid for referrals, and I don't want to publish referral links other than my own here, but you can easily find them when you visit his Squidoo lens.

I haven't checked any of these websites, as my own take on Data-entry programmes is not to send money to anyone unless you know exactly what you are getting in exchange, but I appreciate the fact that some people go to the trouble of sharing information about known scams in order to help others.

Don't Be Fooled by Promises of Love, Money and Happiness

A few weeks ago, I shared on this blog an email I had received from a clairvoyant, which predicted me a positive change of luck at 8.00 PM on January 29th of 2008.

I suppose she meant to say that if I sent her a payment, she would make sure that my life would be filled with more Love, Money and Happiness; of course I did not send any payment, as I don't believe in such so-called "predictions".

What happened in my life on 29th January 2008, is that I had to rush my youngest daughter to the hospital as she developped a rash that turned out to be benign but was really worrying at the time, since it looked similar to a meningitis symptom. Needless to say I didn't have anytime for thoughts of Money or finding Love.

Both my children are now perfectly healthy, which they were already before the "prediction" and my situation is exactly the same as it was immediately before January 29th.

Would anything have been different if I had paid the requested amount of money? I think I can safely answer no. I have my children, a roof over our heads and enough money to get by without having to struggle too much. I am not a millionaire, but I would rather be "poor" with my healthy children than a millionaire alone.

Don't be fooled by promises of Love, Money and Happiness: some clairvoyants may be genuinely gifted but I don't believe you will find any of these sending weekly or monthly email newsletters to thousands of people they have never even met.

However desperate you are, don't ever pay someone to make your dreams come true. Everyone has the power to make things happen and it would be very foolish to rely on strangers and expect them to better your life. These are just shameless individuals trying to make money from people's unhappiness and whenever I come accross them, I can visualise a word in my mind: that word is "SCAM". (Hey, maybe I have a claivoyance gift too!).

Stalked by a Clairvoyant

Well, not really, but that title got you wondering, didn't it?

A few months ago, while I was surfing the Internet, I saw an advertisement for a free horoscope from Sara Freder; I don't really believe in horoscopes, but I like to read them, especially when they are free! I received my horoscope by email, which was all good, promises of Love, Money and Happiness, until I got to the end, where I was told I had to act fast in order to benefit from all those good prediction, and by "acting fast", the clairvoyant (or more likely the autoresponder) really meant sending a payment.

I now regularly receive more or less the same email every month: here is a sample of what I got today (I just wanted to show you the interesting progression of the email, which is quite long):

It starts this way:

2008 will be for you an exceptional year of luck in everything,
a year of happiness, love and money,
a year where all your most crazy dreams
could now really happen!

I even see for you next month a very important gain of money of several thousand dollars, and I also see coming the happiness that you thought was lost!

She then goes on and on about how so far my life has been devoid of Love, Money and Happiness and without giving much detail, tells me that everything is about to change (sounds familiar?). One interesting thing which makes me feel like going further in the email, is that in this particular email, she gives me an accurate date for my change of luck: I will have to watch this date, it is the 29th of January, 2008, at 8.00 PM. I don't know if she means her time (the website's business address is in France, which explains the numerous spelling mistakes in the horoscope, or maybe it's just one of the drawbacks of using computers to do your own work), or my time, but there is only one hour between France and Ireland anyway.

If you have the time, you can read some of the "information" she gives me; if she has a gift, and I believe she does, it's the gift of saying things without actually saying anything:

THREE POSITIVE AND TOTALLY UNEXPECTED FACTS

Indeed, and as I told you at the beginning of this clairvoyance, 2008 wouldn't have brought you anything special if these three especially positive and unexpected events were not happening in your life disrupting absolutely everything we thought established…

· Your first positive event, is the coming of an exceptional influence of luck which is probably going to allow you nearly to win immediately an important sum of money (I feel seeing the number 6 followed by a few zero !). This sum should be there very soon, even sooner that you could imagine,

· Your second positive event happened, or didn't happen, the day of your birth. Indeed, you probably don't know that but the day of your birth an especially happy event should have happened. This event should have made you a lucky and happy person for the rest of your life. However, and for a reason I still don't know, this crucial event and so important of your life has never happened. Result: luck and money have never really been present in your life!

Read here, it's important

But ! ...and here is the important news, that's this missed event of your childhood should happen again to you at the very beginning of the year 2008!

Yes, this new and totally unexpected fact should considerably increase your luck, already important, which is going to come during the year 2008... so without any doubt in a few weeks...

· Your third positive event, is here again a new and absolutely unexpected element, is the fact that the destiny has joined us, you and me. Yes, I think that the fact that we are actually in contact is not the fruit of chance. I think it's VOLONTARILY that the destiny has made us meet.

Towards the end of the email at last, she starts getting to the point:

And, because I really want your full happiness, I'll reveal you in exclusivity and absolutely for free your personal numbers in gold and of luck! These are your secret numbers, those which are particularly propitious and which may make you win billions at games!

But above all hurry up asking me to see your important clairvoyance of your chances for the year 2008 because don't forget that

IT'S NEXT MONTH THAT YOU SHOULD BEGIN TO BE BORN AGAIN AT THIS HAPPINESS AND AT THIS LIFE THAT SHOULD HAVE EVER BEEN YOURS

You can believe me…

So don't take useless risks and ask to see at once your important clairvoyance of your chances for the year 2008

Do it at once !

All you have to do is to complete as quickly as possible, today if possible, the CONFIDENTIEL FORM FOR A REAL LIFE OF HAPPINESS for 2008

Yes, that's all you have to do, but you really have to do it...

From today you are for me the most important person in the world. So, have confidence in me, you can.

Without any risk…

I'm waiting impatiently for your news and send you all my tenderness.

Your devoted,
Sara Freder

Conclusion:
I think Sara Freder is a successful business woman who makes her living by sending meaningless information for a fee to gullible people. She raises their hopes telling them good things are coming and, making them believe that only she has the key to their happiness, makes her money on the belief that she will deliver the key to their happiness.

P.S. I could unsubscribe from that email list at any time, but I enjoy reading that great things are going to happen to me, even though I know she probably sends the same email to all of her subscribers!

Now I Am Getting Emails From The FBI! - Nigerian Scam Follow-up

Those Nigerian crooks are trying really hard to scam people! Today I received an email from someone impersonating the FBI telling me that it was safe for me to go ahead with my on-going contract with the Central Bank of Nigeria!

First, I never contacted the FBI, I came across their website when I was looking for information on the Nigerian Scam but I never sent them any email! I did forward the first email I received from the so-called "Central Bank of Nigeria" to Scamomatic, but after getting confirmation from their website that this was indeed a fraudulent email, I doubt very much that the FBI would personnally send me an email advising me to go ahead with the project!

OK, so I watch a lot of movies, read a lot of books, when I got an email mentionning "FBI", I got curious (how glamourous is that?) and I actually read the whole email! (I usually just see "NIGERIA", "Dear Friend", "Lotto", "Congratulations".... and I send the email to "spam") but this is all they will get from me, 2 minutes of my time reading an email. No mister, you will not get a cent from me!

Beware of Fake PayPal Emails

I don't like to be taken advantage of and this almost happened when I opened an email seemingly coming from PayPal. I found it a bit strange at first to get an email from PayPal on my new email address (which I never use with them) but this message looked like a genuine PayPal email, it had the logo and was even signed from someone with a PayPal email ID.


The email in question informed me that they had noticed some suspicious activity on my PayPal account. I was worried that someone may have been using my PayPal account without my authorisation so I clicked on the link provided in the email in order to verify my identity, as I was being advised to. The email also said that if I did not act in the next 72 hours, my PayPal account would be cancelled.


I clicked on the link (which started with https://www.paypal.com/*) and was taken to what looked exactly like the real PayPal website, where I had to enter my user name and password (which is usual when you log in to the PayPal site) but when I went to verify my identity, which was really a form requesting all my details, I did not see the security symbol (which should look like a lock) anywhere on the page.


This detail prompted me to open a new page and type the PayPal website address in my browser. Once on the website I noticed that not only the security symbol was present but also the browser area where you can see the page's URL address is always green in the real PayPal website. After finding the PayPal security center, I forwarded the suspicious email to spoof@paypal.com and they confirmed that this was a phishing email. Fortunately, I had also remembered to change my PayPal password right after I noticed that there was something not right on the fake website.


If you think you have been targeted by a phishing email please report it. There are a lot of websites where you can do this so I won't list them all but you can search Google or Yahoo for "report phishing". If you just want to learn more about phishing email, you can take PayPal's Fight Phishing Challenge at https://www.paypal.com/fightphishing.



*Please do not access PayPal through any email or website link (including this one), if you want to visit PayPal's website, type in http://www.paypal.com/ in your browser.

Suspicious Emails Alert

During the last week, I received 5 suspicious emails:
- the Nigerian scam (or 419 scam), which I have already mentionned,
- the UK Lottery Online Organization informing me that my email address has won $4.6M,
- an email from Matroc Technical Ceramics Company Ltd offering me a job as a representative/payment agent to help them recover money owed to them,
- a "Notification for Cash Aid" email from a so-called Italian Foundation (why would a charity organization offer me $1,000,000.00? Don't they have anything better to do with the money like giving it to some italian orphanage or something?),
- an email from Powerball Online Promotion Programmes telling me that my email address has won £1.5.
All those messages asked me to send an email to some agent whose email address (in some case telephone number) was written on the email.

While I had my doubts about the legitimacy of the offers, I might have been slightly less suspicious if I had only received one email, but 5! My email address must be on some list that is being sold on the net with the title "Prospective Suckers".

I wanted to make sure that I was not passing on any interesting opportunities so I searched the Internet and found the Scamomatic website, which has a great feature: I clicked on the following question: "is that email a scam?" and was asked to copy and paste the suspicious emails in the corresponding fields. I was not surprised to see that these were indeed fraudulent emails. I am very lucky I found this website: not only do they tell you whether an email is genuine or fake, but they also give you a list of things to watch out for when you get an offer by email.

If you receive an email offering them money, please don't get sucked in, visit Scamomatic. There is a phrase that could be their motto: "If it seems too good to be true, it probably isn't!" and I agree with this.

Nigerian Scam

I had a surprise when I went through my emails this morning: apparently, the Central Bank of Nigeria has been instructed to credit my account with some contract funds.

First, I never entered in any contract with anybody from Nigeria. I am just a girl trying to make a bit of extra cash on the Internet.

Another thing, the email mentions a contract number (which doesn't ring a bell), a Bank Swift code, an account number, an email address, a phone number, which is a lot of probably bogus detail, but it does not include the amount of the payment in question, which is what I'd really like to know!

Well, I am not going to phone them, I am not wasting my money ringing this international phone number, and I will not write to the email contact (I would probably end up receiving more scam emails or even worse, this could result in someone being able to get information from my computer without my knowledge).

I ran an internet search on internet fraud after getting this email and found that the Nigerian scam has been active since the 1980's! My information said that very often, Nigerian officials are not only aware of it, they run the bloody scheme!

I printed the email and I am going to hand it into my nearest police station, which I suppose is the right thing to do, even though I don't think this will result in much. I suppose I am part responsible in getting that email, as I am always signing up for free stuff online (most of the time free newsletters about internet marketing that I don't even have the time to read!).

The bottom line is that I am happy I did not get sucked in and become another victim of this scam and I want to warn as many people as possible, so it's a good thing you are reading this!