Paid to Place by Kathy Garcia is a new website that promises to show you how to make money online placing simple ads. Anytime an opportunity like this comes along it’s very important to carefully research it since in most cases it’s too good to be true.

Right off the bat there’s a clear warning sign on the Paid to Place website that should have you worried about this programs legitimacy. The work at home news video they show has nothing to do with the Paid to Place system; this is a common tactic used by scammers to trick you into thinking that their opportunity is backed by real news organizations.

The video is followed by the all too common desperate Mom story, in which Kathy tells you how she miraculously came across an amazing system for making money from home. Again this is another sales tactic used to appeal to your emotions and have you thinking that this is right for you.

After all that hype she finally reveals her “Almost-Perfect Work at Home Job,” which is getting paid to place ads. She tells you that in today’s economy companies are desperate for people to help them advertise products in an effort to save money on traditional advertising.

While that does sound good there’s much more to this concept than meets the eye…

So Can You Really Get Paid to Place Ads?

Amongst the salesy drivel there are a few keywords that reveal what the Paid to Place system is all about. Even though they claim that you won’t have to sell anything they say that you are given a tracking code to place on and offline ads.

No matter how you cut it that’s affiliate marketing, in which you get paid when one of your referrals buys something or submits their personal info. Understand that there’s no such thing as real companies paying you to simply place ads.

This is a completely fabricated concept that scammers use to sell make money courses. While affiliate marketing is legitimate and a real booming industry, it’s far from what the Paid to Place system is.

Real companies use professional networks to recruit affiliates to promote their offers, these are vetted individuals with websites, marketing experience, and email lists not random people of the street. And even then they only get paid when one of their referrals completes an action, not just for placing the advertisement.

So is Get Paid to Place a Scam?

There are enough warning signs on the first page of the website to not recommend it, but when you dig a little deeper you’ll find out that this program is definitely a scam.

They sell the program for only $18.95 but they’ve managed to sneak in an additional monthly re-bill. In their terms and conditions you’ll see the real hidden costs, something that many people fail to read.

By Clicking Submit, I have ordered Paid to Place™ for $18.95 which includes a 14-Day membership to the Paid to Place Learning Center that is chocked full of ways to make money online. After the initial 14-days I will be charged $39.95 a month thereafter if I do not cancel. I have read and agree to the terms and the privacy policy . For questions or to cancel, call 1-888-656-1601 ext. 101 , customer service hours are M-F, 9am to 5pm, MST

Coincidentally on the sales page Kathy says that when you place your ads you’ll be getting paid per sale and on a second tier residual sale. This almost certainly means that the Paid to Place system will simply teach you how to place ads promoting the Paid to Place system itself. This is just a new twist on a common scam.

If you’ve purchased Paid to Place use the above number to try and cancel and get your money back. This may be difficult because in their terms and conditions they’ve also buried a statement saying that monthly fees are not refundable so they might only give you back the initial $18.95.

Here’s additional contact info:

Clearly Paid to Place is not recommended and you should steer clear of anything that resembles it.

Several people have been asking about a make money online scheme called internet cash machine. Unfortunately no one has provided a link to this program so it’s been hard for me to track it down. An online search didn’t reveal the actual website for Internet Cash Machine which is definitely not a good sign as far as it being legit.

The search did reveal a bunch of complaints against this program which mostly likely means that they’ve taken down the offer or are only promoting it through email. From the nature of the complaints this seems to be a website that utilizes ‘negative option billing’, not one of my favorite things…..

This means they offer it as a trial for a low fee then continue to bill you a monthly charge until you cancel. There’s nothing wrong with trial offers, but these guys tend to hide the monthly payment part deep in the terms and conditions and most people skim over that part and never cancel in time to avoid the extra charges. Some companies also make it very hard to cancel by completely ignoring you once they have your credit card number.

I would say that if you are looking to make some money online then internet cash machine is probably not going to be your answer. I’m still looking for more information on this though, so if you come across this offer then post a link in the comment section below.

Giveaway recruiters is a new product that claims to teach people how to make money by giving away free samples.  This concept is relatively new and the information that they’re selling has never been marketed from this angle.

They claim that thousands of companies need people like you to help give away their products everyday online.  Thus, giveaway recruiters is here to show you how you can get started in this supposedly lucrative field.

At first glance this opportunity seems legit and even worthy of an endorsement since they take a solid marketing concept and combine it with a home business model; however when you take time to thoroughly examine GiveawayRecruiters.com and all their claims the story takes a turn for the worse.

What is the Giveaway Recruiters Coaching Program All About?

Basically what they teach you is internet marketing, the method of promoting products online through websites, paid advertising, and search engines.  Companies provide you with special tracking links to be used in your promotions and when an online user follows your link and completes a purchase you get credited with the sale and earn yourself a nice commission.

This in itself is a great way to make money online but requires a lot of dedication and should be treated with the same seriousness as any offline business.  Now, the idea with Giveaway Recruiters is that they provide you with a list of companies who offer products for “free.”

These products are much easier to promote and have high commissions, obviously a person is much more willing to sign up for something that’s free rather than pay money upfront.

So is Giveaway Recruiters Legit or a Scam?

While they do make a very believable case for their program there are tons or red flags that someone inexperienced in internet marketing is simply unable to see.  First off, from the blurry pictures on their site you can barely make out which products they want you to promote and they’re definitely not good.

The products are sold through “free” trials; initially a customer only pays for shipping and handling however after they submit their billing info the company proceeds to charge them high monthly fees as part of their continuity programs.  These additional fees are hidden in fine print and buried in the terms and condition pages where customers have a hard time finding them.

This is how these companies can pay you commissions of $40 – $60 for each “free” product that you give away.  In the long run they make much more off the customer then what they pay you to sucker them into this billing nightmare.

These types of products have scammed hundreds of thousands of people in a variety of categories, everything from Google Kit Scams to Acai Berry Diet Scams.  And Giveaway Recruiters is here to teach you how to get in on this illicit action.

I can only assume that Giveaway Recruiters is offered at such a low price because they’ve worked out deals with the companies they want you to promote to get a piece of every sale you make for them.

Finally, the last red flag for GiveawayRecruiters.com is that the website is owned by a company doing business out of Cyprus, a region notorious for producing some of the worst internet scams to date.  It should be pretty clear that this program is not recommended since they essentially train you how to become a pseudo-scammer yourself.

The latest installment in a series of work at home kits, Ultimate Home Based Wealth (www.ultimatehomebasedwealth.com) makes its debut. As with the majority of these kits the promoters will claim that you don’t need any experience to start and that you’ll learn how to work with leading search engines and social media networks.

What these kits consist of are courses and tutorials in internet marketing. They’ll show you how to promote other peoples’ products through various online mediums. They don’t tell you much information upfront but currently this is the most prevalent method of making money online.

Now there’s nothing wrong with internet marketing, it’s a legitimate method for earning a living and is the farthest thing from a scam. However, the reason that programs like “Ultimate Home Based Wealth” get torn apart by customers is twofold.

First off they never give you the full story of what this opportunity entails and often promote it through misleading ads. They’ll say things like, “get paid to post links on Google” and other misconceptions that convince people this is a traditional job or a series of simple tasks they can do for money.

In reality when it comes to internet marketing you work for yourself and only get paid when your marketing efforts generate enough internet traffic that you start seeing some sales. You only get paid when people buy the products that you’re promoting.

Now the second reason that kits like Ultimate Home Based Wealth get riddled with negative customer complaints is because of their billing practices. In this case they advertise Ultimate Home Based Wealth for an initial trial fee of $2.97. However there’s much more to that than meets the eye

This one takes the cake when it comes to hidden charges and deceptive billing. After you fill in your personal info you’ll be taken to an order screen that looks like this.

Underneath the itemized cost you’ll see some small print which states,

See the full terms of this offer for full details as they explain that if you take advantage of the trial you only pay $2.97 today instead of the regular monthly membership price of $19.71 and the one time join fee of $129.96. If you enjoy the trial please call customer service to provide feedback of purchase at a special discount of 10%, or call the same number to let us know if you do not want to continue or be billed for the program after the trial. Call 1-877-456-2472.

The wording is purposefully vague, not to mention hard to read. If you’re not careful you might get the impression that you’re only paying the $2.97 but if you keep reading and check out their full terms and conditions you’ll find out the truth.

Once you submit your payment information your trial will begin, after which you have 2 days to decide if you want to keep the product. If you don’t cancel within that time then they’ll bill you a nonrefundable fee of $129.96 and will begin monthly charges of $19.71 and a monthly account maintenance fee of $3.85 until you tell them to stop.

Now I hope you’re starting to see why there’s never anything good said about programs like Ultimate Home Based Wealth. Tons of people fall for these without ever seeing these added charges, in this case they’ve made their offer even more sinister by including the nonrefundable clause for the main fee.

It’s clear that they’re simply trying to catch people sleeping at the wheel, realistically even if you did read the terms and conditions how could 2 days possibly be enough time to review all the materials and decide if it’s worth the high cost.

If you did fall for this and want to cancel call their customer service number, 1-877-456-2472, from the looks of things it seems like getting that $129 charge reversed will be a real problem, your best bet will be to report the charges as fraudulent to your bank or credit card company.

I was surprised to come across two websites still featuring Kevin Hoeffer and his make money posting links on Google kits.  Websites like www.kevinsmoney-tree.com and www.kevins-money-tree.com were rampant in 2009 until the authorities caught on and launched massive investigations into these fraudulent businesses.

Google itself stepped in and banned the advertising accounts of anyone promoting anything that had to do with make money on Google kits.  These actions seemed to work as these programs disappeared, which makes the reemergence of Kevins Money Tree all the more puzzling, as the owner must know it’s only a matter of time till the sites gets flagged.

Why are The Kevin Hoeffer Money Tree Sites a Scam?

For those who don’t know the back story to this and aren’t sure why these sites are so dangerous let me explain.  Literally everything that has to do with these sites is deceptive in nature: the blog is fake, there is no Kevin Hoeffer, the entire system of getting paid to post links does not exist, and the kits that are sold through these Kevins Money Tree Sites come with hidden monthly charges.

This is why when these sites were in their heyday they generated hundreds of thousands of complaints from customers who got taken into this fabricated story. Ultimately they ended up taking millions of dollars from hard working people just looking to make some extra money.

Realistically the only way to get paid by Google, outside of actually working for the company, is to use the Google AdSense program which pays webmasters for hosting Google Ads on their site.  These can be seen everywhere online from major news sites to popular blogs under the title Ads by Google.  When website visitors click those links the owner of the site gets paid.

On these “Kevins Money Tree” sites the pictures of people holding checks are from this AdSense program, and are used to sell you on the idea that you can make money posting links.  Obviously this is not the case and they’re simply using the pictures to fool you.

Some other deceptive tactics that they use are geographically targeted sales pitches based on your IP Address.  For instance if you visit the site from Alabama it will say Hi I’m Kevin Hoeffer from, closest town to you, Alabama.  I haven’t seen this script installed on these two newest sites, www.kevinsmoney-tree.com and www.kevins-money-tree.com but I know it’s a tactic they used in the past.

Bottom line is stay away from Kevin Hoeffer and whatever Kit of the week is being pushed through his site as you’ll only end up regretting it.