WARNING Paypal, AlertPay E-mails

I thought I would post a reminder that there are e-mails going around which are trying to get into your Paypal, Alertpay, MoneyBookers, e-Gold and Liberty Reserves accounts.

Things to Remember
Heres just a short list of reminders for you to do, especially with Payment Processor sites as the ones previously mentioned.

ALWAYS have a unique Password
In reality, all passwords should be unique, this seems more true with PTC sites that turn out to be scams, since most of the spam and the hacking comes from the crooks that run those crappy scam ptc sites. So make sure that your Payment Processor Passwords are different from each other. Don't get into the habit of having a password like fishsticks, then using a password fishsticks1 at another site. If you must, write the passwords down and store it in a safe place.

Sites will NEVER ask for your password
No site, where you are using a password to enter, will ever need to ask you for your password because they already have it. So if you get an e-mail asking for you to confirm your password, then ignore it.

E-mails
If you suspect that you're getting a bogus e-mail, then view the E-mail Headers

Header example of an E-mail asking about my Paypal Account
Update Your Account Information
Saturday, 20 December, 2008 6:24 PM
From service@intl.paypal.com Sat Dec 20 16:24:48 2008
Return-Path: [and1israel@and1israel.com]
Authentication-Results: mta103.tnz.mail.aue.yahoo.com from=; domainkeys=neutral (no sig)
Received: from 212.150.164.4 (EHLO server.lom.co.il) (212.150.164.4) by mta103.tnz.mail.aue.yahoo.com with SMTP; Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:52:52 -0800
Received: from apache by server.lom.co.il with local (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from [and1israel@and1israel.com]) id 1LDuKW-0000N4-Bz for jimeous@xtra.co.nz; Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:24:48 -0500
To: jimeous@
Subject: Update Your Account Information
From:
service@intl.paypal.com [service@intl.paypal.com]
Add sender to Contacts
Reply-To: service@intl.paypal.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Message-Id: [E1LDuKW-0000N4-Bz@server.lom.co.il]
Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:24:48 -0500
Content-Length: 8456

As you can see from this e-mail, the sender and dickhead is from and1israel, there's other ones like this so be very careful with your information. If you get an e-mail from Paypal regarding your account the link will start with either...

http://www.paypal.com
https://www.paypal.com

The same is with any other site that you have passwords for, a correct link in your browser is always the link of the main site.

Scan your computer
It does pay to scan your computer for virii and other nasties, do a search on google for a free virus scan and a free anti-spyware program.

Always be on guard when it comes to e-mails, or sites asking for your account details.

How can I tell a PTC Site is a scam?

This is a question that is often asked by many new people to get paid to click ads sites and it is a little tricky to clarify but I will do my best.

Things to look out for
There are a few things that you can look out for if the site is potentially a paid to click scam. They are as follows...

The Amount you will Earn
The Amount they charge for Advertising
The type of Advertising on the get paid to click ads site
The activity on the PTC Site's Forum
The opinion of others using a search engine.

The Amount you will Earn
This is an easy one to spot, no person is going to pay you $1 to click an ad because no advertiser is going to buy such expensive advertising. Paid to click sites which are a cent and under, can be considered as possibly good sites to visit. Anything above a cent paid per click is getting a bit sketchy.

The Amount they charge for Advertising
This is an important aspect because this is the main income for a get paid to click ads site. Ignore claims by a PTC Admin that they have low priced advertising because they have other sources of income, this is what MasterBux and DailyClicks admins claimed and as you know by now, they aren't about. Hell I even defended those Admins back in those days. GRRRRRRR.....

Lets get back on topic, at $0.01 paid to click an ad for a Free Member, and $0.01 paid per click paid as commission for thier Referrals, a ptc should be charging around $20 for advertising 1,000 paid links.

The type of Advertising on the get paid to click ads site
Many new ptc sites will have thier own paid advertising links to start off with, this is acceptable for around a month. You will be able to notice these paid ad links because they are advertising one of the following..

- Referral Links where the Referer name is always the same
- Purchasing Links for Upgrading and Referrals on the site
- ClickBank, EBook Selling etc, usually these are done by the admin

The basic thing wrong with a ptc site which has mostly these links is that the owner of the ptc site is getting no money for them, instead he is hoping to get more income when people purchase or sign up to those sites. A ptc's main income should come from revenue from sell advertising links, no sales, no money, no likely payments, probably end up be a ptc scam.

The activity on the PTC Site's Forum
There are a couple of sites I have removed based on thier Forums, clickandbux is one of those sites. The problem with their forums is that it was filled with spam, which indicated that the admin of the site really didn't care. For me it was enough to flag the site.

Usually a well maintained ptc forum, with an active admin, is a sign that the admin will do thier best not to rip anyone off. This does occur at times, mostly due to the admin over-extending themselves with self promoted paid link advertising.

The PTC forum is also a good place to look for complaints, you know, late payments, purchases not recieved and so on. It is also a good place to have your web link in your signature. Heck even if the site is a scam one, it's just worth signing up and posting so others will check out your site.

The opinion of others using a search engine.
MySearchFunds...

In short, if you haven't signed up to that Paid to Search Site, then you are missing out on earnings, I thought I'd just remind people of that in the beginning.

Searching is our friend, PTC Forum's are often filled with propoganda, some PTC Forums ban users for negative postings about thier site, so resorting to a search engine is always a good start.

Use the name of the ptc site and the word scam in your search, or you can use the name of the site and payment proof. Many new sites may not have any hits to start off with, this is normal, however long established PTC sites do have.

Just touching on this subject
So I've talked about a few things you can do to avoid scam ptc sites. Some people actually use these sites to convert thier earnings to advertising, and that's what I'd suggest if you are caught out. Remember, avoid paying your real money in a paid to click site, it really doesn't matter how "trusted" they are, the whole ptc business is so fickle and not really worth losing your savings over.

Of course once you have earnt money from your various ptc sites, then you may be tempted to purchases things from them, that's exactly what I did and I am grateful for it.

Approach a new PTC with some skepticism, however don't let yourself be too tied down by that attitude because you may just miss out. New PTC's should be promoted as soon as you can, it's at that point you can make a quick buck.

And of course, dump any PTC site which isn't meeting your expectations.