Archive for the ‘Scams’ tag

Beware of “The Dollar Pit”

The owner of “The Dollar Pit” used to send me messages on Yahoo to ask me to post this or that on my blog. Today I’m posting a warning.

If you had signed up for this site previously, you received a signup bonus. Now, let me start by giving my opinion on bonuses: If I say I’m giving you $5 to do something, whether it’s sign up for my site, spend it on an item, whatever, that $5 is yours. Once I give it to you, I no longer own or have control over that money. That just seems pretty basic to me.

Apparently that isn’t true of “The Dollar Pit”. If you’re given a bonus, and suddenly the rules change, it’s time to take back that money. I don’t know what the signup bonus is now, nor do I really care, and after this post I’m moving on with my life and I probably won’t give the site a second thought. However, with that being said, please just know that if you sign up for the site, it’s at your own risk.

I had my attempt to withdraw money deleted twice, once without explanation. The second time told me to either earn more money (higher than the minimum) or give my bonus back. I replied thanking the owner for explaining, and providing my opinion, to receive a message that was pretty rude: “I don’t hesitate to pay members that do the work.” — I have done some work, I’ve posted blog posts at her request, made a graphic she requested for her site, and I was given a bonus. So much for paying members that do the work.

My personal argument with the rude email aside, I will say it again: “if you sign up for the site, it’s at your own risk.” I’m all for business policies, but honesty is the best policy in any business.

Would I go so far as to call this site a scam? Probably not. She probably does pay some members, but I personally sure can’t prove it.

I’ll be going through to remove or edit previous posts about this site shortly.

Understanding GPT Sites

There are several different types of sites on the internet for getting free things, but I’d like to talk about GPT sites.

GPT (Get Paid To) sites are filled with "offers" for you to complete that consist of surveys, trials, email newsletters to sign up for, and more. Many free offers and usually some paid offers (as well as cell phone and credit card offers) will be available for those interested. So how does this get you free stuff?

GPT sites get paid a certain amount of money for every offer that you complete, and then they pay you a portion of that in points, cash, or both depending on how their site is set up. Some sites will pay you the day you request a prize, others will pay you anywhere from a day to two months after you request a prize. It depends on how the owner of the site wants to pay out.

There are some scam sites out there, so you have to be careful and investigate the site(s) you’re looking at. You really should be careful with anything online. Be sure to read my post When Joining New Sites for some help on investigating sites before joining. Remember, not all of these sites are scams; some sites are just really crappy.

Make sure to keep watching the blog here for more updates on sites that aren’t crappy! I try sites myself before talking about them, and I do my best not to steer you wrong.

Is PrizeRebel a Scam?

So today’s question is: Is PrizeRebel a scam?

To know the answer to this question, you have to know what PrizeRebel is.

PrizeRebel is a site where you can fill out surveys, sign up for newsletters, sites, and trials (and more) and get points for doing so. There are tons of free offers and some credit card/cell phone offers (if that’s what you’re interested in). 1 point = $1 and there are a ton of prizes to choose from. On top of that, they even offer you the choice of custom prizes. It all sounds great, right?

So that’s where we come back to the question: Is PrizeRebel a scam?

No, PrizeRebel is not a scam! It is a legitimate website where you can get some great free stuff. You can get iTunes cards, stuff from Amazon, Nexon cards, gaming cards (WoW, Ultimate Gaming Card, XBOX Live) and so much more.

PrizeRebel is for users 13+ years old living in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.

Want proof? Check this out. Proof!

PrizeRebel – Click to join!

Is SimpleGPT a Scam?

SimpleGPT is a GPT site where you can complete surveys, offers, trials, etc. for cash (PayPal or Check) or gift cards. It runs on a cash AND points system (100 points = $1) and you can convert your cash over to points (called "sand dollars") but not the other way around.

Some offers, trials, etc. give you game tokens, and three of these tokens allow you to play a game where you can win up to $1 per play (you really can’t lose).

There’s a forum to check out with plenty of great information, a well written FAQ, a chat box on the site for you to chat with other members, and several other great features.

That’s great and all, but do they pay? Are they legit? Yes, and yes!

Want some proof? Check this out! No scam here! Only cash and gift cards!

SimpleGPT – Click here to join!

When Joining New Sites

There are a lot of great GPT (and similar) sites out there on the internet that I haven’t joined, and I thought I’d share what I look for when joining a new site. There are a lot of great sites, and also some scam sites (or just awful ones) out there.

So what do I look for?

Payment Proof
I look for payment proof off-site somewhere, such as my own blog Geek Dad. Posts like Geek Dad’s Guide to Free Stuff are very helpful to me. That type of payment proof means more to me than payment proof on the site or forum.

Forum
Now the thing about the forum is that it doesn’t have to be super active, it just has to have payment proof and just some kind of activity. If it hasn’t been used in 6 months I question it. Also, how does the staff treat the users? How do other users treat the users?

Reviews
What are people saying about the site? I try to weigh out the good and bad, and figure out whether people are being honest or did something wrong. Two people may say they were “banned for no reason” when 100 other people were paid. I had my account removed from a site after finding one or two “payment proof” posts and reading around 50 experiences (off-site forum & blog posts) involving being banned when they reached the amount of points needed for payout

Proper English
Don’t stone me yet. I’ve seen several websites that were written in “Engrish” – this does not impress me at all. I don’t feel comfortable giving my personal information to a site that can’t write a clear privacy policy (among other things).

Ads everywhere
When I find a GPT site that has a zillion ads all over the site that have nothing to do with the GPT part of the site, I have to wonder how horrible the site’s income is. “My GPT site sucks, so click these ads!” – I don’t want to see a zillion ads on a regular site, but at least there having a few of them is understandable. On a GPT site? The entire site is about ads.

Those are a few things that I look for, and here’s one thing I don’t care about at all:

GPTBoycott
I see this button and link on several GPT and similar sites. This doesn’t mean squat to me! I’ve joined a few very, very crappy and shady sites that were “supporters of GPTBoycott” and regretted it. There are also some good ones I’m sure. Somehow these guys got it into peoples’ heads that if a site isn’t a “GPTBoycott supporter” they’re not legit. This is not true. There are some excellent sites out there that aren’t a part of this ring of sites. Please don’t let that influence you in any way. There are good and bad sites that are “GPTBoycott supporters” and there are good and bad sites that are not.

Be smart, do your research on the sites, and make sure to check the tips above for help determining if a site is right for you.