Project Payday – IFW Update & Scams
Project Payday is a membership site that provides a ton of information on the world of IFW — Internet Freebie Websites and how to make money on them.
Working this has just gotten a whole lot more nerve-racking because of the scams!
There are several free forum sites traders use to hook up with each other to make trades. You can pay others for referrals, get paid to be a referral, or trade “greens”. The term “green” means you’ve fulfilled all the requirements on a freebie site and can now be paid for your referral.
Pros:
- It can pay you a lot fast via paypal
- Make $20 and up quickly, as soon as you “go green” or the buyer gets approval
- Make as little or as much as you want to actively work on it
- You can make a full-time paycheck doing this if you want to spend the time and effort at your computer most days
Cons:
- It’s easy to get scammed by traders and advertisers
- It’s an active source of income. If you aren’t working on going green or buying green, you don’t make money
- I’ve been scammed twice already in one week, once by a trader and once by an advertiser.
- It costs to take part in most of the offers you participate in, so you have a gross profit, cost of sales, and you end up with a net profit. You have to pick your offers carefully to make sure you end up with a positive net profit worth your time.
Scams I’ve experienced:
The first one was resolved pretty quickly and I ended up getting my money for my green. A trader on the Free Lunch Room forum and I set up a trade. Between the time we set up the trade and I went green on his site, he was permanently banned from the Free Lunch Room forum for private message spamming. I couldn’t communicate with him to complete the trade and get my money. Fortunately, when I reported this to the freebie website I went green on, the support staff “unreferred” my green so I could sell it to another trader. I was able to do that within one day, and it worked out well.
Right now, I’m working on a severe scam with an advertiser on paypal.zipnadazilch.com. EDP Reporting/Sterling Visa Debit Card advertised a free prepaid debit card just for filling out the application and requesting it. Well, it turned out it’s not free at all. They charged me an application and processing fee of $159.95. After my checking account was overdrawn (I hadn’t planned for such a large debit) I went to the bank to try and figure out why. My online account history didn’t have anything listed for $159.95, and the debits listed were very small, not sufficient to overdraw the account. There was an unexplained item on my online activity list that said “transaction returned” with no prior debit amount or information. I went to the bank and it took the branch manager 10 minutes and a few phone calls to locate what that item actually was. It was an electronic check drawn on my account by EDP Reporting/Sterling Visa Debit Card.
I was shocked. I left the bank and tried to call the toll-free number on the copy of the electronic check to no avail. They gave their web address and I tried the online chat. There was no one online to chat with, so my last option was to email them via their contact us link, so that’s what I did. I also went back through their site to see if I’d missed anything I should have noticed about an application and processing fee. I didn’t find anything. I got back a very curt and turse reply that said I had agreed to the terms of service when I posted my email address as my electronic signature. So I went back to the application site again and searched for the terms and conditions link. It was, of course, in the very small, faint print. I clicked on it and the first thing it lists is an application and processing fee of $159.95 with a cancellation and refund policy. The fact that there is such a fee is never mentioned anywhere during the entire application process. You’d only know about it if you click on the terms of service link.
I wasn’t able to cancel within the 3 business day window because I had no idea what had happened since there was no information on my bank activity list. I had to wait and go to the bank before I even knew where to look. I replied to them demanding my money back and an immediate cancellation of my account. If they don’t refund my money, I may have to pay some serious overdraft charges, but that’s still less than the fee.
After I get their reply to my demand, I’ll decide what I’ll do next. Either they’ll cooperate with me or they won’t. If they don’t, I’m taking every action I can to embarrass the company all over the internet, including filing a police report, closing my checking account (it’s not my primary account), and putting in complaints with the Better Business Bureau and badbusinessbureau.com.
I’ll post after I get their reply to my complaint and demand.
