How Not to Make Money: Website Scams to Track You Online

There are a lot of people that offer "free" money online, but in reality, there is no such thing as free money.

There is always a catch, with strings attached, and a favor expected in return.

If you are an author on Hubpages, then you should know that it is not easy to even earn with the Hubpages Earnings Program if you do not put a good effort into writing and improving the quality of your Hubs.

Money is not free, and it certainly isn't found free online. It takes work to earn money. If you think you can make it in this work with a "Get Rich Quick" scheme, then think again.

If you look at the richest people in the world, none of them did it because of some get rich quick scheme. They didn't get where they are by scamming innocent people. They worked hard, and persisted until they found a way to their success.

Would an Honorable Person Want to Use You?

No.

A person that is willing to befriend you with the sole goal of making money from your friendship is no friend at all.

People of integrity would not see you as a dollar sign, rather than as a real person.

I have encountered people that are willing to go through all of their church contacts in an attempt to recruit people into their Multi-level Marketing Scheme. That is just despicable. They are abusing a network that is not there for profit.

If you encounter a person that wants to "chew you up and spit you out" for money, don't join them. They just want to use you for your personal network of friends. If you get sucked in, you will burn many bridges with friends. I'm just warning you.

There are thousands of YouTube videos online that claim to have methods to make money effortlessly, but don't be fooled.

They just want you to come to their website so you will click on their ads and they will make another .06 per click.

If you go to YouTube and watch one of these online videos, they follow a stale formula.

It goes much like this:

1. Watch a 7-10 minute spiel about how much money you can make.
2. At the end of the YouTube video, the author posts the website that will "change your life" because of all the money you can make.
3. You go to the website and find out you must buy this fool-proof system to start bringing in $15k a month.
4. If you buy the system (priced anywhere between $19.99 - $199.99), you make the scammer richer, and you become that much poorer.

You will notice that in the comments, you will find other scammers advertising their scam websites. The sales pitch will be the same, except that their site obviously is way better than all of the rest, including the one being advertised in the YouTube video.

Here is what happens when you visit the obscure website being advertised in a YouTube Make Money Online video (or in the comments section):

1. The scammer is hoping that you will click on advertising on the website so they can make money off of your clicks.
2. The scammer places tracking cookie on your computer, and tracks the websites you visit. You can count on getting tracking cookies if you visit adult content sites.
3. The scammer has viruses present on website under the guise of free software or free downloads. This is found on lots of "warez" sites.
4. The scammer is selling a software product that is "guaranteed" to make you a crazy amount of money in a relatively short period of time, so you never have to work again.

When it is all over, you will have: 1) clicked on something shady, 2) received tracking cookie(s), 3) picked up a virus accidentally, or 4) bought some wacky software that you really don't need.

If these were the 4 Horsemen of Death, you will would have met your doom at the hands of a scammer.

Money made from such things comes at a cost.

Is it really worth it to get scammed?

One way to protect myself from tracking cookies is the Firefox extension, Self-Destructing Cookies.

If you visit Facebook regularly, you need something like this. Just sitting on Facebook, hundreds of cookies being placed on your computer explode as they are put there.

I was amazed at how many tracking cookies Facebook alone places on your computer.

Protect yourself from people that want to take advantage of you online.