A reader wrote:

Good afternoon,

Are you able to tell if these two websites below are online home business scams? It sounds too good to be true. I am skeptical about these three websites.

• www.dailyjobstribune.com/jobs/?t202id=12539&t202kw=work%20at%20home
• dailytribunes.com/finance/?c1=12&c2=72&c3=132&c4=0
• rs971.speedypaycheck.com/?pubid=23829

Thank you in advance!

Right now I don’t have a job. Currently, I am looking for an online business opportunity so I can free up most of my time for my children.

These programs consist of a membership website with lessons. The lessons teach you how to place advertisements on Google Adwords for other online programs that you have an affiliate relationship with. These programs have an ongoing monthly membership fee, that can be as high as $70. They aren’t scams, per se, if they do provide you with training, but they aren’t very upfront about the monthly fees.

Also, from what I’ve heard, there are so many complaints about these programs, that they keep changing their name and URL. That’s a danger signal to me.

Can you make money online using Google Adwords to promote other affiliate programs? Sure, but is it worth $70 a month to find out? I don’t know.

I don’t know if they’re part of the program, or just something that someone is using to market them, but the websites you sent me strike me as scammy. The sites use an IP-based location service to figure out where the viewer is web surfing from and then they change the info on the page accordingly so that they look like they’re talking about people that are local to you.

For example, one of the sites mentions:

Mary, a mother from Oakhurst, California is thriving, in the middle of an economic recession working in the comfort of her own home.

The other one says:

For Mike Richardson, who lives in Mariposa , CA , who filled out a simple online form, working online was the way to get a new job.

Both Mariposa and Oakhurst, California are very close to me — I live between them. If you open the pages, you’ll see a different city listed. If I didn’t know better, I’d assume that they were really talking about local people doing this business, but they aren’t. It’s just marketing.

Thanks for the question. Hope I was able to help.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

Original post by Dane Carlson