Don't Be Fished In By Internet Systers

I received an email from an internet company My-Date-entry source promising great income from working at home. Home-based businesses are a popular and tempting notion but do they work?

From what I've gathered, more often than not the answer is no. Only the really savvy and hard working make a go of it. So if you're neither, don't bother. Most of these are all scams anyway.

A key point you need to know if you plan to explore this world, is if they ask you to pay to join, run for the hills. It doesn't matter which hill so long as you head for it. Live in a valley? No difference. Run for it. Moreover, be careful of music sites offering exclusive access to an archive of music through a paid membership. Same with "watch live stream TV" and "diet" sites. Most are scams.

What happens is, rip off artists take a legit site and copy it. They pay to reach the top of the page rankings (mostly on Yahoo because they don't govern it as tightly as Google) and everyone knows people tend to click on the first five or so sites even though the more reputable ones can be lower down the list.

Once you click on the site, it looks professional and legitimate but it really isn't. One way to detect a faux-site is if they infringe on copy rights. For example, if they use the shadow images associated with Apple's iPod commercials but there's not Apple endorsement or logo on the site, chances are they were told to remove it and are not really what they say they are. It's not illegal but not kosher either. They walk a fine line.

I know all this because I did some web copy for a dubious (and unnecessarily strict and paranoid) company claiming to be a "partner in e-Commerce" or something like that.  Rigidity and paranoia are functions of poor management by the way. Anyway, I would buy domain names for their sites and each credit card had a different name from a different location. Yeah, real honest stuff.

Which brings me to one of the more honest reviews I've come across on the internet. It happened to be for exactly the same email I got. 

Where it is possible to find a registrant for these sites, then they all appear to be different. So, either they are reselling some else's "work at home" product, or they are just copy-and-pasting content from someone else.

There are very few clues as to the owner of My-data-source.com except for the name "Mike P Sanders" embedded in the affiliate link. When you try to sign up for program, eBay gives an email address of mikepsanders@gmail.com

..but here's an oddity, when the domain was originally registered, the registrant was "Lyndon Dave Ardimer"and a straight Google for that name points to a website called primemarketers.com which contains a number of ads for various schemes.. including My-data-source.com posted by Mike Sanders. So, is Mike P Sanders actually Lyndon Dave Ardimer? Or it this Derek Lindsay? Or Timothy Darwin (who's name appears on many of these sites)? At this point, the lead vanishes into a mass of affiliate programs and offshore marketers.

So who is My-Data-Source.com? As you can see, it is difficult if not impossible to determine if there's a real company involved anywhere in this scheme. Should you shell out $50 to join up with a company with no discernible history or physical location? Almost every consumer advice site says that you shouldn't get involved in any type of work-at-home scheme unless you can verify real contact details.

My honest side regrets having worked for them. My practical side says it was a great learning experience. I got to see how shady things can be even if it's dressed with a cappuccino machine and a health plan. Most of the people who worked there didn't seem to have any qualms with it. It was a pay and most were foreigners. Those who weren't, were kids of the internet age. Different value systems were at play I surmise. I can't project any further than this. 

Credit to the guys who figured out how to make money this way - and they make tons of it. However, with a little consumer knowledge and healthy dose of skepticism, people can avoid being made the fool thus helping to dent their pocketbooks. Hopefully only then they can use their talents for the broader good.

The more you know...