An audience from around the world!

It's hard to believe only 6 months ago I was ready to give up this blog! Today I decided to see where my audience comes from. Check this out! Canada, India, China, Russia, Austrailia, Philippines, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia! This is very humbling and exciting for me. So the question is: Do I have anything in my blog to offer them?

International money making opportunities don't exist unfortunately. Laws and customs vary too much to get things to match two countries at once. Canada for instance is very much like the US in terms of doing business. However, for practical purposes we would never think of our countries have identified problems and try to resolve them at the border. For instance: neither country wants any food, or fresh produce or flowers going across the border. They harbor disease and insects neither country wants to have introduced across the border.

State and Federal Law, once it crosses the boarder, becomes international law. Lets face it there are far too many criminals to even think of trying to apply international law to the world wide internet. So instead of focusing on what we can't do I'm focusing on what I CAN do! As I read my blog there are points that I do make that help everyone protect themselves. This is enough for me!

work is available email

Lately I've been getting email saying there may be employment available for me if I just fill out the information on the email and reply to it. WHAT! I do not have the time in the first place. More importantly, I know these are not offers for work. When you read the email you'll notice a couple of words that don't make sense. In the US we don't use "transport" to move around, we use transportation, just to name one. I also noticed the email didn't come from any of the employment or job boards I know of. So the unknown origin of the email along with poor usage of US language is enough to tip me off it's bogus it also said a few other alarming things! One of them said the job was a personal assistant position. The responsibilities would include "caring for the financials". There is no such word as "financials" in the English language. Also, why is this person overseas at a seminar? Why am I suspicious this is a check cashing scheme involving only my loss of money when the check becomes useless?
Beware of doing business with anyone overseas. Stay in your local market. Never give out your information directly on a "form" on the email and reply. Get the name of the organization and the website where you will fill out an application for employment. You also want to look for where the email came from. If you don't recognize the origin, it's a scam. It is praying on gathering enough information about you to commit fraud.
Don't feel like you are the only one who has made the mistake of responding to one of these bogus emails. They are getting better and better at what they do. Staying on top of them is no easy task. It happens often enough to justify buying the information from the experts who set up the fraudulent correspondence. These people don't know what they are doing so they buy these ideas from those who understand the vulnerabilities of people like us.
Be safe and make sure the email you are receiving is from a source you know. Have a wonderful and safe day you guys. Thanks for your comments and following!

Midwest Publishers

As you know I spend time looking for opportunities to earn money part time and/or online, sometimes I aactually work for them to see if they actually do work!

You are also aware that I don’t pull out the scam word easily in any case. I don’t listen to what others say until I’ve proven it for myself. Just because it didn’t work for me, doesn’t mean it’s a scam. However if it looks a little shady I will look it up to see if I’m really smelling a rat. With that in mind here is my review for this week:

Midwest Publishers has been around for a couple of years. They sell magazines, 5 magazines a month would come to you at the “low price” of $3.45 a week. That’s about $15 a month for all 5.

The telephone pitch begins with: You’ve won a $1000 online shopping spree, congratulations. Along with that we offer you 5 magazines for the low price of…… At least this is the condensed version. But in reality there is no shopping spree. This does not necessarily make it a scam, just shady. So if you have the time to read 5 magazines a month and can afford to buy anything during these tough times you do have a deal on your hands. So one way or another, this is not a scam.

 The base pay for this opportunity is $7.25 an hour, “but we don’t want to pay that”. This alludes to the commission possibilities you can get of $10 to $15 an hour. Or does it? Training time is 2 weeks, that is, until you sit down for that training period. Training is in actuality 30 seconds! You are given a script and shown how to get into the software system, once. Then off you go to whatever place is open. But, oh if you have any questions you can ask the two people beside you! They, of course are on the phone themselves calling customers, or prospective customers.

During the course of the 4 and a half hour day you hear the person two seats down call out for a supervisor to verify and confirm an order 20 times to your none. If you get stuck on a screen and it freezes there you may not even know it for 15 to 20 minutes. That’s many missed opportunities for your paycheck and that’s it!

No one is trained to train. There is no real coaching. Those who try don’t realize covering something once and fast is not training! Three of us were started on the same day and three of us were gone on the third day. The exit meeting is “we usually give people 1 to 2 days to make a sale”. Ok, bye.

So I worked there for a grand total of 10 and one half hours. At $7.25 an hour my one pay check, which happens weekly would be $71.13. Payday was last Wednesday and I did give them all my information to deposit it automatically into my account.

So far none of this makes this a scam! I patiently waited until next Thursday, today and still no pay check making line where they say “we don’t want to pay you $7.25” will become all too much of a reality.So is it a scam? If someone asks me what I think I will tell them about my experience and let them decide for themselves.

vector in craigslist

Once again Vector is advertising in Craigslist. I found an ad under part time today. It said it was for a SCR that would talk to customers about their product, anwser any of their questions, etc. I called that number. The young lady on the other end immediately wanted my name and phone number and repeated only what the ad said. I then asked what company it was. She said Vector. I hung up and flaged the advertisement as "prohibited".
Now if you haven't read my review of Vector please go to the list on the left hand side and click on the Vector review.
My greatest concern about this company is it's impact on our youth. Just last week I had to nurse another promising young college student back to positive thinking after their "interview" with this company. There are many opportunities out there for our college students and for all young people for that matter. There are many companies who don't lie. Unfortunately Vector is among a lot of others who do. Don't get caught up in their web!

Summer in the great lakes region

Swimming friendly weather is hard to come by up here. Cold temperatures, dangerous thunderstorms, and just plain old rain keeps us out of the water more than 7 months out of the year. So if we live near a swimming friendly anything and have spare time on our hands we are out there, come hell or high water!
My dad never, learned to swim, neither did my mother,but dad made sure my sister and I did. Dad forked over money to see that we learned and practiced the skill under the watchful eye of life guards throughout our childhood. Believe me, Dad was very careful where he spent money.
If anything has stuck in my mind from those days from what we were taught from the very beginning is was, yes how to swim, so I'm not afraid of the water but the second thing that was drummed into my head was a healthy respect for the water. When swimming, go with another person who knows CPR. When one is in the water the other is out. Keep a close eye on each other. When swimming in a lake never go into water above your neck and never dive into a natural body of water.
Sound boring or over protective of your life? Throughout the summer we hear of people diving off river cliffs who we will never have the opportunity to know. Recently a family went to their apartment building pool. A 5 year old boy, his father and mother were enjoying the rare opportunity to swim without anyone else around. The next thing you know the pool was surrounded by emergency vehicles as the sobbing mom who never learned how to swim retold the story of having to helplessly watch her family drown.
Way off topic? Yes. Waste of space? No. If this saves one person, or even eliminates a close call I will have made the world a better place.

Free Ad Cars scam review complaints

Again I am on the crusade to find legitimate websites. Three recommendations came my way from sources like craigslist and online advertising in general. Surfing the net is a science in itself. You have to make decisions with or without reputable recommendations and little talk in the sites you know and trust. Right now the jury is still out on these sites so I can’t tell you diddely squat about them. All I can say is why and how yellow lights come up for me while researching them so you can get an idea of how to sometimes waste your time too! Although I don’t consider doing this a waste of my time. It is an opportunity to give you guys a heads up and possibly anyone else searching for some kind of income opportunity.

The one that is most mysterious to me is Free Ad Cars. I would love an opportunity to drive a free car all over town racking up 1500 miles and earning $3200 to do it! The website is fun as you select the car you want to drive, how far you want to drive it and what general types of advertising you are willing to represent. It tells you the advertising companies will contact you in seven to fourteen days.

It costs a refundable $39.95 to get a list of other stuff to do while you wait for your car. I used the “contact us” link and asked them a question about navigating their site. They replied with that information and asked me to wait 30 days for these people to contact me via email. I’m inclined to believe there are actual people running the website and not a computer. This is a good sign. But not being able to jam these “opportunities” into my schedule I went on to research the sites chatter in other websites. This is what I’ve found so far;

Having to look at several websites, none of them I completely trust, several “people” said they are or were part of this program and they loved it. They got a new car and got paid $2,300 a month in the form of a weekly check.

With the web site not having a forum for people who drive the vehicles is a huge yellow light for me! If they were reputable, people would be talking about it a lot more on the web.

In the review category, not much is being said. The few reviews there are not comprehensive. While they have never been a part of the program in any way shape for form they use general logic only to review it. To me this is not a review. This is a guess. Others talk of only parts of the program and not it’s entirety yet are not part of the program. Even places like enzinearticles do not have full reviews and based on guess work.

One of these reviews even goes so far as to say; “Using common sense, everyone would be going for this program. The companies would never be able to keep up with the demand. They don’t have the money to supply enough cars. They are now giving their employees the opportunity to drive company cars with advertising.”

I can tell you that marketing is anything but common sense. Marketing departments have more than enough money to market the product. Why? Because marketing has nothing to do with making the sale!

Labellas, building a business on a shoestring budget

This is a surprising blog day. Two posts in one day is unusual for me. But I'm pretty much leaving LaBellas on "autopilot" this week in pursuit of another money maker I found. As I attempt to glean more and more opportunities to make me recession proof I will have less time for LaBella's temporarily. But it works. The bare necessary time I have to spend on Labellas consists of advertising. I'm spending all of 10 minutes online a week and my off line ads are checked when I pick up coffee in the afternoon anyway. They both work much longer hours than I do and they produce results. That's the beauty of marketing. It works 24/7 so I don't have to.
Replacing the flier that had pull off tabs with a fresh one takes as long as it takes them to pour my cup of coffee.
I know I have to replace the one at the library every two weeks. My grocery store will only allow postcards, but because I go there once a week I can put up a new one just before I go out the door. This is what I call autopilot because it is marketing, not direct sales. But then again 98% of what I do is marketing. So it is something I'm quite comfortable with. You can call it passive income as many online opportunities call it, or you can call it marketing, like I do.
Passive income to me is not possible, simply because it requires someone to be thinking and doing something at least in the beginning. I prefer to call the hours I'm not working my business "autopilot". If you are not marketing you are missing too many people who could very well be interested in what you have to offer.
At the same time many like to know they are dealing with a real person. Giving them a phone number to reach you at or leave you a message is going to bring in a few more curious people. Even if they just get your voice mail you are still marketing.

Recession proofing myself and other sound advice

Good morning. Yes, here at 7am (earliest I've ever written anything for this blog) I am working away. I'm working my group of income sources early and as late as 10pm. Sound like a long day? Nope, just split in half. At this point I have 4 hours, 10am to 2pm to myself. I can spend it sleeping if I want. I spend every other minute doing the one thing I love: helping people make the money the way they want to make it, helping people meet their goals and showing them how to recession proof themselves.
When I see people running around trying to sell their wares, hoping to become independently wealthy, in their little gas saving, economy cars, I have to laugh. Honestly I don't think I could exist for any amount of time without the personal joy of getting to have some life of my own. But I do have to say I do love a lot of family time. I love not giving anyone the right to say "You're fired!"
A W9 is not employment! Just remember that. I just had someone tell me they were "fired" from their last "job" and I found out it was only a W9 "job". But it wasn't anything more than a W9 that would be affected. A W9 means YOU DON'T HAVE A BOSS! If an employer doesn't pay unemployment insurance, workman's compensation, take out taxes, and otherwise take care of the people that work for them, they are not employers. So in the end, if you no longer work to gain compensation from selling what they offer you are parting ways because for some reason it's not working out, PERIOD! You can't be fired, you were never employed.
You will never have an employment gap. You will never have to justify for not being employed. You will not "be taken care of" (whatever that means) and in turn you have no allegiance to your employer. You are recession proof!
Personally I don't like hearing "no raises this year, because the company didn't make enough money"! I love how they tell you that everyone is expected to work harder and smarter. I worked in that environment for 6  years. In the bowls of the big corporate ship you are not permitted pictures of your family, or anything else personal. But walking by the VP's office you see a credenza showing their bright and shining moments of their life. While working in another corporation they bragged about integrity yet were forced to pay back pay to employees that they never paid overtime to. The lawsuit was settled with the stipulation it would remain anonymous. No one was permitted to talk about the Class Action during or after! That way they could still maintain the illusion of integrity. But they called me a liar. Big business looses in the end however. The illusion doesn't ever last indefinitely.

All dog food is bad?!

Today I have two posts today! You may be thinking it's about dog food but it's not. It's about an ad I viewed on a PTC site I'm part of. Clixsense never says their ads are 100% true and correct. Today's laugh comes from www.topqualitydogfood.com.
Their ad said the average dogs live span is 11 years. So far this is true! The next thing it says is your dog should live at least 20 years and dogs die too young because we don't know exactly what's in dog food. Therefore veterinarians, breeders, even the scientists who develop the dog food they feed to their own dogs is actually killing them? But still I'm not telling you not to believe them. Lots of people are going to buy it, just in case their right. But I for one am not.
My reasoning comes from common sense. This would mean breeders knowingly shorten the window of opportunity to breed their animals, even though they study closely what the scientists are doing and thinking about what should be fed to their breeding stock. Veterinarians know and understand the science that goes into the dog food they recommend. They have to or they could not have become veterinarians in the first place! They ARE serious scientists, applying science to our dogs directly. It's a requirement of their education.
Last but not least: Farm dogs have three major functions on the farm. They watch over the farmyard when the farmer is sleeping. They help bring the cattle in to the barn area, etc. They eat left overs. They live about 11 years.
So with all this in mind, go forth and make up your mind. To me it makes no sense.
The biggest glaring thing about all this is no reputable company would say all others are wrong. This is my biggest answer to this advertising ploy.

TCK Poperty Management, research helps keep you safe

Recently, I received an email from TCK Property Management saying: "Thank you for your interest in our offer of a position with with TCK." They went on to say do to the vast number of requests for an interview they want me to filling the application for the position to get me an interview as quickly as possible. It wanted a telephone number they could send an application code to me!
Now I detest when someone says there was no need to look further because common sense would tell you it's bogus. I'm not telling you it's bogus. I just don't want to be caught in the trap I ran into 100% of the time I filled one of these thing out over the last two years. Every time nothing happened as far as a job was concerned. What I got was phone calls advertising something. I am cautious about what I fill out and when so I can easily track it by memory.
This one also waited two weeks before sending an email to me so it would be less likely that I would find what it corresponded with. Well guess what I can figure it out pretty fast! I also found one thing in craigslist that was a warning from someone that it is a scam. It was flagged and deleted. Now anyone could have flagged it. Often, I suspicion the people who put the ad in in the first place.
I stopped dead in my tracks and refused to go so far as to give them one of my phone numbers. Instead I replied to their email calling them bogus. Where is the website? Where is the application? Why do I need a code? I have yet had a company do this who is reputable! I just stopped.
If you've found this kind of application process actually reputable please tell me here. Send a comment to me. As long as you aren't a supposed employee of the company I would love to hear from you! At the same time, if you've found out this truely is a bogus company let me know! Let us know exactly how you found this out! We'd love to know

craigslist good news for job seekers

I've been doing my job for this blog for another week since my last post. This time I only ran into one bad job ad in all the categories I look through! I comb through customer service, once notorious for junk "opportunities" is cleaned up!. Then there are the part time and ETC, equally riddled with pointless job opportunities. Amazingly "gigs" never was too much of a waste of my time. Today only one popped up under part time. It contained a link which led me to a website guaranteeing that if I join their program I will be able to retire in 12 to 24 months! You and I both know this is not the reason people look for jobs. Even if it was true most people are looking for a 9-5, go to work in the morning and come home at night. Even running your own business from home takes a lot of work and passion. You will find yourself immersed in your company sometimes as late as 1 in the morning if not later! And when you can't sleep past 5am just might go on line right then. That one job I personally flagged. So there is not much on the scam front to warn you about this week! As I continue to think why this has been a trend I can't help but want to believe people are wising up and reporting these bogus "opportunities".
I do know AIL (American Income Life Insurance) is still trying to recruit sales staff within the "customer service" portion.

Minute Workers scam review update

Well I found the forum on Minute Workers. I couldn't help but to post this:
I'll cut straight to it!
Threats of removing me from membership immediately upon sign up. I literally combed through every possible record of signing up at any time since I started doing my investigation of online opportunities 2 1/2 years ago. Then I tried the first opportunity for 25 cents to go to a website and stay there for "a significant amount of time" then report back with the URL and my IP address only to find out I wasn't paid 25 cents because of some "exploitation". What an odd time to tell me this!
This put up yellow lights for me so I looked over more of the "opportunities". I found two red lights immediately. I have a great reputation in craigslist as I use it to sell and to post a job opportunity myself. I read their terms and conditions. Obviously so have some of your "employers"! They know they can't advertise superfluously and remain part of craigslist! So they ask people on this sight to risk their reputation on craigslist by posting ads and getting paid for doing so. Not allowed boys and girls!
I blew it for another company by sending out a message to my readers about their ill gotten "offers" only to be sabotaged by their people. But I don't care, I have a powerful online reputation and if that's what I have to do to keep it, that's what I'll continue to do!

Minute Workers scam review

I would have never signed up for this opportunity normally. However, the detective in me was screaming to investigate this program I heard of recently and put it off until I had a few minutes to mess around with it. It took all of ten minutes for me to see major concerns, yellow lights and red lights! (my way of saying reasons to wonder about the sight itself. Here's what I've found so far:
I've been doing this for quite a few years so it's hard to know definitively whether or not if I ever signed up with it in years past. If you do sign up twice for this program you will have your ability to do any activities disabled and  never allowed back again! So check. put your email addresses you may have used one by one and see if they find your address in their system! I also checked my book of all programs I ever joined in the last 2 1/2 years.
I then did the first task available on their list. It said by going to one website, stay there for a "considerable amount of time" then report back with your IP address and the URL of the web site. When you check to see if you are credited for this task you find out only then that the offer came from a business that was "exploited" by a spammer so you were not credited the promised .25 for completing the task.
I then scanned the list for other opportunities and a huge red light went up because I found a few opportunities that is just not acceptable!
You post a job on craigslist and in turn get .70 for doing it. I advertise on craigslist and have read the terms and conditions to remain a member of craigslist. It's against the rules of craigslist to post ads on their sight and be paid to do so. Unless your membership with craigslist isn't that important to you, you may want to rethink doing this task.
The bottom line is do you want to be part of a program that has lots of red colored sentences warning of being banned from the sight for doing bad things, even making mistakes to get you banned? Do you want to be part of an online income opportunity with threats, one offer that really won't ever pay you, and two that want to ruin your reputation on any website, all on the first page? I for one will not. But I will be back in there to find any further problems with joining it! Hmmmmm!

Online earning secrets

The secret to earning on line is there is no secret at all! It takes hard work, patience and attitude. You come with the tools to make it work. Just like any brick and mortar you have to supply something that helps others to meet their goals. "The people who really made the money during the gold rush were the one's selling the shovels." Just by looking at the way you hunt for information online, everyone else must be doing the same. Some might hunt better than you do! It took me 2 1/2 years to realize that I was gaining something during the course of looking for ways to earn money. I got an in depth education without paying out a dime to a college or a program! I learned I have to have some kind of talent, be willing to learn more and willing to work hard. If I could find something I loved to do and remain fascinated with it. The program I finally did join I knew I had to at least learn something from it. I found LaBella Gift Baskets and Wealthy Affiliate. Both provide valuable marketing and earning ideas and tools to get there. My problem with Wealthy Affiliate is it costs about $50 a month to get their information. La Bella Gift Baskets is only $19.98 a month, something I can live with. I don't know about you but I have to make money to spend money! So when the training said 2 hours every work day and 4 on a weekend I figured that could work. I also have a need to be around people. This provides me that opportunity!