In the wake of a new form of social media almost always follows someone trying to make some money off of unsuspecting victims. Scams via mail were popular in our parent’s day, and e-mail scams became prevalent was e-mail was introduced into the everyday citizen’s home. Nowadays Facebook scams, Google scams, and MySpace scams have taken their place, preying on users who are new to the world of social media.
The current economy does not help the situation either. People are desperate to make an extra dollar and to find a job, so when they hear that they need to join Facebook and Twitter in order to get up-to-date in the world of social media in order to find a job, it probably seems like a dream come true when within a few days of joining one of these sites, someone is promising to hire them or to help them make some money. That’s why we told them to sign up in the first place, right?
Now it seems that even Twitter is scamming its users into believing that they can make some fast money. The Better Business Bureau is now warning Twitter users that scams have popped up all over the popular social media site. Mashable.com cites EasyTweetProfits.com, Make-money-on-twitter.com, and TwitterProfitHouse.com as three of the main culprits in this rip-off scheme.
The LA Times claims that the scam works by promising to pay users money for their Twitter postings (short, sentence-long updates known as Tweets) if the user simply undergoes a training program, which he or she must pay for. The user pays for the training program, but then never profits from their future Tweets. The Consumerist details the process a bit further, saying that the scam sites often encourage Twitter users to purchase a training CD for only $1.95. The CD does only cost $1.95, but the user unknowingly signs up to pay $100 each month to use the program that the CD installs. The user is out $100 for every month he or she has the program installed, and never receives a penny in profit, even if he or she follows all of the rules from the training program.
The US News and World Report has published the following warnings for Twitter users, as suggested by the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Do not trust a Twitter-related job site if:
• The “job” is actually a money-making scheme and doesn’t provide actual employment.
• The work-at-home scheme claims that you can make lots of money with little effort and no experience.
• You have to pay money upfront in order to be considered for the job or receive more information.
• The exact same tweet touting the program is posted by many different Twitterers. The links in such tweets could lead you to scam sites or install malware onto your computer.
Along with the BBB and the US World and News Report, we here at Five Point Capital encourage you to follow these guidelines in order to stay safe as well. If you have doubts about a website or money-making plan, consult the BBB right away. Economic times are tough, so don’t let anyone scam you out of your hard-earned money!