February 22 - Refund received
True to their word, Web Colleagues refunded my $49 in 4 days. During that time, I wrote to Ms.
Kauth’s site asking them the questions I should have asked Web Colleagues & this morning I received some answers (following is a copy of the email I wrote to online-data-entry-jobs.com at odejobs@yahoo.com– their answers are in bold):
I’d like to know if any part of your data entry program requires me to join
ClickBank?
Yes you will have to join clickbank as they are the ones that will be issuing you your paycheck.
If so, do I only make money with your program by typing ads for
ClickBank products or services?
You will be making commission off of each product that is bought from your link.Do I have to place & pay for ads on Google or Yahoo to make money with your program?
We have free methods for you to use or you can use google or yahoo.
Will I be paid only when people click through & make a purchase through a link I have posted?
You are paid a commission when someone buys the product you are promoting.
Is payment to me dependent on other people joining your program or by my becoming an affiliate for your program?
No.
Is Ms.
Kauth or your site in any way connected business-wise to Gary
Endres?
Yes he is the webmaster.
Is your site in any way connected business-wise to
http://my-data-team.com or other data entry site?
Gary Endres is the webmaster for both the sites and many more.
So it turns out that data-entry-jobs-online.com is just another storefront for Mr.
Endres, one that I find has been especially designed to appeal to women. I wrote back thanking them for their honest answers and asking if Ms
Kauth is a real person & if that really is her story. I don’t expect an answer to this one, but you never know – someone may decide to tell the whole truth after all.
February 22 - The Gary Endres Connection
February 22, 2007
Last night I sent off my request for a refund from Web Colleagues and received my first response in less than 2 hours. After some difficulties on their part, and a few emails back and forth, they found my information and assured me of prompt action.
Now that I’ve had my eyes opened, I decided to do some more serious digging & I’ve come up with the following:
NOTE – all the information I am presenting is available to anyone on
http://www.whois.netGary Endres is listed as the “Registrant Contact” or “Organisation Name”(yes, I know how to spell organization, but that’s the way the whois site has it spelled) for the following sites:
consumer-rated.com
gold-rated.com
WDTS4U.com (We Do The Shopping 4 U)
webcolleagues.com
my-data-team.com
Phone number 602-501-7362 for comsumer-rated.com is listed as a cell phone & “unpublished or unavailable” on
http://www.whitepages.com.
consumer-rated.com’s email address is
consumerrated@yahoo.commy-data-team.com’s email address is
mydatateam@yahoo.comwebcolleagues.com’s email address is
webcolleagues@yahoo.comwdts4u.com’s email address is
wdts4u@yahoo.comAt least gold-rated has a business email address:
info@gold-rated.com but whois lists the admin. email address as
goldrated2006@yahoo.com.
From gold-rated.com’s site: “My name is Ray Ford and I am the founder of Gold Rated.Com along with my wife Dee.” Yet Mr. Endres is listed on
http://www.whois.net as the “Organisation Name” and the phone # 602-369-2101 is listed on
http://www.whitepages.com as (you guessed it) a cell phone & “unpublished or unavailable”.
See this article to find out more about the services that Mr. Endres offers:
http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2006/4/emw375618.htmAt that site, you’ll find another phone # for consumer-rated.com, 925-890-5891 - also listed as a cell phone & “unpublished or unavailable” on
http://www.whitepages.comAs you can see by now, this is a very tangled web that Mr. Endres weaves. I’m not in any way saying that he is breaking any laws or committing any crimes and all of the information I have listed in this blog is freely available on the web.
What I started out trying to do was find a way to earn at least a supplemental income by doing honest online data entry. What I found instead was con after con with supposed consumer review sites recommending sites in which they had a seemingly vested or financial interest.
The listing on
http://www.whois.net for
http://www.online-data-entry-jobs.com shows that the site is owned by “Domains by Proxy, Inc.” –so there’s no way of knowing who really owns the site.
Just another scam
Sad to say, but after another full day of online research - research I should have done BEFORE I joined Web Colleagues - I've discovered that Web Colleagues is NOT about online data entry, but all about promoting affiliate products in clickbank.com via paid ads on Google. This is not “data entry” and you’ll find it explained on sites like this:
http://www.work-at-home-forum.com/14_1382_0.html &
http://www.workathomespace.com/article219.html"1.You sign up for an affiliate site like Clickbank, which gives you the ability to promote hundreds of products and receive a commission check for the sales you generate.
2.You write ads for these products, and place these ads on the Google or Yahoo network. Who pays to have these ads placed? You do.
3.If people click your ads and make purchases, you get paid your commissions.
The key to making money then, is to spend less on advertising than what you make in commissions. If you can't do this, you will lose money..."
These are the words of jacky4, not mine but I thank him or her in advance for letting me spread the message.
Web Colleagues isn’t exactly a scam, but their website is far from truthful. Apparently you really can make money using their program, you just have to convince people, through blogs like this one and paid ads on Google, that they should try whatever it is you’re selling for any of the companies that Web Colleagues lists.
By the way, the review site
http://www.consumer-rated.com that I relied on to steer me in the direction of Web Colleagues and other data entry sites? Turns out it’s owned by Gary Endres, the same guy who owns my-data-team.com & globaldatantry.com. I found this online:
http://www.scam.com/showpost.php?p=255182&postcount=1 - it all comes back to buyer beware.
So now I’m disheartened after thinking I could really make enough money from work at home so that I didn’t have to get back into the sinking ship race. I’m not giving up all hope yet though – I’ve also spent a good part of today researching Laura Kauth’s site
http://www.online-data-entry-jobs.com/ & I have yet to come across anything negative about her or her business (outside of the atrocious spelling & grammar, very surprising on a site that promotes accuracy in typing as a plus!).
First things first, I’m going to ask for my money back from Web Colleagues. As far as I’m concerned, they kept the most important details of the work involved distorted until after I paid my money – and that counts as lying.
February 20 Out of Town
Just when you think you've got things under control, something pops up and derails you. I apologize to any & all who are following this blog - I was called out of town for the last 10 days and have just returned. Now it's time to pick up where I left off. Will keep you posted...
Day 2 continued
Day 2 cont’d.
All these sites offer “data entry” as a viable work at home option. Data entry is mostly defined as the process of entering data into a computerized database or spreadsheet - before the computer & internet ages, date was entered by office workers and consisted of mostly entering names into mailing lists, or copying figures for accountants. I should know, I did enough of it working at my mom’s office after school. Doesn’t really make you think of writing ad-copy or blogs, does it?
After much consideration I chose to go with Web Colleagues, a mostly rational decision based on the support they offered for the non-creative writer & the idea that I had that they were focused more on the traditional forms of data entry. The extras they offered were the irrational part of my decision and I suggest that you stick with the primary purpose of your decision to do this (which is making money) and not get sidetracked by the freebies.
Without giving away all of Web Colleagues secrets yet, I’ll tell you that I’ve started the program and followed their guidelines for 2 days now. I must say that their instructions and site links are easy to follow and everything has been going to plan.
Does it work - Day 2
Feb. 8, 2007
Two days into this project and I’ve narrowed down the field of possible (& legitimate) work-at-home jobs to the following:
http://www.online-data-entry-jobs.com/ - this site is the most professionally designed. Laura Kauth is a former business professional and her site avoids all the usual hype about making thousands of dollars a day. This site was consistently rated at the top of all the review sites.
http://www.my-data-team.com/ - again, not as big a hype-site as most but it does look a bit like their Webmaster made a fill in the blanks site.
http://www.webcolleagues.com/ - this one and my-data-team have a very similar look & text. I get the feeling from both of them (despite the many spelling & grammar mistakes) that they mean well while not telling you the whole story.
http://www.type-at-home.com/ - probably no worse than the rest but I just couldn’t get past the “aw shucks” & phony sounding story they start their site off with.
Those were the top 4 that offered money back guarantees, had programs designed with step-by-step instructions & were all backed by consumer rated reviews. Some also offer extras in the form of programs you probably don’t need, like TV on your PC, and programs you might really need, like teaching you how to type.
Something you really need to know is all these programs regularly sell for around $49.95 – when you go to their site for the first time you will most likely see a much higher price “slashed down” to the “sale” price. This is the same practice that most department stores & car dealerships use to convince the buying public to “buy now, while supplies last” or to make you think that you are getting a bargain that “won’t last long, so act now!” They may also ask you to fill out your contact information in order to send you a discount coupon that reduces the price down to, you guessed it, $49.95.
Does it work - Day 1
Feb. 6, 2007
First, a little about me. I'm 2 months short of 50, a grand turning point in anyone's life. I've been working as a Chief Stewardess on private & charter luxury yachts for the past 11 years, and while the money & travel have both been good it's time for me to choose less vigorous employment. I've also been a Licensed Massage Therapist since 1992 and absolutely love working at helping people feel better even though my body is saying that it's time to take a rest.
So what to do when I've spent the last decade in jobs that are outside the mainstream and am unprepared to enter the typical office workspace? Over the last few years I've thought of starting up my own website to promote an idea & products that I believe in but after checking around the web, I found that at least two other sites are doing it better and slicker than I could.
Next I went to Google and searched "work from home" and got overwhelmed with the number of sites! Try it and you'll see for yourself - there are hundreds of sites out there promoting themselves as the next best way to make thousands of dollars a day from the comfort of your living room with very little work involved. Well, you don’t have to have a college degree to know that most of these sites are only selling you a scam and a little research helped to remove more of the get-rich-quick schemers. I was left with “review” sites, the kinds that are supposed to be honest, impartial & objective. The review sites I used were:
http://www.scamx.comhttp://www.gold-rated.com/http://consumer-rated.com and
http://www.bestratedreviews.comI recommend that anyone looking into working from home start with these sites – they are the internet version of the Better Business Bureau and all the programs they recommend have been tried and tested by their staffers.
