I reckon I have kept silent long enough. It is so maddening to be a gold member of a PTR and keep seeing Webmasters and Webmistresses auctioning off referrals for your account. Isn't the purpose of being a Gold Member is to receive these referrals??? Just how many referrals have all of us Gold Members been screwed out of? Below is an example of 80 referrals being auctioned off. How many should have been mine or yours? I realize "they" want the money from auctions - but we have paid for the referrals already by having the Gold Membership and now they want us to "buy" them again? Uh uh - no way - no how!!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
eBay:

Receive 10 referral in each program of the Elite Eight!

TNT-e-Mail - Mailearners - Mailingcash - MoneyInn - Funcashmail - Cashavenue - Paidmailbox - ProfitFromEmail

A perfect way to set yourself up for consistent payout in all 8 programs!

Bids start at $44.95

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AMEN

I have stupidly purchased several Gold Memberships and I have never received any referrals...But I can guarantee I won't be purchasing anymore

I actually never thought of it that way. I know one WM said it was a 3rd party that had the refs. They weren't hers and they weren't any that signed up without a ref link. I'm sure that's not in all the cases.

I have a problem buying refs as no one can verify that that ref will make me money or the money I spent back. They just guarantee a ref will be put in your downline. Then when they're inactive they'll cut them and still they're with the upperhand.

Of course it won't stop until people stop buying. If no one bought then no one could sell. However, there are people out there that can't help themselves. I've seen gold memberships sell for more than they were worth at the site!

Hi

I always watch the members' comments before buying Gold ... went gold at Penniesbyemail, Key-emails, Wepaid, Search4Search and EmailtrafficKIngdom ... and have received referrals ... a lot of refs even for each of those sites ....

I never buy a Goldmembership from sites selling orphan members without downline as referrals thru ebay.

Sophie

To tell the truth, I'm finding this a very shady AND shoddy practice of webmasters/mistresses.

Example: One of my paid to's...a very sweet and highly generous webmistress bought a Silver for me there during the Christmas "Dear Santa" campaign. Result was "one" ref with promises of more as time went by. I gave back my free ads to the webmistress so she could benefit some, also.

Months later...that one ref has been inactive SINCE JANUARY! After mentioning this, I was promised a whole frikkin TWO MORE and the first was gonna go. Well, I got the two, then lost them in a week...AND STILL HAVE THE ONE INACTIVE!

Now...at present, this webmaster has bids going on Ebay for some ungodly amount of refs...so I sent him an email, him back to me again saying oh I have wonderful things lined up.

I STILL DON'T HAVE ANY WORKING REFS AND HE'S STILL GOT BIDS GOING ON FOR THESE MYRIAD REFS!!!!!!!!!!

So, webbies...remember what you're doing. You want faithful members buying your premium packages but you want to sell off in order to amass stupidly high dollars for something you're relatively cheating your premium members out of. That smacks of COW MANURE!

Just MTCW, IMHO

even worse is when you are gold and have a ton of referals and the hackers get the site or the data base is corupt and you have to start all over again and to make matters worse....... the w/m is selling referals on ebay!!! How is that fair?

hmm, actually it depends so much on the site, the webmaster and where those members are coming from.
On pbe you can redeem for referrals and we err.. give whole downlines away with advertising on Ebay.
Ours come from several sources, the downlines have been fun actually, Got to put Ray there for key , and was given away myself on sweet-money, (I went for more
The solo referrals to redeem for is "our" accounts downline as well as orphans who' upline disapeared or was entered incorrectly. MOST the time on typos i can find who they meant and move them where they should go, but not on "NA" "none" etc. They are limited, and why they are not on the redeem page anymore, saved for those who write and for replacing ones already placed (yes we guarantee the ones we place)
We advertise hard on all of our programs for gold members, most of those lovely paid to clicks in the sites are the straight url, going to our gold members in each program. Not to mention our own redeems etc on other programs.
Actually I know Roy does as well, as he just bought ads from us and sent them out for his gold members.
Sites that advertise for gold members are the ones who are not only trying to build their sites but are worth buying a gold membership in

I run and or own/Co Own 9 sites and those also come from deserted uplines. I guarantee each referral I sell if they purchase one from the redemption page and it is place there is at that time is active ( active being clicked a link in the last 48 hours) However if I receive an email telling me that they are no longer active I replace that referral.

As for gold members I advertise the sites regularly without a referral link as it states on the gold member page that you receive random referrals from members that join without a referral link.

If a gold member lets me know that they are not getting any referrals I go and add them manually as they have paid for this.

I sell my own downline that I have on each site I run/ own as I was a member of each one before I took it over and have paid to gain those referrals.

I also sell full Uplines on my site such as Mary of PBE on Sweet and myself on Precious ( and we tied on that one Mary LOL).

Search links are not getting the credit they should as people click on them and don't search and that cost us money. Advertising is slim at times except for what is sold on ebay and much of the time that goes at a cost to the site not a gain. Us Webmasters/Webmistress want to make these sites life long and not go out of business. Selling referrals generates money for the sites to do things such as purchase ads from other sites to promote for our gold members, upgrading scripts, sending you out special links that are worth more than a a quarter of a cent. I also know on my sites it helps to keep the point to cash conversion to a half cent per point instead of having to lower the cash value of a point.

So you see you may see it as we are robbing you however if we are not able to send you ads, or send out ads on other sites to gain you gold members random referrals then we will not be open for very long.

Members at times want the ads to come regularly and at a good cash value however they don't buy ads from us very often or support us by actually doing a valid search or joining the free programs that are offered.

We must all work as a team to be successful in this business.

Sorry that I have went on so long.
Thanks
Cathy

Let me point out that generally when a downline is sold, the top person in that downline has no upline.

The downline MUST stay intact, else you will be taking referrals away from that top person, which would be totally unfair.

And you can't give the downline to a gold member, because that gold member would be getting a downline of maybe 75 to several hundred, and that would be totally unfair to the other gold members.

This is just another way of generating more proceeds, and considering how slow advertising sales have been, we site owners have to find ways to keep our heads above water.

My gold members DO get referrals. I advertise the straight link heavily, and if gold members feel they are not getting refs, all they have to do is contact me, and I will find them some.

I also make sure my free members who want a referral get one if they ask.
Strangely, though I am continually making the offer, most of my free members with no referrals have not come forward and asked.

Good webmasters care about their members, and will bend over backwards to make them happy.

Don't judge too quickly unless you have been on both sides of the fence. There are a lot of overhead expenses in running a ptr that non-owners never thought of (not to mention 12 hours a day of our time spent in running it), and we are continually trying to strike a balance between keeping members happy, and staying in profit (or at least trying to break even).

Let's see it from this site of the fence, let's say downline builder A... builder A promotes your site like crazy when it's launched, allowing your site to grow fast ... then after a while, A is told he should click on so many links otherwhise he won't earn from his referrals ... sometimes, webmasters say for example, you have to earn 1$ yourself to cash-out at 10$ ... and A has not enough links to click personnally in mails and paid2click and is far above cash-out and can't cash out because of the new requirements ... A had promoted in good faith tho and used money to send out ads and now ... can't redeem ....

After a while, A goes to ebay and see webmaster selling a member with huge downline .... he recognises his downline ... bids go up to 40$ and more ... A has now over 20$ on account but can't cash-out, the new requirements asked for 1$ minimum personal earnings and even if A clicks on everything possible ... can't reach 1$ when he has 10$ earnings .. and when he reaches 1$ ... he can cash-out only 10$, to cash out the rest of the earnings .. he needs 1$ personal earnings again ....

So, A has promoted and helped the site to be launched quickly, has spent money to advertise and is not allowed to cash out because of new requirements and see himself being sold for more than 40$ on ebay by webmaster ... who is the winner here ? Webmaster or downline builder ? And who worked the most, webmaster or downline builder ?

This is an example of what happens every day (I am not A ;-) ), and don't you webmasters all jump ... we know not all webmasters work like that and a lot of you are very nice, helpful and honest ... but a lot do those things and are then surprised when members are not happy ....

My 2 cents from this side of the fence ;-)

Sophie

This topic has been a sore spot in my side for a long time.

The best advice I can give anyone considering purchasing gold, is to not solely base it on receiving random referrals, although in all likelyhood, this is probably the #1 reason why members go gold in the first place. You will be sadly disappointed for the most part.

I have purchased gold memberships in almost 30 programs now. With the exception of a very few, I have not found that the price of gold versus the number of free random referrals to be of value.

Here's some of the things that have happened to me:

1. Webmaster auctions off referrals - giving less to gold members.
2. Webmaster takes too long to update account to gold and the NPA rush is over by the time it happens.
3. Webmaster upgrades scripts and account is no longer "flagged" as gold until member notices.
4. Complete database loss and resignups aren't favorable in the GPT community hence smaller downlines.
5. Script errors not allocating gold members referrals.

Now that the cashcrusader scripts have added new feature where you can see exactly how many referrals you've earned with your gold, it'll be a lot easier for me to keep track on what what worth it and what wasn't.

Here's the criteria I look for now when I purchase gold membership:

1. A reputable webmaster that has been around, has a good history and know what he/she is doing.
2. Free monthly advertising for gold members - not just the one shot deal.
3. Reasonable payout.
4. CashCrusader scripts so that there are no lost downlines if someone quits and that you can keep track of how many random referrals you've received.

I'd also find it interesting to note that of all the webmasters that had the courage to speak out in this thread, those are the programs that my gold membership has been worth it

yeah, hoops and hoops to be jumped through to get paid, the higher the hoops the less member support, the less happy advertisers, so some webmasters think, hmm, need more hoops!
agree 100% with you, as you know

I was wondering the same thing. Being a gold member of FunCashMail and have NO referrals!! and the guy doesn't answer emails.


I've been a gold member of EarnWithChris for over a month and finally have ONE referral as of 2 or 3 days ago but he is auctioning 15 referrals on Ebay???

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...&category=11763

Instead of going gold I take 5 or 6 bucks, when I have it, and buy ads for programs that I want referrals in. It's cheaper then gold or auctions and I get to support both the program I buy the ad in and the program I advertise for. In most cases I get anywhere from 1 to 50 downline members. Inactives come with gold just as much as sending your ad out. I went gold with one program got 2 referrals, took that same program bought a 1.00 ad and got 4 referrals. I think the dollar ad worked much better than the 15.00 gold membership.

have spent ALL my earnings in the last year on advertising only to see sites crash...hackers destroy ... sites up and down........downlines disappearing or the market so flooded with cheap links that there will be several of the same ads in the same email....no thanks I'm thru advertising

Purchased gold in 7 of ironsides site total $32. Your only looking at the referrals but what about the free ads every month, thats been worth it to me. It also depends on what site your looking at Have received 23 random referrals at paidmailbox. But with the older programs not many at all.

deamonstar, most people purchase gold for the referrals

Well heres my 2 cents

I have 4 Get Paid sites.

I advertiser regularly for my gold members....If anyone has a complaint about not getting enough referrals they are more then welcome to email me as most of my members know I am very easy to get along with

1 of my sites.... You get bonus referrals put in your downline with the membership upgrade.

Now I do sell referrals at ebay....however they come from Inactives usually who have no upline, members who email me and say they are leaving get paid to read email sites.

When I sell upgraded memberships.......I had alot of advertising with them that well exceeds the cost of the membership and see the referrals as a bonus benifit
.

Also any money I make from sales of referrals or anything else...I put right back into the program

Excellent point, and I should have thought to bring that up.
I seldom buy a gold membership unless the advertising I get with it is worth what I paid for the gold.

where can i see that?

F&E clarified that up here:
http://www.getpaidforum.com/forums/index.p...=ST&f=1&t=43322

I have/am on both sides of the fence. I advertise both my site regularly for golds and for MYSELF .. and in the case of TheMailClub both Glynis and I had heavily promoted this before we bought the site .. it is those referrals we sell and those (as Dana says) the ones that had no uplines at the start.

All of our golds have recieved some signups but I am a gold in only 2 programs and have never received any signups this is why it is important to me to promote for them!

The point I am trying to make is ... it depends on whose referrals are being sold .. the script automatically give referrals to golds, I dont think there is anything wrong with selling the ones Glynis and myself originally got or indeed those that have their uplines disappear either from inactivity unsubbing or cheating.

just my tuppence worth

I think I should rephrase what I said earlier ... when I buy gold, I expect to receive some refs if it is advertised as such.

There are enough forums where people talk about their Goldmemberships, before buying one, it's easy to see if people say they received refs or not, if I see everywhere people don't receive refs and then see the webmaster selling orphans thru ebay ... I won't upgrade. If people receive referrals regularly, like me at the sites where I upgraded, I wouldn't care that much if some refs are sold at e-bay.

Lots of sites also say when you join, if you join without a referrer, you'll be attributed to a goldmember ... if I join like that, I wouldn't like to be sold out at ebay .... I would have chosen to join without a referrer to support the goldmemberships, not to be sold like a product ;-)

When I go gold, I do the simple maths, the ads would cost me that much, if I receive ads for 10$ for example and pay 15$, I expect at least 10 refs as 50 cents for a ref seems a fair price ...

And besides the refs, the thing I prefer in Goldmemberships is monthly ads, even non-paid ones .... but good sites have so many Goldmembers that we would be flood by non-paid goldmember ads each month .... wouldn't be perfect either ... Gosh, am glad I never wanted to be a webmaster :-))

Sophie

First off, I want to apologize to those webmasters/mistresses who didn't deserve the blast I gave. I'm tired, worried, and distressed over several things.

Secondly, though, I still just don't think it's right to auction off referrals for any reason. It just doesn't feel right. I understand you have to make money for the sites, I DO know what you're going through as business people. It's just how I feel, especially buying Gold in some programs when I really can't afford it, only to be thrown bits and pieces.

Try buying Gold at Jays-Paid. You get diddly if you only ask for a special rate without all the frills. It's been months, I have 4 refs, and two are my own. And have .0474 cents from their earnings. And several others I bought gold and haven't received but one or two here or there, and these are small membership accounts.

It's hard all over, and maybe some measure of restraint should be shown over how many are "auctioned" off. Ugh, I even hate the sound of that. I feel like "property" instead of a human being.

I do care for a great majority of you webbies, and would do anything I can to help you...but please just think about it a bit more.

~~Susy

I am so glad this discussion was started!

I have thought of selling the referrals on ebay from members who have quit or been deleted for inactivity but have always felt half way on the issue. I don't want to upset my Gold members but on the other hand these referrals were never "thiers" as they were other members referrals and those members have since quit. Now, I do find members on 2 of my sites that sign up and for whatever reason the gold member ID is not inserted and the new member is not assigned to a gold member....those I catch and I do give to gold members. Haven't been but a couple of those though. I have always been caught between a rock and a hard place but reading this had made me feel better. I do have downlines of my own I could sell but wasn't sure how upgraded members would take to that.

Also members have to remember; 3/4 or more of the members join from emails that other members sent out promoting to get referrals. There aren't going to be 30 new members a week sign up on a generic link. Almost always it is from members advertising. But when I buy advertising I buy for my sites so my Gold benefit. I have yet to promote a site just for me (meaning another program to gain referrals). Even what little bit I get here and there from my other PTR programs (money I make) I put into advertising for my gold's. And if I ever did decide to sell referrals on Ebay....every dime will go back in the program and more promoting for my gold's. I would never, ever pocket that money! But I am sure there are a few w/m out there who do. Which is why you members are upset; I DON'T BLAME YOU!!! But as you can all see, not all of us are doing this to pocket money for ourselves; we do it for y'all

And I just gave Gold's at one of my programs a referral just because they hadn't recieved one yet. So I do place referrals and if my Gold's aren't getting referrals all they have to do is email me.....I will find an active referral and place them under my Gold even if I have to take them from my downline. That is why I have a downline; to help benefit my members when they ask

Sorry for the "book"...LOL! But y'all know me; I don't post often but when I do!!! LOL!!

(And my Gold memberships do include a lot of advertising and a monthly point ad.)

OK many of you webmasters say you auction off the referrals to help bring more money into the site to better serve your members. But out of all fairness to your members who have invested money in a gold membership for your site, mainly with the expectation of getting referrals, why not devide those referrals amongst the people who have PAID for a membership with you, WHO DOES NOT HAVE ANY or very little referrals at all instead of being auctioned??

Let me repeat myself.
As I said earlier in this thread:

QUOTE

Let me point out that generally when a downline is sold, the top person in that downline has no upline.

The downline MUST stay intact, else you will be taking referrals away from that top person, which would be totally unfair.

And you can't give the downline to a gold member, because that gold member would be getting a downline of maybe 75 to several hundred, and that would be totally unfair to the other gold members.

I also want to make another point: I, for one, do NOT sell orphan referrals, and neither do many other caring wm's. I GIVE them away!

See the thread in my support forum here:

http://www.getpaidforum.com/forums/index.p...03&f=64&t=31845

i only have a gold membership in one program and i'm not sure how many refs i got from there as i was promoting it heavily myself as well.

I don't really see anything wrong with webmasters auctioning off a whole downline from another member who might have quit or donated it's downline (i know a few webmasters have done this) I do think it's unfair though if it's single referrals being auctioned of as these should be given to goldmembers.

Also i was wondering how the webmaster of wishformoney, paidexplosion, bestpaidemail, crazyforcash and maybe some other programs...always have so many referrals to auction of. Her auction room is filled with referrals being sold and they aren't going cheap either. Where is she getting them all from? I saw somebody complaining about having lost a lot of referrals in one of her programs. I think i've also lost a few in paidexplosion which is the only of the programs i have advertised...the 16 i have left are clicking absolutely nothing and they've been there for many many many months now and haven't been deleted so i guess the person complaining about his lost referrals didn't lose them to a database cleaning. Just makes you wonder

You all gave me alot to think about!! Alot of what you all said made since on both sides........
Julie

That's why I LOVE this forum!
I get to see all the different views, and it helps me in my decisions on keeping everything balanced between the needs of the members, the advertisers, and the program.
And the majority of the improvements made to FreeAndEasy are due to direct interaction with my members.
My members are smarter than me in many ways!
My best ideas come from them!

You can repeat yourself as many times as you wish. I read the thread and saw what you said. You do what you do and shows that you're a great webmaster for it. You continue to push the issue of large downlines, which I'm sure is clearly understood by many, although I didn't say a word about it. Maybe I should have stressed that. However SOME webmasters may not operate the way you and some other fine webmasters do. You have some that mainly promote their own referral links more often than promoting the site in general so that people who are paying for a membership will benefit from referrals and not just free or discounted advertisements (and I'm not calling any names but I see it constantly). Maybe you and other caring webmasters do not sell orphan referrals which is great but like I said there are many others out there that do not operate as you do and want you to purchase your referrals either through auctions or redeeming your earnings for them, which isn't right if you're paying for your membership. (And notice I said not one word about the large downlines) So there's no need for you to jump to the defensive side any more. You've made your point clear and it shows that you do right by your members in the beginning of this thread, as many other webmasters did, there's no need to continue to repeat yourself. Now let those webmasters, without putting anybody on the spot, I'm sure they know who they are, let them defend their own actions.

Sorry if I got defensive, I've been misaligned a lot in my life, and I do tend to get the hackles up a bit....

Hey I completely understand. No worries. *Hugs*

If you want to email your username , to webmaster@funcashmail.com You will then be given some of the referrals that, apon completing the signup processs enter names in the refferal box that do not exsist in the database. These members do not have an upline and can not go to gold members because, they have not left the box empty.

All advertising is done for the benifit of gold members, these do not have referal urls on them.

Also we do not ignore members, nobody is ignored and we do read support emails, if you think you are being ignored feel free to PM me here, at any time and your problem will be delt with.


Cash444 Team

If you want to email your username to the webmaster of the program of your choice, or PM me, You will then be given some of the referrals that, apon completing the signup processs enter names in the refferal box that do not exsist in the database. These members do not have an upline and can not go to gold members because, they have not left the box empty.

All advertising is done for the benifit of gold members, these do not have referal urls on them.


Cash444 Team

I only sell off a few referrals every month to make sure i can pay you guys asap. + i only sell referrals from people who have been deleted for inactivity or cheating or unsubscribe i dont sell anyone elses

Thanx chriscool

I have a lot of members with no uplines who have very small downlines. They are just sitting there.
Their downlines are too small for me to think about selling them.
I can't imagine why I didn't think of this before, but I'm going to start giving these to my upgraded members.
Thanks for this topic!

I gave these members to you

I too will start added these odd ones i have to sell to upgraded members

Thanx chriscool

Chuyoen, you are a sweetheart!

awwwww {{{{{{{{{{Cathy}}}}}}}}}}}}} hon I didn't mean to make you feel bad. You're one of my very bestest favs!! It's just been a bad few days, and I was feeling like really ugh. Please don't take it personally. It was more general than anything.


I wuvs ya!!

Hi,

I see all the webmasters congratulating eachother here ... and still wonder ... if you understood the point of view from some of us members .... some of us have said here, we really really don't like to be sold on ebay like any other product, we're members, not ads or banners ;-)

If you swap it with other webmasters, I sell you at my site and you sell me at yours ... it's not a problem, but just take into account that a lot of regular members don't like to see themselves being sold out like an object, even if you tell them after that the money will be used for the site ... they are often not allowed to sell their own account, so it's not nice to see webmaster doing it and making money on their members' hard referring work.

And here goes another 2 cents from this side of the fence ;-)

Sophie

I personally have never sold any referrals on Ebay...never felt right about it myself

I do have an option in the members area to redeem for active referrals and I do randomly add refs to gold members that dont have any because as someone mentioned before its rare that someone would come to the site without a ref link and alot of the gold members (depending how big your site is and how many gold members you have) dont get refs

Also with Gold Memberships I personally wont buy any that dont have a paid ad with it or a non paid ad at least every month. I dont plan on getting refs when I buy a gold membership I buy them for the recurring advertising I might get

Thats my 2.25 cents

I'm taking every word posted here very seriously, and I hope the changes I'm making as a result of this thread will be for the better of my members.

I am sure you do Freeandeasy, I make only general posts here, be sure it's not aimed at you, on the contrary ;-)

I posted here because after having talked with a lot of webmasters recently, they often tell us we don't know what it is to be webmaster as if we were completely stupid and I am regularly surprised to see how often webmasters don't know at all how it is to sit only at one side of the fence, the member's side, ... so, they think they do what their member want and in fact it's not at all what those want ... and then come misunderstandings ... webmasters thinking they do the best they can and members feeling yelled at and commanded to click, click, click and it's never good enough for WM ....

So I posted to tell webmasters how members generally feel, it's often an addition of a lot of talks I had with other members, not being a builder myself, I never had the 'honour' of being sold on ebay

Sophie

This is the same beef I have! FunCash and TNT.. I've been a gold member in both of these for MONTHS.. I've not cashed out in either program. I believe I have 6 referrals in TNT .. 6! and FunCash is no better. I might have 12. It "picks" me off royally when I see you all selling these referrals on ebay.

For Mailing Cash, I sent out an ad, received 50+ responses and not one was credited to my account. I emailed and was told "that's because referral links have changed" which was announced AFTER I'd sent out the ad.. no compensation for whatever was drawn to the site for that ad. However, referrals are still being sold on ebay. I have NO respect for this practice. And I'm not concerned who gets defensive on the issue.

It's not just this "line" of sites either. I have another 1 that came with referrals. I haven't received those either. I haven't purchased gold memberships with any program but well known, "respected" webmasters. I've been as careful as I believe a member can be.

I wish this thread hadn't been started because I'm just angry all over again about this.

I won't be spending money for another gold membership anytime soon.

I am glad to see discussion on this topic. I do think that EVERY Gold Membership at each PTR should be looked at individually. Don't lump ALL programs into one category and not even think about buying Gold Memberships at all. I know a lot of you aren't - but some are. Some you will get what you paid for, and unfortuneately, some you don't. But look at each one as an individual and evaluate it's value - and by all means, contact the webmaster and ask them questions. You are purchasing a service, if you have questions about that service - ask.

I do not auction referrals on ebay, I have mixed opinions on the subject. I am MOSTLY against it. I understand some of them; the "orphans" with huge downlines. I have one that I have had from day one of my program (never had a referrer), and still have not figured out the best way to deal with it, so I have left it as is. All new referrals go to Gold Members - that is what they have paid for and I do not feel right about offering to someone else what has already been bought and paid for by my Gold Members. Just my opinion, no offense meant to those who do sell referrals, because they do have the right to do so.

I just wanted to make a note to people about the CC vs. CAC vs. MEC etc scripts. I don't know anything about many other scripts - they are probably all wonderful. I have CAC - BUT I have made MANY upgrades to my scripts, INCLUDING the referral fix! My members DO NOT lose their referral earnings or downlines when members quit or are deleted. The downlines move up and the referrer is credited the earnings due them. So, I just hope that people don't just lump all of us into these little categories - CC, CAC, MEC, etc. There is MUCH more to it than that.

Thanks for reading my 2 cents worth!

Well as a new webmaster I have sold and am selling on referrals on ebay, But I also have bought ads around the PTR community. With the direct link for goldmembers.

But I also give my goldmembers a VERY good package with what they buy.

And I also take 20% of ALL ebay auctions and 50% of of certain revenues brought into the program, and add them to a pot and all goldmembers recieve a part of that added to thier account at the end of the month and than PAID out.

If you have been a goldmember in my program since the beginning than they have recieved yes RANDOM referrals and an extra 7.59 cents added to your account and PAID OUT in full.

People also have to realize that the money that comes in also helps to keep PAID mail going out.

As I am a member of alot of programs and have upgraded and no referrals. I also enjoyed the benifits that have come with them.

If im wrong at this im sorry maybe I should just wait for advertising to come in and than send out PAID links, and if that doesn't happen I guess getting free referrals clicking on a few ADVERTISERS links will gain you alot of money.

Thank you

I felt I needed to say that for I feel im all for ANY type of member not just upgraded or free BUT ALL

As someone who buys referrals on ebay, I thought I'd comment.

First step - I do my research - I don't buy referrals blindly from webmasters I don't know personally or have a good feeling will be around for a long time.

Second, I figure buying referrals is an "investment" - better than one of those darned bubble things if you ask me! In some cases, you get the feeling that the webmaster is BETTING AGAINST you ever earning more back than you paid for the referrals. If you get this feeling, then you didn't follow step one.

Third, I set a price I'll pay, per referral, based on how much I think they will earn. The amount I pay depends on my confidence level from step one.

We can group the comments in this thread into two types:
- sites that are selling referrals, but doing it wrong
- sites that are selling referrals, but doing it right

All webmasters have posted what they have done right - giving gread ad packages for gold, giving out referrals on a regular basis to gold, leaving the script as is for assigning members to those without referral ids, etc.

What could they be doing wrong? Taking new members from existing members, not allowing the scripts to allocate anyone to gold, not assigning value to the gold (usually advertising, sometimes guaranteed referrals), selling referrals for more than they are worth, selling inactives, etc.

In my opinion, as long as the webmaster is doing his or her own advertising for the site, he or she can move those referrals around as he or she pleases. However, it's the programs that say "this ad was sent out for the gold members of..." that I would suggest are the ones to both join and also watch closely - that is, make sure that they mean it.

Do your research - it comes down to that. If you want to play this as a haphazard game, going gold randomly and assuming you'll win big - then you are in for a big disappointment.

I buy referrals at penniesbyemail, key-email, maniac-mail, and moneyforall. Those, I *personally* know I can trust with some certaintly of a return on my investment.

- Alex

Sorry for the OFF TOPIC but I just had to make a comment on this. If you have a CAC site and have done the upgrade, make sure you have something on your front page that says so. The reason I only *generally* join MEC CashCrusader sites is because, as a member, I know I can trust them to a certain degree (and I also know their problems too.) That means when I see a NPA I look to see if it's written in PHP and the front page is pages/index.php. I don't have the same trust for CAC sites (or "4u" sites or whatever scripts) unless I know for sure. Think of it as one of your responsibilities as a webmaster to communicate that to members. Otherwise, I won't have much confidence that you know enough about this industry to make it work, and I won't join. I suspect I'm not the only person who feels this way.

- Alex