I know a whole bunch of you are going to say that when a GPTRE site doesn't pay its members its a scam. Most people do not put money into the sites for advertising or get gold memberships. Even when you buy a Gold membership you get advertising and maybe some referrals. Now I am not defending the owners who don't pay, but if you click on a link and don't get paid for it is not a scam. We throw this word around so much as if you can compare it to someone who actually invests money out of their own pocket with the promise of an investment or someone who takes their car in for repair and the mechanics lie about what has been done. I want to ask all people - how many report their earnings to the IRS for taxes - are you scamming the government in your respective countries? I know members of a site think they are the most important but only as a group. Its the advertiser that is most important. You reading the email is an incentive for being a subscriber to the site. Unfortunately with the hundreds of sites out there advertising is hard to come by for the owners so they advertise their own pages which eventually puts them in the deep red and the program will not survive. I myself am guilty of not reporting anything to the government (although I haven't earned much) and in the future am no longer redeeming for cash but ads only. If you feel truly scammed call Judge Judy she will take your case and put it on national TV. The result will be the demise of this industry because the government will step in and start taxing people. I know this forum is an outlet but one day a department from the IRS will start making inquries and it will be the end. So use the "S" word carefully and if you are a program owner pay your members. Who knows how much longer this industry has left?

Agreed.

I believe what is going to happen is that some federal agent will discover a PTC/PTR/etc program, look around, and report it for some illegal activity. I mean, there are also minors using these programs as well.

Thank u! It is easier to scream scam than to take a look at the facts that some doesn'tinvest one cent but expect more than the paying... not saying that all should be paying etc,just saying that if one doesn't spend money its hard to just up and make it.

I do agree that the word SCAM is thrown around waaay too much.
In general, I believe people should use some restraint, patience, and common sense before wantonly applying this moniker to this, that, and the other thing.

I agree with all You people when you say that maybe ... we are too quick.. to cry Wolf (in this case... scam ) and run for greener pastures... But Well.. we may not be investing any money( leave alone .. the gold .. silver memberships.. et al ).. BUT.. we sure are making an investment.. and that investment is TIME...

And, many of us here.. join GPTR to earn something extra... somepeople here are single mothers.. others like me are Univ students trying to earn a lil extra.. to keep afloat after god alone knows.. how many part-times... and when ... even a penny of that money is lost... It HURTS terribly...

I aint a CA .. and neither am i eligible to pay tax.. ( in my country the minimum taxable earning is abt 30,000 annually... NOt very sure though... ) so i really cant talk abt the relevance of IRS and taxing etc.. But All i say.. is that.. well.. i would call all the mails I get SPAM... if i didnt get paid to read them... not because of what they promote but because .. my inbox is constantly over its limit...

anyways... all i wanna say is that .. " Your grief and sobs are a measure of your hurt ".. the more money i loose... The louder i shall scream .. BUT i shall definitely wait and watch .. what others think abt what i have said....

Luv,
Simz

Just commenting on the "government" thing...(I rarely if ever use the word "scam")

For the United States - I THINK you have to earn $600.00 or more at ONE place. Well, not just earn it, RECEIVE it. Then I believe by law you're supposed to report it. I remember reading this several times...as early as late last year. As far as I know, the amount hasn't changed, but I'm NOWHERE close to earning $600.00 from any one program, much less WITH ALL OF THEM! LOLOL!



Back to your regularly scheduled conversation...

~ Ambrie ~

As a owner and a user I can understand comments from both sides of the fence. Yes. the word scam is thrown around way to much. But, when a WM says they will pay x for doing xyz then they should hold up their side of the bargin. If they can't then they have no business running a business.

WM's need to take a close look at their program and more specifically, how they are managing the money. All advertising is paid up front so the money was there at one time. WM's shouldn't spend what isn't theirs! Set aside an amount equal to what it will cost to pay your agreements first before dipping into the till.

If a program doesn't do what it said it would I will say something. And I might even ues the "S" word. - LOL!

Phil

I know a whole bunch of you are going to say that when a GPTRE site doesn't pay its members its a scam. Most people do not put money into the sites for advertising or get gold memberships. Even when you buy a Gold membership you get advertising and maybe some referrals. Now I am not defending the owners who don't pay, but if you click on a link and don't get paid for it is not a scam

LOL in my world if you don't get paid for the clicking a PTR is a scam.

What does the rest matter? Just excuses for poor behavior, blah blab blah. First of all you don't open a business with no cash reserves. Thats what a ptr is, a business. Without deep enough pockets to pay your bills until you get enough funds coming into the site to pay your bills.

Members who sign up, ans click, read the paid e-mails have the right to be paid. Any WM that doesn't pay them is scaming them. Doesn't matter if its by intent or poor management. Like its been stated, they got paid for the ads, so they are responsible to hang on to enough of that money to pay their members.

Simple solution, don't open a PTR, until you can afford to, have enough cash on hand to pay estimated bills and payouts for at least 6 months, not counting funds needed to advertise your site. You can't just presume members will advertise it heavy for you, sometimes it doesn't work out that way.

To many think, WOW is the cash going to roll in, doesn't work that way unless your very lucky. You have to work at it to get income coming into your site. Having to high ads prices is the kiss of death, have very low prices until you reach a couple of thousands members.

yep that's right and if I ever make 600.00 I would report it if that ever happened LOL




I agree with that statement but the members are equally important. While the advertiser pays to keep the site alive if I had no members I would have no advertiser.. kind of goes hand in hand...

but in my opinion of what I consider a scam (which I very rarely use) is a program that does not do what it says it will do. If one person complains I do not consider it a scam but if nearly every member complains then I might start wondering....

No you must report all income to the US government and pay taxes. If you make $600 or more in one place then the person who pays you must tell the government that they paid you that amount. Its going to happen---someone form the IRS is going to start checking as soon as 20/20 or some investigative story checks these sites out. I hope all WM are keeping good records. The good news is that if a site is losing money they can actually claim this as well but only if they are registered as a business. I have been thinking that this industry should be regulated cuz there are way to many sites out there. Let the strong survive. I am sure there are plenty sites not registered. I also know several are. In fact if there are any webmasters that can add to this list I would like to know. Here are sites that have some type of DBA or corporate identity or at least the site is part of one.

E-MailPays U
Sendmoreinfo
Opt-In-Pays/LinkBurst
GypsyDad

That's all I can think of off the top of my head
Any others?

Members are very important so the question is what if you have 10,000 members and 5 advertisers? Members scream there is no ads and program is gone unless owner puts his own ads out which leads to eventual destruction hence all the searches. What if you have 100 advertisers and 500 members? Who makes out better? Which program owner will be happier? To a program owner an advertiser is more important than the member. The ultimate goal of all owners should be to get advertisers from outside their own membership. Then you can establish a true income. But I see 10-15 new sites a day coming out. So this will never happen. The government does not like monopolies for the very reason they cannot collect taxes from different companies. By the same token government regulation keeps this from getting out of hand and we have less "scams".

Members are very important so the question is what if you have 10,000 members and 5 advertisers

LMAO, lets stick to reality. Mind telling me how a site gets 10,000 members with 5 advertisers? Doesn't happen that way. Unless their fudging the member count.

What if I took a walk, slip broke my leg, truck ran over me, .......................

What IF.....................Come on stay in reality.

First of all 10,000 members is going to generate a lot of member ads, especially if the WM sees cash flow going down he will do ad specials.

Their are plenty of quality PTRs with WM that know what their doing. An sadly to many PTRs with WM that have no knowledge runing a business.
If they fold without paying what they owe members they will get known as a scam site, and rightly so.

I was just throwing numbers out to make a point clickguy--relax
And by the way its not a legal business if its not registered thru DBA

I tried looking for it. Everything I read was "If you make $600.00 or more...." then about reporting it. I didn't see anything for making less.

Regardless...I don't consider myself a "scam" because I don't report my .50 cents from each of 25 different programs. I think the amount of paperwork on my end, AND the government's end to handle these itty bitty payouts would generate a LOT more hassle and loss of money on their end.

Let's hope it DOESN'T happen, okay? That will be end of it all. What one, part-time webmaster is going to want to sit and sort through 12,000 accounts and report all information to the IRS? You gotta be kidding me. It would be over before you could finish a sneeze.

I do agree with you on the way the word "scam" is tossed around. I've even mentioned that myself in the past.

Let's say a program has 10-20 day payout system. Some people will be posting on boards SCREAMING SCAM on 12:01 of the 21st day. I mean c'mon. If anyone needs that 25 cents or 50 cents THAT bad, that one has to start a smear campaign on bulletin boards over that...one definately needs to make changes in one's life. Sometimes I honestly think some folks will start posts like that to get attention, so they don't have to be bothered emailing the webmaster because they're too lazy, or don't feel like it.

I personally don't think there's many GENUINE scams out there. Scam in the true sense of the word.

~ Ambrie ~

With the amount of these sites coming out and all the money being passed back and forth do you think someone is just going to let it all go? How about this--if a site doesn't pay call the better business bereau in the state that the owner resides and watch what happens they WILL refer you also to an IRS number hmmmmm John Stilwell--watch your back lol. Looks like the BBB in Pennsylvania may be getting some calls.

I still think the actual amount is going to matter. Under your thoughts, if I find a quarter, 3 pennies, 2 nickels and a dime during a year's time in a parking lot, I need to report that to the IRS.

These programs have been around for quite a while - at least the spirit of them has. I really wonder if there's any real programs left from like '96 or '97.

If it gets really bad...that's going to be it for programs, no one's going to want to deal with the hassle for $100 bucks a year.

~ Ambrie ~

LOL! I just got a chuckle on the part of your post with "all the money being passed back and forth". I think you hit it right there! ROFL!! No one is really making anything. We get money from program A, to buy a membership at program B, and program B uses that to pay member C who in turn buys advertising at program A! LOLOL!!

It's jes money wif miles on it!

~ Ambrie ~

Unless you redeem for advertising thru a program where the owner gives points only. Then there will be no problems I guess. I used to sell Bose audio equipment when I sold a certain amount I got cash and prizes each year. The first year I got $540 in cash bonuses and I reported it to the government although Bose didn't send me a W-2 form. It was my first job I ever had and the IRS rep told me I did the right thing, but the only way they would have found out was thru an audit of the Bose company. The second year i had over $2500 in cash and prizes and had no choice. The following January I got a W-2 form from Bose saying they reported this to the government and had to add this $2500 to my $30,000 salary. You know there is talk in congress about regulating the internet, they are starting to get successful in the spamming endeavors. What do you think is next? They know there are may sites, not just GPTRE sites that are operating without reporting taxes. They will pass laws in the next few years which will in turn create a department for regulation of all US based website owners.

From my understanding of the BBB and correct me if I'm wrong but first of all you pay them to be a member and they only handle complaints on a member. So unless a webmaster wants to pay 300.00 to be a member of the BBB then no one can report them to the BBB because they only handle complaints on the members that have paid them..

The reason I say this is My hubby's business just became a member of the BBB so I know that the cost is correct.

and u don't get a w2 if u are a independent contractor. You get a form I think it's 1066 if you make over 600.00. you can't get that form for independent contracting unless you have made over 600.00 with that company. So there is a difference in an employee of a company and an independent contractor.

do what?? lol In order for it to be a legtimate business you have to get a business license from the county/state/country you live in and incorporate your companies name. DBA means Doing business as which is on your incorporation. And then you have an incorporation name which is your companies legal name. so for instance if I were to incorporate my business then I would say my legal name for ex would be Tipsy Enterprises either llc or inc. then you would decide whether u want it incorporated or limited liability company. then would say dba being Sparky-Mail or Fantasy-Email

If you are an independent contractor, you get a 1099-misc form which has the name of the company, their tax ID number and your social security number on it

If you earn anything from the PTR programs, you want to report it because after you deduct your expenses, you probably will wind up with a negative amount, which will lower your taxable income. This comes in real nice if you have an outside job.

If your net earnings are 400.00 or more, you have to file form 1040 and schedule SE (self employment tax)...

(I actually remembered to bring one of my tax reference books home)

which if the company isn't legitimate (licensed and incorporated or limited liability) then they will not have a tax id #

Thanks for the correction 1066 1099 I was close LOL

SCAM = Sneaky Con-artists Abducting Money