September 24, 2009

Mystery Shoppers Wanted!

Out of boredom, I opened the Facebook application, Restaurant City, to entertain myself a little early this afternoon. While it was loading, I noticed the ad placed at the right part of the page named "Mystery Shoppers Wanted." I have a vague notion of what mystery shoppers are so it caught my interest. I clicked on it to see what it was about and seconds later was directed into this site. Click if you want to see.

I know there are existing real mystery shopping jobs out there, but this one wasn't anywhere near it. Let me tell you how I found this out:

If you open the site, you will find a testimonial story of a certain Rosario Bautista, attesting to the fact how she earned quite a huge sum of money (Php70,000 after only a week, what the heck!) allegedly coming from Google by simply posting links.

Yes, you read it right. Google, the giant internet company. I know Google pays people posting links, but only via Adsense. And you have to have a blog or website in order to become a member. I'm a legitimate Adsense member myself, but to this date I haven't earned a dime (that's because of my blog's anonymity for quite a while).

To continue my story, I got excited and interested (who wouldn't when you are promised to earn quick cash by doing simple instructions?). I then opened the site she claimed the reason of her quick cash flow. It's called "Internet Home Business Kit." Her story was supported by a number of comments/testimonials how it likewise worked for them so it even fueled my excitement. If you too got interested after reading it and convinced by the simple instructions, I don't blame you, because I myself was already on the verge of filling out the needed information. It's a good thing that I stopped to do some precautionary measures first. So, don't just fill out any information yet, especially the credit card section.

As many of my friends know what I have been doing for a living while I am unemployed and a student at the moment, I have been writing web articles of different topics, which included online opportunities, homebased residual income opportunities, work-at-home online jobs, etc. etc. Why I am telling you this? Because this job has given me lots of advantages other than financial benefits, specifically as it is through some of my freelance writing gigs that I got indirectly and a little educated yet enough for me to identify legitimate from illegitimate homebased online jobs.

So while I am guilty at believing for a minute that this "Internet Home Business Kit" might be legitimate and so tried filling out that form, I did the first thing that I always do before hitting the submit button (or joining any earn money online scheme), research before proceeding.

What did I find? For experienced online people (like me?), you guessed it right:

Yes, IT IS PURE SCAM!

The Facebook ad "Mystery Shoppers Wanted" is misleading. And more importantly, illegitimate too because the site is run by some people belonging to category of freeloaders, scammers, and fraudsters. They make their evilish intentions work by directing you to input very minimal yet confidential information, such as your Visa or Mastercard information, and promising to send you a free kit with instructions how to earn online money from Google in exchange of a measly USD3.99 for the shipping fee. It turned out, that system charges your credit or debit card higher. If you already filled that form out, chances are, your card is already debited with as high as USD88.00 or even more.

And, pun intended, congratulations! Because you just recently became the victim of those unscrupulous, evilish freeloaders/fraudsters!

Here's the lesson I learned a long time ago:

If you are inexperienced in the field of legitimate online work at home jobs, beware at filling out forms, and by golly, at paying any amount, no matter how little or big, without doing a research first. While there are numerous kinds of legitimate online homebased jobs, a double or triple even of that number is alloted for scammers.

So, addicted Facebookers, and even non-facebookers yet frequent online users, be very aware and don't just get easily smitten by those false misleading claims. Educate yourself about this matter. There are lots of information you can get from the internet, don't just turn on your desktop and use waste it to Facebook, Youtube, download, chat, and social network. Research, research, research, and research!

Read the supporting article I researched for this issue.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous4:38 AM

    Hi. Good thing I found your blog while I was searching if the certain "Rosario Bautista" really exist and earning that much from google. I'm also a Google Adsense member and I haven't earn that much so I was wondering what Google application/account did she had to earn that much. Good thing I seen your blog and I haven't purchased the said kit. Now the title of the ad on Facebook has been changed to "New Debt Bailout for Moms".

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