Sonnet about a prominent "work at home" scam
December 11th 2006 22:06
They prey on the poor that pray for a buck
Promising payments of hundreds per day
Hawking products that are shady like gray
They are less honest than Twain's Tom and Huck
If you sell nothing that's regular luck
For wares you can't even sell on eBay
What seemed cheap was surely too much to pay
Complaints are ignored and victims get stuck
Pretending the scam has real writing gigs
Hoping for commission to pay the cost
Of at least a part of what had been lost
To the one who is known as Billy Briggs
How can these scammers still do what they do?
Those who were cheated should unite and sue
Promising payments of hundreds per day
Hawking products that are shady like gray
They are less honest than Twain's Tom and Huck
If you sell nothing that's regular luck
For wares you can't even sell on eBay
What seemed cheap was surely too much to pay
Complaints are ignored and victims get stuck
Pretending the scam has real writing gigs
Hoping for commission to pay the cost
Of at least a part of what had been lost
To the one who is known as Billy Briggs
How can these scammers still do what they do?
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I was under pressure to make money then, as I am now, and $50 US dollars is a fairly small sum compared to the earning potential promised by this Billy Briggs character. I knew I was in trouble when I was given a user name and password to a "members site", and neither seemed the least but unique. I think one was typeathome and the other was vipmember. Not that I have any idea how to get back to the site.
When I got there, there were all sorts of "bonuses" that could have been useful but could also have been found elsewhere. There were all sorts of survey sites and links to apparently legit data entry sites, and real data entry is generally transcription - which usually requires a faster typing speed than I'm capable of. I can type 40 wpm in a typing test, but with my 1 fingered style that velocity ca be tough to maintain. There were e-bay tips, and those were probably also available elsewhere, and I don't have anything to sell except writing and I don't think it covered selling that. Those bonuses were certainly worth the nothing that I was told that I paid for them, and maybe even a little more, but not much since they didn't actually do me any good.
The problem that I have with that site - apart from having my request for a refund ignored, is "Billy"'s advice about how to make tons of money online. His secret, which I actually knew about beforehand and declined to pursue for various reasons, is joining a site called clickbank and trying to get people to buy their products through your referral link. The commission rates are high, but the products are terrible. There's good reason why those products aren't sold in stores, and I could not promote anything on the site in good conscience. People do - in some community blog sites that don't have good quality control. I'm just not one of those people, and I probably wouldn't be good at it if I tried.
This comment was not copied or pasted from anywhere, and it took quite a while to type. If those hawking type-at-home were honest, I could've made $50 in the time that it took to write this.
Comment by Anonymous