Following up with last week's introduction to Ponzi scheme autosurf sites, here are a few more facts about them. Hopefully this information will help you and your money deciding to stay away from them.

The following are some excerpts from Terms of Service interpreted with a bit of reading between the lines. They're not only found in Ponzi autosurf sites, but in a lot of other scam sites.

Sorry in advance for the sarcasm notes, it's not really in my style. I'm only using it here because I think it may be effective to open your eyes and make sure that you actually read the sites' ToS carefully. There we go:

* We reserve the right to immediately terminate your account at any time for any reason at our discretion, for instance if we suspect that you're cheating us, spamming anyone, initiating an investigation on our site, supporting a football team or chewing gum too loud.

* You agree that if we terminate your account you lose all rights to use the site, including the rights to any earnings or money-back guarantee.

* We reserve the right to change our ToS anytime without notice to you, and you must accept the new terms upon posting or terminate your account. For instance, if our new ToS state that "We're not paying anyone else and we're transferring all funds we have collected from members to our Swiss account to ensure our staff's financial stability" then you must accept it sportingly.

* You agree to never initiate legal actions against us for any reason.

Frankly, it makes me shiver every time I read between the lines this kind of terms.

Check the whois record for cashits.com, one of the defunct Ponzi autosurf sites. At the time of this writing (although this may change):

* Notice who is the domain registrar. In this case: Enom, Inc.

* Notice that the domain owner data is privacy protected.

These two checks will help you evaluate other possible Ponzi autosurfs or other scam sites. Read on to see how they apply to our case...

* They promise to pay a percent of your investment for each day that you do your "work". The yearly return on investment is too good to be true for the "work" you've done, i.e. 1% for 365 days = 365% yearly.

* The domain name is privacy-protected. Hmmm, maybe they do have something to hide. Note: In a privacy-protected domain the contact info shown is not the domain owner's but the protector's contact info.

* The whois privacy protector and/or domain registrar is the same as in cashits.com case or one of the defunct Ponzi autosurf sites. Maybe it's a coincidence or maybe it's the same guys using the same registrar or privacy protector because they've worked with them in the past.

* They don't handle payments by PayPal. PayPal takes very seriously whom they do business with, so if PayPal receives reports of a business being a Ponzi, they investigate and eventually refuse to associate with them. Warning! - If your favorite X% autosurf does handle payments by PayPal it may mean that PayPal has not investigated them YET.

* Their terms mention some self-protection measures in case "some payment processor" refuses to operate with them. This means they know they will get into trouble with honest payment processors (i.e. PayPal) due to its operation.

* They've set up their own payment processor site to avoid the shame of being blacklisted by PayPal, although they may say that they're operating through their own processor to "avoid other processor's commissions and keep more money for our members" or whatever reason.

A search for "cashits scam" should also be illuminating. And in this link you will find snapshots of how the site looked like until it eventually reached the site closed because of falling growth and domain for sale stages.

Do you want to invest your hard-earned money in a site that will eventually look like those?

If after reading all of the above you're still willing to think of these kind of sites as an investment and willing to take the risk and invest money in them, go ahead. At least now it will be an informed decision.

Everybody's way to learn is different. Wasting your time and money on such a venture is just a valid way of learning. At least is a way that should imprint the lesson on you forever.

Or maybe you will be lucky enough to recover your money? Or even double or triple it? Maybe, but because of the nature of Ponzi schemes, that will be because you're getting the extra money at the expense of many members that will never even recover theirs. Do you feel right with this concept?

By the way, do you know any friends or relatives already involved in such a scheme and telling others to join in? Please do them a favor and let them know about this site. Thanks! :)

Take care,

P.S. - Enough of ponziness! In next issue I'll share my thoughts about Online Working vs. Online Business Building. Until then!