Are work from home websites a dream come true
or just another scam? or real?: An
investigationWe find out...
We decided to We go on an investigateive the case of whether or not it's viable to work from home and earn big
bucks as popular web sites promisejourney to discover if there is any truth to work from home websites in India
Did you know that Sanjana in from Lucknow earns makes $545 every day just by working from home?
If you thought that was the best case scenario, meet Or how about Kamal from in Trichy who earned
$1,328 per day just by browsingsurfing the internet?. That’s aAmazing isn’t it? That is an earning of
over about Rs. 33,000 for Sanjana and over Rs. 81,000 for Kamal per day for them respectively! We'll
say that again, “Per day”! Thus, in a normal work year (250 days), they could earn That means in a
normal work year Sanjana earns Rs. 80 croreslakh and Kamal earns nearly Rs. 2 crores respectively.
Hold on, before you start typing up your resignation letter, you should know that all this is Wow! How
do we get in on this action? Well, the reality is we don’t – it’s pure fiction.
Most of us will have people have come across reports of such successful fellow Indians while browsing
on the internet. Displayed as ads on embedded images on a number of websites, are the we see the
smiling, jubilant faces of people holding up cheques with five figure sums. It's made to sound simple,
as no special skills are requiredThese ads tell the story of how easy and simple it is to earn big bucks
while sitting at home and the best part – no special skills required. “Any one can do itthis. Even you!.”
To a As a 16- year old, with time to spare killing time between junior college and tuitions , this it may
seem like the perfect way to makekind of gig to make some extra cash, or to get started on raising
the funds for future entrepreneurship. Even stay-at-home spouses and unemployed freshers would
find such an offer hard to resist. So what And so what if those numbers are an exception? Surely if
you worked hard you'd be able to earn one tenth that they do, right? Not 80 lakh to 2 crore, but 8
lakh to 20 lakh still sounds like an amazing amount to earn in your spare time! – yes, not everyone
earns tens of thousands every day. That would be absurd. But what if it was just a couple of thousand
– for a day’s work sitting in front of a computer at home. You’d be doing that anyway. It wouldn’t be
so bad, right? Well, we know the feeling. We’ve all been there.
We decided to find out by wading into the So we figured why not wallow into these dubious murky
waters of working online, so that you don't have to dive in headfirst yourself and attempt to sink or Commented [1]: Wallow = lie about lazily for pleasure, to
swimyou may be thinking about diving into and investigate if the options out there are financial waste time, have fun, etc. Wallow in self pity, wallow in
nostalgia... it's comfortable...
quicksand or a clear revenue stream.
You “wade” cautiously into murky waters, not wallow
Succeed India: Of Scams and Ponzi Schemes
Let’s take care of the elephant in the room. get the obvious out of the way. Most of the schemes and
deals offered online are straight-forward up scams and frauds. In more sophisticated cases, however,
victims are caught up with con-artists who use inherent human weakness’ such as greed or pity to con
you out of your hard-earned swindle them out of cash. Thousands of people have fallen victim to get- Commented [2]: Always address the reader directly. “You”
rich schemes that most of us would find fishy, or too good to be true. However, even legitimate makes it sound like you (the writer) are talking directly to the
reader, one-on-one, and not some mass message that holds
sounding marketing schemes have hidden clauses and catches that end up cheating people out of no importance or emotional connection that “the user” or
money. Be it too good to be true get-rich-quick schemes or seemingly genuine online marketing “the victim”, “them”, etc.
assignments, there is always a catch, and thousands of people have fallen victim to them.
Commented [3]: Exception to the “You” rule:
This line says “others” have fallen victim, but not “us” smart
The infamous sSucceedIndia website was in had it’s heyday in the early 2000s, where even a bland, ones...
poorly- formatted HTML text page was able to convinced people users to coughpay up Rs. 800 for an
If possible, always do that. Assume the digit reader is
e-book that promised to which would teach them all the secrets to ways of making money online. The smarter than the average bear, and tell them that you think of
site also offered work in Affiliate Marketing (ponzi schemes) where users were required to recruit them as that.
others in the promotion of no-brandun-branded products. People were convinced by the jargon that
was used in the marketing propaganda (Google Adwords, and also an unending barrage of scans of Commented [4]: It's vs its: Say the sentence in your head
using “it is”.
high-value Using the convincing jargon of Google AdWords and an unending barrage scans of high-
paying cheques paid out by from Google. The site is still active, but people are too smart now to fall If it's sounding wrong, it's wrong.
for it, the website lured many victims. And even as the website remains active the scam has become Also “in” its heydey not “at” and certainly not “had” its
all too transparent for anyone to actually fall for it. heydey.
Today, Modern fraudsters don’t just use simple pop-up ads or spam emails to lure their victims, but Commented [5]: Separate two or more descriptive words
with a comma or else it's just horrible, pathetic grammar.
instead go one step even further by posting jobs on forums and online classifieds. Such These postings
offer simple jobs such as like being an “email processor” which is basically just an – an online ponzi-
Commented [6]: Hyphenate words such as poorly-
type scheme where you are required to pay for a start-up kit and then which essentially requires you formatted, seven-year itch, ponzi-type, net-savvy, pop-up,
recruit more people to do the sameto send out a similar job offer to others in the hopes of being paid etc (as was already done in this article, except this instance)
for the same information kit.
Other jJobs such as like “home assembly” of items crafts or gadgets are also on the downturn since
they require prospective workers to pay for a “test kit”, which you need to assemble and send back
for reimbursement and payment –- which of course is never paid because some fault or the other is
found comes because in the way the product was assembledy job is deemed to have been done
poorly.
But tThanks to the increased net literacy of users today, most people can know when something
smells something fishy from a mile away. What worked in the The most common types of tricks used
in the early days of internet and email don't anymorehave been widely exposed. Almost all of these
so-called offers So for those who consider themselves net-savvy, many of these offers end up in their
inboxour trash or spam deleted with a snide guffawfolders anyway. However, But there are still a
amidst the many obvious scams there are still a few, well-crafted and very convincing websites that
come across seem to be as the real deal. We decided to ignore the obvious scams, since they're
actually low-grade threats, and focus on the In our investigation we decided to focus on such services
aimed at Indians to determine if they are all out frauds or notones that sounded genuine.
The search beginsThe usual suspects
We sifted through hundreds of classified listings, forum posts and, for once, actually turned off our
adblockers to look at ads for even a few pop-up ads to find seemingly legitimate sources for online
work- from- home jobs. Our criteria was very simple – they had to be “work from home”, they had to Formatted: Font: Calibri, Italic
be non-investment schemes that required no payments, had to be well communicated and appear Formatted: Font: Calibri, Italic
original, and also had to they had to have clear language of communication and they had to have
been be validated on by Google searches.
In this respect weWe also employed other selection factors such as the detectingon of awkward
template- style writings in the emails, listings and adsvertisements to help us filter the obvious
amateurscriminal candidates. What we ended up with was We arrived at a sample of three priority
websites that all show up on the first page of Google searches for “work from home” or “make money
from home”. They all cleared all anti-virus safeguards for phishing, malware or risky portals, and were
clearly professionally designed. Let's start with the one that But it was one website that particularly
caught our interest and went on to best demonstrates the most truly interesting and devastating
aspects of work-from-home claims.
FastRupee & Neobux
The number one website in our investigation was FastRupee.com. The sleekly, minimalist design of
this responsive webpage was a pleasant surprise after having to go through hundreds of delved
through numerous rather gaudy websites. Completely fFree of from banner ads and in-your-face or
scream-out-loud claims of quick money, thethis website is a completely professionally-built portal
that one would associate with a serious and trustworthy perfect for an online business. In fact, the
more you read, the more comfortable you get. You're As we scroll down the pages most of our major
concerns are assuaged – assuredances thatn no investment is required, it has a recommendation
service that supposedly filters out the frauds for your the benefits of the user, is
compatibilitycompatible with the Indian financial system, etc. However, the kicker is the and most
importantly a disclaimer warning that tells you not to expect users not to expect riches very quickly a
get-rich scheme, but instead to expect but look forward to small, regular returns that are , free of
investment risks.
Now that you're convinced, the site goes Pretty well-worded and displayed, the website goes on to
highlight its top recommendation for such an online employment company – Neobux. Claiming a long-
established providencerelationship of over six years, a quick and timely payment record, and a host of
success stories, the page goes on to use quirky and cute animated training videos to explain how
FastRupee works and how Neobux processes payments. The page also has a brief FAQ in a simple and
direct language. FastRupee is essentially a Paid-to-Click site, which works as a referral platform for
Neobux. The referred pParticipants are paid to click on ads, take surveys, do online research and
other stay-at-home functions on behalf of corporate clients that Neobux works with – so far so good.
Now, Paid-to-Click isn’t exactly an ethical realm of e-commerce, but the business model exists within
a sufficiently plausible loophole to be considered a real businesslegal. FastRupee also has a ‘Contact
us’ page in case if users have any questions or clarifications, but the website’s blog page only has
three sparse entries detailing how to obtain a PAN card, an investment based Paid-to-Click program
and a step-by-step guide to earning money online. However, But all roads lead to Neobux, and so we
go tumbling down the rabbit hole.
Curiouser and Curiouser
Neobux itself is a well-designed professional-looking website, and has pared down for essential use.
The a three-column layout that website displays, amongst other things, the daily counter of registered
members, how many ads were clicked on, and how much money is paid out to users. Quick averages
of the displayed numbers tell us that indicate $10 was paid per member per day (about Rs. 600) –
working out to about Rs. 18,000 per month. Not bad for just sitting around and clicking on ads.
The registration is quick and easy with no alarms about details demanded apart from your PayPal or
Payza account (optional). The clear and direct language is assisted followed by helpful indicators and
pop-ups to guide you along every path. After verifying and logging-in to the Neobux dashboard you
we are treated to the plan of layout of what needs to be done. Click on “View Ads” and you’re shown
a series of categorised boxes with click values on them. All the boxes have the same price of $ 0.001
(Rs. 0.6 approx.) and a single Bonus Pack. The bonus pack is like a lottery of three ads which you have
to watch. Any of them could get you free rewards in cash or kind. More ads are would only be shown
to us once the system is ‘reset as per their server’ (whatever that means). Bottom line: youwe’re out
of ads and have to wait. In the mMeanwhile, if weyou’re interested in betting on the lottery weyou
can go and on to watch the 99 advertisements (which we did with – no luck). Effectively, we ’ve
watched 132 ads and earned for $ 0.033 payment (Rs. 2.01), since lottery ads aren’t counted towards
payments.
The prestige of the con
Since you A few caveats: you can’t open multiple ads at once, can't . You can’t go away from the ad
window (it just or else it will pauses and resumes only once you return), have no fixed duration of ads
to watch and also can't withdraw money until you reach a minimum goal – let's just say there's
caveats aplenty. Not all ads are of the same length and you can’t withdraw money earned until you
reach a minimum goal.
The average time per ad is on average 30-45 seconds, and some with a few reaching are a full minute
long. Constant attention (or at least running in the foreground) is expected, and you can withdraw
only when you reach a minimum of $2 earnings (watching 2000 ads). That's about 25 hours of Even
switching to a VLC window to watch a movie will freeze the clock, so constant attention is expected.
The minimum goal to withdraw is $2 (Rs. 120 approx.), which would take 2000 ad views to reach. This
translates to about 25 hours of non-stop clicking for a measly Rs 120! . There are, of courseas always,
ways out – . Rrent clicks, upgrade to a Golden Membership or Rent Referrals, and that's the con....
There lies the rub.
Don't over-promise to make it sound ridiculous, get people to start clicking, and keep the task easy
enough for anyone to do, and you have a business model that relies on suckers. Eventually, you (the
clicker) will either go away without earning anything but after clicking on hundreds of ads, or you will
decide to invest even more time and money to try and earn more, and thus work to recruit even more
suckers to come click on ads for no returns.
Never over-promising vast riches, providing a very clear means to perform tasks and keeping the task
just easy enough filled with high degree of tedious obstacles – even the most enthusiastic time-
wasters would feel better if they could just get some referrals or rented clicks. While on one hand the
business of watching ads for pennies in payments is grossly underpaying, there is a long time
investment before any payout can be expected. On the other hand, paying for Rented Referrals or
Golden Memberships is a means to rent a part of other people’s clicks with no guarantee that the
people whose clicks you’re renting are high performers. Plus, the The fine print that you agree to is
masterfully crafted to indemnify them from any sort of used to defy all negligence and even or breach
of legal expectations. Of all the websites that fell under our radar, FastRupee and Neobux, in our
opinion, were were the most perfectly pitched and also the most dangerous.
After a little more digging, we found that even Even in the case of users who had persevered through
2000 ads, were complaining that we discovered that the payments were neither prompt nor easily
obtained. More often than not users were advised to Users were advised to redirect their earnings
funds towards the paid alternative. A deep search of review of online complaint boards led to reports
that the of how the $2 due for early-exit members was rarely ever paid, and even if it was . But even if
it is paid, it totalled to about the amount would be Rs. 122 for 25 hours of work, or i.e. just under Rs.
5 per hour!. Considering that the The lowest minimum wage category in India is about earns over Rs.
20 per hour, it certainly doesn't seem worth the effort. If you decide to recruit more people to take
advantage of their clicks to earn something, remember that the site Who wouldn’t feel compelled to
rent clicks or referrals just so that the benefits of their underlings flows up to them? Except you aren’t
never told to directly suggests that you interact with people and refer more people to them, so the
liability of the scam (when those people are not paid) falls to the website and doing it would place
the liability of the scam on you, not the websitesquarely on your shoulders.
We can safely conclude that FastRupee and Neobux are time-vampires that pay a pittance (if at all) for
countless hours of work. The nature of the “scam” relies on persuading people to eventually pay out
of their pockets for clicks in a Ponzi-like referral system.
Now, mMeet the amateurs
No other website was as professional pitched as FastRupee and Neobux - plausible, doable and an
utter time-vampire that pays pittance (if at all) for countless hours. The nature of the “scam” relies on
persuading people to eventually pay out of their pockets for clicks and a Ponzi-like referral system.
Other websites that made our lists were BharatOnline-Work.com and MoneyMail.com , and they are
sheer amateurs in comparison to Fast Rupee.
BharatOnlineWork although seemingly legit at first, quickly devolves into sounding like on its web
page into a needy, persuasive, half-witted con-man who’s trying to somehow convince users to shell
out Rs. 1,490/- for a “Bharat Online Work Package” -– basically a CD (remember those?) – which,
reassuringly, can be paid for has to be paid for on delivery.
Our third candidate website MoneyMail.in was slightly more cleverer (even if, eventually, a massive
let down). The website claims to requires pay users a chance to get paid for to reading emails along
with a host of other activities such as like being a Recharge Wallet agent -– who will earns 0.5 to 1.5
percent on transactions when making recharges for cell phones, DTC and Data Cards. All you need to
do is Participants simply need to deposit Rs. 500 or more via direct bank account transfer with no
online payment gateway involved – which smells about as fishy as a Sushi bar with no air-conditioning
and refrigeration!. If things weren’t fishy already we just hit the sushi bar on this one.
Both BharatOnlineWork and MoneyMail use the same techniques used by as other notorious online
portals such as like EarnPart-TimeJobs.com, Emailpays.com, Adsensejobs.com , Netjobs247.com, and
Emailreadingjob.com, etc to lure unsuspecting customersvictims. Most victims aren’t fluent in English
and the Con-men perpetrators take advantage of the lack of fluency of English of a victim and to
confuse and convince them.
More refined sites likesuch as Neobux prey on the inevitable boredom of usersvictims and offer
short-term payoffs to lure users people into makinge high value purchases. In both cases the users are
encouraged to recruit others as a means to enhance their own earnings through referral. So basically,
it's still all glorified pyramid-schemes.
What Have Wwe lLearned?
It’s a case of old wine in a new bottle, where the wine is poisoned and the bottle is a Molotov cocktail.
If it seems too good to be true, it probably is – a cliché, but appropriate here. Age-old scams are
reinvented in the digital age to prey on the hopes of needy and desperate people. In times when
getting a job is tough, and even the gainfully employed are looking for secondary sources of income, it
makes sense that these schemes bear fruit for online criminals. For an internet-savvy user this may
not prove a temptation but for the majority of people across the country this is proving to be a real
danger. Thousands of rupees are sent by each person to these websites in the hopes that they will be
able to find a sustained income for their future.
And dDespite how obvious and devious these fraudulent websites may seem, it has proved near
impossible to punish or ban their promoters. Given the weak and obfuscated parameters of the Indian
IT law and the understanding of the Internet by government officials, the progress is slowcrackdowns
are slow. In many most cases the URL domains are private and registered abroad, with only the local
bank account information being real. However, these accounts are under legal protection, so that the
account holder’s identity can’t be disclosed and banks can’t punish account owners unless a legal case
of fraud has been registered.
In the end, the discouraged and financially desperate victims are left with no recourse but to absorb
their losses and to move on – which is exactly what these schemers are hoping for all along. When the
process for persecuting the guilty is way more complicated than the fraud itself, it's obvious that we
can all agree that some someone radically changes to the judicial system are needs to bring justice to
the systemneeded.
