Scams can range from ponzi schemes to modern versions of mail fraud. Once you're looking for ways to make money online for a little while, you're sure to come across some of these:

Gifting Schemes – It's not illegal to give an individual a gift of money but it IS illegal to try and make money with gifting schemes. Any kind of gifting "system" or "business opportunity" is something to stay miles away from, because people get arrested and jailed for these types of scams frequently.

Money Collections – These types of scams are disguised in many forms, but the basic setup usually claims to be a job offer. The "company" needs workers in the U.S. to collect money from their clients, and forward that money onto them. The "worker" unfortunately sends the company money from their own bank account, only to find out later that the client payments or deposits were fraudulent.

There are hundreds more scams and illegal "opportunities" online, but the two above are quite common and they should help you to start being able to easily identify others you may come across in the future.

Shady Tactics and Half Truths are more difficult to identify, and they're much easier to fall for. Some people continue to fall for these types of "opportunities" many times. Let's look at a couple of examples…

Data Entry Jobs – There are valid data entry jobs online but they're not nearly as prolific as some of the advertisements would have you believe. And unfortunately many say that all you have to do is type ads into a form on Google, and you'll earn x dollars per ad. The truth of the matter is,  you have to pay for the ads you place on Google, and not every ad you place will actually earn money. Because after placing the ads, people have to click on your ad and actually make some sort of purchase before you'll earn anything.

The actual process is a bit complicated and it takes quite awhile for most people to learn. If you're interested in understanding more about how this works, search the web for "Google AdWords" and you will find thousands of pages of information available about it. Do not however, pay for a service, book, job, or opportunity which claims you can make money doing "data entry" like this on Google, or any of the other online advertising sites for that matter.

Survey Jobs – There are also many places online where you can legitimately make money taking surveys and filling out opinion polls. The legitimate forms of these opportunities are few and far between, but many products and services want you to believe you can make hundreds of dollars each week online doing surveys… if you just pay them $49.95 first.

It is quite possible to be paid for doing surveys, and there are many sites you can sign up for online which give you the information for free. Usually however, you receive very few surveys to fill out regularly. In fact, getting just one each month is rare. There are also many places which will send you many surveys each month, but after spending 10-15 minutes or more filling out each one you find that you're not qualified for that survey, thus they aren't going to pay you anything for it.

Last but not least, there are sales letters which are designed to make you believe you can become a millionaire overnight, or claim to have the "secret" to making easy money with your computer, and so on and so forth. These claims are usually based on some level of truth, but they often leave out some critical details, or they gloss over the fact that it could take years to reach a certain income level.

For example, one money making opportunity may claim that you can make $1000 every day following their business model. What you may not realize however – and they don't always reveal – is they spent $995 to make that $1000. Or they were able to make $1000 once in the last 5 years.

You also need to be aware that many people will make claims, then provide "proof" of their claims with pictures of income screen shots or checks they've received. Be aware that it's very easy to edit pictures with software, so the amounts of money stated in those "proof" pictures may be, and often times is,  falsified.

Use common sense when looking for online businesses. If it looks too good to be true, it usually is.

Until next time,

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Ed

This is a favorite quote tossed around by most people when someone starts talking about starting or growing a business. And while this is definitely true for offline brick and mortar businesses, it's not always the case when you start a home business online.

It's important to understand something though. While you can start making money online without spending any money, success will come to you much more quickly if you DO spend a bit of money from the start.

Making money online without spending any money is very possible to do. In fact, hundreds of new people start doing so each and every day. When you start an online business from home with absolutely no money to invest however, you usually have to make up for the money shortage by investing a lot of time and effort.

The three primary ways of making money online with no money are all similar techniques and they often overlap in several ways.

1. Affiliate Marketing. As an affiliate marketer you can simply promote someone else's product and each time a sale is made through your promotional efforts, you earn money in the form of a sales commission.

Making money as an affiliate is an excellent way to get started without having to invest your own money, because you can take very simple promotional steps such as placing advertisements at free online classified sites. You can also set up a free website or blog and create content designed to attract people's interest in the product you're promoting.

If you have a knack for writing you can also create articles about the product or related to the product, and distribute those to various article sites around the web. There is no cost for distributing your articles as long as you follow the site's rules about what's allowed to be posted. With articles, you could start generating traffic and sales to the affiliate product, thereby earning a percentage of each sale in commissions.

2. Advertising Revenue.  Another excellent way to start making money online without spending any is by generating advertising revenue. Probably the easiest to start with is the Google AdSense program, but there are hundreds of other websites which will pay you to place advertising on your website. And sometimes you can even find companies who are willing to pay you for advertising space directly, but usually you have to have a popular website with a lot of visitors coming to it each day before this can happen.

Using ready made advertising systems such as the Google AdSense program allows you to start making money even when your website is still small, and your traffic levels are low. You can start completely free by using a site such as Blogger or Squidoo, and creating content around a specific topic.

Making money from advertisements is not usually a quick way to start making lots of money online. Because the amount of money you earn depends on how much traffic you can generate to a given website, this type of online money making generally starts slow and builds up over time with a lot of effort. You can make money the first day of getting started, but it's often just a few pennies at best. Putting the time and effort into this online business model can reap great rewards however, and eventually you may find yourself earning $50, $100, or even $200 or more every day.

3. Giving Things Away.  This method of making money online is quite popular, because you don't have to convince people to spend money in order to make money yourself. Instead, you offer people a free sample product, coupons, or even information such as car insurance quotes. Each time someone takes advantage of what you're offering, you'll earn a specific amount of money.

Using this technique is as easy and free as the previous ones mentioned. You can place advertisements at free classified sites, create free websites, and write articles to help get the word out about the item you're giving away.

You can make money without spending money in the online world, but be prepared to invest a lot of time to make it happen.

Until next time…

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Ed