My entry - Inuke's Blog Writing Contest #2: Beware of Scammers

Inuke's Blog Writing Contest #2: Beware of Scammers

Please refer to the above link if you want to participate or read and promote @inuke

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Have I been scammed?

Well, to be honest. Yes. It is a regret that I still have.

In the early days of the internet, when many people were first introduced to 'earning sites' that would pay real money for doing stuff online, a lot of us fell for such scams.

Before the advent of Jio, the only internet service provider in my area was BSNL. The only 'free' time was from early 2 am to 5 am in the morning. So, many of us forgot the sleep schedule and started to 'work online' or search for such websites that would pay.

Trust me, I have signed up for nearly a million websites in the trial and error phase and although I did not lose money, I lost my near-perfect mTurk account and hundreds of articles that I wrote for a website named Factoids - now Knoji.

How it all happened, I will relate.

It was the year 2010. I had tried blogging on google's blogger and tried so many ways to monetize it. I even got AdSense approved but they soon canceled it stating I had fewer views. I then tried Ezine which was an article writing site where your blog would be published but they made the money and you got a kick of your blog being published and nothing more.

Afterward, I joined for mTurk from amazon which pays peanuts for doing small tasks and I was quite happy with the few dollars that I made there until I got a mail that said I need to re-verify my account details on mTurk. I did check back and nothing seemed fishy. I went on to re-verify my address and details and thus said goodbye to my mTurk account which is very hard to accomplish.

After a lot of attempts to try and contact amazon through emails and Twitter messages, I realized that only my mTurk account had disappeared but also my Amazon account and Prime membership balance too. it was a real blow but soon after I discovered the blockchain and I am now here. It is true that I made more than what I got on mTurk but the feeling of losing your hard work is really bad and I hope this is a lesson to all to not click any email links. Wise men learn from the mistakes of others.

My second experience was losing my articles to a fraudster website owner. Factoidz was a very good article website and if an article gets published there, it was a matter of pride among us writers who also had a group on Facebook.
So, there were many of us who wrote there and earned peanuts of course but we were happy. Then, one day, the management changed and it turned to 'knoji' and a lot of coupon codes stuff and so on. I did write a few and before we could say 1,2,3, the website blocked all writers, closed the program, and continued to get paid from Adsense for the thousands of articles there. Many of us wrote and complained to Google but they could care less.

I wish such scams would stop. It is disgusting that many from my own country indulge in such behavior and the rest of us are punished but life is like that and we should always be wary of anyone who tries to 'sweet talk' into such stuff. Think twice before investing in new projects even if they seem to attract celebrities or big names or people with fat wallets.

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We need a cyber dog to protect our stuff online. What do you think?

Thanks to @inuke for bringing up this topic. Feel free to visit his contest blog and maybe sponsor prizes.

Written by me, Sayee. ©
Images are sourced.