Dr. Phil Where Are You? Are You Getting Paid to Read Your Email?
Wow, it's been a wild week or so in the 'Get Paid World' the last week or so. I won't go into a huge amount of detail because if you're involved in PTR stuff, then you probably already know, and if you're not, you're not likely to give a damn.
First came a new PTR called Spare-Dollars (Google it if you care, I don't want to link to 'em). New PTRs open up all the time, and there's nothing particularly special about this one, except the owner. A while back, she was indirectly involved in one of the biggest PTR scams ever. The original owner of April Gold's gave the whole PTR away to some schmuck, and walked away without paying her members over $700,000 they'd earned.
Not that April ran off with the $700,000. It was all 'monopoly money'. It was never real. She'd sell ads to people for next to nothing, then send them to her members promising them 2 or 3 cents each, and in the end there was NO FREAKING WAY she could pay up! What a surprise, huh? So she dumped the program and moved on. Last I heard she was a check-out chick at Walgreens or something.
But it doesn't end there. She had a whole posse of 'helpers' and 'assistants' and forum moderators who were all part of her Team, and when she ran off, a lot of the old team kept in contact, with her and with each other. And eventually, their personal relationships became business relationships as well. They began to open their own PTRs. And to get positions as forum moderators at some of the bigger PTR-related forums.
So I see this new PTR and I'm thinking to myself, 'Hang on, you were either in on the scam with April, or you were dumb enough to let her use you to keep her scam going as long as she did. Either way, I'm not so sure people ought to trust you and join your PTR.' So I started taking a closer look at it, asking some questions, and lemme tell ya, all HELL broke loose!
And the second big bombshell this week has to do with the collapse of a program called YourPTR. Now, this should've come as no surprise to anybody, but there always seem to be people who just don't get it. Sadly, it happens far too often. Turns out the woman running it didn't really know what she was doing, had all kinds of personal issues, and probably would've been better on the set of Jerry Springer than she was trying to run a PTR.
So anyway, the program website disappears, nobody can get in touch with the owner, her PayPal account is frozen, blah blah blah when after a couple days of people starting to get the idea that Lisa has flown the coop, somebody spots her putting money into a bubble game. So it becomes clear that while Lisa has run off owing her members a heap of money, she's more interested in playing bubble games with it. So that gets posted at GetPaidForum and then a message is posted, supposedly by her dear friend, to say that she is the one using Lisa's E-Gold account to 'invest' in the bubble games in hopes of making more cash to use to pay for Lisa's funeral!
Yes, the story is that Lisa, totally distraught over the fact that her PTR is in the toilet and she's let all her members down, has taken her own life, leaving behind a husband and four kids living in a travel trailer somewhere in Oregon.
So the PTR amateur detectives went into action! They called the only funeral home in the town where Lisa had allegedly lived. Nope, no funeral. They called the local police. No, no reported suicides. Yes, she had been evicted from her house, but they had no address for her and didn't have any idea where this travel trailer might be located. And on and on. People were outraged! Heartbroken! Some had to share their 'You think that's depression? Lemme tell you how depressed I was after my 3rd divorce!' stories. It was like an episode of Springer, Oprah and Dr. Phil all rolled into one!
First came a new PTR called Spare-Dollars (Google it if you care, I don't want to link to 'em). New PTRs open up all the time, and there's nothing particularly special about this one, except the owner. A while back, she was indirectly involved in one of the biggest PTR scams ever. The original owner of April Gold's gave the whole PTR away to some schmuck, and walked away without paying her members over $700,000 they'd earned.
Not that April ran off with the $700,000. It was all 'monopoly money'. It was never real. She'd sell ads to people for next to nothing, then send them to her members promising them 2 or 3 cents each, and in the end there was NO FREAKING WAY she could pay up! What a surprise, huh? So she dumped the program and moved on. Last I heard she was a check-out chick at Walgreens or something.
But it doesn't end there. She had a whole posse of 'helpers' and 'assistants' and forum moderators who were all part of her Team, and when she ran off, a lot of the old team kept in contact, with her and with each other. And eventually, their personal relationships became business relationships as well. They began to open their own PTRs. And to get positions as forum moderators at some of the bigger PTR-related forums.
So I see this new PTR and I'm thinking to myself, 'Hang on, you were either in on the scam with April, or you were dumb enough to let her use you to keep her scam going as long as she did. Either way, I'm not so sure people ought to trust you and join your PTR.' So I started taking a closer look at it, asking some questions, and lemme tell ya, all HELL broke loose!
And the second big bombshell this week has to do with the collapse of a program called YourPTR. Now, this should've come as no surprise to anybody, but there always seem to be people who just don't get it. Sadly, it happens far too often. Turns out the woman running it didn't really know what she was doing, had all kinds of personal issues, and probably would've been better on the set of Jerry Springer than she was trying to run a PTR.
So anyway, the program website disappears, nobody can get in touch with the owner, her PayPal account is frozen, blah blah blah when after a couple days of people starting to get the idea that Lisa has flown the coop, somebody spots her putting money into a bubble game. So it becomes clear that while Lisa has run off owing her members a heap of money, she's more interested in playing bubble games with it. So that gets posted at GetPaidForum and then a message is posted, supposedly by her dear friend, to say that she is the one using Lisa's E-Gold account to 'invest' in the bubble games in hopes of making more cash to use to pay for Lisa's funeral!
Yes, the story is that Lisa, totally distraught over the fact that her PTR is in the toilet and she's let all her members down, has taken her own life, leaving behind a husband and four kids living in a travel trailer somewhere in Oregon.
So the PTR amateur detectives went into action! They called the only funeral home in the town where Lisa had allegedly lived. Nope, no funeral. They called the local police. No, no reported suicides. Yes, she had been evicted from her house, but they had no address for her and didn't have any idea where this travel trailer might be located. And on and on. People were outraged! Heartbroken! Some had to share their 'You think that's depression? Lemme tell you how depressed I was after my 3rd divorce!' stories. It was like an episode of Springer, Oprah and Dr. Phil all rolled into one!
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