Six Tips to Avoid the Random Con Game in Online Money

Since I started working with an online MLM here in Kenya retailing internet marketing tools including capture pages and autoresponder services, I have come in contact with extremely interesting aspects of the Kenyan psyche in relation to online money. There is a very unhealthy belief nationally imagining one can put in $10 online, go to sleep, and wake up in a week a millionaire.

Subsequently, the random con games find very healthy ground amongst Kenyans. It has nothing to do with poverty; it is more to do with the allure of the millionaire life without the corresponding hard work.

Affiliate Marketing, HYIPs and The ‘Quick Online Money’ Jargon

‘Fast money’ is either an overused marketing term or a con term. ‘Fast’ + ‘money’ are two words only used together in two distinct and different contexts and it is good to know
both. It’s either marketing vibe selling an honest product, but intending to rush you into a purchase or a term promoting a random con game. The official term for ‘fast money’ con games is High Yield Income Programs (HYIP). All HYIPs are illegal almost everywhere across the globe and are certainly illegal in Kenya. They also go by other names such as Pyramid Schemes, Ponzi Schemes, etc…

Here is what you need to know and the test to subject the next fine sounding program to in order to avoid the random con game or a HYIP using the lure of ‘fast money’.
1.    If they do not have a product or a clearly explained service on sale but offer quick returns on a small amount of money as initial investment, it is a con game.

2.    If they are dodgy on their service detail, it is a con game. ‘We sell forex in “secret” markets,’ is dodgy. It’s a cover-up. The NSE (Nairobi Stock Exchange) will tell you precisely where they bought and sold.  

3.    If results are only based on recruiting new members without any product in sight, it is a con game.

4.    There is only ONE purpose to the business — bring people/recruits, it’s a con game. So say if to get value for the money you paid you ask to use their product(s), well... hello... there is no product. Duh!

5.    If the managers, directors, owners, and players behind the business are shrouded in mystery, someone badly needs to keep their identity hidden because they are going to go under soon enough, and with people’s money no less.

6.    If the payments to majority of the members are through the roof in a short time without evidence of recurrent billing, someone is playing a con game. 

Let me explain recurrent billing and honest money a little bit. Real estate, banking, telecommunications, are all high income businesses. They all have one thing in common; you pay for the same thing over and over again.

You pay rent for the same house monthly. You pay bank maintenance fees, ATM charges, and other transaction charges each and every time. You pay for airtime every time you want to do the same activity — talk/text/browse, etc.
There is no added value to these products, but they have ‘repeated billing’.

Online, the most profitable site (and often a costly site structure to use), is a membership site or a site with recurrent billing. Many job sites in Kenya are membership sites. You pay to maintain an account. Many service sites have recurrent billing though optional in some. Elance, Freelancer, oDesk, as examples of freelancing services sites, all have premium services promising the paid user better services.

The legal money principle behind recurrent billing is important: recurrent billing means there is value delivered by the same product repeatedly to the client over and over again.  It also means there IS money being collected routinely to warrant routine payments.

Recurrent billing is the only legitimate money structure to support thousands being paid out on a site ‘fast’. The site sells the same value repeatedly, and commissions are paid out repeatedly on sales.
Can the program someone is currently promoting to you as a source of ‘fast money’ pass this test? Be warned!