Is Paid to surf another Ponzi?

There have been a number of high profile paid to surf venues go bust in 2005 and many have begun to write the entire industry off as a scam or ponzi.

Paid to surf is a business. And, like any other business on or offline, is only as good as the owners who run and manage it. It is easy to throw up a site, run a lot of hype, offer a lot of smoke and mirrors to entice members to your site. It is hard - really hard - to make the show actually RUN.

As most of us have no control or say over what an owner does, we can only judge a site on it’s ACTUAL performance. When I say this, I mean REAL performance: not what the program owner tells you.

I want to use three recent examples in which what the sites owners TOLD the members and ADVERTISED to the public were exactly the OPPOSITE of what the actual, real performance was:

1. http://www.cashitz.com/
The owner claimed to have (at one point) over 20,000 members and to make 100% guaranteed payouts to members 100% of the time. Actual performance proved otherwise. Research showed the program to have in fact stopped paying all the members about 6 months or longer before it was finally shut down. There never was any real proof the site had anywhere near the members it claimed.

Also, the site never existed as a paid to surf site for all the time they advertised. It had actually been some kind of adult-related site that promoted itself as a gay-lesbian cross-dressing kind of thing. Go figure that one. Incidentally, it has been reported that Paul and Penny Westhead were arrested by Blackpool Police on many charges - including fraud.
This site was banned by practically every legitimate traffic venue on the planet. Site is Missing In Action.

2. http://www.4daily.com/
This program claims to have over 200,000 members and to have paid out over $4 million to the members. Yet, the owner recently closed the site, wiped out every members earnings and compounds and then reopened it as the Revitalized 4daily.com. There is no proof that there really are 200k LIVING members. Nor, is there any solid facts on the $4 mil payout.
As in cashitz, the owner - Jim Hunt aka Kevin Hewitt - claims to pay ALL his members 100% of the time. Research on this site shows this to be a false statement. Research also shows he was the owner of a site that people still refer to as a classic scam http://www.cashits.com

4Daily is in the process of being banned by traffic venues and panned by all the forums, blogs and watchdog sites. Site continues to operate as business as usual.

3. http://www.6daily.com/
Not paying members for months, no communications with members. A review of the whois shows a Texas address with a foreign telephone number and a free email account. Most likely bogus from the very beginning.

In the process of being banned on the Traffic Exchanges. Site is Missing In Action.

So, there are bad apples everywhere. You find them offline as well. Does this make the ENTIRE industry rotten? Of course not. It DOES make the caveat

Buyer Beware a good policy when deciding for yourself whether or not to invest in a site.

It is important that YOU do the research before and even DURING your stay with a company. Past performance is never a guarantee for present or future performance. And, you simply cannot trust anyone to tell you the truth about their venue. Find out for yourself and then invest with caution.

So is Paid to surf another Ponzi? Not as an entire industry. Individual owners can turn it into one. However many individual owners can - and do - run great venues that offer valid products, marketing and even the opportunity to earn a little extra cash. You just have to do your homework before and during your stay with any program.

- Cherie Halliday