AcePTC Temporarily Closed & Notes About Other PTCs

I had not yet reviewed this site here, but I joined as a member of AcePTC not too long ago through another online money blogger. I had noticed a week or two ago the site was down due to hacking problems, and now swung by there this weekend only to find this message on the site:

Following a hack of our site and some mistake by our manager Darren we cannot operate AcePTC to this standard we have before.

I am sorry to members for this but i must close this site for maybe 3 months until i can come back to england and fix this.

I will send e mail to everyone when i am open again. I think this will be in January. Marek K.

So, disappointing to see once yet again in the PTC world and who knows, maybe it will return.

I am still smarting a little over ClixMX's closing and the way the site owner handled that one. I had just shortly before that noticed I was doing pretty well over there and was considering upgrading (and probably would have if they had offered monthly subscriptions as an option instead of only yearly), and had made the cashout minimum and had around $11-12, and then the site owner announced the closing and stating they would not pay free members. Dude can say he's not a scammer all he wants (which he said), but if you refuse to pay people who have participated on your site in good faith and change your TOS only when you decide to close at the drop of a hat - you're a scammer, all right. I don't know about you guys, but the way things are going these days with the economy, $11 or $12 sometimes means the difference whether I eat more than three or four days a week or not. I generally only eat a meal once a day, but still - that $11 or $12 could have probably lasted me two weeks, certainly one week . So yeah, whether the owner wants to admit it or not, ClixMX turned out to be a scam in the end. That whole closing thing was just handled really poorly, in my opinion.

And then there's the long list of those that were great but changed their terms to something not too great, as well as the ones that have disappeared or gone down for indeterminate lengths of time and never come back.

In any case, it's certainly no wonder I am hesitant these days to join any new PTCs, and don't spend as much time or effort on some as I do the ones that are tried & true, and established and not going anywhere (WordLinx, ClixSense, LinkGrand, Clicksia), or ones that were recommended by those whose opinions I respect or are owned by people I trust (Clix N' Cash, SandraClicks, PT Clickers, Click 4 More Ads, or DealBarbieDollarClick and ReadersPond, which are multifunctional but have great PTC).

I also am pretty pleased with how well AdverBux has improved lately with offering more ads and site remodeling, and am still there daily or almost. I don't do a lot of "bux" sites, but this one has been a good one for me and it's different from many of the others, in a good way.

I still feel pretty secure, for now, about Financial Freedom Ads at this point, though a recent message from the site owner about the tentative future of the site was a little disturbing and it has a reputation for slow payments. But on the other hand, the site owner has also lowered upgrade fees to a level more in line with other established PTCs ($10 a year and up), which may further improve things there and keep it sustainable so we'll see. After Christmas, I may spring for the upgrade and see how it goes.

PTCs are great and certainly probably the easiest way to make money online via this industry, though slower to build a balance, but it's certainly not been historically the most reliable sector of the GPT/PTR/PTC industry. The saying "don't spend more than you can afford to lose" is always a good one to stand by when it comes to upgrades and such - because, of course, EVERYBODY wants you to upgrade or invest otherwise - but we all know for most of us there's only so much extra money to go around to spend.

So if you stick with the tried and true and established, or otherwise trustworthy, and invest wisely when it comes to upgrades & referrals, you should be all right when it comes to PTCs. WordLinx and ClixSense aren't going anywhere, and their $10 upgrades for an entire year - that's a no-brainer. You will make so much more money both places if upgrades, and you will most definitely get paid again and again.

If you're interested in getting into buying and renting referrals, Jessica has a lot of good experience to share about the various PTC sites that offer those options.

Me, I'm mainly sticking with the tried & true and the ones I feel secure about for now, and carefully watching what others say about their experiences with other PTCs before I check out new (to me) ones. The PTC industry has become so tentative lately and things change so much all over from month to month, maybe I will just start posting a "PTC Hall of Fame" post every month or something like that to keep up with which ones I still feel good about recommending; I still need to do some housecleaning here on the site regarding a couple I am no longer really recommending.

In any case, everyone loves PTCs - they're SO easy to earn money with, compared to the more time-consuming offer sites, and SO easy to earn with, just like the paid mail/PTR sites that I love and work daily (MatrixMails, Hits4Pay, DealsNCash, ReadersPond, AdPaid, EasyAdBucks, Take the Internet Back, DonkeyMails, No-Minimum, Fishing4Mails).

But you definitely have to stay alert on the buzz with PTCs and be prepared somewhat for anything to happen. As I said, stick with some of the tried & true, established, and otherwise trustworthy like the ones I listed above, upgrade & invest wisely, and you'll probably see a regular profit.

Others - be prepared for anything until proven and established, I'd have to say at this point.
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Got Paid Update #32 - CravingCash

As I said a couple of weeks or so ago, I love being able to report a payment received from a site that's never paid me before, and I have a second one to report for November - this week I received a payment of $15.47 from CravingCash!

Don't forget that Sunday (the 30th) is the end of the month for this month, so don't forget to cashout wherever you are eligible for November!

Hope everyone in the U.S. had a great Thanksgiving holiday and see you next week!

HoneyBeePoints & Clicks Not Closing

Just checked my e-mail and contrary to previously reported info, HoneyBeePoints & Clicks will NOT be closing after November 30th (though MyCashHoney still is closing). The site owner reported she is selling HoneyBeePoints & Clicks to someone she trusts and the site will continue on after November. So that's good news!

I also failed to note back in October that HoneyBeePoints & Clicks began accepting Canadian members.

One of these days I will get some housecleaning done here at the Guide, but at least this is one site info I won't have to change much in any case!

Got Paid Update #31 - MatrixMails

And yet another payment this week, this time another payment from long-term and well-established site MatrixMails for $10.35.

I have really been pleased with the Gold Lifetime with matrix upgrade at MatrixMails. For months my balance was hovering in cents, so it has just been fabulous to see it consistently increasing thanks to the many benefits you get with the upgrade (most especially 4 cent paid mails, but many more cool perks as well). At one time I thought I would never make enough money there to warrant cashing out, and now I've been paid twice by them and the balance just keeps increasing. So that's really great.

Everyone have a great weekend!

Got Paid Update #30 - ReadersPond

Happy to report I received another automatic payment the other day from ReadersPond ($1.08). As yet I have still never requested a payment here, the admin makes random mass payouts at this time, so right now it's kind of like Christmas - open up my email box and surprise, there's another payment!

PTC ads are pretty consistent daily, paid mails have been flowing regularly, and recently paid offers were added to the site, so now you can increase your balance there by doing offers. ReadersPond has a low $4 cashout to free members (tadpoles) and even lower cashouts for upgraded members.

Check it out today!

MyCashHoney & HoneyBeePoints Closing

I'm a few days late to this news, but very sorry to report that two of my favorite sites (with the same owner), MyCashHoney and HoneyBeePoints & Clicks, will be closing at the end of this month. Trivia, offers, & ads will be taken down on December 1st, but the site will remain open through the beginning of January for people to process their cashouts and contact the admin if need be.

The minimum cashout will be lowered to $0 for PayPal and $5 for gift cards on both sites. If you are not able to use PayPal, contact the admin and she will work something out with you.

Now THIS is the way to honorably close a site, rather than the questionable (and in some cases rather despicable) way some site owners have chosen to handle shutting down their sites. But then as I said, these two have always been two of my favorite sites and I have a great deal of respect for Roberta, and I wouldn't have expected her to handle it any other way but honorably. In any case, very sad to see these two sites go and will miss them.

* Thanks to My Online Money and Making Some Dough for the heads up about the sites closing - I got the email too, but goodness only knows when I would have gotten around to seeing it with 12K backed up emails in my box!

Got Paid Update #29 - Hits4Pay

I love to be able to report I've been paid by a program I've never been paid by before, so today I'm thrilled to report I received my first payment of $26.79 from Hits4Pay this week!

Hits4Pay is awesome. It is purely paid email ads, and you are paid $0.02 per ad and $0.01 for each ad viewed by your two levels of referrals. It can take a while to build up a balance, but if you have the ability to get people signed up under you that participate - not so long!

They generally have a pretty good amount of ads weekly, and good ones - I actually have purchased a couple of Christmas gifts this year via ads read on Hits4Pay and its sister site owned by the same company, Deals'n'Cash.

They also offer a $10 signup bonus at Hits4Pay and a $5 signup bonus at Deals'n'Cash to get you started - sweet!

The payment process is so easy too that you could do it in your sleep - no requesting! Every month that your balance is $25 or more, they will automatically zero out your account and you are paid via PayPal, usually around the 15th to 18th of the following month (I was paid on the 18th).

One note about this because it's a little unusual and not many programs do this at registration - you do have to enter your tax ID information (if you live in the U.S.) when registering at Hits4Pay and Deals'n'Cash in order to fully register your account. However, it's an established company that's been around a long time and that shouldn't be worrisome, and if you want to participate and get paid, it is a requirement.

And the good news is they DO pay! So if you're not signed up for Hits4Pay and Deals'n'Cash, take a few minutes and sign up today and start reading your emails every day or week.

After all - it's free money!

Got Paid Update #28 - Gomez PEER

Happy to report another payment received today for $6.51 from Gomez PEER! I'm not quite up to getting paid every month by them, but I think in time this will grow to an extra $5 or more per month.

If you're interested in checking out how to make money with Gomez, please see this older post with more detailed information about the PEER. It's a really cool way to earn some extra cash without ANY effort (once you've registered, downloaded & installed it anyway) and I swear, once again, you'll never even notice it's there once it's up and running!

Another Catch-All Post for the Best Online Moneymaking Opportunities

Hiya! I don't have any real news to post and am still waiting on November payments I can report to start coming in, but I do have a friend who was wanting to drop by and check out some ways to earn cash online, and while I have all my favorite GPT/PTC/PTR sites in my Favorites category and such, I wanted to re-highlight some opportunities up top for her to check out... and maybe if you haven't checked into some of these, you'll want to too!

First off is one of my very favorite places in the world on the Web, Marketing Pond... a portal to free money that's just out there and available, as well as a couple of other very inexpensive moneymaking opportunities:




Then there's my other primary online money activity nowadays, Viral Pond... two opportunities for continuing and growing residual income that are each less than the cost of one pizza per month... and (through one of the included opportunities) access to a humongous database of freebies that's updated daily:



Then there's WorkFor3Dollars, where I've already been paid back my initial investment of $3 and some change & it really DOES work. You can set up as many accounts with this program as you want (I have two, banners to both accounts below), the potential is really great to bring in some income with this program, and some of the 'Net's best money gurus have endorsed it and are members. And it's all of a whole whopping $3 and a little change to join:







Then if I was new & looking to bring in more money, I'd be looking into the following. I'm not going to include some favorites I would otherwise here because they are included in the Marketing Pond suite of free money places (like ClixSense, WordLinx, LinkGrand, MatrixMails, Hits4Pay, DealsnCash, etc.), but here are the others that are my "standbys" besides those, most of which I have been able to report here on the site I have been paid by...


Paid Mail sites - along with Hits4Pay & DealsnCash (both included in Marketing Pond), I would add Take the Internet Back (read a few emails or less a day, sign up two people under you, & you not only make money but get ownership in the company - it's in the contract!):



Paid to Click ads sites - along with ClixSense, WordLinx, LinkGrand and anything else already in Marketing Pond, I would include Financial Freedom Ads:




Ones that have other stuff (along with MatrixMails & InboxDollars, which are in Marketing Pond), but I mainly do the paid mails and paid ads at these:

AdPaid:




SendEarnings:




And last but not least of course, there's all my favorite GPT ("paid to do offers") sites besides the ones already listed in the Marketing Pond suite:.

BankRollBucks:

GetCashDollars:

Rhino Riches:




Ozzys Direct Pay:

Cartoon-Clicks:

FusionCash:




And of course, you can also do one more thing and apply to become a Gomez PEER, where they test websites in the background of your computer when it's on, using resources you don't even use, and I swear you will never notice it running or bothering anything you do (it may take a few weeks or months to get from pending to active status tho, so just download it and leave it running):




PS - There's also the Survey Sites That Really DO Pay - don't forget those - they can be a little more time-consuming though.

So there you go - Dr. Miss Money Hunter's prescription for online moneymaking, LOL!

Have a great rest of your week and if I have anything exciting to report again, I'll be posting before the weekend's here for sure!

Got Paid Update #27 - WorkFor3Dollars

On a much, much, MUCH happier note than the previous post, I totally blanked on this when it happened and forgot to post it at the time, but I am thrilled to report my first payment from WorkFor3Dollars, which I received on October 18th.

They make periodic automatic payouts unless you upgrade ($10, which I haven't done but probably will as soon as I am able) - if you upgrade then you can choose at what amount you want to receive payment (since AlertPay takes a bit out of each payment), as well as receiving a commission when others upgrade under you and some other goodies.

The initial cost increased a little bit - last I heard, $3.40 - but that's still cheap, and it really does work, and you really DO GET PAID! Which is, of course, the important part. ;)

I know you've seen it around, and now's a good time to check it out while it's still fairly early. And it PAYS. That's what I like best, of course.

ClixMX Closing - No Payment to Standard Members

ClixMX has been one of my favorite PTC sites - I liked the layout (both old and new), it was uncluttered and generally easy to work with, and I'd been seeing some nice upswing there lately and was rather pleased about how things were going over there. If there had been any option at ClixMX for a Premium membership besides yearly (which I just couldn't afford at this time), I probably would have upgraded already, but I certainly had it in mind anyway for the future.

Like many PTC sites lately, it had suffered an extended outage after DDOS attacks, but came back remodeled and with some neat stuff, and I was looking forward to down the road. I didn't realize it was open again for quite a while after having checked many times and finding it still down - which was probably true of a lot of people - but I'd been back and was actually planning to cashout my measly (to anyone else maybe, tho not to me) $11 or $12 last night while I was getting organized everywhere else. And was actually kind of excited about it, as I often am about the prospect of being able to say a site that's never paid me before has paid me.

Well, guess that serves me right for planning, because when I went over there, I found this (see bold text for the particularly interesting parts of this news):

Important Announcement

I have a lot of things to tell you, but I will try to keep this short.

After the last couple of attacks (that you already know about) the site suffered a lot of damage. Many members lost trust in the site (and me), we had to invest in more security, we lost almost two weeks of ads and purchases, etc. I have tried my best this last two weeks to keep the site alive. I had to reinvest all the money we had got from the site and put $10,000.00 of my own money to keep paying and maintaining the site.

Unfortunately things didn't go quite as planned. Even though some members did help us by buying referrals or memberships (and I thank you all), sales were really low. Ad visits were very poor too, many members requested payment and stop clicking. The last few days we had over 10 ads for free members, and the average clicks per user a day was 3. We also lost many members. I am not sure if it was due to the lack of trust or to the new anti-cheat locks we added, but out of the 165,000+ active members we had before the last attack, only a little over 19,000 have returned and are active. To top it off, we had almost $100,000.00 in pending payments and we got chargeback's for almost $2,000.

For all of the above, I have decided to close the site.

I am a business man, I have my own offline business, so I know that sometime it is necessary to make a decision like this one. This is the last thing I wanted to do, but I already spent 250% more than our original budget, and got no profit. Most of that was spent in the last two weeks, and I can not keep spending money like this. This was not a easy decision to make, but I did consider all the options I had (including that poll at the forum). The PTC model is very good and it can be extremely profitable for owners and members, but at this time we have come to a point where drastic measures are necessary.

What is going to happen now?

Well, first of all I am not a scammer. I will send payments to all people who invested in the site. I know lots of standard members will complaint, but I believe that is the fairest thing to do. Payments will take sometime as I will have to use my own money (my offline business), but they will all be sent. I will include in this page a little login box where you will be able to know if you are eligible for payment. That box will be ready on Monday (I hope) as I have to review the accounts, but for now I will tell you the criteria I will use.

To be eligible for payment you...

* Must have logged in after Oct 16th and created a PIN, members that did not comeback are consider inactive and wont be paid.
* Must have invested in the site (bought referrals or premium membership).
* Did not get your investment back. If you made a profit or got your investment back, you will not be paid.

I can not tell you how long it will take to send all payments because I don't know how much money will be paid. I will have an idea on Monday.

I know how frustrated you must be (I am a member of other PTCs). I am also frustrated, angry and sad. I will open the forum again tomorrow so you can send you insults there. Please avoid sending me email as I will not be answering anything before Monday. The amount you will be paid (if you will be paid at all) will be ready then, just wait a couple of days.

This is the lastthing I wanted, and I can not apologize enough to those who trusted the site, but that's business.

Thank you,

Jose Manuel
ClixMX Admin

I'll probably have more to say about this next week, but suffice it to say I think I'm pretty much done with wasting time and effort on sites that make decisions like this about not paying free members, whether it's a site that's closing or not. Why should I spend my time clicking for months under the assumption I will get paid for it eventually - or why should I bring referrals somewhere under the same presumption - when things like this happen?

I think some of the PTC owners also need to realize that some of their free members may not have made a direct investment in the site with premium memberships or buying referrals (and again, if ClixMX had offered an option besides an entire year Premium membership, I probably would have bought a monthly or whatever) - but many of them have probably invested indirectly in buying advertising elsewhere to promote the site. I certainly did, as well as promoting plenty here, so statements like in the above just kinda burn me up.

Though the GPT/PTR side of things has it's own set of problems, it's nothing like what the PTC world is undergoing lately. I think, for the time being anyway, I'll be putting most of my efforts into GPT/PTR and PTC will just be one of those things that I will (A) not be signing up for too many new ones, (B) won't fool with when I don't have plenty of spare time, and (C) certainly won't be promoting ANY much without a cautionary word in the future.

Which is kinda sad, because I was going to do a post next week about all the PTCs I have joined lately that I haven't had time to list separately, but that list is getting smaller and smaller as time goes on anyway. Certainly won't be without a word of warning if I do.

In any case, again, probably have more to say about this next week but anyway, there ya go. Another one bites the dust and it's very disappointing to see the decisions made in its wake.

It'd be nice to be able to come back in a week or two and tell you some or all of the decisions were reversed, but I'm not holding my breath.

And Now It's November!

I know, I know, it's Saturday and I don't usually post on Saturday, but I had some news and plus I'm just trying to get back in the swing of things. October was just such a horrible month and I hated being away from here and the online money world so much, but sometimes offline life and especially family issues and crises have to take priority... and I didn't really have any choice in the priority part, unfortunately!

Anyway, let's see how November goes... there's already news and other stuff, so stay tuned a minute, I've got some more for ya (LOL).

I also am totally serious about reorganizing some stuff here on the site to hopefully make it easier and faster for everybody looking for whatever, no matter what they're looking for, so that's coming too. Now onto news...