7 Online Wealth-Building Methods to Avoid: The Ineffective Routes to Riches

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Fraudsters rush, pressure with greed, and take advantage of the fact that you can’t know everything, and easy money is sometimes real. But in the end, they only earn themselves. Here are several popular scams disguised as easy earnings on the internet.

Currency exchange

What is offered: earning on the exchange rate difference in cryptocurrency exchanges with the help of a special online service.

There are hundreds of exchange websites operating on the internet that offer buying or selling of cryptocurrencies for real money. The service allegedly scans these websites and finds “arbitrages”. For example, one exchange sells Bitcoin for $10,000 and another buys it for $11,000. If you buy 1 hypothetical Bitcoin in the first exchange and immediately sell it to the second exchange, you can make a profit of $1000.

According to the developers, the service performs automatic exchange and credits all profits from the transaction to the user’s account.

What’s the catch? The service offers the user to buy information about “forks”. After the purchase, the exchange supposedly takes place automatically, and the profit is credited to the wallet in the service. But all the profit from such operations is just numbers in the personal account. It is impossible to withdraw money: first they will ask to pay a commission, then a tax, then for opening an account, and so on ad infinitum.

Reselling abandoned websites

What is offered:Buying abandoned websites with a nice domain name on a special marketplace, and then reselling them for a higher price.

The scheme is similar to a scam involving exchange rate forks, but under a different guise. Supposedly, there are many websites on the internet that no one maintains anymore. You can buy them for several hundred rubles, and then sell them immediately for several thousand. Where the profit comes from and why buyers cannot purchase the necessary website ten times cheaper themselves, no one explains.

What’s the catch? Of course, no one will let you make a profit: first they will ask you to pay for installing an encrypted connection, then for opening a correspondent account and so on. Developers of such sites are so lazy that they indicate the reasons for refusal directly in the code of the site, and they can be viewed in the browser.

Virtual cryptocurrency mining

What is offered: Buy computing power on servers that mine cryptocurrency and receive passive income: without the cost of expensive equipment and organization of crypto farms, without the risk that these investments will not pay off.

Supposedly, the income depends on the miner’s speed, which is measured in megahashes per second (MH/s). The more speed the client buys, the more they will earn per hour of the miner’s work. For example, for $1, the speed will be 10 MH/s and the income will be $0.01 per hour.

What’s the catch? Buying power is easy: scammers offer a variety of payment methods, including cryptocurrency. But withdrawing money won’t work – scammers will deduct the profit from your account, say they sent a transfer, but you won’t receive anything.

Earnings on signals

What is offered: Buying and selling cryptocurrency or stocks based on a trader’s signal.

The scheme is more or less the same everywhere: the author creates a channel for inexperienced investors, writes about transactions that he supposedly makes, and newcomers copy them. If the stock goes up in price, the author is good and helps people make money.

The forecasts are made in such a way that subscribers are encouraged to buy the company’s stocks right now, rather than form a balanced opinion about it. The authors provide exact sums that subscribers will earn if they buy the stocks – and lose if they don’t. They also present arguments as to why the stocks should rise: analyst forecasts, information about insider purchases or sales, fundamental and technical factors.

What’s the catch? If you post many forecasts on the channel, some of them will inevitably be correct – you can refer to them in the future to demonstrate the effectiveness of the channel. As for unsuccessful deals, the author will either not talk about them or delete the failed forecast from the channel altogether.

And when someone manages to earn money on signals, people are thrilled and bring in acquaintances who also subscribe to the channel. If the channel is paid, the author gets more money for the subscription, if it is free – after a while, they start publishing ads. Or they will start selling their “author’s investment course”.

In addition, a channel with a large number of subscribers sometimes allows for manipulating the value of a stock. If at the time of the forecast it has low liquidity and a lot of buyers appear at once, it will sharply increase in price. This is called a “pump.”

For example, this is how “meme” stocks and second-third tier stocks are forced to grow, which have few buyers and sellers. The author can buy a stock before the forecast, and after the pump, sell it for a couple of percent more. Often, after anomalous demand, the stock price returns to its fair value, and those who bought stocks on the signal lose money.

Renting out a computer

What is offered: Rent out your laptop, computer or tablet for computing. To start, just open the website in your browser.

Similar services claim that they rent users’ screens to display advertisements on them. Allegedly, the project pays commissions for this – from a few dollars for each minute while the browser tab is open. No one is forced to watch ads: you can close the tab and do other things.

What’s the catch? As usually happens, in order to withdraw earnings, they will ask you to pay for verification, issuing a virtual card, and other nonsense. Of course, no one will pay the money.

Sports match forecasts

What is offered: Buy a sports match prediction, place the money and win the bet.

In Telegram channels, sports “experts” advertise their services. Supposedly, they carefully select sports events and know exactly which team will win and which will lose. And if you buy their forecast, you can earn decent money.

Some openly declare that they know about a fixed match and can guarantee earnings if you buy information from them.

What’s the catch? Forecasts are made up out of thin air, “experts” have no analytics or information about fixed matches. The chance of winning money is the same as if you were betting blindly yourself.

Some use a more insidious scheme. For example, they offer a free prediction for the match “Manchester United” – “Liverpool”. Half of the people are told that “Manchester United” will win, and the other half are told that “Liverpool” will win. They continue to work with the half that received the correct prediction: “See, we told you. Buy our paid prediction, and you will earn even more.”

Resale of promo codes

What is offered: Buy a coupon for a discount and exchange it for money.

Scammers describe a money-making scheme that looks like buying three dollars for two dollars. First, a person allegedly buys a discount coupon in an online store on a special service. He then exchanges the received code for money in an exchange office with a particularly favorable rate. He repeats the operation 10 times and earns up to 700 rubles per hour.

What’s the catch? You cannot use the purchased coupon in the actual online store, only exchange it in an exchange office owned by the author of the scheme. It is also possible to withdraw money from the exchange office.

A universal way to recognize scams with part-time work

If at the beginning of work, you are asked to pay for something, it’s a scam. There are exceptions, but it’s very rare: a real employer can always deduct any expenses from your salary.

Therefore, if someone tries to persuade you that your time has come to become successful and rich, look at them sternly and say, “Only after you.”

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