Paid To Click (PTC)

Paid to Click! Thousands of money hungry, desperate people are flocking to these sites to sign up thinking that they are going to make lots of money by doing virtually nothing. They couldn't be more wrong.

For those people who are unaware of this concept let me briefly explain how it works, although it is pretty self explanatory.


Basically your are paid to click on an advert!


Explanation over!

Sounds great doesn't it? What could be easier? Sitting in the comfort of your own home, sipping a cup of tea (or something a little stronger), whilst happily clicking your mouse and making money whilst doing it!


Unfortunately it's not as great as it sounds. Many of the online PTC sites have one thing in common, they either work for or own the site ads you are paid to click. So why are they paying you to click them? Because they want you to buy whatever it is they are offering, and mostly what they are offering are scams.


Many of the sites operate in the same way. You sign up to the site. They publish a list of several (usually about 12 or so) sites/ads to click on.


You are obliged to stay on the site for at least 20 or 30 seconds. This is to ensure that you see whats on offer and start to read, hopefully then buying the scam. The scams are normally get rich quick schemes or something along those lines. You are also only allowed to click on an ad once per day. That's to stop you earning too much money too quickly.


For this you are paid...wait for it...about 1c per click. However, in the kindness of their hearts they will offer other clickers for you to buy or rent of which you will receive a percentage of their earnings. As discussed on my Scams blog post, if you have to pay for anything, alarm bells should be ringing.


So lets think about this. Let's assume that you have registered with one of these sites. Just how much money will you make and how long will it take?


As previously stated many of these sites will have on average 12 or so ads. So you click all of them and you have earned 12c and it has taken you 6 minutes to do this. I'm sure some of you are thinking "So what? Any free money is good" and you would be right to think that but nothing is ever that simple. All sites that give you money have their terms and conditions, and the rules of these sites are that you have to earn (on average) $75 before you can claim your money. For those of you without a calculator, that means that it will take you 625 days before you see your money. Would anyone really spend that long waiting and clicking? Probably not, and most don't so they give in. But that's fine for the scam merchants because they don't have to pay anything and in the meantime have probably made money from you if you were seduced into buying into the scam.


Now there are a lot of forums and social networking sites where people have raved about these sites - the 'professional clickers' as they would like to be known. They will tell you how much money they have earned, how many other clickers they have bought or rented and how great their affiliate site is. The chances are that they are just trying to get you hooked so that they can earn a 25c referal fee. OK, so if that works, they will reach their payout target a little sooner but not much really. What many clickers do is to sign up with several different PTC sites thinking this will boost their earnings and of course, that makes sense. If your signed up to 10 sites, your earnings increse 10 fold. $750 at the end of two years sounds a little more inviting and you would be tempted to stick around for that length of time in the knowledge that just a few minutes each day would perhaps pay for a holiday or new TV in a couple of years. And that would be where you are wrong. Back to the terms and conditions. All of these sites have the same rules.


They can suspend your account at anytime without prior warning or explanation!


Go and have a look at some of the forums where people discuss their HUGE earnings. Check out how many of them complain that their accounts have been stopped or even those who SHOULD have been paid but never were.


Do you want to spend two years of your life clicking just to suddenly find you have been wasting your time?


My advice to anyone even contemplating joining one of these schemes is DON'T BOTHER! No matter how inviting it may sound. No matter if your best friend tells you how great they are. No matter what kind of great reviews you may read. You are WASTING YOUR TIME.


There are more inviting and genuine ways to make money online such as affiliate programs and online surveys. If you are serious about supplementing your income in your spare time then these are really the two best ways to go.