I was just reading on TechCrunch about a scam called Bux.to that looks poised to fold. Members are complaining that they are not being paid the money they’ve earned. The site shows some comments from supposed members who say they’ve been paid, but it’s sketchy whether or not that’s real.

Bux.to is your typical Ponzi Scheme (or pyramid scheme, if you prefer). The scheme offers you one cent each time you watch a 30-second advertisement. You also get one cent each time someone you recruit into the scheme watches a 30-second advertisement.

Basic math leads us to the first hint that this might be a pyramid scheme. You could watch a maximum of 120 ads in an hour, netting you $1.20. Not exactly a living wage. So it’s made abundantly clear that the only way you could really make money in the scam is through recruiting others to watch ads. But can you imagine how many people you’d need to recruit and how many ads they’d need to watch in order for you to make any money? Laughable!

This scam is so silly! And they’re offering sign-up bonuses of five cents. Hello!

This isn’t the first “get paid to surf” scam that has left members hanging without their payments. This type of scam is simply one of those “if it sounds too good to be true…” kind of things. Legitimate advertisers aren’t interested in running ads that are just viewed by people who are getting paid to sit there and look at web pages.

2 Comments

  1. quixtarisacult 04/09/2008 at 12:16 am - Reply

    Tracy…

    There seems to be a theme to all cons, scams and schemes. The theme is that in the end, there is not the expected pay off. This occurs in pyramid scheme types businesses like Quixtar/Amway as well as these penny anti pay per view online scams. Whether a scam is big or small, they leave victims asking: Where’s the beef?

  2. michael webster 04/10/2008 at 8:15 pm - Reply

    This is actually a money transfer/laundering scheme, much like 12Daily Pro.

    If there is a receiver put in place, he/she will find that many people in an odd “lost” money to people in North American – who cannot be found.

    Or vice versa.

    Using the internet, these shady processors can transfer a number of small insignificant amounts of money, quickly and aggregate them to a single account.

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