Is Twitter Profit House a Scam?

The landing page isn’t much to look at. There’s a bunch of text making claims that users have gone from not know what Twitter was to making $9,000 using it within the first month of being a member at Twitter Profit House. There’s some talk of filling out online forms and getting paid to do so. It sounds like your typical data entry/rebate processing/affiliate marketing scam. How they work Twitter into it, I’ll never know. I can’t speak much for the actual content you receive when you sign up for the “free” offer because I never signed up. Why? Mostly because there are $109.98 in hidden fees that will be charged to your credit card until you decide to cancel your “free membership.”

That’s right. Here are the terms and conditions you’ll be agreeing to if you sign up with this program: The 7-day trial period begins on the date your order is submitted through this website. Following the 7-day trial period, the credit card you submitted will automatically be charged $99.99 for monthly membership access to the Twitter Profit House Resource Center unless you cancel. If for some reason you were signed up for the Search Engine Pro Course, you’ll be charged an additional $9.99 per month for access into this program as well.

My favorite part of the landing page was the text that said “As seen and trusted on*” and then listed the LA Times, CNBC, CNN etc. Unfortunately, there was no footnote explaining the asterisk so I can only assume the footnote would say something like “*Okay, well we were neither featured nor proved legitimate by any of these news outlets but hot damn, could you imagine the amount of money we’d sucker out of people if we were!?”

I’m not giving these guys my personal information and you can be damn sure they aren’t getting my credit card information as well. I can’t afford to track down and fight any hidden fees that could be charged to my account and I’m sure you can’t afford them either. Stay away from Twitter Profit House.

Get a Refund from Twitter Profit House

Call 1-888-822-4507
Or email support@twitterprofithouse.com
Or visit the Twitter Profit House contact page.

I called the number and a computerized voice told me to visit a website in order to cancel my membership. The thing is, the computer cannot pronounce the website’s name clearly and I have no idea which website I’m supposed to visit. I called back three more times to try and guess the correct name, but I cannot make out what the voice is saying. A customer representative picked up almost immediately after the recording was over though. The support line was open and there was no wait time.

Make it very clear that you no longer want your monthly membership and wish to cancel any additional services on your account. From looking through the Terms & Conditions, it looks like you’ll be signed up for the Twitter Profit House Resource Center at TwitterProfitHouse.com and the Search Engine Pro Course at SearchEngineProCourse.com. Be sure that both of these memberships are canceled or you will be charged $109.98 every month.

I’d like to now make it perfectly clear that we are in no way affiliated with Twitter Profit House. Please do not email us asking for a refund from this program. Contact the phone number above for a refund. Do not email us! We did not take your money.

Well! Even as I was writing, the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) was busy putting the hurt on names that are practically household words here at I’ve Tried That: Free Government Grants, Google Treasure Chest, Google Money Tree, and Angela Penbrook. Plus many others.

The FTC recently announced a HUGE crackdown on all sorts of Internet scams. It involves 15 FTC cases, 44 law enforcement actions by the Department of Justice, and actions by at least 13 states and the District of Columbia.

I’m counting 15 major actions against some of the biggest scam names we’ve come to love and hate such as Penbrook Productions, Cash Grant Institute, Google Money Tree, and more. Read about the FTC awesomeness here.

The lawsuits against our friends of the Google scams and “rebate processing” allege violations of a number of federal laws based on exactly the kinds of actions we’ve been harping about for almost a year now. Hidden charges, false claims of income, misleading advertising and on and on.

The lawsuits seek relief in the form of injunctions (i.e., they want the judge to shut down the Web sites in question) and unspecified monetary awards (they want the companies to have to pay back what they’ve stolen).

All of you who filed FTC complaints and thought they weren’t doing any good? Looks like you got somebody’s attention!

I’m hopeful, but it remains to be seen what long-term impact these actions will have. There are thousands of scammy Web sites and these legal actions involve just a handful. True, they’re the worst offenders, but there are just. So. Many.

Still, three cheers for the FTC and the hard-working attorneys who brought the cases this far. We’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, watch this cool video about fraud and how/why it works:

I don’t know why I thought the review would have been a good idea. In the event that I concluded my review with successful results, I would be telling others that yes, it is possible to make money with Twitter Affiliate Cash. This, in turn, would then prompt many of our readers to buy the system and have a go at making money on Twitter. Why is this a problem? Well, a comment left my Deborah sums up everything I want to say.

I am a huge networker in all areas of my life but twitter for me is very different.
I am very political and find that twitter as opposed to face book, my space and other social networking sites was a bit more pure. I spend time on twitter to discuss in 120 characters or less issues that are relevant–specifically I am in awe that the news in Iran right now is being transmitted through twitter and Youtube at Iranian’s risks. It is my personal time to interact with people around the world of like mind. I do not try to gain followers and only follow people whose tweets I admire. As soon as someone wants to sell me something, market or send me to a link I immediately block this person. If people make money on twitter more power to them however I personally use twitter for another purpose. It was inevitable that marketing would arrive on twitter and I can do nothing about it. This does not mean I do not believe in networking at all and I admire your site–this is simply my opinion about the my use of twitter.

Promoting the Twitter Affiliate Cash system could only open the doors to even more spam on Twitter. I know that spam will occur whether or not the Twitter Affiliate Cash system exists, but by not actively advocating the use of the program, I won’t be adding to the problem. Sorry if I’ve disappointed you, but that’s all I have to say on the matter.

Why “Perfect Storm”

After that humdrum movie with the big stars a few years ago, the term “perfect storm” has taken on additional meaning. It can mean good things, too, not just monster storms that swallow boats.

It means that big forces have converged at this point in time to create perfect conditions for whatever it is you want to do. And if what you want to do is start and run a successful blog, that perfect blogging storm is happening right now. And it will only last for 5 4 more days!

Yaro Starak, a professional blogger who makes many thousands every month with his blog business, has teamed up with another expert, Gideon Shalwick, to create a blog training program for beginners. It’s called Become a Blogger Premium and you can check it out here.

Why Should You Choose This Program?

Because we know Yaro Starak and his work and he only puts out high-quality, high-integrity material. You can believe every word you read at the Become a Blogger intro page, or we wouldn’t be endorsing it so loudly.

They are going to close the doors in 4 more days and then the perfect storm will have passed you by. Take a look now.

Ok, What’s Inside?

Become a Blogger Premium is a video-based training program that will teach you everything you need to know about starting and running a successful blog, even if you are new to the whole computers and Internet thing. For instance, you’ll get easy, step-by-step videos that will teach you how to:

• set up a blog from scratch
• optimise your blog for free traffic from search engines
• install plugins—and which ones you shouldn’t be without
• locate and insert images into your blog
• add AUDIO and VIDEO to your blog
• produce “magnetic” content
• market your blog through MULTIPLE traffic sources
• and much, much more!

In fact, the best thing? You don’t have to take our word for it. Just click here and see for yourself some of the video training you’ll get. It’s free to sample! And the page gives you a lot more details about what the program includes. But hurry. Did I mention they’re closing the doors in 4 days?

The Rest of the Perfect Storm

A perfect storm is a convergence of forces. Become a Blogger Premium is one of the forces.

Steve’s free help is the other. Use our simple instructions to set up your domain and hosting, and Steve will help you for free if you get stuck or need a little nudge as you work through Become a Blogger. (Click here to read the details of this free offer.)

See? Perfect. You can get awesome video-based training AND free help from a guy who sets up WordPress blogs professionally.

Become a Blogger Is Not For You If…

Let’s be honest. No program is all things to all people. Here is an explanation straight from Yaro’s blog about who should not join Become a Blogger Premium.

This is a program only for those who like to learn through video. This is a video course, so if you don’t like video, don’t join.

If you are already a veteran blogger, this course is going to be too easy for you. It’s for beginners who need a step-by-step formula to follow.

If you already know what plug-ins to install in your blog, you know how to write great content, you’ve studied traffic building techniques, and the “X-Factor” concepts we introduced to you in the Roadmap report were nothing new, then you are too advanced for our program. If your blog already works well then you don’t need our help!

This is a less is more course, which means you won’t learn everything about everything and we’re not going to overwhelm you with resources. You get some videos, some community support in forums and teleconferences and that’s it. We focus only on the 20% of elements that get you 80% of results (or really, the 1% for 99% return).

It’s up to you to actually do what the videos teach – we won’t set up your blog for you or do any technical work, and we don’t provide any blog themes or hosting services or anything like that. We are the guides, you still have to do the walking.

Isn’t honesty refreshing? And you see that last paragraph? The part about “we won’t set up your blog for you or do any technical work?” That’s what Steve is offering to do for you! So click here to reserve your Free Steve.

So if you’ve started but your blog is on the back burner, or if you’ve wanted to get started. Now is the time. Click here now and see if Become a Blogger is for you.

If you read our Fusion Cash post from last week but are not following the comments on that thread, you’re missing the real action.

The Fusion Cash CEO, Tyler Derheim, posted a reply to Bonnie’s complaints. Check it out by scrolling down to the comments section of this post. (No, we have not verified that the commenter is who he claims to be. But then, we didn’t verify that Bonnie is who she claims to be, either.)

I’ve done a more extensive review on this program in the past, but if you want to learn more about BigCrumbs, then click here to learn how the program works. Instead, I want to use this post to show you how much money I’ve earned with the program since joining about six months ago.

My BigCrumbs Earnings

I joined BigCrumbs in October, but didn’t really start using it until the end of December. In those six months, I managed to get back $117.88 from my online purchases. Not bad at all! That’s free money I would have otherwise spent needlessly.

Take notice of both my referrals and my referral commissions. For every user I send to BigCrumbs, I get some money on their purchases as well. So far, I’ve managed to sign up 163 new members to BigCrumbs and I’ve made $74.33 off of their purchases as well. After you join, email your friends and family and let them know about BigCrumbs. They’ll be saving money too and you’ll get a nice little bonus for telling them about it.

BigCrumbs is an excellent program and I highly recommend it if you do any online shopping. Think of all the money you could be saving. Hell, you don’t even have to be an online shopper. If you know people who do any online shopping, register an account and have them sign up under you. It’s a rather easy way to make quite a few dollars while helping others save.

Click here to sign up for BigCrumbs.

What is negative option marketing?

That’s the odor you smell when you read the terms and conditions at such sewers as Google Treasure Chest and Easy Google Cash and [fill in any Google name here]. There are probably thousands of such sites.

Negative option marketing is when you sign up for free x, but you’re also signing up for y and z at the same time. If you don’t cancel y and z after the “free trial period,” your credit/debit card is hit with surprise charges.

The problem is that sometimes you are not told about y and z, and sometimes you are told but not clearly, and sometimes you just don’t read the terms and conditions. (Not “you” you—I’ve Tried That readers are too smart for that. I mean the other “you.”)

So What’s the Good News?

The FTC fined two companies for a total of more than $9,000,000 for their negative option marketing practices. You can read the full source article here, but here is the money quote. This is how the companies attracted the attention of the FTC:

Failing to disclose adequately that consumers who order a “free” sample are enrolled in a continuity program, that their accounts will be debited or charged to pay for the program, that they must cancel to avoid extra shipments and debits and charges, and how and when they must cancel to avoid the debits or charges

Debiting or charging accounts of consumers who cancelled or tried to cancel, or those who were not adequately informed of the negative option features or terms and conditions, and therefore did not provide express informed consent for the debits or charges.

Sound familiar? Those are exactly the complaints of thousands of people who signed up for Google Golden Egg Goose (or whatever). If FTC could smack down these diet pill companies, why not the Google scam guys? I’m speculating, but I think there are several reasons:

1. There are thousands of sites, all of which take pains to hide the owners’ identities.
2. Many of the sites could be hosted on servers outside the US and owned by citizens of other countries.
3. Is there a jurisdictional issue? FTC thinks it’s an FBI Internet Crimes Division problem?

Who knows? But it can only help if people continue to file complaints. If you have been a victim of deceptive negative option marketing, click here to file a complaint with the FTC.

She wanted to let all of you know how bad it really is, and her experience is worth publishing. So here it is:

FYI: I just read your post on Fusion Cash. It is worse than you perceived, and I wanted to give you a heads up for the benefit of others.

“I’ve tried that” and got ripped totally. You have to enter credit card information for almost all of their offers (even the supposedly FREE ones). For most of the “offers” they ask you to complete, you spend so much time that you would not be close to making minimum hourly wage. Most of the offers require you spending something or doing a “free trial”. The “free trial” often carries shipping and handling fees that are probably as high as the actual value of the item. Then, if you want to cancel the “free trial” accomplishing that is next to impossible, so they just hit your credit card for fee after fee.

You cannot get them to respond to “support tickets”, if you want something fixed. There is no email or phone number that I can find. To top all of that off, I got credit for less than half of the offers I actually completed and would get no satisfaction (or even response) when I tried to send a credit request.

And the grand finale…….I finally decided to give up and just cash out for the money I had been credited and was unable to do that, as they said they had to verify my phone number and that it did not pass. Their system says someone will try calling my phone number immediately after I enter the information. My phone number is legitimate and does work fine, but no one ever tried to call (I tried several times). Again, my requests for assistance or explanation went unanswered. So, even the little money I may have made with them has been withheld. They are a total SCAM.

We couldn’t have (and didn’t) say it better ourselves. Thanks for the information, Bonnie!

Making money online isn’t something that happens overnight. You might be able to land a work at home job, but there isn’t an online program out there where you can join today and see substantial income tomorrow. These things take a lot of time to learn and develop. Time you probably don’t have if your children are hungry and you can’t provide for them. The best advice I can offer to anyone in this situation is to get a job, any job even if it means you’ll be greeting Walmart shoppers during the graveyard shift.

A few days ago, I read a thread on Reddit titled “World collapsing, and two kids (6 and 3) looking to me for everything they need. Cupboards bare. Fridge empty. I’m losing my mind and feel so lost. What am I supposed to do?” The response was astounding and I need to share one of the comments written by the user summermenot with you. Here is some of the best and simple advice I’ve seen for people in financial trouble.

Generating Money

1. Post several specific jobs you can do on Craigslist. Ideas: helping people move, yard work, garage cleanup/organizing, painting, general home improvement help, babysitting, etc.
2. Lots of people here have suggested it… Foodbank. Church pantries is another great idea.
3. Flip burgers. Wait tables. Fold polo shirts. Be a Wal*mart greeter. These basic jobs are often available when no other jobs are.
4. Sell things: Books, CDs, DVDs to the used book/music stores, Clothes to resale shops, Furniture to consignment shops or Craigslist, Jewelry to estate jewelers, Electronics, yard equipment, tools, old toys to Craigslist
5. Seek help from family and friends (already mentioned): temporary housing, money, food, transportation, childcare (could Grandparents take the kids for a week or two while you work on getting everything sorted out?)
6. Seriously think about where you live. Should you move to a city that has better job prospects, a cheaper standard of living and easier means of getting around that would make expenses like a car unnecessary? There have been many articles published recently listing these kinds of cities.
7. Start to look for an alternative rental that you can more easily afford. Get ready to move. Pack up everything not being sold into boxes. Go ahead and give your 30 days’ notice and get the wheels in gear to move, once you have found a cheaper place. See if you can find an “All bills paid” place, so you don’t have to put down deposits on utilities. See about negotiating a discount on rent in exchange for doing work for the landlord.
8. If you haven’t canceled cable, give it the axe ASAP. If you’re not stuck in a contract on your cell phone, switch to prepaid and stop using it regularly.
9. Stagger the times you work so that you can minimize the need for daycare. This sucks, but it will save you a ton, and you’re not in a position to avoid things that suck.
10. Revamp your resume.
11. Network. Talk with school classmates and alums (both college and high school). Friends, family members. Mention you’re looking for a job. Referrals make a huge difference when applying, and if someone can put a word in for you, your resume is much more likely to get reviewed. An easy way to get the word out might be to send a note out to all your Facebook friends. Have your wife do the same. Have your parents talk to their friends. The grandma network can be thick.
12. When you’re out of the hole… Lessons learned: Live below your means. All vital expenses should be able to be covered under one income: rent, child care, food, transportation, healthcare, etc. Make choices on what you can afford based only on a single income. Choose the car that you can afford on the single income. Choose the housing that a single income can afford, even if it’s not as spiffy. The second income should be used for savings, supplemental insurance, college funds, retirement, modest entertainment (only after all essentials and savings have been taken care of), etc.
13. Don’t buy things: Cigarettes (duh), Designer clothes, Cable, Fancy electronics, Impractical cars, More than one meal out each week, Pre-prepared food (it’s bad for you, and it’s expensive. Make it yourself.), Gobs of gifts for kids’ birthdays and Christmas/Hanukkah/whatever, Beverages when going out to eat. Drink water or have a cocktail before going to the restaurant. (Obviously, the parent doing the driving shouldn’t have a cocktail.), Fast food. People think it’s cheap, but it’s really not — and it offers very little nutrition. Want a burrito? Cook up some beans and tortillas. Better for you, probably better tasting, and much cheaper. Plus, the kids can have fun with “make your own burrito night”.

Cheap Meal Ideas

• Spaghetti
• Burritos
• PBJ
• Grilled cheese
• Egg dishes: egg salad, omelets, egg in the hole (fried egg in a slice of bread with a hole cut out), etc
• Hot dogs
• 9 bean soup
• Baked Chicken (use the carcass for chicken noodle soup)
• Tuna casserole
• Tuna melts
• Mac-n-cheese with tuna
• Pizza on tortillas or slices of day-old bread
• Beans and rice
• Thin out ground beef with boiled wheat berries (bought from the bulk bins), use in spaghetti sauces, casseroles, etc
• Replace cereal with oatmeal (bought from the bulk bins) in the mornings
• Cheap snacks: celery with peanut butter, crackers with peanut butter, apples, bananas, popsicles made with fruit juice instead of ice cream or pre-packaged popsicles (the kids can help make them), carrots, nuts (bought from the bulk bins), raisins (bought from the bulk bins), etc
• Use half milk made from dried milk and half regular milk in cereal. Use milk made from dried milk only in dishes when it won’t make a difference.

Foods you can buy from bulk bins:

• Peanut butter
• Honey
• All dry goods: flour, sugar, oats, wheat berries, pasta, rice, beans, couscous, cornmeal, salt, pepper, etc
• Nuts
• Dried fruit
• Treats: cookies, candy (this can get expensive, even in bulk, so make it an occasional surprise for the kids, not a regular thing)
• Herbs
• Spices
• Tea
• Coffee
• Cereal
• Dried milk

Other ideas:

• Use gasbuddy.com to find the cheapest gas in your area
• Use washable instead of disposable whenever possible: lunch bags, plates, replace paper towels with washable towels, cloth napkins, etc
• Only use coupons for things that already on your grocery list
• Make a grocery list. don’t take kids grocery shopping with you if possible.
• Plan meals out for each week.
• Take your lunch to work
• Do free/nearly free activities with the kids: go to the park, go to the duck pond and have the kids paint, find out what days the museums have free admission, set up the sprinkler in the yard, game night at home, community service together (park cleanups, volunteering at animal shelters or the food bank, etc), kite flying, fishing, sidewalk chalk, make cars/dolls/spaceships out of scraps at home, puppet shows, tossing around a ball in the back yard, etc.
• Mend things. Patch the kids’ jeans when there are holes in the knees. Take shoes in to get the heels or soles replaced instead of buying a new pair. Make the kids cutoffs when they grow too tall for their pants and jeans. Learn to sew. Learn to knit. Learn to crochet. (Debbie Stoller’s Stitch n’ Bitch books are great for learning to knit and crochet!)
• Give homemade gifts for birthdays, Christmas, baby showers, etc. This is where the knitting and crocheting can come in. Baby booties or a baby hat can be made in a few hours or less and is a very touching gift for a new mom. Scarves can be knitted or crocheted while watching TV or listening to the radio and make great gifts during the holidays.

You can read the original comment and discussion here. There are hundreds of comments offering similar advice. There’s plenty of insightful comments to help you get inspired. Be sure to take a look at the Frugal subreddit while you’re there. It is updated constantly and contains thousands of links which will help you save money.

Do you have any money saving or generating advice? Leave a comment below. I intend to point those in desperation to this post and it would be great to have as much useful information here as possible.

Starting a blog may definitely scare some. That’s why we will set everything up for you for free, but once you’re setup where do you go from there? Well, our good friend Yaro Starak has created the Roadmap to Becoming a Blogger. It’s a step-by-step guide on how to become a professional blogger. Yaro will help you get situated on the right track to turning your new blog into a success.

The Roadmap to Becoming a Blogger is very newbie friendly with clear, concise instructions. Yaro’s presentation is very easy to follow and you’ll quickly learn the best methods on how to run your blog while keeping up with social media and online trends. Best of all, his guide is absolutely free. Take some time today to review the roadmap and consider taking us up on our offer to setup your blog. Once again, this is all for free.

Click here to download The Roadmap to Becoming a Blogger
Click here to learn how we can setup your blog for free today.