Surely you have at one point or another received invitations to participate in internet money making schemes. Chances are, if you have an email address you would have anyways.

I used to get flooded by this type of spam mail to the point that I would actually have to look for legitimate incoming emails. But then, that's what spam does - annoy you to the point of insanity!

I know this is wrong, but there were occasions that I opened the emails and read what they were about. Of course you aren’t supposed to do that … it might contain a Trojan virus aimed at wiping out your hard drive. Then you'd have to re-download all that porn. What a drag, eh?

Anyways, touch wood; I’ve never had a serious virus attack. But then again, I’ve always had my anti-virus up to date.

I’m not getting paid for this, but if you are looking for a reliable and most importantly – free anti-virus, you might want to try AVG Anti-Virus (the free edition, of course) at http://free.avg.com

Back to the money making miracle called the internet …

I have read through quite a few, and through the years what has been circulated doesn’t seem to change much. Perhaps now the advertisements and brochures have more colour and links and add-ons, but in essence it remains the same.

They would ask you for a small fee and in return provide you with software and templates for you to create websites. Normally it would be fashioned in terms of multi-stream income lines or mass-mailing of newsletters, or any other conceivable money making mechanism. Down-streams, up-streams, sideway streams .. you know, that kinda thing.

Logic tells me, the advertisement themselves are the money making mechanisms. But how?

Notice the sign-up fee? That’s straight cash right into your pocket. Get more people to sign up, the more money you make. Clean and simple.

Or, the free sign-up for newsletters? That’s mass-mailing 101 … spam to the rest of us. There will be idiots like myself who simply can’t resist ‘just browsing’ to look for opportunities. Perhaps click a link to see if the idea is really plausible. Times that by a million lemmings and I’m sure there are many more who routinely flaunt the safety basics of navigating the internet, and hey presto! You have a million hits on your site with about half of them clicking an AdSense advert.

Ermm, that means you make money ... if you didn't know what I meant :)

Have you also noticed that there are always pictures of people and testimonials telling you just how much they have benefited from the scheme? Seriously, if I was making a hundred grand per week, I’d certainly want to keep it hushed up. Income tax is one thing, but there really is a reason why most millionaires don’t flaunt their wealth in public (or at least don’t give out the dollar by dollar detail!)

Also, perhaps you noticed that everyone has their own webpage … just have a look at the addresses. Do they really look like webpage addresses that you would visit for research, purchases … anything? To me most, if not all, of the website addresses look kind of dronish. Mass generated, extremely random ... you know. I hope.

I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if those pages contain repetitions of the same scheme, presented differently perhaps, and tons of advertisements. After all, advertisements are the holy grails of ‘continuous passive internet income’, or so I’ve heard.

But then again, perhaps it is true that these are legitimate money-making devices that actually work … given a free entry pass, I’d give it a go. I really am all for making money in my sleep. Read that again, talking about the internet here … and besides, I don’t have the body shape to pull off the double meaning to that!

But considering upfront fees to be paid, can’t help but think that pyramid schemes were at a time legitimate money-making mechanisms. That is, of course, until the first few ‘lucky’ participants had made enough and the scheme collapsed into, well, a scam.