A Few Ways To Determine Whether A Pay To Click (PTC) Site Is A Scam And Is Going Bankrupt

Paid To Click (PTC) sites number in the hundreds - if not the thousands on the internet. Nowadays, ready made and generic Bux scripts can be found and bought of the internet for a couple of dollars, giving rise to a huge number of aspiring people who want to run their own PTC site setting up their PTC sites with these Bux scripts. With these huge number of new PTC sites on the internet, the number of scam sites have increased dramatically.

Here is some of the ways and things to look out for in PTC sites to determine whether a particular PTC site is a scam or is about to go under. Though this method is a good indicator of whether a PTC site is a scam, bear in mind that exceptions do exists and the site might be truly good or that the site is just taking longer than usual to acquire the “scam” status while slowly milking away investors and members money.

Unprofitable business model
Asks for donations
Payment takes a long time to arrive
Has too many promotions that give you too much while charging too little

Unprofitable business model

Many Paid To Click sites on the internet nowadays have either extremely unprofitable business model or a model that barely breaks even. Sites like this charge their advertisers less money than what they need to pay members for all the clicks. Sites like this are quite sure to turn out to be a scam as who in their right mind will want to run a PTC site that loses them money?

The way to determine whether a site has an unprofitable business model is to calculate their profit or loss for every 1000 clicks purchased and a 1000 clicks by members. Remember to take into account the amount needed to be paid the 1000 standard members who clicked and the amount needed to be paid if the 1000 who clicked were a referrer of someone.

Lets say PTC site A charges advertisers $7.99 for every 1000 clicks, pays standard members $0.01 per click and pays members $0.005 per referral click.

Income of PTC site A every 1000 clicks = $7.99

Money needed to be paid to 1000 standard members = 1000*$0.01 = $10

Money needed to be paid assuming that everyone of those 1000 standard members are a referral of someone (In a PTC site, nearly everyone is a referral of someone) = 1000*$0.005 = $5

Expense = total money needed to be paid = $10 + $5 = $15

Expense > Income

Profit = income - expense = $7.99 - $15 = -$7.01

PTC site A runs at a deficit of $7.01 for every sale of 1000 clicks to advertisers, which means PTC site A makes a loss of $7.99 for every 1000 clicks someone buys from them. PTC site A has a unprofitable business model and will most likely go bankrupt or is a scam.

Lets do a case study of Thinkbux:

Standard members get $0.01 per click

Premium members get $0.012 per click

Referral clicks are $0.005 per click

Thinkbux charges $14.99 per 1000 visits

Using the formula,

Income every 1000 clicks = $14.99

Money needed to be paid to 1000 premium members: 1000*$0.012 = $12

Money needed to be paid assuming 1000 of the premium members are referrals of another member = 1000*$0.005 = $5

Expense = total money needed to pay = $12 + $5

Expense > Income

Profit = income - expense = $-2.01

Thinkbux runs at a loss of $2.01 everytime 1000 clicks are done. Although I assume that all 1000 clicks are from premium members, even if you take that all 1000 members are just standard members Thinkbux still makes a loss every 1000 clicks. It does not even break even. Thinkbux has an unprofitable business model.

Sites which have a unprofitable business models are more likely to turn into scams or go belly up as they just do not have the resources of finances to pay their members.

Asks For Donations

This is quite easy to understand. When a PTC site says it needs donations to keep it alive and to help pay the premium members without a valid reason, you know the site is a scam or is going down really soon. Sure, some PTC sites just need donations to get over a rough patch such as NeoBux which had their Paypal Account frozen with 72% of their money tied up and had needed donations to get through. After about 20 days they got back their account and had given “donated” back to everyone who had donated to them in the form of referrals. However, more often then not when Paid To Click sites start asking for donations, you know they are going belly up soon.

Sites that ask for donations to pay members but do not have a valid reason are basically in a money losing cycle. They lose money every time advertisers buy a package from them that is why they need members to donate to make up for the balance, but as this is a cycle, they will always have to rely on members donation, thus hastening that particular PTC site’s death.

Payment Takes Too Long To Arrive

We all know PTC sites that take forever after we had cashout before we received the money. The cause of this if I were to put it into simple terms is that the money cycle is not moving fast enough, and is overtaking them. The reason the PTC sites cannot give you your money immediately is because they just do not have enough cash with them and are waiting for more advertisers to advertise with them. Once advertisers advertise with them, they use that money to pay off the earlier clickers, which however leaves the clickers who had recently clicked with no money and thus forced to wait. Sites that have a really long payment wait are bound to make many members unhappy and ultimately turn into scams.

Has Too Many Promotions That Give You Too Much While Charging Too Little

PTC sites that have constant promotion that seems too good to be true are more often than not going to turn out as another scam site. This is quite closely related to the unprofitable business model above.

Lets say PTC site B has a promotion package that costs $10 and gives you 20 referrals which is worth $20 and 1000 advertisement clicks which is worth $6. PTC site B has pays $0.01 per click for a standard member and $0.005 for every referral click.

Income from sale of promotion package = $10

Money needed to pay the members who click on the 1000 advertisement clicks = 1000*$0.01 = $10

Assuming each member that clicks is also a referral of someone (nearly everybody in a PTC site is referral of someone as the PTC site always sells referrals) = 1000*$0.005 = $5

With the 20 referrals, the person who buys the package from PTC site B would be able to earn even more money which PTC site B would have no way of getting without selling even more promotion packages, which in turn makes the whole condition much worse.

Expense = money needed to be paid = $15

Expense > Income

Profit = income - expense = $10 -$15 = -$5

PTC site B makes a loss of $5 for every promotion package sold and makes its condition worse as members would be earning more money with the referrals which PTC site B has to come up with.

Lets do a case study of Better-Bux.

Take a look at their Labor Day special.

Standard members get $0.01 per click

Referral clicks are $0.005 per click

Using the formula,

Income from sale of promotion package = $100

Expense = Money needed to pay members who clicked on the 250000 link credits = 250000*$0.01 = $2500

Expense > Income

Profit = income - expense = $100 - $2500 = -$2400

Even without taking into account the members who clicked who are referrals it is quite obvious that Better-Bux has no way of paying the members. Better-Bux makes a loss of $2400 every single time someone buys an advertisement package.

Needless to say, no PTC site wants to run at a loss, so these sites usually turn into scams so that they themselves can at least earn some money at the expense of members.

What Now?

These are just some of the methods I use to determine whether a PTC site is going to turn out to be a scam. I hope that you find it useful and be careful as you invest money buying referrals and time clicking on various different PTC sites. A PTC site paying you once doesn’t mean that it will never turn into a scam in the future.

But after all is said and done, even though some PTC sites I mentioned which makes some of the errors, they still have paid me, so do take everything with a pinch of salt , and make sure you do not invest more money than you can afford to lose. This way, even if you do lose money you would be able to absorb the loss.