Project Payday-Get Rich Quick or Not?

So, I must confess, I fell into a “get rich quick” trap the other day, well sort of. I wrote an article earlier this week called “Hard Work Pays Off,” as a reminder to myself and to others to not be discouraged if at first we don’t succeed in trying to reach the goal(s) we have been trying to attain. Sometimes we have higher expectations of the outcome of our efforts and because the outcome doesn’t meet our expectations we get distracted by the next best thing. The next best thing isn’t always the greatest thing to invest our time or efforts into.

I’ve been looking for alternate ways to build some residual income, as are many of us. For just a little while now I have been typing away at my computer each day, writing articles about things that interest me and things that I think may be of interest to others. I’ve submitted these articles to various sites and at some point, I began to get somewhat frustrated with one particular site when I didn’t get the results I expected. I begin to doubt myself and to think that maybe I should move on to an alternative way of building extra income. I was hoping to bring in money a little quicker with this alternative way. This was a BIG mistake on my part. First of all, I was thinking about giving up too quickly and secondly, I should know “get rich quick” schemes don’t work. The point here is to build a residual income, not get a quick buck, duh!

Anyway, so I went to a website called Project Payday. The website was decked out in green with a picture of Benjamin Franklin as the header; it was screaming dollar bills everywhere. Looking back now, I have to admit, it is all actually a little cheesy and I am quite ashamed of myself. Nevertheless, I signed up for this Project Payday and it was a huge flop for me. I only made it to the first level and believe me that is as far as I needed to go. I lost $70 trying to make $100.

The worked with Method One on Project Payday, it in involved going to a website made by a sponsor who needed a certain amount of referrals to complete 100 points worth of trial offers each. If a certain amount of referrals complete trial offers for this sponsor, the sponsor wins whatever prize they opted for and the referral wins $100 for helping the sponsor. Trial offers are offers where you have to sign up for something for a certain amount of time and then cancel before the trial is up in order to prevent reoccurring credit card charges. Trial offers are sometimes free and sometimes they cost money. Each trial offer is worth a certain amount of points on this sponsor’s website. The majority of the trials cost money and there were only a few free ones. I completed the free ones first and documented all the dates and phone numbers for the various companies so I would be able to call them and cancel the subscription before the trial period was up.

After I realized I had ran out of free trials, I still needed like 60 more points to reach my 100 points and my $100 reward. I took a break for a couple of hours because the idea of putting money out did not sit well with me. Unfortunately, I finally convinced myself to put some money out, thinking, “Okay, well I will get all of it back as long as I spend under $100 on the offers.” I tried using only the inexpensive trial offers first and they became less and less, gaining me only 5 or 10 points here and there. Midway through, I started thinking, “This is crazy, why do I have to put this much money out to earn only $25 net after all these expenses?” I didn’t allow myself to back out with a loss of $30 though, because at that point I wanted my $30 back that I had already put in, as well as my $100 reward.

I finally reached 100 points after spending $70, I was so relieved that I would get my $100 reward and I vowed to never make myself participate in such craziness again. Here’s the thing though, my last 20 points never confirmed, even though I was out the money for them. Ahh! I didn’t even care about the $100 or the $70 I lost anymore. I was not about to spend another dime. I decided to take this loss as a lesson. I do believe people make money with Project Payday, but it was so not worth it.

Being successful is not about running through loop holes and covering up your tracks after. I feel Project Payday promotes a shady way to make money and does not benefit people in the long run. They claim they are not a “get rich quick” scheme but clearly they are set up to make people feel like they will be able to make quick money. In the end the people are investing their money in Project Payday for the wrong reasons and I fell into the same trap. I’m glad I learned that lesson though. I will now stick to my writing, which I love to do regardless if I make money or not. Hope this has discouraged anyone from buying into dead-end schemes. Remember to work hard and invest your time in something that is worthwhile.

AleeshaYL