How to NOT make money online: the Paid-To-Click (BUX) sites

Paid-To-Click sites, also known as BUX (shortened from bucks), are one of easiest (but stupidest) way of making money using internet. With just few minutes per day you can earn… FEW CENTS! Along with surf websites, they are popular among teenagers looking to earn few cents/day while their parents pay more for power bill than money earned.

bux.to was one of most popular sites, started in 2007 and still running although not paying members after 2008. Lots of other sites named www.something-bux.xyz appeared in 2007-2009.

I personally used BUX websites in 2007-2008 and earned few dozens dollars, nothing significant compared with money earned from services I offer myself: web content, AutoCAD  design, data providing.

How the BUX sites pretend to be working

You sign up as member and get paid usually 1 cent to view 30-second ads, which can be viewed once per day. If you refer friends to sign up you earn usually 0.5 cents for the ads they view. Site is selling ad space for $15 per 1000 visits, meaning that advertisers pay 1.5 cents per visit and you earn 1 + 0.5 cents per ad viewed.

Once you earn minimum payout, usually $5-10, you can request earnings to be paid to your PayPal or AlertPay account. Sounds a good business?

Some BUX sites say in Terms of Service that pay you max in 7 days, others that pays in 30 days. You should NOT take in serious their TOS.

How the BUX sites are actually working (and scamming you)

Very few sponsors are buying ad space on BUX sites, thus most run with self-sponsored ads, and their primary source of income is members themselves who invest in buying referrals (buy members who signed up without being anyone’s referral), which makes all BUX sites a type of fraud, known as “Ponzi scheme“.

The scam artist open a BUX site and spend few dozens dollars advertising it on other BUX sites and surf sites, people looking to make easy money join the site, some people investing few dollars in buying referrals.

People start requesting payouts and site owner pays few of them usually in few hours, who are posting proof of payments on various forums, and more people gain trust in BUX site and join it and invest in referrals too.

Soon, more and more people start requesting payouts, which exceed the money invested by people buying referrals, site owner run out of funds, he change TOS promising payments in max 30 days instead of 7 days because he got sick, PayPal account locked, or other excuse. He is waiting for more people investing, but meantime so many people request payouts, which he is unable to pay.

People realize that the site went bankrupt / SCAM and announce this over forums, but some people unaware that owner stopped payments keep investing in referrals, leaving site owner in profit. The profit depends by how well the site was promoted and how payments were slowed down without giving impression of bankrupt.

You are advised to NOT invest in any BUX site, because by investing you encourage the fraud, more people investing > more people paid > more proofs of payments > even more people investing who will eventually lose their investment when the site admin stop payments.

NeoBux: biggest Paid-To-Click SCAM

NeoBux.com was born in 2008, it was the first Paid-To-Click site which offered automatic payouts, and as 2016 it continue to pay, however personally I still define it a SCAM. Actually NeoBux is the biggest fraud in Paid-To-Click industry. The secret of longevity is the referrals they sell.

NeoBux offer 4 or more ads which can be clicked once in 24 hours, each worth 0.5 cents, additionally you get 50% of referral earnings, you can recycle inactive referrals or you can set automatic recycling if they do not click any ad for 3 days. A real person would click all 4 ads each day, or may not click any ad today because forgot to click or don’t have time to visit NeoBux. The referrals they sell you click daily 1-2 ads, and slow down once you buy more referrals, this proving that the referrals are actually robots programmed to encourage you investing more and leaving you in loss. With other words, you invest $10 and earn back $12 try to invest $100 but earn back only $80.

If someone managed to earn from NeoBux more than his own investment, please inform me!

At least this was the situation in 2008, I made some screenshots to prove this in a forum which been closed. Don’t know if I still have them saved somewhere in my computer.

My personal experience in Paid-To-Click websites

I joined BUX sites in 2007, being unaware how fast the BUX sites go into bankrupt, I signed up in about 10 sites and clicked in average 10 ads in each one, without having any referral, earning theoretically one dollar per day, but took in average 2 months to reach minimum payout, enough for the sites to go into bankrupt thus I was never receiving the money earned. After this I joined a local forum and promoted my referral links, got few referrals but still rarely receiving money earned.

Then, I found international forums where people offer to pay you back the referral commission they earn from you if you sign up as their referral. In some cases paying referrals weekly instead of when they receive payout. By this way, in 2008 I made few dozens dollars, being paid not by BUX site, but by members of the BUX site, and sooner or later these members realized that the site went bankrupt and tell us to stop clicking, usually putting themselves in loss, and me in win.

By late 2008 so many BUX sites appeared and they were going into bankrupt so fast, that nobody was bearing anymore the risk of paying back their referrals. I have not made any more money from BUX sites, and moved to freelancing.

Other money-making programs

Other money-making programs are the surf websites, they are not designed for making money but as far I see on forums, many people use them with interest of making money. For example easyhits4u.com guide says “Please note that EasyHits4U is not a moneymaking machine. The site is designed as a traffic exchange, and the bonus that members receive for surfing is simply an added benefit. The site is not designed to encourage people to work full time to make money.“

I personally used EasyHits4U in 2009-2010 to get more traffic on my website hoping to increase Google ranking, but stopped once I realized that traffic from surf sites have no impact in Google. I did not cared about money so never withdraw them to my PayPal. What I earned: 10 cents/day for surfing at least 100 sites, keeping computer running to surf them made power bill higher than earnings!