About 5 years ago, there was a craze sweeping the online marketing community. It spread so far and so fast, and there was so much money in it, that it soon spilled out of our community into the outside world. Around water coolers and office desks, in our homes and schools and offices, you could hear “12 Daily Pro” being whispered in stunned disbelief.
Everyone was making money. Many of us were making more money than we ever dreamed of. We were getting paid for doing nothing.
For the benefit of those who haven’t been in this industry for as long as I have, I’ll step back a little.
12 Daily Pro was an autosurf program. You deposited your money, started the autosurf every day to surf 12 sites, and in 12 days, you got back 144% of what you put in. The maximum spend of $6,000 turned into $8,640 in 12 days. It launched early in 2005, and by late summer members were confident enough to tell their friends and family about it. It spread like wildfire.
It wasn’t the only autosurf around at the time. Programs were springing up everywhere, some successful, some blatant scams that never had any intention of paying. But 12 Daily Pro was the one that caught everyone’s attention.
Most of us knew it wouldn’t last. There was something vague on the site about outside investments, and profit being generated from advertising, but still the word “ponzi” showed up occasionally on the forums. The people who mentioned it were flamed, while the rest of us stuck our heads in the sand and kept depositing our money.
It probably would have run for a few months longer than it did, but the US government shut it down in February 2006. The era of the autosurf came to an end. A part of me still misses those days. It was fun, it was exciting, and the thrill of seeing $8,640 arriving in your payment processor account is hard to beat.
When it ended, I lost the $6,000 I had deposited at the time. But I’d made a profit overall, so I couldn’t complain. There were people who lost their life savings. My father got involved a couple of months before the end. He tested it with small spends until he was sure it worked, then put in the full $6,000. That was a week before it stopped paying. I still wish I could have paid him back the money he lost, but I’d been spending pretty freely, and I didn’t have $6,000 to give him.
The total losses from 12 Daily Pro alone were estimated by members to be in the region of $50 million, and most of this money came from new members who hadn’t made a profit. They had believed what they read on the website – they would get paid for doing nothing, 144% in 12 days – and they lost everything.
Programs like this are illegal. If it doesn’t have a product – and a one page report doesn’t count – or if it isn’t a licensed investment company, then it’s a ponzi, and it’s illegal. But that isn’t my real problem with it.
The problem is that people get hurt. Those of us who are savvy make sure we get in at the beginning, and get out before it goes wrong. We know it’s a game, and we know how to play it. But there are other people – mostly those who are new to online marketing and desperate to make some money – who don’t realise it’s a game. They believe what they read on the site, they put in their money, and they lose. They decide online marketing is just a scam, and they tell their friends and family – “Don’t touch this online marketing stuff. It’s a scam, and they’ll take your money.”
What does this do to our credibility?
I know it’s tempting. Believe me, I know. Even now, I look at some of the new sites springing up, and I’m tempted. Get in early. Get out before it goes wrong. Make a quick buck, and move on.
Then I remember the look on my father’s face.
If there’s a market for them, these ponzi sites will keep on appearing. The only way to stop them is to stop joining them, and stop giving them our money.
Because the truth is, we don’t ALL get paid for doing nothing. The winners are actually a very small minority. And the ones who lose are the people the online marketing industry needs the most.
