Social media is playing a big role in promoting businesses, may it be multilevel marketing or ponzi schemes. It is a very influential site that persuades netizens to participate in too-good to be true money-generating sites.
On April 2019, I have learned about Workmines.It was the time that the MLM I have joined in (PPM) was having issues with SEC. A month before I will give birth to my baby. I was desperate on how to earn even a little while I will not be able to look for a job to work with yet. I keep seeing posts on facebook how people are earning huge money easily by doing simple tasks. That's why I made an account on it under the referral link of one of my co-member in ppm without investigaring further. But I don't have the money yet to upgrade my account.
After 3 weeks and my account was not upgraded yet when I saw one of my downlines in ppm joined under the same person I registered in. I decided to make another account under her referral link. After the 14-day trial or free account, I upgraded into student plan, the lowest plan which cost P2400 or $48. After a week,on May 27th, the day before I will give birth, I again upgraded into business plan which cost P11,500. To upgrade, I only topped up what is needed for the business plan. Payments for upgrading and payouts were in BTC so one needs to add more in peso to meet the needed BTC and the gas fee. Resulting to a P12k investment for a business plan.
Ok. What is Workmines, by the way? It is an advertising platform where users are paid by the videos they view according to the plan they have availed, an example of videos were Netflix videos which was posted on the site.
Workmines was launched in Latvia on 2017. It was owned by a company named Time4Work Global. Inc. This was the only information there is. If my memory serves me right, it was only running in the Philippines by November of 2018.
Once you joined, you will get paid by videos you watched. You can see your earnings credited to your dashboard. Every video watched cost .40 USD. Watching one video won't even get to a minute but half of it. A pop up notification will appear on the screen after 30 seconds of viewing time. Not bad to earn money easily.
However, as I have said, number of videos depends on the plan availed. So when you joined and still on trial plan which runs for 14days upon registration, you will only have 2 videos per day to view. $.40 each that makes your total earnings of $11.2 within that 2week trail plan. Will you be able to pay it out? No, as the required threshold is $40.
You can see on the diagram below the amount needed to upgrade per plan and its corresponding number of videos and the possible earnings. You can also earn thru your referrals paid views which makes it more appealing. Nevertheless, trial plan is exempted on the referral bonus.
On May 20,2019, I upgraded my trial plan into student so it means to comply with the threshold policy, I can only pay-out once a month. Since I got to buy e-load for internet purposes and with a mindset of earning bigger with the same little effort, I again upgraded into business plan.
After a few days, which was fortunately payday I got my first pay out of exactly $48.
I gave birth on May 28, and since then I tried to view all 22 videos during dawn as it is where internet connection was strong. During those time a new plan was added which was the platinum plan which requires $2080 for activation. .$90 for each 100 videos that would make $20 earnings per day. On those time also, there was a promo that said 100 videos will be allotted for 7 days to every user whichever plan they availed on July, 2019. So wooow, that's a great news.
Many upgraded their accounts, some even availed the latest released plan. But on the first week of June, Thursday, which was supposed to be the weekly payday there's an error occured.
I forgot to say that on every country, there's what we called country representative who relays updates to the users. So the country representative here in the Philippines said, the site was temporarily down for system upgrade. They were wise enough to let every user here to delete every post they made on facebook regarding workmines due to SEC advisory (kuno ah). They even gave warning to terminate user's account if they see posts undeleted.
Three days of server error on June 8,2019 and uplines raising false hope, we finally concluded that we were scammed for good. Later, it was completely inaccessible with the error which I forgot that when you google it said site can not be found.
It feels like heaven and earth crushed with each other that made me weak for almost a month. With my newborn, and lossing that big amount contributed to my depression.
Some warning signs to include when deciding to join a networking company especially those that claim to have digital products or mining crypto. These were just some of my observations according to my experience.
Less information about the company, no founders name, let's take workmines as an example.
Lots of positive feedback. This is a good sign but you don't get to know that your account can get terminated without apparent reason which is true about wm.
Can't get paid as a free account holder. Like workmines, there are also some networking schemes that evolved here in the Philippines which let you earn as a free member but won't be able to withraw not unless you pay for an upgrade, an example of it was Paysbook.
Promos. Be vigilant of promos,like bait, it only entices new users to upgrade and would not get their money back.
Workmines for example, its advertising posts were told to be deleted. I was left wondering why they did so. Later found out why.
Unlike lawful MLM, users on ponzi schemes solely make money by recruiting new members into the company or availing multiple accounts. Their recruits do the same and so on and so forth building a network.
Maybe the founders of workmines had accumulated large amount after many had upgraded their accounts into gold and platinum account. I was only very thankful that my prospective downline who was a person with disability did not upgrade her trial plan account into gold plan, because during that time I was teaching her how to make an account on coins.ph wallet wherein she needs to pay for an upgrade code,the same she will be using to pay out..
Workmines is a ponzi scheme. Like any other schemes, it tends to benefit only those who are considered early birds or old members who are able to recoup their investments. With their earnings that they are posting which seems too appealing to others, they gain more from them and leaving the latter nothing when the site would finally shut down. Worst part is if the new member had to borrow money just to avail of the service, making him/her in debts.
Before joining anything as such, make a thorough investigation about it on google by placing the name with reviews, scam or legit, or something that would bring out more truth about it.
If you feel like joining a scheme, the best would be to join when it is still young or beginning or pioneering. Surely, you would make some pretty bucks. But if you wait for it to grow, then you know the rest.
I was only able to write this today because I think am moving on from it. Yes, it's been more than a year and yet I was not able to move on from it completely. Because everytime I think about it, it triggers something I can't disclose plus it also makes me anxious.
Lesson learned..
z_graeden
You've been scammed a huge sum- i would also be depressed if that happened to me, that's like a quarter of my usual tuition before or like 3 months of bills now