…continued from Making Money On The Internet - My Story
In the first part of my story, I talked about beginning of my Internet presence, from the time I had my first computer with dial-up Internet connection, till the time I was struggling to create my first website online, to the time I got scammed $600 for a website (which I bought, but was never mine).
Three months later, when I finally figured that I was not going to receive any checks (cheques) for the “fictitious money” that accumulated from MY website, I was still fooling myself to believe that they are not a scam, and maybe some problem happened. Then, I did some background research on the company and found out that many people had been scammed like me, some had lodged complaints against the scam site. I didn’t make any complaints, because I know I was not going to get my money back anyway, and the company would probably disappear and re-appear under another name someday. But I was angry, at myself and at the people, who seemed friendly but still scammed me.
I remember I had the thought of hacking into their servers and destroying everything there. Unfortunately (or fortunately in legal terms) I am not a hacker and did not have the knowledge to do anything like that. That day I was walking home alone at night and swearing at myself for having been such a fool, for not having done a background check before I sent them my money, but it was too late. I said to myself, it’s the Internet which took my money, then it’s the Internet that is going to return back my money, many times more. Well, by now, I have already got back the $600 that I got scammed on the Internet from the Internet and I still make money from the Internet every month.
I know I can make so much more money than I make now, but I am such a lazy bum at times. I hope in future, Internet makes me a full-time income, but that’s another thing. Now, don’t think that after being scammed, I started making money overnight. NO. Overnight?? It took me months of trying and not earning, before I could actually figure out what are the things that make money on the Internet.
If I remember well, the next thing I got into was a sort of MLM (Multi Level Marketing) program. In this program, I was supposed to pay a monthly fee to join, then I had to refer other people to pay a fee to join and for everyone that joined, I would earn a commission (which was $1 every month for one person). And for everyone that joined under the person I referred I would also earn a commission and this would go up to 5 level deep. I think some people also call this a “pyramid scheme”, because the structure looks like a pyramid. Well, after many months of being part of that program, I had only referred one person, and I ended paying more that what I was earning for several months. Definitely not a profitable business model, so I stopped. But I wouldn’t say they were a scam, because they provided with a service in return for the monthly fee, maybe I just didn’t figure how to make the the most of it. There are people who earn lots of money from such programs, but they surely put in LOTS of hardwork to see that kind of results. I don’t have that kind of motivation, to work for months (or years) before I see any profitable results.
After giving up on that MLM program, i moved on to another way people were apparently making money online. That was about paid surveys, where people were paid to fill surveys or join research groups, etc. It didn’t seem like a scam to me and in fact, making a living out of paid surveys was even mentioned on a TV channel. This got me thinking that it surely works. Unfortunately (yet again!), although it works, it doesn’t work for everybody. You see, the thing is you have to sign up with various companies and provide them with your personal details, then later they will contact you if they have any survey suitable for you. And on top, there is competition, and the number of surveys is limited. Signing up with the companies was free, but to get a list of all the companies, I had to pay another company $20 or so. People always find a way to pull money out of your pockets!!
Anyways, the paid surveys didn’t work for me. i almost never received any survey. I did make some money though. VERY LITTLE. Less than $50!!
Looks like there is going to be a Part 3 of this story 
I always thought there is not much to tell about my Internet experience, but there is. Please subscribe to the feeds from the right sidebar to stay updated when I post Part 3.
When I first got connected and surfed the Internet in 1997, I was 13 years old. I just got my first computer and I clicking here and there on my Windows 98 PC to discover new things everyday. At the time, dial-up Internet was rather costly so I couldn’t spend much time online because I had to pay for every minute regardless of whether I was surfing or not. Who knew about broadband then?? In those days, my online presence was very limited and I always used to think that only big companies can have websites or e-commerce sites.
It took me 4 years to figure out that even ordinary people can have websites. I was studying Computing at high school, but we were never taught how to create websites and webpages. But I wanted to have a website of my own so bad, I wanted to have a web address of my own, I wanted people to read my website. so I spent several weeks learning how I can create a website and put it on the world wide web. That was when I also realized that learning something on your own, doing all research from zero without the help of a teacher is really hard. The feeling you get after you work so hard, that too on your summer holidays is just FANTABULOUS.
My first website was 4-5 pages website about Jokes, which was “hosted” freely on Geocities . I put hosted in quotes, because at that time I had no idea what a web host was. But for me that was a great achievement.
Several years later, in 2005, I then find out that ordinary people on the Internet can make money. Before, I used to think business websites only make money by selling merchandise through their e-commerce sites. That was just one business model, there are so many other simpler ways for ordinary people like you and me to make money on the Internet. I would like to warn you here, the Internet is also home for “virtual vultures” who are looking for opportunities to cheat you, rob you and scam you, and they’ll run away with your money. I’m talking from experience so I know.
In early 2005, I decided to not pursue my degree in Electrical engineering at the University of Mauritius and move to Australia to do a degree in Internet Computing at RMIT University (I ended up doing a degree in Information Technology because they didnt have enough students that semester - but that’s another story) in Melbourne. So that was when I was looking for ways to make money on the Internet so i could have a nice little income source “working” on the Internet from Australia. I did lots of useless things in hope to make money. There were the “paid to read emails” opportunities, I signed up with as many as I could and I was received hundreds of emails a day only to earn a few cents. I kept researching to find other ways of making money online and i came across this one website (the site that scammed me $600 - i wont mention their name because they don’t exist anymore).
They were selling sites that were already making money. I wasn’t really sure how it all worked. i just understood that I need to buy a website in my name and all profits made form the sales will be credited to my account (OR SO I THOUGHT). I’m feeling a bit angry at myself when I recall about that time again, I was not completely sure how it all worked and I still sent them $600 for a website. I used all the money in my savings account and them the money through Stormpay. Some days later, i saw the site that I bought from them was still on sale, so i contacted them and told me something which I didnt completely understand but I believed them. I was receiving emails that sales were being made from MY site but the money was to be sent to me only after 3 months.
Three months later, I was living on my own in Australia and i was still hoping and actually counting a lot on all that money accumulated from MY website. But guess what? I NEVER GOT THE MONEY!!
I need a break right now, i’ll continue my story on making money online some other time. Please subscribe to stay updated when I make the next post if you wish to know my story.
P.S. For those who can’t bear the suspense, I do make money on the Internet now and I will tell you everything about it. Just be patient…
We got rid of them! That’s what innovations are all about, getting rid of the old and adopting the new. Well, the old website’s contents on Ninecolour.com were not all outdated and useless, but it would have been quite some work to transfer the contents from static webpages to this Wordpress powered blog.
All new things (and some of the evergreen old things) happening in the Internet Marketing world will be talked about here from now on. Stay tuned by subscribing to the RSS feeds!
We are now using Wordpress as the content management system for our website. We hope it will encourage and improve communications and interactions between our customers and us.
Static websites are outdated, welcome to the new dynamic website of Ninecolour Innovations.
It is also going to be easier on us to update the website whenever we are adding new services or special offers for our clients. Subscribing to the feeds is also a good idea so that you don’t miss any news and updates.