eRipoff
Written: Feb 02 '01 (Updated Feb 02 '01)
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The Bottom Line
It's not just 18 cents an hour for "surfing". It's 18 cents an hour for surfing and waiting to close popup windows. Your time is worth more than that.
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| Full Review |
I joined ePipo a few months ago, having become disillusioned with AllAdvantage's declining payout rates. At the time it was a decent deal--$.30-$.35/hour, plus a portion of your referrals' surfing.
ePipo basically pays you to surf the Internet, provided you let them put SurfWindow software on your computer that basically fixes two banner ads on the top of your screen. They rent this screen real estate by paying you by the hour. To earn money you have to have clicked in a browser window within the past 5 minutes or so.
ePipo has gotten progressively more obnoxious over the past month though. First, despite the rhetoric on their website, popup windows abound, and you can't close them for a few seconds. They even popup when you're not earning money for surfing. Very annoying if you're trying to work on a paper or something. At first there were just a few banner-sized ones that popped up every ten minutes or so. But they've added more--and they've grown larger. Signing on now gets you two popups as well as an ad banner. And the popup windows are now 2-3 times the size of a banner, obstructing even more of your work. Plus it's been known to randomly pop open IE windows for no reason at all.
Also slightly frightening is the way ePipo monitors your browsing. The software monitors the Web sites you go to "to tailor the ads you receive". Nice idea in theory, but the privacy implications are a little scary.
On top of it all the SurfWindow still crashes on me more often than Internet Explorer. And when this happens it conveniently "forgets" how much money I've earned.
Now all these annoyances might be worth it if you could expect maybe $20 a month. But ePipo has decided to go the AllAdvantage route, giving their members the shaft by cutting the payout rates down to 18 cents an hour. Like AllAdvantage, they think they can entice their members with "points" that could win them "prizes". Somehow it's not worth it on the off chance that I could win a $10 gift certificate to Amazon.com.
And I have yet to receive a check from these people despite the fact that I have earned $38 so far (minimum payout is $25)...
If you want to earn money with your computer, you can do better. I'm currently reviewing several pay-for-processing networks that sell your PC's idle time to companies and that look a lot more promising. I'll post reviews here as soon as I have more info.
Recommended:
No
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About the Author
Member: Mike Brzozowski
Location: Novi, MI
Reviews written: 7
Trusted by: 5 members
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