AllAdvantage.com-I Was Burned and I Pulled The Plug!
Written: Nov 06 '00
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Well, I did it. I uninstalled my AllAdvantage bar. I knew I would eventually, but I kept putting it off till I got my payoff that has been sitting in my account for months. I finally admitted to myself that I would never get that $29 and decided all the hassle just wasn’t worth it anymore.
The product:
AllAdvantage is a “pay-to-surf” program, which you download into your computer. A viewbar rests on your desktop and it “talks” from your computer to AllAdvantage and tells them where you surf. So they, in turn, can tell their clients, read-advertisers, where to place their advertising. In return for your information, AllAdvantage pays you a cents-per-hour “wage”, with a limited number of hours you get paid for. If you sign on other members through your name, AllAdvantage pays you a portion of the surfing your referrals do. If your referrals bring on referrals of their own, you also get a portion of your referrals referrals…and so on and so on. The referral amounts change so frequently I have no idea what they are now. I couldn’t keep up.
The good, the bad and the ugly.
The good:
AllAdvantage started out on the right foot as far as pay goes. They were, read-were, paying .50 an hour with a maximum of 25 hours and a promise of increased hours to 40 hours per month. I signed up five referrals under my member name and I received pay out of $20 within a couple of months. My referrals were happy with the money they were making and I was adding one referral a month on average. I had a couple referrals that added one or two referrals themselves and all were happy. Again, read-were.
The bad:
Rumor had it AllAdvantage was loosing money. Some members were making thousands of dollars and AllAdvantage did some re-structuring. They decided to increase the amount of hours you could surf to 35 hours, but decrease the amount of pay you received per hour to .20 per hour. They also changed the payout amount to $30. So now rather than making $12.50 a month with no referrals, members made $7.00 a month with no referrals. Ok, fine.
The ugly:
Then without warning AllAdvantage more or less shut down their web page. For almost a month people could not get to their member page to check their account balance and with no word/email explanation from AllAdvantage. Once members were able to check their account, AllAdvantage revamped their whole system. Unbeknownst to any members, and against our will we were added to a “Sweepstakes” division of AllAdvantage. Members were not making money for surfing now, they were surfing to put their name in a jackpot to be drawn and shared. Only after AllAdvantage revamped and highway-ed all their members into this “Sweepstakes” for a month, did they give them the option of choosing what they wanted to do with their money. Either be entered into the Sweeps, or get paid to surf.
Once that happened, I decided I wanted out. Obviously, AllAdvantage doesn’t care about it’s thousands of members and is becoming more and more of a hoax. I figured I would wait till I earned my obligatory $30.00 so my account would clear, and I would get a check that I surfed hard for. At the end of October I had $29.80 in my account from my earnings and my referral earnings. Oh by the way, did I mention I got hate mail from 3 of my 5 referrals saying how AllAdvantage sucked and they were getting out? Their words, not mine…although I am beginning to agree with them. When I logged on to my member page this month, I had to “ok” a new “Terms of Use” statement to be able to get to my account. Without explanation by AllAdvantage, I was signing a contract stating I wouldn’t be getting paid cash till my account hit $50 now. But “oh, by the way” you can sign up for our new program called ecounts. Ecounts are personal web accounts that let you shop, send and receive cash online.
Huh?
Just give me my freakin’ money! I surfed my time, I earned my dough so give me what I earned. I have decided to uninstall and be rid of this hoax of a pay-to-surf program. I am absolutely positive that if I stay on and get close to my payout AllAdvantage will again pull the rug out from under me and change the payout rate. I am sure they would never pay me, ever.
Not only was I disappointed in the payout changes, Sweepstakes changes and rate changes…I was very discouraged with the viewbar. Just a few problems I had were:
• It frequently locked my computer up
• After a certain period of surf time (around 3 hours) the view bar would arbitrarily have an “error” and shut down.
• It took up WAY too much space on my computer
• Half the time I was surfing Infomediary man (the symbol representing AllAdvantage, and what let you know if the bar was working) wouldn’t work
I have no idea why I stayed with AllAdvantage as long as I have. I guess it’s that “somethin-for-nothin” adage. I’m on the Internet anyway, managing bulletin boards for MSN, why not get paid extra for doing it? Well, I didn’t get paid and I never will. It will probably be a long time before I download another pay-to-surf bar. I’m burned, and burned bad.
Recommended:
No
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chrisceb
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Member: Chris B
Location: Florida
Reviews written: 367
Trusted by: 322 members
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