Adraker Scam
Mon, Jul 23, 2007
Adraker is was is was is (confused? me too!) a paid to read (PTR) email scheme. What differentiates it from it’s competition is the fact that not only is it a paid to read service, but it also offers a profit sharing scheme to it’s participants too.
How it works
Members gain something called an ‘Adraker spot’ for signing up. They can then purchase additional Adraker spots for $10 each. Money is earned by reading one email a day and clicking on a link within that email. This gives the reader an entitlement to their ‘Daily Rake’ payment which is a dividend of the total revenue generated by Adraker on that day.
For each Adraker slot that you have they guarantee that you will earn a minimum of 190% of it’s cost by just continuing to read one email a day and clicking on the embedded link.
As advertisers are paying to have their emails read, and new people are buying slots, so the revenue should increase. Adraker say they pay a percentage of revenue rather than fixed amounts. This fact ensures that they can never run out of money.
Total revenue for the day is derived from both the number of Adraker slots sold and the amount of advertising payments received in any given 24 hour period.
This figure is then divided equally by the number of active Adraker spots during that same timeframe.
As an affiliate you can earn bonus points which can then lead to further free Adraker spots for yourself when you have acquired 8000 ‘activity points’ -
- 50 points for reading and visiting one email advertiser per day
- 25 points for logging into your Adraker account
- 100 points for buying an Adraker slot
- 1 point for having someone just visit Adraker through your affiliate link
- 150 points if a referral upgrades
- 1000 points for purchasing from a sponsored advertiser
Sounds good, how can it be a scam?
Actually, the above really does look good. I tried to get my head round the maths of it as paying out 190% of all investments smells of a Ponzi scheme to me. Unfortunately, I don’t know how much advertisers are paying so it’s impossible to tell if it is a self sufficient system or whether the bubble is going to burst in the future.
In theory the model behind Adraker looks like it may have potential and those who buy Adraker slots may turn a profit for a little work, i.e. reading one email a day. However….
There have been developments…
The Adraker system is now turning into something of a fiasco, hence the ‘is/was’ business at the beginning of this post.
As ever on the internet, it is sometimes difficult to know what the truth is. Recent stories suggest that the CEO, Stephen Thompson, died recently and so Adraker is being sold.
Whether that is true or not, the site has now been inaccessable for some time, leaving a great many people wondering if they have been ripped off.
Rumblings from the ‘new owners’ suggest that Adraker will return in the near future but deadlines have come and gone and people who have bought Adraker slots are not getting anything in the way of support or refunds.
It is my opinion that Adraker was a ponzi scheme that has now collapsed. If you have already put money into it then don’t expect to get it back. Should Adraker return then remember that they were down for ages with no communication to their members which is unforgivable.
Verdict : Total SCAM
i was a member for about a month until this happened, i was pissed off but i didnt invest anything except my few hours i put in combined. but when u go into these online money maker programs 80% or more are scams so what can you expect
Unfortunately you are right Jordan, most online money making propositions are shady at best.
Don’t get too disheartened though, there are some good ones around, and my intention is to spend some time looking specifically at such opportunities in the coming weeks, in order to sort the wheat from the scam.