Video Professor Review

I ordered the free trial of Excel from Video Professor after being referred to their site by someone...damned if I can figure out who referred me or how much they promised to pay me (I obviously did this before I realized the importance of record keeping in this gig!).

The CDs reached me within a week of ordering, and were quite interesting. I did not, however, want to pay for them (obviously) and so within the 10 days period after recieving them I called to cancel my order. The information that came with the CDs said that I could just send one of them back, but I figured that just to be safe (it would cost me $89.95 if I screwed it up!) I would call customer service.

The customer service agent I spoke to was fabulous. She did not try to pressure me to keep the CDs and easily accepted that I wanted to return them (not a guaranteed response, I assure you). She cancelled my account and assured me that I would not be billed anything unless I called them back and asked for them to send me something. She even gave me a return authorization number and told me the exact day I had to have my return postmarked. I was extremely impressed.

She did offer me two additional products in an attempt to get me to keep the CDs. The first was a "one-time" offer to send me two more of their lessons for free if I allowed them to bill me for the Excel lessons ($89.95). That actually seemed like a pretty good deal, and if you need to learn basic computer skills, this would be a great way to save money doing it. I, however, don't have the $90 to spare and my 'puter skills currently get me by :) She also offered to send me Moberly's Medical Encyclopedia, normally a $29.95 value, for $9.95 (no s & h). Again, not a bad deal, but no thanks. I expected the additional offers, but was especially impressed with how polite she was in accepting my refusals of these offers and the fact that she did not pressure me at all to accept them. Again, this kind of easy refusal isn't necessarily the norm!

Overall, I am impressed by the Video Professor program and would say that, if you can get paid to try it out, it is definitely worth your time and not inordinately difficult.

I'll let you know if I ever get paid by the referring site (whoever they are LOL).

Terribly delinquent, I know

I thought when I started this blog that it would be a pretty simple proposition: report on the email (mostly spam) I was getting, and advise people what to do and not to do (mostly not) when looking at "easy" ways to make money on the internet. Little did I know what I was getting into!!! The sheer quantities of email - not spam, just email that I apparently asked for - has been overwhelming. Some senders I have learned to delete, because they just say the same thing over and over again. Some I have to read a little more carefully to see if they actually have a semi-legitimate offer in them or not. Some I spend a good deal of time on, puzzling out what website exactly I logged onto to get on that particular mailing list (I usually don't succeed in this). And then there are the email that actually do pay me money (usually about $.05 each) to click on a link and pretend to read the website. More on those later. I'd say I average about 30 a day, which is actually a slow-down since I've become much more discriminating (lol) about how many times I give out my email.

This doesn't even BEGIN to touch the volume of spam that hits my inbox. I'd say that since I started, I've gotten over 6000 total...I had no idea how many companies and individuals had so much time on their hands or so many products they want me to buy!!! This wouldn't be a problem if I could mass delete them, but I tend to sift through them because occasionally something I really want (as much as I "want" any of this crap) gets stuck there by the filters. I've currently got about 1700 in there waiting for my brief perusal.

And the cell phone...gods, the cell phone. I may have briefly lost my mind when I started this whole adventure, but I did have enough sense not to give out my home number. Husband hates it when the phone rings, and I knew he'd go nuts with the number of calls I suspected I'd get. SO. I gave out my cell phone number, which was, to be honest, pathetically uncalled 99% of the time. All I can say is...DAMN. That phone rings off the hook now; I have to keep it on vibrate just to keep myself sane (even a ringtone you like can drive you nuts if you hear it enough, and I don't particularly like mine). The new rule is that if I don't recognize the number I sure as hell am not going to answer it, so if you happen to actually be a friend of mine, don't call me from a strange number or you're going straight to voicemail. Fortunately, most of the marketers don't bother to leave a voicemail. Unfortunately, enough of them do that I've started to ignore voicemail, which has gotten me in trouble a few times when it was actually someone important. Blech.

Over the past couple of days, however, I've been compiling a few helpful hints for anyone else out there who might, in a moment of weakness, fall for the promise of easy money, and I'll be posting those soon. Not that anyone is actually reading this blog at this point (LMAO) but perhaps someday someone will :)

Money for Momma begins

Well.

Seeing as how (judging from the amount of spam in my inbox) I seem to have started something (gods only know what! LOL!) I figured I should blog this, um, adventure for the edification of all.

Short summary:

6 days ago I happened upon an ad (I don't remember where) saying that I could earn money by reading email. Well. I read email, so what the hell, right?

I've spent the last 6 days giving out my name, addy, and cell phone number (NOT home cuz husband would freakin kill me) to about a billion "survey" sites and desperately trying to keep my spam inbox relatively clear. (Yeah. That's a losing battle - I've gotten 305 spam emails in the last 24 hours! LOL!). I am currently waiting for the paper junk mail to hit my mailbox here a home. Oh, the number of trees I suspect I am going to kill with this! Even recycling won't assuage the guilt, I'm sure...

So I've seen plenty of promises and spam...what I have yet to see is any paid survey or, more to the point, cash. Which I suppose is exactly what I should have suspected but give me a break...I had just checked our bank account right before I saw that initial ad and husband may be changing jobs sooner than we expected - I was feeling a bit desperate!!!

Not that this hasn't all been amusing, but I figured that someone should actually benefit from it, so listen up, dear reader, and experience this vicariously (without the spam).