Following my previous article titled “How To Make Money
Online in Kenya”, I received quite a lot of emails from people inquiring about
legitimate opportunities that exist online.
One fan sent me a link to a certain referral website asking
if it was legit or not. Well, it didn’t take me long to note that the website
was spam and so I advised him to stop using it immediately.
After this event, I sat down and thought, why not expose
various ways how NOT to make money online? I hope this article will enlighten
you so that you don’t end up making some of the mistakes that I, and other
people, have made before.
How To Make Money Online in Kenya - 6 Precautions To Take
(1) Fake Referral Programs
In this case, you are requested to sign into a certain
program e.g. monthlyyouth.com, once you sign-up you are given a unique referral
link. You are then requested to urge as many of your friends to click on your
link and you are paid after every click.
From the best of my knowledge, these
programs DON’T WORK…and you shouldn’t waste your time on them. The only referral programs that I can confidently say do
work in Kenya include:
- Payoneer Refer a Fried Program
- Hostgator Affiliate Program
- Travel Start Affiliate Program
Note: In the three examples given above you are only paid
after someone you refer signs-up and meets a certain criteria. Like for Travel
Start affiliate program you are only paid after someone you refer books a flight or hotel either
in Kenya or Internationally…NOT FOR CLICKS as it is the case with the fake
programs.
(2) High Yield Investment Programs
These are the types of programs whereby you are encouraged
to invest certain sums of money to reap insanely huge amounts of interest. One
example I remember very well is Bullish Trade. In BT (as we used to call it)
one would invest a minimum of $25 (Ksh2500) to earn up to 2-5% interest rate per
day.
And then you would earn some more by referring your friends under your
pyramid. Well, you know what, Bullish Trade collapsed and people lost millions
of investments.
- When the deal is too good, think twice
- If the interest rate is too good to be true, then chances are that it is another pyramid scheme
- Note that you can be sued for recruiting your friends into a pyramid scheme under Money Laundering charges in Law
- Don’t rush to invest your money in any online service until you are sure it is 100% legit
(3) Services That Require You To Pay To Get A Job Or Quick Money
Avoid, and again I say avoid, looking for online work in
websites that require you to make online payment so that they can reveal super-program that will teach you "how make money online in Kenya" in a magical way. If you must pay for
anything only pay for localized training.
- If you want to learn more about blogging – talk to me
- If you want to learn more about online opportunities that work – talk to Walter Akolo
- If you want to learn more about Video transcription – talk to Sheeroh Kiarie
- If you want to learn more about affiliate marketing – take Mark Ling’s training
Here’s the trick; whenever you come across any money making
program, always Google it. For instance you can Google “‘Website ABCD’+ review”
if you want learn if it is real or not.
(4) Services That Require You To Provide Your Credit Card Number
Be wary of websites that require you to provide them with your ATM card number…safe for PayPal, I would not recommend you give your credit card number to any other person. If you are going to buy anything online, make use of your Nakumatt Global or Nation Hela card.
- If you give out your credit card number, someone can start surcharging money to your bank account without your consent
- If you shop on a shady website, the product might never be delivered to you and you might pay dearly for any errors arising
- Someone might use your credit information to steal your details and misrepresent you – this is called identity theft
(5) Working For Someone Who Has Not kept Some Money In Escrow Account
Most clients
who don’t want to keep some money in the system are probably fake, you will
work for them and they’ll refuse to pay-up claiming that "Oooh, you delivered
shoddy work"…"Ohhh you did not deliver on time" among other flimsy excuses.
- Always ensure that the client has set some amount in your milestone/escrow account
- Those using iwriter are partially protected from this loophole because a client cannot place an order without placing some money in the reserve
(6) Working For Clients Who Have Never Been Reviewed
If for instance you are working on iwriter.com, you might come across a client who has 0% approval rating or one with 100% approval rating but 0 reviews…well, when you choose to work for such a client there’s 80% probability that you’ll not be paid.
- I would recommend you only work for clients who have been reviewed and rated by at least 5 other people
- Make sure you do a background check of the client before working for him
- From my observation so far, 80% of new client accounts created nowadays belong to conmen.
Make sure you don’t get caught by any of the above-mentioned
traps. If you want to learn "How to make money online in Kenya"
here’s an article that can get you started. I would also welcome you to join my
mailing list – where you will get premium advice that goes beyond what I provide
through blog articles.
