So a while ago I received an email from Clixsense.com about a new make money at home venture, GeoString.com. My ears perked up for two reasons. One, I'm all about adding to my multiple streams of income. If you've been on this blog long enough, you know how I'm always preaching that smaller streams lead to big lakes. That's how I view any way to make money regardless of how little the money may seem. It's that type of thinking that has allowed me to work at home full time and why many of you now make money at home legitimately. The second reason I perked up was because the email was coming from a company I trust which is Clixsense. It's one of the long standing PTC websites on the web which I have made money with consistently and reviewed here.
With that in mind, I was very excited about the promise of GeoString.com. But because I've been in this industry for a while, I know it's not wise to just jump into an unproven new opportunity even if it's from a trusted source. I don't like being anyone's guinea pig so I wait and see. This is why this review happens to be months after GeoString's initial launch. So let's detail in this review what I've discovered now that the dust has settled.
What is GeoString about?
GeoString is very simple. It's basically a get paid to read email opportunity, very much like Hits4pay.com. Just like Hits4Pay and most non-traditional work at home opportunities there is an "OPTIONAL" referral or affiliate program. (Surprise, Surprise. Not. lol) But GeoString wants to be cute and label the referrals you may decide to acquire as "strings". These referrals will probably be from all over the map. Put it together and you have GeoString. Hey I give them some points for thinking of a decent name.
How GeoString works?
As I just mentioned they want you to create "strings" of people, to join up and read and respond to an email once a week. You sign up for FREE, each time you refer someone else to sign up also, you're basically starting a new string. All the people that your referrals sign up, become attached to you up until 10 levels. For those of you who have become pretty savvy at this, it is very similar to an MLM. I know for some people MLMs are viewed like pyramid scams. But if an MLM has an actual product or service and not just dependent on signing up new members to make money, it's not actually a pyramid scheme. So keep that in mind just in case you're rolling your eyes.
How do you make money with Geo String?
You get $10 credit (real money) for signing up which is free. (No complaints here.) Then every Tuesday you get an email with one ad. Read the ad and click a button to confirm you read it. Once you do, you earn $.01 for the painful "trouble" of reading the ad. lol Like any good make money program you also get paid for spreading the love and trying to get others to sign up under you. It's purely optional, well sort of when it comes this opportunity. But as someone that makes a living spreading the love, you probably want to do it to make some decent money.
When you do refer others, like you your referrals will also earn $10 for signing up. But what's sweet for you is that you also get $.01 for every email your referrals respond to. To make it even better, you also get $.01 for everyone of your referrals and their referrals reading emails down to ten levels. That can add up pretty fast if you know what you're doing. (Trained affiliates would probably kill this easily.)
How often will you get paid?
Like most of these kind of non-traditional opportunities there will be a threshold you must meet before getting paid. Sadly this threshold is $100. You get paid once a month, for the previous month's earnings. A check is sent directly to your home address (Really, no paypal?). They go on to claim you would be shocked at how fast it builds up. To prove their point, they even have a calculator thing where you put in the number of referrals and they show you how much money you can earn.
Look, I don't need a cute little calculator to tell me at a penny a click, it will take a gang of clicks to get to $100 by myself. Even with the $10 credit, it ends up being 9,000 clicks. Doing this on your own will take forever. So obviously this is to encourage you to get people to join. Now someone like me who is a trained affiliate with a large following, could probably easily get the large number of people it would require to help me earn the $100 threshold. But this ain't about me. It's about you and honestly I think the threshold is excessively high for the average person. Most companies in this industry have minimum payouts that range from $2 – $25. $100 is just ridiculous in my humble opinion.
That being said, I have no doubt that if you do reach the $100 threshold you will get paid. The fact this company is run by Clixsense which has a long standing history of paying sort of guarantees that to me. So I would expect the same level of service here. That being said like any program I'm sure there are a few people that slip through the cracks. Unfortunately in my experience regardless of how legitimate a company may be, they aren't free of complaints.
Show me the money!
So keeping the high $100 threshold in mind please consider the following. Geostring went live March, 2010, so it is just over 6 months old. So it was none of that beta stuff like PayBox.me. The site is live! As such, there has been a lot of chatter and hype with people going whole hog promoting it! That is no surprise considering how this site is set up to encourage referrals. I have no issue with that. But what's making me feel more uncomfortable than a grown ass man in tighty whities is that there is a lot less confirmation of people getting paid. Now am I surprised? Not really when you consider the numbers of referrals you would need to reach the payout threshold. That could take months or even a year for most people. In all fairness to GeoString, 6 months is not a long time to be in business, I agree. But if you are trying to build a businesses there is nothing like success to breed success. Proof of people getting paid is the best success you can find, so demonstrating it relatively quickly is in your best interest. Without proof, people will start accusing you of being a work at home scam and could doom your venture before it starts to take off.
To that end you would think they would lower the pay threshold so more people would be successful. To make matters worst GeoString has had a bit of a spam issue (which isn't really their fault). According to the company some people have reported some of the paid emails they signed up to receive as spam. To combat the problem they recently sent a letter to their subscribers explaining this problem and how the long term effect has been that they have not grown as much as they had hoped. In my book doomsday letters like that don't sell a whole lot of confidence for future success.
Conclusion
Although I do not believe GeoString is a scam or some phony pyramid scheme, I do believe it will be difficult to earn money with this thing. You really need to have access to a good number of people, who in turn will be good at referring others for you to make money with this opportunity. I know from experience this isn't a good fit for many of you. It's not like something like ICS or Fusion Cash where you could actually earn purely from your own efforts.
Now I'm not telling you not to try GeoString. At the end of the day it is free, so you probably won't lose much. The fact it's run by a long standing legitimate paying company Clixsense also makes me feel less on edge. However considering the ridiculously high payout threshold and the need to have a large pool of people to refer, I just don't really see a lot of normal folks being successful with this opportunity. However trained internet marketers and people with a large following could probably easily ace this.
In any event I would love to hear your thoughts about this opportunity. If you have had success with this opportunity or haven't, feel free to chime in below. I'd love to hear from both camps either way to get a balanced view of this company.
Since the 1st of Feburary Geostring has gone offline, im not exactly sure how long it is going to stay offline or if it is going to come back at all, the message that they give when you try to go to there website is “We are currently offline due to lack of member participation.
All eligible payments have been processed and sent with Alertpay. We apologize for any inconvenience but cannot continue with less than 10% of our membership participating.”
Thanks for the update!
@LadyDi:
You are so very welcome girl! Glad you got in 😉
Much continued success with the focus groups. And all the best with WA!
As far as WA goes….. I am more or less bombarding myself with all that info and just sorting it all out later. That type of learning is not for everyone but it seems to work for me. So to all…. the way WA presents things may not be right for your own personal learning style….but that doesn’t mean it’s not valid. It’s awesome stuff…….;)
basically it is only worth it if you have a large network of friends.
@Eddy Salomon:
Thanks, Eddy. Yes, I’ve actually joined the ones recommended on your site.
Alanna, You’re welcome. That’s good then.
SML,
I don’t even think that it would help much because most people would be turned off to joining once they see that $100 payout threshold. So even me with my network of people, couldn’t get people to sign up.
I did give geostring a try a while back. I was never credited for reading the emails. Not once. I hope they have greatly improved on this. The ridiculously high payout was a huge turn off to referrals. I could not get one person, not even my mother who usually signs up for whatever I have tried out. That was a couple of months ago so hopefully it will improve and they will lower the payout eventually.
Me personally I don’t care too much for sites like that, it’s just not an smart way to make money online for people. There are many of niche markets out there you can tap into..
“TrafficColeman “Signing Off”
Hey Eddy….and@Callie..thanks for all the focus group links! I just got my 2 rolls of paper towels in the mail today for the household products group, and my Clear Eyes eyedrops for another group.
And Eddy, I am lovin’ WA, even though i don’t know what the heck i’m doing yet. Also getting a kick out of some of the crazy HITS on mturk. So I’ll be “normalizing text messages” for a few more nights.lol
Thanks again.
LadyDi,
You’re welcome. Focus groups are easy and fun money provided you can qualify to get in them. Getting freebie products to try is just another perk. Gotta love this industry and the various ways to make money if one is open minded. Glad you like WA. Give it some time. I always suggest people just read the material a few times before taking any action so you have a better understanding of how things connect. So that’s my suggestion to you as well. In terms of Amazon Turk, it’s amazing the type of hits that are available right? It’s fun though.
Antonio,
I hear you. To each their own. But me I’m about multiple streams of income so every cent counts to me even if these opportunities aren’t my main money maker. I still find them useful. You also have to keep in mind that some people just aren’t cut out for running their own website, or doing affiliate marketing. So my job is to provide them with various other options so they can pick what’s best for them. Because opportunities that may not be appealing to you may be to others. In any event, thanks for chiming in.
Jeanie,
That’s crazy you were never credited for emails you read. That’s definitely a concern and I hope that wasn’t the norm for most people. Either way it’s not a good sign.
I think the fact your mother wouldn’t even join because of the high payout says it all. It’s just an unrealistic amount given the pay for the emails being read. So I doubt this thing will ever get off the ground unless the owners wise up. I guess time will tell. Thanks for sharing your experience. It’s good to hear from people that have actually tried the opportunity.
Hi Eddy,
I was just wondering about something. All these survey sites ask for your address and phone number, etc. Is it posssible that some of these sites can steal your identity with this information? I’ve signed up for quite a few and it’s starting to make me nervous!!
Thanks,
Alanna
Alanna,
Like anything you have to do your due diligence before joining any company. This is why we’re constantly recommending that people conduct research. One way of doing that is following the steps in our scam video:
http://www.workathomenoscams.com/scams
So provided you have done your research and aren’t just joining every random survey company, you should be fine. Hopefully you have stuck with some of the ones we have recommended or from other trusted resources.