In Search of Online Jobs

I have been trying to earn extra cash lately, and one of the easiest ways to do so (they say) is to sign up to several online survey sites.

True enough, there are many of these on the internet, and some can be very attractive with their offers. Imagine earning $20 just to complete a survey. How about earning cash without realy doing anything? This can happen in cases where you sign up to an online survey website. After creating your account, you are given a link which you can give to friends, relatives, co-workers, schoolmates, even to a casual acquaintance that you just met at a neighbor's house party.

Once these people sign up to the same website and start completing surveys, you also get to earn money as their referrer.

Now, if these very same people refer their own set of friends and loved ones to the same site, they also get to earn extra cash on their own. You can just imagine how astronomical the potential is.

Sounds crazy? Well, it does at first glance, simply because there is no way corporate business, even those based online, will give away that much money to people just for answering a simple survey.

But they will, because they know how crazy you are surfing the net. Might as well make use of that to know what you think about their products and/or services.

There is a small catch, though. There is a strong chance you will get paid. However, you need to meet a certain threshold first. This is the amount you have to meet before an online survey site will give you your hard-earned cash.

The threshold amount varies in every online survey. Some require only $20, which you can easily meet, assuming every survey you complete is worth $5 each.

Others require higher threshold amounts, say $75, in which case, time is needed before you actually get paid. This can happen in cases where a single survey will involve only a payment of $1.

If you think this is a cool way to earn a few dollars, try visiting this link: http://www.cashcrate.com/1910027

On the other hand, if you do not really have the feel for doing surveys, there are a few other ways of getting quick cash the online way. Have you heard of data entry jobs? Well, there are lots of these as well on the worldwide web.

These jobs often involve very simple tasks. Some will ask you to copy and paste a few paragraphs onto a given sheet. After that, voila, your account (which you need to create first) gets credited with a certain amount.

Others, meanwhile, will ask you to read a given webpage and look for any error that you can spot. You will then take note of this on a given form that the website will provide. Upon submission of the form, you get paid.

Data entry jobs, though, have developed a somewhat negative image in the online world, especially in recent years. This is because many of them have turned out to be true-blue scams.

I was a victim of this job type. I signed up with www.realdataentry.net about a year ago since they had a very attractive offer. Just review a webpage that they will provide you everyday, looking for errors in spelling, punctuation marks, grammar, etc. For every review, they will pay you $10. Payout will be given when you have earned $1000.

This was quite an offer. Since I'm a proofreader by profession, the job fits in quite nicely to what I'm involved in.

The nice thing about it was that the review can be done weekly. So, in a week's time, I've already made $70. Multiply that by four weeks, and at the end of the month, I already have $280 in my account. In just a little over four months, I was ready to request for a payout.

This was when the review requests stopped coming in to my email account. I was then at the $900 or so threshold. I waited for a week, but no review requests was received.

I then started making a few online searches. It turned out that www.realdataentry.net has had several members before who never got paid. Some claim they were paid but these were bogus individuals or were connected in some way to the administrators of the site.

Try typing www.realdataentry.net on the address bar of your browser. Most likely, you will be referred to a search page, and when you click on one of the searched pages, you will be told that this cannot be displayed.

Such a sad episode of my online existence. And to think that I had to shell out about $10 as membership fee which the site quickly collected from my credit card.

Lesson learned: if you are asked for payment of any kind for an online job (no matter how small the amount is), it's most probably a scam.

In Clear Violation

Somewhere along the the stretch of EDSA, there's a violation going on. It's not a traffic infraction which has become standard in this particular stretch of road. It's about a violation of a rule that is clearly printed in very bold letters.

I regularly travel about one half of the entire stretch of EDSA since my job is in the Ortigas area and I just happen to reside in faraway Valenzuela. For the uninformed, Valenzuela is that relatively small town (now city) which serves as the boundary between urban Manila and the province of Bulacan.

As I travel on this major highway, which covers about five major cities (Calooan, Quezon City, Pasig, Mandaluyong, Pasay), I noticed this very conspicuous banner poster advertisement placed at the corner of EDSA and Timog Avenue. The ad states that, as per a certain Quezon City ordinance, no political advertisement will be displayed on any major road or street that falls under city jurisdictions. Since EDSA is a major road, I assume the ordinance is applicable.

If you are an alien residing in the Philippines, please be aware that the country is in the midst of an election fever. Hence, candidates seeking public office resort to all kinds of tactics in their efforts to be recognized.

It is in this regard that I found the act of the Quezon city government worth applauding.

The praise, I found out later to my dismay, was not worth it. Because just before you reach the corner of EDSA and P. Tuazon Boulevard (still in Quezon City),there is this technical school on top of which is displayed a huge billboard of two men running for the two highest public positions in the land.

Now, this is definitely a violation of that city ordinance prominently displayed at the corner of Timog Avenue and EDSA.

Philippine elections have always been seen as the perfect tool to effect the needed changes in the country. Unfortunately, it has also been the instrument where either the best or the worst in man will come out.

If those concerned are reading this and if they are committed to making the changes that this country sorely needs, please start by arresting election violators and show them we mean business.