Is Wealthy Affiliate a Scam
You want to make money online so you do a search on Google. Then you see a link to Wealthy Affiliate and you ask yourself, is Wealthy Affiliate a scam? It makes you wonder being that there are so many scams online. Many of these scams are claiming that you can make hundreds and thousands of dollars a week.
You see their web pages and blogs, displaying pictures of big houses and piles of cash, all claiming that you can make this with very little work on your part. But then you notice that the information about Wealthy Affiliate is totally different.
Wealthy Affiliate is Not a Scam
You wonder, is this just some kind of Wealthy Affiliate scam? That was the question I asked myself because I had encountered many opportunities that sounded too good to be true, yet also had too many Red Flags.
However there was something different about Wealthy Affiliate and what they were promoting. Something that didn’t make me feel that I was being hustled or suggesting that I could make thousands of dollars by using their exclusive system.
Is Wealthy Affiliate another scam?
You may think so. However I’m not going to keep you in suspense any longer. NO, Wealthy Affiliate is not a scam and I can prove it. I believe that things happen for a reason, both good and bad. For me, I know I prayed to God that I would make the right decision choosing Wealthy Affiliate.
I was already making money online by selling on eBay. However I was looking for a more lucrative way in addition to eBay. I already knew that the only way to make money in an online business was that I needed my own website. So that is what I originally was looking for online.
However I had no knowledge in how to program a website, I still do not know how. I was looking for a system that would teach me how to build my own website for free and thus also teach me how to make money with my website. Wealthy Affiliate delivered that opportunity BIG time!
What makes Wealthy Affiliate different from the rest?
If you look at what Wealthy Affiliate offers and what all of those other so called “Guru” and online money making websites offer, you can truly see the difference. Here is the proof that Wealthy Affiliate (WA) is clearly not a scam.
• The Scams claim you can make hundreds and thousands of dollars a week or month – WA makes no such money claim about what you can make
• The Scams claim that the work is easy – WA says that you have to work hard to achieve your goals
• The Scams most times show a bank deposit statement or a check – WA shows nothing in regards to bank deposits or money transfers
• The Scams offer you their program but no direct contact with the owners – WA offers their training and many ways of direct contact with both owners
• The Scams offer you their blueprint program for making money – WA offers you many different ways to make money online
• The Scams always ask for money to get started & will offer a 30-60 Day money back guarantee – WA is 100% Free to start, learn and build a free WordPress website with free hosting and support
These are just six points where Wealthy Affiliate is different from the majority of the online, make money from home offers on the internet. They offer you the training, the websites, the support, and the resources to start your own online business of YOUR choosing.
Unlike all of the other systems out there, you are not locked into a specific way of making money, and that gives you plenty of opportunities in charting your own course for becoming your own boss. Wealthy Affiliate even has a couple of internal systems that allow you to earn some income.
Wealthy Affiliate gives you many opportunities to make money online
There are even more points that distinguish them as not being a scam but those six should be enough to put to rest any concerns about Wealthy Affiliate being any kind of a scam. From just those six points alone it was enough to convince me that they were not a scam.
I knew this was the right place for me so I joined in August of 2013 and it has been a fantastic learning experience ever since. I have made money from a few different affiliate marketing programs plus over $5,000.00 I make from the systems inside of Wealthy Affiliate.
Get an education like nowhere else
If you look at all of these so called make money at home and get rich quick schemes, you will notice that they do not offer anything more than just their money making system. They do not offer any kind of value that you can take and apply elsewhere in the world of business.
Plus if you have a question about how to operate their money making system, you don’t have very much help and support. However you can take the skills you learn from the Wealthy Affiliate training, like SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and freelance that skill anywhere online.
Have you ever tried learning something new and you just couldn’t get it right the first couple of times you tried it? Your mind starts spinning. Doubt starts to set in making you feel like you are in over your head. Then you start feeling like you should quit and try something else, because you can’t get any direct help.
Well guess what? That will not happen at Wealthy Affiliate. The goal of everyone in the community of members is for everyone to succeed. When you become a free member you are immersed into a thriving learning business community of members, all there for the same reason, to learn and earn.
Think of how rewarding it could be to learn something new by not just following the text and video lessons, every lesson has a video to show you what to do, but also to have the community members available to answer your questions and refer you to training. You cannot even get this type of support in college.
One last look at what the scams offer
Beware of Scams
The majority of the scams online offer you a type of job that you can work from home. You buy their system and work that system according to their guidelines. Then if you are successful in working their system you will get paid.
In order for you to achieve this goal, you have to pay them money upfront to buy their system. Then some will offer you a money back guarantee of 30-60 days so that you can get your money back if you do not make any money within a set amount of time.
BUT BEWARE! Most times it can be close to impossible to get your money back, if you even get it back at all.. I have seen many scams give people the runaround and stall tactics, just so they do not have to refund your money and hope you will quit asking. That does not happen at Wealthy Affiliate.
First off, if their money making system really works as good as they claim it does, and they want customers to trust that their system works, then why not offer a free sign up? It is Free to join Wealthy Affiliate because they know from experience that what they offer works!
Matter of fact, when you join Wealthy Affiliate you don’t even need to give any credit card or banking information. A valid email address is all that is needed. It is 100% free to join and learn how to make money online. With over ten thousand niches to choose from, money earning ideas will not be difficult.
One last look at what Wealthy Affiliate offers
There is a huge difference between the scams and Wealthy Affiliate. The scams offer you only their money making system. Wealthy Affiliate offers you an education in website design, keyword research, SEO techniques, video & email marketing, affiliate marketing with retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and thousands more.
Wealthy Affiliate also has an all-inclusive paid membership called Premium. However they encourage you to join as a Free Starter Member and take 10 of 50 Certification lessons for ZERO dollars! If Wealthy Affiliate were a scam, do you seriously think they would offer you their website builder, initial training, websites, and hosting all for FREE?
If you would like to learn more, read my Wealthy Affiliate Review 2014, or check out the comparison chart on my FAQ page. If you already feel you want to join, click the Free Signup image below. If you have any questions about anything you have read above, please leave a comment below and I will get back to you in 24 hours.
Robert, thanks for the post. It is very interesting. Is Wealthy Affiliate a MLM model business. I had a bad experience with that model of business.
We can recruit or affiliate people with Wealthy Affiliate. I will appreciate your answer.
You are welcome Rosa. Wealthy Affiliate is definitely NOT an MLM model. None of the money members make from their websites or from affiliate referrals get passed up because there is no upline. Every member keeps 100 percent of the money he or she makes.
Recruiting people only pays the person who did the recruiting once per month.That money comes from the member’s monthly premium fee and WA shares 50 percent of it with the person who is the recruiter. But NO Wealthy Affiliate is not an MLM model or anything close to a pyramid scheme. Kyle and Carson would NEVER stand for something dishonest like that.
Robert, thanks for your response. You are very kind.
Now, I am taking the first seven days of WA Starter membership. Before I upgrade to Premium Membership, I want to feel safe about WA.
Rosa
You are welcome Rosa! WA is definitely a safe place and that is one of the easons why they have been in business almost 11 years and growing in membership every year with more and more members staying on as yearly members like myself. There is no other place to be online or off that has so many successful online business owners. I hope you have a successful journey at WA and if there is a question, just ask.
Hi Robert,
I have read the various posts of WA and was wondering if you can assist me further with a few questions that I have in mind, before signing up for the 7 day trial :
1. Do we need to purchase any domain name first, even though WA facciliates 2 free websites as a package ?
2. Do we also need to have our own hosting accounting from GoDaddy, or this is also provided by WA ?
3. What about Auto-Responder, do we need to have our own AR ?
4. Is it a neccessity, that we have to promote WA as an afflilate ?
5. In the event that we upgrade to premium member and finally decide to move on independently, all business done inside of WA, whose property does it belong to ?
Thank you for answering my concerns.
Flo Tan
Sure thing Flo, see below.
1) No, the domain names you choose for the free websites are also free.
2) The hosting is provided by Wealthy Affiliate for free.
3) No, you do not need an Auto Responder.
4) No, you can promote anything you want. I promote video games and vitamin supplements in my other two affiliate marketing websites.
5) Once you upgrade to premium you will be encouraged to purchase your own domain names which come out to roughly $11 per Year or 91 cents per Month. That being said, everything you create on your website is yours to keep. Of course if you leave Wealthy Affiliate, you will have 30 days to move your website to your own hosting services.
Thank you, Robert for your quick response to my preliminary questions. Two further question, please :
1. WA also offers a person and teaches a person using Word Press, from ground up, should a person that literally has no prior exeprience in blogging.
2. What about “traffic” is there any coaching to the best and most effective ways to promote an affliate link, conducted in WA ?
In your answer to my point #3 about an Auto-Responder, can you please elaborate why there is no neccessity to have one while joining WA. Pardon me for stating this, but isn’t an Auto-Responder imperative and important, especially if one is doing IM business be it for their own site &/or Affliate products that one is promoting.
Thank you and looking forward to your concise advise and feedback.
Flo Tan
Here are the answers Flo:
1) Blogging is not that hard. Writing content is not that much different than what you are doing here, by communicating your thoughts through typing your words instead of speaking them. Entering them into WordPress is very much like typing them into Microsoft Word or some other document program. If you are thinking that you have to program your WordPress website, you do not! The Wealthy Affiliate website builder will program it for you in a matter of seconds. No Experience Required!
2) Wealthy Affiliate will teach you all of the proper ways to generate traffic that will not get you in trouble with Google and the other search engines. There are many “white hat” ways of generating traffic, even Google offers some, and you will learn this and everything else you need to know to succeed at Wealthy Affiliate.
3) If you want an Auto-Responder you can have one, but it is not imperative. Wealthy Affiliate recommends Aweber if you should decide to get into list building. But just like many other WA members, I do not have one and I do just fine. There are several ways of generating leads and Wealthy Affiliate teaches you everything you need to know…and then some.
Thank you so much, Robert for your valuable answers and also wish to further check :
1. What does it mean by “white hat”, sorry, this is the first time I have heard of this term.
2. Auto-responder – can I use Get Response, though I am well aware that Aweber has more flexibility and offers more value added features for an Auto-Responder.
3. Lastly, do you think we can connect via FaceBook, as I might have something interesting to discuss with you on a joint project.
My FB is FloTan7.
Thank you.
Flo Tan
1) White Hat means any way that naturally gets you rankings or traffic. Google likes these methods. Where as Black Hat methods like buying followers and traffic, traffic sharing, traffic generating, and the like, will definitely get you on Google’s bad list and your rankings and thus traffic will drop.
2) I am sure you can use any auto-responder you want.
3) You can send a friend request to me if you like https://www.facebook.com/robert.prescott.98
Hello Robert.
This review seems to cover everything we need to know before we sign up to an internet training course.
Do you think the free members start up can get a newbie very far in an internet business?
The free membership sign up will give you the basics of how to make money online with your very own website. It will also allow you to build 2 free WordPress websites and it will teach you how to do keyword research so that you can get good ranking within the search engines. It is possible to make money as a free member but it will take much longer and will be more difficult.
Whereas for only $47/month membership, you will get EVERYTHING you could possibly need to build as many successful money making websites as you want for the same monthly fee. After finding out how easy it is to build a website, I personally built 3 of them and the monthly price is the same as if I had only built 1. When you consider that if you were to take an online community college course in the same thing that Wealthy Affiliate teaches, you would have to pay close to $2,000.00 and you would not get nearly half as much as what Wealthy Affiliate offers.
I love your review here. Wealthy Affiliate seems like the right pick for beginners to join.
Thank you Elijah. Yes Wealthy Affiliate is definitely the right place for both beginners and those with some experience, to build their own websites so that they can make money from anywhere, as well as enhance an existing business.
Hi Robert, I really enjoyed reading your comparison on WA to other scam sites, and what identifiers people should be watching for when considering joining up with a new program. Hopefully, I will not get caught in any more, because like most people, it is not a pleasant experience, losing your hard earned money to these scam sites. I think, I am on the right road now, being a new WA premium member. Like most people that join WA, it did not take me long to realize the true value of the program. It is worth every dime, I am spending for it, and I am sure that it will take me where I want to go in life.
Thank you Florence and yes, you are on the right track with Wealthy Affiliate. The training is the most complete I have ever experienced and it costs way less than what other so-called online business programs could ever possibly offer. Another difference between Wealthy Affiliate and the scams is that the scams are all about getting your money and offering no value, whereas Wealthy Affiliate is all about offering you a lot of value for free and only if you want more you could pay for a very low monthly monthly fee, that comes out to $1.52 per day. That’s like the cost of a bottle of water.
Robert,
Thanks for this informative and air clearing post on the real Wealthy Affiliate opportunity.
So many folks think they can pop online throw some money at a program and retire, that is just insane.
The online world like anywhere else in the world where “Work” is required to succeed, can become rather muddled with all the zillions of bogus scam offers to earn online.
Robert, thanks again for this honest straightforward look at the best IM educational program available anywhere, Wealthy Affiliate.
My best,
Gary
You are welcome Gary. It still amazes me to this day that people still think that just because it is an online business that they can make a lot of money in a short period of time and/or with little work. Why can’t these people use some common sense and realize that way of thinking could NEVER work. If it were possible, everyone would be doing it and becoming wealthy.
Hi Robert, I would like to share that I was first scammed by super affiliates with all their unrealistic promises. The 6 points you shared about how Wealthy Affiliate is different from the rest is so true! It resonates with me as I am starting to notice the trends in scams. I wish I knew about it and found Wealthy Affiliate earlier. I would have saved thousands.
One thing I really like about Wealthy Affiliate is the community support. I can get almost instant help from the members. Thanks for all the info you have provided!
You are welcome Jane. Wealthy Affiliate has been highly successful since it started in 2005 and is constantly growing and remaining current with all aspects of the ever-changing online environment of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Plus Wealthy Affiliate is more of a training platform in all aspects of Internet Marketing, giving its members many options to choose from in the building of their own online businesses.
It is because of these features plus the free signup and the community support like you have mentioned that sets Wealthy Affiliate in a class by itself. All of the other so-called “make money from home” companies do not even offer you half of what everyone gets at Wealthy Affiliate and they charge way more money with many upsells. After I joined Wealthy Affiliate, I knew they were the real deal. Like you, I wish I had found them sooner.
Hello Robert. Great Wealthy Affiliate review. Nice comparison on what the the scam sites don’t offer you and what Wealthy Affiliate does. That is the reason I joined WA! It didn’t take but a few days after that to realize that I made the right choice and went premium. I was pretty nervous about it when I first checked them out, however I soon found that I was in the right place! Spent a lot of money over the years trying those make money Quick “Scams!” Wish I found out about Wealthy Affiliate sooner. WA is the real deal. They are totally Legit! If you are looking to get the real education on affiliate marketing, nothing even comes close to WEALTHY AFFILIATE….. Peace James
Thank you for your comment James. I can totally relate about being nervous when first joining, mainly because I too was scammed a few times before with other online business opportunities. But the fact that it was free to start and 95% of the reviews I read were positive, I took the plunge and joined. Then shortly afterward I saw the HUGE potential for becoming a premium member. At $47 a month for an all-inclusive training and online business hosting community, it is well worth the $1.52 per day cost. That is not a lot of money when you compare it to other things that cost more and give you less.
Hi I’m a WA affiliate. After free days of being a free member I could see the value that premium offered me so I upgraded. Joining WA was one of the best decisions I’ve made. It’s allowing me to build an information site to help others, whilst making money from their very generous affiliate program. Added to the fact that I can host as many websites as I want with them, have a choice of 2,400 themes and a superb training program put in place I know I’ve made the right decision.
I also love the large business community which are always available to help 24/7. I’ve come across a lot of scams and am a very astute business person so I know when I see the genuine article hence upgrading and staying with them.
I would say to your readers if you are looking for a genuine legitimate way of earning money on line, full business and technical support and an incredible education to go with it then you’ve come to the right place. Plus having everything on one platform means I spend less time searching round the net etc so I am free to concentrate on what I love most which is writing and adding value to others lives through my writing. If you are a person who has never written content before then that’s fine as WA has got that covered too and their comprehensive training course will teach you how.
Come and speak to the business community where you’ll learn why others have joined and are building their businesses with WA! They are a friendly bunch!
It’s completely Free to join so it’s a win win situation.
To your success
Melanie
Thank you Melanie for your comment. Wealthy Affiliate is in a class by itself when it comes to learning, creating, and growing your online business. There is no other all-inclusive online (or offline) community or program that offers as much as Wealthy Affiliate can.
I guess that is why they have more than 190,000 members and growing strong, plus many members who have been with them for a few years. If Wealthy Affiliate weren’t the Real Deal, they wouldn’t be so successful.