With the economy cratering and unemployment soaring, we’ve remarked here before that the climate is ripe for a spike in “self-employment”. With this come the inevitable scams that prey on the desperate. We’ll start a channel here to point them out.

Our first “Beware” outfit is a Bait-and-Switch operation called EarnCashFastWithGoogle.com. If you have a facebook account you’ve probably seen these ads, or maybe you’ve clicked through a link to some blog.

The short version is this: A single mother or some guy who has just lost their job, in danger of losing their home, desperate, aware that most work-from-home programs are scams, but decided to try this one out because, hey, it only cost $1 and it was Google, big, publicly traded, above board, etc. And lo-and-behold, no experience required, no selling, not multi-level-marketing, just posting short links to the web (whatever that means) and WOW $5,000 a month without even thinking about it. SALVATION!

There is no program with Google that pays you for posting web links. The closest thing to it is Google Adsense, which you may recognize because you’re reading a page with a couple of Google Adsense blocks in it right now. Yes, if anybody clicks on them, I get paid. And yes, if a LOT of people click on them I stand to make out well. But this is very different from the “program” being offered here.

The sales pitch is being framed in a way that there is some simple program “out there” (in this case Google) where all you have to do is sign-up, follow the instructions and boom: 5 grand a month, easy.

Remember this always: If any path to wealth was truly easy, everybody would be doing it and we’d all be rich.

The ability to make money from Google can pretty well only happen via Adsense and it relies completely on the ability to create a website that attracts targeted visitors in enough numbers that a realistic click rate adds up to a significant amount of money. It is not a matter of paying EarnCashFastWithGoogle the $1 they are asking for and having a check from Google in the mail to you within 48-72 hours. That’s a pipe-dream.

Even if you were to sign up with Google Adsense and create a website that earns anything, you’re about 8 weeks away from your first payout, and that’s if you clear the minimum payout level. If you’re new to this, you probably won’t.

To give you an idea on what it takes to earn money via Adsense (although it varies wildly based on what segment the website is in), I own a hobby website that earns a steady $500/month and gets 4,000 visitors per day. The website is nearly 8 years old and took about 4 years to organically build up the traffic to get to that point.

The folks at EarnCashFastWithGoogle.com want you to believe that if you send them $1 you will be 30 days away from earning $5,000/month from some mysterious Google link-posting program that doesn’t actually exist.

Seems like a lot of trouble to go through for a buck. doesn’t it? Well it gets worse, because what this actually is is called “bait and switch”. There are numerous reports from disgruntled buyers that after signing up they are actually subscribed to several “bonus” programs that cost between $4.99 and $29.99 per month.

This is the scam. To get you to give them your credit card info so that they can sign up you up for several programs “as a bonus” that can easily add up to significant monthly charges to your credit card.

So be careful out there. If you’re suffering through hard times and things look bleak, these “too good to be true” programs aren’t going to deliver you from all your cares: they’ll just add to your problems.