Question: Is This Home Business Legit?

Hi Doug,

I received a call from a gentleman by the name of ---- of ----- (A Vacation Travel Commission Site). He got my cell number because I had been online in the past trying to find out about home based businesses. He told me that for a $200.00 dollar investment, I would receive commissions of $250.00 for every person who made a sale through my website. Sounds good. Well, the only thing when I did a google search I was not able to find out any information regarding their reputation. Although, they were suppose to be in business for a number of years. I was able to get a phone number though, which is -----. In the past, I've invested a lot of money in other companies. Now that I'm on a fixed income I really don't have the extra income to give away.
I would appreciate, Doug, any information that you can find out for me about -----.

Thank you

Answer

I wouldn't get involved in that. Let me give you a couple reasons.

First, I don't know if you're familiar with Google Page Rank; it's a number from 0 to 10 which is Google's measure of your site's popularity (measured largely by the number of sites, and quality of sites that link to yours). The site you referenced has a page rank of ZERO.

To give you a sense of what that means, contrast that with a site I just built two months ago: Fifteen Minutes Of Fiction. Even though this site has only been online since the end of September, it already has a Page Rank of 4/10.

So what does that tell you about the business you're looking at? It doesn't speak very highly for them.

In addition, you should be aware, the site is not just asking you for a 200 dollar up-front investment. The fine print at the bottom of the page says that there's a monthly fee of $49.95.

This is a win-win situation for them. They really don't care if you make any sales, because they're making about $600 per year off you, regardless of whether your site is successful.

It's a lose-lose situation for you, because the only people who will buy off your site are people who know you personally. No one else will ever find your site, unless you spend some serious money promoting it.

So you need to ask yourself two questions:

1. Can I get three friends per year to buy vacation packages through my site? (that's how many you need to break even on your yearly investment)
2. Do I trust this company enough to refer my friends to them? And the obvious answer to that is: you're not even sure you trust them, so you certainly don't want to refer your friends to them.

I hope that helps!