Is Ad-ventures4u a Scam ?
Sep 2 2009 Update - Well it looks like my prediction came true. Adventures4u are no longer operating the revenue share portion of their program. If you have bought ventures, the only thing you can do with them is get hits. Unfortunately many people poured in $100s and $1000s maybe even life's savings because of the great return they were getting. But as I predicted below, this was a bomb waiting to go off. Now we have a new nearly identical program that just started up yesterday (interestingly enough) called Adshares4u. My advice is to stay away from that too !
Published July 7 2009
Let me start by saying that I recently wrote a report about Ad-ventures4u and received a complaint that it was incorrect. I had mixed this up with another program that was very similar but now appears to have gone bust (ie another scam). So I have now reluctantly joined Ad-ventures4u in order to find out the facts, as I was unable to get adequate answers to my questions. This is not a review intended to get you to join under me. I am trying my best to present the facts and even the worse case scenario information so people can make informed decisions regarding spending money with Ad-ventures4u.
Adventures4u is basically another Traffic Exchange system with an income opportunity twist. In fact, there are many very similar programs out there but Ad-ventures4u seems to be getting the most hype at the minute.
Now the main question you are wanting to know is, Is Adventures4u a Scam ? At the moment, of course I can't say they are. Ad-ventures4u are paying people money and no one is complaining. I recently joined Ad-ventures4u as a free member and I was pleasantly surprised to see that they provide 500 free hits upon joining so I am looking forward to seeing how those hits perform, if at all.
Sign-up was swift and sweet, and I by all means encourage everyone to sign up for the free portion and get your free 500 hits. You have nothing to lose there.
Now for the Ad-ventures4u income opportunity, ie the risk. This is where people will want to know if Ad-ventures4u is a scam or not. From what I can read in the back office you have the option to purchase "ventures" which perhaps you could view as stocks or shares in the company (however these can never be sold back ie your money is gone forever). The minimum you can buy is 10 for $10 and the maximum is 1000 for $999. You can NEVER ask for this money back. This money is gone FOREVER. Make sure you realise this.
The amount you can make depends on how much money you are willing to risk ie how many "ventures" you are willing to buy. This is in a sense a gamble. So far everyone has been making money, no one that I know of has complained and as long as Ad-ventures4u grows and continues to get new members who buy more ventures, then there will be no problems with getting paid.
Here's how Ad-ventures4u works. Say for example you are very scared so you only buy the minimum number of 10 ventures for $10. In order to earn money you need to surf 25 sites every day. Everyweek the % payout is different , but I have heard that for the last while Ad-ventures4u has consistently paid out "14%" (I put that in quotation marks as Ad-ventures4u only allows you to take out half without being penalized). That means a payout of $1.40 on the $10 purchase, but ONLY if you surfed 25 sites per day everyday. If you don't surf the daily requirement there are some penalties (I need to investigate what exactly these are further). Let's pretend for this example you do surf everyday. As I said Ad-ventures4u don't allow you to take out the entire $1.40 in cash you can only take out half without being penalised. In this example, you can take out $0.70 and you should still have 10 ventures. If you want the entire $1.40 then your ventures will drop, which means your return for the next week will also drop, because it's a % based on the number of ventures you have.
Naturally, if you don't think $0.70 per week is worth your time to surf 25 sites per day, then you can take the plunge and invest/buy the $999, which turns that $0.70 per week into $70 per week. However, you need to part with $999 in order to achieve that. You won't actually be making money, per say, until your 15th week based on a continual 14% weekly payout. You can never get that $999 back. It's a non refundable purchase of 1000 ventures. By purchasing ventures of any amount, you are basically taking the gamble that Ad-ventures4u will definitely be in business for the next 15 weeks (based on the current 14% payment trend). You need to be willing to wait a minimum of 15 weeks before you see any profits in Ad-ventures4u.
Now, you need to realise here that Ad-ventures4u offers NO PROMISE of income whatsoever. It's very possible that you would buy ventures, surf one week and make NOTHING. You need to be willing to accept this possibility, although it hasn't happened yet.
Now I am going to give my personal opinion on what might be going on with Ad-ventures4u. It's possible this could be a big scam in the making, or it's even possible the honest owner hasn't thought this far ahead. I am by no means insinuating or suggesting that he is a brilliant scammer, as I know nothing about him or her. There is just SO much hype on the internet about this as people sing Ad-ventures4u's praises to get you to sign up, someone needs to point out the possible pitfalls that exist. So far I haven't read anyone write about the dangers/risks involved and that's what I am doing now to ensure people can make well thought out calculated risk decisions before buying ventures.
Think about it this way. I ask you to give me $10 today and I tell you that I will give you $0.50 per week back (ie half of a 10% return. Ad-ventures4u allows you to cash out half of the weekly % profit sharing without penalty), so long as you do something every week. This buys me a total of 20 weeks time before you can call me a scam. I can definitely follow through on my promise to you for that long, no problem, as I'm just giving you back the money you gave me. So I now have 20 weeks in order to get other people to do the same thing. Each week I get more and more new people doing the same thing and I have 20 weeks with each of them also to fulfill my promise. By the time your 21st week rolls around, I can very easily continue to give you (my first guy) $0.50 because during the first 20 weeks many new people have signed onto the scheme and I now have all of their money to use to keep paying you.
By this time you are singing my praises and telling all your friends how I followed through on my promise and now you are in a profit. This good reputation continues to ripple through everyone's circles of friends and the frenzy continues to feed the frenzy as more people join and give their $10 or more to me.
Further, Ad-ventures4u pays a 15% commission on people you recommend. So every referral that buys 10 ventures, you get $1.50. Therefore people are incentivised to publicise and promote Ad-ventures4u which in turn speeds up the growth.
I am confident this program will continue to do well as long as new people join every week and pour more money into Ad-ventures4u. Further, older members who have seen it work will also pour more money into Ad-ventures4u as their trust has grown and they are willing to risk more and want to make more money for their surfing. This behaviour will help keep the company afloat.
However, here is where the problem could arise. What happens when things reach their critical mass ? What happens when people stop joining Ad-ventures4u because everyone has joined already and there's no one left ? Eventually the speed of growth will slow down and perhaps come to a grinding halt. That could be weeks away, or maybe it won't happen in our lifetime. Either way, its bound to happen and what then ? If Ad-ventures4u has, for example, sold 1 million ventures and no one joins that week and no one buys any ventures that week, where is Ad-ventures4u going to get the money to pay it's members a share of the profit for that week ?
I have this viewpoint because I once worked for a company that was using similar tactics to stay in business. They were using credit the bank extended to them for incompleted sales to pay the bills incurred from the previous sales. Once they hit a couple of months of a bad patch they went bankrupt as they were merely paying yesterdays bills with tomorrows sales. When tomorrow's sales didn't come they couldn't pay yesterdays OR todays bills and then went bankrupt. After analysing how this works, it looks very similar to me.
The only way this could work is if Ad-ventures4u takes the money that people give them and invests it in order to make a profit via another means. Like a bank. We give the banks our money and they pay us a paultry 1% per year interest and then they lend it back to us at 19% through Visa credit cards and loans and mortgages etc. The only problem though is if Ad-ventures4u have been paying 14% over the last few months thats about a 728% annualised return ! Have you ever heard of even the best investment company offering such a return ? If someone came to you and said give me $100 and I will give you 728% interest, would you believe them ? That's basically what Ad-ventures4u is doing. So far, over the past few months Ad-ventures4u have essentially been paying 728% on the money that has been spent. The only difference is you can never get your principal "investment" back. (I use this word loosely as it can't be considered an "investment" as you are purchasing a non-refundable "product")
This is where I urge everyone to be cautious. DO NOT spend more money twith Ad-ventures4u than you can afford to lose. Ad-ventures4u is not, and cannot, make any guarantees that you will make any money at all. Yes, at the minute, as Ad-ventures4u enjoys wonderful growth it will be stable and have no problem in paying members. But as the growth slows, I'm fairly certain you will start to see the weekly payout percentages drop. If and when this happens, that is a signal that things are slowing down, so just be on the look out for that. I have just recieved an email about a "Gold Site". So it seems Ad-ventures4u are already preparing another program which I am sure will encourage people to spend their money somehow.
In summary, again I am by no means calling Ad-ventures4u a scam but I encourage everyone to exercise caution when choosing how much money to put into Ad-ventures4u. Only put in what you are willing to lose. It is by no means a scam from what I can see. But there are no guarantees about Ad-ventures4u's, or any company's future for that matter. That even goes for all the companies that I have given a high recommendation to also. Anyone, anytime can go belly up. It just so happens that this business model reminds me of a company I worked for that went bankrupt. I forsaw that bankruptcy and even correctly predicted when it would happen, as I knew when their slow period was, and my prediction came true.
Hopefully Ad-ventures4u have an amazing magic formula for creating 728% annual returns. If they have such a formula then everyone can invest $1000s without hesitation. Without such a formula, or excellent source of outside income, this business model is guaranteed to fail, it's just a matter of when. However, if such a formula exists, I doubt they would be wasting their time on small time $10 investors. So, something just doesn't seem to add up to me. I personally view Ad-ventures4u as a ticking clock. But it's only my opinion and I hope I am wrong. Time will tell.
However, I am not the only one who worries about the future of Ad-ventures4u and whether or not it is s scam. Check out this thread http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=115944. You can clearly see there are many others with this cautious viewpoint.
If I do purchase any ventures, it will be just to get the hits. Ventures don't only get you the income opportunity but also buy you hits (just like any other traffic exchange). So, depending on how the free 500 hits perform, I may just spend the money for the hits to my site. If your free 500 hits bring you some advantage that's worth more than $5, then buy 1000 hits for $10, as it may be completely worth it for you and you don't need to worry about the income opportunity portion of Ad-ventures4u at all.
Please send your Ad-ventures4u experience, good or bad to Ad-ventures4u@business-opportunities-reviewed.com
UPDATE SEP 2 2009 - Adventures4u are no longer offering revenue sharing (as I predicted above). So it is now simply an advertising/traffic exchange. Sorry for anyone who lost money as a result, but I hope my warning above was able to prevent at least some from getting caught out.
