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Having grown up surrounded by extended family, I spent many a Sunday dinner listening to my grandmother recount stories about her life in which hackneyed expressions such as “look before you leap” and “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is” were the moral lessons of that day. Some may say these seemingly trite expressions should be dismissed as old-fashioned. I say they have survived this long because they are as relevant today as they were in the past. Recently, I was reminded just how relevant due to a bad financial decision of a friend. I’ll call him Frank.

Perhaps you have a friend like Frank who has made the same mistake. According to accounts of national and local news agencies, an estimated 300,000 people worldwide were seduced by the same “get rich quick” investment. I am talking about a growing Internet-based business called auto-surfing. Supposedly, the individual earns money by using a program that automatically clicks on advertisements for a variety of businesses. In turn, these businesses pay for these clicks because their sites become more desirable for advertisers due to high traffic.

Okay, this seems logical--maybe a little unconventional, but logical. However, my red flags began waving when Frank told me that this particular auto-surfing site required an initial investment in order to earn money. They called this investment an “account upgrade,” which is required in order to receive payments. Frank gambled to the tune of $4,000 (placed on a credit card, by the way). Theoretically, the more the individual invested, the more he earned when auto-surfing. In addition to the investment, Frank was encouraged to bring in other members to the site, which would also bring him a sign-up commission. The auto-surf site claimed that the more people he brought in, the more he would earn. In fact, the site stated members would earn 44 percent on their money in less than two weeks!

Being skeptical, Frank wanted to test their system. So after a short amount of time auto-surfing, he requested a check from the payment company that the auto-surfing site was affiliated with. When the check arrived for several hundred dollars, he was thrilled. In fact, Frank felt vindicated for all the doubts I had expressed.

At this point, I decided to research this company a bit more. Maybe I was naïve. After all, the Internet is uncharted territory. Maybe this business was legit. Maybe this site was on the cutting edge of today’s marketing. I looked at the website--it was impressive. There were pictures of people in business suits who looked very smart and pleased with themselves. The site was well written and constructed. The company even advertised an upcoming convention for its members.

What the auto-surfing site did not mention was how it was able to return 44 percent when the best my bank can give me is 4.8 percent. Apparently, members had the same concerns. So, the company’s founder promised a financial statement by a specific date. When that day came and went, I grew more concerned. There were many other odd things about the auto-surfing company that did not add up--like the fact that all their advertisers were other auto-surfing websites or shill-like companies. But, Frank was unconcerned. At that point, he had collected, seemingly, $400 in payments.

Then one day, Frank sat at his computer to start his daily auto-surfing. When he tried to log in, he was directed to a letter written by the company’s founder stating that the site was closed down due to the payment company’s refusal to pay members. The payment company claimed it was discontinuing business with the web-surfing site due to a faulty business model. The auto-surfing company blamed an impending investigation by a government agency into the payment company. At this point, please feel free to draw your own conclusions.

But, this is the bottom line. Neither company is paying the members to date. Frank lost $2,600 of his own investment, not to mention his promised earnings. Blogs recount stories of members getting out with a positive cash flow. However, many members tell stories that would break your heart like those of members who were unemployed and needed their earnings to feed their kids. One member was using the site to get back on his feet after surviving Hurricane Katrina and ended losing everything once again.

In the end, I do not want to knock Frank’s choices. After all, he has had made sound financial decisions in the past. Nor do I know enough about the auto-surfing business to throw all sites into the pit that his site has fallen into. In my friend’s case, members from the site he joined may be out of millions of dollars potentially. The lesson to be learned is that my grandmother’s words of wisdom, “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is,” are timeless and as relevant in the information age as they were during her lifetime.

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