Work at Home: Beware of Phony Rebate Processor Job Scam

Last updated on Wednesday, May 4, 2011..

Rebate processor jobs: This scam is geared as a work at home opportunity and advertised to entice people by claiming that the company placing the ad is looking for people to process rebates for other companies. Allegedly no so-called applicant will be rejected because of the vast number of rebates that need to be processed; however, applicants must pay a one-time fee to handle account activation and training provided by Virtual Training Solutions, this payment is designed to discourage individuals who are not serious about the opportunity.

Since this hub was originally published, the link to the RebateProcessorJobs.com site has stopped functioning, which most likely means that the site has moved because of bad press. I will post the new link when it surfaces.

Serious applicants pay the fee expecting immediate training on how to process rebates. What the training includes are instructions on how to set up a ClickBank account to market electronic products, such as the training from Virtual Training Solutions, for a commission. The rebates that need processing are those created when the serious applicants make sales. The applicants are also shown how to set up PayPal accounts. PayPal is the method used in this swindle to pay the rebates. Yes, you pay the rebates using your own money then get a check from ClickBank. However, you will not receive a check until you make the minimum amount of sales necessary for pay out. So, after paying out hundreds or thousands of dollars of your own money in rebates and the amount paid for the job; you still may not get anything back.

The ClickBank program is not a scam in itself. There are people who earn money in an honest manner using the program. What makes the Rebate Processors Job offering a scam is the misleading manner in which this ClickBank strategy is presented.

One final note, the instructions mentioned in the advertisement on how to fill out the forms is not included in the training materials for Rebate Processors.

The original Rebate Processor Jobs site was published by an individual going by the name of Angela Stevens. There are many steps that schemers take in order to separate the unsuspecting Joe from his money and Angela may have helped write the book. One method is to change the domain name of the site and the advertisement used to generate money or change the name of the individual publishing the site. For instance, I received two e-mails promoting a new data-entry program that looks very similar to the rebate-processor jobs. The first email led to a link that had been removed from the domain due to spam complaints. This is probably the reason for the second e-mail. I checked out the link, not because of interest, but I was curious to find out if I had seen the offer before. Sure enough, the advertisement looked almost identical to the rebate processor scam. You even get access to the same worthless training that was offered in the original ad. The reason I say worthless training is because most of the opportunities are ways to con other people out of their money; I see no ethical value in that.

If you receive any email from a Chris Borge (dataentrybucks6463@gmail.com) promoting the site http://www.dataentrybucks.com/, stay away. This is another site designed to take money from unsuspecting victims.

One of the readers of this page discovered a page that looks identical to the Angel Stevens site but the name has changed to Angela Penbrook. The motive is simple: change the look of the advertisement to draw attention away from any bad press. The intention of the creators of these sites is not to help deserving people to earn money but to separate the money from those deserving people. Do not fall for a scam because the offer is made from an obscure individual.

I have been looking around to see if the fraud that I fell for in 2005 still exists and lo and behold, I found it promoted again. Now, with a new and improved look, new web site URL and a new promotional name.

The new name is Andrew Gaswint and the site looks identical to the original rebateprocessorjobs site, which promoted the scheme that I fell for. Andrew Gaswint created a promotion, or borrowed it, complete with all the lure of a classic get-rich-quick scheme. He claims to have made over $10,000 in just under two weeks by simply filling out forms.

The site creates the need for urgency by showing a count-down timer. Allegedly when the count down timer runs out, the "special offer" ends. This need to act urgently is one of the classic signs of a scam. If you locate a web site like the site promoted by Andrew Giswint, you can test the scam theory for urgency by going away from the site and returning a day later. You will see the same count-down timer whenever you visit the site.

The site uses an image of a happy woman at the beginning of the promotion to provide the illusion of success. The site also relies on the story of Andrew Giswint to provide the illusion that if he did it, you can too. Pictures of an expensive home and of a man standing in front of an exotic car, presumably Andrew Giswint, help build the dream of achieving something for nothing for the prospective victim.

The real killer is that I located some of these promotions right here on HubPages. I am sure that the administrators of the site simply have not noticed the spam sites containing the promotions and sooner or later these sites will catch their attention. However, in the meantime I am including links to these hubs to provide examples of promotions not to fall for. Visit the hubs if you like and read them but do not take action or fall for the offers; you will be sorry if you do.

Another name that appears on advertisements promoted on the hubs is Jessica Allen.  The site promoted by Jessica Allen is almost identical to that promoted by Andrew Gaswint.  Jessica Allen, however, uses some different graphics in the promotion but it is obvious that the advertisements were probably written by the same copywriter.

Most people these days are familiar with the term Trojan as in the original Trojan horse and the contemporary use of the term relating to malware. The offers discussed on this page could be considered a form of Trojan-marketing. The people behind the various versions of the Rebate Processor Jobs scams have earned plenty of money by promoting their fraudulent programs and they have very large advertising budgets so they set up promotional sites to lure more victims.

Malware writers are known to set up numerous sites that promote their malware and linking them through blogs they create and various social-networking sites. They have the resources to create so many of these links that their own sites show up in Google searches way ahead of the listings for sites created to fight the threats.

The promoters of Rebate Processing opportunities seem to be learning tactics from the malware writers to create sites such as SiteReviewAuthority.org to lure readers into believing that the promotional sites are legitimate and the promoted opportunities are real. This is not the case. Do not believe the words of Dr. Richard Andrew Stera, the Chairman of SiteReviewAuthority.org.

There is also a so-called Rebate Processing opportunity being offered by a company claiming to be affiliated with the Federal Housing Authority (FHA).

This opportunity appears legal but not necessarily worthwile and the information you pay for is free if you look in the right place.

This is a repeat of another envelop stuffing scheme that was popular in the 1980s. Back then they called this opportunity Refund Locators and the idea was to locate people who had outstanding refunds coming from the FHA for overpayment of mortgage insurance. You received a mailing list with names of individuals and the amount of their refund. You would contact these people and arange for them to get their money. In exchange for helping them receive money they did not know they had coming, they would agree to pay you a finder's fee, usually between 10 and 20%. The fee was agreed two by all parties involved so the amount could be any percentage.

Looks prety good, right? There are some catches, though, which are:

• The FHA does not deal with third parties, they only deal with the individuals actually receiving the refund.
• The FHA checks go to the individuals receiving the refunds, not the processors.
• Processors must convince their clients to sign a note stating that they agree to and will pay the finder's fee.
• There is no guarantee that any refund recipient will pay the finder's fee.
• The provided lists are names of people who the FHA cannot directly contact, which means that the names and addresses may not be any good -- processors must research the new addresses.

One final note: No individual needs to pay a company to participate in this program. The recipient lists are available directly from the FHA.