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Go to all the cellphone stores in your area, sign up all the demo phones for your very own premium SMS text service, and make $9.99 per demo phone!  Find out how.

Every now and then I receive a random text message on my cell phone.  Sometimes it’s a horoscope reading, sometimes it’s a random stock pick, sometimes it’s a weather report and other times its just some advertising spam. 

I initially thought that it was just an annoyance so I would simply either ignore or delete the message.  I bet the majority of people have the same type of reaction in this situation.

However sometimes the messages reoccur and other times they do not.

Either way at the end of the month I recieve my cell phone bill only to find that I have an additional $4.99 charge for a “third-party” service!

I call up my cell phone company and ask them what this charge is for and they tell me that’s it either a subscription or one-time text messaging service.  They go on to tell me that I can’t cancel through them or get a refund because these charges are from a third-party company and not my actual cellphone carrier.

They simply tell me to reply to all further text messages with the words: STOP or CANCEL to prevent these text messages from reoccurring.  This will cancel the service from here on out, but it will not refund any current or previous charges.

So what does this mean?  This means that you will still be charged for the initial text message regardless of whether you cancel the service immediately and that this “third-party” company could be getting anywhere between 99 cents and $9.99 for sending you this single text message.

I checked my previous cell phone bills from past months only to find that there were similar charges those months that I did not even notice! 

Initially this made me angry, but once I thought about this ingenious business model, I immediately wanted in! 

I bet that at least 70% of the people who receive these type of text messages don’t even notice that they are being charged for these extra services and just pay their bills. 

Background

This type of service is known as Reverse SMS billing or a premium SMS service where companies can bill a user through an SMS text.  This even goes beyond just charging for text messages.  Services like PayPay or GPay allows people to send and transfer money via SMS. People can also charge money to their cell phone account with similar types of services.

Where this money goes

I did some research on this type of third-party text message billing and found that these companies make between half to a third of what they bill, the cell phone company takes one-third and the payment gateway service also gets one-third.

So if they charge 99 cents per month and bill 30,000 people they will be making approximately $10,000 per month.

If they bump this up to $4.99 per month they will be making over $45,000 per month.

So how do YOU set up this type of service?

Companies like Telemedia and TextMarks allow people to set up their own text messaging services for free.

Textmarks is the easiest service to use and allows people to set up a keyword for use on their short code of 41411.

You could set up the keyword, MakeMoney, and when anyone sends an SMS text with the word, MakeMoney, to 41411. They would be signed up for your premium SMS service for either $4.99 or $9.99 per month depending what you want to charge for your service.

Now the difficulty is advertising and getting people to sign up for your keyword.  Unless you want to go the spamming route like many companies do.

Bulk SMS messaging

There are services out there like ClickaTell which allows users to send bulk SMS messages to thousands or perhaps millions of cellphone users.

You could also write a web-based application to do bulk PC-to-Phone SMS texting. 

To stop the use of spamming some of the premium SMS services requires all potential subscribers to reply with a “Y” indicating that they actually understand the charges and want to subscribe to the service.  However, this could potentially be countered and defeated with SMS text spoofing or by writing a web-based application to sign people up for your text service regardless of whether or not they have actually willingly subscribed.

Signing tens-of-thousands of people up for your premium SMS service requires a bit work however it could be highly rewarding and bring in thousands of dollars per month.  However there is an easier way to make a couple hundred per month with much less time and work involved.

Bill the Cellphone Companies Back

Go to all the cellphone stores in your area and sign up all the demo phones for your premium SMS text service! 

In my immediate area there are 3 Sprint/Nextel Stores, 4 AT&T stores, 4 Verizon stores, 3 T-Mobile Stores, and 1 Helio Store.  These 15 cell phone stores had a total of 328 active demo phones that I was able to sign up for my $9.99 a month service.

After the cellphone companies take their cut (~33%) and the premium SMS billing gateways take their cut (~33%).  I am left with $3.00 per subscriber, not too bad, but not great.  Better than nothing though!  So with 328 subscribers at $3.00 per month I am making an easy $984.00 per month.  That’s a decent car payment (this may even cover rent for some people)! 

The Process:
1) Sign up for a shortcode keyword.
2) Set your keyword for premium billing (either $4.99 or $9.99 per month).
3) Go to your local cellphone store and use all the demo phones to text your keyword to their 41411 short code.
4) Clear out all inboxed and sent text messages from phones.
5) Repeat this process at more cellphone stores.
6) Wait for them to mail you a check for approx $1.50 per subscriber ($4.99) or $3.00 per subscriber ($9.99). The more subscribers you have the more you make!

I am billing the cellphone companies back and they are paying for it!  I got my
first check last month.

And things are just getting started…

If I head further into the bay area there are hundreds of cell phone stores with thousands of demo phones so my subscriber list is sure to increase!  I can sign up more phones at my leisure.

Also, the cellphone companies get new phones every few months so this would allow me to return to these stores and sign up all their new phones for my premium service.  Things are just getting better and better!

So what is your take on these premium SMS scam ideas?

Today is December 26th, the day after Christmas, the day where the majority of retail stores brace for large numbers of store returns.  People receive presents for Christmas that they do not want, that are the wrong size, or that they already have so they go to the store where they are purchased and then either exchange them or return them for cash. 

Sometimes stores offer a gift receipt, other times there is no receipt, however many high-end retail stores do not require receipts on returns especially for people who have a line of credit with this retail store.

Make a Quick $100 with a little Return Scam

So what if you buy an item from the factory outlet store at a discounted price and then return it to a high-end retail store for full price?

Chelsea Premium Outlets is the largest operator of premium factory outlet malls across the United States.  They have a mall in Petaluma, Napa, and Vacaville in the bay area (just to name a few).  They have high end stores such as Fendi, Nautica, Coach, Calvin Klein, Liz Claiborne, Ralph Lauren, Sak’s Fifth Avenue, Perry Ellis, Gucci, etc and thousands of others.  They offer regular mechandise at discounted prices and frequently have sales on these discounted prices for even more savings. 

Here are some examples:

Polo Black Cologne Set w/4.2 oz cologne and deodorant.
$69.78 retail price
$30.00 factory outlet store price w/40% off sale
——————-
$39.78 difference

Coach Soho Purse.
$289.99 retail price
$189.00 factory outlet store price w/20% off sale
——————-
$100.00 difference

If there are no factory outlets near you.  You can always purchase items from an online store or off of ebay for a discounted price.

The next step is to head down to an expensive shopping district such as Union Square in San Francisco, Times Square in NYC, or even your local shopping mall and then return the merchandise purchased at the outlet mall, online, or off of ebay for full price.

Stores such as Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdales, Macy’s, Nordstroms, Filenes, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Sephora have very lenient return policies where they will accept returned merchandise without a receipt and sometimes even without the actual box.  I have only encountered a small amount of questioning and resistence when making these types of returns.  It may help if you show them a charge card from their store especially a high-end platinum card, but most of the time this is not necessary.  They will often make the return without any questions and give you cash.  If they ask questions you can always tell them that you either lost the receipt or that it was a gift and there never was a receipt.

Using this trick you can make a quick and easy $100 or even more!  I made my quick $139.78 today.   Shhh!  Don’t tell them that I told ya, tho.  It’s our little secret, ok?

A really curious thing happened to me a few years ago after I bought coffee from a local cafe. I handed the cashier a $20 bill and she gave me a few bills back in change. I noticed that one of the $1 bills with “WheresGeorge.com” stamped all over it. 

I immediately thought that this was a brilliant marketing idea.  Just imagine how many people would see this stamped bill as it changed hands countless times from person-to-person.  One stamped bill has the potential of being circulated to thousands of different people all over the world during it’s lifetime.

This concept was not new to me.  Back in middle school my friends and I were into playing jokes on one another involving prank phone calls.  We would do things such as call all the doctors and dentists in the phone book and leave messages on their answering machine or with their answering service and give them a friends name and phone number.  The next day they would get calls from tons of dentists and doctors - all day long.   We later came up with the idea of writing a girls name and a male friends phone number “Jenny xxx-xxx-xxxx” on dollar bills with a heart next to it.  In the upcoming weeks, months, and years he would get countless calls from callers asking to speak to Jenny.  It was hysterical!

I know I had run across one of the estimated 103 million bills stamped with WheresGeorge.com before, but this time I was really curious.  I had initially thought that this might be a political site about George Bush, but it turned out to be a site that tracks bills as they float across the country and beyond.

I was far more concerned with whether or not this viral form of guerilla marketing a website’s URL on currency is legal or not — because if it is, I’m all over it!

Is this Legal?

Hank Eskin, the WheresGeorge.com brainchild pictured above, says people tell him all the time that defacing dollar bills is illegal. But he claims it is not, as long as the money is still spendable. 

The treasury’s website  states that it’s illegal to deface or damage money to the point of it’s being unusable so that painting the whole thing with black paint would be illegal (but painting only one side could be argued to be legal).

Claudia Dickens, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, agreed with Eskin, as quoted in The New York Times she said, “According to the laws as they stand now, the practice is not illegal.

 ”Whoever mutilates, cuts, disfigures, perforates, unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, Federal Reserve Bank, or Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such item(s) unfit to be reissued, shall be fined not more than $100 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.”

Now it’s also illegal to alter a bill/coin in such a way as to change it’s face or collector’s value (such as tearing corners off a $20 and taping them to a $1, a very cheap and yet sometimes quite successfull way of counterfeiting, or to change a common coin to look like a rarer one) but these fall under fraud statutes and isn’t really what’s being discussed here
anyways.

As long as the dollar can still be used as a dollar (even if it’s in pieces, the bank can still replace it for a whole one and send that one to be destroyed) and there’s no fraud intended, it’s legal.

Stop Selling the Stamps

Yet the Secret Service reportedly hassled Hank Eskin to stop selling the WheresGeorge.com stamps that are still being sold by other people, saying that was using money for free advertising.

And Jim Mackin, an agent assigned to public affairs in the Washington office of the Secret Service, told the St. Louis Dispatch in 2002 that: “We would discourage anyone from participating in such a scheme.”

Mackin said that violators who are caught are told to cease and desist - and usually do to avoid legal action.

Making Money with Money

All of this back and forth between the Secret Service and these websites has not stopped WheresGeorge.com and all its imitators and followers from tracking currency as bills make their way across the globe.

Seeing as though I’m more obsessed lately with how much money bloggers and webmasters are making, I tried to track down Eskin’s income from WheresGeorge.com, since I noticed he’s running Google Adsense ads on the site.

What I did find were WheresGeorge.com’s advertising rates, which give information about the site’s pageviews and how much they charge in terms of CPM — or cost per thousand impressions.

Putting these numbers into a Google spreadsheet.  I was able to discover that WheresGeorge.com could be pulling in anywhere from $7,600 (the presold WheresGeorge.com advertising space not listed as immediately available) up to $43,320 per month — the revenue generated if all available slots were sold.

Not bad for Eskin, who says WheresGeorge.com is mainly a fun habit, and that he’s not selling anything. And while the income generated by the site has been said to cover the cost of servers and other hosting expenses, I’d bet you anything that WheresGeorge.com’s money is covering a whole lot more than this now, years later.

Good for Eskin for coming up with a fascinating and ingenius approach to free website marketing.

Check out the video below for the firsthand story behind the government’s reaction to his website.

This concept is like having a business card that is guaranteed to get passed around from person-to-person until it falls apart.  People can throw out business cards, but they will NEVER throw out money, regardless if it’s a $1 bill or a $100 bill it will definitely be circulated to hundreds if not thousands of people all over the world.

So if you want an awesome idea to promote your website for FREE then follow this approach, use money to make money and put your money to work for you!  Stamp your site’s URL on dollar bills, spend the money like you would normally, and watch your “direct link/bookmark” traffic increase. 

The following credit card promotions below are offering $100 cash rewards or gift cards simply for signing up for a credit card with their company. You can easily cancel the card after you activate and receive your reward without any cost or obligation.

If you need a credit card for Christmas Shopping it may make sense to get one of these reward cards to take advantage of the rewards offered by these programs.

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The American Express® Starwood Preferred Guest Card gives you 2.9% APR on all purchases and is fee free for the first year, but it offers better hotel and airlines rewards than the other cards. So it only makes sense to get this card if you plan on using it for it’s travel rewards. It aso has the $100 Gift Card as an added signon bonus like the others.

Citi Professional Card - Get a $100 Gift Card

Citibank is offering 10,000 bonus ThankYou Points after your first purchase that can then be redeemed for a $100 gift card.

You also get 3 ThankYou Points for every dollar you spend on purchases at restaurants, gas stations, on auto rentals and at certain office supply merchants and 1 point for every dollar you spend on other purchases. These points can be redeemed for air travel, statement credit, gift cards and certificates, merchandise or to create your own reward.

Note: If you have a pop-up blocker, turn it off temporarily. Now click on the application link above, and then try to close the window by hitting the X. You may score an pop-up offer for 5,000 extra ThankYou points, for a total of $150 in gift cards!

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Card - Get a $100 Gift Card

 American Express is offering 10,000 Membership Rewards® Bonus points after your first purchase which is good for a $100 Gift Card at a variety of different merchants.

With this card you are also eligible for their Membership Rewards Program and various other offers.

NOTE: This card has no annual fee for the first year, but does carry a $125 annual fee if you have the card over 12 months.

American Express Starwood Preferred Guest Card - Get a $100 Gift Card

Another offer from American Express is the Starwood Preferred Guest Card which is currently giving out 10,000 Starwood points after your first purchase. That’s enough for a $100 Gift Card to Amazon.com, Gap, Nordstrom, Banana Republic, and over a hundred other preferred merchants.

These 10,000 points are also good for up to 3 free nights at Starwood hotels like Four Points Sheraton. If you like airline miles, you can get 1.25 frequent flier miles per point, 25% more than other airline-specific cards and use them at over 30 different airlines without any blackout dates! This card is great for people who like to travel and make the most of their existing frequent flier miles!

NOTE: This card has no annual fee for the first year, but does carry a $125 annual fee if you have the card over 12 months.

I signed up for all three of these cards and promply received my $100 Reward Card for each within 14 days of activating my card.  The Citibank card only took only days to show up.  I would recommend doing this for anyone with good credit.  It took me very little time to sign up for all three cards above, receive them in the mail, activate them, receive my reward gift cards for $100 each, and then cancel all three cards.

The total cost was $0 and less than 2 hours of time.  The total reward was $300.