ChaCha Pay Lies and Scams: Pay Me Now Fees Scam
Table of Contents:
-
I. Introduction
II. Press Releases and Articles
III. New ChaCha Front Page “Enhancements” Scam
IV. Pay Me Now Fees Scam
V. Working for Free and Deactivations
VI. ChaCha Archives
This is one of the biggest ChaCha scams there is. This little scam charges each live guide a $2 fee EVERY time they want to have their money transferred to their online bank account. Now I know what you are going to say. “Companies do this all the time.” Sure some do, but not many. Most times something that has no human interaction necessary to make a transaction is free. The only time someone PAYS to GET PAID in most circumstances is when they actually want a check sent to them directly.
To get your money transferred and paying $2 is enough to anger most people, but the bank that they have to transfer the money to? First Internet Bank of Indiana. Why is that important? Well for one thing the man who is responsible for bringing you the live guide, social search engine, known as ChaCha, Scott Jones is also on the board of the First Internet Bank of Indiana. Has anyone ever heard of conflict of interest? I hope so because this one is slapping you in the face right about now.
But wait. There’s more. This is simply the best part and one of the biggest lies of the whole thing. This makes the scam brilliant. Who gets that $2?
This is a quote from Justin Keller on the WAHM.com forums under the name of ChaCha Insider. Justin is basically a ChaCha public relations/guide care employee of ChaCha and before ChaCha actually made an internal forum he used to post regularly on the board at WAHM. Thank you to the good people at Bored Reader for preserving this quote for posterity before it was purged:
It only costs $2 to transfer the money from your
page on the ChaCha underground to the card.That $2 isn’t for our profit, that’s just a
transaction fee, like using the ATM.
From the Live Guide Agreement:
ChaCha anticipates that the payment processing fee will be $2.00 (half of which shall be paid to the financial institution and the other half shall be paid to ChaCha), and this amount is subject to change at any time, in ChaCha’s sole discretion.
As you can see a bit of misinformation seems to make everything alright as usual by ChaCha and its employees. If you were to contact the First Bank of Indiana they would tell you flat out that they do NOT charge ChaCha to make this transaction. So the brilliant people at ChaCha have found just another way to purge their live guides out of some of their hard earned money.
Why it is so lethal to the live guide’s pay is that most of the people doing ChaCha really need this money. ChaCha was advertised to work at home mothers and college students for the most part. Mothers use this money to pay some bills and take the money out often because they need it. Maybe as much as every few days. It isn’t uncommon to see that many of these guides take their money out every $20 or so because of the fear that if they get fired they won’t get any of it back. You see when a guide gets deactivated it is standard that the money they have in that account before transferring it to the bank will never be paid to them. This is a completely different story altogether and I don’t have time for it here, but I promise I will write more about it in the coming weeks.
Is this illegal? Certainly not. Is it another slap in the face for guides? Yes it is. Just another in a long line of ChaCha scams that is designed to make the guides less money and add to the profits of Chacha. Do you believe that ChaCha wants to take care of those that are the face of the company? What are your thoughts on this fee?
Work at home opportunities better than ChaCha:
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Filed under: ChaCha, Computers and Internet by JMH
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- ChaCha Pay Lies and Scams: New Front Page | JMH Techtronics
- ChaCha Pay Lies and Scams: Press Releases and Articles | JMH Techtronics
- ChaCha Guide Pay Lies and Scams | JMH Techtronics
- ChaCha Pay Lies and Scams: Working for Free and Deactivations | JMH Techtronics
Have you been kicked out of Cha Cha yet for not following their policy of only saying nice things about Cha Cha?
lol…nope.
I have asked 4 times to be deactivated to no success. They don’t care what kind of publicity they get so I guess my network is paying my fee for getting pranksters to use their site. Pranksters make them money still and help them lie about their traffic to advertisers. Not deactivating people also helps with their inflated guide numbers to sell to advertisers. Everything about this place is shady as hell. They are a terrible company and are liars.
Hope these guys don’t know where you live. Actually, that would make for an interesting post regarding private information that you have to give these companies when you sign up.
Any worries on that mate?
PS-I see you have a Squidoo lens under the survey ad. Is that a link to someone you know, or a paid link…just curious.
I’m a new guide at ChaCha- just started a month ago. They have a new system now, where you text your questions and we live guide people answer the questions. So far I like it. I don’t like to pay $2. each time I want my cash, but there are ways to lessen the fees and protect myself. First, I can instead transfer the money directly to my bank account monthly. No fees for this. If I use the debit card, I’ll withdraw once a week. I will be using my bank to transfer the money from FIB, this way I pay no ATM or ACH fees. I’ll see how all this goes!
Only a coward would not report there earnings vs.dashboard scam.
My earnings 80$
Actual amount received 4.47
YEAH JUST A GLITCH FOR EVERYONE IN THE NEW EXPEDITOR PROGRAM. RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-THE POST MAN
So say I only withdraw every 500 dollars I make through ChaCha… I wouldn’t be withdrawing very often, and so naturally I wouldn’t be getting charged 2 dollars very often…
It seems like the success of this “scam” is just through lack of understanding of how the system works. It’s very similar to taking a toll road. Tolls are pretty hefty sometimes, and so naturally, the more you can avoid this road, the better.
That doesn’t mean we should sue the people putting the toll out for trying to “scam” people out of their money, even if some dumbass is stupid enough to drive back and fourth across this toll road 8 times a day.
It seems like most of the arguments for AND against ChaCha are just silly internet people getting too caught up in theorizing and internet posting.
No…really it isn’t. This was over a year ago when it was posted, and at that time people were afraid that they would get screwed by ChaCha and never get what was in their accounts. There are numerous stories out there about people getting fired for whatever reason and ChaCha refusing to give them their money.
Regardless of all that. This “Fee” they charge is completely unnecessary. The bank doesn’t charge them to transfer the money. There is absolutely NO cost to them for you to make the transfer to the bank. Hell…the creator of ChaCha is on the board of the bank they force you to use. It’s a conflict of interest at the very least, but they are still using this as just another way to pay the guides less by taking money they don’t even get charged. Their own PR person CLAIMED that they DO get charged for this transaction, but it clearly states in their TOS that they do not.
Just more Lies. Defending ChaCah is silly. Nothing i posted is false. It’s all crap that ChaCha is doing to squeeze the guides and pay them less. Don’t defend these guys and try to tell people they are idiots for questioning their tactics. They don’t give a shit about you.
I am thinking about being a chacha guide. you’re whole thing is very confusing. Do you, or don’t you recommend me to be a chacha guide. And what would my whole procedure be like. How do I get my money? And I thought I read somewhere that you can only cash out when you get to $100? is that true
I am just curious to ask is it normal for any bank to charge an over draft fee even if it has been less than $2.00 and satisfied within 24 hours. Is it right for a bank to asses a fee. I just got told by FIB rep that yes they do split the $2 fee with FIB and Cha Cha! wow! big mistake.
Never has the $2 fee been required for payment. You have two choices for payment. You can choose to be paid monthly through direct deposit, to any bank account, for free. Or, you can choose the convenience of being able to have your money instantly deposited to your FIB account, less a $2 fee. I have no idea where that fee goes. I’ve heard the same conflicting explanations, but I’ll never be high enough up to know for sure. But, whatever the reason, try to think of one thing in life where getting it faster doesn’t mean an added expense.
As to why FIB is required for ‘pay me now’, I’d imagine that’s because they have a relationship with the bank that allows for these types of frequent, instant transfers. Most banks don’t run deposits that frequently. And, if there’s a problem, the relationship makes it so ChaCha knows who to contact to resolve things quickly.
If the fee is something that you have to volunteer for, and you agree to pay BEFORE you get your money, exactly HOW is this a “scam’?
If you dont want to pay it, go to the paid monthly option.
Scams are not where you readily go sign up to pay for something, then whine about it after your charged.
this is stupid because i work for chacha all you have to do is get payed monthly and this fee isnt a problem so stop bitching they pay you for the easiest home job…
Way to represent yourself as someone who helps people. “payed” isn’t a word.
I haven’t worked for ChaCha in over 2 years so I have no idea what they do now, and I don’t care. Everything here at the time was accurate and I’m not going to change any of it.
Who cares if ChaCha gets the $2. There isn’t a company in America that isn’t receiving money that it’s employees aren’t aware of. You seem to have dedicated almost 2 years to this conversation. Let it go and stop responding. No need to respond to me, I won’t remember this website to see it. And the ad you have on here for Paying Surveys is a scam.
http://www.formspring.me/ChaChaH8 <—- tell your story there
Ahh yes. Another one of these.
Amy,
I assume you are completely unaware of how either a website, or a blog works right? Let me explain it to you.
You see…the owner of the site/blog has this handy page called their dashboard for a Wordpress site. This is basically the hub of the site and it gives you all kinds of information. On top of that you can see when someone makes a comment as it shows up under “recent comments”.
So…when i get a comment…sometimes I like to respond to it. Since I was notified of a comment on my dashboard I know exactly where it is, what post it is under, and who made it (including your E-mail and IP address so a word of warning. When you come to respond DO IT WITH A DIFFERENT EMAIL AND AT ANOTHER LOCATION if you really want to keep your internet cred). Why do I have that info? Well you see there is a plugin called Askimit it that allows me to block your IP address if you are spamming the shit out of me. Since your comment is just ignorant, and not spam you don’t get banned.
Anyways, I moved on from this a long time ago, but as I said when I get comments I just might respond to them. Also, I’m not against being a total DICK either so when I get these comments it is likely I will tell you that you are a dumbass.
I couldn’t even tell you what ChaCha looks like anymore, and if you enjoy working for them and searching out places to go defend them by all means keep it up. You DID come here, create an account, and then tried to look super sweet by responding after all didn’t you? That means you either SEARCHED (god I hope you are good at that) for this info, or some of your fellow ChaChas have posted these posts YET AGAIN to a board you all jerk each other off at. It’s not my fault you douchebags still find these posts and get your retarded minds in a rage about it.
As for whatever I linked to. I don’t give a fuck what they are anymore. I don’t update this shit anymore. I don’t give a shit. Tell your ChaCha friends to quit getting into fits of rage about these posts because you are certainly all too fucking stupid to realize that these posts are so old that they can’t possibly be accurate anymore.
Are you a ChaCha guide? Well…YOU MAKE LESS THAN $5 AN HOUR! Nothing I can say can be more embarrassing to you than that.
BTW…you obviously didn’t read this post. At the time it was written that fee was said to NOT go to ChaCha in their TOS. A FLAT OUT LIE. You know…a continuation of the theme? So lrn2read and stop making yourself look like such an idiot for this shitbag company.