Can You Really Earn Money Reading The News Online?

I’ve come across a lot of scams over the years and exposed a number of them on this site. Which is why I’m skeptical of anything that sounds too good to be true.

Today, I’m looking at sites that claim you can earn money reading the news…

Sounds a bit odd, doesn’t it? Yep. But I did my homework to be sure. I never like to judge something at first glance, so I did some digging to get the truth.

Unfortunately, I found that none of these sites are legitimate. Rather, they are scams that trick people into thinking they’re earning money, when the reality is, they never get paid.

I also found some hidden dangers among these scam sites that you should know about…

The Truth About ‘Paid News’ Websites

I spent quite a bit of time researching these sites to see whether or not there are any legit ones. The conclusion I came to is that no- there are no legitimate sites that pay you real money to read the news.

I can’t say that was unexpected. I mean, it sounds far-fetched to begin with. But I always like to be sure either way.

Anyways, there are tons of these sites floating around, and most share a common set of red flags. I’ll walk you through these now to show you what I mean…

The Long Running Bait and Switch Con

One of the most common traits among scam sites, is how they close one site down and open a new (near identical) version shortly after.

I found this ‘bait and switch’ tactic in use among all the ‘paid to read news’ sites I found. They seem to last for 6-12 months before shutting down and starting again under a new name.

Below are some of the sites I found to show you what I mean…

• news-open.com
• circumnews.com (defunct)
• did-news.com (defunct)

As you can see, there are three main ‘paid to read news’ sites, and each has one or more identical versions. All of them are quite similar in one way or another though, when you study them closely.

Some of  these sites are still running, and some are now defunct. To verify what I am saying for a defunct site, head over to the Web Archive and put the URL in there.

There are likely many, many more versions of these scam sites going around. But these are just some of the main ones I found to show you what I mean.

The point is that legitimate sites do not need to be running so many versions and coming and going like this. This is something scammers do to keep a scam running.

The ‘Article Reading Process’ Is Super Sketchy

I decided to test these sites to see if what happens when you read an article.

Here’s how the process works in a nutshell…

1. Sign up to the site
2. Click to ‘read the news article’ (yet you don’t have to read it or visit the news site)
3. Complete a math quiz to “prove” you read the article
4. Make money

Here’s how the above process looks in action…

As you can see- you do NOT even have to read the news, or visit the news site, to make money. Pretty sure that confirms how ridiculous these sites truly are.

None of the others sites I looked into were any better either.

The Income Claims Are Outrageous

Every one of the sites I found, claim you can large sums of money simply by reading the news. The ‘per article’ amount varies, but most of these sites claim you can make around $4-$5 per article you read and cap the number of articles you can read each day.

For example… “news-open.com” claims you can make $5-$9 and they cap the number of articles you can read each day to 35. Going off these numbers, you’d be making between $175 to $315 per day, or $5 to $9k per month (ish).

Yet another site (newshot17.com) claims you can make over $10k per month…

Either way- this is absolutely ridiculous.

Anyone telling you that you will make 5 figures per month by simply reading news, is flat out telling lies! Especially when you consider that you do not even need to prove you read it.

The Referral Programs Simply Don’t Add Up

On top of the money they say you can make reading the news, many of these sites also have a referral program in place.

The way it works is simple- get people to sign up to the same site through your unique referral link. When someone signs up for free, you get paid. From what I’ve seen, the commissions are around $160 per referral.

As someone who earns a living from affiliate marketing, I can safely say that their referral program is fake.

How do I know this?

For starters, no money is changing hands. In order for you to earn such a high commission just by referring someone, that person would need to buy something. Yet no money changes hands. Ever.

Ask yourself- where is the revenue coming from?

You do not even need to visit a third party news site in some cases. And even if some of these sites do send you to news site to read an article- no one is ever paying you that much to read it.

There are sites that pay to get traffic, yes. But no site pays in excess of $3 per visitor unless it will generate them serious returns on that investment. Which is not the case here.

There is no revenue being made to pay affiliates at all. Let alone claiming they’ll pay $160 plus per referral. This referral program is 100% fake.

The Payout Threshold Is Unusually High

Many scam work from home sites put an unusually high withdrawal threshold in place. The average withdrawal threshold I saw was around $2,500 which makes no sense at all.

I am yet to find any legitimate affiliate program or work from home offer that requires you to earn such a high amount before allowing you to withdraw your earnings.

They do this to keep you referring people for longer, before your work out it’s a scam.

No One Ever Gets Paid Real Money

These sites are very similar to referral link scams in that no one ever gets paid. You see the money going up in your account, but it never equates to real money. If you research some of the example sites I showed you earlier, you will see that no one ever gets paid.

Take one ‘paid news’ site called circumnews.com for example…

Most comments on that YouTube video are from people saying they were never paid.

And surprise surprise, that scam website no longer operates. Once enough complaints come through, they move onto a new version of the same old scam.

The Hidden Dangers Among These Scams

I think it’s pretty obvious by now that these sites are not legitimate. I am yet to find any legitimate company or website that pays real people to read real news online. It simply doesn’t happen.

But you might be wondering “what’s in it for them if everything is free?”.

Good question.

This is exactly how you want to be thinking when it comes to these kinds of ‘too good to be true’ offers.

The answer is simple- they are building a massive email list full of people looking to work from home. Which can be sold for quite a sum of money online.

Notice how NONE of the sites I’ve shown you have a privacy policy? Neither are any of them secure (you can identify this by looking in your browser window to see if a site is secure or not).

Here’s what I mean…

All things considered, it’s clear that their agenda is obtaining your email. So they can SPAM you and sell your email to others who will do the same.

Worse still, they could very well be using the information you put into their site, to break into other online accounts you own. Such as your email or PayPal accounts.

How? Many people use the same email and passwords across multiple accounts. So if you do this on one of these scam sites, they now have your email and password and could potentially log into other accounts.

So best case is SPAM, worst case is potential identity theft.

Sadly, These Scams Often Go Viral and Deceive Many

The sad reality of these scam sites is that they work. In fact, many of them go viral for short periods of time before they close up and launch a new version.

Why do they work?

Because people signup and get excited about how much ‘money’ they are making. So they take advantage of the ‘lucrative’ referral program and blast out their link on social media.

When a friend says they’re making money with a free program, and ask you to join, it’s a natural response to check it out.

The more people join, the more people refer others. Which is how they spread the scam. Unfortunately, the consequences of buying into this can be severe.

Conclusion

You cannot make money online by reading the news. This is absolutely a scam.

News sites publish articles on their site which get rankings in search engines and shares on social media. They make their money through ads placed on their site and in some cases, they charge you a small fee for people to access parts of their content.

At no time do any legitimate news sites pay people money to read their news. Let alone pay them thousands of dollars per month for doing what millions of people already do for free.

Avoid these scam sites at all costs and warn your friends.