I saw a comment in one of the ‘Make Money Online’ Facebook groups promoting Workmines as a legit work from home job. I’m always curious but cautious about such opportunities, so I had to check it out!
In this Workmines review, I’m going to share my findings and honest opinion with you. Is Workmines a scam or a legit way to make money from watching video?
Let’s find out!
First of all, let’s check the information available on the company’s website.
After that, I’ll show you my own analysis and the final opinion about Workmines.
Spoiler: there are many question marks about this business.
What Is Workmines?
Workmines calls itself an online traffic acquisition agency. It promises to connect Advertisers to targeted Audience groups. In other words, Workmines drives viewers to video ads and social media accounts.
The advertisers pay Workmines for the views and ‘like’s of their materials on social media – Youtube, Facebook and others. Workmines pays the members and keeps its fee for connecting the two sides. Sounds like a legitimate intermediary business, right?
Who Is The Owner Of Workmines?
According to the company’s website, Workmines started its operations in 2017 in Riga, Latvia.
The company owning the Workmines brand is called Time4wWork Global SIA and it is registered in Latvia. The company plans expansion to 56 additional countries by 2020.
How Many Members Does Workmines have?
Here are some stats as published on Workmines.com on 4/25/19:
– 38,318 Total Members
– $172,560 Earnings by members
– $90,000 Paid Out
There is no way to verify the accuracy of this data. I assume that the difference between the earnings and payouts is the total of outstanding balances in the members’ accounts. What is not clear is whether there is an obstacle preventing the withdrawals. We’ll get to it later.
How Does Workmines Make Money?
Workmines states that it charges the advertisers around $0.9 – 1$ for every Facebook like, Twitter follow or Youtube subscription. The clients can choose the audience based on geographic location.
As a side remark: there are plenty of companies that sell Facebook likes for less than $0.05. Compared to this much lower price, Workmines offer looks detached from the reality, as it doesn’t add any unique value like advanced targeting filters or other features.
In addition, Workmines charges membership fees for the premium plans, which vary by the daily limit of paid videos the member is allowed to watch and by the potential referral income.
Here is the summary of the available plans:
How Does Workmines Work?
Sign Up with Workmines.com
You have to be at least 18 years old to participate.
First of all, you’ll need to sign up and create an account. The mandatory information you’ll be asked to provide includes your email address and the phone number. There is an option to sign up using your Facebook account as well.
By signing up you accept the Workmines Terms of Service (see more details on them below).
How To Make Money With Workmines?
The members are promised to get paid $0.4 for every video they watch on Youtube, every like or share on Facebook and every follow on Twitter. You should be able to watch a certain daily amount of videos, according to your membership plan.
In addition, Workmines offers a generous referral program called “Invite and Earn”. You will get a commission for every new user brought on board through your referral link. The commission is $0.1 for any referral’s activity (watching video, likes and tweets) once the referral upgrades to a paid plan.
How To Get Paid By Workmines?
To get paid, your account’s main balance should reach $15.
The primary suggested ways to receive the payment are Perfect Money, Payeer & Bitcoins. Workmines promises to support various local payment processors as well.
The FAQ section encourages you to contact your local representative to figure out the payment options in your country. When I clicked on the rep’s list, I found the following 7 countries: Latvia, Nigeria, Philippines, Zambia, Kenya, South Africa, and Belgium.
A bit strange choice of countries I would say.
Workmines Business Model Analysis
If Workmines was always free for the users who watch the video content (not for the advertisers, of course), I’d say it’s a nice opportunity to earn extra income by watching videos.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. You only can use the site for 14 days before being asked to upgrade to one of the premium plans. After two weeks you must pay to get paid for watching videos. The more expensive membership you buy, the more money you are allowed to earn from the videos and referrals.
Personally, I dislike the concept. It sounds like paying your employer to keep the job. One may argue that WorkMines is not an employer, but kind of a business where you are required to invest in order to make money. I disagree. There is no business to develop here, except watching the clips and maybe referring other people.
The Reasons Why Workmines Looks Like A Scam
There are many characteristics that can help you to decide if the work money from home offer is legitimate or a scam. You can read my detailed post about it here:
Seven Ways To Avoid Work From Home Online Scams
Here are the reasons why, in my opinion, Workmines is a scam.
Workmines looks like a Pyramid Scheme
Pyramid scheme chartWorkmines membership plans are gradual upsales luring you to pay more in order to get higher payments from referrals and more available videos to watch.
In all the paid plans, the daily payment limit for watching videos is only 4 times the limit paid daily per referral. It means that if you have more than 4 referrals, your income from bringing new members would be higher than the money made from videos.
Relying on referral fees as the main component of your income is a major pyramid scheme characteristic.
In the FAQ section, the company provides a sample of average earnings of members on different payment plans. In each example, it mentions that the member is supposed to have minimum 6-10 referrals.
You cannot get paid as a Free Member
As a free 14-day trial member you can make the maximum of $11.2 (2 videos per day x 14 days x $0.4) and you wouldn’t get paid for the referrals. With the minimum payment threshold set at $15, it means that you WILL NOT get paid anything as long as you are a free member. You’ll have to pay at least $39 for the Student Plan to become eligible for any payout.
By companies rules, you cannot use the earnings balance to pay for the upgrade. Is it because the balance is not real money and Workmines just want you to pay the real money TO them?
I’ll say it again to make sure it’s clear – you’ll have to make a payment TO Workmines before any attempt to get paid by them.
Remember the big difference between the member’s balance and the payouts? I would guess that a large part of it come out of the free trial members earnings. Many of these members probably decided to drop the system without paying for any membership plan, so their money was left unclaimed.
Workmines looks like a Ponzi Scheme
This business model gives me a clue that Workmines is not only a pyramid but also a Ponzi scheme.
In short, it means that the money paid by the new members is used for the payouts to the early joiners. This way the owners can keep the scheme operating for a while without any members screaming that they don’t get the money earned.
Getting the first payments convinces the first members that this is a legitimate business, so they are eager to upgrade and bring more referrals.
More money flows into the system and it keeps growing, until one day the owners disappear with the rest of the money.
Workmines Terms of Service
I want to mention several sections from Workmines ToS. They clearly speak for themselves.
No Refund Policy
Section XXII in Terms of Service clearly states that there is NO refund policy whatsoever. By making a purchase you confirm that you understand and accept this policy.
You’ve got the clue, right?
There would be no point to complain – the company has covered itself with this policy.
Membership Cancellation
According to section IX, Workmines has the right to cancel your membership “for any or no reason”.
Imagine the situation: you have paid for the membership, watched hours of videos, slowly accumulated a material balance in your Workmines account, requested a payment and….
.. suddenly your account was closed and the payment never arrived.
What a bummer!
No Earnings Guarantee
Workmines doesn’t guarantee any earnings amounts or time frames. What I understand from this, is that the only guaranteed amount is your fee payment.
There is no promise related to the number of daily videos available for you to watch and get paid for. Your plan may allow you to get paid for 10 videos every day, but Workmines doesn’t guarantee you will get access to the same amount of clips.
In addition, it’s not clear how much time you are supposed to spend on each video to get paid $0.4. Is it 1 min or maybe 1 hour?
The Workmines Owners Are Hiding
There are no names on the Workmines website. The owners clearly don’t want to be exposed. There is no phone number either.
Legitimate sites are happy to tell their story, share the names and experience of the key people in the company.
To look more reliable in your eyes, Workmines has provided the links to its parent company registration documents and tax information. As the company is based in Latvia, the registration certificate is in the Latvian language.
Per the tax document, companies paid capital is 1.00 EUR. There is no other financial information. I think it’s not enough for any serious company.
There Are No Testimonials
There are no client or members testimonials.
Who are the key advertisers? There are no stories from the clients showcasing the boost they got by using Workmines services.
If you look in the Payment proof section on the website, you’ll see the list of payments (let’s believe they are real) mostly to Kenya, with single records of other countries here and there.
Are there real people making money from watching video on Workmines?
No way to know.
Payment Options Are Not Convenient
There are no popular payout options like PayPal, Amazon Gift Cards, Checks or Direct Deposits. You’ll have to open an account with one of the other providers to request a payment.
Does it mean that the best payment processors or gift card providers don’t agree to work with Workmines?
The Website Is Not Professional Enough
The website is not professional enough. Many pages suffer from incorrect English spelling and grammar.
There are no sample videos. The tutorial leads to short Youtube video training without a voice.
The Contact Information Is Not Sufficient
Customer support can be reached by email only. Let’s say you sent several emails but your support requests are ignored.
How are you going to complain? There is no phone number, no office address.
Are you going to fly to Latvia to fight for your money?
Final Thoughts – Is Workmines a scam?
In my opinion, Workmines has too many signs of being more of a pyramid scheme than a real company with serious earnings potential for its members.
When I review a company, I usually prefer to try its service to get firsthand information. In this case, I was not comfortable to trust Workmines with my phone number and email address.
Now it’s up to you if you still want to give it a try. If not, I have some other offers for you from proven legitimate businesses.
