Clout Bucks is another site that claims to "pay you for nothing" - credits $25 to your account just for signing up with it, $30 for completing a task, and so on. But no matter how much you earn, it will never let you cash it out. Unfortunately that's not the only problem - my CloutBucks review will explain how this site tries to access your personal information and potentially harm your computer.
Clout Bucks Review | ||
|---|---|---|
Product Name: | CloutBucks | |
Website URL: | cloutbucks.com | |
Type: | Data harvesting / phishing scam | |
Owner: | Clout Bucks, Pty Ltd. | |
Price: | Free | |
Rating: | ||
Overview
Clout Bucks is one of many sites that claim to be a "social influencer platform". These sites encourage users to join by offering money, and encourage them to share on social media by offering more money.
They particularly target regular social network users to satisfy their hunger for recognition; the more you share, the more you get paid.
They claim to pay you $25 just for joining, pay you $2 each time you share the link on your social account, and $10 each time your follower joins via your link. They also claim to pay $30 each time you complete a "task", which is typically to answer a fake survey.
The home page says "Earn $500 Today!" It is possible for you to earn that kind of amount in one day - on paper. In your Clout Bucks account.
What they do is simply, never pay you. Your account balance will grow continuously as you keep sharing and do the tasks. But you'll never be able to cash it out. Your payment request will be simply ignored, your complaints will be ignored. When there are enough people complaining across social media and things seem to become uncontrollable, they'll take the site down and disappear.
There's Only One Thing They're After
You might think, surely that's illegal! Yes it is, and they don't care. The company names are fake, everything is fake, and they can disappear anytime they want.
There's only one thing they're after. Users' sensitive data. By signing up using them, you'll be giving your name and email address to them. Friends and followers that you refer to will sign up and give their name and address. All that information is likely to be sold to third party advertising companies.
Upon signing up, they'll urge you to enter your payment method - PayPal, Cash App, Bitcoin or Mailed Check "so that they can pay you". The truth is, whatever the information you give will be used fraudulently.
Phishing Scam
If you are a desktop user, your security software may warn you of the phishing threat.
Phishing usually refers to an email message that pretends to be from an authority site. You are tricked into visiting a fake site and voluntarily giving out your sensitive information.
For example an email "from PayPal" asking you to update your account information; it may look real, but the sender's address is something like info@paypal-security.cc, or paypal.verification@gmail.com (instead of service@paypal.com). If you click the link, you'll be taken to a bogus site where you are asked to enter your login ID and password first. So the risk is that you may give out your security data to a scammer unknowingly.
Clout Bucks is similar. All the "tasks" listed there look attractive - shopping vouchers with a large amount, game consoles or smartphone to win, PLUS a $30 payment to you upon completion.
The catch is - the catch is everything. If you believe all this, you'll be giving out your personal data - effectively saying "please hack me"!
When you click to choose a task, you'll be directed to a third party site where you are required to enter your personal data before anything starts. If you don't enter your address, they can't send your winning prize, so you may be happy to give out whatever requested - phone number, street address, etc. All of which will be passed on to third-party advertising spammers.
Your task is typically to ask survey questions, which are endless. During the survey, another (fake) prize draw invitation might pop up, which may also be attractive, so you enter your personal detail all over again, which will be sold to some more spammers. Of course you will never win any of the prizes because they're fake. The $30 will be added to your Clout Bucks account, but this "easy money" is not real. You can never cash it.
Fake Testimonials
You can see the testimonials are made up - the domain "cloutbucks.com" was only registered in May 2019, but two of the testimonials are from 2016 and 2017 respectively.
Think about it - if there'd been such an easy way to make money by doing virtually nothing (merely sharing on social media and answering surveys) and had been going on for the past 3 years - it would have been absolutely viral, don't you think? Real people would have left much more realistic comments. Not one from 3 years ago, another one from 2 years ago.
Not The First, Won't Be The Last
Clout Bucks is not the first of its kind. There have been many other data harvesting sites out there, such as Kids Earn Cash, Notion Cash, Money Rewards, Viral Pay, Referral Pay, etc. You'll notice that they all have almost the same layout and most of them claim that you can make "$500 today".
If you search by name on Twitter, you'll find quite a few complaints from the users. Clout Bucks certainly won't be the last of its kind either. There will be some more for sure.
How I "Finally" Make Over $6,000 Monthly Income
"The most valuable thing I've ever done!"
There Is No Free Money
So all of this is fake, you're not receiving any money from Clout Bucks. If you still don't believe it, think about it this way...
Whether you work online or offline, betting or gambling, or charity, or free services such as social media... There is a business that makes money, right? If you think about where the money comes from - who's paying for it - then it might make sense to you a little more.
Social Media Networks
You can use them for free. The networks make money from advertising, and they use that money to provide a free platform to users. For example, Facebook made $55 billion from advertising income in 2018. They have enough money to pay for the running costs. But do they ever give you cash? Never.
Gambling
You know, you might win, and if you win, someone else will lose. Gambling companies takes a % of handling fees from you. Because that's their business. Do they ever give you cash for nothing? No, but they might give you some cash to use upon joining for the first time. You can't just take the money and walk away without betting. So it's just equivalent to a cashback, or discount.
Charity
Registered charity groups use the money for good causes, they don't give out cash to random people (stating the obvious!) And where does the money come from? They work hard to raise the fund, asking corporates to become their sponsors and individuals to make donations.
Online Stores
How do they make money? By selling goods/services. Do they ever give out cash to customers? Almost never. They give some cash back - they always make sure that the cash they give (lose) will be spent on their products/services (gain) later on.
Affiliate Marketing
How do affiliate marketers (like me) make money? To help people by recommending online products/services, and receive commissions from the retailers. Do these retailers give me any money? Never, unless I help them make sales and receive money from their customers. And lastly - do I (affiliate marketer) give anyone money randomly?
No, because that wouldn't be unethical. When I donate, I donate to a recognized, registered charity, to make sure it's used for a good cause.
I hope you agree with all I just said and by now, you know Clout Bucks or any companies never give out cash to anybody for doing something that's hardly making them money (such as sharing the link on social media).
Clout Bucks Pros and Cons
Pros
No pros. Really not. Don't believe any of it.
Cons
Clout Bucks Review: Conclusion
Clout Bucks is a data phishing scam. I don't recommend you to sign up and give your real identity. Otherwise most likely, your email will be sold and you'll start receiving unsolicited emails.
My experience with Clout Bucks was as a trader and I wanted to invest in things like binary option and things like that. It turned out it was nothing I expected and it was a scam. I lost $38USD and I was ashamed and felt stupid as an online broker. I am penniless and right now all I can do is spam comments in various websites. Nobody will guide me on the streets and I cannot get any money or bonus from work. But wish me luck.
Is there anyway to make money online because I can’t find anything to do this clout have really stress me this past few days right now I just feel depress
Hi Kant, thanks for your comment. You just need to move on from these easy-money scammers. There are lots of ways to make money online, but you need to pay for the tools first. If you don’t want to pay, try legitimate survey sites such as Swagbucks maybe?
This is the same as Clout Pay. I made over $200 but it does not pay but it blocked my access.
It is not recommendable. I apologise to people I refer because this is a real bad scam.
Hi Naveed, yes that’s what happens to many of the users. There’s no such a system as making money so quickly without making an effort. Move on!
I have done all More than required for Payouts and get my Payment to be Transferred to my Paypal Account. To inform you there are a + with my Referrals/Clicks/Tasks {But the majority of those Tasks are Scams and Bogus Scams that just takes you From 1 Fake Survey Website claims to Pay you for Every Survey you complete. This Isn’t true at all, just get your E-Mail Address and Send you Bogus Surveys and have your E-Mail Inbox Fill with Clutter}.
I made over 300 bucks but I know it’s a scam now. How can I claim this. Is there a company who can help me?
I can pay a commission to a company but I am desperate to be paid because i need money and I spent too much time.
Thank you in advance.
Hi Samal, thanks for your comment. No, there is no such company, unfortunately. You have not made that amount just by sharing the link and doing small tasks – because the “consideration” is out of proportion.
Imagine this – I tell you “visit my website and read a few pages, I’ll give you $1,000”. But I’m lying and I won’t pay you. I’ll be a big liar, but you can’t really sue me because you’re not doing a job that’s $1,000 worth. Does that make sense?
Sorry to hear that, but you just have to move on, and stay away from any sites like this in the future. Thanks!
I got warned of nothing just know my phone has been acting funny here lately I had a feeling about clout bucks it was to good to be true and I was right cause they saying the dat the money was suppose to get sent to me that I committed fraud well I believe that is them ..i was kinda happy for wining and earning that money I think everyone that got scammed by these dirt bags should at least get the money they earned and these pieces of sum, gum on the bottom of my shoes people should have to pay out there own pockets wasn’t people time just stuipd..
Hi Kimberly, thanks for your comment. Sorry to hear about your experience. But it’s a lesson that we’ve all learned from sites like Clout Bucks – there is no way we can make money easy this way. I understand you feel that the existing users should be paid whatever they’ve earned…but there’s no such money! Clout Bucks can only earn a couple of dollars each time you answer a survey and sell your email address for another couple of dollars. I hope your phone won’t be disrupted too much!
I have not seen this one but I have seen similar one that saying you can earn 250 dollars to sign up.
I will look for it because I receive many emails like this one. I will let you know.
Thank you for the warning.
Hi Milie, thanks for your comment. There are too many of them. If you see one, just ignore it, and if you receive too many spams just change your email address – to save your time for something more meaningful online! I wish you all the best!
Check out Clout Pay on social media. Every1 is complaining. They should send compensations.
Hi Ole, thanks for your comment. Yes Clout Pay is another one. Oh they should!
Clout Bucks is a real scam. Also Clout Pay is the same. I have made over $300 then realized they don’t pay. I deleted all my tweets and social posts after I realized I made fool of myself by promoting it. How can they do this, it should be banned.
Hi Steve, thanks for your comment. Yes this may be so bad but it’s a good wakeup call for any users – there’s no such thing as free money! The more they promote the scam, the closer to the saturation point – we’ll all know about it sooner or later.
Hi Ray, thanks for the useful review. It’s so amazing that similar scams come up continuously. I think one called Clout Pay (??) has come up in the past few weeks, selling exactly the same way. Are they really making money with that kind of thing, or do they exist purely to harm users?
Anyway great review as always, Ray. Thanks, MP
Hi Martin, thanks for the info. Yes I think I’ve seen that too. Yes it looks like they can make some money for lending the space to the advertisers. Also the user information they collect can be sold to traffic sellers who send spam emails. Thanks for your comment!
Lets every1 sign up using fake name an address then they will be pssd off. If they waste our time we can waste theres also. We dont need this kind of
Hi, thanks for your comment. It may be an idea but you won’t gain anything from it. I’d simply stay away though!
Don’t sign up with this scam if you see something that says make $500 every day, they don’t pay. I have tried 4 or 5 similar ones and they never paid me. I complain but they didn’t reply. But I don’t care about receiving spams because I change my email many times.
Thanks Celia for leaving your feedback. Yep, best to stay away!
Hi Ray, my Norton security didn’t warn me when I visited, but I see exactly what you mean. I’ve seen it so many times. I’ve witnessed many (teenagers) complain. Your advice at the end of the post is invaluable to them. They really ought to know how businesses work then they’ll know why this is a scam. Thanks for your awesome post, once again!
Hi Ben, thanks for your comment. Yes, there are so many of those, I bet this scam technique will soon be obsolete though!