Almost certainly a scam

I found this site called promails and I'm almost certain it's a scam. It has a $10,000 payout, and sends me 4-5 e-mails a day claiming to pay $50 each for simply viewing a website for 60 seconds. I'm trying it out anyways, since it's not costing me anything and clicking on links in my e-mail isn't really going out of my way at all... so I'll be able to tell you fairly soon if it's a scam or not from my own experience. As I said, though, I'll be extremely surprised if it's legit.

However, I wanted to write about it and use it as an example of exactly how smart the people who make these sites can be. I was a graphic design student at one point, so I do know a bit about targeting your audience, and one look at this site lets me know exactly who they're targeting.

Most paid e-mail or paid to click sites are obviously targeting teenagers and young adults who want a little extra pocket change to make it through college. The sites are colourful, fun and interactive.

This site is extremely professional looking. It looks like a legitimate business, and therefore people are more likely to trust it no matter what they might read about it - and, in fact, their target audience is less likely to do their research because they will be fairly new to the online world. They are targeting older people than most of these sites do. People in their 30s, 40s, 50s who don't have jobs (especially with the number of layoffs going around these days) and are desperately trying to come up with the income they were used to having when they had well-paying jobs. They will jump at the opportunity to make $10,000 with just a couple of months of clicking on e-mails, and then likely ask for a payout and not get it.

The reason I am so absolutely certain this is a scam is that I just don't see how they could finance it. Advertisers won't really pay that much for e-mail advertising, and there's no way people are using their paid referral program enough to make them able to pay so much per e-mail.

But we'll see. I'm giving them a chance to prove me wrong, if only because it's not costing me anything other than 5 minutes a day.