getpounds.com

Get pounds had a lot of press exposure when they claimed to give people up to £1 per hour for doing exactly what I am doing now. SO hearing this from a friend I immediately signed up.

Around 6 months later I havent earned a penny, nor have I seen a banner add. Nor has my inbox been graced with the presence of any correspondence from GetPounds.

When I first signed up to the service they said everybody had to wait for 50,000 people to join up before they could make the service financially worthwhile for them. Then they told us in February 2000 that thay had nearly reached their quota and that we should be seeing banner adds and earning within a month. The they closed down the service to registrants and told us that they were updating the server and adticker version and they have since extended their estimated date for launching several times.

The thing that makes me think that they are taking us all for a ride is the lack of explanations i.e. no e-mail notification. And their website message that tells us that they are updating the adticker version.
The adticker version is the small program that runs at the bottom of the screen and displays the advertisements that were are supposed to be seeing by now. This amazes me in that we havent used the adticker version to see any adds becuase the service hasnt launched yet. So the question that I would like to put to the people behind GetPounds is Why do you need to update software that has never been used?

The other thing that annoyed me is that I used to link to GetPounds on my website via a small picture (I dont know the proper jargon name for it) and they withdrew this without notifying me so the only thing that my visitiors saw was an empty box with a red error cross in it. Making it look as though I have made a mistake and messed some of the code up that provides the picture. (I know Im only a beginner in website design but this really does make a beginner look thick)

I think the problem is that they cannot get advertisers to use the adticker version to display adds to getpounds users, because why should they pay getpounds a huge sum of cash so that the £1 per hour can be passed on to us. When they can get another pay to surf company who pay their users a much lower price for viewing their adds and effectively reducing the advertisers costs.

I think GetPounds need to be honest about updating the server and adticker, becuase lets face it, I could do the job for them in less time than it is taking them.

I think we all know that they are bound to have other problems and they should be hojnest about it. OK the service may never lift off of the ground but I think they owe it to their members to be honest with us about these things.

Take all advantage for example, they went bust overnight and left a lot of people in the dark. If this happens to GetPounds before the service launches, people will want answers as to why theyb weren'y told of this. And we would all think more of GetPounds if they were straight with us.

In conclusion as I sit at home, typing this opinion, clocking up another 10p for this informetion,I can safely say that a service like Ciao is a much better option becuase Ciao is reliable and worthwhile joining.But I know that everybody reading this opinion knows that so I am really preaching to the converted.

But jokes aside, GetPounds need to sort something out quickly, if not for their members but for their reputation if they ever do get off the ground.

**********!!UPDATE!!**********

6:24PM ¦ 3 April 2001

I have just logged on to GetPounds, to see if they are up and running yet, and just as I suspected, a quote from them saying

"The site will be shut down for the foreseeable future as we are facing critical funding shortage. It will not be possible to register during this period. We will email existing users when the Getpounds is operational"

At least now that they have come clean to people.

But an e-mail would have been nice (that doesn't cost anything)

If I could I would withdraw my membership with them but as the site is shut down and thay aren't responding to e-mails. I think this definately spells the final end for GetPounds.