UPDATE: Looks like /u/Giant2005 just banned me from /r/Howtoearnmoremoney, /r/beermoneyindia and /r/beermoneyAus of which he is the ONLY moderator. Please avoid these subs as they are probably full of scams.

This subreddit along with /r/beermoney and the BeerMoneyForum have all been flooded with posts about all these AutoSurfers promising HUGE payout for nothing more than leaving your computer on and their software running. Like most things in life if it sounds too good to be true -- then it's not.

How Did This Start?

In the beginning there was a humble website called CashMining.xyz which allowed to to earn money by running an AutoSurfer and a Crypto Mining script. The payout was small but you put in very little effort so many people signed up. It was going well until one day the Admin reported that PayPal had shutdown his account and was refusing to give him the $3000 that was in it.

This was the beginning of the end because the original owner sold the website to a new owner who raised the minimum payout from $2 to $10. They also charged a 50% "fee" to anyone who tried to withdraw their earnings. Then the new owner FILLED the website with spam advertisements. At this point CashMining.xyz was dead and anyone who did not already withdraw their money was out of luck.

Rise Of The Clones

Many people thought this was the end of CashMining.xyz but soon dozens of clones popped up all over the place. The original owner of CashMining.xyz was selling the template to anyone who was willing to pay $100 for it. A bunch of people bought it and tried to make some easy money. They filled the websites with spam advertisements and blocked you if you tried using an AdBlocker. They included mining scripts which ran automatically and did not credit you. They included Paid URL Shortners that forced you to watch an add when you tried to launch the AutoSurfer. The did everything they could to make money.

Eventually, many of these websites started to shutdown and users realized they didn't pay out. I personally ran almost a dozen AutoSurfers to test them and see if they paid. At the end of January I wrote a post calling out all the AutoSurfer that didn't pay and their deceptive methods of preventing users from cashing out. At this point many of the websites were shutting down and people were moving on to new methods, but these websites were not going out without a fight.

The Pyramid Schemes Begin

Now many of these websites offered a special VIP status for their users. Usually, this meant you could do things like get your money sooner and earn more from each view. However, many of the clone websites ONLY allowed VIP users to withdraw their earnings. At the same time these website were offering CRAZY HIGH amounts of money. Websites like FastCashMining were paying $19.44 every 30 days for Platinum members. This isn't realistic or sustainable. The only reason they are able to pay users this much money is because they charge you $9.99 for the initial membership. Much like the Madoff Ponzi Scheme these websites are using the money that users initially invested to pay other users huge amounts of money to convince people this is a legitimate business. However, this system is NEVER sustainable and eventually the whole thing will come crashing down.