Multi-level marketing style spamming is nothing new to the internets, but that doesn’t stop a new line of mystery meat from going down the cyber assembly line. Enter the newest contender, PayoDesk.com (and no, I’m not hyperlinking to this one), which launched in April of 2013. I discovered PayoDesk.com when one of their registered spammers responded to an ad I’d placed in Craigslist (sent to me via his iPhone; how cute):

My name’s chance. I have a job that would interest you. All the info about the company is here …PayoDesk.com/(referral code removed), if interested in the job let me know.

How sneaky of “Chance,” eh? I guess after pissing off his friends and family with this crap, he’s searching for random strangers on message boards to exasperate. According to this search, others of his ilk  are using forums, social media, and barely intelligible blogs to find potential registrars.

So, is PayoDesk.com a scam? Probably not, although I’d be very interested to know if anyone has actually been paid for their referrals. Basically, this is your average paid referral system: You send traffic to their website, they pay you for each registered referral. PayoDesk claims that an enterprising spammer can earn $50+ per day with this scheme (assuming at least 50 people a day think this is a dandy idea and sign up). PayoDesk says this about itself:

PayoDesk.com is leading Cost Per Referral (CPR) advertisement company based in USA which offers “get paid for referral link” service. We have leading companies with-in our Network for referral advertisements. Share referral link with your friends and family and earn money.

There’s really not much content on PayoDesk’s website, but what little is there reveals that English is not their native language. A WHOIS lookup shows that they’re using WHOISGuard to mask their true whereabouts and identity. Curiously, a large percentage of their traffic comes from India and the Philippines. Hmm…

The folks at PayoDesk, however, don’t take kindly to IP-pinging bots:

Please note that we have a strong anti-cheat system, so do not bother sending fake traffic. You will get credited about it, but eventually you will not get paid and your account will get banned. Only send real people from real pages.

In their brief FAQ, PayoDesk claims that they generate income from advertising and that’s where the revenue comes from in which to pay you. There appear to be no obvious ads (not even GoogleAdsense), but there’s a teensy-tiny little grey question mark in the footer area which, when clicked, takes you to bidvertiser.com (which has a referral code as part of the URL).

PayoDesk.com also boasts that they are a “Trusted Program with IVS 207 Certification Trusted Business, USA” , as do a lot of other spam-your-friends referral sites. Big deal.

For all intents and purposes, PayoDesk.com may not be a scam (assuming they aren’t asking for money upfront in order for you to participate in the program and are actually paying people for these referrals). Still, they’re encouraging people to proliferate spam, which is reason enough to avoid PayoDesk.com and other such websites. Really, are a few potential bucks worth irritating friends, family and strangers?

UPDATE 9/1/13: Here are some interesting criteria for being suspicious of PayoDesk.com from this review:

1. Registration system

Payodesk.com registration is way too simple and less fields. It only needs the following:

• User Name
• Password
• Email
• Address
• Cheque Pay to(Your Name)

This is weird and it has no verification whatsoever. Even confirmed password and email address does not have it.

Since it also supports Paypal transaction, how this Payodesk.com pay with paypal? With this alone, you really can say it is fraud site.