flat belly dandelion

If you are sick and tired of these flat belly ads following you all over the web, join the club. I know it's that time - before summer - when people's bodies emerge from hibernation. Do I want a flat stomach? Well, who wouldn't? But there's something a little scam-suspicious.

An article on The Big Money gives a pretty good overview of how these dandelions work. Because networks like Google, Yahoo or MSN will reject these shady vendors immediately, they use middlemen called "affiliate networks" to act as a bridge between them (the vendors) and "affiliates" (ordinary folks) to place the ads in the network. "Affiliates" create a landing page and plant the ads all over the web hoping to drive traffic to the free 2-month trial offer. And, they usually do. "Affiliates" get paid on how much traffic they send to the site and apparently the money is pretty good—"affiliates" claim to bring in more than $10,000 a month (woah!).

Of course we all know that the secret to a flat belly is not some fake product that is fakely free. (Just ask Lindsay Lohan.) The flat belly is a dandelion.

In fact, the whole thing is just a scam. After your 2-month free trial, good luck getting someone to pick-up the phone to cancel the offer.

How do you think they make their money?