Considering SlashMySearch? Here's a Quick Caveat

"MAKE MONEY ONLINE!"
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These days, it seems that the Internet is full of sites that promise to let you make money online, usually for little or no effort. You've got your work-at-home programs, legitimate and (all too often) not. You've got sites that claim to pay you to click on ads, take surveys, or sign up for other programs. (I've tried a few of these; I have yet to receive money from any of them.) Then there are the endless array of sites that promise to reveal some sure-fire money making secret, bury you in hype about how theirs is the only system that actually works, and then hit you up for money.
Like many people, I've been keeping my eyes peeled for something that actually makes money. In my present situation, any extra income would certainly be welcome.
So, from time to time, I'm planning to write reviews of online money makers that I've tried. The first of these is for the website SlashMySearch.com.
You've probably figured out that SlashMySearch is a search engine. This particular search engine, however, pays you for using it. After you sign up, your account is credited some small amount per hour that you use the site. When I signed up, the rate was $0.25 an hour. (Not a whole lot, I know, but in my situation, every little bit helps.) If you refer others to sign up, you are also credited to a lesser extent for your referrals' use.
There are other money makers on the site as well. You can sign up for an email account, called SlashMyMail. You can complete paid offers, signing up for credit cards and the like. Windows users can download a toolbar to their desktops. These optional activities are also credited to your account. Even without referring people, the money can pile up quickly.
Setup isn't very difficult at all. When you sign up for an account, you receive a customized URL that will redirect you to the site's home page. Set your browser's home page to that custom URL, and you'll see a little green dot in the bottom corner of the page. This tells you that everything is set up correctly.
I signed up in December of 2007. I soon made two important discoveries. First, the main page would automatically reload in Safari every few minutes. Second, as long as I kept a browser window open to the main page, my account was credited whether or not I was actively running searches the whole time. This was especially important, because the search engine itself performed very poorly. Most searches returned little or no useful information. I found it especially amusing when I did a SlashMySearch search on the word, "SlashMySearch," and it returned zero results.
In fact, the only features I found to be useful were the news feed on the main page, the personal account page where you check your balance, and the SlashMyMail email account. (You have to sign up for that separately. Its use is also credited to your account.)
On the downside, shortly after I registered, I found more spam flowing into my GMail account on a daily basis than I had gotten in the previous year. As it turns out, though, GMail is great at catching Spam. So this is only a minor inconvenience. (On a totally random side note, I deleted this paragraph several times during the Great Palm Desktop Rebellion of April 12-13, 2008. The software kept putting it back, so I've decided to leave it here. Remind me to tell you about the GPDR another time. For now, on with the review:)
Using these features almost exclusively, my balance had reached $45 by the week before Christmas. I figured that if nothing else, this money would at least cover gas for my upcoming holiday road trip. So I requested payment for the first time a few days before I was to leave. Instead of my $45, however, I received this message:

"This pay period is for January 1, 2007 through October 31, 2007. It may also include earlier pay periods if you were not eligible for a payment until now. You currently have $0.00 from this period. There is currently a $20 minimum balance requirement. If you do not have a balance exceeding $20, a payment will not be issued. Your earnings will continue to roll forward until you meet this requirement.
"You are not currently eligible for a payment. Your earnings will roll forward to next month. Remember to keep searching and try out new ways to earn on SlashMySearch.com to make more money."

I paid a visit to their forum, trying to get some idea of how long I would have to wait to see my money. I soon learned that I was not the only person having this problem. The forum was full of people complaining that they weren't being paid, or asking when they could expect payment. Many of them were also pushing their own favorite online money makers, usually by saying something like, "Try this -- it actually PAYS!"
(After some time, the SMS Powers That Be found a simple way to stop all the spamming and complaining: they shut the forum down. For months now, the forum has been replaced by a single page stating that they're replacing the forums with a new online community system. The page explains that this will be up and running soon. It does not, however, give any indication of what "soon" means in this context.)
As time passed, I continued to keep a browser window open to the SMS home page while I was online. I'd check the news, my stats and my emails from time to time. But most of the time, I just let it run in the background. In this way, I managed to raise my balance up over $400 by early March.
Finally, the long-awaited day came. SMS began paying users for the period ending February 29, 2008. This allowed me to request a check for $415.01 of the money I had earned. The "Request payment" page included a claim that my check would arrive in 5-14 business days. (Users have the option of receiving payment by check or PayPal. I chose "check," for reasons I no longer recall.)
I'm writing this in mid-April. My personal account page still claims that I was paid $415.01 on March 6. However, I have yet to see a dime of that money. I have emailed SMS' support address several times, trying to find out what's going on. I've gotten no reply. It's beginning to look like there is simply no one home at SlashMySearch. I would almost think that the site's founders started it up and then walked away, to leave it run on autopilot.
I have given up hope of receiving my check from them. They've stiffed me, plain and simple. That's my review of SlashMySearch in a nutshell. I signed up, used their site extensively, and trusted them to keep their word. And when the time came for them to pay what I had earned, they stiffed me.

Disclaimer: This review is based exclusively on my own experiences with SMS. I haven't spoken with any other users. Others may have entirely different stories to tell. Maybe someone out there has even been paid by them. (I would be very surprised.)