I just want to add to this topic.
There was a time when I owned programs that sold 'Paid to Sign Up'.
My programs were 100% legitimate.
For example, I owned a PTR (paid to read) program. My PTR listed
various free to earn such as signing up to offers, clicking banners,
viewing ads, etc. It also offered Paid to Sign Up. The way mine
worked is not by me directly going out there and grabbing people
to sign up to programs....

Rather, it worked by way of members/
advertisers in my PTR that purchased an ad placement to pay my
members to sign up. There were some restraints on both partiers as
a norm:
-Myself/PTR- The member that signed up would submit their email
confirmation of their enrollment....such as a welcome email.
-Advertiser- The advertiser that listed their ad for paid to sign up,
usually had some sort of stipulation such as 'must be active for
30 days' or 'must not only sign up but must log in and complete
profile' or 'must email sponsor directly after enrollment', etc.
I am relaying this because often times people get the cold shoulder
when they really shouldn't. Paid to Sign Up is not always bad nor
is it always not legit.
It works both ways. The program such as my PTR was perfectly
legit. The person purchasing adverts for paid to sign up, was
perfectly legit. Often, the person signing up, was perfectly legit.
So where was the problem?
The problem was often with the 'follow up' and the 'completion
of instructions'. The person might sign up but not follow thru
with the instructions.
There are always those stupid people that will do anything for a
dime and sign up multiple times, using multiple IP's, and after
making a weenie two bit, they get busted and lose memberships,
internet service, etc.
Reality is, it takes a whole lot more work to cheat and a whole
lot more money to pay someone else to cheat, then it does to
simply be legitimate and do the work yourself.