Chuck Jaffe from MarketWatch labelled the Moneywayz.com home based business idea as his Stupid Investment of the Week. Not that it fits in to a normal idea of investing but it does when it comes to home based businesses.

If you're after more information about Moneywayz.com you won't find much on their website, unless of course you sign up and prepare yourself for an onslaught of possible spam.

What they do give the general curious public is a small window into the six areas of Moneywayz, including Shopwayz, Healthwayz, Taxwayz, Travelwayz and Mortgagewayz hoping that you will want to satisfy that curiousity by delving deeper into the site.

I'm always very guarded about companies that give little information while extracting all they need from you. It smells very Amway-ish. If a company and its service or products are good enough they don't need to hide anything to try and get you.

Chuck conducted some research into the company to find out what made them tick and whether the claims they were making had any substance. The system works via sellers (those who sign up) paying for the placement of adverts on websites and within traditional media. For every person who signs up as a result of the advert the seller retains a portion of the commission and for every person who signs up as a seller beneath you will add to your commission as well.

Moneywayz does offer a "money-back guarantee" (don't they all?), which allows you to get your money back if you don't break even within the first 12 months. But even with this guarantee you will still need to read the fineprint.

While he suggested that this made the deal risk-free, the truth is that Moneywayz only refunds the money paid for the initial business deal, and not the money the customer spends on ads and trying to attract customers. Even if you can get the initial monies back, there's a good chance that the losses will be significantly more than bargained for if you have tried and failed to build this into a business.

My review on this home based business: try finding something else!