With the current state of the global economies it is no surprise that many people are searching for other sources of income to help boost their current financial situation. But with this drastic increase in the amount of people searching for methods to create an extra income online has also lead to a drastic increase in the number of scammers and scam websites on the internet. This has made it that much harder to actually find a legitimate method of making money online, and has lead many people who are inexperienced with making money online to question as to whether making money online is actually possible without running the risk of losing all their money to scammers! Well, in short the answer is yes, it is completely possible to make a sustainable extra income online as long as you’re clever in the ways you go about it. In this article I am going to cover the very basics of determining whether a method of making money online is: a) viable b) legal and c) value for time or money.Is it too good to be true?Does what is on offer to you appear too good to be true, because if it feels like it is too good to be true, the chances are it is! No one is going to hand over the key to making millions online for a small donation of £100! Think about it logically, if you discovered a method which meant that you were making money online while you slept, and it was paying your bills and giving you a little extra on the side, would you give it away? Would you let someone else profit off your hard work? Would you give it away, or would you keep it to yourself and reduce the risk of other people potentially taking some of your income by producing a copy and making money online using your method! No! Of course you wouldn’t!Therefore when you come across a website with a fancy design with a man in a suit smiling at you telling you all your problems could be solved if you just enter your email in the box below, and pay me £100 and I will give you a piece of software which will earn you £1,000,000 in one month, you should be more then sceptical! Be intelligent, consider it from all angles, and if you are going to risk it and invest, be sure they have a refund policy. I will admit to having invested in a few of these ‘instant millionaire’ in the past when I was naive about the potential for scammers, but never did I invest in a product which didn’t have a minimum of 60 days 100% money back guarantee. Just for the record I asked for my money back on every single product I invested in!Many of these so called ‘instant millionaire’ schemes are actually just a front for pyramid schemes which are completely illegal, and you have to be sure that you aren’t investing in such a scheme, because if it is found you are, and the site is shut down, you will more than likely lose all of your ‘earning’, I use the phrase lightly, and your career in making money online will have taken a knock before it has really had the chance to start!Is there a trial period and a decent money back guarantee?As I briefly mentioned in the previous paragraph, ensure that anything you are going to invest in, even though I do not recommend investing in products, has a 100% money back guarantee and if not has a lengthy trial period before you have to hand over any cash! This way you are ensuring the safety of your money before you start investing in methods of making money online.There are free methods out there!There are numerous free methods for making money online out there, some of them being very well renowned, and all of them have the potential for you to earn limitless amounts of money. However unlike these ‘instant millionaire’ schemes they require the user to put in some effort. This effort will put many people off and send them towards the ‘instant millionaire’ schemes because well they don’t want to have to work for their money; someone is going to hand it to them on a plate for only £100!This is why I personally recommend these free methods for making money online as they leave you with no risk of losing any money, and many of them have been trialled and tested by thousands of other people before you, meaning that you can make an informed decision before taking the leap and investing your time and effort into it.Now many of you have probably dabbled in the field of making money online before, and have made nothing, or made such menial sums that it wasn’t worth the time or effort you put in. A word of warning though, many methods of making money online require a huge initial investment of time and effort before they start to pay off so you should be prepared to initially receive a low reward for your time and effort investments. The best method I feel for ensuring that your investment of time and effort into making money online will not be in vain is to find yourself a mentor who has been making money online for some time and has already succeeded in their goals and can help you achieve your financial goals! Many mentors will be glad to give you some assistance, but of course they aren’t going to give you the secret to their success, because well, they didn’t make their money online by giving away important secrets did they.A few important things to remember before you venture into the world of making money online are that if anything seems too good to be true then it almost certainly is. There are people out there who want to take your hard earned money off of you, and will stop at nothing to get their hands on it! Check for a trial period, and for a decent 100% money back guarantee. Find a mentor, or a website run by someone who is already making money online who can help guide you through your experience.If you follow the few tips which have been given in this article then I can assure you that making money online is completely possible and safe, however if you rush into something you will always finished last, and someone else will be making money online, it’s just a shame it will be your hard earned money that they are taking!