However when it comes to online marketing it's not so clear.  People fall victim to scammers online who create these 'programs'.  They join and they become a victim.  The problem is that many of them soon join the ranks of the scammers themselves.  People fall for the to good to be true(that should tell you something all by itself) hype and get sucked in.  Okay you are a victim at this point because only you have been scammed. 

Then you promote the scam yourself and someone joins this program through your affiliate link. You have now become a scammer yourself.  You have helped to scam someone else.  It's even worse when people are pointing to the scam, denouncing it and directing to the information that indicates it is a scam because you have now gone from inadvertently scamming someone to willfully scamming them. 

Maybe you are just trying to recoup your losses, someone else is losing for you to do so.  You are willfully defrauding someone and that is a criminal act.  There will be repercussions for you.  Maybe you will be lucky and manage to stay under the legal radar but your reputation is now in tatters.  Everyone around you sees you promoting the scam when the evidence points to it being a scam.  Who is going to trust you now?  Only your scam buddies who were promoting it right along with you.  maybe the newbie that wasn't around to see your promoting the scam but the community around you sees what you are doing.  That is going to jump up and bite you on the rear end from now own.  

So is it worth it?  Some victim's take a different route.  When they realize they have been scammed they will warn others.  That is also seen and noted.  When they realized that they were a victim they tried to prevent others from being victims.  Those are the ones who will be trusted.