26/06/09. SazaInvestments Review and Other News

THIS PROGRAM IS ON HOLD STATUS ON MNO CURRENTLY DUE TO SELECTIVE PAYOUTS! DEPOSITING INTO THIS PROGRAM IS NOT RECOMMENDED AT THIS POINT!

Hi everyone! One of the more recent programs to come my way is called SazaInvestments. And it’s also one of the most promising. Experienced investors will know that the summer can often be something of a quiet period in general for the online investment industry so with that in mind I think that SazaInvestments might just turn out to be one of the highlights of the coming months. Without getting too carried away at this early stage of course, I mean they still have a lot to prove, but my instinct tells me this one is going to be hot pretty soon. They’ve already gotten to a flying start despite an early DdoS attack. This may yet prove to be a blessing in disguise as it has forced the admin’s hand in moving to a more powerful DdoS protected hosting provider. Granted this was a major inconvenience to the early members but in the long run it’s better to get these things right at this stage rather than have it become a major issue later when there will doubtlessly be a huge increase in the numbers joining the program. “What doesn’t hurt us makes us stronger” as the saying goes so hopefully this will serve as a valuable and practical lesson to SazaInvestments and their administration team and will be beneficial to all members in time.

So what’s it all about? Well SazaInvestments is a long term program and in keeping with the growing trend made popular by GoldNuggetInvest (reviewed here), it’s a perpetual program. In other words there is no expiry date. Once you are in, you stay in, and you will be paid a weekly rate of interest for as long as the program is in operation. There is an opt-out clause as well though, so you are permitted to leave anytime you like. But before we talk about leaving let’s talk about joining so I’ll get to that opt-out option in a moment. First we’ll take a look at the plans.

The first of three available plans to SazaInvestments members is called the Normal Plan. The minimum spend here is $30 which may look a bit steep at first compared to the regular HYIPs but I think it’s probably worth it for what you get in return. Which is a fixed weekly payment of 8% interest. But despite the high minimum, the maximum investment could be considered quite low at just $100, so some of you might even look at this as kind of a test plan. Although I doubt that was the intention of the admin. So in practical terms an investment of $100 here will get you $8 per week, meaning by week number 13 you will have broken even and seen you first profit. After that it’s pure profit all the way every week from there on in.

The next plan is something I think may prove a bit more popular. It’s called the Serious Plan and entry here will set you back a minimum of $101. And if you like something more “serious” you can invest a maximum of $1000. The weekly return for this one will be 9% per week, or $9 for every $100 invested if you prefer. That means you break even and see your first profit after 12 weeks. Not hugely advantageous over the last plan in that sense it must be said but when it comes to long term programs like this one you really need to adopt the long view and think about the performance beyond the break even point.

And finally the third plan from SazaInvestments is called the VIP Plan. Starting at a hefty $1001 it’s clearly not suitable for everyone but still there will be a lot more than just a handful of takers for this one I think, especially is over the coming weeks and months SazaInvestments can establish themselves as a stable operation that can be trusted to provide a consistent level of payments and support to members. The ball is firmly in the admin’s court on that front so it’s up to him to prove himself worthy of that kind of trust. Anyway your investment here will be rewarded with a weekly interest payment of 10%, which sees you break even after 10 weeks and in profit from week 11 onwards. The maximum you may invest as a VIP is $15,000.

Before we move on there are a couple of other points I need to make briefly about your investment with SazaInvestments. First of all the choice of payment options. As far as HYIPs go it’s reasonably good. You have the usual HYIP favorites in PerfectMoney and LibertyReserve, as well as StrictPay and SolidTrustPay. Room for improvement is always there as with every program but this choice should satisfy the majority of readers.

The next main point I want to make is, as I mentioned already, the opt-out clause. Basically there is no fixed lock in period for your principal and you are free to collect it and withdraw from the program completely at any time you wish. If you have already broken even then I don’t see why you’d want to leave a program like this one, but nevertheless the option is available and the choice remains you own. Keep in mind that if you do leave you will have to pay a withdrawal fee of 6% of your principal. And I must say this is very reasonable. You must accept that there are expenses involved for the admin to accommodate your request with payment processors in general charging for just about everything these days, so you are always going to expect to pay some kind of fee. But when you consider that many other long term programs charge fees that are nothing short of extortionate for leaving, 40% or more on occasion, I think SazaInvestments are being more than fair with 6%. And hopefully this will be seen a gesture of goodwill and endear them to a larger number of clients.

Finally, just in case it wasn’t already clear, I said that payments are made once per week but I also need to mention that they are processed on Friday. I have received my own first payment today (being Friday obviously!) so that is why I have chosen today to review it. And I hope it will be the first of many.

Another subject I touched upon briefly earlier is that of security and their recent close encounter of the DdoS kind. That has now been successfully mitigated and proper steps have been taken to ensure this does not re-occur. As I said I hope this will be chalked down to experience and the lesson that only the best is good enough will be the one learned from this. They are hosted on a dedicated server, albeit a more powerful one than before with an increased level of anti-DDoS protection, unlimited bandwidth and an improved firewall. It’s probably fair to assume their recent difficulties are unlikely to be repeated then.

The script is from MonetarySoft whose stature continues to grow in this industry almost by the day. A number of new programs, both surfing and HYIP have been utilizing it to great effect recently and if you’re not already familiar with it I would encourage you to read my interview with its developer here. Although there have been some custom-made adjustments carried out to suit SazaInvestment‘s particular requirements.

Customer support is currently available via an online e-mail ticketing system. The admin has been quite responsive up to know and does contribute to the major forums if that’s how you prefer to raise any questions. On the business side of things their claim is that they are mostly involved in the buying and selling of antiques. Furniture, old coins, that sort of thing, both at auction and from private individuals. It’s unique if nothing else and even the most hard boiled skeptics will at least welcome a break from the usual parade of ForEx traders. They offer a certificate of incorporation as a company in their native Portugal which is reproduced on their website in both English and Portuguese. A sharper legal eye than mine may be required to have a look at it as I am certainly in no position to confirm its authenticity at this stage. Any readers in Portugal may know something about this so your comments will be most welcome. As usual all readers from every corner of the globe are encouraged to do their own research into this anyway. People are always going to have their own opinions regarding the supposed business activities and the legal status of online companies anyway, and many will not be swayed from their first impression no matter what. But there are a few things I would like to put to the admin regarding this myself so if he agrees to an interview, and I’m hopeful that he will, we can hear what he has to say about it all.

I’m approaching SazaInvestments purely as an online HYIP until proven otherwise, certificate or no certificate. There’s nothing wrong with that and so far I’m pleased with what I see. The admin has like I said a lot to prove by starting a program with no expiry date, but I for one am happy to give him every opportunity to establish himself and his program and to earn his reputation. He has some interesting plans that are affordable to the investor and also achievable, sustainable, and in the long term profitable to the investor. And he’s been quick to deal with a few early hiccups in the performance so I would be reasonably confident going into this.

Other news for today.

Let’s start today’s news with SilverLodge (reviewed here). The program has just enabled it’s withdrawal button again. So it happened even earlier than was originally planned (it was to be the 27th). I don’t know if it should be an encouraging sign for all the investors of SilverLodge. I hope it is as I got an email from one of my readers informing me that Dominique is still quite active and continues to answer emails and fixes all account issues very fast. Anyway, despite the withdrawal button appearing again the first payments will be processed only on the 1st of July. So we will wait and see what happens next. Here is the latest from the admin of SilverLodge Dominique:
“Withdrawal is active again, payments will be done on the 07/01/09, feel free to request from now“.
And more good news from SilverLodge hot off the presses! I just got paid 3 out of the 5 withdrawals which I requested just earlier. I would like to hear your feedback, guys, if SilverLodge paid you as well. Please let me know about that via email or shoutbox. Meanwhile I’m carrying out my earlier promise by moving SilverLodge back to my Personal Favorites list. Hopefully everybody will get their payments from SilverLodge by the 1st of July and the program will continue as usual.

Some of my readers praised Kevin’s honesty recently. Who’s he? Kevin is the admin of the popular program XagaEnterprise (reviewed here) that is paying to the investors 1.1% daily forever. I’m sure that the program will become even more popular after their recent unfortunate incident with SolidTrustPay as the investors usually support honest admins. I believe Kevin’s honesty will pay off and he will get more new investors in the near future as it’s hard to find such an honest admin anyway. Just to remind you that their STP account was frozen after they were deemed to have breached STP’s terms and conditions. And though I can’t share Kevin’s feelings about SolidTrustPay (I consider them as being a dependable company with years of experience in this field) I can’t help but agree that XagaEnterprise will keep moving forward despite these recent obstacles:
“I have refunded money to all STP account holders. FULL REFUND. Log in to your STP account and check it. I also edited your balance in Xaga account.
Some of my members asked me why it took so long for the refunding process. Let me explain.
First, I want to tell you that because of STP, I lost 2K and about 40 members. I hate this. Second, STP is lack of support. Everytime I called them and said that I want to speak to the investigation department, they always say that they’re busy, still online with other clients, bla bla bla… and they told me to contact them via e-mail. I don’t understand why they don’t want to speak via phone. Third, they said that I can’t do the refund process. When I sent them money, they told me to do the refund coz they are busy. What the heck. It took me 3 hours to do the refund. Such waste of time. Thanks to STP.
Because of that, the process became slow. It should be faster. I will never use STP anymore. I hate STP.
I just want to say, if you (STP account holders) still have trust on XE, I welcome you to re-invest. But if you don’t want to, that’s ok.
XagaEnterprise will keep moving forward. We will become one of the best investment program outthere. Go XAGA! Thank you very much.”

The head of support department in ExcellentProfit program (reviewed here) Nathan announced some good news for the program’s clients. It appears they’re doing well and are going to introduce some new features for their investors in the near future. Here is the latest from ExcellentProfit:
“Hello Clients, The turnover of ExcellentProfit is now greater than 10,000USD. We also feel privileged to announce that we are going to introduce an online support system for quick support from the following month itself. The Investment platform has just taken off its base so we will try and implement more better features for our clients in the near future.”

NorthBizz sent an email with the explanation of the delayed payments. In my opinion it’s kind of a lame excuse aimed at calming the investors while emptying the funds from payment processors other than LibertyReserve. As I have found out in my investigation published here NorthBizz is a totally fake company with no real address in London. So surely investors have every right to worry about the safety of their funds as well as having reasonable doubts about their honesty. Anyway, I suggest NOT to invest in NorthBizz until the payments resume (I myself doubt it will actually happen). Here is the update:
“First all of we are sorry for delay in payment. The act is the problem is from LibertyReserve. LibertyReserve has been limited our account without any reason. We are trying to contact them using email and phone line to solve this issue. Everything seems to go as well and we can start payment is some next days. So don’t worry about your payment.”

The same goes for TheDollarDiggers. After some lame attempts and excuses it’s now clear to everybody that they are not going to pay. Probably the recent news about the conference calls was nothing more than just another attempt to play for time trying to withdraw as much money as possible from payment processors. I’ve heard it all before and those who are suffered from TheDollarDiggers and lost their money are advised to complain to payment processors immediately. Remember that freezing the accounts of a failed program will give you a much better chance to be refunded if you were not in profit. The latest update from TheDollarDiggers program officially announced its closure and the failure is totally on the admin’s conscience. Being online for 25 days only this result can’t be considered as satisfying at all. Unfortunately the program said that no refunds would be given and it would be transformed into something new. Well, I’m not going to participate in this new thing as the admin proved to be completely inept in this business. The program will stay in Not Paying status on my monitoring page until all the pendings are paid. Here is the farewell update from another admin of TheDollarDiggers (or is it the same one?):
“TDD members, this is Ej, the co admin of TDD.
I want to inform you all of what will happen with TDD in coming days. This are actually the conclusion of the conference held yesterday. I will go direct to the point as I hate beating around the bush. I still have a lot of work to do.
First, TDD will not close down and we will not go anywhere. We do not have any plans to open new program as well just to support TDD.
Second, the reason why we stopped paying is not because we will run with your money and just buying time to transfer funds from TDD accounts to our personal accounts like what one blog said. The real reason is the funds TDD have as of now is not enough to pay all members of TDD who have pending withdrawals and members who will have expired upgrades for the coming days. And we do not want to just pay portion of members and not the last members to request withdrawals.
Why we reached this stage?
Because of a mistake I made. I am the one handling plans for TDD and it was a huge mistake for us to add the 12×12 Classic Plan. I thought that it will be warmly welcomed by members because it was the most popular plan in the Autosurf industry. However for the 10 days it was offered, only about 2-3% of the total members TDD have bought Adpacks in the 12×12 Plan. So this had a huge impact and affected even the profits we made from the 3 Stage Cycler which was allocated for giving out freebies for members and for pushing the 3SC when there are slow times. That is why I am now doing my best to make things right.
So what will happen to TDD?
TDD will stop all the Autosurf/HYIP Plans we are offering except of the Digger 3 Stage Cycler Plan. In the coming days we will revamp TDD and we will shift into a revenue sharing program with the concept adopted from the well known Ad-ventures4u and Payitforwardtraffic. 3 Stage Cycler and the Teambuild for Iggly Biggly will remain as in. They will be added still as additional features of TDD and source of income for TDD members.
What about the pending payments?
Please be advised that TDD have a NO REFUND POLICY and you purchased an Adpack. Each Adpack gives you 200 Ad credits to be used for advertising your programs with us and these Ad credits were AUTOMATICALLY added in your accounts upon payment. You also agreed that ALL transactions are FINAL and NO REFUND will be given at ANYTIME. So we will stick with that rule.
Accounts of the Digger/Upgraded members will be transferred into the new TDD script for Revenue Sharing. Those who have pending withdrawals, the amount you have in pending will be the amount you will start with the new TDD. This only applies for upgrades you have in the Surf and Non surf Plans. Also if you are thinking of your Digger/Upgraded referrals, we will add them under you in the new TDD so you will not lose them.
Now Digger/Upgraded members who will not cooperate and does not want to move on with TDD into the new TDD, we have no choice but to implement the rule mentioned above. It will be an ALL IN or ALL OUT.
Watcher/Free members of TDD will be given an option to join the new TDD or not. If you still want to be with us, then all you have to do is to sign up with the new TDD.
This changes will be started as soon as possible. We have already acquired a script to be used in the new TDD and we will make all the necessary tweaking and changes to make all things said above achieved. We will try to incorporate the 3SC and Teambuild of Iggly Biggly into the script as well so members of all the features of TDD will have to sign in with only one account. Updates will be given everytime we made an improvement.”

Ivy-Castle program (reviewed here) announced a new investment plan which is more profitable than their previous plans but more risky at the same time. Judge for yourself if you wish to join this new plan announced by the admin of Ivy-Castle in his most recent newsletter:
“We are happy to let you know: Ivy-Castle have a new investment plan now! It’s 110% after 7 days, that means if you make deposit now, then you can get 10% profit and your principal at July 03. We believed you will like this plan as other plan.”

As you know Friday is the payday for all the members of SazaInvestments which I have already reviewed on my blog tonight. The admin of the program have sent a reminder to all the membership already about it:
“Please don’t forget to request your withdrawals because it’s payday again for us : We’d also like to thank you all for your help and support.”
Also a couple of hours after the reminder was sent I got another email from the administration of SazaInvestments asking the investors not to cheat and request the payments only to payment processors you deposited from. MonetarySoft script which SazaInvestments utilizes in their activities has such a feature and actually you can request your payout to another payment processor. However since the admin asked for such a favor please don’t abuse the system and allow him to pay you faster instead of verifying each and every transaction:
“It seems that a lot of members are requesting the payments on different payment processors then the one used by them for investing with us. It was our fault that we didn’t thought to check this before, but from now one we will check each request. It will just take longer for you to get your payments but we need to do this. We are not exchangers so please don’t try to use us as one. We count on your honesty to make our job of paying you easier. Thank you.”

That’s all till next time guys. I would just like to let you know the list of programs that paid me today. These are: AsianInvestGroup, NovalexFinance, GoldNuggetInvest, GeniusFunds, XagaEnterprise, YesICanSurf, EnscoOffshore, NanoMoneyCorp, Surfing4Roi, Merchandies, PanaMoney, Investimates, Verifield, ExcellentProfit, ElegantMoney, Ivy-Castle, Veolex, GlobalTraderGroup, SilverLodge and SazaInvestments (the first payment received).