03/05/2010. Interview with the admin of StaunchFinances

THE PROGRAM IS OFFICIALLY CLOSED! PLEASE DO NOT INVEST!

Hi guys! First of all let me say to anyone celebrating the worker’s holiday today to enjoy yourselves. But not too much either, lol! Not so much that you miss the first of today’s posts which is an interview with the admin of what has to be hands down one of the best new long term HYI programs to come online in the last number of months. It’s called StaunchFinances and today I’m talking to it’s admin Brent.

A highly controversial character at times, Brent will probably be familiar to most of the existing StaunchFinances members as he has been quite active on most of the major HYIP related forums where he has always been quick to keep everyone informed of the daily goings-on and deal with any questions that arise. Or indeed answer any allegations because there’s been a few of them as well. But there’s no denying StaunchFinances is offering one of the most interesting investment plans available in the online HYIP market today, splitting your deposit equally between two separate funds paying 20% for 6 business days and 2.5% for 56 business days.

If you like what Brent has to say and wish to know a bit more about StaunchFinances and it’s unique plan then you can always refer back to my original review published here.

“1. Hi Brent! Can we start with you introducing yourself to the readers of Money-News-Online and telling us a bit about yourself and the program you are running? How long have you been online, how long have you been planning it, and what motivated you to start it in the first place?

Good day to you Paul and to all MNO readers! This is Brent Shackling at your service, known to many of you as “bshack” on different forums. I am the admin of StaunchFinances and we’ve been online since April 21st. I’ve been planning this since my previous autosurf closed, and a failure like that is what gave me the motivation to start this unique HYIP. It was simply not acceptable in my standards!

Anyway, I’ll try to be as candid and direct-to-the-point as possible from here on out so as not to bore your readers.

2. Before we get to StaunchFinances itself, it’s fairly widely known that you were recently behind a surfing program. Tell us a bit about that and any other experience you have in the online investment industry. What do you think are the main reasons behind the decline of the auto/manual surf side of this business?

Ah, yes, the autosurf 247shack.com that lasted for 16 whole days. I had good intentions about that one but it just wasn’t meant to be. I am not going into details (coz it’s boring!) but in retrospect, nobody supported it on it’s last 10 days. A few deposits here and there not even totaling $100/day was all I got. Rather than prolong the inevitable, I just decided to close up shop and refund my members with all the remaining funds. Low-ROI HYIPs were the dominant programs at that time so I said “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!”.

Anyway, for me, the reason that auto- and manual-surf is dying is simply because people don’t like to surf to earn nowadays, it just got boring looking at the same ads members advertise over and over day-in and day-out. They’d rather try the no-worries approach: invest money, leave them to earn, then get paid when they expire.

3. Besides yourself I believe you have some assistants helping you out, is that correct? Perhaps you could introduce them to us as well. Who are they, what are their roles in StaunchFinances, and what experience do they have in the online investments business?

Correct. I have three assistants helping me out. They are Sue, Amanda and the programmer. They take care of support tickets and livehelp nowadays. I believe you can never have so many people help you out when all you can think about is your program growing VERY BIG and NUMBER 1! That is the reason I asked for their services. I’m a person who looks at the bigger picture and the future rather than the present.

Anyway, due to the many unfounded accusations circling our different forum threads, I asked them to just take care of the tickets and livehelp for now and I will take care of the forums.

4. Some of the bigger programs that ran in the past that had an actual support staff often suffered from allegations of preferential treatment on account of the position and involvement these people occupied. In other words “if you’re not in my personal downline then your questions and problems go to the bottom of my list”. How do you respond to that and how do you assure members that this will not be the case with StaunchFinances?

WOW Really?! Well, being a non-member of those big programs, I didn’t know these things actually went on! Now that you’ve told me, I give you and my members my full assurance that these practices will NEVER happen in my program. I treat each and every one of my members with respect, whether they are free-, upgraded-, and even a non-member, all your questions are valid and important!

5. You have quite a unique plan that I’m sure is going to be enormously popular. Tell us how it works and how you came up with the idea and how exactly does it work? What are the minimum and maximum amounts I can invest?

A unique plan it is! If you want to leave a mark on this industry, you have to be innovative. I don’t want to bore people with plans and rules that they’ve seen before, so I sat down with my partners and laid out my plan about giving the members the best of both worlds (high-ROI and low-ROI). It was my idea and I just laid it out to them and they liked it. The idea of having a “hybrid-HYIP” was just too enticing!

The plan is simple: your investment will be split into two plans equally and automatically, 50% goes to a high-ROI plan of 20% for 6 business days with payments on expiry, and the other 50% goes to a low-ROI plan of 2.5% for 56 business days with daily payments. The advantages are enormous: it satisfies both risk-takers and those that like long-term stable plans, it also prevents HARs, and it allows us to hold on to half of your money for a longer time so we can invest it on several fields of investment opportunities. There are way more but I’d stop here now.

6. What are the payment options available if I join? What payment processors are you currently dealing with? I see that you also plan to accept credit card payments. How will that work? Approximately how long will it be before that happens and will it give the members any more of a guarantee about their principal?

We accept all major payment processors including: SolidTrust Pay, Liberty Reserve, StrictPay, PerfectMoney & GlobalDigitalPay. Why not AlertPay some may ask? The reason behind it can be read in my program’s FAQs. As for the credit card funding option, I do not see us adding that in about a month or two more. I am currently in contact with cc merchants but their approval based on our industry is longer than normal. They say there is a very high risk of fraud in our line of business. So there is no point in talking about this for now, I will wait until further development comes and you will all be the first ones to know.

7. The script you are running off is also quite notable. Tell us about where you got it. How secure is it and what are the advantages to using it? How would you rate it in terms of user-friendliness for some one coming into this industry for the first time?

“Gotenks”-script! The name speaks for itself! Not many can afford this highly-secure and user-friendly script, definitely one of the best in this business. I used this because I didn’t want to compromise anything from the get-go. I’ve had the pleasure of using it during my 247shack days and I must say, it is really one of the easiest ones to use, both as an admin and as a user. I don’t get a lot of tickets from newcomers asking how the program works because they “get it” immediately as soon as they browse the options.

8. Who is your hosting provider? How highly would you rate their services? Are they keeping you on a dedicated server?

I am hosted on a dedicated server from HighHosting. Probably not that well-known yet but other admins should definitely look into them as they provide exceptional support and less-than-minimal downtimes. I would definitely rate them “highly recommended” to someone looking for a hosting service.

9. If the members have any questions or problems then what’s the best way of contacting you or your staff? What have been the most commonly asked questions so far that you would like to address here and avoid members having to contact you about later?

Definitely the best way to contact support is through LiveHelp, it offers instant solution to any of your questions and/or issues. Me and my staff are online at different times of the days so we can give you the support you deserve. Next option would be the support form or an email directly to staunchfinances@gmail.com. Then there’s also our forum threads where other members would be glad to help you out.

Oh and funny you should ask, the most commonly asked question is from “monitors” asking if they could monitor us. Some of them are so relentless that we stopped replying to any of them completely! Our simple answer is “no, not at this time”. If they want to monitor us then they can do it at their own discretion.

10. You don’t say all that much about what (if any) outside business interests you have but I’m intrigued by the phrase “competent individuals with varying expertise in making money” that describes you on your homepage. Care to elaborate? What are you doing with the member’s money? Are you paying yourself a commission from every deposit? Are you using the money to generate further income to sustain StaunchFinances?

This is a very delicate question that I am rather adamant to answer. In fact, it has created quite a buzz on some of our forum threads. Simply put, I’ve partnered with some very competent investors during my downtime in-between the previous surf program and this HYIP, and they are helping me out in this venture. Further information beyond that is not possible AT THIS TIME. When I’m ready to elaborate more then you’ll be the first ones to know.

And no, I haven’t paid myself nor my staff any commissions as of this moment. We’ll let it grow and make money first before we do. We’ve talked about this and they all agreed. For me, the reward only comes when you manage to be successful.

11. Tell us about how you’ve been promoting and advertising the program. These are unstable times for the HYIP industry, so how are you convincing so many people to join? Tell us also about the contests you have planned to reward the members.

Before I started this program, I’ve set aside an advertising budget of my own money for the following: reviews and interviews from highly-respected bloggers, banner advertising on major forums and a few select monitors, and I’ve also contacted people who I know have a long-list of followers. I didn’t want to go cheap on this program since I know it has the potential to be one of the biggest, if not the biggest, in the HYIP industry.

Contests are an integral part of the program to make it more exciting. Without them, it will just be the usual sign-up, then deposit, then invest, then wait ’til your investment expires, then withdraw. Then do it all over again. How boring, right? With the addition of contests, members have something to look forward to and at the same time, earn them a prize. Of course, I am not someone who would go for the ordinary contests, it has to be innovative and new and exciting. I’ve came up with one but I will reveal the details once I finalize everything.

12. What about your future plans for StaunchFinances? You’ve quickly proven yourself to be one of the more original and innovative admins around at the moment so have you got any plans to further promote and develop the program? Realistically how long to you see it running for and what would you like to tell potential members to convince them that joining your program is a better idea than joining the thousands of others they could select?

Nobody knows what the future holds for the program. But I’ve always looked ahead at the bigger picture rather than the present situation. If it were up to me, I’d make this the BEST and the NUMBER 1 HYIP out there. Tall order I know, but the plans that I’ve laid out in the beginning are to do just that!

My dedication to this program will take us a long, long way! I want to show to everybody that my heart is with this program and with them. Members joining me right now have the potential to be making serious money now and in the future.

13. And finally, given a completely free reign what else would you like to say to the readers of MNO? Is there anything you feel not covered in this interview that you would like to address?

I believe I’ve said everything I wanted to say on this interview. One thing I would like to address is you will see a lot of stupid immature posts on our different forum threads, some of which are even from their so-called “moderators”. Do not believe a word they say unless they otherwise provide solid proof. I will be very honest to all of you if you just give me the chance. So far, our program is doing really very well and we are definitely on our way in becoming the best! Don’t let a few people with bad intentions ruin your fun.

Thank you Paul for this opportunity!”

Thanks a lot to Brent for taking the time and trouble to answer my questions. Best of luck to him but I think much more importantly best of luck to all the members who decide to take the chance and get on board what is fast becoming one of the most popular programs on the net.

That’s it for the moment guys but don’t go too far. I’ll be back later tonight with the usual full news round-up for the day so stay tuned for that!