09/01/2011. Escaliva Review and Daily News from the Industry

BEWARE! THIS PROGRAM HAS STOPPED PAYING! PLEASE DO NOT INVEST!

Hi guys! I hope your weekend has gone well so far. One newly launched short term HYIP that was just added to the MNO monitoring list only yesterday is called Escaliva, so before progressing to the day’s news I want to take a closer look at some of the details of it for you first.

It’s a simple enough set-up with Escaliva having basically just one investment plan which makes small daily interest payments before returning your principal on expiry to put you into profit only then. This plan in turn contains three variations where investors get rewarded according to how much they are prepared to gamble with, though two of the three plans are unlikely to be affordable to very many. Minimum investment starts at a fairly steep $20 which is a bit much for a new online HYIP so that may cool the investors interest a bit until after the first principals on expiry are returned.

The plan itself runs for a term of 7 calendar days and as I said requires a minimum of $20 to join. If you spend anything up to a $999 maximum you are offered a daily payment of 2.8% interest per day totaling at 19.6% by the end of the term. Once your principal is returned this can then be considered profit. So for example were you to invest $100 in this one Escaliva would then pay you $2.80 per day, $19.60 in total, and then add your initial hundred to that to give your final earnings.

After that the remaining two options are significantly more expensive with Escaliva requiring a $1,000 spend to participate in their second investment option. This time over the course of the 7 calendar day term they are offering a daily interest payment of 4.2%, adding up to a total of 29.4% by the end of the term. This can then only be considered profit once Escaliva have returned your principal.

And finally for those prepared to play with $5,000 or more Escaliva are offering an interest rebate of 5.6% per day for the same 7 calendar day term. That adds up to a total of 39.2% interest in total which again can only be counted as profit after the admin returns your principal.

To say Escaliva‘s payment options are basic would be an understatement. LibertyReserve is the one and only e-currency in use here so remember that all transactions are final and if things don’t go the way you expected them then tell whoever you like but don’t expect LR to be interested. On the other hand payments are instant so there’s no waiting around for them to be sent to your LR account. That’s definitely an advantage but a wider choice might have been a better one. Compounding is also available if you wish to try and increase your earnings from the program. You are free to set the rate at any time during the investment term, and can even change it later at any time if you change your mind.

The security of Escaliva is something I have very mixed feelings about. Well, actually a bit more negative than just mixed. Although the program is running off a licensed GoldCoders script which is fine I find the fact that it’s hosted on a shared server without any DDoS protection a bit more alarming. The hosting provider is called LeaseWeb and there are currently 19 other HYIP related websites being hosted on the one server, unprotected from DDoS attacks. An open invitation for trouble in my opinion but that’s not a view shared by the admin. I discussed it briefly with him via e-mail and he believes the importance and the effectiveness of DDoS protection is vastly overrated. Something we’ll have to agree to differ on I think but it will be interesting to see how far he gets in this industry without it. If you have any questions, suggestions, or comments about this or any other aspect of Escaliva then you can contact the admin by filling in the support form on the contacts page and submitting it.

Texts are original which is always a nice touch even if it doesn’t mean the program isn’t an online HYIP like all the others. I would have preferred if the efforts made in making the website original had been put into making it more secure, but it basically falls to you to check these things out for yourself and get another opinion. Some of you may prefer to wait for the first cycle to be successfully completed to satisfy yourselves about the feasibility of the program, and if you do so then remember that as with every other online HYIP Escaliva is best used as a smaller part of a larger more diverse portfolio and always with an affordable and responsible deposit.

DAILY NEWS FROM THE INDUSTRY.

Just a few hours after my last blog post was published the site of GorgonProjectInvest came back online and the withdrawals went back to normal and are processed instantly to LibertyReserve and PerfectMoney payment processors. I remind you that the program was offline for roughly two days and made many investors worry. Fortunately, the admin is a positive and determined professional and with the help of his provider BlockDos the site was restored completely and is running now as fast as ever. I remind you that reason of the downtime was not a DDoS attack as is usually the case but a server issue which took time to be resolved. Since GorgonProjectInvest is a low-ROI HYIP that was just recently launched and offers three investment plans with the principals returned on expiry (1.9% for 30 days, 2% for 90 days, 2.2% for 180 days) this downtime hardly affected the site at all and I guess in a few days investors’ trust will be totally restored. The most important thing to show the healthy state of the program is of course the payouts that were not affected at all and are running normally as usual. In his latest newsletter to members the admin of GorgonProjectInvest Paul assured everybody that this wouldn’t happen again and that he would take all the appropriate measures to guarantee as much. Here is the latest news from GorgonProjectInvest (reviewed here):
“We are glad to inform you that the web site is back on line after an extended period of downtime. We are very sorry that this happened and are making provisions for it to never happen again.
Please continue to access the site and deposit and withdraw as usual as everything is working again.
Thank you for your patience and please be assured this is a very long term project, you do not need to worry if technical blips like this happen.
For future reference please bookmark our TWITTER page (http://twitter.com/gorgon_project) as this will always carry the latest news even if the site goes down. We will also post messages on the major forums to keep you updated.
Warm regards, Paul. Admin. GorgonProjectInvest”.

I am sorry to report that FelixFunds is officially closed now and below is the newsletter I have received from the admin of the program today:
“We wanted to wait till monday but it seems that members don’t have that patience. The cashflow was very small even from before Christmas but we struggled to save the site by withdrawing continue from forex. Now our luck of experience in this industry made us do a mistake. The facebook promotion made membership exploded but also the withtdrawals requests as well. This way it exceeded our possibility to pay from forex profits as we can’t withdraw that much, that fast. We hoped that by monday enough funds will came in that together with our profits to be enough to pay everybody but as i’ve said members don’t want to wait. So our only option now is to announce that we’re closing the program. During next couple of weeks we will do our best to withdraw all funds from forex and refund members who were not in profit yet. We are very sorry for this and we did the best we could but that was not enough.
Regards, Felix”.
Well, the program only lasted for a little over two months so it was difficult for most members to be in profit unless they requested their deposit back before the lightning strikes. The first signs of collapse could be seen in the New Year’s holiday when the payments were delayed to up to 72 hours but I was sure that after that the cashflow got back to normal since the program paid stably and the admin was quite active as usual. Even his notification about the delayed payouts to up to 48 hours didn’t make me worry because that term was specified in their terms and conditions anyway, and considering the growth in membership was decent enough that we could expect a better lifetime from FelixFunds than two months. But it looks like the admin gave up and preferred not to have to struggle with payouts. Please note that despite that announcement the deposits are still accepted on the website and the sign-ups are open so I doubt very much that Felix has a genuine intention to refund to every member not in profit from his program. Usually it only happens in one case – if an admin is going to keep his image of a good guy intact and intends to launch a new program under the same name. From my own experience though most admins prefer to gather what they can and open another program with a totally different identity. I don’t know if that would be the case with FelixFunds but provided that nothing was made yet to prevent the members from investing I really doubt his intentions are all that good good.

I would like to discuss in more detail what preceded the unexpected closure of FelixFunds. It all started with a problem that was reported to me yesterday when a member of the program was not paid within the agreed 48 hours. To the admin’s credit he replied to my request quite fast but seemed surprised by this complaint because this member’s payout was still in the program’s terms of service and even reminded me that usually the payouts were not processed on weekends and pointed out that the team was exhausted from processing payouts and were taking a break until Monday. Well, that would not be suspicious for me if not for two facts I knew about that payout. First, the withdrawal request in question was made on Thursday which was definitely a business day as was the following Friday for sure. Second, the newest payout to the same member and to the same payment processor of a few cents was already processed while the older one of $42 was still pending. As you can see all points to FelixFunds experiencing cashflow issues which were not connected with the reason which was specified by the admin of the program in the previous email to the members. Anyway, I wanted to give the admin the benefit of the doubt and just asked him to pay to that particular member within the next 24 hours. But it looks I was asking for too much as I didn’t get any reply from Felix after that. As I checked the member’s account today and saw that he had not been paid yet. So I went to FelixFunds’ site and put a warning on the Shoutbox that FelixFunds would be moved to Problem status on MNO if the payout would not have been processed by tonight. Just a few minutes after that the Shoutbox was removed and then the above-mentioned announcement followed blaming impatient members for ruining the program. Well, it looks like the speedy reaction of the admin to my reasonable request proved that processing the withdrawals last night was not such a tiring mission for him and that he preferred to close his program instead of paying the required $42 to the member of his program. I found it quite shallow and definitely didn’t expect this from Felix who seemed to me a genuine admin with good intentions. Well, if me or other impatient members are to be blamed for the program’s failure then so be it. One thing I can state for sure – MNO blog will not tolerate selective payouts and I will do everything possible to help my readers in case any issue arises. Unfortunately, I couldn’t be helpful in this case but I succeeded in another one which will be described below and in my opinion was worth it and prevented another program from collapsing. That’s what I call the magic of MNO, lol!

Today I was about to give you a heads-up regarding another stable performer. I’m talking about 144CashAds which apparently was paying selectively. And I had the confirmation of that as I had been contacted by one readers who reported that his large withdrawal was not paid for over two weeks already while smaller ones were getting paid quite fast. So I checked his account and found out that it’s really true as he had one pending payout of over $180 dated December, 24th. This was an unacceptable situation for MNO and it was getting even weirder when he forwarded me the reply from the admin of 144CashAds which asked him to wait as he was a loyal member of the program. This was way too odd as I guess the loyal members of 144CashAds should have been rewarded by the fast payouts rather than being fed excuses. I contacted the admin of 144CashAds for him to explain the situation. He got back to me and said actually the same thing about the waiting and the loyalty of the members and said that it was the only withdrawal currently pending due to severe market conditions after the New Year. I replied that I was not ready to leave the program on Paying status on MNO unless that particular member receives his payout asap. So the admin gave up and processed the payment from his personal reserve fund as he said. This was later confirmed by my reader and the incident is now closed.

Please remember that as per MNO’s policy any selective payouts from HYIPs are not acceptable and the programs practicing it should be immediately moved to Problem status in order for other members to see the problem and not to invest there. So if an admin doesn’t reply to a reasonable complaint or provides only some silly excuses I have no other choice but to move them to Problem status on MNO until the pending request is cleared or until I get a reasonable explanation from the admin. I would also request from all my readers to report me about their pending payouts in any program listed on MNO so I can take appropriate steps to help you out or at least to warn your fellow investors to stay away from it and save their money. Of course to speed up the process you have to provide me with the username and password you use in the program or (if it’s not possible or if you’re in my downline) you can simply submit complaint to my email address abramsonp@gmail.com or go to contact page of MNO and describe your issue there. Thank you in advance for keeping me updated on the statuses of the programs listed on MNO and for your continuous support of my work, guys!

I would give YesInvestment (reviewed here) which currently holds the #1 position on MNO monitoring a warning light. The reason is quite simple – by utilizing the same strategy which was already fully discussed by me in the article on EzProfit‘s selective payouts published here YesInvestment recently launched a 15-day plan. This plan was launched just about a month after the previous 35-day plan was added which is a clear indicator that the same strategy is now in place. Of course, it will not affect the daily paying plans and those who already invested into the 0.8%-2% daily forever plan have no reason to worry as they will be almost surely paid as usual. The unfortunate ones that suffer will be those who invested into the latest added 15-day plan. On that plan YesInvestment offers very high returns 20%-30% daily for 15 days. The trick is the minimum to invest is $1,000 and therefore it might look as a genuine opportunity for larger investors to triple their money in 15 days. Please remember though that this plan will NOT pay you daily but rather only your account in YesInvestment will be credited daily but you will not receive your actual profits and principal back until expiry. Please note that the information given to you in the latest update regarding this is misleading and usually those who dare to invest in such plans will not see their money back again. So think twice before falling into this trap:
“15 Days Daily plan launched.
We pay 20%-30% Daily for 15 Days in 15 Days Daily plan. Principal deposit and interest are GUARANTEED! You can withdraw the interest daily. This plan will be closed once we reached the investment limit.”

I would like to announce that tomorrow the interview with the admin of PrimoEarnings will be published on MNO as I already received the questions back from the admin. I think you will be interested to know that the latest news from PrimoEarnings includes the final installation of SSL encryption which was not installed properly after his recent issues with former hosting provider Dragonara and moving the website to BlockDos. I guess this installation should put an end to the issues connected with the payouts to AlertPay which were not instant before that and they will be back to normal soon. Another event is coming really soon in PrimoEarnings – the addition of LibertyReserve and PerfectMoney payment processors which is about to be announced by Trevor in a few hours. I hope that will extend the membership of the program and make it more noticeable, especially considering their good and log paying record (to AlertPay only). I remind you that the addition of LibertyReserve and PerfectMoney payment processors on January, 10th was the original intention of the admin who hoped to survive Black December by doing this. As you can see he’s succeeded so far and PrimoEarnings is still paying on two plans – 112% after 7 days, and 128% after 14 days – with the first payouts on expiry for 180% after 30 days plan should be processed by tomorrow. Even after the hosting issues PrimoEarnings‘ admin managed to restore the members’ accounts and credited the deposits during the last couple of days (due to the database having been lost) and is looking forward to the future. I doubt very much though that by introducing LR and PM as it was planned Trevor will get so many members as many of the investors still prefer to invest in short-term games like PrimoEarnings using a safer payment processor AlertPay. Anyway, we will wait and see what happens next and I invite you to read the interview with the admin of PrimoEarnings on my blog tomorrow (when LR and PM are added) and make up your mind by yourselves if you find this program interesting and worth investing. Meanwhile, you can always refer to my review of PrimoEarnings published here.

For the whole day I was experiencing difficulties when was trying to reach the website of PrestigRev – a brand-new surfing site that was just reviewed on MNO a couple of days ago (read the review here). It looks to me like PrestigRev might be attacked by its competitors. I’m not concerned about the future of the program yet because they are running on a good hosting provider Dragonara and just started their online activity a couple of days ago which makes absolutely no sense to scam now. Also sometimes the site of PrestigRev was loading for me today but very slowly and it was still impossible to log into the account. Well, the fact that the missing surfing days in PrestigRev are not so big a deal. So I think there is nothing to worry about yet and I will update you as soon as the site is back online. By the way, I was just updated about the current situation by the admin Mike who confirmed my suspicion and said that the site was really under a huge DdoS attack. Here is the latest news from PrestigRev:
“PR is under a huge DDOS Attack. Our hosting guys are trying their level best to resolve the issue ASAP. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

OptimumPride was going to resume payouts today but this will not happen obviously as the site simply disappeared. And I mean it really disappeared and you can find NameCheap domain registration page instead of the site. It’s no wonder it happened today because the program had to process the payouts. I must say that OptimumPride was not a popular program at all despite it being listed on MNO since July. Even despite such a long run most of the members were at a loss because the program offered extremely low rates of interest starting from 0.6% on every business day. It’s no wonder therefore that it was not taken seriously by investors who can calculate their chances to be in profit properly. I guess OptimumPride became another victim of low investor activity during the winter.

Finally this evening we come to the results of the latest MNO opinion poll that’s been running for the last week concerning your expectations from the HYIP industry over the coming year. I must say this one has thrown up the closest set of results I remember from any of the polls held recently though I’m also kinda pleased that the mood seems largely positive and optimistic for 2011, even though it’s no yet ten days old.

The question asked was very simply “What are you expecting from the HYIP industry over the next 12 months?” and the results were as follows:

With 33% of the vote the most popular reply was “The industry is well into recovery and the general trend is going up. 2011 will almost certainly be much better than 2010.” By no means a runaway winner but a positive mental outlook is always important and if despite the setbacks and the crisis from last year if s many of you are feeling buoyant then hopefully that attitude will give the industry a much needed boost for the coming year.

In second place with 29% of the votes came those holding the opinion “This business changes way too fast and suddenly. To even think past what might happen in a month is pointless and a waste of time, much less a year. Anything can happen, and probably will!” Personally I like to think of this as a largely positive answer and hope those who expressed it did so knowing that the industry is a total gamble and one bad season doesn’t sour the overall experience for you. The old adage that “Past Performance is No Guarantee of Future Results” applies just as much to bad performances as it does to good ones and things can always get better.

I don’t vote in my own polls because I already know what my opinion is and I just want to know yours. But if I had cast a vote I think I may have gone for the option which came in a very close third with 28% of the votes. It said “The industry works in cycles and is always the same. It starts busy, slows down for summer, recovers in September, etc. The only thing to ever change is the extreme high and low points.” the reason I say that is because the most unusual thing about last year’s crisis was simply the extremity of it. The timing of it was nothing out of the ordinary. For example the low point came in the summer, but then over the course of 12 months the summers are always kinda slow. Thankfully never as dead as last summer which was an extreme example, but things always quieten down a little bit around that time.

And finally with only 10% of the vote came the most pessimistic reply “There is less money and fewer people in the industry today because of last year’s crisis and the general trend is going down. 2011 will certainly be worse than 2010.” Well, to be honest it’s a view that I don’t share but under the circumstances is one that I can well understand and sympathise with. A lot of people got their fingers burned last year, and particularly a lot of those people were new to the industry and their first experience was a negative one. Obviously that can have a lasting effect but if I absolutely had to put a positive spin on that it would be this – it’s often been said that the best thing that can happen you is to lose your first ever bet. In future this will teach you a very valuable lesson about the true nature of this industry and in the long run protect you from more serious losses.

The new poll launching today will be the first in a series to determine how to change MNO to better suit your needs, guys. So I need to know your opinion on the recent changes as I like to know if you take them positively, negatively, or don’t really mind. As you can see from last night the structure of my blog has slightly changed and now instead of showing just the two latest posts on MNO I have the latest post followed by the five most recent post thumbnails where you can find the one you would like to read first. I thought it would be a great addition to the already available widget in my sidebar allowing you to see the 10 latest posts and by the way, 10 recent posts might be an option in the new post structure I just introduced. So I would like to ask your opinion about that new feature in my poll that will last for the next few days. The question is: Do you like my new post structure? The answers are:
1)Yes, I like the new one with 5 recent posts.
2)Yes, I like it but I think 10 recent posts would be a better option.
3)No, I preferred the old one with two posts on one page without thumbnails.
Thanks in advance for your answers, guys, and I hope with your help I will be able to make my blog better looking and readable for you.

Here is the list of the programs that paid me today:
Stanbec, AmilloTrade, BetBankFund, PrimoEarnings, GorgonProjectInvest, InvestPlatforms, DollarCommerce, Escaliva, AccessTomorrow, SureFireSurf, AllianceAdvantage, YesInvestment, GainBucks and EasyCashGrowth.

That’s it for today, guys. I hope to see you all on my blog tomorrow with the interview with the admin of PrimoEarnings and the latest news and events in the HYIP industry. Stay tuned!