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1

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

Hi all! The second post today is an interview I did recently with the admin of GreenBackShares. His name is Jeremy Bates and due to the length of this particular interview I decided it was better to do the news update earlier this afternoon so check the earlier post for that. In fact in his first answer Jeremy tells us that in his spare time he likes to write – clearly an understatement! As you can see it’s quite a lengthy piece so I hope you’re not too busy for the next while, but then there was quite a lot of questions. Jeremy however did, I think you’ll agree, an excellent job in answering them and in getting his point across. If only there were a few more admins like him things would be so much easier in this industry.

As for the program itself GreenBackShares is one of the most exciting long term online investment projects to emerge so far in 2011, and is even at this early stage well on the way (as slow a process as that might be) to becoming one of the major industry players of the year. You can read my original review of GreenBackShares, published here, and then check out the program for yourself. You will see that they are a highly organized and professional outfit almost certain to be here for the long haul. Of course I know that a lot of other things need to fall into place for them (the support of the investing public for one thing) but so far so good for the program and the future looks very bright indeed.

Before we hear from Jeremy I’ll just remind you that GreenBackShares offers terms of 1%-1.8% daily for 150 business days, 5.5%-9.5% weekly for 30 weeks, and 12%-20% bi-weekly for 15 cycles. At the end of the term you then have the option of taking your principal back and leaving the program or, if you prefer, leave it in place and continue to get paid until such a time as you feel like leaving. What could be better than that?

1. Hi Jeremy, please introduce yourself to the readers of MNO and tell us please about your own involvement in GreenBackShares.

Hello Paul, regards to you and to your readers. My name is Jeremy Bates. I am one of the founders of GreenBackShares and also one of the traders. Besides trading, I also like to write, whenever I can find a free moment and I am responsible for most of the reading material available on our website.

2. Can you give us some background information on GreenBackShares? How many others are involved with the program or are you operating alone? How long have you been online?

As I have written on our website, GreenBackShares started to take shape a while back, when my friends and I were still in college. The idea of GreenBackShares got more serious in 2008, when we quit our day jobs and started trading on our own with the clear intent of becoming good enough to be able to have our own investment management company.

The actual project started in spring 2010, when we incorporated the legal entity, Dion Ltd and the whole thing really got into gear in June, when the technical development began.

The core of the company is made up of just 3 people, Matthew Clarke, Richard Taylor and me, Jeremy Bates. We are the company founders and we also form the current trading team. Martin Gejtan, Catalina Strauss and Oliver Tander are also part of the GreenBackShares team, helping us a great deal with everything not related to active trading, strategizing and editorial work. Martin is responsible with website development, maintenance and all other technical issues. Oliver is our customer support operator and Catalina handles social networking, brand awareness campaigns, business relations and in the future, will be in charge of our human resources department.

You can find more detailed insight into the company’s history in our About section:
https://greenbackshares.com/index.php?a=cust&page=about

3. Before getting to the program itself the first thing most people will notice is that your website doesn’t work with Internet Explorer, something I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen anywhere before. Why is that?

Yes, I agree, this is quite an uncommon practice. But, on the other hand, many things about GreenBackShares are different. So we thought this decision will be in perfect harmony with our uncompromising overall tone. We chose to make our website inaccessible with Internet Explorer for quite a few reasons, the primary being, of course, our concern with user security. General operational instability and lack of compliance with modern web design techniques and procedures occupying close second and third places on the list.

In short, the message we are trying to send out is simple: GreenBackShares is well worth changing your browser over. Just wait and see…

4. What plans are available to investors in GreenBackShares? Explain them in detail to us. What ROIs are on offer. What are the minimum and maximum amounts to invest? What payment options are you accepting at the moment?

The minimum investment one can make with us is $50, which in our opinion in very reasonable, given the rates offered. We have no maximum investment cap set.
All shares, regardless of investment pool, mature in 150 business days (210 calendar days). After the maturity period, a member can choose to sell his/her shares at the initial purchase price or to hold them and continue to earn dividends. After the maturity period, shares can be sold and cashed out instantly, whenever the investor wishes.

The first investment pool, Daily Express, pays daily dividends on weekdays, with rates varying depending on the number of shares bought. The price of each share is $50.

For up to 9 shares ($450), the daily dividend rate is 1%, 100% ROI is reached in 100 business days and 250% ROI is reached on expiry, including initial investment.

For up to 99 shares ($4,950), the daily dividend rate is 1.4%, 100% ROI is reached in 71 business days and 310% ROI is reached on expiry, including initial investment.

Starting from100 shares ($5,000), the daily dividend rate is 1.8%, 100% ROI is reached in 55 business days and 370% ROI is reached on expiry, including initial investment.

The second investment pool, Weekly Explorer, pays dividends on a weekly basis, with rates varying depending on the number of shares bought. The price of each share is $100.

For up to 9 shares ($900), the weekly dividend rate is 5.5%, 100% ROI is reached in 18 weeks and 265% ROI is reached on expiry, including initial investment.

For up to 99 shares ($9,900), the weekly dividend rate is 7.5%, 100% ROI is reached in 13 weeks and 325% ROI is reached on expiry, including initial investment.

Starting from 100 shares ($10,000), the weekly dividend rate is 9.5%, 100% ROI is reached in 11 weeks and 385% ROI is reached on expiry, including initial investment.

The third investment pool, Fortnight Strategist, pays dividends once every two weeks, with rates varying depending on the number of shares bought. The price of each share is $200.

For up to 9 shares ($1,800), the bi-weekly dividend rate is 12%, 100% ROI is reached in 16 weeks and 280% ROI is reached on expiry, including initial investment.

For up to 99 shares ($19,800), the bi-weekly dividend rate is 16%, 100% ROI is reached in 12 weeks and 340% ROI is reached on expiry, including initial investment.

Starting from 100 shares ($20,000), the bi-weekly dividend rate is 20%, 100% ROI is reached in 10 weeks and 400% ROI is reached on expiry, including initial investment.

Hope this description is as detailed as possible. You can also find all this information regarding ROI in real time, inside your account, when you decide to purchase shares.

At the moment, we accept all the more popular e-payment processors and e-currencies: LibertyReserve, PerfectMoney, AlertPay and SolidTrustPay. Transfer of funds through bank wire and credit card is also available.

5. Do you think a $50 minimum might be a bit high while the program is still so new? Especially as it’s $50 per unit. Has it hindered growth do you think?

We designed the dividend payout rates with sustainability as our top priority, popularity not being of any real use in the long term without a solid and sustainable profit payout plan.

We actually believe that popularity can, to some extent, damage the stability of an online investment project if encountered too early on, as we as traders have to accommodate and adjust our techniques and methodology gradually to a constantly increasing cash flow rate. As a trader, having overwhelming amounts of cash coming in all of a sudden can cause emotional instability and unease, which are fatal in the trading arena. Dealing with amounts that we are comfortable with is paramount and directly affects our trading results.

We are fully aware that as steady and constant we can keep the cash influx growth rate, as stable and reliable our results will be.

The $50 minimum has been thoroughly thought over before being put in place. At first glance, we would like this minimum to point out that we are genuinely serious about making GreenBackShares a major name in the online investment industry and that we would like our members to be equally serious about their investment.

This $50 minimum is also an important part of our strategy, generating increased long-term stability.

6. I see from your FAQ page that you and I are both in complete agreement on the practice known as “compounding”. Can you explain to anyone new to online investing what it means and exactly why you hold such a low opinion of it?

We find compounding very puzzling, to be polite…

I personally just do not understand how can a feature like this be offered and even more importantly, taken seriously by investors. It is utterly ridiculous to offer ROI in the thousands for a term of roughly 6 months. In my opinion, the offer to compound interest should make the intentions of the particular company that employs it fairly obvious and should be considered as a strong indicator to stay away or commit very little money to such projects.

Compounding would be a very convenient way to generate popularity, at the expense of stability and fairness.

7. How secure is the website of GreenBackShares? What are you doing to protect it and members’ accounts from hackers? Are you on a dedicated server? Who is your host? What kind of anti-DDoS protection do you have?

Regarding website security and account safety, I can say that we went well beyond the industry standard. We use a dedicated server with ddos protection from Dragonara. This could be regarded as ineffective only if one would start from the premise that Dragonara cannot be trusted, given the fact that only us and them can have access to the server. This is clearly not the case, but, as one can never be too certain, we have access monitors and a real-time mirroring software in place, that backups the whole website and database on another private server, thus enabling us to restore full functionality, without any data loss, within minutes if the need was ever to arise.

8. What can you tell us about the script you are using? Am I right in saying it’s from GoldCoders? Because it’s barely recognizable as such. What kind of modifications have been made and how does this improve it over the version that most readers will be familiar with?

Yes, you are correct Paul, the engine of our website is based on the GoldCoders script.

We are aware that this may sound like gross negligence and lack of proper diligence on our side, but I assure you, it is not at all so. Before choosing this most common of all scripts for our website, we tried cooperating with other 2 big names in the industry, both experiences ending in total disappointment. I will not go into more details on this, but trust me, GoldCoders can be the wisest choice, given the proper technicians and business sense. The script is basically free, at around $150 and is fully functional from the start and totally customizable. It does have its drawbacks, which, again, not to attract unwanted grudges, I will not mention.Your readers that are familiar with the GoldCoders script know what I’m talking about, for sure.

I want to assure you that all unwanted access possibilities have been blocked or removed. Just to be on the safest side, our cash management policy is also very tight. We do not leave more than a few hundred dollars in any e-currency account connected to the script. When this will start causing cash flow problems, we will hire someone to monitor cash flow in real time and to process larger withdrawal requests manually. This makes sense regardless of the script involved. When the requested sums go up into the thousands per transaction, we do not really feel like leaving it all up to a computer to decide.

The other side of the “script” and “DDoS protection” discussion sums up to life experience and a good business sense. The online investment scene represents capitalism in its purest form: basically, the wild west.. just less smelly, more high-tech and all from the comfort of a desk.

Here we have two vital components of a very lucrative business: the script and the DDoS protected hosting, offered for just a few hundred bucks. A real business man immediately senses the “hidden” costs that these two essential factors involve, as do most “cheap but essential” things in the world of business. We will call these costs “the success tax”. It is present in all aspects of business and it is essential to ensure that only the truly strong prosper.

If you own a coffee shop in New York, you probably have a few large gentlemen of Italian origin from New Jersey on your payroll. They are the natural result of pure capitalism and the savvy businessman must learn to silently embrace and appreciate the natural order this provides (there is no justice in nature), even if, in appearance, “this type of behavior will not be tolerated”.

To sum this small novel up, all genuine efforts must be repaid accordingly, and not taken for granted, even if their price tags say $150. If you are not prepared to .. appreciate a contributor’s efforts fairly, then you will surely fail. If you are unable to repay efforts that contribute to your project fairly, then you have no place in that business sector and your place will be taken by someone more competent. Natural order of things… extremely simple and effective.

I will end the “ropes of the business” lesson here. For those of you who think I am on drugs after reading this… please, just pretend I am and stop wasting your time.

9. Can we see any statistics regarding the site? How many members have joined since the beginning and how many are active at the moment? Are you pleased with the support from the members so far? How important a role do they play in bringing in new members?

Regarding statistics, I can say that new members are coming in at a steady pace… The lack of investor confidence is clearly visible, but taking into account that our advertising campaign is just in its infancy, we are very pleased with the results.

I absolutely will not give out the exact number of current members, but I can say that the first 50 are mostly monitors, the following 100 are cautious or on standby, just testing the waters and the last 70 are starting to show real confidence.

As far as support goes, it is virtually inexistent from big investors, very scarce from average members and only relevant from you and another handful of members.

We predicted this from the start, so from our point of view everything is within optimum parameters. We will never count on random members bringing in other members, as this would be totally unreliable and unpredictable. Furthermore, we think that trying to encourage this practice more than we already do (with an affiliate commission higher than 5%), can create instability and possible lack of sustainability, which is the last thing we would ever aim for.

What we will do in the future is launch a regional representative program, which will have its clear rules, quotas and motivational incentive plan.

We aim at maintaining a constant, exponential growth rate. This is clearly the only method that ensures long-term success. This can be quite hard and apparently pointless in the beginning, the obvious course of action being to attract as many investors as possible, as fast as possible. The thing that the inexperienced lack is foresight. What will you do when you get to “level 10”? Will you be able to keep up the pace? Sure, cunning and nimble fingers can help, but nothing can beat sound management, being able to gauge member influx, every step of the way and also having the tools to do so.

We, at GreenBackShares like to think that we have found the right mix…

10. How can members contact you if they have any questions or support related issues? I see you have a telephone and fax number. First of all is the telephone service 24 hours? During what hours (GMT) is it best to call? Second of all what about the fax number? If I send private or confidential information there how can I be sure who is going to pick it up at the other end? How do I know it’s safe?

We can be contacted by telephone, e-mail, fax and through the support form on the Contacts page. Members and visitors can also get in touch with our support desk through live chat.

The telephone service is not round-the-clock at the moment, but as our project gains notoriety, we will add multi-lingual 24 hours telephone and live chat support. We will also implement a telephone/SMS automated account management platform in the future.

Currently, live chat and telephone support is available only between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. GMT.

Our fax number links directly to our office and is, of course, only accessible by us… Why else would we list it on our website?

If you ever feel that the means of communication provided by us are not private enough or unsafe, we can always arrange for communication through a PGP-encrypted MailVault e-mail or through encrypted instant messenger.

11. I see also that you have a postal address in Malta? Is this just a business center or a kind of “virtual” hosted office/mail forwarding service? If I called there would I find actual GreenBackShares employees?

Thought you’d never ask! Our address in Malta is actually our real office address. We originate from the States, the UK and mainland Europe. When we decided to bring our project to life, we made a commitment and instated one main rule: There can be no distractions! Nothing that can possibly disturb or tempt us. This could only be achieved by relocating the whole team to unfamiliar surroundings, preferably in accordance with our goal.

At first, we thought of Spain… cheap rent, lots of space, big villas, large pools… but just too much fun.

Then the idea of Malta popped up. Remote, with a strong business feel, moderately fun and with breathtaking scenery, perfect for unwinding after a hard day and for summoning up inspiration.

So.. if in Wales there be Dragons… in Malta… there be Shares!.. GreenBackShares!

Malta makes us feel in character, serious about our work and totally devoted.

12. What have been the most common questions and problems you’ve had to deal with so far? Is there anything you wish to say here so that members can avoid having to contact you later?

We have had no real issues so far, aside from members wanting to invest through credit card not knowing exactly how to do so.

I admit, the main reason for this confusion is the “At this time, this seller does not accept credit card payments” message displayed on the AlertPay website whenever a member wants to deposit funds through them.

This message refers to the fact that we do not accept card payments directly on our website, from cardholders that do not have an AlertPay account. We honestly would not even want to be able to do so, as the rate of credit card fraud would go through the roof from day one.

In order to deposit funds with a credit card, one must have an AlertPay account and also verify his/her card with AlertPay. Although a bit cumbersome, this ensures that the person depositing funds is really the cardholder and ultimately makes the existence of this option possible.

Here is the step-by-step guide to depositing funds via credit card, straight from our Q&A page:

In order to fund your account using a credit or debit card, you must have an AlertPay account. If you haven’t got one, you can register with AlertPay free of charge right now.
After you verify your credit/debit card with AlertPay, you will be able to send funds to us directly from your card. Here are the steps:
– click on the “send money” button inside your AlertPay account
– make the payment out to “financial@greenbackshares.com”
– enter the amount you wish to deposit
– choose US Dollars as currency
– select the “service” purchase type
– enter your GreenBackShares user name in the “Details” field
– click next
– select “Use my credit card”
– enter your AlertPay transaction pin and click send.
That’s all there is to it.
Your new deposit will be processed into the system in no more than 3 hours and you will be able to start investing.
You will be able to withdraw your dividends automatically to your AlertPay account

13. How have you been promoting the program so far? What advertising strategy have you been using? How are you getting new members to join?

Up to this point, our advertising campaign has been very modest. Right now, we are just setting the foundation of a future campaign, to maintain our project’s evolution as stable and predictable as possible. We have created a Facebook page, employed a few monitors and are now in the process of getting our project known through reviews and interviews.

We have an extensive online ad campaign planned, employing conventional methods, such as paid advertisements, facebook ads, google adsense and adwords, sticky forum topics and banners. Our plans though, go a little further than that. We will also make use of new and innovative ideas for raising brand awareness. A regional representative program and fliers distributed across major European and American cities are just a sample of our future promotional campaign.

14. What exactly are you doing with investors money? How are you investing it and how are you generating the profits being made to members? I can see the ForEx charts on your homepage but there is nothing there that comes even remotely close to supporting a fraction of the profits you offer. No matter what way you trade them currencies almost never fluctuate by more than 0.5% in a week, so how do you come up with the rates you offer?

We like to think that we really put in an extra effort to show investors how their money is being used. The “Trading Room” section of our website was created for this exact purpose. Here, investors can view our past trading track record over a 1 year period, under the “Past Results” section. The daily market events sum-ups, which can be found under “Market Assessment” are not just copied from the internet, as everyone would expect, but created in-house, during the week-ends, when we have some time to spare. We also post the “Major FX Pairs Outlook”, which reflects our personal views and opinions on the evolution of the main Forex pairs, EUR/USD, AUD/USD, USD/CAD and USD/JPY. Until now, these are the only currency pairs we activated on, as the amount of volatility present and the rate at which important events have taken place since the beginning of this year has been quite a handful on these 4 pairs alone. Not to mention we have also been able to make a fair share of profits by trading these 4 exclusively.

We shall undoubtedly focus our attention on more obscure currency pairs in the future as well, as major markets volatility and appeal will again reach normal levels. For the moment at least, the 4 majors have quite a compelling grip on our humble trader minds and are more than enough to keep us on our toes all day long.

All the trades we make and also related statistical information are publicly available in the “Trade Bulletins” section of the Trading Room. We post the Trade Bulletins on a weekly basis, usually on Sundays.

To conclude, I will like to point out that we do not trade currencies on the spot market. We use highly leveraged financial instruments. A 0.5% weekly chart oscillation can mean a fortune to a professional futures trader. It can also mean instant financial ruin to the inexperienced.

As an answer to your above statement, I will point out that, even though we do not make our total portfolio networth public, we post the actual profit we make in our weekly Trade Bulletins. Our profits actually go much further than “a little bit close” to the dividends we offer investors. We have had not one week with trading profits below 1.5% daily so far. The average is much higher than that and it is also the main source of enthusiasm in our company.

The charts available on our website are just a small part of the insight into our company’s activity that we offer investors. So Paul, please take a closer look at the “Trade Bulletins” section and you will see for yourself that the rates we offer are not there just to look tempting. They are there because we can afford to pay them and still make a handsome profit for ourselves.

15. I know that since first opening that you have already made a number of good improvements to the site. Can you first of all describe them, and then tell us about any future plans you might have to develop GreenBackShares in the future?

The website is pretty much the same as it was 2 months ago, when we launched. Nothing incredibly exciting has been added so far. But rest assured, the best is yet to come.

Up to this point, we have implemented support for all the major online payment processors, with automatic withdrawal functionality where possible, the FX forecasts tab, which represents our forex predictions for the upcoming year, just so prospectors and investors can have a chance to asses our skills and the Company Disclosure section, where our company incorporation documents are publicly available.

The next enhancement we have planned is a multi-lingual website (7 languages) and multi-lingual 24/7 livechat and telephone support desk. This will take a while though, as we plan to make all language options available at once.

In the future, we are going to make a multi-lingual callback service available, issue a custom-branded GreenBackShares debit card and implement an automated account management telephone and sms hotline.

We will also obtain an extended validation SSL certificate for our website and perhaps, one day, our members will be able to open live forex trading accounts with us or even buy and sell GreenBackShares on the Vienna stock exchange… But more details on this at the appropriate time.

For now, we are still at start-up level and staying with our feet firmly on the ground is essential to achieve our goals.

Won’t we just run off with investor’s money 2 or 3 months from now? Let me be a bit blunt.. NO! We have far greater dreams than just a pile of cash in the trunk of an Aston. We have been making a “bunch’o moneys” on our own, without having to take deposits from 3rd parties for quite a while now.

Just making money is no longer enough for us…Being needed and appraised are far more powerful drugs than money…

16. And finally is there anything else you wish to say not covered in this interview? Anything in the review you may not agree with or wish to comment on? If you had just one more thing to say to the unconvinced about the merits of putting their money into your program, what would that be?

Paul, to be honest, I feel I have said everything I wanted to say. Your questions were perfectly thought out and straight forward. Not to mention extensive…

If I were to preach to the unconvinced right now, it would feel like a sales pitch or a slight begging gesture. That is clearly not what we set out to do.

Besides, saying more than I already did would dissolve that small perfect dose of mystery left…

Stay tuned. I’m pretty sure it’s worth it!

Thanks lot to Jeremy for that. He clearly put more time and effort into this than most admins so I do hope you all appreciate his efforts as much as I do. Not just in this interview but for organizing the outstanding program that he has. After an interview as extensive as that I don’t think there’s much left to say, but nevertheless I do think we’ll be hearing a lot more from him and from GreenBackShares for quite some time to come. So best of luck to all of you either already involved or still just thinking about it. Interesting times ahead, that’s for sure.

So that’s about all for today guys. Thanks a lot for reading and remember that as always I’ll be back again tomorrow with all the most up to date news stories from anywhere in the industry. See you all then!

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