23/10/2011. MNOFridays (17th issue) and Daily News from the Industry

Hi guys! As you can see it’s been a slow couple of days in the industry since the end of last week and as expected the domino effect from a few big name closures is making its affects felt now, though I have to admit I didn’t think it would be seen in quite such magnitude.

I believe one of the most destructive features contributing to this crisis is the matter of trust, and that brings me to the subject matter of this issue of MNOFridays (which regular readers may know is an occasional series of articles on MNO looking at some of the inner workings of the HYIP industry). So there’s basically one simple rule in play here – you must NEVER trust any admins! I mean if one of these guys tells you what day of the week it is you should go check a calendar. If one of them tells you the time of day you need to check your watch (assuming he hasn’t tried to steal it first that is, lol!). It’s one thing when you’re playing HYIPs for fun, aware of the fact that they’re all ponzies but comfortable with the risk as you’re only spending sensible amounts you can afford. I would rate MNO readers among the smarter industry players in that regard, by the way. But it’s another matter entirely if an investor genuinely take the stories doled out by HYIP admins at face value and believe they can somehow magically double your money in a month, something the greatest financial wizards in history would not achieve. The faster you wake up to this fact the better. All HYIPs are ponzies and that is a FACT. But as more admins compete for less investors, they will pull every stroke in the book to convince you that you can “trust” them and that they only have your best interests at heart.

How many times have you logged on to major HYIP forums to follow the fortunes of your favorite programs and seen page after page of naïve posters saying things like “very honest admin – he just paid me $0.30 cents” or “the admin paid me $0.20 cents within an hour – surely this program is no ponzi and will run forever!”. Sometimes I’m almost tempted to laugh at such posts, but then of course I remember that these are real people with real money and they have a couple of harsh lessons coming to them that they’re going to learn the hard way. A lot of these admins are skilled conmen and they prey upon such inexperience, perhaps more than any other single factor sometimes. But what are the tricks used to gain so much trust in the first place? Why exactly are so many people willing to hand thousands of dollars over to complete strangers who don’t use their real names, don’t give you their addresses, and channel your money into their own bank accounts through totally anonymous internet exchangers that can’t be traced? Read on and we’ll take a look at some of the most common tricks in use. See if any of this sounds familiar….

1) Offer a “reasonable” return of 1% for 200 business days for instance with principal returned on expiry. Sure, in HYIP terms that may be achievable up to a point, but look at this this way – you still triple your money within a year which is IMPOSSIBLE for any offline real business. Apple can’t do it. Microsoft can’t do it. Government bonds can’t do it. Barclays Bank can’t do it. Personally I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything much better than 10% per year. But you think some guy running an online ponzi scheme from an internet cafe can? Dream on! And if it was possible just ask yourself why on earth the admin needs your money to do it at all. Why can’t he do it with his own? Because if those rates were possible you could be a millionaire very quickly with only a very very modest start up capital.

2) Certificates of incorporation. Maybe you think that because the admin is the head of a properly registered company he can somehow be trusted? That if things don’t work out the way you wanted that he can at least be held accountable for his actions? Wrong again! If anything could be described as quite literally “not worth the paper they’re written on”, then it’s these things. I mean in the most obvious cases they can simply be put together by anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of graphics or document design. Failing that they can also be photoshopped.

But why go to the bother of doing that when genuine certificates of company incorporation can be obtained for almost no effort, no questions asked, totally legal, and all online. You can register a company in a country you’ve never even heard of, much less actually live in. In recent times several of the so called “off shore” jurisdictions (Seychelles, Belize, etc) have issued warnings about the abuse of this system. Problem with that is it generally takes them well over a year to issue such warnings, they fail miserably in reaching the audience the warnings should really be aimed at, and of course most of the damage has been done before any of these woefully ineffective governmental bureaucracies get into gear and start taking any kind of action. I’ll give you an example of just how easy it is to get yourself a proper, fully legal, certificate of incorporation (as I have one myself, obtained as part of an online experiment). Read the following article from the MNO archives about that here.

3) Postal addresses. Just as pointless as the certificates of incorporation. Don’t think that because a HYIP admin gives you the address of his company that you will actually find him there if you call in some afternoon. No way Jose! The only thing you’re gonna find is a bunch of confused office clerks shrugging their shoulders at you and telling you there is no such company in this building. Don’t believe me? Well I went out and checked a couple of them myself one day a couple of years ago when I lived in London. Personally I wasn’t surprised but I remember the reaction of a lot of readers at the time. They lived a long long way from these supposed offices so obviously were in no position to go check up on them like I was. Many folks could scarcely believe that these “trusted and honest” HYIP admins could be so sneaky! Nothing illegal happened as such, but it is a very very misleading practice. To read more about what I’m talking about, including some photos, read the full article originally published here.

4) Another trick to gain the investors trust and lure him into spending more than he can afford is the issuing of certificates confirming your deposits, “legal” PDF contracts, and written guarantees of your investments. All as utterly worthless as the afore mentioned certificates! As we’ve already established none of these people are using their real identities or their real addresses (ID’s are at best fake and at worst stolen, but they certainly ain’t real) so how can any of these slips of paper possibly be worth anything? Because if you get scammed and you bring these documents to a real legal professional chance are you’ll get laughed out of his office.

5) Running all types of makeshift lotteries, raffles, contests, et cetera. OK, granted these things can actually be a bit of fun and an easy way to make a couple of extra bucks from the program on top of your interest payments, and they can have the beneficial effect of making the members feel more involved in the promotion. Or at least when the contests are run fairly. Because some of the most dishonest admins have the rank and file members do all the promotional work trying to win a couple of dollars, except when it comes time to pay they simply fix the results so that the prizes go to “investors” who don’t really exist. They’re just empty accounts created by the admin under made up names created so they can avoid having to pay the real winners a prize. To make it worse sometimes these prizes are barely a measly twenty bucks in the first place, demonstrating how downright mean and dishonest the admin was to begin with. Again, how on earth could you trust a person like that with your money?

6) Another way to get some of the less savvy investors still new to the industry is to become a self-appointed expert on all types of hilarious business activities. You name it, I’ve heard it, and every single one of them was a lie of monumental proportions. And it’s not just the usual HYIP favorites like ForEx trading or stocks either. It can be something more exotic – producing honey and beekeeping, piggybacking on other programs, the porn industry, even remodeling second hand Chinese motorcycles for sale on the European market for God sake! It’s a simple matter of telling you something like “hey, I know how to double your money and you don’t! Trust me, I’m an expert! This is a real business! Would I lie to you?” If these guys really were involved in actual business they would have no problem getting a bank loan at a tiny fraction of the cost of the interest they offer you, right? Except there is no ForEx trading, and there is no real business. Just tricks to get new investors to cover the cost of paying the old ones while the admin follows the number one rule of siphoning off as much of that cash as he can possibly get away with before the pyramid inevitably collapses.

Remember that admins will basically tell you anything in order you to spend more money, and the real victory is in getting you to spend more than you originally intended to. Spent more than you can afford to lose? Don’t expect the admin to worry about it – that’s your problem and he probably thinks it’s kinda funny. The whole HYIP industry is based on lies but if you find yourself trusting one particular admin, thinking “he’s not really part on the HYIP industry, he’s a real businessman just working online” then I’ve only got one thing to say to you – wake up and get your head out of the clouds, because if you really believe that then he wins and you lose. I would suggest NEVER ever trust anyone in this business. Very few admins ever admit that they are running ponzies and do not have any additional income beyond other investors’ deposits. But even in this event they still can’t be trusted as these HYIPs come and go just like the others and the task for the investor is to spot a the promising ones, make a profit from it, and get out again at the right time.

On a side note by the way, wanna know how to tell if one of those so-called “real investment” opportunities floating around at the moment claiming to be involved in things like property development or whatever are really just online ponzies masquerading as real businesses? Simple. They accept LibertyReserve! For future reference please note that any investment website you find that accepts payments through Liberty Reserve is a 100% ponzi. LR is a money laundering tool. You can’t deposit money and you can’t withdraw money without using an anonymous third party exchanger. Therefore nobody, not even LR themselves, know where the money comes from or where the money goes. Under NO circumstances will any business or financial institution that is working under license and in compliance with the law in ANY country be legally using such a service. If you run a business you must be able to keep proper accounts that can be examined by the authorities recording where your money comes from and where it goes. Anyone using anonymous internet based payment handlers will not be able to do so, and if anyone tries to tell you that I’m not correct about this matter either doesn’t know what they’re talking about or are trying to tell you even more lies. Incidentally I myself am not particularly bothered by any of that by the way. I’m fully aware of how the industry really works and am under no illusions as to what’s going on here. I simply think you should be aware of it as well and know that it’s a gamble.

But what I’m not doing here is sharing other types of investment strategies because every investor should develop the tactics most suited for him personally and adjust them as conditions within the HYIP industry change. There is no real recipe for success and no absolutes, but with experience and hard work you will certainly be able to make money from HYIPs. Just remember that they are all ponzies and the only thing aim of their owners is to persuade you to spend, spend, spend, like there’s no tomorrow. Be aware of it but don’t be afraid of it, understand the situation you’re getting yourself into before you do it, learn the tricks so you don’t get caught by them, and try to be smarter than the scammers! HYIPs exist primarily as a vehicle for raising money for their owners, and this article won’t guarantee your earnings. But it will make the HYIP industry a hell of a lot easier to play if you are at least familiar with your surroundings and know the real nature of what’s going on around you.

DAILY NEWS FROM THE INDUSTRY

Despite not posting any news for almost three whole days the industry was so quiet lately that I can barely find anything worth discussing. Obviously, after some recent high profile closures many admins are not very active and are biding their time until the industry is back to normal which in my opinion might happen in a couple of weeks from now. Anyway, let’s see what news there is to report for this evening.

Let’s start with the newsletter from the admin of EliteGain Jessica who seemingly learned her lesson last time and now the Weekly Bustling contest delivered some real winners. Surprise-surprise they all turned out to be monitors, but there you go. Well, as expected MNO got the first prize and my account has been credited with a $50 deposit. I believe two other winners received their prizes as well. It’s so good to finally see the real prizes and real winners and hopefully any future contests will be held honestly as well. Current winners are disqualified from the next round to give somebody else a chance of winning. It looks like for some investors it was still not good enough as they tried to abuse the system counting their referrals and creating multiple accounts in the program in order to win the prize. Anyone caught cheating is eliminated from future contests. The third weekly contest is open already and everyone else is welcome to participate. Also Jessica is now looking at ways to improve her program by the addition of a forum or a blog. At the moment she’s concentrating on promoting their Facebook page and the upcoming Paid-to-promote program which will help members of EliteGain to earn even more from their promotional efforts. I remind you that EliteGain accepts AlertPay, LibertyReserve and PerfectMoney into 3%-5% for 40 business days plan and the weekly forever plan paying you 7% or 14% depending on your investment with the program. Please read more on the investment plans in my detailed review of EliteGain published here. Here’s the latest newsletter from the admin:
“Contest, PTP and Newsletter
Starting from a bit of glance on our second session of weekend bustling contests, I am glad to announce our new winners as well as minor adjustments that I want to make. Since there was a bit of abuse issue in first session and later we had corrected most of them, however there are still numbers of people who are opening multiple accounts and investing the least possible amount to enhance there positions, So, I want to make it clear that this will not be tolerated and such members will be simply disqualified from now on.
Current winners are: Paul, HyipParty, HyipScope
This week, our 3 winners are all monitors, and that is alright! since I indeed welcome them to participate in this contest but to diversify range of possible winners, all winners of this session and upcoming sessions will be disqualified until next session is announced.
Now, another great news for promoters is, we are almost done with addition of Paid-to-promote program, and unlike most of other programs, we intend to offer both cash and credits rewards (to enhance your position in contests). Further details for this will be announced very soon, however, Any member interested in participating and earning with this program will require an easy-to-get approval from us and will only be able to promote from approved domain names. So please stay tuned!
We have also enhanced and made adjustments in our scripts so members can check their status and qualification for our bustling tools, these details are available in your account home page, right after you log-in.
Third, 3rd session of week-end bustling contest has already started as we have reset the credits counter and you can now begin your activities, if not already. Further details on this contest are available here:
https://www.elitegain.com/contest.aspx
Back to FaceBook topic, it seems there is very little response over this but I assure to all members that this infect will soon become one of necessary ingredients to benefit from our bustling tools that are already there or are due to be announced soon. All you need to do is to “LIKE” us on FaceBook.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Elite-Gain/280297061991020
I also would like to announce that soon we will announce addition of either our own forums, or our blog. I consider a need of it because I see a need of having complete archive of our newsletters and press releases. And having either of this must bring other numerous benefits for both members and our management therefore I am open for your suggestions, which you can send to me via support page.
Regards, Jessica Parker.”

The admin of KistFunds (reviewed here) celebrates one month online by offering a 10% withdrawable bonus on all deposits made in 1.3%-2.2% for 120 business days plan with principal return on expiry. In my own opinion one month online for a like KistFunds is not exactly that great an achievement and I would have been more impressed if the admin waited before celebrating till at least some of the members were in profit which will not happen at least for a few more months. Anyway, those who would like to take advantage of this limited offer which will be available for one more week are required to make any deposit starting from $10 via their favorite payment processor – AlertPay, LibertyReserve or PerfectMoney. Here is the latest newsletter from KistFunds:
“Today We Celebrate Our 1 Month Online
Today we celebrate our one month online, we thank you for been with us. we offer now 10% of the deposit you make still November 1st 2011.
You can withdraw the 10% anytime you wish, this is our own way of saying thank you.
Signed Management. KistFunds Investment”.

If I saw at least some sense in investing in ViscoCorp a few days ago I don’t see it now at all because the admin just cancelled the most profitable plan which used to pay 22%-23% daily for 5 days. So the investors of the program are now only left with 0.8%-1.5% daily forever plan which was good when the program was starting out eight months ago but can’t be recommended now due to its age. Other options which are not good simply because you won’t be paid to LR but only via Bank wires include 200%-300% after 20 days, 450%-600% after 30 days, 900%-1350% after 90 days, and 1260% after 180 days. The good thing is that now the shortest possible plan paying 170%-200% after 10 days is open for investments starting from $250 but again considering the age of the program and the risk involved in depositing via the only accepted payment processor LibertyReserve I would not recommend to getting into this one either. In my opinion, ViscoCorp is just good enough to collect profits from daily plans as usual for those who joined earlier but not for putting new money into any on expiry plans. Here are the two latest updates from ViscoCorp (originally reviewed on MNO here):
“5 Days Plans closed as we reached the investment limit. Please do not invest.
Minimum investment is 10 Days plans changed to $250. This will allow more members to invest in this plan.”

The admin of HitNRunMasters scammed immediately after his program faced the first issues with his domain. That admin really disappointed me as I believed that his program could last at least until Christmas. The worst thing for you would be if you believed any of those lies spread by him about his insider knowledge and secret connections in the industry. Like I said in the above MNOFridays piece, this was another of those “self appointed experts” trying to tell you to trust him because you can’t possibly make any money from HYIPs without giving it to him first. Well, for now he was only able to prove that he was a scammer himself by cheating the investors and those who trusted him. Mostly because of his behavior I wrote tonight’s article as I was inspired by this perfectly planned scam with another fascinating but too-good-to-be-true story behind it. I heard a lot of abuse for MNO for telling the truth about the program from those members all too happy to believe the lie as well as the usual army of “paid posters”. Now that they’ve been scammed and know that I was right they seem surprisingly silent about the whole thing. Oh, well!

The admin of PaidJack has a message on the website asking members to create new accounts with the same details previously held in the program due to an unexpected database loss that happened recently:
“We had database crash.
All members please create new accounts with same details and send us email at support@paidjack.com and we will fix this issue.
Please include deposit batch numbers in your email message. We’re sorry about that.
Problems make us stronger. PaidJack administration”.
Fingers crossed after this the accounts will be restored soon. Otherwise, it makes no sense to me as PaidJack has been a great performer so far and kept paying till the last day before the database crash happened. I hope they will be back to normal soon and I will keep all MNO readers updated. I remind you that the program started over five weeks ago and it offers only one plan paying 7% weekly forever with the possibility to withdraw principal anytime for a 10% fee, accepting LibertyReserve and AlertPay deposits starting from $20. More about PaidJack can be read in the detailed review published here.

I have made a decision to return xChanger to Recommended status as despite current delays it still delivers a great service and always fulfills the exchange requests to its members. I recently received some testimonials telling me about the good services xChanger provided to them lately and asking me to return their good status which I’m doing with pleasure. To read more about xChanger and their services please read my interview with the admin Andrei here.

This is the long list of the programs that paid me for the last three days and feature on Paying status with MNO:
BrantonsGroup, EurexTrade, NeoProgress, UnitrustDirect, ProfitsRaise, PerfectLottery, EliteGain, BaseBucks, GeniusIncome, HyperCompound, RapyWealth, SapaInv, FelminaAlliance, GlobalFxTrades, PokerProfits, WorldwideCapital, ReProFinance, StableProfit, LargeProfit, TopInvesting, SoaretInvestment, TradeQ, MirexGroup, KistFunds, ViscoCorp, TopsFund, OneInv, SuperHotPay, OnlineInvestmentBank and PaidJack.

That’s all for today, guys. I hope you enjoyed the new installment of MNOFridays also and I’m looking forward to tomorrow when hopefully things will go back to normal and we will see some new programs added to MNO. I think there’s been enough bad news for one week, so see you all tomorrow!