05/07/09. Interview with the admin of SazaInvestments

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

Hi all! As promised in yesterday’s post I have an interview for you today with the admins of one of the most hotly debated new HYIP sites around at the moment. And I’m sure this interview will only contribute to that. I’m talking about SazaInvestments of course and its admin Ricardo. I may not agree with everything laid down here myself personally, but then again it’s the admin’s decision to manage the program as he sees fit and it’s up to you to assess the merits of it and see if you feel it’s suitable to you. The main question people will ask though is “is it paying?”. And the simple answer to that is yes.

Before we hear from Ricardo I’ll just remind you that SazaInvestments is a long term program with no expiry date that makes weekly payments of between 8% and 10% depending on the size of your deposit. For more detailed information you can refer back to my original review published here.

“1. Hi Ricardo, please introduce yourself to the readers of Money-News-Online and tell us a bit about your personal involvement in SazaInvestments. What can you tell us about your previous experience in this industry?

Hello everybody. My name is Ricardo Andre Brandao and I am the marketing manager of SazaInvestments company. It was actually my idea to open the online bussines and i’m very happy with it up to now. We had no experience in online bussines till now but we did our research and we are learning every day new things about it.

2. Before we go any further I think you need to comment on your alleged certificate of incorporation. This has now been totally discredited from a number of sources as being a forgery. What is your explanation? Tell us what is the ISO number about too.

First: we are in the process of moving our company completely to Dubai, because much of our business is connected to that area and the policy of Dubai is more relaxed and allows us more flexibility in getting more profit. I have already explained that the same address on the certificate was because there is a commercial area there and many companies have offices there. Now this won’t be the case because we will have the office moved in Dubai.

Second: regarding the same number of ISO. Please do your own research to understand what an ISO number means:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_9000
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080422235244AAYlYso

Once you will read it you will understand that ISO it’s a basic standard of quality. Any company who wants credibility can apply to get it. So yes, it can be the same number because it just attests your company services quality. It is not a registration number.

Third: As soon as the movement will be completed and the papers from Dubai will be ready, we will post them on our site and will also announce to all members the company new office address and phone number so that anybody can check it’s for real. I really hope that this will finally stop the people who want to ruin our credibility. What is interesting is that we find out, after further research, that most of the persons who are attacking us are from Romania and Moldova so in a few days our technical team will have these countries banned from our site. All members from these two countries who already invested with us will need to send us papers for verification and their personal IP’s to be able to see our site from now on. Hopefully this will protect us more.

3. Tell us now about the history of SazaInvestments program itself. How long have you been in operation? Do you have a partner or assistant working with you or are you the sole admin at the moment?

We are working offline since 2004 but we open the online business just recently as you know. As I said it was my idea and I’m happy about it. Our company has a general manager, a marketing manager (me), a sales manager and a customer support manager and also we are working with 4 other guys for support. Soon we will have an administrative assistant hired from Dubai too. All the mangers (including myself) are most of the time away on business so the customer support and administrative assistant will be the persons who will handle the site daily and it is only me who is doing the payments. We also collaborate with two guys who are our technical (security) team but they are only collaborators, not employees.

4. What are the plans on offer to investors? Explain them to us in detail. What are the minimum and maximum amounts to invest? What payment processors are you currently dealing with? Are payments automatic or should I request them?

We offer 3 plans (all of them are forever): 8% weekly – min.30$, max.101$; 9% weekly -min.101$, max.1001$; 10% weekly -min.1001$, max.15000$. Payments are done once a week (every friday). Many members said that this is not good that we are paying only once a week but you got to understand that we need time to move the funds, invest them and move them back to pay you so we can’t offer you a daily payment plan. Payment processors accepted are LR, PM, SP and STP. As soon as the company movement will be completed we will add bank wire deposits options and Western Union option too. Also any member can send a support ticket to request their principle withdrawn at any time but they will be charged a 6% fee for this and it might take up to 20 days to complete such request (depending on the amount involved). You must understand that the funds are really invested and it takes time to move them.

5. How secure is your program’s website? What measures have you taken to protect yourself from the malicious hacking attempts and DdoS attacks that are so prevalent in this business these days. Are you hosted on a dedicated server? Who is your hosting provider and what script are you using? Are they reliable service providers?

We are using a custom modified version of MonetarySoft script which we think is quite safe. We already had ddos attacks on our site so we moved on another more powerful server and now we think are safe. The hosting provider is not from the online industry. Is an offline provider from Portugal. They had helped us very much and very fast when the site was under attack so we are pleased with their services.

6. How have you been promoting the program up to now? What advertising strategy are you using? How big a part have the existing members played in this? Are you satisfied with that level of support? Could anything be done to improve on this?

We are monitored by a lot of monitors and also blogs. We did our research online before starting to advertise and we also have sticky topics on some forums and banners there too. Members were quite supportive when we had problems and asked for their help but of course they could promote us more and this would help us too. Also we are offering 3,5% referral commission but to the most loyal and honest members who are supporting us we increased their level accordingly to what they did for us. The referral commission can be increased up to 12% if we consider that member worthy of this. This should encourage everybody to promote us more. While the most loyal members will get an increased referral commission, for all the rest of them the ref. commission will remain the same (3,5%).

7. Are you pleased with the progress and growth of SazaInvestments so far? Can you give us any statistics regarding the membership numbers to date and the amount of money in active deposits? Tell us also about your future plans. How do you see SazaInvestments developing over the coming months?

We are pleased with what we got so far but it can be better, of course. We have about 500 members so far and about 40K in deposits. By having payments only once a week the growing of our site was much slower but we are happy with it anyway. About the future plans, I’ve already told you that we are moving in Dubai. This will allow us to develop our company much faster and bigger. I’m sure that many of you could afford a vacation in Dubai so you will be able to verify us in real life too (any member), while having fun in your vacation.

8. What level of customer service and support do you provide? What is the most effective way to communicate with you if I have some questions? Why, if you are a registered company, is there no telephone support and can we expect to see it added anytime soon?

I think i have already answered to this questions above. We have 4 guys and a customer support manager for handling support and we will have soon an administrative assistant who will handle the new office. As soon as all movement and papers will be ready in Dubai, there will be on the site the address and the phone number too. As for contacting the managers directly, you can use the email: admin@sazainvestments.com or advertise@sazainvestments.com.

9. There is a lot of good HYIPs running at the moment. There is a pretty big choice out there for the investor so if you had just one thing to say to potential investors to convince them to give you their money, what would it be?

I doubt that many of them are real (this is the reason for members not trusting us in the first place) but soon they will be able to check this themselves. We are making good profit and our businesses are solid and stable. I think this will convince many of them, once they will be able to check it themselves, to invest with us.

10. And finally, as a professional admin, what would be your advice to the average investor in the industry on how to avoid scams, minimize losses, and maximize profits in the online investment business?”

I think that anybody can do their own research and have their own heads to think. If you want to gamble, then do it wisely. If you want something stable then invest with us. Is as simple as that.

At the end I would like to thank you very much for this interview and Ii really hope people are cleared now regarding our status. I wish you all the best and please keep on doing the great job you’re doing now with this blog. It’s very helpful for everybody. Have a great day everybody!”

Some interesting opinions from Ricardo there that I’m sure will further stir up the debate. Personally I feel obliged to say publicly that I have to question the wisdom of blocking all IP addresses originating from Romania and Moldova. Although not explicitly describing people from those two countries as universally dishonest, from a business point of view the idea of rejecting a combined population of 26 million potential investors because of the actions of a tiny number does seem a bit cavalier. Use of a proxy server makes it an easy enough barrier to bypass in any case. But as I said at the start, it’s the admin’s choice as to how he manages his business and your choice as an investor as to how you consider it.

That’s about all for today guys. It’s been a quiet enough day on the news front so I don’t have much else to add except to remind you that I’ll be back as usual tomorrow with a review of a program I know many of you have been asking me about already. It’s called OnisGroup and although it’s not exactly brand new, I’ve just joined recently and think it run for quite some time. So stay tuned for that and I’ll have the usual news round-up as well.