Hi, guys! Today I’d like to start with a short series of articles I want to publish on Friday for the next couple of weeks. I’m going to call it MNOFridays! (as a play on a certain international restaurant chain, lol!) Hopefully it help you all understand clearer how the HYIP industry really works, its basics and its principles which will be based on my own many years experience in this field. I fully realize that these articles can stir some controversy but anything that might give rise to new and fresh debate can only be a good thing.

I was a witness to how the industry developed into the gigantic money making machine we saw 2009 when MNO became one of the most sought after sources of truthful information about online income opportunities. Now I am also an observer of the gradual decline of that same business with many people losing both their money and their faith in it. It’s very sad to see the industry in decline of course and that is true considering to what I heard from some HYIP admins stating that these days deposits into their programs are only a tiny fraction of what they used to be a year ago. Well, I can see it myself as many blogs and forums are dying out and the price of ads which is amongst the best indicators of the real state of things is incredibly low. This might well have been the subject of the first article of course but I’m not going to talk about this HYIP recession today. But it will be another topic for discussion in September when the crisis will either worsen or start its way to a slow recovery.

The subject of today’s post came to mind by recent shameful attempts by some admins to persuade investors that they are earning money with some real established business which of course is not true. And I’m not talking now about the ForEx investments that became so trivialized for the last few years with every second HYIP admin claiming to earn huge money there, but rather about the more sophisticated ways of trying to separate you from your cash with promises of earning big profits in casinos, silver, fish farming, sugar, etc.

I must say that the recent ways of claiming to invest into some most weirdest things in the world just make me laugh but the problem is that it can be taken seriously by some investors. A lot of people are seriously disillusioned by the current state of the HYIP industry and are then easily misled by some referral sharks trying to take advantage of that. They tell you they are helping you by guiding you away from the “traditional” HYIPs and bringing “genuine” business opportunities to help you earn online. But in reality none of these people are any better than the usual con men that are so prevalent in the industry. In no way is this helping the situation in the wider HYIP industry, only heaps more misery on investors by luring them into a false sense of community and a false sense of security only used by the most dishonest industry crooks. Acknowledging the general nature of how online HYIPs really work, going to some length to distance themselves from them, and all the while pretending to offer you an alternative which in reality is no more genuine than any of the openly “game” based HYIPs. That’s why such activities must be stopped while it’s not too late and not encouraged any further.

I have to admit that just a few years ago I too might have considered that some HYIPs really had some outside income just based on the fact of their longevity and the fact that they were properly registered. Well, I was so wrong about that and I think a lot of others also found out the hard way the collapse of GNI and GeniusFunds amongst others earlier this year. They were considered by many as real ventures but resulted in the loss of significant amounts of money by some. As for registration and the company incorporation I investigated that last December, actually incorporating Money-News-Online Limited as a registered company with a serviced office, all of which cost me well under a hundred pounds. It required absolutely no real personal information, in fact no serious questions were asked at all, and it gave me perfectly genuine and legal status as a company director of my own business in less than 24 hours without having to get off the couch. The whole experience did little to enhance my faith in HYIPs or their admins but I was still hopeful that due to longevity some HYIPs might still be backed by real ventures. Take NanoMoneyCorp – lasted for four years but still collapsed in the end, proving that previous results are no indicator of either future performance or real business interests.

The longer paying HYIPs in the period from late 2008 to early 2010 (such as GeniusFunds and PanaMoney) lasted for so long because of a general upward trend in the HYIP industry combined with investors trust and ability of the majority of the more experienced players to be in profit from well-organized programs. Although this had nothing to do with the genuine sources of income from that HYIPs as they all were ponzies, i.e. were backed not by real investments but by new investments used to pay to older ones. Take PTVPartner which managed to last for quite a long time, even though their legend of making money from a silica mine (which later yielded a gold mine!) was simply laughable. The admin never once bothered to back up his words with a shred of proof. Still that program managed to run much longer than most pundits would have expected (given their relatively high returns) because of the fact that things were pretty good at this time in the industry with an abundance of new investors supplying the money to pay earlier investors and more than enough left over to pay the admins. So why did they last for so long if were not backed by anything real? What kept them afloat for such a long time? Well, that’s a theme for another discussion on MNO which hopefully I’ll get around to if the feedback to this article is positive enough.

However, let’s analyze the admins that are trying to stand from this crowd and provide some evidence of their alleged activities of some sort that supposedly should provide payouts to everybody in the long run as long as their “business” flourishes. Is it really true? Let’s take a simple example and see.

Suppose I’m a tomato farmer and I’m a professional in my field, meaning I can grow really nice crops and deliver really good product to my local market and sell them at a profit. I heard of HYIP industry where the website owners seem to make money out of thin air (ie your money!) so I’m entering this market to make you a tempting offer: I’m going to grow tomatoes and sell them on the market for you and share part of my profits with you in return for you financing my business. Sounds nice, right? I have everything with me to prove that I’m really growing tomatoes and sell them in my local market because it’s my hobby and nothing more. You can’t say I’m telling you lies because I will provide you with some photos of my produce and me with all the gardener’s tools in place. I can answer all your questions about the tomatoes as I’m thoroughly into the subject (if I don’t know more I can always consult Wikipedia, lol). And you can’t blame me for anything because I really grow tomatoes for the market. The thing that you cannot prove is whether I really take your LibertyReserve and PerfectMoney and use it to manage my business. So I’m actually using your money for my personal needs and telling you what I know about growing tomatoes. Because it’s my hobby and I know something about it and it gives you enough comfort that you can sleep at night safe in the knowledge that your money is actually working for you in a real business.

The only thing you can’t understand is why this farmer didn’t take a loan from the local bank. It would surely be given to him provided his business plan was good and he was going to repay the loan at a vastly reduced interest rate to what he’s offering you. You are wondering why this farmer needs your e-currencies while he can find other sources from the offline world to finance his profitable business as he offers you nice returns on your investments, doesn’t he? But you try to forget about that because you think the farmer is honest. Because you were convinced by his photos and videos of him growing tomatoes accompanied by the “analysis” of a couple of referral sharks telling you that this one is different. Maybe they even believe it themselves, I don’t know.

There is nothing wrong in asking yourself such reasonable questions as you’re going to invest big money into this project which was nicely presented to you as a real venture by some established “experts”. So my tomatoes (in reality “ponzi”) business is developing nicely and I harvested some good money (sorry, tomatoes, always confusing those things, lol) at the end of the season. On the next season, inspired by the results and the money received from the previous venture I offer you even better returns but I will need to hire more staff and expand my business. You trust me even more new because you received your payment from the previous round. But this year was not as good as the last one. There were some unfavorable conditions affecting the crops: too much heat, too little rain, and the worst thing that I never expected – lightning from a recent storm burnt down my shed where I kept all my tools and seeds. So what to do next? Of course I will come to my dear investors to ask for help with that and might even show you some pictures of a burnt shed and ask for more money to restore my business from scratch. Your old deposits will all be nulled but I will compensate you for that by offering even higher returns for the next tomato season which will definitely be more successful than this one. And so another round will start. But perhaps I will just keep your money for myself this time. I’m bored with tomatoes now but I’ve got plenty of money. Don’t worry though, I’ll be back to you later when I come up with another real business idea.

I can go on with more story lines here than the lonely tomato farmer in urgent need of e-currencies to expand his business. But I guess you get the drill – it’s how the industry works and especially the admins who try to persuade you that they are for real but for some reason they need virtual anonymous e-currencies from you instead of getting a loan in the local bank. Why don’t they do it? Because they are aware that in the real world they will have to repay their debts and that with a real bank no excuses will be accepted and a lot more difficult questions will be asked. Posting a youtube video is simply not good enough to get money out of a real financial institution you know. So it’s easier to trick online investors who will trust the farmer and might even defend him and even protect him from the attacks later on hoping to get the portion of their money back. (“Of course it’s real” they’ll tell you, “just watch the video”. Right.)

This idea of turning your hobby into a profitable HYIP business is not that new so I’m not afraid to say it for that reason. Kevin from XagaEnterprises was the first who implemented this and took it for the next level by shooting videos and posting pictures of the many casino comps that he was allegedly cashing in. Well, I believe it could well have been his real hobby which he turned into a profitable business. But I bet he made a lot more money scamming the investors in the end than from his hobby (if even it ever really existed).

That is why I will never stop repeating that even the most confidence inspiring HYIP admins with their photos and videos (but more often just mere words) should NOT in any case be taken seriously. I think we should really totally segregate HYIPs and real business. I can tell you with 100% certainty now that all the HYIPs are ponzies or at least ponzies for the most part. They can generate some money from their hobbies but it will be just used for their personal use. The most convenient thing for them is that they can start any number of subsequent tomato, fish farming, gambling, silver, sugar, fuel, or whatever business with money from their previous scams (oops, “real” businesses). And they will always find a grateful audience as there will be always some investors who prefer to be fooled by your nice pictures and nice words and be hypnotized by the idea of making risk free money with no effort from thin air.

You may think I’m too harsh and you may prefer not to believe what I say. But this is exactly how things work in this industry. There will be always the admin who will try to mislead you by composing a nice fairy-tale of the real business backed up with the golden opportunities which you simply cannot miss. Then after losing your money you will finally realize I was right but it will be just too late and you will be bankrupt as your money will be divided between the tomato farmers and the referral sharks. But anyone who presents you with an online HYIP that uses anonymous payment processors and tells you it’s a genuine business is either lying through their teeth or just hasn’t got a clue about what they’re talking about or how the real world works. Trust me, you’ll see that I’m right about this eventually.

That’s why I always emphasize the necessity for a potentially successful HYIP investor/ player to treat HYIPs as a form of gambling and only invest what you can afford to lose. Please do not believe in all the stories churned out on a daily basis to deceive you by dozens of HYIP admins and their cheer leaders. Believe me I was in the same position as you when I just started in this business. But the sooner you admit the fact that there is no real income in the HYIP industry, just a redistribution of funds between members, the better. Unfortunately you do need to be bit of a bit cynic in order to survive and possibly make profits in that industry.

I’m aware that it might be pretty tempting to believe such investment stories about growing tomatoes and other stuff. However, at this point you should be smarter than the HYIP admins and that means that you cannot trust any HYIP which will scam you at some point anyway. Tomatoes cannot bring you good crops every year and sometimes even despite of the admin’s genuine best intentions failures will happen. So be ready for that and do not lose your feeling of self-security. Be on the safe side and don’t allow either the admins or their promoters to brainwash you! As you probably noticed I rarely make comments to the interviews submitted by HYIP admins nowadays, because 90% of the information usually posted is either simply not true, too good to be true, or too unverifiable to be considered as the truth. That’s why I liked to deal with such admins like Roger Miller in the past who will be straightforward with you and tell you the truth about HYIP gaming and the risks it contains. It doesn’t make it any easier to accept the losses, but at least nobody lied to you.

I hope you liked my candidness in the first issue of MNO Fridays which will hopefully become an occasional but regular feature on MNO if I receive enough positive feedback. I always positioned myself as a “nothing to hide” and open source of info. Hopefully we can help make the HYIP industry better and fairer than it is now. Please offer your topics for the next discussion of MNO Friday’s on the forum thread here or on my Shoutbox.

DAILY NEWS FROM THE INDUSTRY.

I’m glad to report that at least one programs recently moved to waiting status pleasantly surprised me today. The admin of HOX (reviewed here) did what he promised and paid all the pending withdrawals yesterday, putting them back to Paying status on MNO. I was quite hesitant to move HOX to Paying status straight away because I wanted to make sure that the admin was telling the truth. Well, I received confirmations from a couple of readers today telling me they were paid.

I just noticed that UniteTrade (reviewed here) changed the layout today. I like the new layout better than the old one as it’s more eye-catching, looks more professional, and doesn’t feature any obvious grammar mistakes seen on the old one. UniteTrade is quite unique because it was listed on some monitoring sites for over four months already and considering that it’s a short-term program it can be only considered a great achievement. If you like to take a quick look at the plans they include: 120% after 7 days (for the deposits starting from $5) and 150% after 15 days (for $100 plus deposits). Deposits can be made via four e-currencies: AlertPay, LibertyReserve, PerfectMoney and StrictPay. UniteTrade is still flying under the radar which is quite amazing as I can’t see any bad feedback about them so far. Anyway, I bet with such low-level of participation it might still last for a while but once it takes off it’ll be a hit for sure.

Another good short-term program which though just started is OnlineMDT (reviewed here). I have been successfully paid tonight from my 109% after 3 business days plan and look forward to my payments from the others: 119% after 5 business days and 129% after 7 business days. The program only accepts LibertyReserve, PerfectMoney and StrictPay but the minimum to invest which varies from $5 to $15 will be affordable to anyone. As per the admin’s request I have sent him some questions for the interview which I hope will be published on MNO soon. Stay tuned for that! Below is the latest update from OnlineMDT containing the info about the newly added review on MNO blog:
“Hi to all dear members
This is the third Advertisement update which has been published to announce you, that successfully we have added our project in Money-News-Online
and our review has been set in their blog and we have added our banner
Our Banner: http://www.money-news-online.com/monitor/
Our review: http://money-news-online.com/blog/2010/08/19/18082010-onlinemdt-review-and-daily-news-from-the-industry/
We suggest to read our review and wait for our interview which will be publish soon.
Sorry for bothering you
Thank you
Kind regards.
From: OnlineMDT Advertisement Team
To: All Members. Rabins.”

The admin of 144CashAds (reviewed here) reminds once again that Friday would be the last day of the week when payouts are processed. Although the daily earnings will still be credited to your account on Saturdays and Sundays as usual the withdrawal button will be disabled and will be re-enabled only at the beginning of the next week. 144CashAds is using quite a complicated but rather unique earning model which was thoroughly discussed in my detailed review published here. The admin also mentioned my review in the latest update which you can read below:
“All pay out done and and alert for withdraw before weekend. Because during weekend our cash out button will be close but you can earn daily ROI.
Members can take advantage with promotion to get referral commission.
Welcome all new members. You can study about plans in MNO and other review sites
They explained it nicely. Below the link:
http://money-news-online.com/blog/2010/08/03/02082010-144cashads-review-and-other-news/
Thank you. Lewies
Project admin”.

I have been paid today from the following programs:
FundsOMatic, GlobalTradeManagers, OnyxInvClub, WorldPrivateFunds, ReProFinance, FutureTrails, Flamanta, CashMiner, VividTrade, OilStructure,YesInvestment, EzProfit, CherryShares, GroupUniversal, Forexica, 144CashAds, OnlineMDT, OptimumPride, RedOrchidInvest, YamaFinance, UniteTrade, HOX and AvaInvestment.

I hope you liked today’s post and I wish you all a good weekend ahead. I hope that you will visit my blog again tomorrow for the latest news from this sometimes dangerous but always entertaining industry!