04/03/2011. Escaliva Scam and Daily News from the Industry

Hi guys! The only blog providing you with the most up to date news from the HYIP industry is Money-News-Online and today being no exception I have a lot of information on the current state of things and the latest events.

It looks like the scammers are practically running wild today, and the latest scam is Escaliva. Yes, just two days ago the admin of the program Leonard was on the MNO Live Chat and was enthusiastically greeted by many members. He promised to exceed our expectations and pay instantly always and for any amounts. And look what we have today! The payouts are going to pending status and according to the latest stats the only ones getting paid are some monitors, shamelessly displaying Paying status. The program is only completing selective payouts, a fact that has been independently verified by me, thanks to my readers.

Not only has Escaliva collapsed suddenly but it appears that the admin of it is a shameless scammer who is trying to do the same thing with his members’ accounts that CarInvestment‘s admin did a couple of days ago (as reported on my blog last night). I wonder how many more gullible investors left out there who don’t read MNO and are about to do anything in the mistaken belief that they might receive their pending cashouts, including changing the API in their LibertyReserve account and getting their money stolen and their account emptied in no time. The email I received from one reader last last night was so blatantly cynical and had “scam” written all over it that I couldn’t believe that he really received it from Leonard and tried to contact him first for an explanation. Anyway, just read this email and find differences between Escaliva‘s one and that one that was sent by CarInvestment featured on MNO yesterday (the version is censored for your security as well):
“We have recently noticed that our Liberty Reserve account might have been blocked by your account, Uxxxxxxx. We are not sure what have caused this, either that this blockage is automatic or manual, it may hindered our payment on your account – you might not receive our withdrawals instantly or we might not be able to send payments to your account at all. To solve this issue, you should add use to whitelist by adding our account to your Liberty Reserve API by following these steps:
1. Log into your Liberty Reserve account (the same account you use on your Escaliva account).
2. On top of the page, click on the link Merchant Tools.
3. Click on Create new API.
4. Fill in the form as follows:
4.1 API name: xxxxxx
4.2 Security Word: xxxxxxx
4.3 Check the box Enabled
4.4 Check the box Transfer and Balance
5. Enter your master key and save changes.
6. Reply back to this email with your Escaliva username to let us know that you have added us to whitelist. We will test by sending you a test payment of $1 directly to your account to confirm that our payment to your account has successfully been resolved.
Sorry for any inconvenience, and thank you for your cooperation.
Best Regards, Leonard Coffman”.

So, after contacting Leonard I received quite a fast reply from him explaining that he had nothing to do with this story and that somebody else is probably involved which he intends to find out in his further investigation. Here was his reply sent to me:
“Dear Paul,
I would like to say that I am not the one who composed that email. However, the emails seems to be coming from us and we are investigating on who could have compromised our email account. Please advise your client/downline not to change any information on his/her Liberty Reserve account. I will keep you informed.
Best Regards, Leonard Coffman”.

Sounds reasonable, eh? Well, it did fto me, because I know many examples where the database of programs got hacked or such information was simply sent to some list of members which might be done by a competing admin. But it looks like it was not the case here, because Escaliva‘s gmail address was used and because the program has stopped instant payouts today. In addition, I received similar emails today complaining about the Leonard’s attempt to fool them by stealing money from their LR accounts by getting them to change the API. So there was no coincidence in that.

After I verified that one reader had not been paid instantly this time I moved Escaliva to Problem status on MNO immediately and put a warning about it before the review and interview and in my Shoutbox. I think it’s essential for every investor to know first from MNO that the program has some issues which will protect any others from losing money.

Unfortunately with the example of Leonard we can see that we dealt with a very sophisticated and shrewd admin who probably planned the course of Escaliva’s lifecycle for stages. He started with a decent small website only accepting LibertyReserve for the time being which gave stable growth of new investors who enjoyed profits for over 7 cycles, having the possibility to multiply their money many times. Then, approximately a week ago a bigger advertising campaign began accompanied with the addition of AlertPay deposits and holding an interview and Live chat session on MNO which definitely attracted many new members thinking that Escaliva would be the next big thing. Finally we had the addition of the new plan yesterday and the sudden emails demanding you change your API in order to receive your pending withdrawals. The lifecycle of Escaliva has gone full circle and the program is over now.

All we can see now is an agonizing program which is paying a bunch of monitors who in exchange will gladly display a Paying status for Escaliva for the next few days therefore attracting some new suckers into an already not paying scam. The admin is happy for getting all this money and pleased with his own efforts due to which Escaliva managed to run successfully for 55 days.

Just think about it – Escaliva has run for 55 days but was not noticed at the beginning by the majority of HYIP players. If you could recognize a potential hit from their very modest beginnings you could make a lot of money by simply reinvesting your profits over and over for 7 successful cycles. This again shows a very important principle in HYIP industry – there are very few successful players who can spot the really good ones from the very start. But when it’s running full force it might be too late to profit from it. On the other hand, some programs that are considered future hits can collapse too quickly leaving those brave enough to take a chance on them from day one with empty wallets.

This is where you find the great unpredictability of the industry, bringing tragedy for some investors who lose their money and joy for the others thrilled to get some quick profits. But at all times HYIPs are unpredictable and will never give you stable results. It’s simply impossible to make a consistent profit from them all the time, and even the most experienced are never insured from mistakes that can cost them much if they don’t follow two important principles – not to get greedy and not to put the money in any one program that you can’t afford to lose. With all the disadvantages of proper diversification this is still the best invention to limit potential losses and keep you going for longer time in this game.

Who could believe that EasyCashFund would become a fast scam after the great marketing efforts the admin made since its introduction to investors? But it looks that today for some reason the DNS of the program was redirecting to another website, so the members couldn’t access it at all. It looks like my request to explain this from the admin Denise caught her totally unaware of the current situation and she stopped replying to my emails for several hours which made me move them to Waiting status on MNO. At the moment the site of EasyCashFund is online but access to it is still intermittent and the withdrawals are not processed instantly anymore. I can see that the update was published already announcing MNO review of the program which was published last night but at the moment I cannot recommend any future deposits in the program while the issue remains unfixed. The worst thing is the total silence on the admin’s part and ignoring all my requests which cannot be taken lightly. So I had to move EasyCashFund to Problem status on MNO where it will stay until the site is back to normal. Here is the latest update which I was able to find on the website:
“Money News Online Review Now Published
As promised, today our site has been reviewed by Money News Online and the official review can be reviewed at the link below. Our program will continue to grow and reach new heights each day. It is our motive to provide our investors with the most honest current news and updates about the status of EasyCashFund as possible.
http://money-news-online.com/blog/2011/03/04/03032011-easycashfund-review-and-daily-news-from-the-industry/
If you have any questions directly for admin, please contact us through live chat and we can answer any question at any time.
Regards, Denise – EasyCashFund”.

I have received a provisional agreement from the admin of MidasGoldFund Warren (interviewed here) about holding a Live Chat session on MNO next Wednesday. I will keep you updated on this but meanwhile I would ask to read the latest press-release from the program where the admin talks about the level of growth which has allegedly much improved since the first payouts on expiry from 1.7%-2.7% for 30 days plan and some business activities conducted by the company during the weeks that passed since the last press-release was issued. Here is the latest news from MidasGoldFund (reviewed here):
“MidasGoldFund announces spike in new membership over the last 48 hours as MidasGoldFund investors complete first public investment cycle. MidasGoldFund now stands at over 1700 active investors. Warren Lincoln, President of MidasGoldFund, commented on the state of membership, “It is exciting for my team and I to see our first public investors complete their first investment cycle with us. It is great to see that with our first investors completing their first cycle, it has encouraged many new members to join us; many being associates and colleagues of our first public investors.”
MidasGoldFund conducts trading within the entire sphere of hard asset commodity trading. Part of the MidasGoldFund team manages private investors who are interested in acquiring physical gold. MidasGoldFund has concluded on a physical delivery contract to a private investor in the amount of 250oz of physical gold bullion. Investor funding allows for the expansion of MidasGoldFund gold bullion storage. With the expansion of MidasGoldFund physical gold storage, it allows for the increase in physical gold brokering to individuals seeking gold bullion for investment. Warren Lincoln comments on this development, “One of my initial goals in creating MidasGoldFund as a company open to public investment was to allow us to purchase and store more physical gold acquired through MidasGoldFund contacts. Public investment gives MidasGoldFund more liquidity to use contacts we have developed to purchase and store physical gold bullion, and create a growing revenue source for our investors.”
MidasGoldFund is a privately held global investment company dealing in the life cycle of gold. MidasGoldFund accepts public investment and pays on a 30 calendar day investment term with daily interest rates varying from 1.7% to 2.7% daily. MidasGoldFund enables investment globally by accepting e-currencies, Liberty Reserve, Perfect Money, and Alert Pay.
MidasGoldFund”.

The admin of InvestPlatforms (reviewed here) informed members that the recent issues with their support emails had been successfully solved and that everybody can contact them via the contact form on the website again. Here is the news from InvestPlatforms:
“Support mail is back up and running
Dear Investors,
Our support mail issue has been solved. You may now log in and send your queries to support@investplatforms.com once again.
Sorry for the interruption and inconveniences.
We are working hard to tie down every loose ends at the moment.
Best Regards, Sandy Lam”.

As you might know, the last two weeks were especially hard on InvestPlatforms who faced some really tough challenges with the script and communication and was put to Problem status on many monitoring sites, including mine. I must say that the Problem status for InvestPlatforms was set by me not for the first time, but to the admin’s credit it’s also not the first time when they proved me wrong and returned to Paying status again and again. Such consistency and dedication in recovering from their set-backs shouldn’t go unnoticed by many investors or monitoring sites, though I’m sure we would all prefer if InvestPlatforms worked without any interruptions at all. But the HYIP world is rarely an easy place for either investors or admins. That’s why they probably appreciate the support from the few members who got behind them and kept supporting them against all odds. So the recent decision by the admin to express his gratitude to such members by giving them priority status will involve the privileges listed in the recent newsletter posted on the website of InvestPlatforms which is still paying 1.2%-2% daily variable returns for 120 calendar days with interest credited on business days only:
“Assistance required from current members
Dear Investors,
Our board has decided that throughout this period of system errors and script errors, there were couple of members whom had painstakingly support our company reputation on forums and monitors and this gesture has brought much comfort to our staff whom put in much effort over the past weeks while trying hard to maintain our pride and honor through the ordeals.
At last, it has been solved 90% and there are still some minor issues that might be evident. Please bear with us and please remember to send in your questions to support@investplatforms.com and our support staff will assist you as soon as they can.
Meanwhile, for the members whom post their payments proofs on forums, there WILL be GIVEN priority queue status as their gesture brings high moral and appreciations to our staff members and in doing so, our board regards these individuals as a part of our very own.
Members are given priority queue statuses based on their activity on forums and monitors and for those whom decide to op-out from this queue system will just enter into our normal payment system (withdrawals between 12hours – 72 hours as stated in TOS).
We hope to harness the support of our very own IP community and allow our presence online to regain our former glory.
We wish everyone a fruitful weekend and a prosperous one!
John Rona (GM InvestPlatforms)”.

I have been paid today by the following programs:
EliteAlliance, ExtraIncome, ForexTradingTeam, FirstMonetaryFund, GorgonProjectInvest, ImperialFund, DenXon, WallStreetCompany, GainBucks, ViscoCorp, OilCapital, SilverDigger, FondosMayores, Agromatica, AssetManagement, MidasGoldFund, CorpBayGroup, FutureTrails and GreenBackShares.

Please note that we’re having an emergency Live Chat session with the admin of GreenBackShares Jeremy on MNO Chat room tonight. I’m publishing this update before the chat starts at 20:00 GMT (London time) tonight and I hope to see all the investors there who would like to hear the latest news and updates from them. According to the latest report from Jeremy received just a few hours ago the worst is over and GreenBackShares is looking forward to the future with a totally renewed site. Manual payouts as dividends on the shares purchased on the investment plans offered by the program (1%-1.8% daily for 150 business days, 5.5%-9.5% weekly for 30 weeks, and 12%-20% bi-weekly for 15 cycles) are scheduled to start tonight to AP, STP and PM processors while LR payouts will start later next week when the admin’s LR account is newly replenished. Here is the latest news for the members of GreenBackShares (if you can’t make it to the Live chat on time you will be able to read the full chat transcript on MNO Forum thread here):
“Dear Members,
Jeremy here. I have no doubt that you are all aware of what’s been going on with GreenBackShares.
I wanted to let you know that we are slowly getting everything back on track. We will get our database running again today and we will start issuing manual AP, STP and PM payments.
I know the vast majority of our members have invested through Liberty Reserve. Sorry to keep you waiting for a little while longer, but we will resume LR payments no later than Monday of Tuesday.
In the meantime, I would like to announce that I will be joining the Money News Online chatroom again this evening, at 20:00 GMT, to answer all questions and describe our situation and future plans in detail.
Rest assured, the worst is behind us. All threats have been dealt with and from now on we will focus on rebuilding GreenBackShares and getting back on track as fast as possible.
Thank you for all your support,
Yours Sincerely, Jeremy Bates,
GreenBackShares”.

Incidentally, I would also like to point out that I was paid in full today by Jeremy to my AlertPay account. I have also received confirmation from several other readers that they do were paid, so it seems the recovery is on in earnest!

Then just a little earlier Jeremy expanded on that with another short update informing his members that the GreenBackShares website was back online and reminding us once more of the situation with LR withdrawals.
“You are invited to our website to proceed with your request for the pending funds.
Your request will be processed manually, afterward.
All Liberty Reserve withdrawal requests will begin to be processed on Monday or Tuesday, right after our Liberty Reserve order gets filled.
For the moment, registration is suspended, but will resume again once we finish transitioning to the new website engine.”

That’s all for tonight, guys. I hope you enjoy your weekend and I hope to see you on MNO very soon. See you soon!