Happy Halloween, everyone! To all those celebrating (and admit it, you’re never too old!) I hope you enjoy the holidays and whether it’s just watching horror movies with the grown-ups or trick-or-treating with the kids I hope you have a spooky time! I think the HYIP industry relates to this holiday as much as any other I can think of and unfortunately I have some real horror stories of my own to share with you tonight. It seems there’s a lot more witches on broomsticks flying around the industry than there are honest admins at the moment. But you can be sure that MNO will be exposing such admins and nobody will go unnoticed! And unlike some other websites championing the cause of the program I’m about to warn you about I can tell you that if you contact me with a complaint I won’t suggest you are a liar. I’ll investigate the facts and verify the complaint before giving advice.

Today sees some shocking revelations about UnitrustDirect, considered by some people a good choice. Well, maybe it was a good choice six months ago when they first opened, but every HYIP has its day and UnitrustDirect have had theirs. Anyone who thinks this program is going anywhere but down during the next month either has his head in the clouds or just doesn’t know all that much about the industry. Granted as of today a certain number of people are still getting paid by them, unfortunately it’s a case of selective payments while the admin tries to gather more money. And before the usual barrage of “experts” start flooding my inbox with statements about how they got paid, therefore there can’t possibly be a cash flow problem, let me tell you that I have personally confirmed the fact that payments are not being made to one MNO reader and that the admin has threatened and blackmailed her to not make this public.

Well, it’s hard to understand how UnitrustDirect can blackmail somebody after they have already stopped paying them. I mean what else can they do to her now? They’ve already robbed her, so what’s left? But to start with the most recent threat, check out the following extract from a mail sent by the admin to the investor in question, warning her that she can forget about getting paid now, despite not paying her in the first place anyway!
“LEGAL WARNING: We will not tolerate any abuse and you had enough time to start cooperating with us, thus your account is temporarily on hold unless Paul removes all false allegations published on his site regarding this issue.”

OK, the idea of a “legal” warning from an online ponzi scheme did make me laugh for a few seconds, until I remembered that this is a real person with real money getting scammed here so it’s not really that funny at all. But this is a classic scam tactic, trying to turn the tables on the victim and somehow imply that it is in fact her own fault that she’s not getting paid and that she’s the one responsible for all of this. Hang on, I just started laughing again! Listen, let me make this perfectly clear to anyone defending UnitrustDirect at this point – the problem existed before I reported it. I did not invent the fact that UnitrustDirect are running out of money, nor did I invent the fact that they are refusing to pay to one of my referrals. I am merely telling you about it after it happened.

A more worrying development was when the UnitrustDirect admin informed the investor that she had to submit some personal identification documents in order to get paid, namely a passport and household utility bill. Had I known about this first it would have been strongly against my advice as such things are used in 100% of cases for identity theft in the future and always a major major warning sign. Unfortunately she submitted these documents before I became aware of it and was unable to warn her in time. Nevertheless, despite submitting her ID papers she still didn’t get paid, being informed instead that they would have to be “verified” by the program’s “legal department” (there’s that word again!), a process that can take an indefinite period of time – in other words never!

The following was received by the investor on October 13, demanding documents not required when the admin was more than happy to accept her money without asking too may questions:
“To protect funds available on your account from unauthorized withdrawal the daily withdrawal amount has been limited unless you verify your account. To verify your account please provide us with scanned copies of the following documents: your passport / driver’s license or any other ID with a photo that can be utilized to verify your identity and confirm that you are the account owner; a scan of utility bill with your address. Please send scanned copies to helpdesk@unitrust-direct.com.”

Then following was received by her on October 15, which is incidentally longer than AlertPay and SolidTrustPay take for their verifications:
“Dear XXXXXX,
we have received the documents, your verification request is currently in process. Be sure to receive an update from Legal Department shortly.”

She’s still waiting. And I think she’s gonna be waiting a long long time because the admin told me directly:
“it is impossible to set the exact time-frame”
and then even more bizarrely:
“Her email account has probably been compromised as well”.
What?!?! Her email account has “probably” been compromised? I mean of all the half-witted excuses to avoid paying your members this one deserves some kind of prize! To put it very simply, payment needs to be made to the same LibertyReserve account from which the original investment was made. After that it becomes the investor’s problem, but nothing less is acceptable on the admin’s side.

The most recent threat made by the UnitrustDirect admin – and frankly I would regard this not so much as a threat rather than a confirmation of the fact that they are not going to pay – was received by the investor on October 28:
“Provided that you are spreading false information on our company that may harm our reputation, you leave us no choice rather than completely blocking your account and initiating a legal case.
If you do not contact mr. Abramson to ensure him that you are fully satisfied with a solution offered to you within 24 hours, your account will be suspended to prevent any further illegal action against our company.”

And I think that last line just says it all – tell everybody that there’s no problem or else we steal all your money. Well, true to their word (for once!) they have now suspended the member’s account and have indeed stolen her money. Except of course they’d already stolen it before I was informed of the shameful way this woman was being treated, not afterwards. And I can’t give you a more explicit warning to stay away from this one than the admin’s own admission of the facts outlined above. Six months ago UnitrustDirect was as I said a good HYIP. Now it’s run its course. They all run as long as the admin makes more money than he needs to pay, and that situation is now very clearly coming to an end. Congratulations if you are still getting paid by the program and you all know that you need to keep withdrawing as much as possible to get as close as possible to breaking even or making a profit.

But trust me on this one, I’ve seen it countless times before. Once selective payments start being made it’s only a matter of time before they spread. Just because you are getting paid today doesn’t mean you won’t be affected. You are going to see more and more cases like this one very soon as the admin struggles to come up with smaller and smaller payments. Once they’ve started they’ll get around to your account soon enough. Further investments with UnitrustDirect are not recommended. What you do with this warning is your own business but if you want to save money you’ll listen to it.

DAILY NEWS FROM THE INDUSTRY

As usual over the weekend many HYIPs have collapsed which is no coincidence. Usually people spend less money on HYIPs on Saturday-Sunday but at the same time they never forget to request their withdrawals as every hour delayed reduces their chance to be in profit with any given program. This weekend was no exception as five popular short-term programs collapsed – ProfitsRaise, LargeProfit, SuperHotPay, CommerceWebsite and TopInvesting.

All of those programs were moved to Problem status on MNO over the weekend. ProfitsRaise was a major surprise for me as the program only worked for 6 weeks and in my opinion had probably the best chance to survive the current HYIP industry recession. I was mistaken though as ProfitsRaise‘s admin possibly decided to play some unfair games by selectively paying to AlertPay investors only while LibertyReserve and PerfectMoney payouts were returned to balance (possibly in order for monitors like me unable to verify non-payments). However since I received a few complaints already I cannot stay silent, especially after the refusal of the admin to address them. So ProfitsRaise was moved to Problem status on MNO. Please do not invest there as it’s dangerous for your investments!

Two other programs – LargeProfit and SuperHotPay – issued updates about the new investment plans claiming 200% and 250% after one day. These ridiculous returns are big warning signs and both programs have “scam” written all over them now. Smart investors rightly saw this coming when they read the following email sent just before both programs stopped paying.
Here is the one from LargeProfit:
“Dear partners.
The new investment plan starts today, this is due to excessive amount of money in this quarter. We want to divide it among our investors.
We need to give investors 400 000 $.
New plan: 250% After 1 Day.
The plan will be open until such time as the total does not reach a profit of $ 400 000! After this plan will be closed automatically, and new deposits to the plan will not be accepted.”
And this one was sent from SuperHotPay:
“A feast for all!
Dear Investors, We are working long time! Many of you have multiplied your capital in more than 30 times, and who was only recently joined.
We want to bring gift plan for all investors in our program .
200% After 1 Day!
This plan can be seen when you login in your account. (Deposit make in the same way as always)
Thank you all for your trust in us!”
We can say with almost 100% certainty that those updates were issued by the same admin as a final attempt to get more money before closing. Although I cannot say that the programs were bad – on the contrary, LargeProfit lasted for nearly seven weeks and SuperHotPay was paying for nearly eight weeks – the end for all HYIPs is exactly the same. So, we cannot say we didn’t see it coming. Unfortunately, both programs are proven scams now and despite of its long run we should admit they are scams now. Further investments in both LargeProfit and SuperHotPay are not recommended.

As for TopInvesting and CommerceWebsite they enjoyed a somewhat reduced level of success running for 12 and 2 days respectively. It looks increasingly likely that they were from the same admin responsible for some short-term scams in the past. And if TopInvesting at least ran for several cycles then CommerceWebsite was a really fast scam when nobody was able to make any profit. I’m not sure these closures were somehow connected but the fact they happened in one day makes me believe that it was planned from day one to finish like this. Yesterday both CommerceWebsite and TopInvesting sent payment confirmations to members but no actual payments and no batch number confirming the payouts. Obviously no real payments were made and I believe it was done to further mislead investors careless enough on seeing the fake statuses on some monitors might invest all over again. CommerceWebsite and TopInvesting are proven scams now so please avoid both at all costs. And for future reference if you want to protect yourself from further losses in the future I suggest you take note of the monitors that shamefully display these scams as “paying” and do your best to avoid them too!

Perhaps the most unexpected collapse this weekend was GeniusIncome which suddenly stopped making instant payouts on Saturday. Unfortunately payments still haven’t resumed even in manual mode as of today and it looks to me like the admin of has simply disappeared with all the money. No reply to my emails and simply ignoring what’s happening deserves a Problem Status from me. Please do not invest in GeniusIncome as apparently the program has turned scam!

The admin of NeoProgress (interviewed here) was unusually active this weekend and issued two updates regarding the increased activities of his program. I would say that NeoProgress might also be struggling from the ongoing HYIP crisis as more and more investors are leaving the industry (most just temporarily) and in order to survive the slump he has to attract more people, maintain their interest, and ideally make them spend more.and that’s exactly what he looks to be doing in the latest update with a Chinese version of the NeoProgress website being launched. More languages are planned to follow, and you can see which ones by looking at the top of the main page where some of the national flags are displayed:
“Localization of the NeoProgress website interface – NeoProgress
We started work on the mass localization of NeoProgress website on several languages. At this moment website interface is available on English and Chinese languages.
We are carrying out work on localization for German, Spanish, Indonesian, Indian, Italian, Romanian and Russian.
NeoProgress Client Support Department”.
Also the first weekly Forex trading report was made public and posted on the website. This is done apparently to prove NeoProgress‘ involvement with real money-making which supposedly makes the program more safe to invest. If you ask me such tricks are used by HYIP admins all the time and it doesn’t prove anything but the fact that the admin is playing with your money. But even so the ForEx market is highly unpredictable and making profits on a consistent basis is simply impossible. In the case of NeoProgress paying relatively high returns of 1.5% for 30 business days, 1.8% for 60 business days and 2% for 90 business days with principal returned on expiry doesn’t explain how it can be paid from usually very moderate ForEx profits. Anyway, the program maintains quite a stable level of popularity among members for fast payments and a good choice of e-currencies (LR, PM, STP and AP are all accepted). Hopefully this will help keep them afloat in an increasingly fragmented HYIP industry at the moment. Here is the latest update from NeoProgress (reviewed here) which contains the link to the ForEx charts:
“First NeoProgress weekly Forex trading report published – NeoProgress
 Many of our customers want to see more transparency in working with us. This week we begin a custom publishing weekly reports on forex trading.
This week we bring you the weekly report of one of our new traders, who performed weekly rate of return on the first trading day of the week, in line with our trading strategies and risk management system in such cases, trade can be stopped before the end of the week, when a trader starts to prepare the next trading period.
Click here to download our detailed Forex trading report.
NeoProgress Client Support Department”.

The current #1 program on MNO’s Premium list TopsFund (reviewed here) also tries to get more publicity and apparently the admin finds inspiration in the Investor of the Month contest held by ReProFinance, currently the #2 on MNO which holds the same (though clearly fake) contest. Well, I’m sure that the astronomical $10K monthly bonus which will be credited to the Top investor and Top referral of the month will be about as real as Pamela Anderson’s breasts if you know what I mean. Anyway, these fake bonuses might create some excitement around TopsFund which pays 21% for 5 days, 0.5%-1.5% daily forever, and 1800% after 360 days for four full months already and seems to be getting more popular by the day. Here is the latest update announcing the $10K rewards:
“Top Investor & Top Referral BONUS !
Start from November, we are giving out Top Investor of the Month and Top Referral of the Month BONUS $10000 for each! Top Investor of the Month is count on total invested amount while the Top Referral of the Month is count on total amount of referral commission. First bonus will be paid on 1st December 2011.”

NeoProgress are by no means the only ones adding multilingual versions of their websites by the way. Many low-ROI sites are doing so. For instance, EurexTrade (reviewed here) has added a Russian version which became the second language added, joining the French version which opened a few weeks back. As a Russian speaker myself I can verify that it’s a proper professional translation and I believe that it might attract more members from Russian-speaking countries who are apparently the driving force of the industry according to some sources. Anyway, I believe EurexTrade surely deserves more attention as being very flexible to both the investors and the program’s admin (read my interview with him here). Obviously this flexibility when the program pays variable daily returns of up to 2.9% on every business days and returning principal on request are making it such a long-running success story for over eight months already. Another factor contributing to this is definitely the instantly processed withdrawals to both LibertyReserve and PerfectMoney which has been stable as clockwork since the beginning. I hope that EurexTrade will be able to survive the crisis and continue paying for many more months to come. Here is the latest from the program:
“Russian Localization Has Been Added
Dear Investors! Starting from today you can view Russian localization of our website which is available at http://ru.eurextrade.com
Thank you for choosing us!
Every customer is important to us.
If you have found any errors and mistakes in translation please kindly contact us.”

when it comes to different language versions of the HYIPs listed on MNO the undoubted leader is definitely HyperCompound (reviewed here). The site is currently available in 11 languages as today Indonesian was added. Such dedication to international members’ support definitely pays off, otherwise the admin of HyperCompound (interviewed here) would not be doing it. More languages means more clients from all around the world and the admin must be aware of this. So far, HyperCompound has always been a good performer, paying instantly to LibertyReserve and PerfectMoney and has reached the #4 position on MNO after just four months online. The program pays 1.5%-3% + bonus interest for 100 business days and returns your principal on expiry, with the first principal returns expected within the next couple of weeks. I’ll let you know when that happens on MNO in due course. Here is the latest short update posted on HyperCompound‘s website:
“HyperCompound website is now available in Indonesian
We are pleased to announce that our website is now available in Indonesian! More languages will be available soon.”

I would like to list the programs that remain on Paying status with MNO which paid me over the weekend:
SapaInv, ReProFinance, RapyWealth, KistFunds, HyperCompound, OnlineInvestmentBank, SingInvest, NeoProgress, TopsFund, FelminaAlliance, BrantonsGroup, OneInv, WorldwideCapital, EurexTrade, BonusPayMe, PokerProfits, AudivaTraders, BaseBucks, StableProfit, TradeQ, EliteGain and VirtualPayments (the first payments received).

The newest program added to my Premium list just last night is called VirtualPayments. The design of their website strangely resembles the one AlertPay used to have but I don’t think there’s any involvement with payment processors despite the program’s name. Please treat it as any other HYIP to avoid disappointment. I hope to review VirtualPayments on my blog by tomorrow. For now I would just like to say that the program is running off a licensed GoldCoders script, is hosted on a dedicated server with Koddos protection, and the site is fully SSL-secured. VirtualPayments accepts only LibertyReserve and PerfectMoney starting from $7 and depending on the amount deposited you can get from 3.7% to 5.7% daily returns for a duration of 90 calendar days after which your original principal will be returned. The withdrawals are promised to be done either instantly or at least within 5 hours. I myself was unlucky because my own withdrawals from VirtualPayments were not instant but I have to say that they were within the promised time frame so no real reason for complaint either. More on that read on MNO tomorrow together with regular daily news from the HYIP industry! See you then, guys!