Beware! VascoForex has stopped paying! Do not invest there! 

Hi everyone! I hope the weekends been going well for you all so far, wherever you are and whatever you’ve been doing. It’s been a fairly busy week for me with MNO, and far from over yet as I still have a lot of news to get through for you. I suppose the main thing I wanted to talk about today though is VascoForex, a brand new long term investment program that was just added to my monitor and one I’m quietly optimistic about becoming a popular pick with investors over the coming months, and therefore also becoming quite a profitable one as well.

Before I get into further detail on the program, I think I should point out up-front that VascoForex is a bit more complicated than the average HYIP, maybe even a little overly complicated, though it will definitely be well worth your time to simply pay closer attention. There is quite a lot of reading to be done on this one so I’ll try as best I can to explain it as clearly as I’m able, but it will become clear to the more experienced readers that this program is not run by some amateur and that the tactics and business model being implemented here have proved to by highly efficient and effective when used by some of the most successful programs in the past.

So what better way to begin than by jumping straight into the plans, which in my opinion are really quite appealing. The thing that makes them so difficult to explain is that the rates of interest on offer to account holders is variable and can fluctuate to such a degree that it can be difficult to pinpoint your exact earnings on any given week. That’s not such a bad thing though and in fact it’s a policy that has served several high profile HYIPs very well in recent times. By allowing the ROI to fluctuate from week to week the admin of VascoForex protects the program from having to meet payments that other HYIPs might struggle to meet under certain situations. So the payments will be a more fair reflection of the day to day fortunes of the business and in the long run will only help sustain the program for a longer period.

Out of the eleven plans available, unfortunately I have to say that in my own opinion most of them are really beyond the financial reach of the majority of regular HYIP players, though as time goes by and (if) the program begins to establish themselves then I’m sure a few more serious big spenders will drift in. But not to worry. There is more than enough in the other plans to keep the rest of us happy. VascoForex‘s own explanations are a little tricky but I will try to give you the abridged version.

So first of all, the investment plans are divided into two categories. Six of them run for 200 business days, which is 40 weeks, and the remaining five all run for 250 business days, or 50 weeks. Interest payments are also only made on business days, meaning Monday through Friday.

The first category is called The Aggressive Strategy and the minimum amount you may invest here is $10. Amounts between that and $500 make up what they call the “Start Plan”. Now, I guess you want to know how much you will earn for a deposit here. Well this is the tricky part. VascoForex claims to be involved in the area of foreign currency trading and speculation. The profits generated by how they re-invest your money are variable, but they are divided up between the parties involved, ie you and the admin. Your slice of the profits on any given day will be 40%. Now, 40% of what exactly remains to be seen. VascoForex‘s share will be 60%.

Let’s put it another way. Let’s pretend that your investment has helped VascoForex generate a profit today of $10. Out of that $10, you will get $4.00, and they will get $6.00. Tomorrow’s profit might be more, or it might be less. Whatever it is your share of it will still be 40%. Your payment will be based on the trading results that VascoForex achieves from day to day, which could of course be anything. No matter what else happens though, you are at all times promised a minimum payment of 0.35% interest per business day. One would hope to be getting a bit more than that obviously, but at least you know you’ll be getting something. All trading reports are displayed on the VascoForex website and are free for inspection if you want to get a general idea of their performances up to any given point. Past results are no guarantee of future performances of course but will at least give you some idea of the average payouts made to members so far.

And that’s basically the way VascoForex operates. All plans work in exactly the same way, but the investor’s own slice of these shared, for want of a better word, “communal” profits goes up according to the size of your investment. The actual profit itself does not increase, just your share of it. See the difference? For example in the next plan, called The Start Plus Plan, you may invest anything from $500 to $2,999. Out of the total profit generated from the re-investment of that money your share will be 45% for the duration of 200 business days, and VascoForex‘s will be 55%. So for example if your investment here was to generate a profit of $10 today, you can expect to see $4.50.

There are four more plans in this Aggressive Strategy section, and they all progress up the scale like that until you are investing upwards of $100,000. But like I said, the actual profit remains the same, what increases is how they share it with you. At the end of the term, VascoForex should return your initial principal.

The second category containing the remaining five investment plans is called The Swing Based Strategy. These are longer term plans which as I mentioned run for 250 business days, and while generally speaking are more profitable, they’re also more expensive. The cheapest option for example is called The Starter Plan and will cost you a $500 minimum deposit to join. Just like in the other group of plans, it works along the same premise that VascoForex are trading your principal, and then share the profits with you. We can’t say exactly how much the profit will be on any given day, but the actual percentage of it the admin will pay you will always be the same. In this case for an investment between $500 and $4,999 your share will be 53% (with the VascoForex admin pocketing the rest).

So in this case if we pretend that the admin has managed to successfully use your money to generate a $10 profit, he gives you $5.30 out of that and keeps the remaining $4.70 for himself. Tomorrow’s profit might be more, might be less, but whatever it is you get to keep 53% of it.

And that’s exactly how the remaining four plans work too, only difference being how the profit gets divided. For example, any deposits between $5,000 and $19,999 would fall under The Professional Plan. Again VascoForex trade with your principal for 250 business days, however they will pay you a more generous share of 60% of any profits generated. In the event of no profit being generated on any given day, the members are at all times promised a minimum return of at least 0.35%. Plans continue like that with investments of $130,000 and upwards being accepted. VascoForex will also return the investor’s initial deposit upon expiry of the term.

I’m afraid I cant really offer you anything in the way of practical examples of how much a deposit of any particular size might bring you because as the daily ROI can fluctuate so much, by what could be called a huge margin in terms of long term HYIPs in fact, it’s simply an impossible call to make. Typical returns this week alone have fluctuated by over 4.5% but for the most part been quite healthy.

A couple of other quick points I’d like to make about the plans include the fact that compounding is allowed. I’m no great fan of it myself, but if that’s what you like then it’s there for you. As well as that once you join your principal is locked in for a minimum of 30 days during which it cannot be touched. After that it can only be retrieved upon payment of a hefty 40% fee. However should you stay with the plan and see it out to its conclusion then your principal will be returned free of charge. Accepted payment methods currently include LibertyReserve, PerfectMoney, and bank wires (though I imagine the terms and conditions would be a little different if using that option, so contact the VascoForex admin first to make sure if that’s how you wish to join). As for the online processors, all withdrawals are made instantly. You will still need to log into your VascoForex account and request it, but once you do the money should be transferred to your e-currency account within a matter of seconds.

Hosting is on a dedicated and DDoS protected server, and the website is also SSL encrypted. VascoForex is running off a highly customized script though I wouldn’t say it’s unique exactly as I have seen it (or something almost identical!) used elsewhere in the past. It does seem quite safe however. Customer support is available through a variety of methods, including an e-mail ticketing form that you can fill in and submit. On the other hand you can just write to them directly via the e-mail address provided. Also listed are a postal address in New Zealand and a telephone number. Also mentioned on the contacts page is that members may apply for the position of regional representative. You’ve probably seen this many times before if you are a regular player of long term HYIPs, as many of the bigger ones have gotten their own members to provide support in return for increased referral commissions. Unfortunately I must warn MNO readers against applying for such a position with VascoForex in the strongest possible terms! If you wish to take such a position you are required to submit a scan of your passport and a recent utility bill, and let me tell you now that there is no justifiable reason whatsoever for doing this. Trust me, submit these documents and it won’t end well for you!

There’s quite an interesting story cooked up about the program’s activities and it’s history. But I’m not going to mention it here because aside from being copy/pasted from other sources it’s also full of contradictions. Example – the company was allegedly founded in New Zealand in 1998, then opened an office in the UK in 2005 which is described as it’s first “outside of the USA”. New Zealand is part of the USA now? I must have been asleep the day that happened, lol! Nevermind, it’s all taken from other sources anyway so is not really worth any serious analysis, though as far as online HYIPs go VascoForex does look very well thought out and organized. By not making a solid commitment to pay members a fixed amount that he may well struggle to come up with on a particular day, the admin will do a lot to extend the life of his program and hopefully keep up the payments to members for as long as possible. But at the same time you as an investor must never lose sight of the enormous risk that any participation in this industry carries, so whether you like VascoForex or not it’s always a good idea to keep a wide and diverse portfolio, and an even better idea to set yourself some very strict spending limits that you can afford.

DAILY NEWS FROM THE INDUSTRY

LUCIDNATURE – HIT BY DDOS ATTACKS

As far as I know LucidNature was recently hit by a series of DDoS attacks. The website was inaccessible for the program’s investors for a few hours last night. After contacting the admin Edwyn he told me the attack was ongoing and he was hoping it would be mitigated soon:
“It started this morning with almost 300K PPS DDoS attack. As a result, Staminus has nulled our IP.
We see that the attack is getting slow as more IPs are being blacklisted by them.
I cannot give an exact projections of a time frame but i hope to see LN online in the next 2 to 3 hours.
This is a rough estimate. I am doing everything in my powers to get us back on track.
And this is happening on our 1 month anniversary which is exactly today. I will try to send an update to everyone.
Regards, Edwyn”.

Unfortunately, an update didn’t follow that email but I just received another one telling me that the attacks had been successfully overcome. Shortly after that the site went offline once more but at the time of writing had again successfully returned. I suspect another attack but Edwyn has been silent on that and is not updating the members of LucidNature (reviewed here) about the problem. The payments were processed yesterday but I find it strange that Edwyn hasn’t updated the members via any of the social networking websites which he opened for their convenience and announced in the latest newsletter republished below. I’ll keep you updated if I get more info but at least the site is working fine again now:
“Face-lift and New Banners
This is a short update to inform you that we have added more promotional banners from different sizes. You can find them under ‘Promotional Material’ from the member menu after you login to your account.
We did also a face-lift of our front end. Some minor additions were made in the header and footer, as well as on the main page.
We will be adding a splash page in the coming days, which will further ease the promotional efforts of our members.
Apart from all that, everything is looking good on our end and new members are joining us every day. We get a significant amount of attention and feedback on the monitors and blogs. We will make sure to maintain this momentum for as long as possible.
Don’t forget to join us on our facebook, twitter and google plus pages:
https://www.facebook.com/lucidorganic
https://plus.google.com/104538272987903983292/posts
https://twitter.com/#!/lucidorganic
Thank you for your attention and have a nice day/night,
LucidNature team”.

SENROSGROUP – PAYING INSTANTLY EVEN AFTER DDOS

Another program from MNO’s Premium list that was also hit by a DDoS attack yesterday is SenrosGroup. Despite the short downtime the admin has already announced that his program was back after the attack:
“Ddos-attack
Hello dear investors! Our website was subject to ddos-attack which is now being repelled by our technical department. As you may see, the website is now working fine. Thank you for your attention.”
I must confirm that neither the attack, nor today’s scheduled LibertyReserve downtime was able to stop SenrosGroup from processing payouts instantly to both accepted payment processors – LibertyReserve and PerfectMoney. The full review of the program paying 1.5% for 15 business days, 1.8% for 25 business days, 2.5% for 50 business days with principal returned on expiry can be read here.

PAMMGROUPS – FIRST WITHDRAWALS ON EXPIRY PAID

Last night the first lucky investors managed to get their first profits from PammGroups (reviewed here). The payments had always been processed very fast to both LibertyReserve and PerfectMoney until the program was hit by the scheduled downtime on LR today. There was nothing so extraordinary about that as the payment processor went back online, but unfortunately the automatic payment interface was not working properly which prevented programs with a lot of members like PammGroups from making withdrawals as fast. To the credit of the admin Craig he acted swiftly and sent an update regarding the delays due to the API failure:
“PammGroups News
Hello, thanks for being PammGroups member. I would like to let you know that LibertyReserve website is back after their scheduled maintenance but anyway it still will take some time to process all LibertyReserve pending since their API system is still not working after maintenance and we will have to process all manually. Hopefully they will fix this soon, so we could get back to a normal work.
Best regards, Craig
PammGroups”.

Luckily for investors the issue was solved by LibertyReserve quite fast, allowing PammGroups to resume payouts at the same fast pace on all investment plans – 105%-130% after 1 day, 117%-225% after 3 days, 143%-600% after 7 days, 200%-1250% after 14 days, 350%-2500% after 30 days. Here is the last email from them today celebrating the resumed LR payouts:
“PammGroups Update
I am happy to say that LibertyReserve API system is back and all pending payments are processed. Wish you a great weekend!
Best regards, Craig
PammGroups.”

MONEYHYSTERIA SCAM!

As I expected not all the programs managed to successfully survive after the second LibertyReserve downtime for the last few days. I’m absolutely sure now that MoneyHysteria is paying selectively and I have personally confirmed complaints from some MNO readers whose withdrawals were “processed” without a batch number for payments. I confronted the admin of MoneyHysteria about this but as you can imagine has failed to reply, forcing me to move the program to Problem status on MNO asap. As usually happens, MNO is again the first to move them to Problem status and hopefully prevent others from losing. The game lasted for over two months already and it was just a matter of time before it went south anyway. This was not what amazed me about MoneyHysteria at all however, but rather how much money such admins can actually earn in such a short space of time. So, I was given access to a few accounts and saw some astronomical amounts like $4,000 in one and $11,000 in another. I can’t believe that people invested so much in one HYIP, especially one like this! That is simply unbelievable and honestly, I was shocked! Then it occurred to me that with such huge amounts invested the admin possibly had no choice but to close the program after LR was offline and couldn’t come up with the money to pay on time. Therefore we saw payouts with no batch numbers and complaints about delays. Unfortunately that’s how the HYIP industry works and if there are winners there will always be losers as well. I must say I’m really sorry for those people who lost thousands in MoneyHysteria but I also wish they read my blog in the first place where I was quite clear about the risk. Anyway, since MoneyHysteria is displaying a fake MNO image on their rating page be extremely careful and do not invest a dime in this scam!

WINNINGPROFITS – NEW INVESTMENT PLAN LAUNCHED

The admin of WinningProfits Bruno (interviewed here) announced the launch of a new short term plan today paying 10% daily for 11 days. I would like to remind you that the first two investment plans offered by WinningProfits from the beginning – 5% for 24 days and 120% after 20 days – have not expired yet and the members investing in them are yet to receive their first profits. Then I can see some discrepancies in what the admin is doing to promote his program which according to him he would be advertising slowly until the first cycle is over. First, he lists his program on other monitoring sites, then announces a referral contest with big prizes, and finally today huge growth was announced due to the new plan. The question then arises why he offers so many incentives and a new plan right when the growth is allegedly so high and why this sudden change in the advertising policy outlined by him in the interview was so fast and unexpected. I sincerely hope that Bruno has the best intentions but I honestly can’t understand such sudden changes to a more aggressive campaign even before the first profits are paid. Here is the latest newsletter from WinningProfits (reviewed here):
“Let the party begin at WinningProfits!
What a week we have been having at WinningProfits! I mean that in the best sense of the word. As you know we had a few website issues a day or so ago but we got them resolved and haven’t had any issues since. We were right there to make sure that no one or nothing takes down WP and we did a pretty good job of doing so.
On a much brighter note we have 5 times the amount of new members join yesterday than we had in the previous days! This is a huge accomplishment and it looks as though WP is really starting to pick up speed!
Payments continue to go out fast and support is open 16 hours a day to make sure that your experience with us is as smooth as can be! These factors really put us into an excellent position moving forward and I have no doubts that we will be one of the premier medium term hyips in the next few weeks.
Our first full 20 days cycle will be ending soon and those members who joined on the first day will be reaping the first rewards, with many more to follow.
I’d like to remind all members and non-members about our limited time plan that we launched. This plan pays 10% daily for 11 days for a total roi of 110%. This is a great starter plan for those who want to feel out WP to really experience what we have to offer. Many have taken advantage of this plan already and I’m glad to see that it’s doing so well.
Just as a final reminder, we do have our referral contest going on which can earn you some serious cash. Here is the information for anyone who would like to participate.
This will be a very simple contest where the member who refers the most upgraded members before February 7th will win. We will choose 5 winners and the prizes will be awarded as follows:
1st place – $200, 2nd place – $100, 3rd place – $50, 4th place – $25, 5th place – $15
Remember that everyone who participates is helping to improve the financial stability of WP and will not only be helping other members but themselves as well by ensuring a long and profitable program for everyone.
The winners will be announced by email on February 7th and the winners will be paid to the processor of their choice.
Please continue to support WP by posting your payments on the forums. This helps spread the word and attract new members.
You can always chat with me live on MMG forum by visiting our thread located here – http://www.moneymakergroup.com/Winning-Profits-winning-t396120.html
Let the Party begin! Bruno!”

PAYMENT PROCESSORS NEWS

Today being Saturday there’s less news than usual from the HYIP world, so I’ve decided to bring you the recent updates on your favorite payment processors which you use when investing in HYIPs and form an essential part of the industry.

LIBERTYRESERVE – WALLET REMOVAL AND QUICK PAYMENTS FEATURE

As you might have noticed for the last few days the site of LibertyReserve underwent scheduled maintenance twice. And apparently not just regular maintenance either but some work was done behind the scenes with some new innovations announced on the LR official blog a couple of days ago. Those who use LibertyReserve quite frequently (and it remains the single most popular one in the HYIP industry) can already see that the Wallet option has been removed and the balance which LR users could keep there have been transferred to their main balance. Honestly, I do not know why the Wallet option existed together with main account for such a long time and I can imagine it was not popular among the clients either, so it was a logical decision to remove it completely.

As for Quick Payments, it’s a totally new feature the description of which has been added to the LibertyReserve FAQ:
“Quick Payments
The Quick Payments feature allows you to quickly access a dedicated portion of your funds in Liberty Reserve using a faster login procedure if you wish to pay someone quickly. It is recommended that you set only small limits for your Quick Payments because the security procedures necessary to access Quick Payments are less than the security procedures to access your full account. In order to set limits for Quick Payments, you will need to login to your account, and do it from there. You are not required to initialize Quick Payments, and are free to make payments from your account without using the Quick Payments. This is an optional feature for your convenience.
Once you have funds available for your Quick Payments, paying someone is very easy and quick, with a faster login process.”

I must say I also noticed the new Daily Spendings graph in my LibertyReserve account which shows the exact amount I spent for the day. As for the Quick Payments feature it can be easily enabled from your LR account too. They specified in the latest update that their support will be able to help anytime if you have any questions about the changes:
“In an attempt to provide a better service and even more comfortable interface, LibertyReserve Team has prepared a new feature which will be reflected as a minor system change by the removal of the “Wallet” account and the implementation of the “Quick Payments” feature. While your “Wallet” appeared as a separate auxillary account, the “Quick Payments” feature will better serve as an extension of your Liberty Reserve primary account used to make small transactions without a lengthy confirmation process.
To read about the implementation of our new Quick Payments feature please visit our F.A.Q. section at LibertyReserve.com or read the Quick Payments tab.
Please note that your current balance in your Wallet will be automatically transferred to your main account. This transaction won’t appear on your transactions history, but we assure you when the switch is made your full balance will be credited to your primary account.
As always our Customer Support Team can assist you at any time to answer any and all of your questions.
Thank you for choosing LibertyReserve!
Best wishes, LibertyReserve Team”.

ALERTPAY – PREPAID DEBIT CARDS LAUNCHED

After months of a seemingly hopeless situation with credit card deposits and withdrawals AlertPay finally reached a solution that will satisfy at least some customers. On AP’s official blog it was announced that the first AlertPay PrePaid Debit Cards had been sent to the first 2,500 members who signed up, though that was available for a limited number of countries only. I myself didn’t apply for one but I would like to congratulate those who did and hopefully they will help you manage your money in AlertPay, and if not replace the missing credit cards option at least be more convenient. The announced limit is $5,000 which will be enough for the vast majority of HYIP investors that wish to link the card to their AlertPay account. For more details please read the full update below:
“AlertPay PrePaid Debit Card now available to select members
You asked for it and now you’ve got it! We are proud to announce that the first batch of NEW AlertPay PrePaid Debit Cards was sent to 2,500 select AlertPay members this week.
AlertPay members were given the opportunity to pre-register for the new card, and 2,500 were selected to receive the first batch. The response to the card continues to be very positive: when pre-registration opened on December 26, 2011, over 17,000 members signed up to receive the card. By the time the first batch of cards was available to order this week, over 57,000 members had pre-registered to receive the card.
Those who were not selected to receive the first batch will be kept on the pre-registration list and will be notified as soon as more cards are available- which will be very soon!
About the AlertPay PrePaid Debit Card
For those of you who have not heard the good news, the AlertPay PrePaid Debit Card is a new and exciting payment method, now available to AlertPay members in almost 50 countries. AlertPay members can choose between a USD or a CAD currency card.
Once members receive the card and activate it, they can load up to $5,000 CAD or USD on to the card, directly from their AlertPay E-Wallet and shop anywhere VISA cards are accepted. This new product will allow our members to make online or in-store purchases anywhere in the world without exposing their personal information.
To protect shoppers making in-store purchases, the cards are protected by a PIN code. Before an in-store purchase can be completed, the AlertPay member must enter the PIN code to confirm their identity.
Keep track of your spending
The card is a good budgeting tool because, like a credit card, it tracks all transactions. However, it has the added benefit of being linked to an AlertPay member’s e-wallet. This means an AlertPay member can easily see how funds on the card are being spent, and can control the amount of funds available by simply logging into their AlertPay account.
Want to learn more? Check out the list of countries where the AlertPay PrePaid Card is available and learn about fees and limits.”

SOLIDTRUSTPAY – BANKING DELAYS AND ICE STORM

As for SolidTrustPay which remains the main rival to its Canadian counterpart the deposits and withdrawals via regular credit cards are still available in your STP account, although the internationally accepted STP debit cards are yet to be announced later this year. Recently both withdrawals via Bank wires and Credit cards were slightly delayed due to STP dealing with Australian Technocash whose working schedule is different. Here’s the update posted on the official blog of SolidTrustPay:
“Australian Banking Delays
SolidTrust Pay would like to advise customers of some short term banking delays related to the Australia Day holiday, January 26th 2012.
A number of our transfer options originate from Australian banks. With Australia celebrating the national Australia Day holiday, we will see a 4-Day delay for the following options:
– Credit Card Withdrawals
– Bank Wire Withdrawals
– Direct Deposits for members in Australia & New Zealand
– Bank Wire Deposits processed through Technocash (not Global Collect)
These deposit and withdrawal options will be back to normal service standards Monday, January 30, 2012.
We appreciate your patience and would like to wish all of our Australian customers a happy Australia Day long-weekend!”

The second important update from STP this week concerns a severe weather warning which closed their office on Friday making phone support unavailable. Please note that STP is based in Canada and such incidents might be more frequent in winter than many of you would imagine:
“Ice Storm Warning – OFFICE CLOSED
Due to a severe ice storm in our area, staff at our main office location are unable to get to work today. Therefore phone support is not available.
If you need assistance, you are welcome to submit a support ticket via our HELP CENTRE and it will be attended to as quickly as possible. The Help Centre link is found at the top of every STPay page.”

INTRODUCTION OF CROWNEARNINVESTGROUP

There is new program launched today and was immediately added to MNO’s Premium list called CrownEarnInvestgroup. The program accepts LibertyReserve and PerfectMoney starting from $1 and offers very different investment plans which I will explain in the review tomorrow – 3.2%-7.91% for 21 days, 102% after 1 day, 136%-144% after 14 days. Payouts are processed instantly to both LibertyReserve and PerfectMoney. Despite the similarities between CrownEarnInvestgroup‘s script and GoldCoders the admin Vincent told me it was different, however pretty much the same but very secure. The site is properly SSL-secured and they are protected by BlockDos which is quite a dependable name in the industry and the setup of their server was done today. That is all I can say about the program for now – more tomorrow!

GET PAID REPORT FOR 28/01/2012

Here is the list of the programs I was paid by during the last 24 hours:
From MNO Sticky list: RelaxCapital, WorldwideCapital.
From MNO Premium list: TopsFund, OneInv, EVBusiness, EurexTrade, LuxorAlliance,  IncomeInt,  WinningProfits,  PammGroups, GeniusVenture, FelminaAlliance, ProfitableSunrise, SolidForexLtd, PlexCapital, LucidNature, FACTUnion, SenrosGroup, VascoForex, CrownEarnInvestgroup (the first instant payments received).
From MNO Standard list: ProvidentInv, LifeTimeProfits, PanamaHedgeFund, Profitima.
From MNO Basic list: EtoroGainClub, PerfectLottery, AmbrianInvestment, UFOWin.

That’s all I have for you this Saturday. I hope you found my newsletter useful and if you wish to get them on a daily basis please subscribe by entering your details on the top right hand corner of my blog. And as usual, I hope to see you on MNO tomorrow with more info about the most popular investment programs on the net. So stay tuned and always be on the money with Money-News-Online!