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

Hello everyone! Another slow enough day for HYIP related news stories but that’s normal for Sunday. And the fact that there hasn’t been any obvious problems as we often see at weekends is encouraging for the coming business week too. I’ll get to the only updates I do have for you in the news section in a few moments, but first I want to start with a closer look at a recently launched HYI program called BerkeleyFinanceGroup that started earlier in the week, upgrading from Basic to Standard Listing on the MNO monitor after a couple of days online.

As with so many of the short term HYIPs we’ve seen recently, BerkeleyFinanceGroup also just have the one basic investment plan with a couple of variations according to how much you are looking to spend. In other words the more you gamble the higher the interest rate they try to tempt you with, but the rest of the features remain the same. So, you can join BerkeleyFinanceGroup with a minimum deposit of $10, and the investment term runs for 20 calendar days. For anything up to a value of $25, making this really more of a “test plan” for most of you, you can expect a daily payment of 7% interest. Your initial deposit is counted as part of the payments so when your final return adds up to 140%, that’s your own money back plus 40% net profit.

The (slightly) bigger spenders prepared to spend from a minimum $26 up to a $200 maximum can expect an improved return of 7.5% per day for 20 calendar days. BerkeleyFinanceGroup are counting your principal as part of that, so the final return of this time of 150% is your money plus 50% net profit.

Anyone joining BerkeleyFinanceGroup with a deposit from $201 up to $1,000 are being offered a daily interest rate of 8%, again for 20 calendar days. Your final return of 160% counts your initial principal among it, so it’s 60% net profit.

And lastly for the really big spenders going in with $1,001 or more (the official maximum is $50,000, but as far as most investors are concerned that may as well be infinite) then the daily return goes up to 8.5% for the same term of 20 calendar days. BerkeleyFinanceGroup are still factoring the members deposits into the payments, so the final earning of 170% includes both your own money plus a 70% net profit.

So if you like the plans and think they might be worth taking a chance on then you’ll probably like the payment options as well. BerkeleyFinanceGroup have all the popular industry providers there such as SolidTrustPay, EgoPay, PerfectMoney, and LibertyReserve. Aside from that the lesser known PexPay has also found its way on to the list. Payouts to members are made manually by the BerkeleyFinanceGroup admin and so will need to be requested from inside your private members account area. Once done you should expect to see your withdrawal fully processed within 12 hours according to the program’s own terms and conditions.

As far as the security and design features go, BerkeleyFinanceGroup are hosted on a dedicated server with the support of Koddos. The website is running off a script under license from GoldCoders and is also using an SSL connection. For any further questions for the admin or account related issues then BerkeleyFinanceGroup can be reached by filling in your details on the online support form and submitting it. The website comes with a built-in Live Chat feature if you want to get your questions answered in real time, however there is no information regarding when or if you can find an operator there or what time the service is available. You’ll also see a postal address in the US which is unlikely to be genuine given the legality of HYIPs there (not that many jurisdictions are exactly welcoming you understand, the US are just quicker than most to act on it if discovered there). A phone number is listed and described as “being activated soon”, though I don’t quite understand how you can be in possession of the number without it being active right now. Anyway, feel free to try your luck with it if you think someone’s going to answer. Users of social networking sites will find BerkeleyFinanceGroup listed on Facebook and Twitter, though there’s been no real activity on either profile to speak of.

The alleged business activities supporting the whole project is nothing memorable. I mean not to single BerkeleyFinanceGroup out from any other online HYIP, and I do tend to be cynical for all of these things, but in this case it’s nothing you haven’t heard a million times before. So if you must know the business is supposedly ForEx trading, though of course there’s nothing to prove it and not a shred of evidence you can research for yourselves. So as always one of the most important lessons for those new on online HYIPs and an essential one to learn as early as possible is to always set yourself a spending limit that you can comfortably afford to lose, and if joining BerkeleyFinanceGroup at all then try and keep them as a smaller part of a wider more diverse portfolio.

DAILY NEWS FROM THE INDUSTRY

MNO TALKBACK – POLL RESULTS AND NEW POLL ADDED

It’s time now to announce the results of last week’s poll as well as put forward a new question for my readers posted on the MNO TalkBack page. So the previous question asked was: “How big is an average deposit for you in an online HYIP?” It was aimed at finding out on how large scale the investors could play with HYIPs and see if there are still as many heavy-hitters around the industry as there used to be.

As I expected the most popular answer was up to $100 which about 51% of participants opted for. It’s quite typical for two reasons, firstly because many investors don’t have so much money to gamble with but also because they use a very important and smart strategy of diversification which could be very fruitful at times.

The second most popular answer was “from $100 to $500” as chosen by 27% of readers. That’s the second tier of investors in terms of spending power, and who are capable of making or breaking a program because it’s their deposits the admins are usually fighting for. These people make up the backbone of many of high quality HYIPs though tend to be largely absent from the lower quality ones.

16% of voters took the third option, investing from $500 to $2,000 in most programs they join. I believe most of these investors are more experienced than average and can identify and join the potential hits quickly and possibly before the rest of the HYIP world knows about it. I think, or at least I like to think, that they usually know what they’re doing.

Finally, just a handful (about 6% of my readers) are heavy-hitters that are spending a $2,000 deposit or more in the programs they join. Such deposits can by themselves be dangerous for some new programs where admins intend to run a fast scam and close after on receipt of the first big deposit. However, if a project is already established enough and is running for weeks (for a short-term program) or months (for a longer term project) such members could actually save the existing members by providing the admin with the cash to continue and possibly reach the levels they initially aimed for. Well, I doubt very much that anyone with that kind of spare cash needs to earn money and are probably just playing the HYIP industry for the thrill and the gamble.

By the way, this might pose a good question for next week’s MNO TalkBack poll, so what do you think of this:
What is HYIP investing for you mostly?

The possible options are
1. My main source of income. Choose this if online HYIPs is either a full time occupation or at least your biggest single source of income. I know very few people who actually succeed in this on a long-term basis, but if you’re one of them then please tick this box.

2. A way to earn a little extra money and supplement my income. This is for anyone who sees HYIPs as a good supplement to their main occupation, and trying to improve their current financial situation or just boost their personal savings for a rainy day. I’m guessing most of you would choose this option, but let’s see what happens when the results are counted.

3. Just for the fun of it, a type of gambling. Not exactly worried about the actual winning and losing of the money itself, voters here are financially independent and can afford to play with their disposable income. Win or lose or break even with big money, or just enjoy the game with small amounts along the way, it’s just a hobby to you.

I hope you find this new question interesting and I sincerely hope you participate in the survey on MNO TalkBack before it closes next week.

SUN7LIFE – ASKING FOR ID AFTER SCAMMING

Although Sun7Life was never mentioned on MNO due to it only being on Basic Listing, I can’t possibly ignore today’s email from the admin sent after the program was exposed as a Scam. Obviously the admin is not going to return anyone’s money, but he will take the opportunity to steal the personal data of investors for use in identity theft and other criminal activity he may think of. An email was sent today asking you to give him things like a government issued ID and a phone bill. I would strongly advise against this. A scammer can do all types of stuff with genuine documents and you might be in a lot of trouble by sending them. Criminal fraud will be carried out under your identity, and you are the one who might have to explain it to the authorities even though you knew nothing of it. The level of English is appalling by the way, so I hope that helps more of you to flag it as spam and delete it immediately. Sun7Life has been moved to Scam status on MNO, so please avoid any further dealings with them!

GET PAID REPORT FOR 27/01/2013

Here is the list of the programs from my monitor that paid me for the last 24 hours:
From MNO Sticky list: ProForexUnion, MGProfit, OilOfAsia.
From MNO Premium list: ProfitableSunrise, EurexTrade, FelminaAlliance, StallionGold, TureProfit, 4FXInvestment, BensonUnion, 40Daily, AIOFinance, VisitAd, VFinance, Black&WhiteFund (the first payment received).
From MNO Standard list: AirCargoXpress, InstantlyPay, TradExFund, BerkeleyFinanceGroup.
From MNO Basic list: PerfectForex, InvestmentCapital, Fxen, MainaLimited, Finance7, Money&Credit, TheInvestmentBank, FinanciaLtd.

That’s all for tonight, guys. See you all on MNO tomorrow with a detailed review of VFinance and the all the usual news and updates from the HYIP industry!