Hello all! Hope your all keeping well after the weekend. To start things off for the new business week I want to do something a little different than the usual cycle of news/reviews articles. Over the years running MNO I have occasionally had the opportunity to interview some people who are crucial to the entire HYIP industry continuing to function, though not actually directly involved with running any programs. I’m talking about forum owners, script writers, programmers, technicians who provide support for hosting providers, payment processors, and so on. Today then I’m really pleased to welcome back an old friend of MNO and someone I’ve been privileged to work and collaborate with for many many years now, which is Andrei, the owner and manager of the popular e-currency exchange service Changer.com.

Long term readers will recognize the name straight away of course, as I’ve interviewed Andrei a couple of times in the past before Changer.com was rebranded and was still under its original monicker of xchanger.org. To be honest though it’s been a long time, too long actually, since we last spoke. It strikes me while looking back over the years how few independently run, owner-managed websites in the HYIP world have managed to survive as long as MNO and still keep their credibility in tact. Andrei and Changer.com is one of the very few, and for that feat alone I congratulate him. Something else I congratulate him for however is for providing one of the most consistently dependable and high quality services anywhere in the HYIP industry.

I felt a new interview was long overdue because as I mentioned Changer.com has recently been completely overhauled and redesigned from its predecessor xchanger.org. I didn’t think the service could really be improved on myself as it was always among the best available, but Andrei has always been a creative and hard working individual who recognizes that change, evolution, and constant improvement are vital for long term success. Standing still is simply not an option. Ever see a business succeed that didn’t change with the times and provide a better level of service, communication, and information than the competition? Of course not, and that’s why, like MNO, Changer.com is still one of the leading exchangers around today when so many others have failed.

I hope this interview is of practical use and interest to all HYIP players, both experienced and those new to the industry, as well as even to admins and pretty much anyone connected with any facet of serving online HYIPs. No matter what your role is in the industry, be it just an investor or otherwise, exchange services are one of the few things that we all need to turn to for one reason or another when doing business. So without further ado, let’s hear from Andrei.

“1. Hi Andrei, for the benefit of any readers who may not know you, please give yourself a brief introduction, and tell us a little bit about yourself and your involvement with Changer.com

Paul, thank you for this opportunity. It’s been quite some time since the last interview. I oversee the day-to-day operations at Changer.com. Some of your readers might remember me from forums like MMG, TalkGold etc. where my username is ‘syber90’, although my activity on forums has slowed down in the past few years.

2. You’ve been working as an online exchange service provider for over six years now. So how much have things changed both for you and the business in general during that time? What have been the high points and low points for you?

Lots have happened in the last six years. High points for us have been the continued growth, purchase of domains like Changer.com, exchanger.com, obmen.com (“exchange” in Russian) + many others, and then the re-brand from xChanger.org to Changer.com in the summer of 2014. Low points, whenever an established e-currency closes down for one reason or another.

3. Keeping in mind that you are speaking mostly to online HYIP players with this interview, please outline the services you offer through Changer.com and what payment processors and e-currencies you are working with.

Changer.com offers instant exchanges between major digital currencies like Perfect Money, OKPAY, Payeer, AdvCash, BTC-e USD codes and major crypto-currencies like BitCoin, LiteCoin, DogeCoin, Dash, PeerCoin + 10 others. The whole list can be seen by going to www.Changer.com

4. You’ve been in the business a long time now, and have outlived a lot of the competition in an already crowded market. What is it do you think makes Changer.com such a superior service provider over all the others?

Being consistent and always striving to improve the product/service.

5. Previously you worked with the likes of SolidTrustPay and then a bit later Payza. I see this is no longer the case. Why not? Is it to do with instant exchanges not being possible there? Or are there other reasons why they can’t be accommodated?

Your assumption is correct. We are concentrating our efforts on irreversible payment solutions since Changer.com is not an instant exchange service.

6. Something else that’s changed since the last time we spoke is the emergence of digital e-currencies on the market, mostly BitCoin of course which everyone knows, but also a few others. How big an impact have these had on your business? Does a significant part of your day-to-day work involve BitCoin, LiteCoin, DogeCoin, etc exchanges yet, and is it growing?

You bet. What we see with BitCoin, LiteCoin and any other crypto-currency is a glimpse into the future of money. We’re still at the early stage, but I’m confident that crypto-currencies will change the way we see money.

7. Of course a lot of my readers will already know very well who you are, given the long term cooperation between MNO and Changer.com that stretches back several years now. So why did you think such a radical shake-up was necessary? As xchanger.org you already had a popular and trusted brand name. Do you think changing what people are already so familiar with can be beneficial?

It was a radical shake-up indeed. Lots of documentation and preparation went into the re-brand process to make the change as smooth as possible. It was definitely a beneficial move. We upgraded to a superior domain name, which is easier to remember, to brand, and brings an amount of instant confidence to a first-time visitor. I challenge you and your visitors to come up with a better domain name than the ones we currently have. I have a few ideas myself, but most likely, those run into the 7-figures, if you were to think about purchasing them.

8. Can you give us a step-by-step guide to opening an account with Changer.com, and then making a first e-currency exchange?

Sure. All processes were reduced to the minimum amount of steps as possible.

To open an account, you just have to complete 3 fields: username, email, password. After clicking the ‘Create my account’ button you are instantly logged into your brand new Changer.com account.

To make an exchange, just (1) select the exchange direction, (2) enter the amount you want to change, (3) click the ‘Exchange’ button.

9. I see you don’t need to be a member to use the services of Changer.com, but what are the benefits of opening an account there? Tell us about the discount system.

The Discount System is the most immediate benefit. Basically, you get a 5% discount on the exchange fees just by signing up and then as your all-time volume grows, your discount level can go up to 25%.

10. “Out exchanges”, that is moving money from an online payment processor to a user’s bank account, was never something you got in to in the past. Why is this, and would you ever consider launching such a service?

Most of the digital currencies already offer such a service + Debit Card programs among other features. Competing with them, you always come in on second place since they have the clear advantage. Nowadays, it’s even easier to cash out any digital currency or crypto-currency. Just exchange your digital currency instantly to BitCoin as there are BitCoin brokers in literally every country offering local bank transfers that take less than a day in most cases. Compare that with international wire transfers that take a few business days to clear, and you’ll understand why in order to compete in this market you need huge resources in order to do it properly.

11. If account holders or just members of the general public need to contact you/your support about anything, what are their options? I see you provide Live Chat support, so please tell us what are the working hours there? Do you ever participate in this yourself or do you have any assistants?

The quickest way to get in touch is through email: support@Changer.com. This isn’t just a simple email inbox as it might look like at first glance. Behind it, it’s a powerful support system, but without the Support Ticket ID for users (GHF-WE879-9283 ???), create an HelpDesk account in order to send a support ticket (???), log into the HelpDesk account to reply to a ticket (???). We simply removed all this unnecessary friction for the user, you open the support ticket from your email, you get the reply there, you can reply there. We already use email everyday, so why not keep everything in there and let the code compile this together behind the scenes ?

The Live Chat hours are Monday – Sunday 05:00 – 21:00 GMT & UTC time. You can get a hold of me as well as I like to participate.

12. Explain in detail how secure is the Changer.com website? Are you on a dedicated server, and who provides it? Do you have an SSL certificate? If people send money to be exchanged, how confident can they be that it won’t be hacked while still in progress?

We are hosted in a DDOS-protected datacenter in Switzerland. All connections to & from Changer.com are done through SSL certificates. In 6+ years we have never had that happen. Since we offer instant exchanges, the user gets in and gets out, so only our reserves are at risk.

13. On the wider subject of online payment processors, it’s no exaggeration to say there’s been some total disasters there in the last few years. Scams like StrictPay and most recently EgoPay, and the owners of LibertyReserve getting arrested with all funds being seized by US federal authorities. Nevertheless Changer.com has survived all of this. Can you tell us:
a) How these events affected you and how you overcame them?
b) If another major payment processor was to close how is your own business protected?

a) Such an event affects everyone. We lost money with all of them. You have no other choice but to continue to offer the same level of quality service and improve upon it. That’s what we did.

b) We balance our reserves as much as possible, so we aren’t over-exposed to any.

14. If members have a knack for online promotional work, does Changer.com have an affiliate program? How much can users earn for bringing in more traffic? How beneficial would you say this has been in the growth and success of your business going back since you started?

That’s another reason to sign up as you have the ability to participate in our Affiliate Program. We have developed an Exchange Widget that you can add to your site and your visitors can place exchanges without leaving your site. You can test it here: https://www.Changer.com/affiliates#widget

The referral commission is 15% of the fees charged.

I would say an Affiliate Program is crucial to any business. It has definitely been so for us and helped us grow tremendously.

15. I’m quite interested in the API section of your website, but to be honest I’m not sure that many “average” customers would fully understand it or even know what it is (including me!). Perhaps you could give us just a simple explanation of what it is, how it works, who might want to use this, etc?

The API is directed mostly at programmers as it’s speaks their language. Let’s take some simple use case scenarios: you sell something for BitCoin on your site, but you want to expand and offer more payment options. With Changer.com API you can accept any e-currency or crypto-currency available on Changer.com, say you can take LiteCoin transactions, Perfect Money transactions etc., and have those instantly exchanged to your BitCoin address. You still only have to handle your BitCoin wallet and Changer.com API does everything else behind the scenes. You can even built an instant exchange service on top of our API.

16. If anyone has proven the importance of permanent change and evolution in continued success for an online business then it has to be you, so well done on that front. But where do you see Changer.com going in the coming years? Do you have any plans for the short and long term future? I asked you already about how things have changed, but would you see the business being radically different in another five to six years?

I see Changer.com involved more and more into the crypto-currency scene. It’s like heading into unexplored land and that’s where the opportunities lay for Changer.com in the short and long term future.

17. For the final question, I just want you to feel free to add in anything else you feel the readers of MNO should know about. Particularly you are invited to address any aspects of Changer.com that I myself might have missed in my own questions. Say as much as you like.

We have just recently integrated 10 more crypto-currencies into our system. We are working on adding even more exchange options (both digital currencies and crypto-currencies), and making the exchange process as quick and smooth as possible, so if you have any suggestions please let us know: support@Changer.com.”

That’s all for today, guys. All that’s left to say is a big thank you to Andrei for taking the time and trouble from what must be a busy schedule to give us the latest updates from Changer.com. Personally I have to say the new site looks absolutely fantastic and I wish him and his customers many many more years of success. Normally I’d say “good luck” at this point, but after dealing with Andrei for this long I know that luck is not much of a substitute for hard work, creativity and innovation, and an impeccable service record. I myself know from personal experience just what it takes to make it to the top in this business and to stay there, so when I see the same quality in websites like Changer.com I can only admire it.

Thanks for reading, everyone. Hope you enjoyed and found it useful. I’ll be back soon with all the latest news and developments from around the HYIP industry, so until then, stay tuned!