07/01/2010. StanbicArbitrage Review and Other News

BEWARE! THIS PROGRAM HAS STOPPED PAYING! PLEASE DO NOT INVEST!

Hi everybody! Before I get into this evening’s review let me extend my greetings to all the MNO readers from Russia, Ukraine, and other countries celebrating Christmas tonight. Maybe some non European readers think we love a party so much we just decider to throw another one, but I am of course referring to the traditional Orthodox Christmas celebrated by so many.

Unfortunately in recent years it’s slowly become just another working day for me. So enjoy the day if it is a holiday for you, but meanwhile it’s back to business for MNO. And tonight I want to talk about a recently launched program, though not exactly a new one, called StanbicArbitrage. I’m guessing that the name is telling you a lot here, especially if you’ve not heard of them before. They are a long term online HYIP with claims to be involved with surebets. Gambling on sports events at loaded odds that mean you can’t lose no matter what the score. Well, arbitrage betting seems to be the new ForEx in the HYIP industry with every second new program claiming some involvement with it. And StanbicArbitrage is the latest of these.

There is only one plan available from StanbicArbitrage which seems to be another growing trend from new admins. In this case they are once again using the popular “no expiry” model so if you join StanbicArbitrage then that’s it. You will stay a member for the duration of the program’s lifespan however you will have the opportunity to withdraw your principal. You are free to leave but only after a ten week lock-in period. In return for a minimum deposit of $20 you are offered a weekly interest payment of 10%, paid every week for as long as the program runs. The maximum deposit is $20,000.

The list of payment processors is the usual standard for online HYIPs of this quality. LibertyReserve, PerfectMoney, and StrictPay are the only ones accepted and I would expect it to stay this way. You are requested to allow up to 48 hours for your withdrawal request to be processed, though in reality they are a lot faster than that. When StanbicArbitrage first started trading about ten days ago they were also using AlertPay. AlertPay however have since suspended their verified status and put them back to “pending” status while they wait for the StanbicArbitrage admin to provide them with satisfactory documents proving his identity. The fact that the admin has already told his members that they should just go ahead and contact AlertPay and ask for a refund would imply that he won’t be able to do this. The AlertPay banner still appears on the site and has yet to be removed, so don’t be confused by that.

One very important feature about StanbicArbitrage that you need to know about before joining, and one that I am disappointed to say does not appear to be adequately explained anywhere by the admin, is the transaction fees. I know I certainly wasn’t aware of any fees until after I had joined and still can’t find any information as to the nature of these fees. First of all when it comes to joining you will first be asked to fund your account wallet from your e-currency account. This will cost you a flat fee of $1 plus 1% of the transaction amount. So for instance if you wish to deposit the minimum $20 you will actually pay $21.20. $20 to your account, $1 flat fee, plus 1% of $20 ($0.20). Likewise a $100 deposit will cost you $102, though you’ll still only see the $100 in your account.

The same fees apply to making withdrawals. You will be charged a flat withdrawal fee of $1 regardless of the size of your request, then another 1% of the value. Again there is no mention of this on the FAQ page and nothing that I can see anywhere on the StanbicArbitrage website informing me of it.

BlackLotus are the hosting provider. They are still a highly capable service provider and they have StanbicArbitrage on a dedicated server with protection from DDoS attacks.

The script is licensed from Neversay and though also a respected service provider this particular version has never impressed me much. For a start it’s incompatible with certain web browsers. And while I hate to keep repeating that every time I see this script in use the fact is that it has never been properly addressed. Aside from that it’s also just an unnecessarily complicated process to get registered and to withdraw. SSL encryption is not available.

Something that is quite welcome is the site of Live Chat support so you can get your questions answered in real time when an operator is available. It’s not a 24 hour service and there is no published timetable as to when this service is available so best to consult with the admin about that first. You may also use the more traditional method to contact the admin through the online support ticket submission form.

On the business side of things StanbicArbitrage claim to be involved in the latest craze among online HYIP admins which is arbitrage sports gambling. Let me get straight to the point here and say frankly I doubt very much this to be the case. The texts are a straight copy/paste from another website and honestly, if you are not capable of at least explaining (nevermind proving) your own business in your own words then I don’t see how you could be involved in it. Plus the fact that the one and only practical example of a successful arbitrage bet you will find on the website is that of a tennis match played a number of years ago. An odd choice for a program running less than two weeks! How about a couple of more up to date examples, like from the last two or three days? StanbicArbitrage also say they are a legally registered company. No proof is offered but given the ease with which one can register a company name these days (see here) I wouldn’t attach too much importance to it. One thing that I strongly suggest you ignore however is the line “Our investors receive a 100% guarantee from the protection of their funds.” Why? Because you do not receive a 100% guarantee of anything.

All in all StanbicArbitrage is a typical HYIP game and nothing too serious. Take a chance if you enjoy things like this and treat it as a gamble. Just not an arbitrage gamble, as the only guaranteed winner here will be the admin.

OTHER NEWS FOR TODAY.

Apparently the admin of StanbicArbitrage (reviewed above) wasn’t aware that the review on MNO had already been published when he was sending the newsletter to the members of his program. Otherwise he would have probably given the link to the review in his newsletter. Well, anyway, the most important matter is the AlertPay issue which won’t be resolved for sure so the admin asked members to request a refund by themselves. Therefore from now on only three payment processors are accepted by StanbicArbitrage. In addition there was some deposit and withdrawal fees introduced recently which I described in my review and which have never mentioned neither anywhere on the site nor in the latest update from StanbicArbitrage which you can read below:
“We are writing to simple to give you an update on the status of our program! Our program was launched on the 28th of December 2009 and has been growing steadily well. We wish to use this opportunity to thank all our members for your continuous support in our program. Our first batch of weekly cashout has been processed and all referral commission has been promptly paid. We will be striving to be one of the best programs to provide you a safe place for your investment needs as well as helping you financially.
Our program will soon be reviewed by money-news-online.com shortly together with other major online investment blogs.
We wrote a letter to all our members who deposited into our AlertPay account to seek charge back, because we discovered that our account that was initially verified has been put on pending verification status which we are working on at the moment. For this reason we have suspended our AlertPay account and will not be able to process any AlertPay cash out request at the moment. An email has been sent to AlertPay by us requesting them to processed refund to all our AlertPay depositors on our behalf.
Please note that all other payment processor is not affected.
We sincerely apologize for any inconveniences this must have cost you.
Thanks for your understanding.
Yours sincerely, Adams Thompson”.

Today’s interview with the admin of WeeklyDividend on MNO was mentioned in his newsletter to the members. The admin of the program Ed (interviewed here) honestly answered all the questions from me and moreover, he promised to give the investors more proof about their automated ForEx trading soon. Here is the update about the recent interview:
“It’s my pleasure to announce to you that WeeklyDividend completed its first interview today with Popular blogger Money news online! This should afford you a closer glimpse into WeeklyDividend and the opportunity that we offer all of you.
You can see the interview at http://money-news-online.com/blog/2010/01/07/07012010-interview-with-the-admin-of-weeklydividend/
I hope you all enjoy it and if you have any questions or concerns in regards to WeeklyDividend please feel free to ask them.
Thank you, ED And the WeeklyDividend team!”

Just a couple of hours ago I received another update from WeeklyDividend (reviewed here). This time he asked members for some patience during the coming upgrade of their DDoS-protection which will take place within the next few hours and could cause some downtime. As a result we should receive a more secure website in the end so I guess it’s worth it. Here is the latest news from WeeklyDividend (the program that is paying 1.1%-1.5% daily and 9%-11% weekly with no expiration date):
“As you may have noticed we experienced some very brief downtime this afternoon. As a result of this I have decided to up our DDoS protection that we have at WeeklyDividend. This will only require a very small move and probably will not cause any downtime whatsoever. I would like to ask you to please hold off just for a couple of hours on doing much from within your back office so that I can make the migration as quick and seamless as possible. We will be doing this shortly. I appreciate your understanding and please know that we are doing this for the safety and security of our site and of your funds.
I will be reachable at weeklydividend@gmail.com throughout the whole process should we experience any downtime as a result.
Thank you, Support Team, WeeklyDividend.”

It seems that a very promising short-term program InvestJoy (reviewed here) is really picking up steam and attracting many investors willing to deposit into one of the two available plans: 30% for 5 days or 150% after 15 days. Probably many of us are really missing some good and quality short- to medium-term program and InvestJoy became just the first one that caught the eye of many experienced HYIP players in 2010. The result: over 360 members opened their accounts in InvestJoy in the first three days online which is a stunning result. The pending success the program is experiencing now might be partially due to the admin’s activity providing reliable support and pretty fast payouts so far. Last night another sweet bonus was announced for every investor that is going to deposit $100 and more in the program. If you do it within the next 3 days please don’t forget to contact the admin of InvestJoy at promotion@investjoy.com and request your $10 promotional bonus. I’m pleased to mention that the admin of InvestJoy (I believe his name is Werner) appreciated the unbiased review published on MNO and kindly agreed to answer my questions for the interview which I have sent to him earlier today. So we should expect an interview with him on my blog soon. And this is the latest newsletter sent to all the members of InvestJoy:
“Hello members, To begin this newsletter I want to remember you all that Money-news-online published a review about InvestJoy, visit the link below to read it:
http://money-news-online.com/blog/2010/01/05/04012010-investjoy-review-and-other-news/
The site administrator, Paul, charges for these reviews but I have to admit his vision was totally unbiased. Thanks for reviewing InvestJoy consistently, it’s very good to know that there are good professionals in this business doing a good job. I hope to see other reviews in the future.
Here we go in the third day of InvestJoy, everything is running perfectly. I could not imagine things would be so good. In this moment we have 300 registered members, deposits are doing great. Anyway about 25% of members still did not deposit. So I’m using this e-mail to invite you that registered in InvestJoy but did not make a deposit yet.
Time to deposit is… NOW!
I have something for you, especially for you that is going to make a deposit soon. The very first promotion of InvestJoy, all members who invest $100 or more will earn $10 bonus. If your referral deposits $100 you will make $5 for free in addition to the commission.
Request your bonus through the e-mail promotion@investjoy.com. It is valid until Sunday, January 10.
I’m preparing a lot more for you, stay with us!
Werner Grube. InvestJoy”.

FxStar (reviewed here) has made one more improvement on their website as they added a private forum at http://forum.fxstar.org/index.php where you can discuss the program. At the moment the forum is really empty so you’re advised to sign up and post something. I hope with time FxStar forum will become a popular place where you can share your views with fellow investors and ask all the questions you want. The forum is definitely another step in maintaining the highest standards of customer support FxStar is providing to its members:
“Forum became available on our web site today. Now you can ask any question or discuss any topic with your friends.”
I remind you that yesterday two more payment processors (AlertPay and StrictPay) has been added and from now on you can deposit to any of the plans offered by FxStar (1% for 30 days and 1.3-2.3% for 100 days) using five payment processors.

KoBelCapital (reviewed here) published another chart with the results of their ForEx trading sessions for December 2009 and you can see it on this link. Sorry but I’m not an expert in this field so I can’t really analyze those stats. The stats for other months of 2009 can be found on the link published in the latest update:
“Dear Client of KobelCapital. December 2009 trade performance can be found at Trading Performance page.
http://www.kobelcapital.com/index.php?a=cust&page=trade
Customer Support. KobelCapital Management”.
I remind you that KobelCapital has been monitored by MNO for over three months (occupies #13 in my rating currently) and is offering 2.55%-3.35% for 90 calendar days with the principal returned on expiry. You can invest in KobelCapital only via LibertyReserve and PerfectMoney payment processors and the minimum spend is only $10.

ArbsFund (reviewed here) reported another milestone of 3200 members having joined their program in the two months or so they have been online. It offers currently from 8.5% to 15% weekly payouts (depending on the invested capital) with no expiry date. Claiming to be involved in arbitrage betting the admin of ArbsFund (interviewed here) failed to produce even a shed of evidence of his activities and in addition recently it became clear that they were not incorporated in Belize as was stated on their website. All in all, I suggest to exercise caution about ArbsFund at the moment because I have a couple of complaints from my readers about missing deposits and even missing payouts which I’m going to investigate within the next couple of days. I will let you know if I get a reply from the admin regarding those issues as the members that are having issues claimed that they could not get any reply from their support. So I guess that either their support system doesn’t work or the admin of ArbsFund simply doesn’t care enough to answer members’ requests. I will leave ArbsFund in Paying status on my monitoring page for now but can recheck the status in a couple of days depending on the results of my investigation. So please be aware of that! In addition, I would like to emphasize again: DON’T invest any money into a special plan that is offered by some scammers pretending to be the ones sent from ArbsFund administration! In this way I will repeat what was already said by the admin of ArbsFund in his most recent update here:
“Dear ArbsFund StakeHolder; Our last phase of our trading week is about to begin, and we are aiming to achieve our weekly goal in our trading activities, as of now ArbsFund is Growing smoothly and already reach it 3200++ Members. Our marketing team are experimenting different advertising approach to reach different audiences, we will soon start our PPC advertising to broaden our marketing effort.
We have receive numerous support emails, regarding the switching of deposit, please be reminded that you cannot change your active investment plan, But you can deposit new investment but it will treated separately among the other deposit.
Also, There are still phishing emails being sent to out members,please be reminded that we will never asked you to deposit via email or directly from the PP’s, all investments/Deposit will be handled only via your Members Area.
Thank you for being part of ArbsFund,
Sincerely yours; Public Relation Manager – ArbsFund Team
For your success – ArbsFund”.

The administration of GoldenFleeceFund program (yet to be reviewed on MNO) informed his members of some issues with StrictPay deposits today. If you had some issues and were not able to deposit you can do it now and the problem has been fixed. Here is the update from GoldenFleeceFund:
“Hello, This is Felix Zeller with GoldenFleeceFund. We received 11 emails today over the issue of not being able to deposit via StrictPay. You may now try again, as the issue has been resolved. During our security upgrade, the deposit via StrictPay function was altered.
Confirmation of our StrictPay account: 77182
Thank You, Felix Zeller. GoldenFleeceFund Manager”.

I would like to report that GoldNuggetInvest (reviewed here) made some progress with the pending cashouts and I’m aware that many investors that had pendings via SolidTrustPay and StrictPay payment processors have been paid today even some big amounts. On the other hand, there are still some people who have been waiting patiently. I hope that Robert and team will make an effort and try to make payouts to everybody as soon as possible because it only gives ammunition against their program from some biased forums and monitors who are either simply jealous by not participating in good investment opportunity like GNI or just vengeful for not getting paid their monitoring/extortion fees like they demanded (like one infamously bad tempered monitor). I guess where the moderators and admins are taking sides by not even being members of a program shows you quite clearly what their hidden agenda really is. I hope that the investors are smarter and that they are not led by this bunch of lowlifes. I think after walking through all the obstacles and being online for at least 15 months GoldNuggetInvest deserves some support and I can see on the GNI private forum that the members are very supportive. Now it’s up to GNI to pay all the remaining pending payouts from their backlog of payments as soon as possible!

Please do not forget that you must withdraw your 8%-10% weekly payouts from SazaInvestments (reviewed here) today as the payout button is only enabled on Fridays. Please note that the reminder of the payouts open for this week has been sent already and please don’t forget to request your payout to the same payment processor you made your deposit from:
“It’s almost Friday so it’s payday again. Please don’t forget to request your withdrawals correct so that won’t be canceled. Thank you all for your trust in us. Regards, SazaInvestments Team”.
I myself requested my own payout straight after the withdrawal button was open and have already been paid successfully to my StrictPay account. I guess many more payments are on the way tomorrow. SazaInvestments is currently occupying the #3 spot on my monitoring page and I believe it’s still quite safe to invest there.

I have been paid by the following programs today:
Investorum, GeniusFunds, FinanceNova, XagaEnterprise, ArbsFund, GoldNuggetInvest, NanoMoneyCorp, PanaMoney, KobelCapital, CedexInvest, FxStar, TheKapital, IdealInv, HugMoney, RosalinFinance, OneDailyPro, ZenithInvestment, MandarinInvest, GlobalFund, Caziroca, InvestJoy, WeeklyDividend, RichAliens, Verifield, MoneyPlus, RefMotor, InvetsmentForge, IncoForex, Eternidex, Flanita, CSMFinance, AtoxFinance, AsiaInv, AtlantisMutual, TradeZoom, InstantMoneyBets, WestFinance and SazaInvestments.

I have joined and added to my monitoring a brand new program that claims to be involved in sports arbitrage, ForEx trading and precious metal trading all at the same time. It’s even called respectively – BetAndTrading. They offer three investment plans with no expiry (so-called “forever” plans which are becoming extremely popular now): 1.5% daily, 11.7% weekly and 48 monthly. You have an opportunity to request your principal back after 120 days and the minimum you can invest is only $10 in daily plan and $30 in weekly plan. The payment processors that are currently accepted by BetAndTrading program are: LibertyReserve, PerfectMoney, StrictPay and GlobalDigitalPay. And the first thing that struck me is the weird plans and how it’s possible to offer a less profitable monthly plan than the weekly plan (more on that in the upcoming review of BetAndTrading). Some algebra problems is not the thing I expect from ForEx traders, lol. And the administration of BetAndTrading website call themselves experts in this field. Anyway, their claims are usually one thing and the objective reality is totally different as the regular readers of MNO may notice. The site of BetAndTrading looks not bad at all: they have some decent design, utilize a licensed GoldCoders script, have an SSL-certificate installed for safer browsing and quite high quality DDoS-protection from BlackLotus (dedicated server). If we don’t count the numerous mistakes on the website which is understandable as the admin Stefan is supposedly from Austria we can see it has some good potential considering the growing popularity of perpetual plans and the fact that it only launched today. More detailed analysis of BetAndTrading will be performed in the review of the program that is going to be published on MNO after the first payments are received.

I think that’s all I wanted to say for today, guys! But don’t go too far as tomorrow I will be back with a review of a new short-term program called IdealInv and more news from the Industry!