03/09/2012. LibertyReserve Scam Warning and Daily News from the Industry

Hi guys! Unfortunately, I have to start this week with an article which even a few short weeks ago I thought was impossible to publish – LibertyReserve scam alert. Please note that I have come to this difficult decision after careful consideration of the facts and thinking over what was best for this industry which we’re all part of. In my opinion the situation with LibertyReserve and their attitude towards their customer needs and expectations is becoming intolerable.

So let’s start with some background to what happened this once reliable payment processor. You might remember an article I devoted to widespread cases of hacking of LibertyReserve accounts, one of which belonged to me, a few months back (click here to read it). That was seemingly only the first sign of the coming situation that occurred two weeks ago and which nobody could even imagine before. That was when the first disturbing messages started to emerge online about locked accounts. This meant that the rightful owners of LR accounts were powerless to login to their accounts. That situation became more obvious over time as more and more blocked accounts were reported on forums. Allegedly, for this very reason the entire website of LibertyReserve went down for an entire week as explicitly stated on the payment processor’s official blog:

“There is a group of blocked accounts which were erroneously blocked by an automated script that was tested in the beginning of August and apparently has failed to perform properly. Script was designed to automatically secure in account in the event of multiple suspicious login attempts. During this maintenance we have identified the problem, addressed it and it is now being solved.”

Many people who had their LR accounts blocked were in good spirits on hearing this, believing that although LibertyReserve were killing dozens of HYIPs by their extended downtime being the most accepted payment processor in the industry, but they would at least solve that issue with blocked accounts. However that’s not exactly what happened. In fact if anything all this did was to make the situation worse! How is it possible you might ask?

Well, the answer is quite simple. Those LR accounts that were locked were now unlocked OK, but instead they became “limited”, meaning the owner of the account was able to receive money but was not able to send it to anyone (ie either spend it or withdraw it). That alone makes hundreds of LR accounts totally useless and simply dangerous to use as someone could send funds by mistake while the owner cannot do anything with them – neither exchange, nor send to another person. All the assurances left by LibertyReserve on their official blog are no more than a slap in the face for the ever suffering clients:

“We have finished restoring account access statuses for many accounts that were erroneously secured before. Now, you should have full access to your accounts and funds within them.”

I would like to report that not only were the problems not fixed, there were actually more blockages/limitations reported after LibertyReserve came back online after the week of “maintenance” including one of my own LR accounts. As I have not received any response from LibertyReserve to my submitted ticket which was promised to be replied to within 48 hours I have decided to stop accepting LR as payment processor on MNO.

A more disturbing thing about the whole story is that LibertyReserve are seemingly enjoying the suffering of their clients having sometimes tens of thousands dollars in their limited accounts which they can “access”, in other words just look at, but cannot withdraw. There are very contradictory statements coming from LR and their Live support, themselves infamous for their sneering attitude and making things up as they go along. Sometimes they blame a technical glitch and sometimes asking for your identity documents for verification. These should of course never under any circumstances be submitted to them for many many reasons. First of all giving them your passport proves nothing, because as you were never asked for it when opening the account how is it supposed to prove your ownership of it now? LibertyReserve themselves never knew the true identity of any of their customers in the first place, so how is this supposed to prove you are the same person who first opened the account? Also, if this is all down to a software glitch as some of their support operators are claiming, how is your passport of all things supposed to fix that? It’s certainly the first time I’ve heard of such a thing! In any event no one ever saw their real office, knows the identity of their owners, and they were not registered properly as a payment processor anywhere in the world anyway.

At this point all you can do is to wait for LibertyReserve to take notice of hundreds of unsatisfied and frustrated customers with limited accounts and do something about it. But I don’t have much hope for that as it doesn’t look to me that even one account was properly unblocked and is fully functional after a week of alleged maintenance. In fact if anything I’m hearing about more and more limited accounts appearing every day so the problem is far from being solved. Whether LibertyReserve is doing it deliberately to scam others or it is a technical glitch remains to be seen, but the fact that the situation is not being dealt with is beyond any doubt.

As long as this continues it’s better to stay away from that payment processor and switch to other safer options like PerfectMoney, EgoPay or SolidTrustPay. Otherwise you too might make a very unpleasant discovery that your LibertyReserve account is also limited and you can’t withdraw money from it and receive no assistance from the support whatsoever.

Money-News-Online has officially declared LibertyReserve as a scam payment processor and strongly discourages everyone from using it. Their popularity will definitely wane as they continuously fail to react. If you can’t stop using LibertyReserve please make daily withdrawals and NEVER wire any large amounts in LR as it looks like such accounts attract the most attention and you have a bigger chance of being locked and your money stolen by them. Unfortunately, LibertyReserve has become a totally unreliable payment system and you can make sure of that by checking various forum topics and the exchange rates which plummeted over the last two weeks. So get your LibertyReserve funds out while you can and put it somewhere (anywhere!) else where it will be safer! I will keep you updated if the current situation with changes but for now please be aware and stay as far away as you possibly can from LibertyReserve.

DAILY NEWS FROM THE INDUSTRY

LIBERTYRESERVE ON CREDIT CARD FUNDING

The Tragic-Comedy doesn’t end there by the way. There’s more. Several years after the idea was first suggested to users, LibertyReserve are still talking about credit card funding. Just talking about it mind, not actually doing anything yet. Maybe the less said about this farce the better but I do find it noteworthy that they still manage to shoehorn their policy of “getting paid and staying paid” into the following update, stating that this will not change. The thing about that is that if you choose to freely gamble your money on HYIPs while being fully aware of what you are doing and the risk involved then OK, I can go along with that. I mean if you bet on let’s say a sporting event and lose, the bookmaker is under no obligation to refund you just because you don’t like losing. Throw all your money into a slot machine and the casino won’t be all that interested in hearing how you’re broke. So I can kinda see where this idea comes from.

The problem is that when LibertyReserve say “getting paid and staying paid”, they also mean “getting robbed and staying robbed”. If a hacker illegally breaks into your account and steals all your money, the only action LibertyReserve will take is to blame the victim. It’s one thing if you invest it all in crooked HYIPs and lose – that really is your problem – but when your account gets accessed without your permission and your money stolen it’s their problem. Now, LibertyReserve themselves may prefer to tell you otherwise, but whether they care to acknowledge this or not the fact is that the credit card companies will agree 100% with me on this – it IS their problem! And if they think the “tough luck, buddy” line they can get away with so easily in the HYIP industry is gonna work on people reporting theft and fraud to their bank managers, accountants, credit card providers, and the fraud division of their local police department, well, let’s just say they might be in for a big surprise.

I have to say though I have difficulty believing that LibertyReserve themselves genuinely think this is going to play out the way they say it is. I can’t help but feel the whole thing is just nonsense and a deliberate ploy to distract people’s attention from the obvious fact that the entire system is falling apart at the seams, or else its all that plus a massive effort to steal people’s credit card details. Their system is already infested with hackers, that much is already an undeniable and established fact, are you really going to trust them with your credit card information as well? Not putting words in anyone’s mouth here, it’s your money after all, feel free to set fire to it for all I care, but personally I think I’ll skip this one.

“Credit Card Funding
Dear Friends,
Please note that regardless of whether your account has credit card funding function enabled or not, Liberty Reserve system will never change its principal of “getting paid and staying paid”. All transactions performed inside of Liberty Reserve are still within the scope of our old principals and standards that have been in place for almost a decade now and are not likely to change during the life term of our company.
We appreciate your long time support.”

SOLIDTRUSTPAY CLOSED FOR THE LABOR DAY BANK HOLIDAY

Continuing on the subject of payment processors, congratulations to any US and Canadian MNO readers celebrating the Labor Day bank holiday this weekend. I imagine you’ll already be aware of this but for everyone else, among those taking the day off are the management and support staff of the SolidTrustPay payment processor who are of course based in Canada. Their offices will be closed until Tuesday morning so if you do have any outstanding issues with them, deposits, pending withdrawals, support tickets and the like, the following entry from the official SolidTrustPay blog reminds users to allow an extra day for these to be dealt with appropriately:

“Office Closure: Labour Day, Sept 3 2012
Please be advised that SolidTrust Pay will be closed for Customer Support on Monday, September 3rd for Labour Day.
As this is also a banking holiday, we would like to remind all customers to add an additional day to processing times for deposits and withdrawals.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our customers for their patronage and wish those celebrating this long-weekend a safe and happy holiday!”

MTRESULTS MAKE ALL STP WITHDRAWALS INSTANT FROM NOW ON

Tom, the admin of MTResults who you may remember was interviewed on MNO over the weekend (click here to read that) issued a short but welcome newsletter for his investors yesterday. The program which offers terms of 6.5%-7% for 20 days and 125% after 10 days via LibertyReserve, PerfectMoney, SolidTrustPay and EgoPay reputedly to follow had already been making instant payments to LR and PM. Now it seems STP payments will also be made to MTResults investors instantly as well. You can read the update from Tom below, and see the review of his program published here:

“SolidTrustPay withdrawal is instant!
As we promised before, STP withdrawals are made instantly to your account like LR/PM ones. Although the same rule applies and it may sometimes need to be reloaded or any other reason in which case you are requested to give us 24 hours to process your withdrawal.”

BENSONUNION ANNOUNCE NON TRADING DAY AND EXTRA PAYMENT METHODS

Despite clearly stating that their “headquarters” are located in China, BensonUnion have for reasons best known to themselves decided to join in the Labor Day celebrations and treat themselves to a three day weekend as well. I wasn’t aware of people in China getting to pick and choose which foreign holidays they get to observe and take the day off work, but hey, I like the sound of it, lol! So no payments will be made on the program’s 1.2%-2.45% for 170 business days plan with principal back on expiry for today, but should resume as normal on Tuesday.

The admin of BensonUnion Ragnar (interviewed here) goes on to speak about the expansion of BensonUnion‘s payment options in his latest official newsletter to members which you can read below. Backtracking on certain things he stated in the interview, Ragnar is now keen to start making more payment options available to investors having already added EgoPay and saying that SolidTrustPay will be joining them soon. I imagine the delay here is down to STP’s slightly more rigorous verification process which can take a number of weeks, but now that the ball is rolling so to speak I’m sure progress is being made. And if the addition of STP is something that might convince you to join BensonUnion then keep an eye on MNO and I’ll make sure you hear about it on my blog first as soon as it happens. Officially, according to the newsletter anyway, this is being done because BensonUnion likes to “take care” of their clients, though without wishing to question Ragnar’s motives I would suspect this as a lot more to do with the declining popularity of LibertyReserve. Be that as it may, I do commend the admin for allowing his program to evolve with the industry and to change as the circumstances change. This will allow BensonUnion to grow, and in fact we might even see some immediate results with the addition of EgoPay as that one is already in place.

Below are the two updates from BensonUnion (first reviewed on MNO here), one taken from their website this morning and the other sent out to program members:

“Non-trading day
Dear investors! No interest will be paid out today because of Labor day in the USA.”

“BensonUnion official newsletter
Dear investors! Benson Union has started accepting EgoPay today, SolidTrustPay will be added soon too. We didn’t plan to integrate these e-currencies before but we take care of our clients and we react on requests to add more payment options. Stay tuned for next updates!”

FINVANCE MAINTENANCE AND WITHDRAWAL PROCESS EXPLAINED

One of the better short to mid term programs around at the moment, and a fact that’s been fairly well established based on results, has been Finvance. Their one single investment plan offering a basic 8% for 20 business days regardless of the amount you invest has been running successfully for seven weeks now, providing a more than adequate opportunity to make a decent sized profit. The admin of Finvance, Mark (interviewed on MNO here) issued two individual updates addressing a couple of recent issues with the program which you really should be aware of if you’re a member. First of all there’s been some technical issues with the support ticketing system. There’s been some unexplained problems there but basically if you have any account related questions and have submitted a support ticket to the program, there’s no guarantee they’ll have received it. It’s not something you need to be particularly worried about though, and it’s not much more than a minor inconvenience as there is a very simple alternative – you just need to mail Mark with your questions directly at the e-mail address listed in his first update.

The second update from Finvance, and this is something more experienced HYIP players might have felt unnecessary but of course this isn’t something that would have been sent if it wasn’t causing problems for a number of members, is the withdrawal process. Finvance currently accept deposits via SolidTrustPay, EgoPay, PerfectMoney, and LibertyReserve, and in the second of Finvance‘s updates Mark goes through each individual processor and highlights exactly what you need to do to make sure he can successfully complete your withdrawal and make sure you get paid. So it is literally very much in your own best interests that you read the update from Finvance very carefully. Even if you consider yourself an experienced player it still won’t hurt just to look over it anyway, as it’s quite short. Finvance was first reviewed on MNO here:

“Support Ticket System
Our support ticket system is undergoing maintenance. When it is back online, we will send another news update. Please route all support requests to this email address: admin@finvance.com
Finvance.”

“Account Withdrawals
This newsletter is being sent out to all our depositors to explain what information should be in your account profile for a successful withdrawal of a pending withdrawal.
There are a number of users who have incorrect information or in the wrong format in their account profile.
To process a SolidTrustPay Withdrawal, we must have your SolidTrustPay username in your profile. A blank or an email address will cause a failed withdrawal.
To process an EgoPay Withdrawal, we must have your EgoPay email address in your profile. A blank or an email address in incorrect format will cause a failed withdrawal.
To process a PerfectMoney withdrawal, we must have your PerfectMoney USD or EUR account in your profile. They start with a U or an E. A PerfectMoney user ID or a blank will cause a failed withdrawal.
To process a Liberty Reserve withdrawal, we must have your Liberty Reserve account number in your profile. They start with a U.
If you need any support regarding how to withdraw successfully, please respond to this email.
For those who did have incorrect account information on file, or blank. Please fix it, cancel your pending withdrawal and re-submit it once you have corrected the error.
Finvance.”

ABSOLUTIVA – NEW PAYMENT PROCESSOR COMING AND NON TRADING DAY

A somewhat unusual announcement was issued by the admin of Absolutiva recently, announcing the addition of a new payment option lined up to be implemented next week. This isn’t a regular processor as the HYIP industry might understand it, but rather an online debit card provider. I say it’s unusual because the update itself would suggest that you would apply for a debit card via Absolutiva themselves, which is of course completely unnecessary. In this case the debit card is provided by a company called Payoneer, and if you would like to make use of their services you should really be contacting them directly. As some of you might already know Absolutiva are controversially accepting PayPal for deposits, and while it’s not required that you go to Absolutiva to open a PayPal account, nor is it a requirement of Payoneer that you ask for Absolutiva‘s approval to open an account with them either. But if you’re interested in this you may wish to make yourself aware of what Payoneer’s policies are regarding spending money on online HYIPs and what their refund policy covering any losses in such ventures might be. Assuming this goes ahead as planned then Payoneer will join LibertyReserve, PerfectMoney, EgoPay, SolidTrustPay, and PayPal as one of the options you may use for joining Absolutiva‘s plans of 1.4%-2% for 120 business days and 7.5%-10.5% for 30 weeks with your principal back, or 2.5%-3.5% for 90 business days. The program was first reviewed on MNO here and the most recent update from the admin is below:

“Important Announcement
We would like to inform you that we are now officially partnered with Payoneer, the world leader in payout solution. Payoneer is known to be a worldwide provider for debit card solution. We plan to have that system in place added by next week. Debit card ordering will be done directly through Payoneer official website. More details will be provided. The good part on that is when we approve your application, Payoneer will contact you requesting additional information such as proof of address and a photo identification card. As soon as you provide that to Payoneer, they will dispatch you the debit card.
More information will be provided next week.”

Absolutiva‘s second update concerns the Labor Day holiday in the US and Canada today. The admin announced today as a non-business day (in fact a full list of the holidays observed by Absolutiva can be found on their website anyway) so payments should hopefully continue from tomorrow. Here’s the update on that:

“Labor Day
We would like to inform you that we will not be paying any interest on September 3 due to Labor Day. Labor Day is an American federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September (September 3 in 2012) that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers.”

KOMMERCIALITY MOVED TO PROBLEM STATUS

Unfortunately I have to finish today’s update the same way I started it – with bad news. This time it’s about the collapse of Kommerciality. Well, maybe disappearance would be a better word than collapse, but the end result is the same – the program is gone and the members are not getting paid. This was a particularly disappointing result given that Kommerciality was a mid to long term program yet only lasted barely more than a week. I have to be honest here and say that I doubt very very much that this was a deliberate scam. I suspect there’s a more technical reason (possibly a DDoS attack, I really don’t know) behind this as the entire Kommerciality website is offline. It’s always possible it might return of course but the longer this goes on – it’s already been over two days – the less likely they are to recover. The thing is I contacted the admin about this just after it happened, but he has failed to do himself or his program any favors by choosing not to answer me and therefore ignoring one of the most important rules of running a successful business which is communication. I would say at this point to avoid making any further deposits in Kommerciality, but as the website is no longer available that shouldn’t be an issue. However in the less and less likely event that they do return, I would urge you to confirm that all pending payouts are completed before even considering joining yourself.

GET PAID REPORT FOR 03/09/2012

Here is the list of the programs from my monitor that paid me for the last 72 hours:
From MNO Sticky list: YachtWealthClub.
From MNO Premium list: NewGNi, OneInv, ProfitableSunrise, EurexTrade, BensonUnion, Finvance, RightFive, FelminaAlliance, PlexCapital, RoyalMaxDealers, Absolutiva, Kommerciality,  Bull&BearCapital, MTResults, KBSInvestment, PipsFund, DiamondAsset.
From MNO Standard list: UFOWin, BGTGroups.
From MNO Basic list: GoldTradeFunds, CheeseCash, 6Inv, PerfectLottery, HippoWin.

That’s everything I have to report today, guys. See you on MNO soon!