WHY ONLINE INVESTORS WON'T STOP INVESTING IN HYIPs

So far so good, if you have been following all my post you'll have been wondering why I have actually decided to dedicate this blog to HYIP, knowing full well that it's about the most RISKY online investment. Well, read on and discover it yourself.

I think the main reason why online investor won't stop investing in HYIPs is that despite the risk involved, HYIPs offer the about the highest Returns on investment in a short time compared to some other investment medium, while the investors don't have to do nothing. Considering, that you just invest, sit back and wait for your profit, aside from the dangers involved I think there is no other investment medium that currently offers much more better;

*FOREX would do better you might want say. Yes! But do you have to just put funds in your FOREX Account and sit back waiting for profit? Of course not. Hyips? Yes! Just fund you HYIP account is all it requires.

*MLM, Affiliate, Matrixes, Internet Marketing would not even get you as much as FOREX with lesser effort; lets be Honest!

And that’s exactly where HYIPs come in with all the HIGH RISKS, its still such a hard to 'totally' shun medium for serious online/internet moneymakers

Needless to say that as much as many have had a very bitter experience with hypes (HYIP), so are there many that hype has changed the story of their life forever. And the later are people that understand that 'quitters never win and winners never quit'. Don't be deceived, HYIP can change the story of your life too!

I pray this yuletide season will bring all the desires of your heart

MERRY XMASS & HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL

Dangers In Using Web Proxies......you must read this!

The recent action of E-Gold in blacklisting and blocking IP Addresses of account holders which in turn has been making it difficult for some E-Gold account owners to access their accounts, has prompt users to start devising various means of accessing their account. I just realized that most of these people have opted for Web Proxies.

I have known various types and aspect of Proxy for quite a while now and using them is not new to me, initially when I realized the current rise in the usage of Web Proxies by E-Gold users, I felt it doesn't mean anything to me as long as it doesn't concerns me. But, honestly I just can't get it off my mind, being the kind of person I am, because I know it might affect somebody real bad someday. I had initially thought that someone among the users of this type of proxy will realized it and maybe warn others but how I was wrong, even the most advance of them seems to be ignorant of the dangers.

Well then, Web Proxy is a very useful tool sometimes, no doubt about that, but the issue is, how safe is it? To some people there is nothing wrong about using it but if I must tell you there's everything wrong with using it for account related sites where you need the best security you can ever offer you log-in information. When E-Gold wrote in their security tips that you should make sure that you use your log-in information only at http://www.e-gold.com/ do you think that was a JOKE?

It’s very possible you have been getting by with these but, does that make it save? You run the risk of allowing unauthorized access to your account. I think you should know, it’s not everything that seems free that is actually free! Its just like logging-in through your Internet Explorer while enabling remember my username and password, shouldn't you know that the next time you log-in using the same medium, you will be logged-in to your account automatically? Hope I'm making a sense to someone! So, why then will it be so difficult for the web proxy admin to get your log-in details if he so wished, mind you I'm not saying all the web proxy are like these but you never can tell.

Finally, I'll personally advice that if you must use a proxy for any password protect account, you better get a proxy software which you can install on your PC, there are many of them to choose from, that is what I have been using and it gives me rest of mind.

Compliments of the Season

Insights Into HYIP Strategy

The Plans : First Insight:
The Plans is the First things that you must check! The plans must be rational and profitable.

Rational Plans :In my Opinion Rational Plan is all plans that generate up to 5% daily pure profit and generate total pure profit up to 200%.

Here example calculation :
HYIP A has plan : 25% daily for 5 daysTotal Profit : 25% X 5 days = 125% after 5 daysTotal Pure Profit : 125% - 100% = 25% after 5 daysDaily Pure Profit : 25% / 5 days = 5% per day

So in my calculation HYIP A has rational plan.

HYIP B has plan : 150% after 7 daysTotal Profit : 150% after 7 daysTotal Pure Profit : 150% - 100% = 50% after 7 daysDaily Pure Profit : 50% / 7 days = more than 7% per day

So in my calculation HYIP B has unrational plan

HYIP C has plan : 12% daily for 12 daysTotal Profit : 12% x 12 days = 144% after 12 daysTotal Pure Profit : 144% - 100% = 44% after 12 daysDaily Pure Profit : 44% / 12 days = less than 4% per day

So in my calculation HYIP C has rational plan

Note : Please also calculate fee from HYIP admin or e-currency.

Profitable Plans :All plan that generate more than 0% daily pure profit is profitable. But the most profitable plan is the one that has timelife faster. For example there are two hyips : HYIP A that generate 25% total pure profit after 7 days and HYIP B that generate 25% total pure profit after 5 days, its mean that HYIP B is more profitable than HYIP A.

Note : daily earnings is more profitable than after X days plan.

PS :All calculation is based on my experience only. You can do better than me. Just use your sense, and your experience will guide you to the best.


All About The Site : Find Out The Truth
The program Site must be good on several points :

Domain :-
Stay away from free domain (redirect, or sub domain). If the admin is not able to buy some domain name (its not more than $10), so you must doubt that he can pay you!
- Check domain name on SCAM Database like http://scamdatabase.com. You must found 0 result
- The .com domain is better than others

Design and Scripting :
- The Site must has unique design and it should looks professional
- The Site that has unique scripting is better then others
- The Site should only be using lisenced scripting
- The Site with scripting is better than the site without any scripting

Note : You can try to compare between BIG HYIP that has long time online and new HYIP that only has several days lifetime. You can proof that this points can help you to know the best HYIP.

Site Statistic:
Please check also site statistic regularly. If statistic is static, you just can leave the program.


Forums Can Help You To Understand
You can't do it all by yourself! You need others help, so you need to join one or more HYIP community (forum).

In my Opinion the best place to join is :-
-Talk Gold Forum
-MMG Forum
- GoldAge Forum

So, how we can do better with forums?
- Find program thread, you should found it if program age is more than 1 day- Check the thread, admin should be there. Active admin on forums is good signal for the program.- Read other members comment about the program. You don't need to read all. Just read trusted members comments. Trusted member is member that has joined the forum more than 3 months, post more than 100 post, and not monitor admin.
- If there is any proof of payment from trusted member, its a good signal for the program. You can ignore proof of payment from monitor admin. Why? Coz, there are so many programs that pay to monitor admin, but not paying to regular members. So, just be carefull

Note : You can always contact the trusted members that post proof of payment to keep your heart in peace...


Rating Page :
What Monitors Say About The Program. Program Status at Monitors is only one of indicator. You can absolutely trust "PROBLEM" and "WAITING" status from any monitor, but do not trust "PAYING" status immediatelly.

PAYING status on monitors does not means that you will be paid also. Why?

- There are some programs that is paying only to monitors
- Some monitor admins are late to update their site, so maybe PAYING status is not the last state for the program

You can remember this :
1. If the program has monitors you can follow the next step, if not just STOP, and find other program!
2. If the program status at monitors is PAYING, you can follow the next setp, if not just STOP, and find other program! (You must wait, when program status is WAITING)
3. Do not put your money just for PAYING status, you must follow the next step before you invest your money


Contact the Admin : Required Final Step
If all people say "this HYIP is paying!", do not put your money until you contact the admin. The admin must reply your query, if not just find other program. Why? Because you don't need to put your money on someone that do not care about you!

In my experience all program that has "hiding admin", will be SCAM on several days. I have try this way more than 500 times. The result is 95% program is SCAM when admin not reply our query, and 90% program is PAYING when admin reply our query.

You can contact the admin via mail. It will be better when you can reach admin via phone or messenger. If you feel that admin is honest and trustable, so you can put your money with confident!


Good Luck

Article Courtersy HADI(http://itspaying.blogspot.com)

HYIP for DUMMIES..........final part

While making your analyses on the on the HYIP, don’t trust the rating of the HYIP’s independent monitoring sites, most of those guys are just bunch of liars paid to rate the HYIP positively, therefore its often possible to see a non-paying programme rated very high with the paying status, the best place to find the true status of HYIP is investors Forum dedicated to HYIP discussion, there you will be able to join investors that have invested in the HYIP in discussing the HYIP, whatever you get from there are more reliable since investors comment are based on their experience and not what they paid to do. Suffice it to say that there are some honest motoring sites you could still consider though but, personally I think you will still discover the same issue every now and then, even with the most respected Monitors. There are many other ways of analyzing HYIP just keep searching and learning.





Another things you can also do is to take advantage of the referral system to hslp you get back your investment (with profit maybe) as soon as possible, so you can be on the save side. By referring people to the HYIP using your referral link, you will earn a certain percentage of the investment of your referrals when they make investment after signing up with the HYIP as your referral down line. The more referral commission you accrue, the sooner you will be able to recover your investment even while your plan is still yet to mature. In such a situation you would have place yourself on the save side and if the HYIP vanishes along the line, you will at least be relieved that you were able to get back your investment even if you did not make profit

HYIP for DUMMIES..........continues

How To Avoid Loosing Money To HYIP Scammers
Firstly, let me start by saying there are no fool proof rules to investing in HYIPs, it a very high risk decision you are taking by investing in these programmes, even experienced investors still loose few bucks sometimes but the trick is to minimize you loss while maximizing your profit.

**Thing To Know, things to do & things to avoid:
The first and most important thing is that you have to make sure that you have enough and always updated knowledge on everything that concerns HYIP, then analyze your aims, what you need to achieve and how you plan to achieve them. When these are settled, you can now proceed to the next stage where you make your budgets and see if there’s any fund that you can afford to loss with going bankrupt or having a heart attacked, incase things goes sore along the line in your HYIP investment. And, start lowest no matter how high your excess funds are, don’t start high just because you have more than enough you can afford to loose. The fact is if you do, you will actually end up loosing most of the money all because you can afford to loose them and still have little experience, but the trick is to start as low as you can possibly go and while doing that you will be building your knowledge and experience until you’ll be informed enough to go high.

Don’t be let greed take over you right sense of reasoning, no matter how real a ghost looks its still a remains a ghost. Some of these programmes will offer you mouth-watering percentage profit that seems too good to be true, the fact is if it seems too good to be true, then it’s not true and that the way it is in the world HYIP. Don’t be deceived they might pay you for some few day just to built a little confidence in you and you also play into there hands, they will hit you with surprise.

Another trick I have used and has worked most times is to start low and keep it low. What do I mean by this; start with very low initial investment and at the maturity of your plan withdraw your profit and reinvest only the same principal if you wish to reinvest, at the maturity of your reinvestment, withdrawal the amount for the principal and reinvest the profit if you are still in the mood of reinvesting. When you do this you’ll minimize your loss just incase the HYIP folds up provided you have not recover your principal totally.

Get in earlier and get out fast; by these I mean you have to be up to date on the new HYIPs just lunching and make your investment as soon as possible in which ever one you are interested and convinced in (remember; start very low), here you also have to make sure you don’t go for long-term plan that will locked-in your deposit for a long time. Although, this might seems a little risky as too invest in program that has not yet been fully confirmed by many but the pros is that, I personally don’t think that an Admin of a programme would like to disappear in just 1day when he has very few investors in his program. So, he probably would hang-on for a bit more time to have a substantial amount and before that you will have been out of the programme with some profit.

Don’t put all you eggs in one basket; learn not to put all you money in just a single program no matter how wonderful the program seems to be performing. For instance, it is better to have $20 each in 5 different HYIP than to have $20 each in different plan of a single HYIP. I think this a simple enough to understand.

Some programme offer Compounding Interest; this is a system where you interest payment are added (compounded) to your principal as your plan proceed, while % interest are paid on you new principal (former principal + interest), you will not be able to withdraw you profit until you plan matured. This a trick use by some program admin to trick investor to lock-in there money in the programme which might not even last till half of the plan period, so get your profit out every single opportunity you get and if you know you might not have the time to withdraw your profit the very moment its ready then opt for an HYIP that pays directly to you e-currency account.

Take note of details, you have to make sure that you pay close attention to details; the time you made your investment, when you are supposed to be due for interest payment, when your plan is supposed to mature, by doing this you will be able to see any irregularities on time and mind you, when you do notice any ‘don’t take it for grated’, act fast, get through to the Admin/ Customer Service and demand for an explanation, immediately reanalyze the HYIP rating, check Forums to see what investors are saying about the HYIP. Believe me such irregularities are often eye opener to tell you its time to look else where, the Admin/ Customer Service will always have one excuse but don’t believe them, analyze their message thoroughly and you get your clues from there, get out your money while you are still able to. While making your analyses on the on the HYIP, don’t trust the rating of the HYIP’s independent monitoring sites, most of those guys are just bunch of liars paid to rate the HYIP positively, therefore its often possible to see a non-paying programme rated very high with the paying status, the best place to find the true status of HYIP is investors Forum dedicated to HYIP discussion, there you will be able to join investors that have invested in the HYIP in discussing the HYIP, whatever you get from there are more reliable since investors comment are based on their experience and not what they paid to do. Suffice it to say that there are some honest motoring sites you could still consider though but, personally I think you will still discover the same issue every now and then, even with the most respected Monitors. There are many other ways of analyzing HYIP just keep searching and learning

........to be continued

HYIP for DUMMIES..........continues

Choose A Strategy Based On Your Aims:
I have I told you that you have to know your aims and what you plan to achieve? If not, know it now. Therefore the strategy you will adopt should be based on your aims and plan you are working towards. Are you trying to raise some capital to meet some daily expenses? Are you planning towards a Project? Or are planning to build wealth on a long-term basis? These and more are the question you need to ask yourself before choosing a strategy to adopt in your investment. You can of course integrate more than one strategy in the course of you investment but you must have a clearly state goal you are aiming at, as the will be your Driver. I say INTEGRATE not DIVERSIFY; well I explain more about that later.

Choosing An E-currency Exchanger:
I already talked about this earlier but for the purpose of emphasis allow me to add more points to these. This is a very important aspect you have note since, you must go through as exchanger before you can fund your e-currency account and without funds in your e-currency account, and you cannot make any investment in HYIP. So, you see how crucial this is! Here you run the risk of losing your money to fake exchangers & scammers if you don’t do your homework properly before choosing an exchanger to fund your e-currency account for you. Before, giving your money to any exchanger you have to make sure that they are genuine; the actually do fund peoples’ account after receiving payment. You could ask people that you know that gone through the process successfully and from their recommendations you will be able to know which exchanger to use. Here’s one of the advantages of my earlier advice that you should get an exchanger that is closest to you, with that, you could just visit their office and see things for yourself, don’t forget to always keep their contact details at you beck and call.

How To Make Your Investment:
This is a very straightforward process. All you have to do is Signup for an account with the HYIP of your choice from their Website; this is always free and immediate. After your registration is completed, you can start making investment immediately. Just Login to your account with the Username and Password supplied during the registration process and you will be redirected to you account Homepage, from there you can manage your account; make deposit(investment), make withdrawal, Check you account status etc.

Thing HYIP Do With Money Invested:
The HYIP normally have group of professionals and highly experienced staffs or partners who are vast in different areas of investment, these are the set of people that will on behalf of the HYIP in-turn invest the money that has been invested in them, into different High Yield Investment, e.g. Futures, Mutual Funds, Real Estate, FOREX, etc.


......................to be continued

HYIP for DUMMIES

A thought came to my mind yesterday that despite the recent popularity of HYIP, many still does not know the basic of investing in HYIPs. Hence, I decide to write a DUMMIE’S guide to HYIP or you can call it a beginner’s guide to HYIP. Due to time constrained I might not be able to deal with all the aspect in a single post but I promise you that I keep updating it everyday till I have done justice to the subject matter. So, please check on here everyday to get the updates.

Before getting started, there are basic things you will need to know and below are some of them:

1) You will need to have an easy access to the internet and not just having the access; you have to be very active on the internet for you to be able to keep yourself up-to-date with all the latest happenings as regards your investment, like the Holy Bible say “My people perish for lack of Knowledge”. What you don’t get to know on time could cost you lots of money.
You will valid email address, a funded e-currency account and you also need to setup an account with the particular HYIP you wish to invest in. Normally, these are always free and straightforward.

2) You’ll have to go through an e-currency exchanger to fund your e-currency account; you can use the service of a fully online exchanger, which means conducting all the transactions from the exchanger website.

3) Choose an e-currency that you are very conversant with, that is easy and more convenient for you as regards your location, above all, that is accepted by the HYIP you intend to invest in. Also, make sure you know everything about managing your account; funding, withdrawal, fees and security

4) Choose an e-currency exchanger that is closest to you. This is a bit important because as much as both you and your exchanger will never plan or wish that anything go wrong, sometimes some things just go wrong. Many of this issue might be fixed through email or phone communication but I assure you that a visit to their office could be more effective.

5) Know how to secure you e-currency account log-in information for all your accounts. This issue of security is very important issue because if you expose your log-in information to the danger of unauthorized access, you run the risk of loosing all the money/information in the account concerned. This particularly concerns those of you that does not have a PC & Internet at home and will have to use a Cybercafé, nevertheless, people that do have should at home also should not take the for granted

Well, the above point might look too simple but like I said earlier, I’m approaching it from the DUMMIES angle.


Choosing An E-Currency To Use:
One of the problems you can run into is choosing a wrong e-currency for you need and situation. Despite the fact that there are some major and mostly accepted e-currency like E-Gold and Liberty Reserve, you have to make sure you choose the one that is best suited to your own situation, location etc. Some are also been recommended due to security reasons but I still maintained that you must evaluate your own situation. You can have as many different type of e-currency as much as there are since most of them are always free to open while some fees are charged on you transactions. In doing that I’ll like to advice you to always use a single type of e-currency for every single HYIP at a point in time for HYIPs that pays directly to you e-currency account, but where you will be the one to make a withdrawal from your HYIP account to your e-currency account, it is advisable to than one e-currency type attached to the account as to easy receipt of profit payout, in case one is temporarily down you will still be able to withdraw to the other/ other as the case may be.


...........Continue tomorrow

Turn $15 to $1200+ in 150 Business Days

Like the popular saying "nothing ventured nothing gain" If your willing to risk lossing just $15 for gaining $1200+ in 150 business days then this information could worth a lot of money to you. Its no big deal just the normal investment in HYIP but with something many investors will not notice or considered.Much as I can guarantee that this HYIP is one of the BEST TOP TEN HYIP currently around, its been around for a while and I'm very sure it will stick around for long. Nevertheless, note that this goes with the normal risk in HYIP investment, the Risk is still there but the Chances are greater.
Alright, for those of you willing to go the extra mile like me

Steps:

1. 1. Go to this link http://tinyurl.com/2yla8r and Signup after that make a deposit of $15 (When you do that, I'll see your 'username' under my referral downline)
2. Then contact me here edundayo2001@yahoo.com with your username and I'll send you the detailed procedure

See You on Top!
Dayo

Excellent 'HYIP' History

Somebody compiled this nice little cross-section of HYIP history on a website that now appears to have been abandoned, so I thought I would copy-and-paste it here for preservation. I have to paste it in four separate posts due to post-length limitations. Credit for authorship goes to whomever is responsible for:

http://www.merchantku.com/hyip_Case_Studies.html

With the shear amount of scams that the online HYIP arena has seen, it's a wonder why people haven't learned the expensive lessons of others before them.

Maybe the reason lessons haven't been learned is because the major scams don't get the documentation they deserve once the owners have run with the money.

Most people seem to want to forget that it ever happened to them, and as a result, will never mention it again. If this is the attitude of many investors, how are the newbies supposed to learn anything?

I've taken some of the biggest scams from the last few years and written articles, or case studies on each of them. Outlining the program details, the story that unfolded, and at the end, what you should have learned from the case study, and hopefully you will begin to recognize the features in some of the newer scams that come along.

• Case Study #1: EZ-Bucks.co.uk – The Great Scam Of 2002
• Case Study #2: The 2PercentNOTHING Scam
• Case Study #3: GoldExcel - The EXCELent scam
• Case Study #4: NEO - Nothing New About This Scam
• Case Study #5: FXTO - The DD debacle
• Case Study #6: EIC - Easy Investors Conned
• Case Study #7: Brideby - Do these things never die?
• Case Study #8: Nova Lights - The Great Scam of 2003
• Case Study #9: Foreign Fund - The Foreign Scam
• Case Study #10: S&S Investments - 1000 posts = $500k!!!
• Case Study #11: Free Land Opps - Scam coming to you soon! (aka The Great Scam of 2004)
• Case Study #12: WeeklyGold - Would the real Mario Degryse please stand up?
Case Study #1: EZ-Bucks.co.uk – The Great Scam Of 2002

The HYIP/Gold Game arena is full of scams. However, most often, they can be recognized from the outset. Either through poor design, free hosting, ridiculous payout plans or rumors on the various forums.

That was before EZ-Bucks.co.uk came along in the summer of 2002.

EZ-Bucks.co.uk was flash, cutting edge and smooth. The website was flawless; it looked like a real investing company. It paid 2% every day, with compulsory re-spends every 30 days.

It was based around an un-moderated forum. The admin, who called himself Danny Jacobs was open and honest, and often funny on the forum. He dealt with all the problems, queries and comments swiftly and efficiently. In short, he was the perfect admin.

People couldn’t praise him enough.

After a month, it was still paying and growing in popularity.

But already there were questions being raised. The ‘real’ contact information was disputed. Although the address definitely existed (I’ve even been there), the mobile phone number was not in use. Danny claimed that he had to cut it off because of so many people calling him.

Everyone accepted this explanation.

It carried on for three months, consistently paying everyone every day.

Quickly it reached more than 2000 members, and soon there were calls to go private. The reason being, every other program that has gone private did so around the 1000 to 2000 membership mark. Danny assured everyone that it was in the pipeline and he was sorting it out.

EZ-Bucks.co.uk was then endorsed by PureInvestor.com, a MLM investing company with over 10,000 members. They claimed to have talked with and met Danny Jacobs. They requested that everyone sign up under their referral link (they got a 10% referral commission from it).

With this endorsement, the membership rocketed to 11,000 members. There were more vocal calls to go private, but more alarmingly there were a growing majority claiming that EZ-Bucks.co.uk was nothing more than an elaborate ponzi scheme. These

rumours filtered to the on site forum and were quickly quashed by die hard members.

Shortly after the forum was locked.

The reason? It was becoming a bandwidth burden on the server and required to much maintenance. Again, most people accepted this.

Then, four months after it started, in mid-November it released a new program: 200% in 30 days. Danny claimed that several investments were exceeding market growth and he was in a unique position to offer this program for a limited period of time. The minimum cost would be $25 per unit, and there would be just 100,000 units.

For some, this was the final nail in the coffin, but it merely encouraged another few thousand investors to put their money in. The membership swelling to 17,000. EZ-Bucks.co.uk was number 1 rated across every single HYIP rating site.

Before the units were about to mature, Danny said he was able to issue another 200,000 units. These were snapped up within days-despite the fact that the other units hadn’t proven themselves yet.

A few days later, the first batch matured and there were jubilations as everyone received their 200% profits. Many simply reinvested everything. Others, seeing the success invested their life savings in to this program. One person even re-mortgaged his house for $100,000 to invest.

It was now mid-December. The second set of units were set to mature. Going from the history, most thought Danny would issue another set of units.

What actually happened frightened the life out of the bigger investors, and was a very sobering experience for the smaller investors. It was the start of the end of EZ-Bucks.co.uk.

Danny now claimed he was able to TRIPLE your money in 30 days. The cost? A mere $5000!!! 60% of people now saw EZ-Bucks.co.uk for what it was, an elaborate ponzi and withdrew all their money.

However, there were some greedy souls who thought that they could earn at least $15000. In short, they invested from the heart, not the head.

At the end of December the EZ-Bucks.co.uk site went down. Only to re-surface again a few days later.

On January 3rd, 2003, EZ-Bucks.co.uk made it’s last payment. However it still accepted new spends, and people were still joining and investing in their hundreds. The final membership count was around 18,500.

Believers were stunned. Those that had invested everything they owned were sick to the bottom of their stomachs.

The closure of EZ-Bucks.co.uk left a trail of misery. It is a story of greed beyond all proportions.

So now, nearly a year after it all happened, what can we learn from this fiasco? Well, let’s look at the signs from the start.

• Danny wouldn’t divulge how he made the money. He just vaguely said it was various funds and trusts.
• Danny’s contact details were claimed to be false. The telephone number he gave was false.
• Re-spends were required. Suggesting that the program needed an ever increasing amount of money. Any real investment does not require re-spends.
• Calls to go private were largely ignored.
• Referral commission stayed in place, even after 5000 members.
• The forum was suddenly locked after rumours of a ponzi were cited
• New 200% units issued. High min meant more money was required
• Another 200,000 units were issued before the first set were about to double. Indicating that these units would pay off the first lot of units.
• New $5000 units were issued. Signaling EZ-Bucks.co.uk desperately needed more money. It also signaled the end of EZ-Bucks.co.uk
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Looking at the key points of EZ-Bucks.co.uk history, we can easily see the warning signs and the red flags.

An investigation was started, but Danny still hasn’t been found. It is thought that he made over $3 million dollars from his little scam-not bad for 6 months work. At the time of writing, I believe that despite the investigation, I think there is no chance of investors getting their money back.

Expensive lessons were learned from The Great Scam Of 2002.

Case Study #2: The 2PercentNOTHING Scam

It would be thought that after the expensive lessons of EZ-Bucks.co.uk, people would be less inclined to part with their money, but the 2PercentNOTHING Scam proved that people were more willing than ever to part with their money. The main reason is greed, but you do get the odd person doing it to help their kids.

2PercentADay.com started in November 2002. It was a little known program and little advertised. It wasn’t listed on any rating site and not really mentioned on any forums.

I came across it by pure fluke in mid-December, and put a $5 test spend in. With referral commissions, I’d soon doubled my profits to $10.

The company had 2 different programs, 2% daily compounding and 2% daily payer. The whois information gave a real address. The admin claimed that there were 2 other people based in Australia and France who helped keep the trading a 24 hour thing.

The remarkable thing about this program was the community family spirit of the forum. Everyone was very close-nit, and many were the walking wounded from the EZ-Bucks.co.uk fiasco.

The admin virtually lived on the forum. Problems and questions were solved or answered immediately. He was an active member of the forum too, getting involved in many discussions. He told us all about he family, his home town etc. The only thing he didn’t divulge was what he was investing in.

People soon grew to trust him.

Word soon got around of this excellent program, and superb forum, and members swelled to 1000 members within 2 months. At the start of January, the admin announced what everyone was hoping for: 2PercentADay.com was to go private. People were elated and spends nearly doubled (according to the admin).

Then, mid January he announced that he was introducing a new program because 3 trades were doing so well: The 200% in a month program. Sound familiar? Well, the minimum spend would be $100.

Hundreds invested in this great opportunity. What could go wrong? The admin has proved himself to be an honest and trustworthy

person, he’s got plans to go private, this is the real thing, the answer to my prayers!

After the announcement of this program, several people questioned the validity of this program, and were quickly bashed by other members for daring to even THINK that it could be a ponzi.

Well, end of January came, and suddenly the site went down. The reason given was that it was using too much bandwidth-on an unlimited bandwidth server!

The site reappeared briefly, but the forum was locked. Then the site disappeared again.

This was thought to be a little bit of a coincidence because the monthly doubler was due to be paid out within a week.

After a week, the members got a communication from the Admin via e-Gold memo message to go to a site on Geocities.

There he assured us that he was doing everything possible to get a new site up and running. He was very apologetic and promised to keep us updated. Which he did. Both times claiming he needed more time.

By the end of February it was clear 2PercentADay.com was a big ponzi and was not coming back.

Some people started their own investigation, the first thing they found out was that the name and address listed on whois was false. Then someone phoned the hosting company explaining that they hosted an illegal pyramid scheme and if they didn’t cooperate, they would be taken to court. After this threat, of which the details in the forum were posted, the whois information on 2PercentADay.com suddenly changed. The hosting company provided the details of this character and a full investigation is under way.

As with the EZ-Bucks.co.uk scam, there were many losers who allowed greed to take over. Others, in financial desperation, re-mortgaged their house and invested $100,000. They learnt the hard way that HYIP will not solve your financial difficulties.

So, what were the key moments in this scam’s history that threw up red flags and warning signs? Well, it was very difficult in the beginning, but it follows like this:

• The admin didn’t specifically divulge how the profits were made
• The other traders he claimed that were part of the program never made a post, we never heard from them
PAGE 71

• By far the most important factor: The admin pulled the emotion strings very well, such as posting a testimonial from a member and saying how proud it made him feel, and how he had new resolve to help those in need. He also claimed to have started a charity to help children. He used very emotional posts, which encouraged users to invest with their heart, not with their heads
• The guy lived on the forum. He spent so much time on it, when did he have time to do his trades?
• The introduction of the monthly doubler start of January
• The slip up he made when answering how much he made in trades. He posted a ‘sample’ from one of the previous weeks, but foolishly he included Saturday and Sunday as one of the days he made profits. When someone asked how he made a profit on a non-trading day, he replied that there were other ways to make a profit. He obviously knew something that no other trader in the world knew!
• The server ‘problems’.
Once again, 2PercentNOTHING is a tale of greed and misery. I can guarantee it won’t be the last though.

Case Study #3: Gold Excel - The EXCELent Scam

Gold Excel was a surprise success during the summer of 2003. Listed only on GoldGames.org, it was quietly paying investors 3% a day. As it slowly moved up the rankings, it’s popularity grew more and more.

The website was, to be frank, appalling, it looked as if my 6 year old nephew had been given frontpage for the day and come up with a website.

There was no indication of where the money was coming from and the admin was completely opposed to giving his contact details to anyone.

By the time it had reached the top of the rankings, it was a run away hit with all investors. There were some concerned people, who, with past experience knew that Gold Excel could be nothing more than a ponzi. Some people tried to point this out to investors, but were quickly shouted down.

Here’s a forum post I made shortly before the Gold Excel house of cards tumbled:

Pretty much all the members are newbies who are wowed by the whole thing. 80% have never heard of EZ-Bucks (I'm trying to rack my brains for big scams before EZ, but that one just sticks in my mind bcos it was so BIG), and 95% don't know the shady history GG had before its' current incarnation. So basically most of the investors are naive newbies. There are a few experienced players/investors in there, but they all seem to be taken for a ride by this admin 'Dave'.

Talking about the admin, he has refused to provide any information on how he produces the income (he doesn't do it personally, it all goes to a single forex trader apparently), and he won't submit his contact credentials to an independent DD org. Although most of us know that even being DD verified is no guarantee of anything. I mean, imagine endorsing a parking lot...but that'll never happen...Anyway. There is no indication also of how the guy manages to turn around the profits from the trader to investor every day (hell, even at the weekends).

Still, some tried to raise a voice of concern, notably Sean from TIG, Tres of vGoldInfo and stockbroker from this forum (I think). Bcos the noobs have been paid by this guy for so long and are "caught up" in the whole thing, they really bashed both of them, refusing to even accept that gold excel could be a ponzi.

There is honestly no hope trying to educate or point out the obvious to these people, even those with the best intentions. When Sean

made his post, the response was immediate and with venom. Accusing him of all sorts of things.

Recently, someone asked how much they were receiving a day. The answers ranged from $10 /day ($500 spent) to hundreds /day ($5000 plus). I'd say looking at the GG forum, 60%-70% are respending every day. They seem a very greedy bunch, throwing everything that they have in to it.

Oh, there's also still a 5% referral commission.

I think anyone of us would take one look at the site and say scam/ponzi.

I'm also getting (slightly) concerned for some of the people who are involved, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of them have such false faith that they are investing life savings, kids college fund etc. When the cards do finally fall, there will be a lot of destroyed hopes, hopes that were mostly blinded by greed.

No doubt there will be an investigation, it'll drag on for a few months before people get bored of it and move on.

I think the only reason that it has lasted as long as it has, is because so many people are reinvesting everything and then some everyday. I'm also finding it hard to put a failure date on it. Some are saying weeks, others are saying years. Maybe another month...and a bit. I honestly don't know.

A little word of advice to all of you: listen to experienced investors. Although they are not right all of the time (no person is right all of the time), when it comes to spotting obvious ponzi’s, experience is key.


Case Study #4: NEO - Nothing New About This

NEO was an elite private program that many of the more serious investors were involved with at the start of 2003. Gradually it become more mainstream, largely due to the huge monthly returns that it offered, 100% and above.

The unique thing about NEO was that there was no website and all transactions were carried out via email, which were sent to the admins yahoo account. To buy shares you had to let them know, and to receive the money for that month you had to let them know by a certain time, or it was rolled over.

Despite this secrecy they became very popular. Soon they announced that they were going to stop all new spends, and anyone who hadn’t invested by a certain date would not be able to invest. This announcement caused a surge in investments.

Then they started having some problems paying out, people were complaining of late payments. There was no word from the admin, and people lost thousands.

Things to learn from this scam:

- There was no information about who they were and what they did

- They only communicated via free, web based email

- They offered constant sky high returns. Not sustainable, and certainly not around the average 10% - 30% monthly.

- They suddenly changed the program. Any program that suddenly changes for no apparent reason is usually up to no good

Case Study #5: FXTO - The DD Debacle

FXTO was a classic scam perpetrated by an experienced con artist. Again, it was the program for the larger, more serious investor. It had earned itself an incredible amount of respect because it had been endorsed by LPT2, a community of people that put a lot of effort into finding out if a HYIP does real trades, and verifying the contact details.

FXTO had 4 different programs ranging from 110% to 250%. The minimums also ranged from $25 to $500. Some programs paid out within a week, others paid out within 6 weeks.

Because of the LPT2 endorsement, FXTO was trusted by hundreds of people who began putting larger and larger amounts in. Sacrificing their life savings, childrens college funds and all manner of other important savings to get in on this golden goose – the ultimate program.

Another reason FXTO was thought to be so great was because it offered no referral bonus and didn’t advertise anywhere. Thus it was assumed it didn’t rely on new investments (ponzi). This built consumer confidence even more.

FXTO paid out for many, many months. But this was largely due to the fact that people were reinvesting all their principles and profits. All strategies had gone out of the window.

Then suddenly it stopped paying. At first there was wonder on the forum, then concern, and finally anger and pain. People lost tens of thousands of dollars each, either through greed or desperation to make a better way of life for themselves. They were all left with nothing. They let emotion completely overcome them and let themselves dream of riches and money, instead of sticking to the HYIP principles of getting your initial deposit out ASAP and never spending more than you can afford to lose.

There were very few winners of FXTO. Some adhered to the HYIP principles and they made some good money. I myself made a bit of money from FXTO before I stopped investing with them.

It was later discovered that the admin of FXTO was a serial con artist from the Seattle area. He had hundreds of thousands of dollars in his account before it was frozen. It was also discovered that this golden goose program, endorsed by LPT2, was infact based in a car park. In other words, LPT2 had endorsed a car park.

The investigation continues.

Things to learn from this scam:

The short term program was too short term to allow the admin to do any investing of any kind. No one can turn around a profit in that kind of time frame.

Never take DD verified claims to be the be all and end all of your own DD, look at the big picture.

Don’t be overcome with emotion.

Don’t be afraid to lose out in the short term, otherwise you could pay for it in the long term

Just because a program has no referral program and doesn’t advertise, doesn’t mean it’s not a scam.

Case Study #6: EIC - Easy Investors Conned

European Investment Club was the usual run of the mill program. It offered a standard daily paying program and a 50% a month program. What made it more unique was the activeness and high profile of it’s administrators. Both were very active on the public forums, and joined in many discussions with other investors.

They were spammed several times and had their domain black listed, but they bounced right back, promising to go private in the near future.

They went private and increased all their rates of pay, going from 50% a month to 100% a month, something quite unheard of, even in HYIP world. It fooled a lot of investors, who wanted the get rich quick road. They invested a lot more.

Then, one day, the administrator announced that one of the investing partners was leaving, and the remaining partner had no way to invest the money.

The program is now in limbo, with no word from either admin, and no idea where it’s going. Some investors are hoping to get a refund, others have quite rightly cut their losses and moved on.

Things to learn from this scam:

• No effective DD had been done on this program, we knew nothing about the people that operated it.
• No indication of investments
• The high profile of the admins lured investors into a false sense of security.
• The sudden and unexpected program changes.
Case Study #7: Brideby - Do these things never die?

Brideby had it all, gorgeous website, amazing back end script (which is still very much in demand, if you know someone who has this script, let me know!), wonderful customer service and a semi-ok story. Basically, the veterans of this game knew that it was a ponzi, but recognized that it went above and beyond what normal ponzi’s offer. Newbies to this arena took what they saw at face value, an amazing opportunity offering you 2.1% daily on your investment.

Not only did Brideby pay out an unbelievable amount, they also had a referral whores dream affiliate program that offered to pay the investor 1.1% everyday on all his referrals spends. Everyone was promoting this program, TheBestHYIP.com and others had it rated as number one on the affiliate program alone, loads of people were promoting it in their signatures on forums, spamming. Everything to try and cash in on this cool 1.1% daily referral commission.

There have been other programs that offered daily referral commission before Brideby, but Brideby really kicked this trend off. It’s a ponzi admins dream because so many referral whores are desperate to cash in on other peoples mis-fortune. You can’t put a value on the amount of free advertising they are getting. And one thing a ponzi needs to do is advertise, advertise, advertise in order to get more members and pay out the older members.

Another ponzi defining feature it had was the auto-compounding feature that let you compound your money instead of withdrawing it. By allowing this, Brideby were effectively paying out more, but cutting the amount that they were actually paying out. Greed consumes every new investor (and some veteran members), once they have made spreadsheets of how much they could potentially earn, up the compounding rate goes.

Brideby first ran into server troubles around mid-November time. Suddenly the e-gold withdrawals stopped working (this was put down to the server troubles), then it was announced that all withdrawals would stop for a few weeks, and everyones account would be compounded at an increased rate. When withdrawals were allowed again, surprise, no one could withdraw, the coffers were empty. Now this bit is important:

What was happening was that Brideby had auto-withdrawals enabled. This meant that withdrawals could only be processed if there was e-Gold in the account. What people were finding was that they could spend hours trying to get a withdraw for just $0.50. This can be explained by the fact that people could only withdraw when other people (suckers?) were depositing. Trying to explain that to the die hard cult members of Brideby was a mission in itself!

Remember, when there are withdrawal problems, and things are running as smoothly as they did before, this is sure sign that there is trouble ahead. Get out what you can, cut your losses and run for the hills!

Case Study #8: Nova Lights - The Great Scam of 2003

Now, where to start on this little beauty?? Before it was known as Nova Lights, there were three separate programs called TMA, Star Game and Pegasus Investments.

TMA started around April 2002, and paid out around 10-15% a month. At this time in the arena, this was considered small and unworthy of note.

Star Game started around June 2002 and paid out 1% compounded per day (7 days a week).

Pegasus started in December 2002, and paid out 1.43% non-compounded per day (7 days a week).

Now, they all became very, very popular because their payments were on time, customer support was excellent, and more importantly, it was rumoured that people had actually met or spoken to the admins. As it turned out, these rumours were true, the admins were infact just a family living in a small town near Phoenix. But the rumour itself really fuelled the growth of the programs.

By Spring 2003, the trio (as they were called then) had established themselves without a doubt as the number one online investment program. There was absolutely nothing wrong with them, not a single payment had been missed since they started, no one had any complaints whatso ever, and more importantly, people had definitely met the owners in their own home where they were shown what they believed to be real trading.

In the summer of 2003, the programs had grown to such an extent, that they were to be grouped together under the banner Nova Lights, whilst remaining separate entities. Once this was done, it was announced that they would become private and they would have proper scripts made for all of them. True to their word, scripts were made (and very good scripts too), but…how private is private? When most HYIP’ers think of private, they think of passwords, closed membership and very secret. Nova Light’s definition of private was to put a disclaimer on the front page. So although it wasn’t actually a private program, it was termed a private program. The psychological impact this had on people seemed to be enormous, they were now investors of an ‘elusive’ private program (which just happened to still be open to new members). People started investing from their hearts and not their heads, homes were remortaged, cars sold, loans taken out, kids collage funds liquidated. A really clever trick of the admins was to introduce auto-compounding, thus effectively paying out a lot less everyday as people began the old ‘compound the crap out of it’ method of investing.

To illustrate just how big the program got, a new members group was set up with the aim of ‘buying an island’. The idea was that people would invest into a special pooled account (set up by the admins) and the proceeds from which, an island would be bought for all the members. As silly as this sounds, people were investing by the thousands. Everyone believed that this time next year, they would be relaxing in a tropical island that they owned. What actually happened? Read on…

The cult mentality of Nova Lights is probably the second biggest cult following I’ve seen online (for the number one cult, check out http://pipsinc.com forum). The admins themselves never posted. The entire operation was apparently run by a manager called Karin Hernandez. Karin had many moderators under her control, and she was the general manager for all the programs. The forum was a sickening display of arse licking, fawning, praising and rejoicing. All this lead newbie investors to believe all was well, and there was no need to question anything.

The real key to the success of Nova Lights was the act of keeping TMA, Star Game and Pegasus separate programs. The admins told investors that neither affected each other as their investments were different. TMA was supposed to be the secure program, where you should put your base capital. Star Game was a medium risk program, where you should start to fee your profits from TMA, and Pegasus was a high risk program which you should use profits from TMA and Star Game. By getting people to invest mostly into TMA and feed their profits into Pegasus, the admins undoubtedly prolonged the lifespan of Nova Lights. People actually believed that if Pegasus went down due to it’s high risk trades, TMA and Star Game would be OK. The more cynical amongst us knew that if one went down, they all went down.

So…what went wrong? Around Christmas 2003, withdrawals were suddenly taking a lot longer to be paid. At first it was blamed on script errors, then, surprisingly it was blamed on "a lack of e-gold in circulation". The more cynical investors promptly emailed all the major exchangers and asked if they were having a shortage of e-gold. The answer? Absolutely not.

Can you imagine the uproar on the Nova Lights forum? Someone had dared to question the word of their leader, how dare they? The fact that their leader had been caught out was irrelevant, someone had questioned him.

Pretty soon, some of the big hitters were getting rather worried over their investment situation. Combined, they had around $750k invested in the various Nova Lights programs. A meeting in Phoenix was arranged for the new year, and the owners were to answer for all

the problems. This meeting went smoothly, and the owners assured the investors that these were just temporary problems. Two weeks after this meeting though, it was obvious that these were not temporary problems.

Another meeting was arranged, and the owners claimed to have had several catastrophic trading losses which meant that the program had to be shut down and refunds issued. The big hitters, not buying this story decided to start an investigation. As with nearly all investor investigations, this proved to be fruitless, the money was obviously gone. There were still several cheerleaders in the forums, but now, a year later, even they must have been silenced.

A year on, and the owners are now in jail, they have had everything, house, cars, assets, pensions, cash taken from them by the authorities. When, if, they ever get out, they will be penniless.

Even after 18 months there has been no refunds from the authorities on any money received. In the unlikely case that there ever was any money recovered, investors are sure to only get a penny or two on the dollar in return.

The story of Nova Lights goes to show that in this arena, even the most trusted and respected programs can be (and in most cases, are) pure ponzi’s. Be careful!

Case Study #9: Foreign Fund - The Foreign Scam

Geez, where do I start with Foreign Fund? It started around September 2003, I quickly bashed it as a run of the mill Russian ponzi, and predicted that it would be gone by the new year. Aragh, to my dismay, come January it was still here and still paying.

However, their joint venture with an offshore bank never really materialized. They were supposed to be merging together, using the banks software and client base with Foreign Funds expertise in investing.

Funnily enough, when they announced the merger date, it actually occurred, kinda, in a funny sort of way. What followed was probably one of the longest drawn out deaths of a HYIP that has ever been. From the time of the ‘merger’ in April 2004 to the arrest of the owners in October 2004, there were problems, excuses, change overs, change of management, every excuse in the ponzi admins book of scams was used.

Accounts were originally supposed to be transferred from the foriegnfund.com script to the ff-bank.com script. It was soon discovered (after about a month of complaining) that although the e-gold deposits worked flawlessly, the withdrawals didn’t (which meant that you could put all the money you wanted into the program, but you couldn’t withdraw it. Instead of fixing the initial problem, they decided to transfer everyone over to the ff-bank.NET script, which they said was going to be reserved for the larger investors.

Lo and behold, the withdrawals didn’t work with this ‘new’ script either, however, once again, the deposits were working fine.

If you have very little experience of HYIP’s, you would not believe the shear amount of support ForeignFund was receiving during this change over period. The optimist amongst us would say that this was because the program was doing everything it possibly could to turn the program around for the investors, and they in turn were supporting the program by staying positive. The cynics amongst us would say the happy clappy attitude in the forum was largely because the forum moderators were deleting or editing the negative posts about the program.

At one point, even the classic excuse of, we’re getting debit card purchased, once they are ready, you can buy the debit card and withdraw all your money straight away. Again, you wouldn’t believe

how many people paid for the non-existant debit cards. They were all just so caught up in the program, believed so much and with all their hearts that this was the real thing.

By September 2004, so many people had complained to the US authorities, that there was no doubt that it was only a matter of time before the owners of the scam (if they lived in America) would be caught and put on trial.

That day came in late October 2004. It was announced that 2 men who ran a fraud website called Foreign Fund had been arrested in Pennsylvania.


Case Study #10: S&S Investments - 1000 posts = $500k!!!

S&S Investments is an interesting program because it was operated by a ‘well known’ person in the HYIP arena. I use the quote marks, because this person was not well known at all, infact he was very anonymous. No one knew his name, other than his nickname he used to post with, Sceptre. He used anonymous proxies, he was very well hidden. Yet because he had over 1000 posts on TalkGold, he earned a kind of pseudo-trust that people get from being very visible and always online.

Sceptre started off with a small little program that promised to pay back a large amount after a few days. It soon grew to become very, very popular, and it was not long before he upgraded to a fully automated script.

Sceptre wouldn’t tell people how he made the money, he just said that was his little secret. Virtually everyone invested into S&S Investments based on his post count on TalkGold. "He’s made a lot of posts on TalkGold, therefore he must be honest" seemed to be the general opinion of the investors.

S&S Investments went for sometime before cracks started to appear. First the website went offline, then was back again, but withdrawals weren’t being honoured, then the site went offline again. Finally, Sceptre made an announcement that S&S Investments were closed and refunds were to promised.

For a while, refunds did proceed, but then things started to dry up. Since the summer, no more refunds have been processed.

Hey, just because someone has thousands of posts on a forum, doesn’t mean he’s a trustworthy guy. Use your head, look at what the whole program is offering.

Case Study #11: FLO [Free Land Opps] – The Great Scam Of 2004

This probably has to be one of my favorite scams of all time. This program launched with a huge bang, blanket advertising virtually everywhere. Banners, emails, forum posts, everyone was beginning to talk about it. The website was great, the website security was top notch, the customer support was beyond compare, basically, it had it all. Except that is, believable interest payments. 110% for a week, up to 190% for a month, payments were made 7 days a week (yes, even when the markets were closed!).

This was very much a program for the newbies, something that would "shock and awe" them. People with more experience, or those that preferred to let their brain do their thinking rather than their heart cut through all the crap that was being touted and saw it for what it really was, a very eloquent, elaborate ponzi that was going to draw the punters in by the thousands, and the money by the hundred of thousands. Depending on where their morals and ethics lied, they then proceeded to warn people away from the program or fleece it for everything that it was worth.

The real key to the short-lived success of FLO was the employment of moderators that manned the live voice chat room and forums 24 hours a day. They were on hand to answer all questions that the ‘investors’ had. The owner of the program, a gentleman called ‘Xavier’ (someone who obviously though that the name sounded mysterious and cool at the time) conducted live voice chat sessions on a daily basis where people could ask any question they wanted. Well, that was what was advertised anyway. Whenever anyone asked difficult or cutting questions, they were booted from the chat room for ‘trouble making and soothsaying’. The entire forum was a censored environment, if someone disagreed with what the establishment said, then they were labeled as a trouble maker or soothsayer. A real sense of them versus us mentality was established. The newbies and the weak minded fell for it hook, line and sinker.

By creating the them versus us mentality, hushing up and mocking of people who disagreed, FLO was able to create bigger and more elaborate lies, safe in the knowledge that 99% of the investors were letting greed blind them into stupidity.

Cracks first started to appear in FLO’s setup when various e-currencies started to drop them or close their accounts. Surprisingly, e-Gold was first, then e-Bullion, followed by VirtualGold (who FLO were touting as the next big thing only weeks before). Finally they were left with just EvoCash, on the basis that all the other e-currency providers were not able to cope with the high volume of money

coming into and out of the program (again, a them v us theme). Withdrawals, which were often processed the same day in the beginning were starting to take longer and longer to process. FLO’s answer for this was that they were preparing for the private program, and all the withdrawal requests were slowing them down.

One of FLO’s greatest (or most low) moments was when they announced plans for the private program. They didn’t want ‘unsavvy’ or non-serious investors, so there was going to be a $1000 minimum to get into the private program. Since most people invest a maximum of $100, this was going to pose something of a problem, unless they put more money into the program. Since FLO had created such a cult mentality on the forum, for most, putting more money into the program to have the opportunity to get into the private program was a no-brainer – they couldn’t exchange the money fast enough.

Then disaster struck…well, a very well planned ruse. A fake FLO website was sent to thousands of FLO investors by email. Apparently this website contained a Trojan which was designed to capture all their FLO login details. Strangely, there was no report of anyone actually having this download on their computer, however, according to God, err, I mean Xavier, too many people’s accounts had been compromised (remember, no one knew of anyone who actually had this Trojan on their computers), and this was affecting the withdrawal process, thus putting back the cut off date for the private program.

This sign of trouble behind the scenes should have been a wake up call to even the most hardcore of FLO supporters to start pulling all the money that they could. But no, Xavier said that everything was alright, therefore everything was alright, because Xavier wouldn’t lie to us. I think that if Xavier had said that he could make water flow uphill, they’d have believed him.

Then there was a newsletter that informed investors that the US ‘ABC’s were on their case and had confiscated one of their US servers, but it was alright, because no information was held on that server. Xavier was hailed a hero and a savior (maybe that’s why he called himself Xavier – Xavier the Savior) for foiling the authorities attempts to shut his program down (a them versus us theme again).

The final straw came when EvoCash, the only e-currency that they were still able to use, announced that they were freezing all FLO’s money (FLO said it was around $2m, EvoCash refused to comment but said that it was no where near this much) unless Xavier could provide sufficient ID to prove who he was. This was completely appropriate because EvoCash’s own terms and conditions state that proof of ID may be required in some cases, if ID cannot be provided, then the funds would be returned to the owner and the account will be closed.

Of course, this had the FLO admin and investors up in arms, suddenly EvoCash had backstabbed them, and they were to blame for all FLO’s problems (them versus us). EvoCash was evil and everyone should avoid them at all costs. Suddenly, e-Gold was back in favour again, but that didn’t matter, because there were no more withdrawals processed.

It was then (predictably) announced that there would be no more withdrawals, and the FLO program in it’s current state would be shut down. However, everyones deposits will be compounded at the rate of 190% per month until the new private program opens.

Well, you can probably guess that the private program launch date has been and gone several times. Each time something crops up that requires the date to be pushed back further and further. Cult members still believe, though some are finally cottening on to the fact that FLO is, and was from the start, one big giant scam that made some people very rich, and most people very poor.

Case Study #12: WeeklyGold - Would the real Mario Degryse please stand up?

Ah, Mario Degryse. At one time, he was counted as one of my closest, trusted online friends. But then again, at one time, he was the most trusted individual in the HYIP arena.

Until January 2003, Mario Degryse was a relatively unknown investor in the HYIP arena. Then, he and 2 others formed a network of websites including forums, HYIP’s, rating sites, HYIP scripts and e-gold mass pay sites. Virtually overnight, this network became the biggest and most successful in the HYIP arena.

Mario passed himself off as a millionaire playboy living in Belgium. He claimed to be using his lucrative connections to support WeeklyGold.com, his HYIP and his ‘baby’. He was very active online, and a hater of scams. People began to trust his opinion, and listen to him when he spoke. He often carried out investigations, and became privy to a lot of ‘inside’ information.

I actually got to meet Mario Degryse several times in London. Each time he had something new to present, always going to some private bank in the City or finalizing contracts. He was also not shy about flashing his cash, often showing me just how many notes he had stuffed into his wallet. He liked his drink, and was probably more of an alcoholic than I am!

He always had plans for WeeklyGold, everytime he had something new to present to me, which I found great. To be honest, I was quite awed by this guy.

Mario’s major downfall came around the time of the demise of Nova Lights. He was one of the big hitters that stood to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars if they closed. He saw himself as the saviour of the HYIP’ers, going to speak reason into the owners of the biggest HYIP at the time to try and get everyones money back.

What actually happened degraded into a big cat fight between two of the big hitters, both accusing each other of back stabbing, slagging the other one off, and just general nastiness.

Around the same time, WeeklyGold, Mario’s personal program also experienced payment problems. Once Nova Lights had closed, WeeklyGold made no more payments. It became very obvious that Mario was simply piggy backing WeeklyGold on the top of Nova Lights, paying out about ½ what he earned, and pocketing the rest. No wonder he always flashed the cash and could afford expensive items.

Mario promised refunds, but that was about the last time anyone heard from him. It later emerged that Mario was a compulsive liar and had a bi-polar personality. One of the biggest names in HYIP turned out to be just a common scammer.


Some excellent history chronicled by whomever was the original author. I hope the newbies read and benefit from it.

SD

Be On The Look Out For Things Like This:

Pay the small fish and the big fish will come

The HYIP has being paying daily for few months without fail. Their membership growth rate is healthy.
Suddenly they announced a new plan, which is more much more attractive than the current plans. This new plan is usually on a compounding basis whereby you can only withdraw only after a month or so. The new plan also requires you to invest a higher spend than the other plans.

People will fall for it because the HYIP had gain much public trust after months of consistent payout.

Example: Global-E-Bank

Voting Madness
The HYIP pays non-investors to vote on monitoring sites. These non-investors keep voting on varies monitoring site and in the end they get more than the real investors.
This is a sign of a ponzi scheme. That HYIP need more new money to pay the old investors. A non-investor voting : "I got paid! Super! Best HYIP!" is the joke of the year. They are paid to be a liar. These liars are no different from scammers and to us, they are in the same barrack as those scammers in the jail.

Also watch out for sudden increase in good votes. Yesterday there were 10 good votes and today there are 100? Someone is behind this and you should know who he is……the SCAMMER!

Example: ImpexInvestments

FAQ/Plan Structure Rip Off

Many HYIP are so lazy to do their own FAQ and even their pay structure that they copy others. If they are so lazy to do their own, they will also be lazy to pay you!
Example: oneinvest.co.uk is identical to syninvest's FAQ and xgoldx is identical to C-Investment's pay structure.


FAQ/Plan Structure Rip Off

Many HYIP are so lazy to do their own FAQ and even their pay structure that they copy others. If they are so lazy to do their own, they will also be lazy to pay you!
Example: oneinvest.co.uk is identical to syninvest's FAQ and xgoldx is identical to C-Investment's pay structure.


Dishonest HYIP Blogs/Monitoring Sites

These blogs/monitoring sites claim to be honest investors. They will list the biggest and most well known paying programs and give professional reviews. After scrolling through the listings, you discover a stranger inside the top list! A program you never heard of before. But the site claim that it is best program and they have already invested a huge sum of money in it.
Obviously, the monitoring site has some "relationship" with that HYIP or vice versa.

HYIP Fake Documents

Someone discovered the documents posted by the HYIP as fake. Why a need to display fake documents?? Obviously this is a ponzi!!
Example: ImpexInvestment

HYIPs claiming to be a division of a group

It's so easy to check out on these idiots. Just call the main group. Usually, the main group will claim that no such division exists!
Example: Mineral Investments

THE 3% CURSE

Over the years, theres a payout trend in the HYIP world:
1% daily - usually goes with 365 days/life
2% daily - usually goes with 365 days
3% daily - usually goes with 90 days
4% daily - usually goes with 50 days
5% daily - usually goes with 25 days or 30 days
variable% usually goes with 6 months to one year

The best part is the 3% curse. HyipFarm.com started this term!
Believe it or not, most programs offering 3% is cursed to close down!

Example:
widegold - 3% daily for 200days
impexinvestments - 3% daily for life
oneinvest.co.uk - 3% daily for 180 days
3×90.com - 3% daily for 90days
Sonicinvestment - 3% daily for 90days
MakeRich.ca - 3% daily for 200 days

From www.igoldforum.com

11 Secrets HYIP Pros Use To Succeed in HYIPs:

Hello Everybody,

Achieving success in online investment requires developing Habits and Attitudes that brings a mindset to fully exploit the benefits of HYIPs. This Mindset is the most decisive factor to turn Your Dreams into reality and accomplish incredible success in HYIPs arena.

Here are 11 Secrets HYIP Pros use to succeed in HYIPs:

1. HYIP Pros are Committed to learn the Hard Staff

Most HYIP investors lose their hard earned money badly. Why? Because most of them lack knowledge and experience on how to deal in HYIPs arena. In other words they do not have knowledge on how to choose a particular HYIP for investment, how to manage their investment, what strategies and techniques to use, etc. They learn their lessons the hard way: they lose a lot of money first by investing how they shouldn't, and then they try to learn what they needed to know in the first place. HYIP pros are different. They learn first how to do all the hard things. They learn all about HYIP strategies and techniques. They set goals, make daily and weekly plans and measure their progress. They do not waste their time wondering around sites unless they have hard evidence that these sites will bring them success.

2. HYIP Pros work a Plan

Successful HYIP Pros have simple working model: they replicate their success. They know what strategies to use; they consistently work with these techniques and strategies. And more important, HYIP pros follow a schedule. Organization, Tacking returns and daily HYIP management are a way of their daily activities in HYIPs arena.

3. HYIP Pros Set Goals & Limits

Goal setting is a very powerful technique that can yield strong returns in all areas of your life. At its simplest level the process of setting goals and targets allows you to choose where you want to go in life. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know what you have to concentrate on and improve.
HYIP Pros set *****, clearly defined goals so that they will be able to achieve more and improve their performance. By setting goals, and measuring their achievement, they are able to see what they have done and what they are capable of. The process of achieving goals and seeing their achievement gives them the confidence and self-belief that they will be able to achieve higher and more difficult goals. HYIP Pros have a clear sense of purpose and direction in every area of their investment in HYIPs.

4. HYIP Pros take strong Measures to protect their Account Safe

HYIP Pros work hard to generate money at the same time they work hard to keep their money safe. They know how to deal online .HYIP Pros know that protecting accounts related to HYIPs activities are important. As a result they are always keen to take measures that protect their accounts safe.
They Use anti-virus software, a firewall, and anti-spyware software to help keep their computer safe and secure. They always set up their operating system and Web browser software properly, and update them regularly. HYIP Pros Use strong passwords or strong authentication technology to help protect their personal information. They wisely Use e-mail against fraudulent “phishing” emails and attachments which are often used to trick people into giving up personal information

5. HYIP Pros Make Research

HYIP pros obtain and analyze as much information as possible before making any investment decisions. They do not invest unless they have hard evidence that these sites will bring them profit. They verify the validity of a particular program’s real investment opportunities: They check the “WHOIS DATA” so that they will be able to get the detailed information about a particular business. In addition, HYIP Pros verify particular HYIPs trading history and qualification. They make the optimal research before investing their money.

6. HYIP Pros Diversify their Portfolio

HYIP Pros know that High Yield Investment Programs always carries a calculated risk. They are always working hard to minimize excessive risk imposed by HYIPs. They know, Diversification is technique to manage their investment. They spread their portfolio over different programs. HYIP pros also know how to distribute their investment over each program. They spread their investment proportional to the credibility of each program. They do not over invest. They focus on overall plan of their investment.

7. HYIP Pros Get Their Principal Back Quickly

One of the greatest problems in HYIPs arena is that it is impossible to predict the life span of a particular HYIP. Thus, it is important to take some mechanism to make your investment safe. One way of doing this is to properly use different compounding options. HYIP Pros Know how to Compound for a particular HYIP at different times.
HYIP Pros get their original spend back as fast as possible, i.e. they set the compounding option to 0% until they return back their initial investment, then after, start compounding depending on the status of the HYIP. They usually withdraw 50% of their profit by setting the compounding option to 50% after they return back their initial investment. And they watch for red flag for a particular HYIP, if they come across these red flags, they keep on withdrawing by setting the compounding option to 0%.

8. HYIP Pros are always watching for red Flags

HYIP Pros are always involved looking beyond the obvious, they act like a watchdog. They watch for important information about particular HYIP indications of potential problems or red flags, clues that a HYIP may be heading for trouble.
They know what a healthy HYIP looks like, how Ponzi’s look like, how they behave and what tricks HYIP scammers use to cheat investors.

9. HYIP Pros are ready to lose

HYIP Pros understand that high yield investment programs are risky. Therefore, they are always ready to accept any lose. But, they learn from their mistakes.

10. HYIP Pros Work Consistently

To achieve their goals, HYIP Pros have self-discipline to work every day with all the energy they possess. They consistently work to get a consistent result. Secret of their success is discipline.

11. HYIP Pros Never Quit

HYIP Pros never quit. They know that HYIPs always caries risk and they are constantly working to avoid these risks. When things go wrong, they don’t give up; they Keep on working hard and consistently and finally succeed. They know there is no magic bullet that will make them rich overnight without much effort. They are always patient to see the result.

From www.igoldforum.com

Shock Secrets of Successful HYIP Investment

What is your goal? To earn money quickly, get additional income without work. HYIP market can realize your dreams or makes you bankrupt. Where is limit? Listen here and you will know how to be rich.


As successful HYIP investor you should know golden rules of sure investing. These rules are very significant and I want you to know them at your finger tips before you actually start your investing way.

Think Long-Term: Never ever think or plan to get rich within a short period of time. It is not reality. Usually good HYIP will never pay quite your principal and interest in less than 6 months.

Do not Quit: Winners do not quit and quitters do not win. It is a law of our life. The next step you take could be the winning step but if you quit, you'll never know how much you are loosing. Just keep investing and learning better ways to better your situation in life.

Be Prepared to Loose: In everything you do in life there are always times when losses occur. Life is all about ups and downs. Use losses or failures as a stepping stone towards greater success and also as an experience to make better investment plans, ameliorate on your strategies.

Diversify: Never put all your eggs into one basket. This is very important rule in HYIP investing. Invest in more than 5-7 programs to create multiple streams of investment income for yourself.

Research and research again: Always conduct your own research too. Always keep your ears on the ground, join HYIP forums, read the FAQs and Terms, read emails sent by the programs you join, check monitoring sites as theHYIPs.net and write their support if there are issues you are not clear on in their terms or FAQs. Ping their domain to define their IP addresses and use an IP search tool or software to determine their location. Do not forget to do a whois search to define if what the programs say in their “About Us” is the same as it is in the search. When you get this information, compare it with what they say about themselves. Also, NEVER sign up a program that is hosted on a free hosting service or sites that use the same scripts. Never reply to any email asking for a confirmation of your username and password.

Protect yourself, your e-currency account(s) and your investments: This is another very important point to note. Avoid using your real names when dealing with programs you are not sure of except when it has to do with receiving your money via wire-transfer where you have to give your full details to the program to enable transfer of funds to your account. Also use different passwords for your e-currency accounts, your email address(es) and your investment programs. This will prevent fraudulent programs from trying to use the same password you used to join them to open your e-currency account(s). NOTE: If you are using e-gold, make sure you apply the security features as explained by e-gold to protect your account.

Avoid Greed: Do not let the human factor of greed take over your investment decisions. The scammers use the human factor of greed to lure you into investing your money with them. From my personal experience, I lost a lot of money due to the fact that I allowed the emotion of greed to do my investing for me. Scammers offer very high and unrealistic interest rates within a very short time. When this happens, you will know immediately that this will not last but the emotion of greed will always tell you to give it a try and this is where your downfall and failures will begin. These scammers might pay you the first time just to encourage you to invest more and when you do, they disappear.

Please take note of these important rules above and you will enjoy investing in HYIP investment programs

Jossytech (www.igoldforum.com)
Together on the top

YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS:

Dear members,

It is sadly true that most HYIP investors eventually lose both their capital and the profits they obtained even to a reputable or famous HYIP programme.But it is also true that some people equally smile home from every famous HYIP programme that emerge at a point in time.What makes the difference?I will say good information and discipline.Please let me explain these two factors.

INFORMATION
The difference between seasons is information.If you keep hearing the same thing everyday,please be rest assured that tommorrow may just be like today.Therefore,get relevant information concerning your business today so that tommorrow can be better.However,in the HYIP world,there is no better information you need than a list of paying and standard HYIPs.Standard HYIPs pay for a reasonably long time,ponzi pay for a very short time while some HYIPs do not pay at all.However,one thing is common to all HYIPs, they all stop paying or disappear one day.Hence how do you reap good harvest from this highly risky venture called hyip?
1--Locate atleast three standard HYIPs that someone you respect has invested in.
2--Divide your capital into equal parts and invest it into the three or more programmes you have selected.
3--Make regular withdrawal in order to recover your capital as soon as possible.
4--I advise that you should not compound anything at all.Withdraw your capital as soon as possible
5--Always be on the look-out for new programmes.
6--Instead of re-investing your capital into old programmes,please try new ones.You can put part of the profit into the old programmes.

DISCIPLINEA
wise man said that there are two pains in life;pain of discipline and pain of regrets.I therefore conclude that if I do not discipline myself to follow these rules that I have set out for investment,I will end up losing all my capital if not in debt.We should shun emotion when we are set to do business.Infact,business management does not surrender to emotions.I still wish you all the best.You can access my own list at www.actual-city.4t.comHave a nice weekend.

by Bosun(www.igoldforum.com)

WANNA TALK ABOUT "HYIPs"

TheGreenNation Forum
http://www.thegreennation.com/

HYIP forum place
Independent discussion place about earning with investment programs.
http://www.money-debate.com/

HYIP.org
A New Forum for HYIP.
http://www.hyip.org/

TalkGold - E-gold HYIP Forum
http://talkgold.com/forum/

The best forum about HYIP
GoldenTalk - The best forum about High Yield Investment Programs (HYIP)
http://goldentalk.com/

Web Life e-Business Forum
WebLife HYIP and investing forum/community
http://www.web-life.org/vb/

DX Powerteam
Forum on all aspects of DX Gold
http://www.dxpowerteam.com/

AurumGames forum
e-currency forum, all about e-currencies: HYIP, MLM, GPT, randomizers, money exchange, debit cards. HYIP forum, MLM forum, GPT forum
http://casino.xpsweb.com/forum/

Hyip Portal Forum
HYip Foprum
http://hyip.forumco.com/Default.asp

HaoHaoBBs
A Hyip Forums
http://www.haohaobbs.net/

TalkMoney
TalkMoney.org is The Best Money Making Forum where money makers talks about money making opportunities like HYIPs, e-gold, Matrix Sites, MLM, GPT, Autosurfs, Forex, DxGold, DxInOne, Cyclers, Doublers and More!
http://www.talkmoney.org/

House of Profit
Money making discussion forum
http://www.hoprofit.com/

EFxForum
ForexForex TradingForex ForumStock ForumHYIP
http://www.efxforum.com/

MoneyDiscuss Forum (Added On: 2007-02-20 In/Out: 0/33)
he place to discuss HYIPs,Auto-Surf and Manual-Surf Programs,other Get paid To Programs, Money Matrix, Gambling,Casinos Doublers, Matrix, Cyclers, Benefactor & Cashback Offers...All of the money making online programs...
http://moneydiscuss.com/index.php

HYIP - High Yield Investment Programs

If you've searched around the Internet for different ways to make money online, there's no doubt that you've come across the term "HYIP". You might have just skipped it and paid it no mind, but if you're reading this article right now, you must have questioned what the term encompasses. HYIP stands for "High Yield Investment Programs", which covers all programs, offline and online, that are used to invest money to receive a higher yield than you would normally get at a bank.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's a safe and solid investment. Look to HYIPs as more like gambling than an investment, and only use money that you can afford to lose. HYIPs basically take the investments of their members and invest them as a whole into more standard investments, including stocks, high yield bonds, foreign exchange trading (FOREX), or other programs. It works almost like a loan to the creator of the HYIP in which they pay you back with the profits that they gain on your money, kind of like interest on your principle.

HYIP online programs have different interest payment terms, and you need to know all the rules before you join up with one. They can either pay a daily percentage, which is usually in the range of 1 to 10%, weekly, which can pay anywhere from 5 to 50%, and monthly, which can pay anywhere from 20 to 200%. Make sure that you find one that meets your needs in terms of profit gains, such as if you're doing it short term or long term. Studying all the site information, including the FAQ, the terms and anything else you may come across is a good idea if you want to know what's happening with your hard-earned dollars.

Starting off with an HYIP online is simple, since all you have to do is register with them and then deposit some money into your HYIP account using the payment processor that they outline. The profits are paid out to the same processor to streamline the process.


How Will HYIP Work for Me:
Now that you know the basic gist of HYIPs, let's dive into how you can get to making money through these High Yield Investment Programs. We touched on it a little bit in the introduction to HYIP article, but the ins and outs of HYIPs and how to make money off of them requires a little more substance to the entire process. Here are some tips that you should keep in mind when you're preparing to dive into the HYIP world.

As mentioned in the previous article, make sure you don't invest money that you can't afford to lose. Do some number crunching to prepare a budgeted allotment of money that you know you won't become homeless or bankrupt if you lose. It's a general rule with any investment, but it holds true even more so in the HYIP world. Another way you can lose your money real quick besides the investments going bad is having someone gaining access to your account and running it dry. With any account that involves money, you should have a strong password linked to it, and change it often. It's just an added layer of protection that you need to make sure your money is secure.

Don't expect the entire process to be piece of cake. Putting your money into a program you spent seconds choosing and then forgetting about it all, hoping to see millions in your account month later is most certainly a bad strategy. You will have to find out a lot and keep track of your current progress to switch programs if any of them performs bad.

Next, don't be greedy with how much money you can make. You're already going to make more than a yield with a bank, so why push it when it comes to how much a certain HYIP pays out in returns? If a return rate is much higher than others, it's usually a red flag and you may want to avoid it. Be sure to do your homework about any and all HYIPs that you join. There are sites all over the net that specialize in which programs are running well. Also, before you join any program, be sure to read the terms and conditions of the site in great detail. If you don't know what you're getting into, you won't know if something's wrong until your money is gone.


I Don't Want to Get Scammed in HYIP
There's a good general rule of thumb in life that also applies very well in the world of HYIPs: if it seems too good to be true, it generally is. This applies to the HYIP world when you have sites that offer unrealistic return rates, like 100% a day or more. Sure, they may pay off for a day or two, but they're mostly just trying to create a strong membership foundation before taking their money and running. But just because that happens doesn't mean that you shouldn't even bother investing at all in HYIPs. It just means that you have to be vigilant in order to maximize your profits. Here are some ways that you can scrutinize an HYIP to see if it's the right one for you or not.

All HYIPs are risky. But then again, so are stocks, bonds, mutual funds, FOREX trading, and most other investment realms. It's just that in this case, if you make intelligent, well thought out choices, you stand to make lucrative profits quickly. Look deeper into sites that have earning potentials that are congruent with your goals for making money.

Some HYIPs are longer term, meaning you'll make a healthy profit months into the cycle, while others are shorter term and allow you to make more money quicker. Each one has its risks and rewards, and that's why it's important to map our your conquest before setting out into the world. That's also why it's important to diversify between different programs. Not "putting all your eggs into one basket" allows you the security of knowing that if one program fails, you still have others to back it up. Divide your money up according to your earning goals between the different programs you choose, and you'll be able to have a healthier portfolio, just like in the stocks and FOREX world.

All in all, you want to be cautious and aware about how the HYIPs do business. If there's anything confusing or fishy about the site, just look for another one you feel comfortable with.


What's a Good And Bad HYIP
By now you've probably seen a good amount of HYIP sites on the net, all with their own set of earning potential promises, all with their own terms and rate of returns. The main thing you're going to notice is that they all wind up looking the same, don't they? But don't be fooled by looks and imitations. Some of them are just fronts for scammers, while other ones are rock solid and out there really trying to make money for you. Luckily, there are sites out there devoted to helping you make an informed decision on all of these sites before you put your money at risk.

The first place you want to look for information regarding any HYIP programs are rating, or monitoring sites. The good monitoring sites with a lot of traffic will give you the best possible insight into how a program is performing, whether it's paying its members regularly, and how it rates compared to other HYIPs out there. They contain enough information for you to choose, and the more user feedback a site offers, the better it is for your purposes.

Look around the monitoring site and see which programs have the most votes, as well as the most positive votes. A site with a lot of votes, but on the negative side, should immediately be taken off your probable list. A site with only a few votes, but all of them positive, should have a red flag raised. It could be that it only has a few votes because the admin is actually the only one voting for it, or it could just mean that it's too new to get any accurate measurement of how it's performing.

Message boards devoted to HYIP discussion is also a good place to get more information about good and bad HYIPs. You can check the comments on each program, and whether people are being paid or not. You can also keep track of any changes to the program throughout the life of the HYIP. Probably the message boards are one of the fastest and most informative ways to keep track of the current HYIP tendencies. You can choose a program by reading what the other folks say, and you can switch programs once you get any suspicion.

When you wind up joining with an HYIP, whether it's doing well or poor, it's up to you to vote on the monitors or join in on forum discussions. A strong member base is always a good backbone to any HYIP, and will help you maximize your profits.



Keep the following points in mind before you invest:
Obtain and review a written proposal or prospectus on the venture and the company, including financial statements.
Consult an accountant, attorney or other knowledgeable person whom you trust.
Beware of schemes in which recruitment of new members is more important than the product being sold. Those in the scheme early may profit: those in late always lose.

Whenever in doubt, wait until you can consult all available resources.

Never send cash through the mail or give it to a messenger sent by the salesperson, and never give a credit card number over the phone.
Keep all correspondence and take notes of all conversations regarding an investment.
Do not be pressured into buying by "tomorrow will be too late" tactics. No legitimate broker will rush you into an investment. High pressure is a good indicator of fraudulent operations.
Beware of testimonials. Fraudulent companies sometimes hire people to claim that the firm's investments brought them wealth. Other con artists exploit the trust that members of churches and fraternal organizations have for one another: When one member of a group invests, the promoter uses that person as an unwitting accomplice by citing his or her investment to convince other group members to invest also.
If in doubt, do not invest. It is better to be safe than sorry. Also, if you become suspicious, get out of the investment. Stop payment on your check or demand your money back.
If, after careful consideration, you decide to invest, keep your initial investment small. Pressure to put all your savings into a single investment is a sign of a scam. Most reputable stockbrokers believe that diversification is a wise safeguard. Also, never invest more than you can afford to lose.
In general, if the deal sounds "to good to be true" it probably is.