PinoyMoneyTalk.com

Do you believe Private Investors Union (PIU) lied to its investors about the actual status of the program?

In their 47-page PDF report, PIU claimed their death was caused by Financia Investing denying them their US$1.5 million withdrawal request in November 2006. Reports have shown, however, that Financia Investing already collapsed a year earlier, around November or December 2005, as proven by Fair Share Investing and other investment pool programs.

Wanna hear some more lies from PIU?

(more…)

If Private Investors Union (PIU)'s story is to be believed, it took them one year to discover what Fair Share Investing (FSI) and other investment pool programs have already known for so long. 

Like PIU, FSI is a private pool program that invested in Wanda Lee Newby's forex trading corporation, Financia Investing. But unlike PIU, FSI knew the company was in trouble ever since December 2005.

FSI used to be part of FeederFund's portfolio, offering investors 7-8% monthly gross return. But in May 2006, Feederfund closed FSI to new membership after the latter ascertained that Financia Investing wasn't anymore paying as scheduled.

The FSI admin shared via email that he and the admins of other pool programs invested in Financia Investing knew since December 2005 that the company was in trouble.

All her other investors that I know of, stopped receiving money in Dec 2005. Actually Nov 2005 was last payment and Dec 2005 was missed payment and first sign of trouble.

- Fair Share Investing admin 

(more…)

Backed by a 47-page PDF report, the PIU admins announced last week the death of Private Investors Union.

This is their version of the story:

In 2004 we found an investment company called Financia Investing Inc., located in San Jose, California. The company is openly registered, no Delaware kind of company. We decided to make our test investment there and signed a contract with them which was quite flexible as we wanted to test their abilities and response to withdrawals.

We made a first withdrawal of interest gains after 3 months of investment, then again after 9 months of initial investment and lastly after 12 months when we requested all our funds back also.

During this time also we were building our trust and association with the company, they would show us extra-official details of their operation and it was clear they were generating profits. We were so happy and so sure that this would be a great opportunity that some of us thought that maybe we can help other people reach their goals too at that moment we thought of our neighbors and friends that do not have too much money for an initial investment but would like to have a retirement opportunity in the future.

Our initial test ended at around December 2004, and at that moment we decided that if we would have other people interested in this we would need to go even further with due diligence.

We asked the company Financia Investing INC, to give us reference letters of other clients of them, we asked for personal reference letters and for bank reference letters. All showed good signs, the bank Washington Mutual was extremely happy with them (no wonder why) and they got a great reference letter for them.

On another try to find out more, we tried to ask them about how the money was generated, how us some live trading and other details, this request was denied on protection of their trading methods. This was just a try to find out more, it is a normal standard that a company will protect their main “secret” in order to protect their business, but at least we tried.

After having all our due diligence covered , we took our decision. It is very important that one of the reasons why we felt even more secure about this opportunity was because it had its location in the USA, the USA have always controlled such kind of investment companies and audited them yearly or even quarterly depending on its size in order to avoid PONZIs, SCAMS, or FRAUD. In some sense this would give us some extra "security".

On February 2005, the program was born.

At that point, we created our private website and that is what it was meant, just an union of private investors, friends and neighbors that would have liked to start or make their test investment.

At that point in time we were not aware of the whole jungle that was called the HYIP arena, we were amazed at how fast they found out our website and started to put them in so called "HYIP monitors".

For around 7 months, the test would continue and the demand for our program would grow. We were always able to honor our financial duties no matter what the situation was.

At that point we were holding an investment capital plus interest at Financia Investing Inc. of close to 1 million dollars (to be exact 984.970,00). Our initial investment have grown a lot and we were able to cover all the funds that were being accumulated in the program which were no more than 30.000 USD before September 2005.

During August 2006, the decision was made to lower the interest earnings in order to give more safety to the program, to protect your funds and avoid any problems, there were also more costs associated with the whole program not only because of us but because of other direct clients of Financia Investing Inc., the number of traders which was 2 at the beginning would have grown to 5 and they would have to be paid following industry standards of around 20% of profits generated.

During December the 1st in our monthly conference call, Mr Gregory Dixon, expressed the need of the traders to have a "Holiday Break", this break was made on Wanda Lee Newby's wish since they were working too much and they needed a break.

On the first days of November 2006, we did request a withdrawal of funds of around 1.500.000usd, Wanda Lee Newby acknowledged reception of information and transfers was supposed to be received during December as expressed in the contract.

We called during December 13th, and we managed to communicate with Mr Gregory Dixon, he told us that he everything was ok and that Wanda Lee Newby was near Los Angeles visiting her friend "Cristabel". We asked about our withdrawal request and we were told that they have done that already on December the 8th, and that it should be about to arrive. We kept trying to contact anyone at Financia Investing Inc. during all the days of the December with no exception without any luck to confirm.

To our surprise in January 1st, we are informed by local friends made during our many visits to Financia Investing Inc, that Wanda Lee Newby had passed away… this was then confirmed by an obituary posted on the San Jose Mercury news on December the 29th.

It states that she passed away on December 14th, after 6 years of breast cancer.

IMPORTANT NOTE: WE WERE NOT INFORMED THAT SHE HAD BREAST CANCER OR ANY KIND OF DISEASES.

AS SOON AS THIS ALL HAPPENED, we immediately started to contact close persons to Financia Investing Inc, to find out about the actual situation this is the information we have up to the day of this report on January 15th 2007.

Wanda Lee Newby was deathly ill, she entered the hospital in late October, she basically went brain dead the last week of November. She died on December 14, 2006. 

Up to this day, we were not able to communicate with anyone at Financia Investing Inc. anymore, telephones are disconnected, there is no one at the office or at home, no one is returning calls to any of us.

We kindly ask you to please for a moment think about our situation too, we were also cheated, misinformed and given false information at some point during Financia Investing Inc. We have no power over any bank account of Financia Investing Inc. We only have contracts which express our INVESTOR type of relation with Financia Investing Inc. We are also a VICTIM of this problem.

- Excerpts from PIU's 47-page PDF report 

We have reasons to believe that the administrators of the program Private Investors Union (PIU) are lying. Read the results of our investigation here: Is Private Investors Union (PIU) lying?

Discuss the death of PIU in the Private Investors Union thread in the PMT Forum (login required).

Google is weird and funny at the same time.

For a long time now, webmasters have accepted the fact that Google's search engine logarithms are so well-guarded no one can exactly figure out how or where a site can land in Google's SERP (search engine results page). There are explanations and hunches everywhere, but no one is sure if it's really about PageRank, site traffic, inbound links, or something else.

For one, it is weird that PinoyMoneyTalk.com (PMT) ranks 9th in the Google.com SERP for the keyword sex pinoys (results differ depending on the Google server you are using; in Google.com.ph, the site ranks 14th).

PMT is definitely not an authority in the subject, although an article was previously published about more Pinoys looking for sex than money — in Google search. Still, that's just one article among several hundred investing- and money-related articles in the site, and it wasn't even as explicit as the title suggests.

Pugad.com, search result #15, deserves to be in that position more especially since they stuffed their pages with keywords such as "sex, filipina nude, filipina sex, pinoy joke, nude filipina, philippine girl, philippine sex, philippine chat" — which, by the way, is a direct violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines, so expect this site to be banned in Google anytime soon.

I am also ready to yield the slot to search result #16, Tigasin.com. Judging by its domain name, there is no doubt the site is more relevant to the "sex pinoys" keyword than PMT.

(more…)

Have you always wanted to save a chunk of your income but never really figured out how? Do you find yourself spending the money you promised yourself before that you would save?

Here are tips from MSN Money about the ways to start saving.

Step 1: Retrain your brain

Saving money is a state of mind. Before you can start, you have to renounce the spending — and stop believing you actually need all the stuff you've been spending money on.

The next time you want to buy something, take the P50 or P100 out of your wallet, and stash it somewhere. See? That's called saving. You don't end up with stuff; you end up with MONEY. To retrain your brain, start thinking about the following:

Accept frugality as your savior. Become a closet cheapskate and emulate your frugal friends. Note that they fix the shower curtain instead of buying a new one. Sit down with Depression-era relatives and ask about economizing.

Seek inspiration. Get thee onto MSN or Google Search and type in "living cheaply," "frugal living" and "voluntary simplicity." Be inspired by the gazillion Web sites devoted to living on less!

Cry poverty — with style. Learn handy phrases like, "Let's eat somewhere cheap." And "Cab? No, I'll take the bus this time." It's less embarrassing than you'd think, because more people are in your shoes than you think!

(more…)

PinoyInvestor.com has the full story on the 2006 performance of bond mutual funds in the Philippines.

Head over to the site using this link:

2006 full-year return of Philippine Bond Mutual Funds (Php, USD, Euro)

Here's a preview of the full-year return of each bond mutual fund. 

• Peso Bond Funds 2006 Performance: 

• Dollar Bond Funds 2006 Performance:

• Euro Bond Funds 2006 Performance:

From PinoyInvestor.com:

GSIS Kinabukasan Fund was the top performer in the Balanced Mutual Funds category. In 2006, it was up 42.95%, even beating the 42.3% performance of the key index of the Philippine stock market.

Three other balanced funds (MFCP Kabuhayan Fund, Philam Fund, and Sunlife Prosperity Balanced Fund) have respectable 2006 returns.

Read the full story in PinoyInvestor.com's "2006 full-year return of Philippine Balanced Mutual Funds".

From PinoyInvestor.com:

All in all, the year 2006 was a good year for Philippine Equity Mutual Funds.

Out of seven (7) existing equity mutual funds in the Philippines, five (5) were able to beat the 42.3% performance of the main index of the Philippine stock market. One fund (United Fund, Inc.) fared relatively poorer compared to the other funds, but nevertheless was still up by 24.17% in 2006.

Read the full story in PinoyInvestor.com's "2006 full-year return of Philippine Equity Mutual Funds".

E-gold, or egold, is an electronic currency (e-currency) backed by actual gold bars in storage by Gold & Silver Reserve Inc. under e-gold Ltd. It is a widely used online payment method in addition to PayPal.

Here's a quick step-by-step guide on how to register for a new egold account.

Click here to go to e-gold's Account Creation page. (Note that the official site is www.e-gold.com, NOT www.egold.com)

Read through e-gold's Account User Agreement and if you agree with the terms mentioned there, click "I Agree".

Fill up all required information in the New e-gold Account Creation Form. Important details include:

• "Account Name" (name displayed when someone is spending or receiving funds to this account);
• "User Name" (name that differentiates one account user from another);
• "Point of Contact" (used by e-gold to contact the account holder in case of blocked accounts, so these should be accurate information);
• "Passphrase" (equivalent of a password, must contain both letters and numbers, minimum of 6 characters); and
• "Turing Number Entry" (a sequence of numbers shown randomly, this is not the assigned e-gold account number).

Once you have correctly filled up the form, click "Open".

If the registration is successful, the e-gold account number will be sent to the email address mentioned in the form (so make sure this is a valid email address).

Access your inbox to check the e-gold account number. Save a copy of the email so you won't forget your e-gold account number.

Login to e-gold's site by correctly filling in the "Account Number", "Passphrase" and "Turing Number". To prevent keyloggers, trojans, and viruses from having access to your account, always use the SRK function beside the "Passphrase" field.

Congratulations, you can now use your e-gold account!

For a clearer tutorial on the steps to sign up for an e-gold account, watch the video below.

Non est mea culpa. Not my fault.

This is what Jonathan Mikula seems to be saying about the fall of PhoenixSurf (www.phoenixsurf.com), the erstwhile popular autosurf program he used to run.

In an interview with The Red and Black, student newspaper of the University of Georgia, Jonathan Mikula chronicled the collapse of the autosurf program:

In November 2005, Mikula's company, New Millennium Entrepreneurs (NME), registered PhoenixSurf.com as a limited liability corporation with the Georgia Secretary of State.

Soon afterwards, Mikula enlisted the help of Organa Consulting and Avante Holding Group, consultation firms run by Florida businessmen Christian Rishel, Michael Hawkins, and Jason Benoit. Mikula admitted they needed consultants to help operate the autosurf program because they were "inadequate in certain areas in terms to run the site."

(more…)