Spammers and referral whores using names of big HYIP sites to deceive investors

Spammers and referral whores* have devised an innovative way to get investors to notice their advertised programs. For several months now, these people have been sending spam using names of popular HYIP forums, HYIP monitoring, and other HYIP-related sites.

Here are examples of spam we received purportedly coming from known HYIP sites. The sites have constantly denied any involvement in the sending of these spam mails. Be warned that these referral whores are in it only for referral commission. Worse, if they are the program admins themselves, these spammers want to bait you in to the program hoping you would spread the news of the program to other people.

DO NOT support these programs. DO NOT click any link in the mail and DO NOT join any of the programs they advertise. You risk yourself being scammed if you do. Report the mail as SPAM in your mail box so that the next time they send you mail, it will be sent directly to the Junk Mail folder.

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Reminiscing: The HYIP arena in November 2005

One year ago…

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November 12, 2005
HYIPDiscussion forum brands StudioTraffic (ST) as non-paying

A falling out with StudioTraffic.com prodded the administrators of the HYIPDiscussion.com forum to set the autosurf program as non-paying in its HYIP list. The problem apparently erupted when ST denied HYIPD's withdrawal requests. This proved to be the beginning of StudioTraffic's end. On this same month, ST members in several countries reported that they were barred from surfing. It was also rumored that an overseas ST payment office have shut down because of delayed payments.

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November 14, 2005
SensaTrust verifies FeederFund

FeederFund got a boost after a reputable, third-party site SensaTrust.org verified and recommended the pool investment program. Surprisingly, however, it was SensaTrust that would disappear in the HYIP scene months later. (FeederFund is still alive until today albeit some of its programs have recently experienced major shake-ups). SensaTrust did not run away — some of its admins are even still active in a few HYIP forums. What happened was SensaTrust's domain was grabbed upon expiration and some admins decided to lie low after they were supposedly contacted by authorities who were conducting investigations on high yield programs that they know.

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November 14, 2005
Paid Response out, Paid Exposure in!

After a few weeks downtime, PaidResponse (PR)'s site went back again online today, but this brought no good news to members. Upon the return of the site, Aaron Bowering announced that Paid Response, his first autosurf program, will cease to operate and will instead be merged with his new autosurf program Paid Exposure (PE). Members were asked to transfer their PR accounts to PE. Months later, PE would also close down with not a single member receiving any payment.

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November 17, 2005
DD on 12DailyPro introduces Charis Johnson and proves program is legally registered

PMT members discussed the results of a Due Diligence (DD) made on the then up-ad-coming autosurf program 12DailyPro. The DD released information about program admin Charis Johnson and details of the business including address, phone numbers, and certificate of incorporation. It would take months before most 12DP investors would discover that a legally registered business such as 12DP does not always equate to a profitable and sustainable investment program.

[tags]HYIP, HYIP news, HYIP update, 12DailyPro, StudioTraffic, FeederFund, Paid Response, Paid Exposure, hyip scams[/tags] 

All you need to know about HYIP investing you will learn from scammers (Part 2)

Possibly partly encouraged by the "I- am- a- scammer- and- this- is- how- I- scammed- you" letter of the Invex admin, the administrator of autosurf program GCISurf followed suit and shared his own scamming strategy after the program closed down in November 2005.

Below is the unedited mail sent by the scammer-admin of GCISurf to all its members.

To all the members of GCIsurf.com,

These of you that thinks we can be caught or you can complain the autorithy from us,its better to give up because it is not possible to catch us.Only we know who we are - but it isn't possible for someone else to know who really operates the program. From the beggning our plan was to protect ourselves if the program fall. Here is the plan which does not allows us to do a risk:

First we have phone cards with numbers + 359 885 363155 / +359 885 363154 which can't be tracked and they are anonymous.It is like buying an ice cream from the shop (no names, no information at all!)

The adress listed in our whois information is not real and we are from Plovdiv.
We operated the program from PC clubs and it's anonymous again , we just come in the club , pay for hour , two , ten and we sit down on the PC and work.

We used stollen documents to confirm ourselves in the TAS newsletter and Intgold , stormpay … (we made few unreal letters for TAS as attorney letters , bank statements with unreal signs and seals and stamps made from us …. we paid one kid to rent a postal box again with stollen documents to get our anonymous debit cards and the stormpay - netiba letters.

With the anonymous debit cards we took some money for us , the cards are on funny names because the company gcard doesn't ask for confirmation and even if do it we have the stollen documents of Aleksandar …. 50% from the ATM machines here doesn't have cameras - we used such ATMs (my partner is working in bank) and it is impossible someone to see our faces :)

No matter the faces ,the goverment doesn't have system to catch us via the faces :) It's really funny and it isn't USA, be sure :P Third world rulzzz!!!!!!

In short : we have not given our names anywhere ,noone have seen our faces , we didn't operate from homes (we are going to buy homes later - we don't have such now ) We are living in hotels right now.

GCIDealing LTD - isn't real company ofcourse!

We paid for the hosting and the other things via e-gold.

We can't process refunds or payouts.

I wish you good luck with your next programs and before investing please make your own DD and do it good or you can easily loose.

Regards,
Sasho - my name isn't Sasho :) my name is Great :P
gcisurf manager "

Discuss these scamming strategies and how we can avoid being scammed in the Scams Discussion board in the PMT Forum.

All you need to know about HYIP investing you will learn from scammers (Part 1)

Why is there an abundance of online scams?

Is it really that easy to put up and run these "investment" programs? Or is it because most scammers don't get prosecuted and are rarely sent to jail? Or is it the investors' fault? Because although they know the program is an obvious scam, they still invest in it, hoping they can make a killing right before the program collapses? If you have been in the HYIP arena for a long time now, you know that the answer is… All of the Above!

How exactly does a scam run, you ask? Let's get help from scammers themselves and let them explain to us the nitty-gritty details of operating a scam.

Following is a letter sent by the adminstrator of Invex to all its investors when the program closed down in September 2005. Invex then was a multi-million dollar investment program that offered extremely high returns. When it collapsed, thousands of investors lost millions of money.

We reproduce the email below to show how the Invex admin/s operated this fraud.

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What the SEC wants you to know about Autosurfing and Autosurf Programs

We're all used to cheerleaders singing praises for autosurf programs, but it's high time we hear what the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has to say about autosurfing and autosurf programs. Read on and learn.

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Auto-surfing is a form of online advertising that purportedly generates advertising revenue for companies that want to increase traffic to their websites. These companies hire an auto-surf firm, which in turn pays individual Web surfers to view certain websites on an automatically rotating basis. Read more

Can you really predict the lifespan of an HYIP?

Hyips-analysis.com recently released an analysis showing the supposed correlation of the payout rates and lifespan of a program (that is, the time it takes before a program stops paying).

The research spanned 178 HYIPs that were included in the site's ratings list and eventually closed down. The results and recommendations:

• Do not invest in HYIPs with template-based websites that pay less than 1.7% per day. Their average life span is lower than the time needed to be in profit.
• The lifetime of HYIPs with template-based websites is way lower than HYIPs with unique scripts and design.
• If you want to invest in ponzi schemes - the best way is to use HYIPs that pay 2-3% per day with a unique non-template design. Chance to be in profit: 60-70%.
• HYIPs paying unrealistically high daily returns of 3-5% often live for a bit longer than the time needed to be in profit, so chance to be in profit is low, only 40-50%.
• Risky Gold-games, paying unrealistic returns of 30% per day and more often last for the period of 5-10 days, so if you invest on the launch date of such an HYIP, you can be in profit. Do not invest more than $50 in such HYIPs, due to the high levels of risk being involved.

Based on your experience investing in HYIPs, are the above conclusions correct? Let us know.

The Origin of “Ponzi”

Ever wondered why some scam programs are named “Ponzi?”

The term “Ponzi” is derived from Charles Ponzi (pic on right), an Italian immigrant, who ran his original scams in Montreal before moving to Boston, where he initially worked as a clerk. Read more

“To invest or not to invest?” — that is the question

HYIP is NOT for you if:

1. You value your money and are afraid of losing them

In this case, you'd better head to a state or a commercial bank, where you will be receiving a very low but relatively stable income for "long years," not being afraid to lose your hard-earned money. Keep in mind: there are no reliable HYIP projects. Some of them pay more than others and yet close down earlier.

2. You don't even have a minimal amount of money (at least $100-$1000) for investing

As you know, money makes money. By not having deposited anything, you cannot derive anything — no matter how many times you multiply zero, you will receive zero in the end. So in case you don't have any money — go and work — HYIP is not a magic wand that can give you profits out of nothing.

3. You've got a weak nervous system

In this case, stay away not only from HYIP, but also from other risky ventures — otherwise, sleepless nights are guaranteed for you. If you are an emotionally unstable person making spontaneous, not well-thought decisions, HYIP is also not for you, since you are taking the risk of losing everything during the first month by making a wrong choice.

4. You like to blame others for your mistakes

If, once failure occurs, you blame someone (be it the administrator, friend, boss, government, God, weather, coincidence etc) except for yourself, you should stay away from HYIP. Keep in mind that YOU are the only one being responsible for the decisions you are making, and all the fault in case of a failure is yours. If you have lost money in HYIP — you are the only one who is guilty in your unpredictability and greed, having taken over your common sense. Remember that no one was pulling you on a lace and you have voluntarily given your money to a scammer.

5. You've got a scammer's nature

If you came to this world with the purpose of making use of others, to succeed by cheating and scamming — keep out of HYIP. There are enough scammers even without you in this arena.

 

HYIP is for you if:

1. You are a self-confident person, willing to take risk

If your credo in life is "The ones who risk nothing don't drink champagne," and you are ready to take reasonable risk, then HYIP is an ideal way of making money for you. HYIP likes the risky ones who are ready to sacrifice their last penny in order to either receive a million… or to lose everything.

2. You've got a well-developed intuition and common sense

Regardless of numerous pieces of advice and discussions, which you will find on HYIP-Forums, you should always conduct your own analysis (Due Diligence). The situation should be analyzed on the basis of your own experience, instead of recommendations of other people. If someone is trying to lure you into a program, you should keep in mind that the last decision is yours.

3. You are able to take losses and learn from your own mistakes

HYIP doesn't like losers who walk aside after their first loss. HYIP is only for brave and persistent people, able to admit their mistakes after a complete loss, make the necessary conclusions, and then rise from the ashes, like the bird Phoenix, and in brave pace not only recover their loss, but also to double (or triple or xxx-ple) their capital.

Things you should know about HYIPs

An HYIP (High Yield Investment Program) is an investment program that offers high returns with a corresponding high level of risk. Contrary to common types of investments, HYIPs can easily give you 100% return in less than a year. Some programs even offer the same return after a month, some after a week, and some offer 100% return even just after some hours.

It is possible to generate such earnings if you know how to play the HYIP game well. In order to do so, you need to equip yourself with the basic knowledge about surviving in the HYIP arena. Below are some things you should know before making that first step into the HYIP world.

High Yield means High Risk. Most people are aware only of the “High Yield” part of HYIPs, but as we all know, return is proportional to risk. Simply stated: the higher the return, the higher the risk. In HYIP, be prepared to lose everything.

Invest only what you can afford to lose. Since you can lose everything in HYIP, do not ever, ever, ever (have we pointed that out clearly?) invest any amount you are not prepared to lose. One actually “gambles” rather than “invests” in HYIPs. In the same way that you won’t go to a casino or bet on the lottery with all your money, do not “gamble” in HYIPs with the money for your house rent, child’s allowance, or groceries. Gamble only an amount you won’t cry over if you lose it.

99% of HYIPs are scams. Don’t easily invest on the first HYIP you see online. Conduct research (DD or Due Diligence in HYIP jargon), search for online reviews, and ask those who have already invested in the program. What hurts the most is investing in an HYIP that will run away with your money the next day. That usually happens if you don’t do research first.

Diversify. Put your money in a group of investment programs, preferably with varying degrees of risk and return. The idea is for you not to “put all the eggs in one basket.” That is, even if one of your programs fail, you still have some fallback, can still reinvest, and perhaps recoup the losses through the other programs.

Take out your principal as soon as possible. Don’t be greedy, take out your principal investment as soon as you recoup it (take some profits with you) and re-invest only the profits earned if you still want to invest in the same program. That way, even if the HYIP you are in folds up, you’d walk away as a winner.

Protect yourself online. As most HYIP transactions are conducted online, you are prone to viruses, trojans, hacking, phishing, etc. Protect yourself by using multiple passwords, using different login names, installing a virus scanning software and firewall, and regularly checking your PC for updates and patches. The worst thing that could happen to you is to receive a $5,000 deposit in your e-currency account, only to find it inaccessible because it has been hacked!

Do not always trust forums and rating sites. Some, if not most, forums and rating sites are either the owners themselves of the scam HYIPs or paid by the owners to advertise the program. Check for objective comments and reviews of programs that interest you in different forums and rating sites. Try to find and stick to a forum or rating site whose members are credible, have integrity, and have built good reputation for themselves.

Do not just sit down and wait. Unlike investing in stocks, t-bills, or mutual funds, investing in HYIPs require some amount of attention since you need to regularly check on the progress of your investment and the status of the program you are in. If you invest in a program and come back after 1 year, don’t be surprised to find the program gone! There’s a big chance the program’s admin has ran away with your money!

Ask questions and learn. You simply can’t succeed in HYIP if you do it alone. Learn from the experts and veterans. Ask questions. Pinoy Money Talk is here! :)

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