HYIP Space

Pyramid scheme

2009-07-05T17:57:00.004+02:00

A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves the exchange of money primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, often without any product or service being delivered.

Pyramid schemes are illegal in many countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, Romania, Colombia, Malaysia, Poland, Norway, Bulgaria, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Italy, Nepal, Philippines, South Africa Sri Lanka, Thailand, Iran, the People's Republic of China, Mexico, Portugal and The Netherlands. These types of schemes have existed for at least a century. Nowadays, subtler schemes exist, whereby wealth is still attained by the pharaoh, but not unless those at the base are also earning.

The unsustainable geometric progression of a classic pyramid scheme

Concept and basic models

A successful pyramid scheme combines a fake yet seemingly credible business with a simple-to-understand yet sophisticated-sounding money-making formula. The essential idea is that the mark, Mr. X, makes only one payment. To start earning, Mr. X has to recruit others like him who will also make one payment each. Mr. X gets paid out of receipts from those new recruits. They then go on to recruit others. As each new recruit makes a payment, Mr. X gets a cut. He is thus promised exponential benefits as the "business" expands.

Such "businesses" seldom involve sales of real products or services to which a monetary value might be easily attached. However, sometimes the "payment" itself may be a non-cash valuable. To enhance credibility, most such scams are well equipped with fake referrals, testimonials, and information. Clearly, the flaw is that there is no end benefit. The money simply travels up the chain. Only the originator (sometimes called the "pharaoh") and a very few at the top levels of the pyramid make significant amounts of money. The amounts dwindle steeply down the pyramid slopes. Of course, the worst off are at the bottom of the pyramid: those who subscribed to the plan, but were not able to recruit any followers themselves.

Some network or multi-level marketing businesses, which sell real products and rely on the price differentials between the manufacturer's dispatch ramp and the retail counter, may verge on the borderline between "smart" and "scam". When a pyramid does involve a real product, such as Holiday Magic cosmetics in the United States in the 1970s, new "dealers" who've paid enrolling fees are encouraged, in addition to selling their products, to become "managers" and recruit more new "dealers" who will also pay enrolling fees. As the number of layers of the pyramid increases, new recruits find it harder and harder to sell the product because there are so many competing salespeople. Those near or at the top of the pyramid make a lot of money on their percentage of the enrolling fees and on commissions for the supplied products, but those at the bottom are left with inventories of products they can't sell.

"8-ball" model

The "8-ball" model contains a total of 15 members. Note that unlike in the picture, the triangular setup in the cue game of eight-ball corresponds to an arithmetic progression 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 = 15. The pyramid scheme in the picture in contrast is a geometric progression 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 = 15.

Many pyramids are more sophisticated than the simple model. These recognize that recruiting a large number of others into a scheme can be difficult so a seemingly simpler model is used. In this model each person must recruit two others, but the ease of achieving this is offset because the depth required to recoup any money also increases. The scheme requires a person to recruit two others, who must each recruit two others, who must each recruit two others.

Prior instances of this scam have been called the "Airplane Game" and the four tiers labelled as "captain", "co-pilot", "crew", and "passenger" to denote a person's level. Another instance was called the "Original Dinner Party" which labelled the tiers as "dessert", "main course", "side salad", and "appetizer". A person on the "dessert" course is the one at the top of the tree. Another variant "Treasure Traders" variously used gemology terms such as "polishers", "stone cutters", etc. or gems "rubies", "sapphires", "diamonds", etc.

Such schemes may try to downplay their pyramid nature by referring to themselves as "gifting circles" with money being "gifted". Popular scams such as the "Women Empowering Women" do exactly this. Joiners may even be told that "gifting" is a way to skirt around tax laws.
Whichever euphemism is used, there are 15 total people in four tiers (1 + 2 + 4 + 8) in the scheme - the person at the top of this tree is the "captain", the two below are "co-pilots", the four below are "crew" and the bottom eight joiners are the "passengers".

The eight passengers must each pay (or "gift") a sum (e.g. $1000) to join the scheme. This sum (e.g. $8000) goes to the captain who leaves, with everyone remaining moving up one tier. There are now two new captains so the group splits in two with each group requiring eight new passengers. A person who joins the scheme as a passenger will not see a return until they exit the scheme as a captain. This requires that 14 others have been persuaded to join underneath them.
Therefore, the bottom 3 tiers of the pyramid always lose their money when the scheme finally collapses. Consider a pyramid consisting of tiers with 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64 members. The highlighted section corresponds to the previous diagram.

No matter how large the model becomes before collapse, approximately 88% of all people will lose.

If the scheme collapses at this point, only those in the 1, 2, 4, and 8 got out with a return. The remainder in the 16, 32, and 64 tier lose everything. 112 out of the total 127 members or 88% lost all of their money.

During a wave of pyramid activity, a surge frequently develops once a significant fraction of people know someone personally who exited with a $8000 payout for example. This spurs others to seek to get in on one of the many pyramids before the wave collapses.

The figures also hide the fact that the confidence trickster would make the lion's share of the money. They would do this by filling in the first 3 tiers (with 1, 2, and 4 people) with phoney names, ensuring they get the first 7 payouts, at 8 times the buy-in sum, without paying a single penny themselves. So if the buy-in were $1000, they would receive $56,000, paid for by the first 56 investors. They would continue to buy in underneath the real investors, and promote and prolong the scheme for as long as possible in order to allow them to skim even more from it before the collapse.

Other cons may also be effective. For example, rather than using fake names, a group of seven people may agree to form the top three layers of a pyramid without investing any money. They then work to recruit eight paying passengers, and pretend to follow the pyramid payout rules, but in reality split any money received. Ironically, though they are being conned, the eight paying passengers are not really getting anything less for their money than if they were buying into a 'legitimate' pyramid which had split off from a parent pyramid. They truly are now in a valid pyramid, and have the same opportunity to earn a windfall if they can successfully recruit enough new members and reach captain. This highlights the fact that by 'buying' in to a pyramid, passengers are not really obtaining anything of value they couldn't create themselves other than a vague sense of "legitimacy" or history of the pyramid, which may make it marginally easier to sell passenger seats below them.

Matrix schemes

Matrix schemes use the same fraudulent non-sustainable system as a pyramid; here, the participants pay to join a waiting list for a desirable product which only a fraction of them can ever receive. Since matrix schemes follow the same laws of geometric progression as pyramids, they are subsequently as doomed to collapse. Such schemes operate as a queue, where the person at head of the queue receives an item such as a television, games console, digital camcorder, etc. when a certain number of new people join the end of the queue. For example ten joiners may be required for the person at the front to receive their item and leave the queue. Each joiner is required to buy an expensive but potentially worthless item, such as an e-book, for their position in the queue. The scheme organizer profits because the income from joiners far exceeds the cost of sending out the item to the person at the front. Organizers can further profit by starting a scheme with a queue with shill names that must be cleared out before genuine people get to the front. The scheme collapses when no more people are willing to join the queue. Schemes may not reveal, or may attempt to exaggerate, a prospective joiner's queue position which essentially means the scheme is a lottery. Some countries have ruled that matrix schemes are illegal on that basis..

Notable recent cases

Internet

In 2003, the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) disclosed what it called an internet-based "pyramid scam". Their complaint states that customers would pay a registration fee to join a program and purchase a package of goods and services such as internet mail, and that the company offered "significant commissions" to consumers who purchased and resold the package. The FTC alleged that the company's program was instead a pyramid scheme that did not disclose that most consumers' money would be kept, and that it gave affiliates material that allowed them to scam others.

Pyramid schemes may use email to persuade others that they are multi-level marketing (MLM) business plans. MLM plans—such as Amway, ACN, Mary Kay, Tupperware, and Avon Products—are sometimes criticized, but remain legal by offering genuine products; pyramid schemes do not.

Others

In early 2006 Ireland was hit by a wave of schemes with major activity in Cork and Galway. Participants were asked to contribute €20,000 each to a "Liberty" scheme which followed the classic 8-ball model. Payments were made in Munich, Germany to skirt Irish tax laws concerning gifts. Spin-off schemes called "Speedball" and "People in Profit" prompted a number of violent incidents and calls were made by politicians to tighten existing legislation. Ireland has launched a website to better educate consumers to pyramid schemes and other scams.

On November 12, 2008 riots broke out in the municipalities of Pasto, Tumaco, Popayan and Santander de Quilichao, Colombia after the collapse of several pyramid schemes. Thousands of victims had invested their money in pyramids that promised them extraordinary interest rates. The lack of regulation laws allowed those pyramids to grow excessively during several years. Finally, after the riots the Colombian government was forced to declare the country in economical emergency in order to seize and stop those schemes. Several of the pyramid's managers were arrested and are being prosecuted for the crime of "illegal massive money reception".

November 2008: The Kyiv Post reported on November 26th 2008 that American citizen Robert Fletcher (Robert T. Fletcher III; aka "Rob") was arrested by the SBU (Ukraine State Police) after being accused by Ukrainian investors of running a Ponzi scheme and associated pyramid scam netting $20 Million USD (Kiev Post also reports that some estimates are as high as $150M USD).

In early 2008, allegations of cheating were made against QuestNet India based on an unverified complaint from a single customer which received intense media attention leading to mass panic among the public. Many customers filed complaints against the company and the MD of Questnet India, Ms. Pushpam was taken into police custody where she remained for five months. Based on media reports, it is learnt that various allegations have been made about the company having defrauded people of several hundred crores of rupees. Police in Tamilnadu state are currently investigating the complaints and Ms.Pushpam has been released on bail. No charge sheet has been filed against the company so far. The company has denied all allegations against it and has stated repeatedly through advertisements in newspapers that it runs a legitimate network marketing business. The company has pointed out that due to lack of any legislation governing network marketing, direct sales or Multi-Level marketing industries in India, there is a lack of awareness about the business model and hence is open to misinterpretation and misrepresentation that leads to complaints from customers who do not fully understand what they are signing up for.

Currently in the United States and Canada a so-called multi-level marketing company by the name of Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing (FHTM) has been operating. A representative pays an initial fee from $75USD to $399CAN as well as an extra fee for the use of specialized software to keep track of the representative's "business", mostly a tracking program for the various other people the rep has convinced to pay into the scheme for their own benefit. Reps are given a variety of mixed-media presentations, mostly PowerPoint presentations and web articles, and are encouraged to go out and recruit three people. Each of these reps recruits three more, and the pyramid grows. Reps are paid a small portion of each subsequent level's fees and so accumulate a large amount of income for as long and the pyramid can be maintained. At certain points along the pyramid "bonuses" are handed out, culminating in the ultimate prize of a new car.

The attraction of this scheme is that several persons have actually managed to accumulate real prizes, but this does not alter the fact that thousands of other people had to pay in their fees for that one person to get a car. Supposedly the company is a word of mouth marketing plan, with each representative getting discounts on products and services with various brands and chains. Most of these brands and chains are US-based and so no tangible benefit is available to many Canadian representatives, forcing them to seek recompense for their fees via selling the scheme to others (often family and friends).

As of this update, FHTM has nearly three dozen open cases with the Better Business Bureau of Canada (where the company is rated F) and several closed-case legal suits against individual representatives in the United States.

Autosurf

2009-06-21T02:27:00.002+02:00

Autosurfs are traffic exchanges that automatically rotate advertised websites in one's web browser. Therefore, they are capable of bringing a large amount of traffic to the advertised websites. Members earn credits for each site that they view, which can then be spent to advertise members' sites by adding them to the autosurf rotation. Sites may additionally be added by external advertisers who pay the autosurf operators.

Concept

Autosurfing is a unique form of advertising: normally, advertisers pay intermediaries to display advertising to their target audience, and the advertising is presented to the audience in places where they are likely to see it, such as in public places, or packaged with entertainment. In this sense, no money changes hands between the audience and the advertiser.
In comparison, autosurfers are paid to view pure advertising (that is, advertisers' websites) for a certain amount of time (usually, less than 30 seconds). Interested viewers can pause the surf timer or open any site in a new window, giving themselves more time to peruse an ad. If the viewer is not interested and does nothing, the surf timer will restart after the specified period of time and a new site will be loaded into the browser. The surf rotation requires no feedbacks of any kind; in contrast to manual surfs, paid to read email or paid to click sites.
Autosurfing allows members to promote websites of their own choice, according to a system of credits earned by surfing. Members usually earn credits in a fixed ratio to the number of sites they view. Member-promoted websites may or may not be their own websites. If not, they are most often the members' referral page at another autosurf or an online money-making program. This is because many autosurfs are structured as pyramid schemes: members may earn a commission for each site that their referrals view, and are therefore encouraged to build a downline.
As autosurfs are run from websites, online payment processors are used for members to upgrade and withdraw their profits. The most popular form of e-currency used is e-gold or e-bullion. StormPay was a very popular payment processor until February 2006 but has now converted to an auction site.

"Investment" Autosurfs

A large number of autosurfs are investment autosurfs: to earn money surfing, members must pay a fee and are then promised a certain return on their fee. The "investment" is claimed to be a membership or upgraded membership fee and the "return", a per-site commission.
In the case of investment autosurfs, members either pay a fee to join and/or to upgrade their account level. This fee can usually vary from a few cents to thousands of dollars, and the minimum and maximum is set by the site operator. The program then offers a commission based on the member's account level for viewing a minimum number of sites, for example, for a period of X days, every day that the member views Y sites, Z% of the upgrade fee will be credited and can be withdrawn from the site. The product of Z% and X is always over 100% to ensure that the member makes a profit. Members also have even more incentive to build a downline because further commissions are received based on the amount of money that referred members put in or earn.
The investment autosurf concept is against PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy. Historically, Paypal has blocked most autosurf programs' accounts.

Controversy

A large amount of controversy is concentrated over whether autosurfs are inherently structured as Ponzi schemes. Traffic-only autosurfs that involve no monetary transactions can also be Ponzis if more credits are earned than page views available; older members are promised a certain number of website hits which can only be fulfilled by newer members joining. Due to the precedent set by 12 Daily, there is a strong possibility that most investment autosurfs are Ponzi schemes, and thus breaking the law and/or deceiving their users; whereas paid to surf sites usually had a viable business model where advertisers pay for the site to be viewed but not earn money in return.
On the other hand, autosurfs which require an investment and promise to pay a profit must, to not be a Ponzi, have other sources of income which can yield the high percentages they offer. Therefore, they often come under attack for failing to reveal their income sources or not registering with the proper authorities as a legitimate investment company. Ponzi schemes will end when no new investors are found, and it follows that autosurf sites have rather short life spans, existing from one week to a few years depending on the popularity and "investment plans" offered.

12DailyPro

12DailyPro was one of the largest autosurfs in 2005. Promising a return of 12% daily for 12 days, funds invested went into the millions. In February 2006, autosurfs reached the United States national news when funds of members of 12DailyPro were frozen by payment processor StormPay.
Rather than focus entirely on StormPay, news organizations such as ABC4 (Utah) and WTOC (Georgia) investigated the autosurf itself. In a statement released by the Georgia Government Consumer Protection Agency titled "Pyramid Schemes Never Die; Just Evolve", 12DailyPro was closely scrutinized. Media calls to 12DailyPro owner Charis Johnson went unanswered.
Later in February, 12DailyPro received a cease and desist order by the SEC, who claimed that 95% of the program's funds came from new members. On February 28, the SEC filed a proposed stipulation, agreed to by the attorney for Charis Johnson, LifeClicks, and 12DailyPro that these parties would turn over all assets and records to a permanent legal receiver.

2006-Present

After the demise of 12DailyPro, many other autosurfs collapsed as well; this is widely assumed to be because they invested member funds into 12DailyPro, causing a domino effect. Subsequently, autosurfs have become less popular and are more widely believed to be Ponzi schemes. However, many still autosurf, either refusing to accept that they are Ponzi structured, or knowingly using this to profit (through attracting new investors to prolong the life of the program). Also, some autosurfs have begun to focus on the advertising side of their business model, by, for example, converting to manual surf or by paying members bonuses that are not dependent upon the advertising fee. They have introduced disclaimers on their sites saying that purchases are solely for advertising, earnings are payments for viewing advertising and that there is no guarantee of earnings. However, disclaimers do not override the law and thus do not legalize an otherwise fraudulent program.
Money invested in 12DailyPro is currently being held by a court-ordered payment receiver.

Charles Ponzi

2009-06-21T02:14:00.002+02:00

Charles Ponzi (March 3, 1882 – January 18, 1949) was one of the greatest swindlers in American history. His aliases include Charles Ponei, Charles P. Bianchi, Carl and Carlo. The term "Ponzi scheme" is a widely known description of any scam that pays early investors returns from the investments of later investors. He promised clients a 50% profit within 45 days, or 100% profit within 90 days, by buying discounted postal reply coupons in other countries and redeeming them at face value in the United States as a form of arbitrage. Ponzi was probably inspired by the scheme of William F. Miller, a Brooklyn bookkeeper who in 1899 used the same pyramid scheme to take in $1 million.

Early life

Parts of Charles Ponzi's life are somewhat difficult to determine, due to his propensity to fabricate and embellish facts. He was born Carlo Pietro Giovanni Guglielmo Tebaldo Ponzi in Lugo, Italy in 1882. He told the New York Times that he had come from a well-to-do family in Parma, Italy. He took a job as a postal worker early on, but soon was accepted into the University of Rome La Sapienza. His friends considered the university a "four-year vacation," and he was inclined to follow them around to bars, cafés, and the opera.

Arrival in America

On November 15, 1903, he arrived in Boston aboard the S.S. Vancouver. By his own account, Ponzi had $2.50 in his pocket, having gambled away the rest of his life savings during the voyage. "I landed in this country with $2.50 in cash and $1 million in hopes, and those hopes never left me," he later told the New York Times. He quickly learned English and spent the next few years doing odd jobs along the East Coast, eventually taking a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant, where he slept on the floor. He managed to work his way up to the position of waiter, but was fired for shortchanging the customers and theft.
In 1907, Ponzi moved to Montreal and became an assistant teller in the newly opened Banco Zarossi, a bank started by Luigi "Louis" Zarossi to service the influx of Italian immigrants arriving in the city. Zarossi paid 6% interest on bank deposits - double the going rate at the time - and was growing rapidly as a result. He eventually rose to bank manager. However, Ponzi found out that the bank was in serious financial trouble because of bad real estate loans, and that Zarossi was funding the interest payments not through profit on investments, but by using money deposited in newly opened accounts. The bank eventually failed and Zarossi fled to Mexico with a large portion of the bank's money.
Ponzi stayed in Montreal and, for some time, lived at Zarossi's house helping the man's abandoned family, while planning to return to the United States and start over. As Ponzi was penniless, this proved to be very difficult. Eventually he walked into the offices of a former Zarossi customer and, finding no one there, wrote himself a check for $423.58 in a checkbook he found, forging the signature of a director of the company. Confronted by police who had taken note of his large expenditures just after the forged check was cashed, Ponzi held out his hands wrist up and said "I'm guilty." He ended up spending three years in a prison near Montreal. Rather than inform his mother of this development, he posted her a letter stating that he had found a job as a "special assistant" to a prison warden.
After his release in 1911 he decided to return to the United States, but got involved in a scheme to smuggle Italian illegal immigrants across the border. He was caught and spent two years in Atlanta Prison. Here he became a translator for the warden, who was intercepting letters from mobster Ignazio "Lupo the Wolf" Saietta. Ponzi ended up befriending Lupo. However it was another prisoner who became a true role model to Ponzi: Charles W. Morse. Morse, a wealthy Wall Street businessman and speculator, fooled doctors during medical exams, poisoning himself by eating soap shavings, toxins that left his body as quickly as the doctors left his bedside. Morse was soon released from prison. Ponzi completed his prison term the summer following Morse's release, having an additional month added to his term due to his inability to pay a $500 fine.

The Ponzi scheme

When Ponzi was released he eventually made his way back to Boston. There he met Rose Maria Gnecco, a stenographer, whom he asked to marry. Though Ponzi did not tell Gnecco about his years in jail, his mother sent Gnecco a letter telling her of Ponzi's past. Nonetheless, she married him in 1918. For the next few months, he worked at a number of businesses, including his father-in-law's grocery, before hitting upon an idea to sell advertising in a large business listing to be sent to various businesses. Ponzi was unable to sell this idea to businesses, and his company failed soon after.
A few weeks later, Ponzi received a letter in the mail from a company in Spain asking about the catalog. Inside the envelope was an International reply coupon (IRC), something which he had never seen before. He asked about it and found a weakness in the system which would, in theory, allow him to make money.
The purpose of the postal reply coupon was to allow someone in one country to send it to a correspondent in another country, who could use it to pay the postage of a reply. IRCs were priced at the cost of postage in the country of purchase, but could be exchanged for stamps to cover the cost of postage in the country where redeemed; if these values were different, there was a potential profit. Inflation after World War I had greatly decreased the cost of postage in Italy expressed in U.S. dollars, so that an IRC could be bought cheaply in Italy and exchanged for U.S. stamps of higher value, which could then be sold. Ponzi claimed that the net profit on these transactions, after expenses and exchange rates, was in excess of 400%. This was a form of arbitrage, or profiting by buying an asset at a lower price in one market and immediately selling it in a market where the price is higher, which is not illegal.
Seeing an opportunity, Ponzi quit his translator's job to set his scheme in motion. He borrowed money and sent it back to relatives in Italy with instructions to buy postal coupons and send them to him. However, when he tried to redeem them, he ran into an avalanche of red tape.
Undaunted, Ponzi went to several of his friends in Boston and promised that he would double their investment in 90 days. The great returns available from postal reply coupons, he explained to them, made such incredible profits easy. Some people invested and were paid off as promised, receiving $750 interest on initial investments of $1,250.
Soon afterward, Ponzi started his own company, the "Securities Exchange Company," to promote the scheme. He set up shop in a building on School Street. Word spread, and investments came in at an ever-increasing rate. Ponzi hired agents and paid them generous commissions for every dollar they brought in. By February 1920, Ponzi's total take was US$5,000, (approximately US$54,000 in 2008 dollars). By March, he had made $30,000 ($328,000 in 2008 terms). A frenzy was building, and Ponzi began to hire agents to take in money from all over New England and New Jersey. At that time, investors were being paid impressive rates, encouraging yet others to invest. By May 1920, he had made $420,000 ($4.59 million in 2008 terms).
He began depositing the money in the Hanover Trust Bank of Boston (a small bank on Hanover Street in the mostly Italian North End), in the hope that once his account was large enough he could impose his will on the bank or even be made its president; he did, in fact, buy a controlling interest in the bank (through himself and several friends) after depositing $3 million. By July 1920, he had made millions. People were mortgaging their homes and investing their life savings. Most did not take their profits, but reinvested.
Ponzi was bringing in cash at a fantastic rate, but the simplest financial analysis would have shown that the operation was running at a large loss. As long as money kept flowing in, existing investors could be paid with the new money. In fact, new money was the only way Ponzi had to pay off those investors, as he made no effort to generate legitimate profits.
Ponzi lived luxuriously: he bought a mansion in Lexington, Massachusetts with air conditioning and a heated swimming pool, and he maintained accounts in several banks across New England besides Hanover Trust. He also brought his mother from Italy in a first-class stateroom on an ocean liner. She died soon afterward.

Suspicion

Ponzi's rapid rise naturally drew suspicion. However, when a Boston financial writer suggested there was no way Ponzi could legally deliver such high returns in a short period of time, Ponzi sued for libel and won $500,000 in damages. As libel law in those days placed the burden of proof on the writer and the paper, this effectively neutered any serious probes into his dealings for some time.
Nonetheless, there were still signs of his eventual ruin. Joseph Daniels, a Boston furniture dealer who had given Ponzi furniture which he could not afford to pay for, sued Ponzi to cash in on the gold rush. The lawsuit was unsuccessful, but it did start people asking how Ponzi could have gone from being penniless to being a millionaire in so short a time. There was a run on the Securities Exchange Company, as some investors decided to pull out. Ponzi paid them and the run stopped. On July 24, 1920, the Boston Post printed a favorable article on Ponzi and his scheme that brought in investors faster than ever. At that time, Ponzi was making $250,000 a day.
Despite this reprieve, Post acting publisher Richard Grozier and city editor Eddie Dunn were suspicious and assigned investigative reporters to check Ponzi out. He was also under investigation by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and on the day the Post printed its article, Ponzi met with state officials. He managed to divert the officials from checking his books by offering to stop taking money during the investigation, a fortunate choice, as proper records were not being kept. Ponzi's offer temporarily calmed the suspicions of the state officials.

Collapse of the scheme

By this time, Ponzi was seeking another deal to get him out of the golden trap he had built for himself, but time was running out. On July 26, the Post started a series of articles that asked hard questions about the operation of Ponzi's money machine. The Post contacted Clarence Barron, the financial analyst who published the Barron's financial paper, to examine Ponzi's scheme. Barron observed that though Ponzi was offering fantastic returns on investments, Ponzi himself was not investing with his own company.
Barron then noted that to cover the investments made with the Securities Exchange Company, 160 million postal reply coupons would have to be in circulation. However, only about 27,000 actually were. The United States Post Office stated that postal reply coupons were not being bought in quantity at home or abroad. The gross profit margin in percent on buying and selling each IRC was colossal, but the overhead required to handle the purchase and redemption of these items, which were of extremely low cost and were sold individually, would have exceeded the gross profit.
The stories caused a panic run on the Securities Exchange Company. Ponzi paid out $2 million in three days to a wild crowd outside his office. He canvassed the crowd, passed out coffee and donuts, and cheerfully told them they had nothing to worry about. Many changed their minds and left their money with him. However, this attracted the attention of Daniel Gallagher, the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. Gallagher commissioned Edwin Pride to audit the Securities Exchange Company's books--an effort made difficult by the fact his bookkeeping system consisted merely of index cards with investors' names.
In the meantime, Ponzi had hired a publicity agent, William McMasters. However, McMasters quickly became suspicious of Ponzi's endless talk of postal reply coupons, as well as the ongoing investigation against him. He later described Ponzi as a "financial idiot" who did not seem to know how to add.
The denouncement for Ponzi began in late July, when McMasters found several highly incriminating documents that indicated Ponzi was merely robbing Peter to pay Paul. He went to his former employer, the Post, with this information. The paper offered him $5,000 for his story. On August 2, 1920, McMasters wrote an article for the Post declaring Ponzi hopelessly insolvent. The article claimed that while Ponzi claimed $7 million in liquid funds, he was actually at least $2 million in debt. With interest factored in, McMasters wrote, Ponzi was as much as $4.5 million in the red. The story touched off a massive run, and Ponzi paid off in one day. He then sped up plans to build a massive conglomerate that would engage in banking and import-export operations.
However, trouble came from an unexpected quarter--Massachusetts Bank Commissioner Joseph Allen. An initial investigation into Ponzi's banking practices found nothing illegal, but Allen was afraid that if massive withdrawals exhausted Ponzi's reserves, it would bring Boston's banking system to its knees. When Allen found out a large number of Ponzi-controlled accounts had received more than $250,000 in loans, he ordered two bank examiners to keep an eye on Ponzi's accounts. On August 9, they reported that enough investors had cashed their checks on Ponzi's main account there that it was almost certainly overdrawn. Allen then ordered Hanover Trust not to pay out any more checks from Ponzi's main account. He also orchestrated an involuntary bankruptcy filing by several small Ponzi investors. The move forced Massachusetts Attorney General J. Weston Allen to release a statement that there was little to support Ponzi's claims of large-scale dealings in postal coupons. State officials then invited Ponzi note holders to come to the Massachusetts State House to furnish their names and addresses for the purpose of the investigation. On the same day, Ponzi received a preview of Pride's audit, which revealed Ponzi was at least $7 million in debt.
On August 11, it all came crashing down for Ponzi. First, the Post came out with a front-page story about his activities in Montreal 13 years earlier--including his forgery conviction and his role at Zarossi's scandal-ridden bank. That afternoon, Bank Commissioner Allen seized Hanover Trust after finding numerous irregularities in its books. Although the commissioner did not know it, this move foiled Ponzi's last-ditch plan to "borrow" funds from the bank vaults after all other efforts to obtain funds failed.
With reports that he was due to be arrested any day, Ponzi surrendered to federal authorities on August 12 and was charged with mail fraud for sending letters to his marks telling them their notes had matured. He was originally released on $25,000 bail, but after the Post released the results of the audit, the bail bondsman withdrew the bail due to concerns he might be a flight risk.
The news brought down five other banks in addition to Hanover Trust. His investors were practically wiped out, receiving less than 30 cents on the dollar. The Post won a Pulitzer Prize in 1921 for its exposure of Ponzi's fraud.

Prison and later life

Con man Ponzi circa 1910
In two federal indictments, Ponzi was charged with 86 counts of mail fraud. At the urging of his wife, on November 1, 1920, Ponzi pleaded guilty to a single count before Judge Clarence Hale, who declared before sentencing, "Here was a man with all the duties of seeking large money. He concocted a scheme which, on his counsel's admission, did defraud men and women. It will not do to have the world understand that such a scheme as that can be carried out ... without receiving substantial punishment." He was sentenced to five years in federal prison.
He was released after three and a half years and was almost immediately indicted in Massachusetts on 22 state charges of larceny. This came as a surprise to Ponzi; he thought he had a deal calling for the state to drop any charges against him if he pleaded guilty to the federal charges. He sued, claiming that as a federal prisoner he could not be tried by the state. The case, Ponzi v. Fessenden, made it all the way to the Supreme Court. In a 1921 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that plea bargains on federal charges have no standing regarding state charges. It also ruled that Ponzi was not facing double jeopardy because Massachusetts was charging him with larceny while the federal government charged him with mail fraud (even though the charges implicated the same criminal operation).
In October 1922, he was tried on the first ten larceny counts. Since he was insolvent, Ponzi served as his own attorney and, being as persuasive as he had been to investors, the jury found him innocent on all charges. He was tried a second time on five of the remaining charges, and the jury deadlocked. Ponzi was found guilty at a third trial, and was sentenced to an additional seven to nine years in prison as "a common and notorious thief."
After word got out that Ponzi had never obtained American citizenship (despite having lived in the United States for most of the time since 1903), federal officials initiated efforts to have him deported as an undesirable alien in 1922.
Ponzi was released on bail as he appealed the state conviction. He went to the Springfield section of Jacksonville, Florida and launched the Charpon (an amalgam of his name) Land Syndicate, offering investors in September 1925 tiny tracts of land, some under water, and promising 200 percent returns in 60 days. In reality, it was a scam that sold swampland in Columbia County. Ponzi was indicted by a Duval County grand jury in February 1926 and charged with violating Florida trust and securities laws. A jury found him guilty on the securities charges, and the judge sentenced him to a year in the Florida State Prison. Ponzi appealed his conviction and was freed after posting a $1,500 bond.
Ponzi traveled to Tampa, where he shaved his head, grew a mustache, and tried to flee the country as a crewman on a merchant ship bound for Italy. The ship, however, made one last American port call; he was caught in New Orleans and sent back to Massachusetts to serve out his prison term. Ponzi served seven more years in prison.
In the meantime, government investigators tried to trace Ponzi's convoluted accounts to figure out how much money he had taken and where it had gone. They never managed to untangle it and could conclude only that millions had gone through his hands.
Ponzi was released in 1934. With the release came an immediate order to have him deported to Italy. He asked for a full pardon from Governor Joseph B. Ely. However, on July 13, Ely turned the appeal down. His charismatic confidence had faded, and when he left the prison gates, he was met by an angry crowd. He told reporters before he left, "I went looking for trouble, and I found it."
Rose stayed behind and later divorced him in 1937, as she did not want to leave Boston. Rose, who later remarried, eventually became the bookkeeper for the New Cocoanut Grove Inc, the parent company of Boston's Cocoanut Grove nightclub.
In Italy, Ponzi jumped from scheme to scheme, but little came of them. Benito Mussolini gave him a job in the financial section of his government. However, he mismanaged things so badly that he was forced to flee to South America--but not before taking an undisclosed amount from the Italian treasury.
He eventually got a job in Brazil as an agent for Ala Littoria, the Italian state airline. During World War II, however, Brazil sided with the Allies, and the airline's operation in the country was shut down.

Death

Ponzi spent the last years of his life in poverty, working occasionally as a translator. His health suffered. A heart attack in 1941 left him considerably weakened. His eyesight began failing, and by 1948, he was almost completely blind. A brain hemorrhage paralyzed his right leg and arm. He died in a charity hospital in Rio de Janeiro on January 18, 1949.
In the hospital, Ponzi granted one last interview to an American reporter, telling him, "Even if they never got anything for it, it was cheap at that price. Without malice aforethought I had given them the best show that was ever staged in their territory since the landing of the Pilgrims! It was easily worth fifteen million bucks to watch me put the thing over." He also admitted, after years of maintaining his innocence, that he'd engaged in a swindle.

Ponzi scheme

2009-06-21T02:09:00.002+02:00

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors rather than from any actual profit earned. The Ponzi scheme usually offers returns that other investments cannot guarantee in order to entice new investors, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. The perpetuation of the returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises and pays requires an ever-increasing flow of money from investors in order to keep the scheme going.
The system is destined to collapse because the earnings, if any, are less than the payments. Usually, the scheme is interrupted by legal authorities before it collapses because a Ponzi scheme is suspected or because the promoter is selling unregistered securities. As more investors become involved, the likelihood of the scheme coming to the attention of authorities increases.
The scheme is named after Charles Ponzi, who became notorious for using the technique after emigrating from Italy to the United States in 1903. Ponzi did not invent the scheme (Charles Dickens' 1857 novel Little Dorrit described such a scheme decades before Ponzi was born, for example), but his operation took in so much money that it was the first to become known throughout the United States. His original scheme was in theory based on arbitraging international reply coupons for postage stamps, but soon diverted investors' money to support payments to earlier investors and Ponzi's personal wealth.
Knowingly entering a Ponzi scheme, even at the last round of the scheme, can be rational in the economic sense if a government will probably bail out those participating in the Ponzi scheme.

Hypothetical example

Suppose an advertisement is placed that promises extraordinary returns on an investment — for example, 20 percent on a 30-day contract. The objective is usually to deceive laymen who have no in-depth knowledge of finance or financial jargon. Verbal constructions that sound impressive but are essentially meaningless will be used to dazzle investors: terms such as "hedge futures trading," "high-yield investment programs," "offshore investment" might be used. The promoter will then proceed to sell stakes to investors — who are essentially victims of a confidence trick — by taking advantage of a lack of investor knowledge or competence. The Madoff scandal of 2008 showed that investors presumed to be sophisticated, such as hedge fund managers and international bankers, can also be tricked into joining a Ponzi scheme by a promoter with a well-established (if spurious) reputation for financial skill. Claims of a "proprietary" investment strategy, which must be kept secret to ensure competitive edge, may also be used to hide the nature of the scheme. Bernard Madoff, for example, only permitted one accounting firm, run by his brother-in-law, to perform audits on his hedge fund, claiming the need to keep his strategy secret.
Without the benefit of precedent or objective prior information about the investment, only a few investors are tempted, usually for small sums. Thirty days later, the investor receives the original capital plus the 20 percent return. At this point, the investor will have more incentive to put in additional money and, as word begins to spread, other investors grab the "opportunity" to participate, leading to a cascade effect deriving from the promise of extraordinary returns. However, the "return" to the initial investors is being paid out of the investments of new entrants, and not out of profits.
One reason that the scheme initially works so well is that early investors — those who actually got paid the large returns — commonly reinvest their money in the scheme (it does, after all, pay out much better than any alternative investment). Thus, those running the scheme do not actually have to pay out very much (net) — they simply have to send statements to investors showing them how much they earned by keeping the money, in order to maintain the deception that the scheme is a fund with high returns.
Promoters also try to minimize withdrawals by offering new plans to investors, often where money is frozen for a longer period of time, in exchange for higher returns. The promoter sees new cash flows as investors are told they could not transfer money from the first plan to the second. If a few investors do wish to withdraw their money in accordance with the terms allowed, the requests are usually promptly processed, which gives the illusion to all other investors that the fund is solvent.
The catch is that at some point one of three things will happen:

The promoter will vanish, taking all the remaining investment money (minus the payouts to investors) with him.
The scheme will collapse under its own weight as investment slows and the promoter starts having problems paying out the promised returns (the higher the returns, the greater the chance of the Ponzi scheme collapsing). Such liquidity crises often trigger panics, as more people start asking for their money, similar to a bank run.
The scheme is exposed because the promoter fails to validate the claims when asked to do so by legal authorities.

What is not a Ponzi scheme

A multilevel pyramid scheme is a form of fraud similar in some ways to a Ponzi scheme, relying as it does on a disbelief in financial reality, including the hope of an extremely high rate of return. However, several characteristics distinguish these schemes from Ponzi schemes:

In a Ponzi scheme, the schemer acts as a "hub" for the victims, interacting with all of them directly. In a multilevel scheme, those who recruit additional participants benefit directly. (In fact, failure to recruit typically means no investment return.)
A Ponzi scheme claims to rely on some esoteric investment approach (insider connections, etc.) and often attracts well-to-do investors; whereas multilevel schemes explicitly claim that new money will be the source of payout for the initial investments.
A multilevel scheme is bound to collapse much faster because it requires exponential increases in participants to sustain it. By contrast, Ponzi schemes can survive simply by persuading most existing participants to "reinvest" their money, with a relatively small number of new participants.

A bubble: A bubble relies on suspension of disbelief and an expectation of large profits, but it is not the same as a Ponzi scheme. A bubble involves ever-rising (and unsustainable) prices in an open market (be that shares of a stock, housing prices, the price of tulip bulbs, or anything else). As long as buyers are willing to pay ever-increasing prices, sellers can get out with a profit, and there doesn't need to be a schemer behind a bubble. (In fact, a bubble can arise without any fraud at all - for example, housing prices in a local market that rise sharply but eventually drop sharply because of overbuilding.) Bubbles are often said to be based on the "greater fool" theory. Although, according to the Austrian Business Cycle Theory, bubbles are caused by expanding the money supply beyond what genuine capital investment supports, and in this case would qualify as a Ponzi scheme, with expanded credit taking the place of an expanded pool of investors.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul: When debts are due and the money to pay them is lacking, whether because of bad luck or deliberate theft, debtors often make their payments by borrowing or stealing from other investors they have. It does not follow that this is a Ponzi scheme, because from the basic facts set out there is no indication that the lenders were promised unrealistically high rates of return via claims of unusual financial investments. Nor (from these basic facts) is there any indication that the borrower (banker) is progressively increasing the amount of borrowing ("investing") to cover payments to initial investors.
Multi-level marketing: Multi-level marketing (MLM), a marketing strategy that compensates promoters of direct selling companies not only for product sales they personally generate, but also for the sales of others they introduced to the company, is sometimes difficult to distinguish from illegal pyramid or Ponzi schemes, although legal and reputable MLMs exist.
Pay-as-you-go social insurance: Detractors of the Social Security program in the United States often draw parallels between it and a Ponzi scheme, because people who make payments receive benefits later from payments made by others. Conservative economist Walter Williams adds, "Social Security is unsustainable because it is not meeting the first order condition of a Ponzi scheme, namely expanding the pool of suckers." However, as the Social Security Administration points out, "There is no unsustainable progression driving the mechanism of a pay-as-you-go pension system," and "as long as the amount of money coming in the front end of the pipe maintains a rough balance with the money being paid out, the system can continue forever."

Baware of High-Yield Investment Program

2009-06-21T02:03:00.003+02:00

A high-yield investment program (HYIP) is a type of Ponzi scheme, which is an investment scam that promises an unsustainably high return on investment by paying previous investors with the money invested by newcomers.

Overview

HYIP operators generally set up a website offering an "investment program" with returns as high as 45% per month or 6% a day that discloses little or no detail about the underlying management, location, or other aspects of how money is to be invested because no money is invested. They often use vague explanations, asserting little more than that they do different types of trading on various stock markets or exchanges to generate the returns they purport. The SEC has said the following on the matter: "These fraudulent schemes involve the purported issuance, trading, or use of so-called 'prime' bank, 'prime' European bank or 'prime' world bank financial instruments, or other 'high yield investment programs.' ('HYIP's) The fraud artists... seek to mislead investors by suggesting that well regarded and financially sound institutions participate in these bogus programs."
HYIPs collect large sums of money for the operators by using the classic Ponzi scheme method of using second- and third-tier investments to pay principal and interest back to the first-tier investors. This is continued for the first several tiers, generating positive word-of-mouth advertising for the scheme using a variety of dedicated forums. HYIPs may also mirror pyramid schemes by offering current investors incentive commissions, for example 9% of current investment, to recruit new investors. Some HYIP promoters, aware of the negative connotations of the term, have begun to use other terms such as "HYIP game" or "HYROL" (High Yield Return On Loan) as well.
The introduction of e-currencies in the late 1990s made it easier for HYIPs to operate on the Internet and across international boundaries, and to accept large numbers of small payments. HYIPs usually accept payments only by digital currency.

Mechanics

Though Ponzis and HYIP schemes have thrived and multiplied since at least the early 1900s, the combination of the Internet and Electronic money has played an important role in the rapid growth of HYIPs in the first decade of the 21st century.
The use of digital payments systems has made it much easier for operators of such websites to accept payments from people worldwide. Electronic money systems are generally accepted by HYIP operators because they are more accessible to operators than traditional merchant accounts. Several digital currency companies responded by taking measures to discourage their system from being used for HYIPs. Some HYIP operators opened their own digital currency companies that eventually folded; these companies include Standard Reserve, OSGold,Liberty Reserve, INTGold, EvoCash, Perfect Money, V-Money. StormPay was started in the same way in 2002, but has remained in business even though the HYIP that it was created to serve was shut down by the State of Tennessee.
Some HYIPs have incorporated in countries with lax fraud laws to secure immunity from investor laws in other countries. The operators have been known to host their website with a web host that offers "anonymous hosting". They will use this website to accept transactions from participants in the scheme. The HYIP scam may also create sites which employ spamdexing or other adversarial information retrieval techniques in order to attract potential victims by creating an impression that the company has done no wrong.

Examples

The largest documented HYIP scam was OSGold, founded as an e-gold imitation in 2001 by David Reed. OSGold folded in 2002. According to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in early 2005, the operators of OSGold may have made off with USD $250 million. CNet reported that "at the height of its popularity, the OSGold currency boasted more than 60,000 accounts created by people drawn to promises of "high yield" investments that would provide guaranteed monthly returns of 30 percent to 45 percent."
The second largest documented HYIP was PIPS (People in Profit System or Pure Investors). The investment scheme was started by Bryan Marsden in early 2004 and spanned more than 20 countries. PIPS was investigated by Bank Negara Malaysia in 2005 which resulted in Marsden and his wife being charged in a Malaysian court with 97 counts of money laundering more than 77 million RM, equivalent to $20 million. Even after these charges were brought forth, many of Marsden's followers and investors continued to support him and believe they would see their money in the future.
Some Ponzi schemes promise yields that appear realistic and as such are not considered "high-yield investment programs." Bernard Madoff's alleged Ponzi scheme offered yields of only 5% per year, for example.
Other HYIPs that have been shut down due to legal action include:

Ginsystem Inc. (Singapore) - Commercial Affairs Department of Singapore retrieved 2007-07-01
Solidinvestment (United States

Don't Get Scammed in HYIP

2009-06-20T18:08:00.000+02:00

All HYIPs are risky. 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. 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.

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. If there's anything confusing or fishy about the site, just look for another one you feel comfortable with.

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.

a Good And Bad HYIP

2009-06-20T17:59:00.000+02:00

You've probably seen a good amount of HYIP sites on the internet, 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 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/comments, as well as the most positive votes/comments. A site with a lot of votes/comments, but on the negative side, should immediately be taken off your probable list. A site with only a few votes/comments, 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.

Doing Your Due Diligence

2009-06-20T17:50:00.000+02:00

Before you put your money in the hands of an HYIP admin, it's important to do your Due Diligence to find out more about the site and the admin before you hand over your money.

Many HYIP investors get caught up in the game of profits. They spot the first HYIP that promises amazing returns, and they shove their money at it. Before you lose it all playing this way, let's figure out who is behind these HYIPs first. Do a Whois information search on the site and see if there are any verifiable contact details in it. If it's full of useless information, that means the admin of the site doesn't want to be traced. Walk away.

Check out the site itself. If it looks like many other sites out there, they're probably using a cheap premade script, this is a big red flag. Not only does it mean that they're probably not in it for the long haul because they didn't invest in a strong, independent script, but most of the premade scripts are easily cracked and intruded on by hackers who can steal your money and your private information. Also be sure to check all the pages on the site for text that seems copied from other sites. Big red flag, again, if they did not bother to create a trustworthy-looking website, why should you invest in them? You are more likely to see some return if you choose a company carefully, paying attention to all the aspects.

Forums and monitors are a great way to figure out who is paying and who isn't. Look past the bickering that they bring and sift for useful information. It might make the difference between investing in a strong HYIP and a dead one.

Finally, you can just ask the admin some questions. For example, ask them about their background, why they think they can make money in the HYIP field, contact information, etc. If you don't feel comfortable in their answers, don't feel comfortable giving them your money.

E-Currency

2009-06-20T17:39:00.000+02:00

Online HYIPs need a payment channel to funnel in the cash quickly so they can get to work on their investments to make a profit. There are many E-Currency program used as a payment processor such as E-Gold, Liberty Reserved, Perfect Money, Paypal, etc.

E-Currency (also known as e-money, electronic cash, electronic currency, digital money, digital cash or digital currency) refers to money or scrip which is exchanged only electronically. Typically, this involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems. Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and direct deposit are examples of electronic money. Also, it is a collective term for financial cryptography and technologies enabling it.

Although digital cash can provide many benefits such as convenience and privacy, increased efficiency of transactions, lower transaction fees, new business opportunities with the expansion of economic activities on the Internet, there are many potential issues with the use of digital cash. The transfer of digital currencies raises local issues such as how to levy taxes or the possible ease of money laundering.

How Will HYIP Work for You

2009-06-20T17:32:00.000+02:00

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 HYIPworld.

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 have the power cut off 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.

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 internet 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 detail. If you don't know what you're getting into, you won't know if something's wrong until your money is gone.

HYIP - High Yield Investment Programs

2009-06-20T17:23:00.000+02:00

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.

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%.

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. 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 (E-currency) that they outline. The profits are paid out to the same processor to streamline the process.

Disclaimer

2009-06-20T16:57:00.001+02:00

Prior to using any info or links on this site it is strongly recommended that you read and agree entirely to the following provisions:

The information provided on HYIP Space site is presented upon statistics and personal experience only - the reliability is not assured. Please, mind that it is too dangerous to rely on sites which promote you to give them money as an investment. We do not check the legitimacy personally, and there exist a possibility that they are based on pyramid funds or are scam programs. Such programs are often denoted as HYIPs and/or Autosurfers, and these are ponzi schemes. It is vital to understand that these programs are a gamble, and you always must bear it in mind prior to investing.

You must admit that you won't count HYIP Space and its stuff responsible for any possible losses.

We do not own or promote any of the programs found on this site. We do not incur a liability for the money you may lose on any site listed at HYIP Space. You are warned about the hazards and must take it into account before wasting money in any of such programs.

If any listings/links arouse suspicion as a scam or assured ponzi scheme, please contact us asap. We will promptly verify and blacklist it in case it is confirmed.

Please know that some HYIP may be illegal depending on your country's laws.

Do Not Spend what you can not afford to lose!!!