It is widely discussed in my Internet circles and suggested in many others that online porn’ helped to fuel the Internet’s growth during it’s early years. Not something that makes us all proud, but you can’t argue with the facts no matter how ugly they are…
It is also very well documented that Ponzi scams, online Pyramid schemes and other high yield investment’ fraud has not only helped to expand the use of digital gold currency but for years now Ponzi scams have been the life blood of some big industry players. E-gold is a particular favorite of these online schemes. No article or post by me could identify this problem better than the recent government indictment. It offers this statement about the E-gold Operation’,
“Because of the lack of controls as compared to those present with other payment systems, E-GOLD has been a highly-favored method of payment by operators of investment scams, which generally refers to pyramids, ponzis, HYIPs (i.e., high-yield investment programs) and other “get-rich-quick”schemes. These scams typically promise abnormally high short-term returns on investments, but rather than paying investors any actual returns on real investments, the scams pay investors with new, incoming investment money from other investors in the scam. Eventually, the operators of the scam either disappear with all the investment money or the scam collapses because investment naturally slows as the scam grows and the operators are unable to continue paying out the promised returns. E-GOLD has been favored in this area…”
*Please note that while I may not agree with the government’s pending charges, those are for a court and jury to decide, this above statement regarding Ponzi scams seems pretty darn accurate.
The most recent e-gold/government problem was back in April-May and its now already August. During this time period, have there been any obvious changes in the Ponzi – e-gold cash flow’ operations? Or is it still a plain fact that Ponzi scams contribute a majority of the daily fees received by the e-gold operation?
On the e-gold web site statistics page, you will find analysis showing the “Distribution of e-gold Spends over Past 24 Hours”. That shows – out of roughly 35k spend transactions, 21k of them had a value of less than 100 mg which is less than $2.16 cents (0.1 grams = 2.16 USD)*DGCSC.
In easy to understand terms, 60% of all e-gold spends which took place on August 13th, were below $2.16. HYIP Ponzi interest’ payments are all very small values and fall into this range. These twenty one thousand August 13th e-gold spends were not micro payments for digital downloads, ebook content or subscriptions – these are HYIP Ponzi payments.
I haven’t just solved one of the most puzzling questions in the Internet Universe, everyone already knows a majority of online HYIP Ponzi scams use e-gold. I’m supremely confident that the operators of e-gold are also aware of this fact and have been for years.yet e-gold, especially lately, has not undertaken any broad campaign to stop or prevent this almost decade long activity. Why not.isn’t it considered illegal, unethical, immoral perhaps even gambling? That all depends on who you ask!
This might also be a very good question for Dr. Jackson’s new e-gold blog.
Does this information clearly signal that digital gold currency[e-gold] is widely being used for scam Ponzi payments or online e-commerce? You tell me?
Additionally, is it safe to assume that if 60% of one day’s e-gold spends are Ponzi payments that the other 40% are actual legit online commerce transactions? I’m sad to say it, but I really doubt if e-commerce payments contribute as much as 40%. One thing is for certainjudging from last weeks folder of “hate email’ in my box, I going to get a lot more industry comments regarding this topic. As its been said before, no matter how ugly the situation, you can’t argue with the facts.
This information is very public widely discussed knowledge, Ponzi payments and the fees they generate have fueled the e-gold operation for many years and a good bit of other digital currencies, some still alive and other not so lucky. Most industry people are not offended by online Ponzi scams…obviously, I am.
Was this payment fact always true for e-gold? Since digital gold currency and e-gold have been popular for a number of years now, let’s take a quick trip back via the Internet Archive and look at February of this year. Before the government’s most recent endeavor.
On February 4 of this year, out of 1.57 million funded account, 1.44 million had less than 1 gram in them which was a total value of less than $21 USD per account. That is just over 90% of all active funded e-gold accounts showing a value of under $21 bucks.
In the Distribution of e-gold Spends over Past 24 Hours’ for February 4th, roughly 37k e-gold spends out of a total 43k were less than (1) twenty one dollar gram. That’s about 86% and leaves just 14% of one day’s business in the possible non-ponzi area. Its a gloomy interpretation of the numbers but pretty accurate.
27k spends or approximately 62% of the total daily spends were in amounts less than $2.21 USD (one tenth of one gram or 100mgs). This signals Ponzi interest’ payments. HYIP interest payments to investors’ are very small and generally under $1.
e-gold spends account for a majority of the online ponzi scheme transactions also known as HYIPs. This was true last year and the year before that one!
Here is the copy of an HYIP scam email I received less than one hour ago:
EGold Profit Pro
130% – 180% After 1 Day ( Full Automatic Withdrawals )
Plan 1 $1 – $50 130.00%
Plan 2 $51 – $100 150.00%
Plan 3 $101 – $500 170.00%
Plan 4 $501 – and more 180.00%
230% – 280% After 3 Day ( Full Automatic Withdrawals )
Plan 1 $1 – $50 230.00%
Plan 2 $51 – $100 250.00%
Plan 3 $101 – $500 270.00%
Plan 4 $501 – and more 280.00%
Register NOW And Profit More Money With EGoldProfitPro.com The first 100
members today who deposite 20$ or more will get 10% of thier deposites as
bonus directly to your E-Gold account Viry Good HYIP Program & Paying Every
Day ! http://www.egoldprofitpro.com/
I doubt if this one will last till the end of the month, its a poor example of a Ponzi scam. They will take the funds and disappear claiming some large phony problem.
Here is one called, A3Union, that has been around since mid year 2006 and continues to rake in money:
“A3Union constantly manages investment relationships with over twenty high yield investment partnerships in six countries..In addition to the company’s solid coverage of the European and US high yield investment markets, we are currently planning to open a global agent network worldwide.”
Aggressive Portfolio
2 days 1.6%
Classic Portfolio
7 days 12%
Combined Portfolio
14 days 28%
Long Term Classic Portfolio
92 days 200%
This Ponzi will continue to exist as long as it has fresh suckers to put in money. How is that money deposited? A3Union accepts three digital gold currencies: e-gold, e-Bullion and Pecunix.
A week, a month or perhaps another year from now this one will be gone. It will eventually reach a tipping point where the operators have less investor funds coming in than they would like to pay out in interest and the operation will fold, taking with them all the proceeds they have not stolen along the way.
I’m sure other Ponzi operations vary with their operator’s experience but here is one scammer’s description of how he works it…Confessions Of An HYIP Scammer, How Does He Do It?
Remember a critical description of a Ponzi, if the web does NOT create more legit daily income from an actual business – than it receives in daily investor suckervictim’ deposits, its a Ponzi. Don’t fall prey to these Internet scams. Stay tuned for a lot more information on A3Union later this week and the next. Pmaybe for Ponzi, but S.is for Scam! Imagine, these guys use Charles Schwab Bank, N.A. in their offering (page 11) to illegally solicit funds from consumers. The Schwab legal department was thrilled to hear about that one. The ignorant courage these HYIP people have is astounding, but then again, who bothers to stop them? These clowns have collected over $3-4 million and are still going strong. I guess its true, there really is a sucker born every day.
I’m happy to say that other digital currency industry leaders like Webmoney do not allow such investment’ schemes to use their payment system.
If you don’t believe what I have written here or want to learn more I encourage you to simply query Google Blog Search with keyword e-gold or do a Google Web Search for HYIP or e-gold investment. You will find hundreds if not thousands of the HYIP Ponzi programs that accept e-gold and other digital gold currency. I’m not happy about it but I’m not lying either. Many Ponzi scams accept e-bullion and as shown above some even Pecunix.
Occasionally you will see Pecunix accepted here however that operator has stated on more than one occasion he discourages HYIP accounts and also works aggressively to prevent the misuse of Pecunix by online investment’ schemes. We are all glad to hear that and I have seen evidence to support that comment. However, it is still easy to locate HYIP Ponzi scams that accept these last two currencies. A simple Google Blog Search with their namesake as the keyword turns up 2 or 3 new scams each month.
You will find a majority of Ponzi investments’ are being promoted by investment’ forums or blogs like these. Note the referral code on each link throughout these web sites.
* Online Money Making Forum – http://www.moneyfanclub.com
* MMG Latest Network Marketing News – http://www.moneymakergroup.com/
* E-Gold HYIP Forum – http://www.talkgold.com/