Before investing in HYIP, it is important for you to conduct a background research on the program. In other words, you should not solely rely on HYIP monitors and HYIP forums. Although you may need to invest some time in doing a background research, it will be worth your every effort – at least you will be assured that you are putting your money in the right place at the right time with the right people. Most importantly, you are able to guard yourself against scammers who are out there to cheat you of your hard earned money.
By doing a WHOIS check, you can dig out a lot of valuable information about any particular program simply in particularly the following:
1. Domain Creation & Expiry Dates
The first thing that you should look at is the registry data. From the creation date, you can verify how long a program has been in the market and whether it is making true claims about its existence. From the expiry date, if a program has its domain registered for a long period of time, it is a good sign that the company is serious about its business and intend to stay for long in the market compared to programs whose domain is only registered for a short 1-2 year period.
2. Server: Dedicated or Shared
The next thing to check is if the website is hosted on a dedicated server. If the company cannot afford to have its own dedicated server or doen not bother to, then that should raise some doubts about its credibility. If the website is not hosted on a dedicated server, the Reverse IP will tell you what other sites is hosted on the same server. It is interesting to note that very often, many scam sites are set up by the same owners and hosted on the same servers.
3. SSL
You may also want to check is whether the website runs on a SSL secure. SSL certs are issued by various certificate authorities such as GeoTrust to vouch that that any data send between the website server and visitor’s browser is securely encrypted. Naturally as an investor, it will give you more confidence to know that the program has its security measures in place. Note that for some reasons, some websites have SSL certs but is just not reflected by the WHOIS and some are not validated by 3rd parties. To be sure, check the browser when you are at the website itself. Also remember that just because a company have security measures on its website, it does not mean that it is “safe” to leave your money in its hands.
4. Registrant Details
Another important thing to check is of course the registrant details. From the registrant contact, you can find out if the company’s registration and contact details matches to those displayed on its website. If you are planning to make a big investment, you may even want to call the numbers stated or get someone to visit the premises if you know anyone in that area. If the registrant contact is hidden behind a domain registration company (meaning the registrant choose not to make the details public), you might want to wonder what the registrant has got to hide.
5. Contact Details
Last but not least, you should try to get hold of as many contact information as you can. Even though most programs have an online support system, you should have telephone numbers ready in the event that the website goes offline for whatever reasons.