I thought I was being really smart when I started investing in High Yield Investment Programs (or HYIP's for short). I figured that I'll only deal with "reputable" ones that were actual FIRMS and not just programs. You know, real companies with real offices and employees etc. I figured that was the safe route. Boy was I wrong.
I started last year with
"CASHTANKER". A "Christian" outfit (supposedly). Well, I gave this guy "Sam Serino" the benefit of the doubt and invested about $50 to start with and by Christmas time 2009 it had grown to $131.00. Well, ole Sam gave us all a great Christmas gift. Two days before Christmas day, he shut down and bolted with everyone's money. That was strike one.
So I recovered from that and caught wind of a "really solid" company in Cyprus called "
Genius Funds". Rock Solid reputation for three years strait until they started running into problems a few months back with failing to register with certain "required" agencies. When that came out, Genius Funds vanished taking a lot of investors money with them. I lost about $40.00 bucks on that one but i have good friends and business associate that were taken for thousands and tens of thousands of dollars. I have one good friend that lost about $10,000 dollars in income over the last three months that Genius Finds has been missing off the map. That was strike two.
The latest one...strike three is
"HYI Funds". I didn't lose much here, only about $5.00 dollars. My account had accrued interest until it hit $48.00 as of two days ago (May 3). Now, as of two days ago, they have stopped paying interest on existing account balances and want you to INVEST money into their "NEW" Cycler program. I can see where this is going. As soon as they get enought "trusting people" to invest large sums of their money, they will shut down and be gone forever.
Well, I'm done with HYIP's. They all seem to follow the same exact patterns. Get people to invest a lot of money (making it look look they are going to make back more than any bank or CD can offer) and then when the owners get enough in their pockets...they shut down, take everyone's money and THEY ARE GONE!
And...since they all are NON-US Based, even if you wanted to go after them in a class action law suit, they are probably "exempt" from any US Federal prosecution seeing how they are NON-US outfits. You would probably have to fly to their country, hire a local lawyer and then sue. (and who is going to go through all THAT!)
My advice, If you're in one of these outfits....GET OUT...(even if they seem legit and you are making money) GET OUT before they get greedy, shut down and take you for your life savings. As always, the general rule is:
"Never invest more than you can afford to lose."
and...
"if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is."
Just my opinion, you can of course do as you wish. It's your life and your money. It's just not worth it to me any more. So Bye-Bye HYIP's