The Comeback Kids

I'm about to leave for a short holiday and will be neglecting this blog for a week or 2. Meanwhile I'd like to dedicate this entry to the programs which have made a comeback from malicious attacks, or attempting to revive their fortunes.

LilacUnicornAutoSurfing
Looks like LUAS maybe staggering back. While I'm glad to see Laura slowly getting back to her feet, I have doubts the program maybe here for the long haul. Too much damage may have been done despite being run by an administrator with a strong-will and persistence.

This is one program I'm sincerely rooting for. The Stormpay fiasco couldn't have happened to a better natured administrator. I hope her determination sees her programs through this testing period.

eDatasurf
eDs faced a good long period of downtime the entire week. For most parts of the week, I was not able to load the site. However the worst seems to be over and for most members, the site's working like it hasn't lost a beat. From what I've seen, Ramesh has doing a tremendous job of not only keep members up to date, but also getting the job done by bringing the site back up.

And after all that's happen, payments were on the dot. I've already updated May's payments in the program entry.

EPaysurf
Okie, this one's pretty much bewildering for me. I've no idea what to expect here. It seems now that the program is back up and everything is running as per normal......well, except for the payments. Kent seems to have put on a determined front to continue running this, or run it to the ground, whichever fits the bill.

Well, what's best here is to see payments. Payments heals all wounds and bridges all divides. Until that happens, we're only going to see this one going one direction, and that's back from hole where it crawled up from.

GottaLottaHits
It's taken sometime, but finally it's been announced that the new version will be officially opened on the 1st of June. I'm glad that I'm at some beach in Phuket when that happens. I have no expectations here. I'm not even sure how it will work, even after reading up on the new program. Way too complicated and not enough explainations. I suppose all will be revealed in greater detail on the 1st, barring anymore delays.

Traffic Exchanges - Choosing the Right One

Autosurfs and manual surfs are popping up faster than rabbits breed nowadays. It’s humanly impossible to join every one of them out there. Moreover, with the number of dubious characters out there trying to steal your money, it’s not advisable to contemplate joining every one.

There are a number of factors to consider before you make a conscious effort to put your money into one of these traffic exchanges. They are by no means exhaustive, and you should feel free to add any that you find will help you make an informed decision. No one point is more important than the other, no matter how I phrase them. It varies from individual to individual.

As a suggestion, you could also set weightages/scale to each of the points mentioned and do up a checklist to determine if you should part with your money on particular programs. However I’m not driven by numbers, but rather by intuition.

Based on my experience, these are some of the factors you should consider before upgrading.

Percentage Returns/Length of Upgrades
These 2 are co-related. The higher the daily percentage returns, the shorter the upgrades last. If both are considerably high, chances are that the program isn’t built to last very long. There’s a high chance such a program could possibly be a scam to lure the greedy.

Sustainability
Let me for the record state that most, if not all traffic exchanges that offer a fixed percentage returns do not last. Learn to calculate the REAL daily percentages of these programs. This should give you a good idea on how much a program is paying and how much you would be making in REAL profits a month. The calculation:

Daily percentage = Total payout percentage/Upgrade length

This of course doesn’t factor in any withdrawal fees. Withdrawal fees will reduce your
‘total payout percentage’. I’ve also conveniently left out the number of days before you get paid. This, in my opinion, is a variable number. The longer you continue with your upgrades the lesser the impact of that figure.

Withdrawal Fees
As mentioned above, this will cut into the total amount you receive, hence effectively reducing the amount you earn. Administrators like to implement this to give the impression that they have considered all the server and other miscellaneous fees.

In truth all these can and should be factored in when coming up with the daily percentages. If there are fees that need to be covered, reduce the daily percentage. But of course you would hardly see this happening. It creates the impression that the program is having problems, hence a withdrawal fee is introduced. Also keeping the daily percentages high gives the illusion that the program pays more.

Payout Requirements
This is particularly important in my decision making. Programs that payout daily, set themselves up for immediate failure. As a program grows, daily payouts become a logistical nightmare for the administrator. It also shows that the program is totally reliant on new members to payout the old. There is no lead time to gauge the amount of money required for payouts.

Delayed payouts on the other hand (be it a day or a week) works in 2 ways. Firstly it gives the illusion that money is used in some form and needs to be transferred to make payments. Secondly, it gives the illusion that the administrator has some form of money management. Both are better than the daily paying administrator.

Compounding
It's commonly acknowledged amongst players in the industry that if a program allows compounding, it would hamper it's longevity. I prefer to see it as a non-issue. Compounding occurs regardless of if the program allows it or not. Members who get paid will tend to 're-invest' or 're-purchase' upgrades.

Depending on the terms in which compounding is done, it can actually work towards your advantage. In most cases, compounding reduces the fees issued by payprocessors. I personally see it as good money management by the administrator. As for it shortening the life of a program, that actually all depends on withdrawals and upgrades. When total withdrawals are greater than total upgrades, the program crashes. Payout rules play a larger part than compounding here.

Server
Everyone who is serious about such programs should learn how to do a whois on the server the program is hosted on. This usually gives a very telling picture on how the program will perform in the near future and a bit about the administrator.

Here are a couple of websites that I use which provide good information

1. Domain Tools
2. Webhosting.info

The whois information shows the registrants particulars and should also show the number of websites hosted on that particular server. In most cases, the registrant particulars are not of paramount importance to me. To protect their own privacy, some administrators prefer to hide them, which I have no issue with, since I value my own privacy very much.

As for reverse ips (showing the number of websites), it basically tells you if a program is prepared for growth. The more websites hosted on the server, the smaller the bandwidth allocated to the program. A traffic exchange would require a large bandwidth. Looking up the websites on the reverse ip data would also allow you to see if any other traffic exchange is hosted on the server as well. The more isn't the merrier here.

A well planned program would usually prime itself for growth. The more serious administrators would pay more for a dedicated server. This means that the only website hosted on the server is the program itself.

On the other hand, some owners prefer to upgrade their bandwidth and servers as and when the situation requires it. As long as the administrator is able to pre-empt the needs, it should be fine. If done smoothly, it would save the administrator additional costs. However, from experience, this is often hard to do, and most fail miserably in this aspect.

FAQ and Terms
Read and read again before you join any site. Read and read again before you upgrade. Know the rules and requirements. Knowledge is your best weapon. I often see people in forums complaining bout things that have already been written in the Terms of Service (ToS). If they had spent a little time reading, most of these complaints would have been answered adequately.

The other thing here is while reading the ToS, see if it's original. If the ToS has been copied from elsewhere (which is very rampant), chances are the administrator here is out for a quick buck. It also shows that there is nothing really unique about the site that will draw new members. A program that can't attract new members is probably doomed to failure. A serious administrator will have a unique ToS to make his program stand out from the myriad of surf programs.

I personally tend to go into detail when it comes to a program's FAQ and Terms. It's usually a major part of my decision making.

Design and Script
The script and design tells alot about an auto or manual surf. The design basically tells you how much has been invested in the site. A good design attracts new members to sign up. That would at least give the program a chance to take off. Barring the administrator being an outfront scammer right from the off, you'd have a higher chance to profit from the program.

Same goes with the scripts used. Unfortunately most of the scripts used is a generic script that's been heavily modified. The things we can do when we join a program is to give the script a test. We can't test it as hard as the administrator, hence we can only hope the modifications are not buggy. One huge problem with new modifications is that administrators rush to get them online without the proper testing. This rises problems in the later life of the program, usually occuring on the first payouts. In my opinion, such programs are best avoided. If you have to join, do so with a test spend. An administrator who doesn't test his script rigoriously isn't going to be serious with your money. The only thing he's serious with is lining his pockets.

Program Lifespan
As everyone should already know, this is a gamble and timing is everything. You play for profits, hence you would want to choose to enter when it’s profitable. Going in at an appropriate time is essential. You wouldn’t want to enter when the program is already on a decline, chances are that you’d be losing your money. You also wouldn’t want to be throwing in a large some of money right from the beginning only to have the administrator turn into a scammer.

Knowing when the program has started and gauging for yourself when to enter is an art by itself. Unfortunately I don’t really have any words of wisdom here. As a general rule of thumb, I don’t join programs that have already been running for over a fortnight. I don’t mind missing the train. Another one will always come along.

Traffic
From what I’ve read, most of the more experienced players in this arena tend to base a lot of a program’s future success on the Alexa chart. It basically shows the amount of traffic that is generated by a website over a certain period of time. I’m bewildered how others translate that to the future of a program.

To me it merely shows that the program is currently doing well. There is no guarantee that the site will still be standing tomorrow. So don’t be fooled by people trying to show you how successful a site is.

Administrator
Administrators play a very prominent role in the success or failure of a program, and your wallet. How quick a ticket is responded to, how fast he is to make payouts, how visible he is in forums all play a part in instilling confidence in his members.

Generally, the more active the administrator is, the more successful the program is. A traffic exchange requires a more personal touch than a hyip. It also requires more babysitting to ensure smooth operations.

Sometimes, well established names in the forums also step up to the plate to run programs themselves. Why in the world would they put their hard earned reputations on the line is beyond me. I find the hard work and the heartaches not worth the hassle. Of course I leave you to make heads or tails out of it.

Lemmings
This should actually read as ‘Cheerleaders’, but I prefer using ‘Lemmings’. Somehow I always imagine those who need to post whore or signature whore in forums particularly amusing. When a program is up, they would cheerlead, posting useless material that doesn’t benefit anyone except to show their signature or increase their post count. However then a program fails (which eventually all do, albeit in different forms), they would be the first to curse, swear and bitch at the administrator, who probably was the Exalted One just a week ago.

Anyway the point I’m trying to make is not to be swayed by the general cheerleading that goes on in forums, websites and blogs. You have the tools to make an informed decision, or at least a semi-informed decision and you should use them. Joining because everyone else does makes you a lemming. And you should know what lemmings do, when one jumps off the cliff, they all do. They are driven by the herd mentality. Don’t let the herd sway you, make your own decisions.

Documentation
There is a growing trend of programs to show their company registration and other related company documentation. Unfortunately, I’m a sceptic. If a program needs to provide any form of legitimacy, the best way to do it is to show a government issued document and the owner’s passport that are notarised by a notary public. Anything less is just another form of giving false security.

Conclusion
In conclusion, learn to choose the programs you want to be involved in. I’m sure there are other factors to consider, but until I think of them (or email me if you have any), please use a large dose of common sense when you decide to gamble. Hopefully it’s been as helpful to you as it is for me.

EpaySurf Shuts Down

Bah. This leaves a sour taste in the mouth. Good thing is that I'm in overall profits here. I recovered my capital from both programs asap and basically played with profits after the first month.

More details of the closure can be found in the MMG related threads or here.

The good news, if it comes is that there would be refunds on upgrades that were not paid out. As for the integrity of the administrator, Kent Black, I leave you to decide for yourselves. I do not hold an animosity towards him, since I've always treated this as a gamble and came out none the worse for it.

Traffic Exchanges - BlackBox Approach

Most, if not all, autosurfs which promote a fixed percentage income are unsustainable in the long run. Few are able to provide genuine transparency on how and what they do with your money. Most are ponzis and rely on new money or growth to sustain the payouts.

The trend now is for autosurfs to give a high percentage and a shorter expiry date on upgrades, thus making it faster for one to regain your capital. This also accelerates the demise of the program. In general most, of these high paying programs are unble to sustain longer than 3-4 months. Of course 12DailyPro was the rare exceptions.

I've mentioned in this blog over and over again that these programs are gambles, at best money games that people play. Hence it is often parroted in the online community that one should only gamble whatever you can afford to lose. Some play it sucessfully, most don't.

As for doing DD, I only save it for those programs which are willing to show transparency and genuinely able to provide real proof of trading. However even in such cases, scams are rampant and false information is often provided by these online charlatans to fool even the most experienced people in the industry.

The BlackBox Approach
I personally use what I term as the blackbox approach when I 'invest' or gamble online. That means I 'invest' in a program and wait for my returns. I'm not interested to know what happens to the money invested and only interested in what I take out. In essence, this is how it works:

Money invested ------> BlackBox ------> Profits

DD is unnecessary, since most of these programs do not stand the test of time. By the time you do a conclusive DD, you'd know that either the program has already fallen by the wayside or you've convinced yourself not to play.

To make things simple, you base it on your intuition and risk analysis. Timing the market will enable you to profit. And that is if you're lucky enough to meet an administrator who doesn't have the intention to run away with the money in the first place.

Trouble in Paradise

Not all is rosy this week.

EPaySurf
Things are looking shaky over here. Payouts seem to have been delayed, and some members have not been paid over 20 days. While the email updates have been pretty consistent and much appreciated, the facts do speak for themselves. Let's hope things do turn around fast, before it turns into a free for all bashing fest (if it hasn't already happened yet). I'm personally in profits here hence have not been actively keeping up todate with what's going on with the program, relying solely on the email updates.

If it does turn around, turning private completely would really take away all the doom and gloom crowd away. I hope if and when they eventually turn private, they would do away with referral commissions. It would no longer serve a purpose an longer.

NSFG
Trading for the month has been concluded and it turned out to be -2.8%. The gentlemen running the program are in the process of switching brokers, hence no more trading would be done.

It's also a good thing for me since I was going to set up a managed account. Looks like staying my ground instead of rushing to get it up was the right move. It saved me a considerable amount in losses in both the negative trading as well as the cost involved in opening the managed accounts. When the new brokers are in place, I'd probably take a couple of months to let Paul and Kenneth acclimatise with the new broker before I get all dizzy and jump into the managed accounts again.

Besides the negative returns (which was regrettably disappointing), making their forum read-only is the largest disappointment for me. For a program that prided itself on its openness and tranparency, not allowing us to participate in an active discussion is just counter-productive. While the discussions are not always cordial or productive, it was an outlet for members to come together to interact and share experiences. I, for one, always enjoyed reading forums where the admiistrators actively participated with it's members. Even if/when the administrators were busy, I found that we were always able to keep ourselves entertained. I do hope they would rescind their decision with regards to the forum.

GottaLottaHits
Well, good thing not all is doom and gloom. I did manage to get a 50% refund from Christian. I do not know when I would be getting the other 50%, but this is a pretty darn good start for me. I had already lost all hope of getting anything back until the email reply a few days back.

GottaLotta Response

After generally whining, bitching and almost cursing about the lack of response from Christian, I did manage to finally get a response a couple of days back. Although I haven't gotten paid yet, at least my presence has been acknowledged. It seems I was probably forgotten, and now put in queue for a refund up to 50% of my entire upgrades.

As for GottaLottaHits, the program seems to be in the eternal process of starting up. Looks like Christian is making sure there are no hiccups when it does eventually re-start. Personally, from the sounds of it, you would have to actually read the sites since there would be questions asked regarding the contents of advertisements. Seems like alot of work for the normal autosurf bloke. I doubt the new program would make much waves, since the average autosurfer is a lazy cretin. How else would it explain why we do not find a REAL job in the REAL world, but instead contend to gamble our money online?

Of course it all remains to be seen how the program is run and the general reception to it. This cretin waits in anticipation for (1) payment/refund and (2) the re-start of the program, preferrably in that order.

eDataSurf Clarifications

With regards to the last entry on eDatasurf, Ramesh has come forth to make some clarifications. I know this can be found in the comments in the last post, but I thought it would have been better to repost his comments here. I know alot of people, myself included, who don't read comments on blogs and other sites. Unfortunately that is the result of being overwhelmed by information, one has to be selective in choosing what to read.

Hi there,

I wanna make a point clear. There is one forum which posted such a poor, biased report that I am in debts with Stormpay which is highly base less report. I agree I funded stormpay a/c using credit cards. But it is not as someone quoted as with 20 credit cards. In fact I have only 8 cards. And I have a very very clean re-payment with all the banks I deal with. I am not in any debts or whatsoever as the person wrote in the a particular forum. The remarks sent out against me are keeping a old unpleasant discussion he had with me in the same forum months back about a famous program. Keeping that in mind he posted such bad remarks. If he can prove this as a truth that I am in debts with any bank, I am ready to close the site. To prove this I am ready to scan my CC statements and put it publically (of course the statements would be of last month prior to I start eDatasuf)

Happy Surfing!!!

Ramesh / eDs Admin
http://eDatasurf.com
http://eDatamerge.biz

First and foremost, I would like to thank Ramesh for coming forward to make his stand clear. The impact would have been greater if he confronted the person in question on the forum in question. As my readership is small, the impact would of course be very much limited.

Secondly, showing CC statements to dispel the rumours is a good way of showing proof. However, I'm taking an approach of a gambler here, hence, hardwork done on eDatamerge is enough for me to work with. If I had a choice, I would prefer to have proof that the money deposited is used meaningfully in generating profits, but it's not something I would push for. It opens more cans of worms than not, and we all know where that road generally leads to.

So I treat it like a black box. Money goes in, and money comes out, how it works.....I don't know, I don't want to know and I don't care.

Bear in mind that eDs generates about 1.71% in pure profits daily, after deducting the 5% administrative fee. In all my years working in a bank with all sorts of investment opportunities (from oil trading to real estate), this figure is hardly, if ever, attainable on a consistent basis.

Now onto more productive information.

eDs has migrated to a new server and engaged the services of Prolexic for their DDoS proection. As everyone knows, Prolexic costs an arm and a leg...literally, and sometimes more. As a result, withdrawal fees will be increased to 5% on the 28th of May.

More importantly are the changes made a week or so back which gives me enough confidence to upgrade my account to the maximum or thrive to maintain it there, as and when I have the spare e-gold (e-gold sometimes has a funny way of making their way out). In the changes made, credits would be at a premium. Credits would only be given on upgrade purchases and no credits would be earned from surfing. This, in my opinion, is what all and most autosurfs and manual surfs should thrive to achieve. It gives value to advertising which should be the bread and butter of traffic exchanges. Instead of competing on percentage return, we compete for advertising. This is truely what makes eDs stand out from the rest of the other traffic exchanges in the industry.

The other confidence booster here is the way Ramesh has handled the program. Taking preemptive measure to ensure the program is not disrupted, like having a very good DDoS proection and moving to larger servers. The ability to learn from the mistakes from others has put eDs in a position to grow above its competitors and outlast them in a cut-throat industry.

As of this posting, eDs is poised to past the 20 day mark with significant growth with over 650 active members and over 70k in upgrades. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, the program should enjoy a fairly long and productive life for it's members (and my pockets).

Shades of Neglect

I've not been active as much as I wanted in the past week. It's election time from where I come from, and although my area is not contested, I've been busy keeping myself updates on the events surrounding it. On top of that I probably wouldn't be as active in the following weeks as I'm planning a trip next month with some childhood friends.

EPaySurf
As everyone should already know by now, the website for EPaySurf has been down for almost a week and it has ruffled a few feathers in the community in general. Personally, I'm not even concerned. There is no neglect here. The administrator, Kent Black, has been sending out constant email updates to keep us on our toes. Anyway according to the latest update, the site is current incorporated off shore (whatever that means) and wouldn't be affected in future by the SEC or any other governing bodies. More importantly, there is a rough estimate that the site should be up the coming Monday. I'm personally grateful for the constant flow of information in my mailbox.

What's perhaps the more pertinent, is the announcement that membership here would probably go private in the near future. A date has not been selected for that, so I would encourage anyone who thinks of EPaySurf as a viable source of income to sign up as and when the site is up. Thus far, Kent has been upfront and has proven able to handle the growing pains of the program. Or at the very least, communication has been at the top level, keeping confidence in the program high. As with all programs, it would generally be good to read up on the program in the various forums and decide for yourself if this program is for you.

eDataSurf
Generally, the program has been facing downtime every now and again. It stamps from a healthy growth rate, hence the administrator is moving over to a larger server, able to handle the load.

I've also read some unsavoury remarks that Ramesh could possibly be under heavy debts from the StormPay fiasco. I'll leave you to once again read the forums and decide for yourselves if this is a viable income option. For me, at least in the short term, I would still be putting my money here. I find the reasons for him doing a runner rather unlikely at this point in time. My stand may change in the near future, and I would keep all informed via this blog.

NSFG
This is probably a pretty big disappointment here. There are no returns for the month of April, at least there are no losses. Apparently those who opened a managed account since Feb have faced losses of up to 20% to date. Not to mention recent trading has been somewhat disappointing, taking up to 4% losses just in this month (ie. 3 trading days).

I still have alot of trust in the guys running this. What's important to note is that there is real trading going on here, and that equates to profits and losses. Of course profits are the reason we sign up for the program but losses are just part of the package. I'd be looking forward to starting my managed account here when I get back from my holidays, and hopefully by then things would have taken a change for the better.

GottaLottaHits
Again the pet peeve here is that there is no communication whatsoever. My emails still have not been answered, while the new program is going ahead, with annoucements coming up. It's disappointing how bad this one has turned out to be. I'm shocked given the reputation of Christian to complete ignore the issues at hand. And I'm even more shocked that people are actually going to stand behind him.

LilicUnicornSurf
Surprisingly, after writing this off, it's suddenly sprung back up to life. The new site LilacUnicornEgold is up and running. I'm not too sure about the plans here as I skimmed thru the email, but at least Laura hasn't run away afterall. I still have money in the original site and not too sure how that will be handled. Will wait for more updates before making plans here.

A couple of AutoSurfs
I've recently been involved in a few other autosurfs and have generally been paid and been impressed by some of them. Maybe if time permits, I'd be introducing a couple which I think might be good options to gamble in.