Internet Disruptions

Major earthquake in Taiwan caused chaos to my internet connection for the past 3 days. The undersea cables were severely hit resulting in absolutely no access to any website not from Singapore, despite the new reports. I had no access to my ISP mails, nor the web-based ones (ie Yahoo, Google).

Thankfully I didn't have any autosurfs running, nor did I have any money in any short-term hyips. So other than being terribly bored at home due to the heavy rains that have been pounding the island nation, there was not much damage done.

I suppose the entire exercise shows how reliant we are on the few cables from Taiwan. Once they went down, there was major disruption to phone lines and internet connections. Isn't redundency one of the first things you learn in Networking 101? I suppose the major telecommunication companies are so determined to suck us dry that a contingency plan to have alternative routes is too rich for them. I hope this is a wake up call, speaking of which, Singtel sucks donkey balls anyway.

Merry Christmas!

Ok, I'm slightly early, but the entire weekend is going to be taken up by relatives and football. So here it is, Merry Christmas one and all.

In case you missed Santa's presents, here's why.

Autosurf Leaders Fall

As we all probably know by now that 13dailypro and 12by12daily have both fallen by the wayside. Thankfully I've avoided most of the mayhem for now, but the fallout resulting from these programs could very well affect me in other areas.

It's not a secret that many smaller autosurfs do infact punt their money (or your money) into the bigger more established programs. Usually when the big ones fall, those piggybacking on them will fall too. The laws of gravity is universal.

Personally I'm rather dismayed by the way 12by12 went down but it did, however, save me from eating some serious crow. I've always liked the way Dave ran things. He came across as someone with integrity and with a no nonsense attitude which is needed in this arena of weak-minded individuals and outright scums.

This entire exercise also shows a couple of things.

1. The pool of active autosurfers is small and possibly going to dwindle after this. At last count, 12by12 had bout 35,000 surfers (give or take a couple of thousand). I'm sure a large part of them are not even active.

2. A strong program can be brought down by nasty rumours.

So where do we go from here? I'm waiting for the turn of the year to see which are the programs that will establish themselves as the new market leaders. There is a void that needs to be filled, and someone will undoubtedly step up to the plate. Should be an interesting couple of weeks, especially with the holidays and all.

Local Exchangers : Where We Stand

I've not been exchanging cash for e-gold or vice versa for the past few months. Partly due to my inactivity (accident), and partly due to USD falling against the SGD. However there might be a need to out-exchange some of my e-gold hoard sometime soon, since I'm unlikely to find reliable programs to dump it in.

So if there are any fellow Singaporeans looking to have a bit of e-gold in hand, feel free to mail me. I should be able to offer slightly better rates than local exchangers. But don't expect me to off load too much at a time. I like to keep a reserve should something sweet turn up.

A few fellow Singaporeans have been emailing me and asking me which exchangers are currently available, since a couple have stopped all communication. I don't keep up to date if I don't personally use the services, although I do keep in touch via the grapevine and the occasional email that keeps me informed.

Entelnova
Very possible still the strongest and best around. Their processes are somewhat more troublesome than the others, and there is a larger emphasis on verification. However with the recent case of the 'catch me if you can' scammer who used e-gold, all the added verification seems justified.

Just a note of caution (nothing serious), due to the size of their client base, the service here isn't always top notched. The other thing is that the rates aren't always the best.

SnapGold
Instant exchanges. Nothing has changed since the last update here. One of the best around, with pretty competitive rates. In fact they constantly have the best rates around.

WynGold
As mentioned before, top service by the ladies here. But that's based on my experience with them in Sept. I've since not used them nor received any feedback about them.

Chances are things are still the same here. If you do use them, please let me know your experience.

Amongst the top 3 exchangers, their rates are the worst so far. But if you're desparate for e-gold when the others are not available, they offer the best alternative.

JR Exchange
I know I've been unfairly harsh on them before, and my stance hasn't changed much.

I've not visited the site for sometime, and when I decided to pop in for a visit in late November, the site was down. Took a while to get it back up, only to find out that exchanges were suspended due to some script error.

Current state of affairs: it's been over a week since the site's been up and the script's still not been fixed. I don't know how serious they are with this business, but I sincerely hope they get their act together soon, since the advertised rates are some of the best in the business.

Bank2Gold
No one knows what's going on with them. Since the very public reports of the 'catch me if you can' scammer, this exchanger has disappeared off the face of the earth. There are been no updates and the rates still reflect that of a couple of months ago.

For now, this one seems like it's closed its doors, which is a shame. I personally liked this one the most. Hopefully there'd be some good news.

Goldert
*Shrugs* I have no idea what's going on here, and neither do I care. No update in the rates since forever and no news from any of my sources.

Myth of ProfitSharing Programs

If you’ve not been around for the past month or so, the newest rage in town are the profitsharing programs that have appeared in both the AS and Hyip arenas. While they aren’t exactly sprouting up like mushrooms yet, it would be a matter of time before they get copied and replicated. It happened with AS over a year ago, and with the forever-type programs a few months ago. This industry is filled with copycat types, and when a plan works, everyone jumps on the bandwagon and follows the money trail.

The concept behind a profitsharing program (PSP for short) is a simple one. Deposits made into a program everyday are shared out to all members who purchased units or shares. Each share has a cap on earnings and when it reaches that cap, the share expires. Depending on the amount of deposits made on a daily basis, you could meet the share cap in any thing from 2 to 20 or even more days.

There are a number of reasons for the birth of a PSP program. And if the forums and explanations are to be believed, they range from:

No one loses
No fixed ROI
Reserves
Lasts longer
Keeping ‘Hit and Run’ types from destroying the program

No One Loses
Seriously you can’t believe this crap, can you? Unless the administrator is David Blaine and able to produce a wad of cash from his ass, someone has to lose.

As far as I’m concerned, PSP is no different from your everyday ponzi hyip or autosurf. New deposits will be needed to fund the ROI. Sure the rules are slightly different, but the underlying concept is still the same.

The only difference here is that no one loses EVERYTHING. With a PSP, it’s close to impossible to lose everything unless the administrator chooses to run with the loot. However, if you climb onboard late, chances are you’d lose close to everything.

No Fixed ROI
ROI is dependent on new depositors. New money coming in increases the daily ROI. This is what sets it apart from the traditional hyip, AS and cyclers with fixed ROIs.

It supposedly encourages member reinvestment but in reality, it’s no different from all the other traditional ponzis. All require money coming in to sustain payouts. I’ve looked left and right, and all I can see is the same product marketed and packaged differently.

Reserves
Most PSP claim to keep a percentage of the daily ROI as reserve funds to increase the ROI on days that have smaller/fewer/lower deposits.

Personally I see no difference. While it pads the stats slightly for the day, it can’t sustain it in the long run.

Lasts Longer
Perhaps it might last longer than your traditional ponzi, but that’s solely due to membership participation and the amount of new members it can attract on a daily basis. Sooner or later, people will realise it’s the same concept and the fad will eventually die down.

What would be interesting to see are the innovations that administrators take to enhance the product to appeal to members

Keeping HaR out
You gotta be kidding me. Seriously you gotta be kidding me. The way I see it, this is a HaR’s wet dream come true. Barring an admin who outright scams, HaR type have very little to lose and everything to gain here, especially with the type of frenzy PSP are generating.

The key here is that if you join on the first day, chances of losing is very slim. If played correctly you’d receive your full ROI by the second or third day. Much better than waiting for 5-6 days with traditional hyips.

The hole created by HaR players will still have to be filled by those who deposit later. So I don’t see how much different it is from the traditional programs.

Strategies
Everyone’s probably got a different one aligned to the goals one wants to achieve. It can range from maximising profits, protecting principal, ensuring the longevity of a program and many numerous other reasons.

How you want to play the game depends on the rules of the game, the support of membership, your own DD of the administrator running the show, etc.

The point I’m trying to make here is that one should be flexible in adopting a strategy. As Sun Tzu’s Art of War dictates, prevailing conditions determines the plans you undertake. There's no one size fits all strategy here.....or anywhere for that matter.

I’m keeping mine close to my chest.

Couple of Things

Strangely after my operation, I've found myself on the internet more than before. I suppose suddenly having too much time on my hands help.

DesertSky Marketing
Everyone from the program has and should be receiving refunds (plus a little profit for some of us). However according to Dustin, some of the refunds might take up till Feb 07 to fulfill. This is all hunky dory to me.......EXCEPT he's going to relaunch the program under a new business model on 02 Jan 07.

I'm personally not comfortable with it. With all due respect to Dustin, who's probably a swell fellow, it doesn't make sense to me. In this volatile industry, having a clean reputation helps immensely. Launching a new program while in debt certainly doesn't give confidence to new members, especially after they get wind of this.

Shall see what transpires from now till 2nd Jan.

Wager Island
There's a short update on 4th Dec. Doesn't say much on a date they will return, except they will try to re-open asap.

Until that happens, I'm going to remove it from this blog.

Bouquets and Updates

I'm practically typing this with one functioning eye, but I believe some form of 'thank you' needs to be expressed for the well wishes and concern I've been getting via email. I've not replied to most due to my condition, hence I'd take this opportunity to thank everyone (you know who you are) who took the effort to email this blind man.

As for the queries to what exactly happened, I'll leave a couple of websites detailing my condition as well as the procedure used.

Detached Retina
Scleral Buckle

As for getting my vision back, it's pretty much a subjective thing, depending on how well my body repairs itself. The doctors are pretty optimistic that I should get most of it back in the next 6 months.

Now for some updates not regarding my personal life.

12by12Daily
Kudos to David for expelling the two well known referral whore extraodinaires. Here's what has been said.

Referral commission is a reward paid to people who actively promote 12by12daily for the benefit of all members. Referral commission will not be paid to the likes of Tyler Cant and Vincent Teoh, who build their downlines while not supporting the program themselves, and then try and bring the program down whenever there is a slight hiccup. Both of these members have had their accounts suspended, and their referral commission removed.

Although I've not been with 12by12 for sometime, I'm going to stand behind Dave on this matter. Referral whores are spoiling the industry. I'm not against promoting a program, but promoting it just for referral commission like the 2 above mentioned swines is just sickening. What's more of a concern to me is that these swines actually have a following, despite their disgusting behaviour! And it's not the first time this has happened.

Their modus operandi is to bash a program and then offer an alternative, moving their referral base to the next big thing, leaving the original program to crash and burn. They act like experts in this field, suckering in more referral commission. Normally I don't get in the way of the crossfire as long as I make my money, but I got off the wrong side of the bed today....literally.

And while I'm on the topic of experts, there are none. Just alot of opinions and we all know how anal they are. Yes I know I'm anal too. I just don't hide it like most people do.

Local Exchangers
I've not had the time to update that entry recently. From what I do know from the grapevine and from emails is that Bank2Gold, Goldert and JR Exchange are not functioning as they are supposed to.

While the website is up, I've not been able to get to the livechat at Bank2Gold. Same with Goldert. Both have no live support. To add to that, there have been no updates in Goldert since the last one back in Sept.

As for JR Exchange, even the website is down for the moment.

So I suppose if you need to buy or sell e-gold, you'd only have Entelnova, SnapGold and WynGold.