Saturday, October 28, 2006

NSFG : Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there would be trouble,
If I stay it will be double,
So come on let me know.

Sorry, couldn't resist the song by Clash. Judging from the latest email from Paul of NSFG (which incidentally I didn't receive on time as usual), they are allowing us to withdraw whatever is remaining of our money or stay with them while they try to recover.

Suffice to say, it honestly doesn't leave me very much room to manoeuvre. If I leave, I only take about 30% of my equity back and have to write the other 70% off as losses. This is unacceptable to me since the bulk of my deposits shouldn't even be losses in the first place. So my initial reaction is to let them trade the amount back.

The silverlining here is that Ken is actually the type of trader I would leave my money with. How soon the recovery process will be remains to be seen. I'm not holding my breath here, just crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

Here's the email I didn't receive:

Good Morning everyone,

As you can no doubt imagine this last week has been a little hectic for me, I have enjoyed speaking with many of you personally over the phone and all the ideas that you guys have put forward.

Some of them are viable, some of them not so.

Some people have questioned the validity of our claim in respect to the seizure of the funds. To this end we are compiling the Case File along with the Bank Statements and Ken will be personally visiting one of the Forum Members, Cralle/cs65, who will independently verify the situation. I understand that they are going to be meeting this coming weekend and Cralle will no doubt post on the forums in respect to this meeting.

While a vast majority of you have given your support in what needs to be done over the coming months, one problem did occur over and over again, and that was in respect to the lock-in period we applied last week.

Taking these comments on board I have decided that choice is indeed important. No one likes to be told what to do, and especially told what they can not do! To this end then we are going to open up for withdrawals at the end of this month and give you guys the choice of what you want to do.

This will work in the following way. First of all we must establish what the liquidity % is at the end of the month so we know where we all are.

What I will then do is reflect this in your statements, the only way I have of doing this is by showing it as a trading loss. I want to emphasize at this point that we will return the fund to 100% liquidity and that this balance will purely show what your account is currently valued at should you choose to withdraw and close at this point.

If you do decide to take this amount now, it WILL close your account as there will be no more money in your account if you take it out now.

For example:

If your account currently stands at $100 and the liquidity % is determined to be 30%, your account statement will show a balance of $30.

You have the option now of withdrawing this money (or part thereof) or not.

If you choose to take all $30, it would close your account with the Northsea Pool.

I would like everyone to be 100% clear on this fact, by taking this action you now have the choice to do nothing and let your account grow back up to its correct level as per the end of September or withdraw now.

Interest will be added to your accounts each month to this lower balance as we resolve this issue. This means that the interest gains will allow us to build your accounts back up faster than we can by just adding our own money into the fund. The interest however will be added to the lower liquidity figure and NOT the end of September Balance. However you will retain the choice of being able to withdraw.

To summarize the above, the liquidity % will be determined at the end of the month. Your Month end statements will reflect this new figure and withdrawals will be opened as normal till the 15th of the month. Interest will be frozen on your account at the end of September account balance, but you will see your account balance grow each month as the interest and our own funds boost the pool back to its September Balance.

I would like to re-iterate here that the only reason we are showing you the balance that would be currently available is so you have the choice for yourselves to withdraw or not, and not be told that you can not by us.

We have complete and total confidence in getting back to the September Balances, it will cost Ken and I a great deal of our own money to do it, but we will get there!

Okay moving onto other news. We have been in the process these last few months of developing an auto-trading system that will work around the clock trading high-probability set-ups. We have worked out several set-ups which statistically have proven very effective. The problem with statistics is that you have to trade each and every set-up that comes along…fine when your awake and in front of the computer. However we needed something that would work for us while we are not there, and started development on such a project a while back.

We are now in the final testing phase of this system, and while there are still a few minor bugs it has performed very well for us. We will be using the next month or so to fine tune it and then go live with it. Data so far has been very encouraging and we are very excited by its prospects. It is unfortunate that this turn of events has happened right now as had this system been operational these last few months we would have returned some very good %’s and this problem would have resolved itself.

In my previous update I mentioned the fact that we would be separating the Pool Fund more directly from Northsea so that we can become FSA compliant. This will quite possibly be happening over the course of the next couple of months.

You will not actually notice a difference in anything in the first instance other than there being a website dedicated solely for the Pooled Fund or your statements coming from a different address. If it is logistically possible then the database may be placed online so you can view your account online as well as the monthly statements.

The other factor that you will notice is that the performance fee will be reduced. The exact level has yet to be determined, but until your balances are returned to their September level it is not something that you will be paying anyway.

That about wraps it up, as soon as know the exact liquidity % I will advise you all accordingly.

Yours,
Paul

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Death of Autosufs?

Well, things are not that gloom....yet, but judging from the way things are going and the number of new surfs appearing, it certainly looks like the end could very well be near. Just look at the autosurf and hyip whore capital on the net (MMG), and you'd realise in the past couple of weeks, the number of new traffic exchange programs has been dwindling. Not to mention, most of those new ones look terrible. There are no long term plans and seem like rush jobs with only one intention in mind, which is to run away with your money.

The 'industry' has been plagued by scammers and incompetent administrators since February, when StormPay pulled the plug. Ever since, the 'industry' has struggled to find an identity. The good old days of StudioTraffic, 4Daily and 12DailyPro are dead and probably buried. Many programs have since come, tried and gone.

What's more worrying is the lack of support from members. Any autosurf relies on cashflow to sustain payouts. Even the ones claiming to be legitimate or have outside sources of income suffer from this. Once membership stops growing and once money stops flowing in, the program dies. Yes, they are all ponzi in nature to some extent. After being burnt by StormPay, and subsequently all the other autosurfs who have either scammed or run by people in over their heads, members have become wary of spending their money in such programs.

As I've mentioned in previous entries, the hardcore group of autosurfers has fallen dramatically. In the golden age of autosurfs, a start up program can easily bring in 4-5k paying members in the first couple of weeks. But now, a program would do tremendously well to bring in 400-500 members in that same period of time (I know I'm exaggerating it a little, but you get my point).

Then there is the problem of sustaining that growth rate, and enticing members to continue increasing their upgrades with each subsequent cycle. There is so much mistrust in the industry, that even the most honest administrators are having trouble keeping members and their money in the programs.

Of course that being said, cream always rises to the top. Programs like 12by12daily seem to have a strong following and at this point of writing still seem strong, making me look like a fool. However I still stand by what I've written, 300 000 members is not a figure to be sneezed at.

There are also programs like DesertSky Marketing and CommandSurf, which have a steady following, and getting coporate sponsors. Just how long their growth can sustain remains to be seem.

Just as cream rises to the top, it also starts to ferment and stink if it stays for too long. Until something drastic happens to the industy to change the mindset of both, the people running the show (not those running away), and those participating, the future of autosurfing does indeed look bleak.

Monday, October 23, 2006

Positive Outlook from Wager Island

After a couple of weeks being hidden in the thick fog of uncertainty (like the island King Kong resided in), the mist seems to clear a little giving some hope that Wager Island may yet be found on the map again. Word from the resident meteorological centre says that the mist should clear in the next 2-4 weeks.

UPDATE, Oct. 19, 2006

Wager Island has successfully located banking insitution(s) that we feel are safe, secure and reliable.

We are underway with our new financial structure and plan to have our accounts open and finalized within 2 - 4 weeks.

Our original banking institution, FCIB, is unfortunately closing under the pressure of a multi-billion dollar VAT scandal in Europe.
The good news is that we are negotiating the release of FCIB Wager Island funds to be wired into our new financial structure as soon as
our accounts are set-up.

We are also taking this opportunity to update our software and to add more games to Wager Island.

We apologize for the inconvenience, but we are here for the long term and would rather take extra time to get things right rather than rush to our re-opening. The due-diligence process that we must go through with new banking institutions is extensive for online-gaming enterprises and with the help of an international law firm are making each step sure and solid.

Thank you very much,

Wager Island

Saturday, October 21, 2006

NSFG and DSM updates

NSFG
Well, the NSFG folder in Golden Horizon has been locked and probably a good thing too. I found that it was spiralling out of control with silly posts that don't help the current situation. I'm still not pleased that I was lied to and hoodwinked into making a deposit in August under the assumption that everything was fine.

Let's hope whatever happened doesn't scare those with managed accounts away. They are essential in the recovery process.

Anyway here's the update in the locked forum. We can only hope and pray that everything works out as planned.
Hello everyone,

I have now completed all the returned deposits bar one guy who I am waiting bank info on to get their wire back over.

I have taken the decision to lock this forum as it is not serving a purpose other than for people to shout and vent, since I don't have the time to come here and review things and actually answer questions it just spirals out of control.

If you have questions email me, better yet do as many have done already and call me as I just don't have the time to come here and answer in person anymore.

The situation you have already all been made aware of and we have told you how we are going to combat this situation.

I have been speaking to a many people over the phone these last few days and one question that does come up quite a lot is how we can return the fund to 100% liquidity if it is only around 30% now as that will take a lot of effort to trade it back up.

And you would be correct, IF we were just trading it on its own. But we have not been. To increase the liquidity since this occured Ken and I have been putting our own money back into the pot obtained from the commission etc from the Managed Accounts along with our own trading account returns. This has personally cost us several hundred thousand already.....so it is quite frustrating when we have to do it all over again to boost it back up further.

It is a problem that will be resolved, not overnight, but it will get there because the additional amounts going into the account are NOT just from trading.

I have had literally hundreds and hundreds of emails saying that they are happy for us to do what is required to ensure the future life of the fund....and that IS my priortity.

Of course there are people who are not happy about the situation, and that is your right of course, but the situation is as it is because it is necessary right now and no matter how unpopular it makes us with some of you, we are still going to do it.

I am going to be honest and say that I have not had the time to read all the threads that were here, but several people have mentioned to me about the documentation concerning this event and providing proof.

We are currently getting all the case file together along with the Bank Statements. HOWEVER we are NOT going to be making these public.

The reason is this, other than making YOU certain that we are not just making this all up, what good will it actually do??......it won't do anything, it won't change anything, all it will do is prove we are not lying about it.

Under normal circumstances this would be more than enough, however I again have to think about the bigger picture. If we posted all the case information, a vast majority of you would read it and be satisfied. However there may be some amoung you who would want to take matters into your own hands and approach them directly yourself demanding your money back etc etc. If this were to happen then there would only be one result.

Ken would no doubt get into trouble and the pool fund as it stands right now would be instantly frozen and we would just clear the balances at this point to the level of the liquidity.....this is definately not something that we can allow to happen, especially when this is a problem that we are going to resolve.

This being said I can also see the need for you guys to know that we are not just making it all up in an elaborate plan to run off with the money. To this end we will be taking all the case files directly to some people offline.

One of the forum members here (Cralle & cs65) is actually from Denmark, and once Ken has Compiled the casefile and Bank Statements together he will be driving over to see him in person so that it can all be independently verified. Of course all the docs are in Danish, so it helps being able to read the language. We expect to get everything together sometime next week....but do NOT hold us to this as we need to wait on them providing us with all the details they are holding also.

There has also been some talk about allowing people to cash out now at the current level. This is something I have given some thought to, and right now I am not certain about it so I will give it more thought over the weekend. It is quite possible that we may do this, in a phased manner such as 10% per month or something like that....of course doing so would close your account down, but I will come back to that I think after this weekend.

That is really all I have to say to be honest, but I would be happy to speak with you should you have any questions.

I have outlined the problem, outlined how we are going to fix it and confirmed that we have the proof that we are not making it all up and are willing to disclose this independently so as to not make the situation worse.

Speak soon,

Paul

DesertSky Marketing
As you know, DSM has been down the past couple of days. It will be up on Saturday server time. Here's the update from Dustin. Paul and Ken can take a leaf out of his book on how to tell things as it is.

Wanted give everyone an update. The new server has been installed and
setup. Security has been put in place and the site files and database
has been restored. My latest off-line backup was at 11:58:58 PM on
Sunday, October 8th. I have a record of all upgrades and cashout requests
to date. Friday morning we will begin updating all accounts for
upgrade, earnings, and cashout transactions between Oct 9th - Oct 17th. We
feel confident that we will be able to complete these by early Saturday
(Oct. 21st).

Since our total down time will be about 3 1/2 days I will issue surf
holidays for Oct 17 - 20. Everyone must surf starting Saturday, October
21st!! If you don't surf, your upgrade will automatically be extended
by one day (you won't lose any earning potential).

Cashouts: Obviously we have missed the deadline for cashouts, so I
will accept cashouts made through 11:59:59 server time, Sunday Oct. 22nd.
All cashout requests made by Sunday will be paid on Wednesday, Oct
25th.

We have taken measures in our policies, procedures, and technologies to
make sure this disaster does not happen again. I have fired my
previous server manager for not following my specific requests/requirements
and cancelled my hosting with MegaByteHosting.com. I do NOT recommend
them to anyone.

Also, make sure you are using the correct web address for
DesertSkyMarketing. Our web address ends in dot NET. Do not use the dot com
address.

I do ask that you please vote at your favorite monitor site that
DesertSky Marketing has continued to pay their members even when we have had
zero access to our server. How many programs have done that or had the
off-line documentation to enable them to?

Important Note! Important Note! Important Note!

If you joined DesertSky Marketing between October 9th - October 17th
you need to join again. If you joined and then upgraded between those
dates, you will need to email me your OLD username and member ID AND your
NEW member ID so I can credit your account with your
upgrades/earnings/cashouts. I have records of all upgrades and cashout requests. If you
were already a member before October 9th, you have nothing to worry
about, we will get your account up to date by Saturday morning.

Thank you,

Dustin
DesertSky Marketing

Thursday, October 19, 2006

More on NSFG and a Little on DesertSky Marketing

NSFG
24hrs after reading the news from the forums (I've still not received the email yet), I'm still pretty darn disgusted with what's transpired. This program had the bulk of my online 'investments' and I was even in the process of making it a safe haven with a managed account.

HansG probably articulated certain parts what I feel the best in his blog entry, Paranoid Investing. Although I there were sections I didn't entirely agree with, this was what I felt echoed my feelings best, and I quote:

What bothers me most of all: I have invested additional sums of money in the last 3 months. Not only is that money now subject to the same restrictions (while not part of the problem), while we were all blissfully unaware of the problem, you allowed others to withdraw a 100% of their account in the last 3 months, while in fact there was only 30% available to them. This means that you were handing out MY money while you were keeping up appearances. You even had the balls to post excellent results!


Since I have a somewhat large amount in here, I have no choice but to wait the 3 months out to see if they are able to recover whatever is lost. Mind you, the bulk of my money was deposited in August and it just seems unfair that I'm paying for my loyalty to them.

DesertSky Marketing
If you're wondering what happened to DSM, here's an update on what's happening. I personally do not have any worries here. To add to that, payouts were also just made from withdrawals made on Friday.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Early Winter Hits NSFG

Wow.....wow. This one hit like a ton of falling bricks. If you're a member of NSFG, you should have received an email from Paul with regards to what's happening. For some reason I haven't received the email yet and had to get the news from the forums, and quite frankly, the news totally floored me, especially since I recently put in a huge deposit in Aug.

I thought I had made some really smart decisions and had avoided some of the crap that has hit this industry, namely Rog's offer and FX Experts. Never in my wildest expectations that this would hit NSFG as well. I wish they had the honesty to inform us earlier, especially before I made that large spend here.

Perhaps it's just as well this came up at this time. I was in the process of setting up a managed account with their brokers, BGC Partners. I had arranged a meeting with my lawyers this Friday (20th Oct) to get my documents noterized. Well, at least I'm going to save up on the fees incurred here until NSFG has proven itself able to recover. Come to think of it, even if they do, the level of confidence has dropped dramatically. Their credibility has taken a huge hit in my books.

Well, to cut this whiny entry short, here's the email.

Hello Everyone,

What I am about to say I something that I had hoped we would avoid, however circumstances have dictated that we must take action now, and that action is not going to be popular for some of you.

I will start at the beginning, many of you may remember way back when we first started we were using ACM in Switzerland as the broker for our Pool Account, and then switched over to FXCM in February so we could run the Managed Accounts.

The problem started when we took our money out of ACM, because of their strict Anti Money Laundering Regulations the money had to be returned to the account which was on file held with them. The account in question at that time was our old Danish Corporate Account. The money withdrew from ACM without a problem, however as soon as it hit the Danish Account, the Danish Financial Authorities were all over it.

Ken was called in by the Ministry of Finance to prove what this money was, which we promptly did. However this did not satisfy them and they refused to release the money in the account to us for onward transportation. After taking legal advice it was clear that we were not going to be getting this money back and the Ministry of Finance went so far as to say that they are keeping this money so that they would not charge Kenneth with breaching Financial Law in Denmark for the handling of other people’s money. In short we had no option but to accept their token offer and move forward.

After this and following the deposit of all the money that was at the time held in E-gold and the Cyprus Bank Account we were at a position of being at 50% liquidity.

We had two options at this point, we could either immediately reduce everyone’s balance by 50% or trade back the difference through our own gains from trading to top the fund up. Obviously we choose the later.

We did in fact manage to successfully get the fund up to around 70-75% liquidity by putting our own money into the account from the trading returns…..and in hindsight it was here that we should have taken the measures that we now have no choice but to take. We did not however foresee the huge amount of withdrawals that would occur in the following months which have reduced us again to around 30% liquidity.

This is not a situation that can continue and to ensure that the fund remains liquid and here for the long term, we must take the following steps. These measures are probably not going to be popular with some of you, however they are required.

This is what we must do effective immediately.

1) Freeze all Balances as per the September Statements for the next 3 months
2) Suspend all Withdrawals – Pending and Future – for the next 3 months
3) Return all deposits made this month to their account of origin.

We are truly sorry if this does impact on you particularly if you have requested a withdraw in October, as the last thing that we wanted to do was cause people hardship. However we must do this for the long term stability of the fund for the coming years.

Many of you have already said to me that this is a necessary course of action and have understood the reasons for doing it. At the end of these three months we will be able to re-evaluate where we are again and look to move forward.

I would like to emphasize that if we do not take action now, then the entire fund could be in jeopardy of liquidizing over the course of a few months.

We are very truly sorry that we must do this, and are aware that this will tarnish our otherwise good reputation. The only good thing that we can say about this situation is that the trading has been good and we are not going anywhere, we have a substantial client base so we will get through this……we just wished we had jumped on it a little sooner than now!!

We are both very upset about having to do this, and aware that many of you will be disappointed in us getting to this position. I would like to thank many of you who are already aware of this and the understanding that you have shown.

This is costing us both personally a great deal of money as we have been depositing our own personal funds and trading commissions into the account to get the liquidity to a reasonable level, only for it to get back to this situation again. We however will continue to do this until this problem is resolved to the very best of our ability and use the coming months to get us back on track and moving forward.

In the years to come, this will just be a bump on the road, but it is one that we must cross now. After the 3 months have passed we will see where we are, until then Ken will continue to trade and we will be putting our own trading funds back into the fund to bolster it up.

I am sorry that I don’t have better news, and I am sorry if you have a pending withdrawal made this month.

Moving forward we had always planned to separate the Pool Account from Northsea more directly so that we could become FSA compliant and have already made investment into doing this. Over these three months we will further this goal so that the future will be far better for all and will keep you updated on the progress.

Yours,

Paul and Ken

Thursday, October 12, 2006

General Scammer Alert

Just a heads up. Looks like a serial scammer is back on the loose and threatening the already chaotic neighbourhood with yet another one of his fly by night schemes.

Click here to read more about this scammer.

The program in question : www.mfppro.com (My Financial Planner)

I'm not entirely certain this one is run by the same scammer, but whatever the case is, the program itself looks dodgy and filled with lies. Doesn't help that the mastermind behind it seems to be a charlatan, roping in some of the best referral whores out there in the forums to do his cheerleading.

However if you think you can play this game and get away with some profits, then by all means go ahead and do it. Afterall, one needs to take calculated risks in this arena.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Early Winter On Wager Island

Looks like Wager Island has run into some problem with the bank they are using. The situation looks to be a temporary one. The game, in the meantime, has been frozen, which is ironic since the more lucrative parts of the island are spawned from a volcano. Anyway, here are the full details.

Wager Island's primary banking facility, First Curacao International Bank, has been closed by the Dutch Authorities. This has resulted in some delays in paying withdrawals over the past few weeks.

This has nothing to do with Wager Island, the bank has been closed in connection to VAT fraud taking place in Europe.

We are rushing to set up a new primary banking structure, but until then we will freeze the game.

Please due not be alarmed, we will update you regularly as to when we will open with our new banking structure in place.

To verify what we are saying is true, please click on the following links for news and articles regarding First Curacao International Bank.


https://www.firstcuracao.com/eb/main.html?id=101
http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/content/3392.asp?men=2&sub=1
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1870073,00.html
http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=143113
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22092006/325/vat-fraud-nets-8-5-bln-pounds-report.html
http://www.ipt.cc/news/newsstory.aspx?story=992
http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article.jsp?id=6&debateId=28&articleId=3934

We apologize for the inconvenience.