Saturday, March 10, 2007

DesertSky Marketing

You gotta be kidding me! You seriously have to be! Just after I posted the last entry, DSM announced that it's now part of the CEP family. Unfortunately for all the people who solely used e-gold and alertpay for this one, you just got royally screwed, since only CEPTrust will be used.

Looks like a plan to accept all these programs into under the CEP umbrella and to create a larger audience for that particular pay processor. It's going to be interesting to see how all this develops. The conspiracy theorist in me is going into overdrive.

DesertSky Marketing Programs : The Fallout

I admit I've a mild obsession with what's going on with DSM, despite not being involved in them. As mentioned in previous posts, the fallout from the second closure of DSM would adversely affect the other programs leasing the same script. True enough, most of the programs under the umbrella had to annouce closure or some form of change.

DesertSky Marketing
Yet amazingly enough, DSM reopened and just announced that all upgrades/compounds would remain. The only change being the daily percentages. This is probably good news for everyone involved in the program.

The only question is....where is the money going to come from? I can understand if the principal sums are paid that extra 20%, but to include that to the compounds? That's surely going to be alot of money involved.

In the not too distant past, you could argue that there was extra income coming from leasing the script, but after the fallout, only 2 of the 5 programs are garnering any sort of income for DSM. The other 3 have already disabled upgrades.

4NewbieMarketing
This one received alot of fanfare and grew leaps and bounds, but it had to readjust during DSM's temporary closure. What's happening now is that they are merging with CEP. Upgrades have been disabled and payouts will occurs fortnightly.

The issue here is that everyone's going to be paid via CEPTrust. I can understand the marketing strategy here, but I hate being strongarmed into using something I don't want to be involved in. I had nothing negative to say about the whole CEP umbrella until today, but it looks suspiously like a well oiled ponzi. On closer scrutiny, they all do.

LucreSurfing
Well, they around to honour their terms and payout anyone not in profit. Where it goes from here is anyone's guess. They are taking time off to make a decision. Chances of a closure here is rather high, but you can never doubt how hard these admins will try to make a comeback. Afterall they do what they promised to do, then they probably would have built enough goodwill to have enough sheep bleating on their behalf.

TwilightAdz
This one has implemented a 30% cashout rule. Quite frankly, it doesn't matter if it's a 30% rule or a 50% one, as long as it's a ponzi, the only fact remains is that it will fall eventually. Moreover, as expected, upgrades have fallen by the wayside.

TurnStyleProfitShare
This one's announced a refund of sorts much to the chagrin of all the spoilt brats in the forums. Judging from the fact that it's a cleverly diguised ponzi, I doubt anyone would be getting a full refund here. Afterall referral commissions would have eaten away into everyone's principal.

AlwaysInnovateFirst
This is the only one that's standing pat as of right now. Nothing's going on, it's business as usual, except that upgrades have drastically fallen. Adding to the fact, it was never high in the first place since this one opened right smack when all the drama started. Poor timing all around.

Midas-Surf
This one's not under the DSM umbrella, but I just had a few choice words to comment on this program. Freaking SCAM! I can't believe they have come around and started to scam people again. Avoid at all costs.

Friday, March 09, 2007

NSFG : Good Returns

Well, amidst all the furore surrounding the whole DSM saga, I've been selectively reading my emails and completely missed the ones from NSFG. For some reason the mails ended up in my spam folder, hence this late late update.

The good news is that they secured slightly over 19% for the month of Feburary. Pardon me if I'm not jumping for joy yet. Combined with January's result, it's a marginal gain of over 1% for 2 months.

The REAL good news here is that I'm in conversation with a managed account holder, and so far March has been a brilliant month. We're looking at gains over 5% in the first week of March. Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope they don't screw this one up.

As for enthusiasm for the program, you've got to bear with my lack of it. Until the amount that was woefully under-reported/stolen is replaced, all these news really mean nothing. It's just paper gains and losses. With the huge exodus of people from the pool accounts and the stellar results, I'm expecting some proportionate replacement of those misappropriated funds. The only question here is that how many managed accounts are really left? The fewer managed accounts, means lesser fees, which in turn means a smaller replacement figure.

Moreover all these 'good news' really means squat to me. If my original amount was there, I would be making money. Unfortunately my original money was used to pay others, hence all these 'gains' merely going towards 'recovering' my 'losses'. Yes, plenty of innuendoes there.

That being said, should they managed to replace all my missing funds, you can be sure I'd play the role of a veteran politician and start flipping....and flopping my opinions on this one. Might even reconsider a managed account with them if things go well. But let's take one step at a time. Baby steps.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Understanding the System: DesertSky Marketing Script Flaw

I've been meaning to post this a couple of days back after my last post, but was insanely busy with a wedding of a good friend, which completely slipped my mind (right....some good friend I am).

In my last post, I mentioned that people were not understanding the product but did not elaborate on it. I'll try to elaborate on it in the simplest terms possible.

The script DSM runs on allows compounding, which isn't a bad thing as everyone thinks. In fact it's a godsent, considering it saves both the administrator and the members transaction fees in e-gold and other processors used. It's something I've mentioned in my simplistic guide on surf programs. People compound anyway if internal compounding is not allowed. They can merely cashout and redeposit, so in itself is not an issue.

However the real problem is that the script does not account for internal compounding as payouts. When you compound internally two things happen:

1. You cashout
2. You redeposit

And it's done in that order. In the DSM script, the redeposits are actively shown, but the cashout portion is omitted, whether consciously or unconsciously. Hence creating a huge gap between daily deposits and payouts, in short the gap between deposits and cashouts are an inflated figure. This causes a false sense of security amongst many of the members, very possibly causing the program to crash at sometime.

The same flaw also occurs in all the programs which have leased the script from DSM. Sooner or later, the gap created will not be sustained and they will eventually crash. Consider this an early warning signal.

And FYI, these are the current programs under the DSM umbrella:
I'm in no way saying the administrators of these programs are dishonest, but they are probably clueless with the potential problems. Let's hope the problem can be retified before further damage is done....if it hasn't already.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

DesertSky Marketing Closes It's Doors

Looks like Dustin has decided enough was enough and decided to close the doors on DSM yet again. The signs were not looking good in the past week. Daily returns fell swiftly, outdoing the mini downturn in the equity markets.

Personally I think this was a good move. People were not ready for the product and played it like they would any other normal program. Until mentality changes, the only way to play the game is to get your principle out asap and play with profits. Moreover the product looked like a semi-ponzi at best and cash would eventually run out. At least with DSM, no one loses. There would be refunds to anyone not in profit.

And as usual, the forums were filled with complaints as the vultures circled the dying program, hoping to put their 2 cents worth, enhancing their own reputations. Fact of the matter is people who play 'guru', should've known the nature of the beast. Since they have proven themselves unable to overcome the beast, they really shouldn't be playing the 'guru' role. You know the saying, people living in glass houses shouldn't be throwing stones.

As for me, I'm glad I didn't join the program. By the time I decided it was time to get back into surf programs, I felt this one had already peaked. That said, I did join other similar programs in their infancy. What remains to be seem is if the fallout from this one will adversely affect the others. Only time will tell.

What We're Up Against

I’ve been in this industry for a couple of years, and have learnt a lot (or so I think). The biggest lesson I’ve learnt is to never trust anyone. This is one arena that is filled with the lowest of lowlifes, the type that would sell their grandmothers for the odd dollar. To put things into perspective, I’ve worked for a number of years in a very well known global bank group (well known for nasty office politics) and the level of deceit and distrust is nowhere near the level of scum that resides here.

Everything you read from the monitors, blogs, info-sites and forums should be taken with a large dose of salt. Not everything presented is as rosy as it is. There are pseudo monitors that have no value other than to rake in referral commissions, blogs filled with referral links (albeit giving good commentary, but still a referral whore, nonetheless) and industrial ‘consultants’ dishing out (bad) advice in forums.

There is always an agenda behind everything that is done in this industry. And for most parts, it always invariably involves money, either directly or indirectly. Learn to read between the lines of what is typed in forums and blogs and decipher the agenda involved.

Just to give you an idea of what we’re faced with, here are a couple of examples:

Paid Postings in Forums

Tech4Money

I remember reading this in some blog a few months ago, but can’t for the hell of me remember where I got it from. It’s a website where hyip/autosurf owners can purchase ‘paid postings’ to:
  • bump topics to top of folder
  • instill confidence in readership on payments
  • create a pseudo environment of many participants
Yes, it’s blatant, and if you look carefully in the forums like MMG, TalkGold and some of the more popular ones, it’s not that hard to sift out the bad apples involved. I'm just pissed I was not invited in this lucrative sideline!

Dirty Monitor + Forums

My disdain for monitors is well chronicled here. There are the worst of the lot. Even the genuine ones, with good intentions can’t tell you the most important thing of all.....if the site will be around tomorrow.

Anyway I don’t really want to type too much here, so I’d leave you with a report done in MoneyMakerTalks forum. Bear in mind the following article has been spammed in numerous forums, and the forum integrity itself suffers from allegations of stat-padding and false membership representation.

However, the article itself is a damn good read, and I have no reason to believe it was falsified to slander. I believe that a lot (not 100%) of what it reveals is really happening in the industry.

HYIPocalypse: slowly we rot…

You can only be amazed at how brazen things have become. Once upon a time, such things were done covertly, now it’s so open it becomes an accepted truth.

I wouldn’t even be surprised some blogs are involved in such dealings either. Some of the blatant cheerleading coming from supposedly intelligent minds leaves a sour taste.

Conclusion

What I’ve covered here is by no means even close to the depth or level of filth that is plaguing this industry. I doubt there is any way to peel thru it all and see the absolute truth. The best piece of advice I can dish out is not to even step into this arena, unfortuntately, if you're addicted like me, we sure need therapy.

Before I end this article, I’ll leave you with a blog post that is entertaining, to say the least.

Welcome to the Masquerade

I don’t agree with it wholeheartedly, but the bulk of it makes sense. Moreover the entire blog itself is a damn good read and bloody controversial, just the way I like.