PSX Aka Henry James Banayat
Mr.Pond Scum PHD,

Israel (Is) is the administrator of www.4newbiesmarketing.com and the forum www.4newbiesforum.com.

- Sharon

that is way more than $100 dont you think?

Look at 4newbies as well. There have been no upgrades for weeks, months. Yet payments are being made, and I can personally say that funds are actually being withdrawn to bank accounts. Becuase I need to do that in order to initiate transfers to alertpay and egold for the special list I have set up to pay members that did not want to open CEP trust accounts.

i am not sure what models you are looking at. But our site allows for a percentage of the money to not need to be paid out immediately. Those extra funds are used to generate income offline. Couple that with existing funds in reserve that are working for us and that allows for us to generate income. I will not speak for CEP sites, I am speaking for mylef here.

We actually have salesmen selling advertisements and web design services to local merchants. We have ad agencies and other partners selling our ad services as part of their services. Generating income. We have moeny invested in existing offline and some online service businesses. Our main bulk of money is invested in Caribbean real estate. Our main contact has been doing this for 20 years and is extremely successful at what he does.

I probably wont be having any 3rd party verify anything, I simple dont trust too many people and I have been burned one too many times before.

I would like to imagine that having been around, upfront and honest for more than a year as an admin can speak for it self. I dont hide my identity like Andy from XLO did. I have all my info made available. I run a legit business with banking relationships and other partnerships. The surf site is just one part of it. I am not going anywhere. I still havent accomplished my 3 main goals for the surf world. Maybe once I do I will step down. But until then, I still have tons of work to do.

I’m looked at hundreds of surfs and haven’t found one that hasn’t/isn’t a ponzi, yet. There are two models that would not be a ponzi, IMO:

1. Have a payment model closer to PTC and PTR, where $X is taken in for advertising and a % of that is paid out to those reading the ads. The PS model comes close to this, but not quite. First, it requires everyone to be an advertiser, thus devaluing the purpose of those actually wanting to advertise. Second, what you spend is paid back when it reaches a partcular ROI, which makes it an investment. It is taking a new spend and splitting it among all those who spent previously (definition of a ponzi.) If compounding is allowed, then the returns for old spends just keep growing bigger. What is owed will eventually outstrip new money taken in. The model needs to change so that everyone gets paid, regardless of whether there is new money or not.

2. Have an outside income source that sustains the ROI. Investing in other surfs/hyips doesn’t count, because then it becomes a house of cards (e.g., when one of the base sites fail, those that were counting on it fall, too.) Payment Process fees, deposit/withdraw fees, and site adblocks are not enough to sustain the high ROI.

So, Israel, what are you doing outside of 4newbiesmarketing and CEPTrust fees, to sustain the ROI? I’m just asking for a brief description and not any trade secrets. Has an independant 3rd party verfied that you are actually doing what you say you are? If yes, are their findings posted somewhere?

I once knew a surf administrator who took the member’s money and used it to buy antiques, restore them and sell them at auction. The profits from the sale were funneled back to the surf to pay the ROI. They were a lower ROI and longer than most sufs at the time and not a big fish. Eventually, there were a couple of the purchases that didn’t turn over profit. The administrator had not built a reserve fund into the model to cover times of losses. At the same time, people were migrating away to higher paying ROI, so a large number of them all wanted out and paid at the same time. The admin turned to investing in high paying ponzis to try to make up the loss, but lost more of the money. Although he didn’t intend to, he eventually had to turn it into a ponzi. He had to close.

So, obtaining the ROI from an outside source is possible. However, the ROI has to be realistic enough to cover payments and a reserve to cover times of losses. The easiest way to think of it is to pretend every spend is a HAR and needs to be paid and there will never be another new spend. If one person spends $1000 and your ROI is 130%. Can you return that 30% without anyone else spending? If your answer is yes, then you are not running a ponzi. If your answer is no, then you are running a ponzi.

JMO,
Sharon

“Any way I slice it, I still keep coming up with all surfs (auto, manual, profit share, or any other model) are ponzi scams. ”

While I agree that MANY of the sites out are indeed ponzi or out to eventually close down (the admin making a quick buck) then scamming or possibly refunding people until break even, making it a game, I have to question why you think this.

I am not sure what research you are doing and I cant speak for other sites, but there are some of us that do have income streams outside of member upgrades. Income streams that are allowing us to give the returns we offer.

I just get sick to my stomach when people label all sites as ponzi scams when we arent all that. Hopefully with this egold thing some good will come of it and these scammers will start going back under the rocks the crawled out form under.

First, thank you for a very informative summarization of the manual paid surfing, including profit chare models, paid-to-click (PTC) and paid-to-read (PTR) industry.

I agree with you concerning PTC and PTR. They take in $X for an advertisement. Then they pay out a percentage of that to pay people to view the ad. Those that get paid do not have to purchase advertising in order to get paid. Usually the cost of an ad and the payout is very small. Quantity of people and ads make it worthwhile for the PTC/PTR administrator and advertisers.

I could agree with you on surfing (auto, manual and profit share), except that the majority of people joining look at it as an investment vehicle (or a gamble) and not as an advertiser. There are three big problems. First, everyone is required to spend to earn and not just the advertisers. Second, the returns are way out of proportion to any perceived value added. Third, they are taking new money to pay out old deposits. (With profit share they tell you this by definition.)

So, as long as a surf takes in more money than is due out, it will survive. It will survive longer if people can compound (80-90% compound all, even those that know better.) Eventually, the money required to go out will exceed new money coming in. This is by definition a ponzi scheme.

Usually the administrator pulls the plug on the program right before or right at the point where withdraws exceed spends. Then they blame it anything and everyone else that they can. A few blame it on themselves, saying they were not scamming, they just miscalculated. HA HA HA HA HA HA!

IF they took in $X for an advertisement, then split a percentage of those dollars among all who view the ad, then they would have a real paid advertising site. As long as they are taking in money from every member and paying out outrageous returns, they are a ponzi scam (pond scum), regardless of any perceived value added. It is exactly why 12DP was shut down.

Any way I slice it, I still keep coming up with all surfs (auto, manual, profit share, or any other model) are ponzi scams. So, I respectfully disagree with your opinion. Even though I disagree, I appreciate your explanation and can see where you are coming from.

JMO,
Sharon

We tend to refer to the paid surfing sites as “autosurfs”, which most are, and I agree that autosurfing is useless as an advertising tool.

However, many paid to surf sites these days offer manual surfing, or partial manual surfbars, and in my experience they do provide effective advertising value.

I tend to sign up mostly to PTS sites that offer manual surfing and I do
use the PTC and banner sections extensively to advertise my affiliate
business and I get a good response from those.

Before paid surfing, I spent a lot of time surfing in traditional manual traffic exchanges, and when paid surfing came along, especially when I could find ones with the “manual” surf bar, or strong incentive for people to watch
the surf bar, I find them effective from an advertising point of view.

And why wouldn’t I rather advertise, and spend my advertising dollar, in a place from which I’m also earning a profit share?

In my view, the programs that focus on enhancing the advertising aspect of their businesses offer a value added service.

There is a huge market in the traditional traffic exchange industry that would be ready, willing and able to join legitimate “manual” paid to surf sites if the owners/operators could unequivocally prove that they are not running on a ponzi model.

My point is that the paid surfing industry can succeed if it focuses on
offering real advertising value, and to do so in a number of different ways, not just surfing, but as some are doing now with optin paid emails, paid to clicks, banners and text ads on their sites. If it can attract advertisers, not just profit share seekers, it has a chance to grow into a viable advertising business.

And it wouldn’t matter if the revenue is generated from the profit share membership who purchase the advertising products, as that is a legitimate revenue source. Repeat business in any industry is necessary for survival.

I imagine the traditional traffic exchange industry would consider that as a real and competitive threat to their market share.

HeyJude

Best Regards
Max

Thanks! But, as I said early on not all criteria applies to all ponzis and some real programs may have some of the criteria. It’s just a guideline. Then again, you’re welcome to your opinion. All opinions are welcome, even if they do not agree!

Thanks,
Sharon

I agree with the most of it, but there is a couple of things I disagree, such as “Forum/Monitor Presence: The friendlier and/or cheerleading in the forums/monitors, the greater the chance that the program is a ponzi. Are there way too many cheerleaders? Is the forum administrator spending an inordinate amount of time being “friendly” in all of the forums?”

I run RTA Online Investment and I try to be active on as much forums as I can, because I find it to be the best way of marketing. Many people tell me I’m supposed to be MORE active in forums in order to do the better marketing; I tell them I do best I can.

RTA Online Investment is not a ponzi; it complies with your sentence “In order for a program to not be a ponzi, they must use the deposits to earn outside of the program.” I use the deposits for marketing my site and the advertise revenue of the network is the profit that is distributed among the users. I have several plans for extending the network that will generate revenue besides the advertising revenue…

Anyway, you were pretty accurate, but as I said, I don’t agree with the forum aspect…

Regards
Max

Sometimes it is easy to see that a program is a ponzi by just the information on the site. Other times you have to dig deeper and go looking. IF after digging deeper, you are still unsure and are still considering funding, send them an email asking all hard questions that haven’t been answered already. The most critical question is about what they are doing to generate the returns. Then if you like their answers, take a chance with them, but always be on the look out for new information.

Using the above approach is still not a guarantee that it is or isn’t a ponzi. If it is a ponzi and they fooled you, it will show up eventually. You can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. If it is real, there is no need for fooling any of the people.

JMO,
Sharon

At the same time a newbie invested in a 12% daily site that pays daily, after 4 days the site already crashes. I call him a stupid newbie but then I am woken up by the BIG **reality shock**. I count his total loss, and this newbie ONLY lost 52%.

So now we have ME, who spend all his time, effort and energy for 9 months NON STOP into a “so called” honest opportunity, and we have a newbie who only spend 4 days of his time into a stupid ponzi.

I am one of the few who promote LYIP’s over HYIP’s but I do understand why so many still invest in these dang ponzi’s. Above example shows that long term investments online are HIGHER risk then ponzi’s and it takes a lot of DD and own investigation to make it worthwhile to invest in them.

I disagree on that. I dare to say : on the contrary, the bigger the minimum join fee the more chance it is a ponzi. You see, scammers are smart, they gradually beef up the minimum join fee, because of their “good” reputation some people are stupid enough to invest the 1000$ minimum or something because they see that as a sign that the program is real.

Would a real business be bothered with members only depositing the minimum? Why not? Money is money… but would a scammer be bothered with members only depositing the minimum. *NO*, A scammer want to max profit and is more interested in the big fishes.