What is e-currency?
The " E" of e-currency stands for "electronic";in which means the currency used on the internet related field just like email.There are several benefits of using e-currency service on the internet like e-gold and paypal.
1.The e-currency can be used on the internet related commercial applications such as shopping on the internet and doing personal investment via internet.
2.The using of the ecurrency services for example e-gold and paypal brings people a new way not to use their credit card as the only payment method on the internet since sometime there exists a big risk to provide your credit card information to the merchant you do not know them very well and most of them are far far away in the other side of the earth .
3.The ecurrency service companies such as e-gold ,paypal and EMO can provide both the buyers and merchant the convenient way to send and receive the payment just by clicking the confirm button and the deal is done.None of the payment methods in the world right now can provide this kind of efficiency capability
Types of eCurrency
There are two major types of ecurrency in the world.The major different is their backed base .One is backed by precious metal such as e-gold is backed by gold .Another type of ecurrency is backed by hard currency like Paypal.Boht of them are all called ecurrency.
Digital Gold Currencies(DGCs) are a form of Internet money denominated in gold weight.The typical unit of account for such currencies is the gold gram or the troy ounce,although other units such as the gold dinar are sometimes used.Due to its rarity and durability, gold has long been used as a means of payment.The exact nature of the evolution of money varies significantly across time and place,though it is believed by historians that gold's high value for its utility,density,resistance to corrosion,uniformity,and easy divisibility made it useful both as a store of value and as a unit of account for stored value of other kinds.In Babylon,a bushel of wheat was the unit of account,with a weight in gold used as the token to transport value.
Just like the Gold backed Digital Gold Currencies (DGCs) .Currency backed Digital Currency is another type of ecurrency but been backed by the hard currencies .Most of those currency backed digital money are backed in USD and EURO for example Paypal,NetPay,EMO,and Stormpay.Just like the DGCs the DC has the same key function for using in the internet related commercial applications.
Pro and Con about different types of ecurrency
DC (here we mean ecurrency backed by hard currency ) is widely used in the internet as as the medium of internet related commercial actions.This provides those users a quick,simple and safe way for shopping instead of showing their credit card information to merchant who they do not know .But however DC is some how been restricted in some regional area which is defined by the currency they choose to be backed .The major reason is the floating character of exchange rate between the hard currency and the local currency often used by the internet users.For example, an internet user who lives in Japan may lose money when processing the currency exchange from USD to JPY if he does not watch out the international economics careful enough.
So most of the ecurrency companies backed by hard currencies become big giant that is just because the number of this kind of currency user is big enough .For example PayPal .But no one will guarantee if Paypal can do the same good job in the future hard currency such as RMB in China if Paypal does not provide RMB base payment service.
Summary
As the allegro expandsion of internet economical applications ,the using of ecurrency will be the trend in the coming future just like credit card application before . But however there is no unified defination to the ecurrency service industries .For exalpme ,Will we define a ecurrency company as the bank service or just a finacial service firm ?This question remains gray area.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Liberty Reserve
Liberty Reserve
is an online payment system and provider of digital gold currency (LR-gold). They are an offshore company incorporated in Costa Rica, launching their USD backed digital currency (LR-USD) in 2002. Their gold backed digital currency was launched in 2005. Liberty Reserve is a member of the Global Digital Currency Association (GDCA), a voluntary regulatory body in the industry.
is an online payment system and provider of digital gold currency (LR-gold). They are an offshore company incorporated in Costa Rica, launching their USD backed digital currency (LR-USD) in 2002. Their gold backed digital currency was launched in 2005. Liberty Reserve is a member of the Global Digital Currency Association (GDCA), a voluntary regulatory body in the industry.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
e-gold
Gold! $22/oz in 1930 and $400/oz in 2005. Same price really, if you remove the effects of inflation. There is so little of it around though now. Silver is even scarcer! If 50 000 middle-class Japanese families invested $100 000 US. each, they could buy all the visible above ground stocks on the planet. Amazing! But what is truly amazing is that so few westerners bother with it? Silver is at its lowest price-give or take a dollar- in all recorded history. Back in 1477 it peaked at $806 an ounce (adjusted for todays value)
But who will keep 20 or 30 kilos in the shed, no one. It's a useless investment they say, the price never goes up they say. These are the same people who live of credit cards and would be lucky to have $1000 in the bank, or under the floor boards. But you are right, gold is best. If it's good enough for the Rothschilds, it is good enough for me.
"What is e-gold? e-gold is the first electronic currency that unleashes the potential of worldwide e-commerce. From Azerbaijan to Zaire, e-gold is the largest, fastest growing, privately issued currency in the world. e-gold is World Wide Money.
E-gold is gold circulating on the internet. Maybe more correct to say it is the ownership of gold used to buy and sell over the internet. The website tells you how to turn your "funny" money, not backed by gold, into a currency that is directly linked with the price of GOLD and which appreciates with GOLD as its directly linked to the commodity.
E-gold is the store of wealth in cases when inflation and other circumstances had caused credibility loss in the Federal government and the paper they print so eagerly lately.
Silver, Gold, art, food, land and real properties do and must take over in those cases.
Before you click through to the e-gold site, here is a quick summary of e-gold. When you get there you will be able explore the site and verify the information for yourself.
The Gold community centers around the use of GOLD (AUG) as a worldwide digital currency. The focal point of this community is presently
E-goldLimited which is the primary issuer of digital currency, although new competitors in the field such as GoldMoney.com and E-bullion.com are now offering gold digital currencies as well.
The foundational currencies to the Gold Economy are 100% backed by gold bars held in secure vaults in locations around the world, such as London, Zurich, and Dubai. Should any holder of a gold digital currency require their equivalent value of gold holdings, they are redeemable in actual gold bars or can be converted to national currencies by exchange agents.
E-gold is second only to PayPal in popularity. They've actually been around longer than PayPal (they're the original online money transfer service). The biggest selling point of eGold is that all online currency is backed 100% by real world gold. In fact, members can even cash in their eGold for real gold. Carrying it around might be a little difficult but gold is nice because of it's immunity to inflation. Also, we realize a lot of people have sexual confusion related to bullion, making e-gold the perfect choice.
Egold is a payment service similar to PayPal but with a few significant differences:
1. It is based on gold. When you open an egold account, you are actually buying a quantity of gold. If the price changes, the value in your account changes.
2. The price you pay depends upon the quantity purchased. The more you buy, the better price you get.
3. There is a minimum amount which must be purchased.
4. Payments are made to account numbers. You don't see the name of the recipient.
5. Payments are non-refundable. If you pay the wrong account by accident, it's too bad.
Because of these factors, it is common for people to open egold accounts with large purchases and then sell them in smaller blocks to investors who can't come up with the minimum purchase. There are also sellers who accept egold for their auctions. If you win one of their auctions and don't want to open an egold account, you might pay an existing account holder who accepts paypal to act as a middleman and ask him to then pay your seller.
e-gold is accounted by weight of metal, not US$ or any other national currency unit. Weight units have a precise, invariable, internationally recognized definition. Additionally, precious metals, gold in particular, enjoy a long history of monetary use around the world. Thus, e-gold is ideally suited for international transactions.
Although e-gold is accounted by weight, the e-gold payment system allows Spends to be expressed in terms of a number of major national currencies.
For example, it's possible to:
* Spend 10 troy oz worth of e-gold.
* Spend 5.3 grams worth of e-gold.
* Spend US $100.00 worth of e-gold.
* Spend CHF 685.88 worth of e-gold.
This means (for example) that a Canadian can pay a German or a Japanese can pay an Australian the correct weight of gold (e-gold) for a good or service as easily as if the price had been quoted in his own national currency.
All financial value will migrate to cyberspace over the next few years. e-gold is ready so that you can be too.
e-gold is borderless - e-gold may be Spent to any other e-gold account anywhere in the world via the e-gold shopping cart interface (SCI), the e-gold Account Manager, or web enabled mobile phone.
e-gold is quick -e-gold payments clear instantaneously (with no chargeback risk), no matter how large the payment, no matter how far apart the Spender and Recipient.
e-gold is cost effective -Spending e-gold is free, even if your recipient is on the other side of the world.
Recipient pays only 1% of the transaction amount for Spends less than or equal to US $50 worth of e-gold. e-gold is well suited (and e-silver is ideal) for micropayments.
Recipient pays a flat USD 50 cents worth of e-gold for Spends greater than US $50 worth of e-gold, no matter how large the payment. The e-gold Agio fee, based on average daily balance, is only 1% per annum.
What are E-Currencies?
The simplest way to look at the E-Currency systems is not as a real 'currency' such as the U.S. dollar, Euro, or the Yen, since those are actual currencies created and backed by their respective governments. You can't exactly go to a currency conversion booth in France and ask to exchange your Euros for E-Gold (one of the E-Currency systems). Rather, E-Currencies are "stored value units", in a sense, they are digital widgets! You buy some digital widgets from a particular E-Currency System and use them in whatever manner you wish. Your concern would be that whatever particular use you had in mind - such as sending the widgets to a friend in Iceland, for example - that the person on the other end will accept your widgets for their stored value.
Should people or governments be concerned about what you do with your "digital widgets"? Even if these E-Currency systems were actual currencies, what would be the concern as to how you use or convert them? If you were an American on vacation and flew to France and went to a currency conversion booth and changed $1,000 U.S. into the Euro equivalent, what concern is it of either the American or French governments? As mentioned, E-Currencies are not actual government backed currencies and therefore are not related to any particular government currency, per se.
History - the 'why' of E-Currencies
The E-Currency industry came about in an effort, I believe, to circumvent the restrictions of using hard currencies in dealing with international business. Additionally, the aspect of transaction privacy seems to be of import to those using E-Currencies also. By transferring funds to your E-Currency account, you can then easily transfer them to someone else's account with the expectation of having very good privacy and anonymity, depending on the E-Currency used. Finally, the speed of transfer is quite fast with E-Currencies, from one account to another. So if you were in the U.S. and wanted to purchase something from someone in Italy and an E-Currency that you use was an option, you would probably choose that payment transfer method rather than a bank wire. It would seem that these three factors, (1) the need for a common currency rather than dealing with conversion issues between various hard currencies; (2) privacy of transaction and (3) speed of transaction, are the main reasons for the existence of the E-Currency industry. Which of those 3 factors is most important depends on the individual using the E-Currency systems.
Are E-Currencies legal?
E-Gold (www.e-gold.com) is currently the largest E-Currency provider, with over 500,000 customers worldwide. They have been in operation since July, 1996. At no time, I am aware of, has any government of any country accused an E-Currency of doing anything illegal by that country's laws and statutes. At no time has any International body, such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, or Interpol accused any E-Currency of violating any International laws.
Top reasons to prefer E-gold
1. Low Cost - Creating an e-gold account costs nothing. Clicking a payment costs nothing. The maximum fee for receiving any e-gold payment is 0.05 grams, about fifty cents (in 2002 US dollars or about 70 cents in 2004) worth of e-metal®.
2. Safe - e-gold is 100% backed by physical gold.
3. Secure - No one can draw upon another person's account. With e-gold when you get paid, you stay paid. If you keep your passphrase secure, then your e-metal is secure.
4. Fast - An e-gold payment settles in seconds. You have spendable money right away.
5. Flexible - Your e-gold account is instantly accessible anywhere you can reach the Internet.
6. Convenient - G&SR can remit the proceeds of an OutExchange™ by check (cheque) or wire to anyone you choose, in a variety of national currencies. (USD, JPY, GBP, FFR, EUR, DEM, CHF, CAD, AUD...etc) You can review detailed transaction records securely.
7. Transparent - You can audit total physical metal reserves in real time with Examiner™, an automated report that displays live data from the e-gold system.
8. Portable - A transfer of physical gold is risky, expensive, and slow. With an e-gold transaction your metal stays safe ... only its ownership changes.
9. Automated Conversion -You can specify e-gold payments using familiar national currency units or by weight.
10. Micropayments - e-gold is highly divisible, enabling very small payments if desired.
Advantages of E-gold
1. Low transaction fees - The maximum payment processing fee is 0.05 grams. For a $1000 value payment, this is less than one twentieth as much as credit cards.
2. Immediate settlement - e-gold payments clear instantaneously, no matter how large or small the payment, no matter how far apart the spender and recipient.
3. Non-repudiation - No chargebacks. Get paid, stay paid.
4. Direct access with bi-directionality - Anyone can pay or be paid.
5. Automation support - The e-gold Shopping Cart Interface is easily implemented and provides immediate authenticated notification of completed payment.
6. Zero financial risk - e-gold is the world's first remote payment system backed 100% by physical gold in allocated storage.
E-gold Fees
On January 1st 2004 E-gold changed their fees (or more precisely increased them) - check here for details: http://www.e-gold.com/unsecure/fees.htm.
There is no change in that only the receiver is charged fees.
Secondly, it makes sense that the new e-gold fees are not defined in terms of USD, where as previously the maximum fee was 50 cents. The new maximum spend fee is 0.05 Grams of Gold (AUG), which is equal to $0.65 at today's exchange rate.
Thirdly, they have introduced minimum spend amount of 0.0004 Grams of Gold (AUG), equal to about half a cent ($0.0053) at today's exchange rate.
For spends over 1 Gram of Gold (AUG) equivalent to about $13.07 at today's exchange rate, the rate is 1% or less, equal to the maximum rate of $0.66 at today's exchange rate.
Advantages: The e-gold payment system should become more responsive as users will be reluctant to pay charges of up to 55% on spends worth less than a dollar.
Disadvantages: E-gold becomes a more costly medium to use. E-bullion becomes a more cost effective alternative for transfers over $25.
Examples of Typical PT Digital Gold Users
Danny Makes a Small Anonymous Payment
It's often easier to illustrate using examples, so we will start with Danny. Danny is in Phoenix, Arizona - just testing the water, having never used digital gold. He is aware that the encrypted email provider Hushmail accepts e-gold, and he wants to use this payment method to pay them $100 for services, rather than having a link to Hushmail on his credit card statement.
First he will need a throw-away email account, or at least one not directly related to him. With this, he will sign up for an e-gold account, which will be opened online in seconds.
Then he locates the website of a suitable exchanger. In this case, let's assume he selects an exchanger based in Florida, and their fee for this transaction is 4%. He buys a money order for cash in Phoenix for $104, mails it to the exchanger, and within a few days they have received it and transferred $100 to his e-gold account.
Then all he has to do is log in to his email account, transfer the money to Hushmail's e-gold account, and voila! Transaction completed.
If Danny is really security conscious he can now ditch the e-gold account and use a new one for the next transaction, but that's probably unnecessary. He can keep the same account for the coming months and maybe use it to receive some money anonymously for little trades he fulfills on Ebay.
Rory Wants to Move Money Offshore
Rory from Dublin, Ireland already has an e-gold account and wants to use it to transfer funds to his secret account in Latvia. Obviously if he wires the funds directly from Ireland, that would not look good.
Instead, he visits the websites of some exchange businesses and locates several which he thinks would be suitable: in the UK, the USA and Australia. Wires to these countries, he figures, will not attract attention because they fit into the normal pattern of his business, and are not headed for known offshore locations.
Over the course of some months, he randomly sends wires and bank drafts of between $3,000 and $7,000 from his business accounts at several different Irish banks, to each of these three exchangers. On receipt of the money, they credit his e-gold account as instructed. All in all, he wires out maybe $100,000.
At the same time, he has located another couple of reputable exchangers located in Estonia and Finland to complete the other end of the transaction. Periodically, Rory logs in to his e-gold account and makes a transfer to the accounts of these exchangers, then he fires off an encrypted email to them giving his Latvian bank details. The exchangers send Euros to Rory's Latvian bank account.
Of course, if the Irish tax authorities were really desperate to unravel this set of transactions they could. But it would require court orders in the UK, USA, Australia, Estonia and Finland, and it is very unlikely they would bother.
For extra security, Rory could pay a nominal fee (perhaps 1%) to a straw man who would claim ownership of the e-gold account if required, and he would have a contract with Rory for consultancy services, programming work, website design or something similarly intangible.
How much does this cost Rory? Buying and selling of e-gold depends on market conditions, but a fair estimate suggests that he could get quite a decent rate by emailing the exchangers in advance and explaining that he needs to make regular transactions. In this case he might be able to pay 2% in and 1% out. That's a total of 3% (ignoring any movements in the gold price) which we think is a very reasonable price to pay for the privacy afforded.
Note that in the above case, if Rory is simply transferring his own, tax-paid savings, then he is doing absolutely nothing illegal. Like most civilized countries, Ireland has no restrictions on what you can and can't do with money you have legitimately earned.
But if he is involved in making false tax declarations or trying to avoid court orders, the above process could quickly be construed as money laundering. Needless to say, we strongly recommend against that. If you do everything in good time when you have no tax emergencies or claims pending, then you can do everything by the book and totally legally. Much better.
Giles Wants a Golden Offshore Nest Egg
Giles is seriously, independently wealthy. His family founded one of London's landmark department stores and made their fortune before selling out to an international chain. Giles is British but now lives in Monaco. Giles would like to keep some assets in gold, as part of a diversified portfolio. But he's what his friends call a privacy freak so he wants to avoid buying it through the more conventional channels.
Because what he wants is a long-term holding, he decides to go for GoldMoney rather than e-gold because of their better corporate governance. He opens an account with them, named G-WIDGET ACCOUNT, and provides them, unbeknown to her, with a copy of the passport of his Filipina maid.
He locates an exchanger in nearby France and calls him on the phone. Although the exchanger doesn't normally take cash, he's a small businessman out to make a buck and sees now harm in doing so, given the profit potential of the situation Giles offers him.
Giles therefore loads up 100,000 euros in his car, drives to meet the exchanger, and the transaction is carried out then and there. Giles watches as the exchanger transfers the GoldMoney to G-WIDGET, and then he logs in from his laptop as a double check.
The transaction goes well and Giles makes a mental note to repeat this transaction soon and increase his holding in GoldMoney.
Dealing with E-Currency Exchange Providers exchaning E-gold, GoldMoney..etcThere are quite a number of exchangers which make it their business to get your money into and out of the digital gold systems. Most are small businesses and are not related to the companies managing the actual systems.
Some of these outfits are better than others. If in doubt, check this list - I can vouch forand www.goldage.net since I use them regularly.
The other issue to consider is that exchange providers are subject to different regulations in different countries. For example, those in the USA are treated as money transfer businesses and are required to obtain ID on clients for most transactions. Nonetheless, you might still want to use a US exchanger, though, if you are doing business in the US - obviously getting money to and from them in such a case would be quicker, cheaper, and more private than using a foreign exchanger. PTs know how to be creative and solve the ID problem.
Some of the exchangers in other countries are prepared to conduct business anonymously but they will need to be reassured that you are not just another internet fraudster or hacker trying to launder your ill-gotten gains. We suggest you email several and only deal with those you seem comfortable with, who are on your wavelength.
E-gold has spent nothing on advertising, but its account base is already larger than some Internet-only banks that lay out millions of dollars on marketing. e-gold is succeeding where other electronic payment initiatives are failing because it is designed specifically for worldwide eCommerce. All others merely add additional layers of liability to legacy systems. The promise of the Internet - elimination of barriers to the free and instant flow of information and value - is being fulfilled.
Does the Gold Really Exist?
This is an obvious question to which any prudent user requires an answer. Since you cannot physically see or touch the gold, how can you be sure it really exists? How can you be sure you are not just placing blind faith on someone's word? (as is the case for example when you pass US dollars around).
But there is no general answer to this question digital gold as a whole. There are a number of competing digital gold systems and some are more secure than others. Before using them, it is important to carry out due diligence and satisfy yourself as to the authenticity of claims. Clearly the amount of time and effort you put into this will vary depending on whether you are depositing $100 or $1 million.
What we really like to see is an independent, regularly updated third party audit by a trusted name such as a major accounting firm. At the moment, there is only one digital gold system which offers this: GoldMoney, which is audited by Deloitte and Touche. Additionally their gold is stored in the UK by a third party of international repute - the secure storage company ViaMat - who are able to confirm this.
Therefore, we consider GoldMoney to be the best for long-term storage of value if that is your objective.
E-Gold has published audits in the past but they are now out-of-date. Nonetheless, e-gold is a well-established system that our associates have been using for several years without any problem. On the internet reputation is everything because bad news travels very fast - and e-gold has developed an excellent reputation. Therefore we can cautiously but responsibly recommend it.
Surveillance of Digital Gold Transactions
At present Digital Gold is a relatively free economy, small enough to be unregulated. Because it is so international in scope, it would be very hard for any government to regulate. Most governments have no idea it even exists.
There is no known reporting of transactions within Digital Gold systems. However at the time you are cashing in or out, your transactions do have to go through the regular banking system of some country or another, and there of course they could be monitored.
We imagine that all systems will keep permanent records of the IP address (that of your internet provider) so anyone with access to those records will be able to ascertain exactly where the transaction was made from. We can also assume that they monitor the part of the world you are in. For example, if you have an address in the USA on file but the account is accessed from the Ukraine, that could be cause for further investigation.
The other issue you need to be aware of is security. If a hacker or Big Brother has installed a malicious program such as a keyboard logger on your system, it would be possible for them to steal your passwords. But of course this risk applies to all forms of internet banking, not just to Digital Gold. It is therefore very important for users to maintain good levels of computer security (see the separate chapter on computer security).
Blending In
What is a typical transaction size? Most digital gold transactions will be relatively small, but low five figure dollar amounts are not unusual and should pass below the radar. Six or seven figure transactions (over $100,000) certainly happen quite often too, but they are probably big enough to stand out and maybe receive some extra attention. If you were seeking privacy, you would not want that unless you had a well-established account with a history of larger transactions.
If you want to learn even more on digital gold currencies and Egold, check out these two PDF booklets here and here (note: you will need Adobe Reader to open/read them).
PayPal
PayPal is an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. It serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as cheques and money orders. PayPal performs payment processing for online vendors, auction sites, and other corporate users, for which it charges a fee. On October 3, 2002, PayPal became a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay.[1] Its corporate headquarters are in San Jose, California, at eBay's North First Street satellite office campus. The company also has significant operations in Omaha, Nebraska; Dublin, Ireland; and Berlin, Germany.
History
Beginnings
PayPal is the result of a March 2000 merger between Confinity and X.com.Confinity was founded in December 1998 by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek, initially as a Palm Pilot payments and cryptography company. Both Confinity and X.com launched their websites in late 1999. X.com was founded by Elon Musk in March 1999, initially as an Internet financial services company. Both companies were located on University Avenue in Palo Alto. Confinity's website was initially focused on reconciling beamed payments from Palm Pilots with email payments as a feature and X.com's website initially included financial services with email payments as a feature.
At Confinity, many of the initial recruits were alumni of The Stanford Review, also founded by Peter Thiel, and most early engineers hailed from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, recruited by Max Levchin. On the X.com side, Elon Musk recruited a wide range of technical and business personnel, including many that were critical to the combined company's success, such as Amy Klement, Sal Giambanco, Roelof Botha, Sanjay Bhargava and Jeremy Stoppelman.
To block potentially fraudulent access by automated systems, PayPal devised a system (see CAPTCHA) of making the user enter numbers from a blurry picture, which they coined the Gausebeck-Levchin test. According to Eric M. Jackson, author of the book The PayPal Wars, PayPal invented this system now in common use. Although, there is evidence AltaVista used a CAPTCHA as early as 1997, before PayPal existed.[citation needed] The neutrality of The PayPal Wars, which was self-published by Eric Jackson through his company World Ahead Publishing, funded in part by Peter Thiel, is disputed.
eBay watched the rise in volume of online payments and realized its fit with online auctions. eBay purchased Billpoint in May 1999, prior to the existence of Paypal. eBay made Billpoint the official payment system of eBay, dubbing it "eBay Payments", but cut the functionality of Billpoint by narrowing it to only payments made for eBay auctions.
For this reason, PayPal was listed in several times as many auctions as Billpoint. In February of 2000, there were approximately an average of 200,000 daily auctions advertising the PayPal service while Billpoint (in beta) had only 4,000 auctions. By April of 2000 there were more than 1,000,000 auctions promoting the PayPal service. PayPal was able to turn the corner and become the first dot-com to IPO after the September 11 attacks.
Acquisition by eBay
In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay. PayPal had previously been the payment method of choice by more than fifty percent of eBay users, and the service competed with eBay’s subsidiary Billpoint. eBay has since phased out its Billpoint service in favor of retaining the PayPal brand. Most of PayPal’s major competitors have shut down or have been sold; Citibank’s c2it service closed in late 2003, and Yahoo!'s PayDirect service closed in late 2004. Western Union announced the December 2005 shut down of their BidPay service but subsequently sold it in 2006 to CyberSource Corporation. Some competitors which offer some of PayPal’s services, such as Wirecard, Moneybookers, 2Checkout, CCNow and Kagi, remain in business.
PayPal’s total payment volume, the total value of transactions in Q4 2006, was US$11 billion, up 36% year over year. The company continues to focus on international growth and growth of its Merchant Services division, providing online payments for retailers off eBay.
Business today
As of the end of Q4 2006, PayPal operates in 103 markets (including China), and it manages over 133 million accounts. PayPal allows customers to send, receive, and hold funds in 17 currencies worldwide. These currencies are the U.S. dollar, Canadian dollar, Australian dollar, Euro, Pound sterling, Japanese yen, Chinese renminbi, Czech Koruna, Danish krone, Hong Kong dollar, Hungarian forint, New Zealand dollar, Norwegian krone, Polish zloty, Singapore dollar, Swedish krona, and Swiss franc. PayPal operates locally in 13 countries.
Residents in 48 new markets can now use PayPal in their local markets to send money online. These new markets include Peru, Indonesia, the Philippines, Croatia, Fiji, Vietnam and Jordan. A complete list can be viewed at PayPal's website.
In China PayPal offers two kinds of accounts:
PayPal.com accounts, for sending and receiving money to/from other PayPal.com accounts. All non-Chinese accounts are PayPal.com accounts, so these accounts may be used to send money internationally.
PayPal.cn accounts, for sending and receiving money to and from other PayPal.cn accounts.
It is impossible to send money between PayPal.cn accounts and PayPal.com accounts, so PayPal.cn accounts are effectively unable to make international payments. For PayPal.cn, the only supported currency is the renminbi.
PayPal’s operation center is located near Omaha, Nebraska and PayPal’s international headquarters is located in Dublin, Ireland. The company also recently opened a technology center in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Legal issues
In March 2002, two PayPal account holders separately sued the company for alleged violations of the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (EFTA) and California law. Most of the allegations concerned PayPal's dispute resolution procedures. The two lawsuits were merged into one class action lawsuit (In re PayPal litigation). An informal settlement was reached in November 2003, and a formal settlement was signed on June 11, 2004. The settlement requires that PayPal change its business practices (including changing its dispute resolution procedures to make them EFTA-compliant), as well as making a US$9.25 million payment to members of the class. PayPal denied any wrongdoing.
In August 2002, Craig Comb and others filed a class action against PayPal in Craig Comb, et al. v. PayPal, Inc.. They sued for alleged mishandling of customer accounts and customer services, with regards to PayPal's user agreement. Allegations included the up to 180-day restriction on deposited funds until disputes are resolved, forcing customers to arbitrate their disputes under the American Arbitration Association's guidelines (a costly procedure), and requiring users to file claims individually, restricting class action suits. The court deemed these actions unconscionable and ruled in favor of Comb.
Bank status
In the United States, PayPal is licensed as a money transmitter on a state-by-state basis. Although PayPal is not a bank, the company is still subject to and adheres to many of the rules and regulations governing the financial industry including Regulation E consumer protections and the USA PATRIOT Act. However, on May 15, 2007, PayPal announced that it would move its European operations from the UK to Luxembourg, commencing July 2, 2007 as PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. & Cie, S.C.A. This would be as a Luxembourg entity regulated as a bank by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF), the Luxembourg equivalent of the FSA. PayPal Luxembourg will then provide the PayPal service throughout the European Union (EU).
Safety & Protection Policies
The PayPal Buyer Protection Policy[3] claims that customers may file a buyer complaint within 45 days if they did not receive an item or if the item they purchased was significantly not as described. If the buyer used a credit card, they might get a refund via charge back from their credit card company.
PayPal protects sellers in a limited fashion via the Seller Protection Policy . In general the Seller Protection Policy is intended to protect the seller from certain kinds of chargebacks or complaints if seller meets certain conditions including proof of delivery to the buyer. PayPal states the Seller Protection Policy is "designed to protect sellers against claims by buyers of unauthorised payments and against claims of non-receipt of any merchandise". Note that this contrasts with the consumer protection they claim to offer. This policy should be read carefully before assuming protection. In particular the Seller Protection Policy includes a list of "Exclusions" which itself includes "Intangible goods", "Claims for receipt of goods 'not as described'" and "Total reversals over the annual limit". There are also other restrictions in terms of the sale itself, the payment method and the destination country the item is shipped to (simply having a tracking mechanism is not sufficient to guarantee the Seller Protection Policy is in effect).
The company—by its own admission—uses automated systems to verify tracking numbers. If a seller has an item not received claim filed against them, they are required to enter a tracking number for the item. If they fail to enter a valid tracking number that shows a successful delivery, or even mistype the number by one digit, they will lose the claim automatically without a real person ever adjudicating the claim. In general, if a valid tracking number is entered which can be accessed online and shows a successful delivery, the seller will automatically win the claim.
The item significantly not as described claim is a more complicated matter. In this situation, the buyer has acknowledged the receipt of the item but has found the item to be "significantly not as described." The multi-level process provides an initial period of time for the seller and buyer to attempt to reach an agreement on their own. If the seller does not respond to the initial dispute from the buyer, or if the seller is unable to offer a settlement which is agreeable to the buyer, the buyer then has the option of escalating the dispute to a claim. If seller does not wish to communicate with buyer, the seller also may choose to escalate a dispute to a claim. The escalation from dispute to claim is not automatic; if a dispute is not escalated it will be automatically closed after a certain period of time. By escalating the dispute to a claim, the party is asking a PayPal representative to review the claim and make a settlement decision. In most cases, if the seller has been found to have misrepresented the item in a significant way, the buyer will be required to return the item to the seller at buyer's expense — and provide a tracking number for the return shipment — in order to receive their refund for the transaction. This policy is criticized as being in favor of the fraudulent seller. A seller can exaggerate the condition of his items and the worst that can happen is that he has the item returned. The innocent buyer has to pay return shipping and ends up out of pocket for something that was not his fault. This is in line with criticism of eBay's general policy of putting sales and its own profits above buyer protection against fraudulent sellers (for instance shill bidding).
If the seller has not been found to have misrepresented the item in a significant way, then the buyer's claim will be denied and the buyer will have no further opportunity for claims of any type using Paypal's systems. The only recourse the buyer would possibly have at that point would be through their credit card company (if payment was made using a credit card) or by filing a claim against Paypal through the Better Business Bureau or another similar consumer protection organization.
Security Key
In early 2007, PayPal introduced an optional security key to its users. This adds an additional layer of protection when logging into a PayPal or eBay account. Once a user enters their login ID and password, they are prompted to press a button on the small security key, then enter the six digit number to complete the login process. There is a one-time US$5 charge for this device, with no ongoing fees, however business accounts get them free of charge.
Money Market
In 2000, PayPal began offering its customers the option of investing their funds in a Money Market account managed by Barclays plc. If a user activates it, the balance of their account begins earning monthly dividends. The rate fluctuates daily, but thus far has been around 5%, and this percentage is the same regardless of the account balance.
Funds are not insured by the FDIC. While other online bank accounts like ING Direct, Citi Direct, HSBC Direct, or Emigrant Direct offer comparable or higher percentage yields and are FDIC-insured, one major advantage of the PayPal money market account is the accessibility of it with no long term commitment.
Sandbox
Developers implementing larger PayPal projects will likely want to avoid using real money. PayPal has a "sandbox" version of its website geared towards such developers. PayPal has detailed developer information for all aspects of its API online in PDF form, as well as a developer community and a third party developer market.
Entrepreneurship by former employees
A number of companies have been started and funded by former PayPal employees. This trend prompted the The New York Times to publish a story entitled "It Pays to Have Pals in Silicon Valley" that analyzes the connections between several PayPal employees who went on to become influential.
LinkedIn was founded by Reid Hoffman, a former VP at PayPal.
Facebook received its first angel investment from Peter Thiel.
Clarium Capital Management is a hedge fund run by Peter Thiel. Principal partners at Clarium include Ken Howery and Luke Nosek, both of whom were among the earliest employees at PayPal.
Palantir Technologies was founded by Nathan Gettings, who developed PayPal's anti-fraud models. Palantir received funding from Peter Thiel.
Slide was founded by Max Levchin, Jared Kopf, and former PayPal board member Scott Banister.
Yelp was founded by Jeremy Stoppelmann, former VP of Engineering at PayPal, and Russ Simmons, one of the first employees at PayPal. Yelp is funded by Max Levchin.
YouTube (now owned by Google) was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, all of whom were early employees at PayPal. YouTube is funded by Sequoia Capital. Roelof Botha, the former CFO of PayPal, is a partner of Sequoia Capital who sits on YouTube's board of directors.
Room 9 Entertainment, which produced the movie Thank You for Smoking, was founded by David O. Sacks, who founded PayPal's Product Group and later served as Chief Operating Officer (COO).
Geni.com was also founded by David Sacks.
SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk, who founded X.com and served as the CEO following its merger with PayPal.
Fraudwall Technologies is run by Ken Miller, who was VP of Risk Management at PayPal and the architect of PayPal's anti-fraud system.
Tesla Motors' principal owner and Chairman of the Board is Elon Musk.
History
Beginnings
PayPal is the result of a March 2000 merger between Confinity and X.com.Confinity was founded in December 1998 by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek, initially as a Palm Pilot payments and cryptography company. Both Confinity and X.com launched their websites in late 1999. X.com was founded by Elon Musk in March 1999, initially as an Internet financial services company. Both companies were located on University Avenue in Palo Alto. Confinity's website was initially focused on reconciling beamed payments from Palm Pilots with email payments as a feature and X.com's website initially included financial services with email payments as a feature.
At Confinity, many of the initial recruits were alumni of The Stanford Review, also founded by Peter Thiel, and most early engineers hailed from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, recruited by Max Levchin. On the X.com side, Elon Musk recruited a wide range of technical and business personnel, including many that were critical to the combined company's success, such as Amy Klement, Sal Giambanco, Roelof Botha, Sanjay Bhargava and Jeremy Stoppelman.
To block potentially fraudulent access by automated systems, PayPal devised a system (see CAPTCHA) of making the user enter numbers from a blurry picture, which they coined the Gausebeck-Levchin test. According to Eric M. Jackson, author of the book The PayPal Wars, PayPal invented this system now in common use. Although, there is evidence AltaVista used a CAPTCHA as early as 1997, before PayPal existed.[citation needed] The neutrality of The PayPal Wars, which was self-published by Eric Jackson through his company World Ahead Publishing, funded in part by Peter Thiel, is disputed.
eBay watched the rise in volume of online payments and realized its fit with online auctions. eBay purchased Billpoint in May 1999, prior to the existence of Paypal. eBay made Billpoint the official payment system of eBay, dubbing it "eBay Payments", but cut the functionality of Billpoint by narrowing it to only payments made for eBay auctions.
For this reason, PayPal was listed in several times as many auctions as Billpoint. In February of 2000, there were approximately an average of 200,000 daily auctions advertising the PayPal service while Billpoint (in beta) had only 4,000 auctions. By April of 2000 there were more than 1,000,000 auctions promoting the PayPal service. PayPal was able to turn the corner and become the first dot-com to IPO after the September 11 attacks.
Acquisition by eBay
In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay. PayPal had previously been the payment method of choice by more than fifty percent of eBay users, and the service competed with eBay’s subsidiary Billpoint. eBay has since phased out its Billpoint service in favor of retaining the PayPal brand. Most of PayPal’s major competitors have shut down or have been sold; Citibank’s c2it service closed in late 2003, and Yahoo!'s PayDirect service closed in late 2004. Western Union announced the December 2005 shut down of their BidPay service but subsequently sold it in 2006 to CyberSource Corporation. Some competitors which offer some of PayPal’s services, such as Wirecard, Moneybookers, 2Checkout, CCNow and Kagi, remain in business.
PayPal’s total payment volume, the total value of transactions in Q4 2006, was US$11 billion, up 36% year over year. The company continues to focus on international growth and growth of its Merchant Services division, providing online payments for retailers off eBay.
Business today
As of the end of Q4 2006, PayPal operates in 103 markets (including China), and it manages over 133 million accounts. PayPal allows customers to send, receive, and hold funds in 17 currencies worldwide. These currencies are the U.S. dollar, Canadian dollar, Australian dollar, Euro, Pound sterling, Japanese yen, Chinese renminbi, Czech Koruna, Danish krone, Hong Kong dollar, Hungarian forint, New Zealand dollar, Norwegian krone, Polish zloty, Singapore dollar, Swedish krona, and Swiss franc. PayPal operates locally in 13 countries.
Residents in 48 new markets can now use PayPal in their local markets to send money online. These new markets include Peru, Indonesia, the Philippines, Croatia, Fiji, Vietnam and Jordan. A complete list can be viewed at PayPal's website.
In China PayPal offers two kinds of accounts:
PayPal.com accounts, for sending and receiving money to/from other PayPal.com accounts. All non-Chinese accounts are PayPal.com accounts, so these accounts may be used to send money internationally.
PayPal.cn accounts, for sending and receiving money to and from other PayPal.cn accounts.
It is impossible to send money between PayPal.cn accounts and PayPal.com accounts, so PayPal.cn accounts are effectively unable to make international payments. For PayPal.cn, the only supported currency is the renminbi.
PayPal’s operation center is located near Omaha, Nebraska and PayPal’s international headquarters is located in Dublin, Ireland. The company also recently opened a technology center in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Legal issues
In March 2002, two PayPal account holders separately sued the company for alleged violations of the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (EFTA) and California law. Most of the allegations concerned PayPal's dispute resolution procedures. The two lawsuits were merged into one class action lawsuit (In re PayPal litigation). An informal settlement was reached in November 2003, and a formal settlement was signed on June 11, 2004. The settlement requires that PayPal change its business practices (including changing its dispute resolution procedures to make them EFTA-compliant), as well as making a US$9.25 million payment to members of the class. PayPal denied any wrongdoing.
In August 2002, Craig Comb and others filed a class action against PayPal in Craig Comb, et al. v. PayPal, Inc.. They sued for alleged mishandling of customer accounts and customer services, with regards to PayPal's user agreement. Allegations included the up to 180-day restriction on deposited funds until disputes are resolved, forcing customers to arbitrate their disputes under the American Arbitration Association's guidelines (a costly procedure), and requiring users to file claims individually, restricting class action suits. The court deemed these actions unconscionable and ruled in favor of Comb.
Bank status
In the United States, PayPal is licensed as a money transmitter on a state-by-state basis. Although PayPal is not a bank, the company is still subject to and adheres to many of the rules and regulations governing the financial industry including Regulation E consumer protections and the USA PATRIOT Act. However, on May 15, 2007, PayPal announced that it would move its European operations from the UK to Luxembourg, commencing July 2, 2007 as PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. & Cie, S.C.A. This would be as a Luxembourg entity regulated as a bank by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF), the Luxembourg equivalent of the FSA. PayPal Luxembourg will then provide the PayPal service throughout the European Union (EU).
Safety & Protection Policies
The PayPal Buyer Protection Policy[3] claims that customers may file a buyer complaint within 45 days if they did not receive an item or if the item they purchased was significantly not as described. If the buyer used a credit card, they might get a refund via charge back from their credit card company.
PayPal protects sellers in a limited fashion via the Seller Protection Policy . In general the Seller Protection Policy is intended to protect the seller from certain kinds of chargebacks or complaints if seller meets certain conditions including proof of delivery to the buyer. PayPal states the Seller Protection Policy is "designed to protect sellers against claims by buyers of unauthorised payments and against claims of non-receipt of any merchandise". Note that this contrasts with the consumer protection they claim to offer. This policy should be read carefully before assuming protection. In particular the Seller Protection Policy includes a list of "Exclusions" which itself includes "Intangible goods", "Claims for receipt of goods 'not as described'" and "Total reversals over the annual limit". There are also other restrictions in terms of the sale itself, the payment method and the destination country the item is shipped to (simply having a tracking mechanism is not sufficient to guarantee the Seller Protection Policy is in effect).
The company—by its own admission—uses automated systems to verify tracking numbers. If a seller has an item not received claim filed against them, they are required to enter a tracking number for the item. If they fail to enter a valid tracking number that shows a successful delivery, or even mistype the number by one digit, they will lose the claim automatically without a real person ever adjudicating the claim. In general, if a valid tracking number is entered which can be accessed online and shows a successful delivery, the seller will automatically win the claim.
The item significantly not as described claim is a more complicated matter. In this situation, the buyer has acknowledged the receipt of the item but has found the item to be "significantly not as described." The multi-level process provides an initial period of time for the seller and buyer to attempt to reach an agreement on their own. If the seller does not respond to the initial dispute from the buyer, or if the seller is unable to offer a settlement which is agreeable to the buyer, the buyer then has the option of escalating the dispute to a claim. If seller does not wish to communicate with buyer, the seller also may choose to escalate a dispute to a claim. The escalation from dispute to claim is not automatic; if a dispute is not escalated it will be automatically closed after a certain period of time. By escalating the dispute to a claim, the party is asking a PayPal representative to review the claim and make a settlement decision. In most cases, if the seller has been found to have misrepresented the item in a significant way, the buyer will be required to return the item to the seller at buyer's expense — and provide a tracking number for the return shipment — in order to receive their refund for the transaction. This policy is criticized as being in favor of the fraudulent seller. A seller can exaggerate the condition of his items and the worst that can happen is that he has the item returned. The innocent buyer has to pay return shipping and ends up out of pocket for something that was not his fault. This is in line with criticism of eBay's general policy of putting sales and its own profits above buyer protection against fraudulent sellers (for instance shill bidding).
If the seller has not been found to have misrepresented the item in a significant way, then the buyer's claim will be denied and the buyer will have no further opportunity for claims of any type using Paypal's systems. The only recourse the buyer would possibly have at that point would be through their credit card company (if payment was made using a credit card) or by filing a claim against Paypal through the Better Business Bureau or another similar consumer protection organization.
Security Key
In early 2007, PayPal introduced an optional security key to its users. This adds an additional layer of protection when logging into a PayPal or eBay account. Once a user enters their login ID and password, they are prompted to press a button on the small security key, then enter the six digit number to complete the login process. There is a one-time US$5 charge for this device, with no ongoing fees, however business accounts get them free of charge.
Money Market
In 2000, PayPal began offering its customers the option of investing their funds in a Money Market account managed by Barclays plc. If a user activates it, the balance of their account begins earning monthly dividends. The rate fluctuates daily, but thus far has been around 5%, and this percentage is the same regardless of the account balance.
Funds are not insured by the FDIC. While other online bank accounts like ING Direct, Citi Direct, HSBC Direct, or Emigrant Direct offer comparable or higher percentage yields and are FDIC-insured, one major advantage of the PayPal money market account is the accessibility of it with no long term commitment.
Sandbox
Developers implementing larger PayPal projects will likely want to avoid using real money. PayPal has a "sandbox" version of its website geared towards such developers. PayPal has detailed developer information for all aspects of its API online in PDF form, as well as a developer community and a third party developer market.
Entrepreneurship by former employees
A number of companies have been started and funded by former PayPal employees. This trend prompted the The New York Times to publish a story entitled "It Pays to Have Pals in Silicon Valley" that analyzes the connections between several PayPal employees who went on to become influential.
LinkedIn was founded by Reid Hoffman, a former VP at PayPal.
Facebook received its first angel investment from Peter Thiel.
Clarium Capital Management is a hedge fund run by Peter Thiel. Principal partners at Clarium include Ken Howery and Luke Nosek, both of whom were among the earliest employees at PayPal.
Palantir Technologies was founded by Nathan Gettings, who developed PayPal's anti-fraud models. Palantir received funding from Peter Thiel.
Slide was founded by Max Levchin, Jared Kopf, and former PayPal board member Scott Banister.
Yelp was founded by Jeremy Stoppelmann, former VP of Engineering at PayPal, and Russ Simmons, one of the first employees at PayPal. Yelp is funded by Max Levchin.
YouTube (now owned by Google) was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, all of whom were early employees at PayPal. YouTube is funded by Sequoia Capital. Roelof Botha, the former CFO of PayPal, is a partner of Sequoia Capital who sits on YouTube's board of directors.
Room 9 Entertainment, which produced the movie Thank You for Smoking, was founded by David O. Sacks, who founded PayPal's Product Group and later served as Chief Operating Officer (COO).
Geni.com was also founded by David Sacks.
SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk, who founded X.com and served as the CEO following its merger with PayPal.
Fraudwall Technologies is run by Ken Miller, who was VP of Risk Management at PayPal and the architect of PayPal's anti-fraud system.
Tesla Motors' principal owner and Chairman of the Board is Elon Musk.
HYIP
High Yield Investment Program
From Wikipedia
High Yield Investment Program, or HYIP, is a often type of pyramid scheme normally offered via the Internet. HYIPs typically accept deposits as low as $1 while promising astoundingly high returns.
Online HYIP schemes rarely last for the long term. Overwhelming number of cases suggest that HYIPs are Ponzi schemes, in which new investors provide the cash to pay a profit to existing investors, which they typically then withdraw.[citation needed] This approach allows the scam to continue as long as new investors are found and/or old investors leave their money in the scheme, known as compounding (because even higher profits are promised).
The introduction of e-currencies has made it possible for HYIPs to operate on the internet and cross international boundaries, and to accept large numbers of small investments. HYIPs usually accept deposits by either e-currency, like e-gold, e-bullion and INTGold, or use specialist third party payment processors like AlertPay, SolidTrustPay, CEPTrust, TriStarMoneyChangers and StormPay. HYIPs typically offer a significant incentive commission (for example, 9% of invested funds) for members to attract and refer new investors.
Most HYIPs disclose little or no detail about the underlying management, location, or other aspects of how money is to be invested (often because money is not actually invested), and relatively little information (other than asserting that they do various types of trading on various stock and other exchanges) on how they actually generate the returns they purport. They are sometimes presented with some form of an emotional appeal, appeals for faith, and promises that they will help investors achieve financial freedom.
Arguably, the largest HYIP scam that has existed on the internet was PIPS (People in Profit System or Pure Investors)[1][2]. The investment scheme was started by Bryan Marsden in early 2004, (according to the Wayback Machine record of http://pureinvestor.com) and spanned more than 20 countries. PIPS was investigated by Bank Negara Malaysia in 2005 which resulted in Marsden and his wife being charged in a Malaysian court with 97 counts of money laundering involving more than RM77 million - US$20 million - (copy of New Straits Times article dated 11 Oct 2006). Even after these charges were brought forth many of Marsden's followers/investors continued to support him and believe they would see their money some day. This behavior and denial could be seen and still is seen on hyip forums such as Talkgold Forum and others.
Interest rates
HYIPs typically claim to offer interest rates of 1% or more per day on invested funds; some claim to offer much higher daily rates exceeding 200% a day. Allegedly, the highest-return HYIP on record has offered 1,100% ROI in one day. Claims of astronomical returns without large capital outlay or background information are indicative of a Ponzi-structured HYIP program.
As a comparison with a typical 1% per day claim, Warren Buffett, one of the world's most successful investors, made around 30% per year during his most successful period; that is on average, less than 0.1% per day. As the claimed returns of 1% per day are extremely unlikely to be produced legitimately, all HYIPs are therefore likely to be Ponzi schemes, and so most investors will in due course lose their money.
HYIP games
As a result of online forums and monitoring sites which have made HYIP investors more aware of their nature, a different sort of "honest" HYIP began springing up in the early months of 2006. Basically, the HYIP owner calls his or her program a "ponzi-structured game" where one should "not invest money one cannot afford to lose", and where there is "never a guarantee of earnings or refunds". They promise to pay out up to (for example) 95% of deposits, the rest going to hosting or other fees and the owner's profit.
In such "games", the first participants ("investors") may make a good profit and are encouraged to refer other people to the program because of referral commission, the fact that they have already made back their principal and are playing with profit, and that the more people who deposit money, the more money can be paid out to participants. In theory, strategies can be developed to maximize profit using these games (but, of course, since this is a zero-sum game, such strategies work by taking advantage of ignorance or errors by others). Some forum users may gain a reputation whereby others will trust their word that they have been able to withdraw their profits, encouraging others to invest in the hopes that more will invest after them and that they can therefore make a profit. As these games are by definition Ponzi schemes, it is inevitable that the vast majority of investors who are not at the top of the pyramid will lose their money.
These "games" might be considered as lotteries. However, the odds of winning cannot be determined, as one cannot know whether one is playing early enough to win money (that is, whether a sufficient number of new participants will follow). Thus, these activities are unlike a lottery or other forms of gambling, where a player has an equal chance of winning no matter when a ticket is bought, or where the odds of the game are known.
HYIP monitors
HYIP monitors, or HYIP listing/rating sites, are websites that list and/or promote HYIPs for referral commissions. The monitor charges each HYIP a listing fee which is usually then invested into that program, although there exist free listings and occasionally monitors which invest their own money. The monitor then labels the HYIP as "Paying" or "Not paying/Scam" depending on whether interest is received within the terms specified by the program. Monitors also allow other HYIP investors to rate and comment on the programs, based on factors such as promptness of payouts and responsiveness of the HYIP administrator. Programs with higher ratings achieve higher rankings on the monitor sites, which coupled with a "Paying" status may entice more investors who rely on the monitor.
In most cases, HYIPs only pay monitor sites to keep their "Paying" status visible, but do not pay other investors. As HYIP monitors are not affiliated with the HYIPs themselves, they are unable to prevent investors from being scammed; they neither help to recover lost funds nor track down the scammers. Promoting or perpetuating Ponzi schemes is a criminal offense punishable by jail terms or fines in most countries. That the monitor sites place disclaimers saying that they "do not promote the programs advertised on their website" does not absolve them from criminal liability.
In order to generate a "paying" status early (so that future visitors will see it) and maintain it for the longest possible time, newly opened HYIPs list their site quickly as well as constantly pay monitors their interest on time. Added to the fact that many monitors invest the listing "fee", and that a commission is received on each deposit made by people who visit the HYIP via the monitor, they are the most likely to profit when a program runs out of funds.
HYIP owners can manipulate monitors and forums, by paying people to comment positively or by using a range of IP addresses or proxy servers in different locations so that "paying" votes appear to come from around the world. This allows the HYIP to rise up the rankings more quickly than others, giving investors a false sense of security. Additionally, even if they know it will scam in the future, some investors will also rate new HYIPs positively until the HYIP stops paying, because they want more people to invest after them in the hopes that the program will last longer. Future scammers can also build up a good reputation on forums for a large payoff once most forum members trust them.
From Wikipedia
High Yield Investment Program, or HYIP, is a often type of pyramid scheme normally offered via the Internet. HYIPs typically accept deposits as low as $1 while promising astoundingly high returns.
Online HYIP schemes rarely last for the long term. Overwhelming number of cases suggest that HYIPs are Ponzi schemes, in which new investors provide the cash to pay a profit to existing investors, which they typically then withdraw.[citation needed] This approach allows the scam to continue as long as new investors are found and/or old investors leave their money in the scheme, known as compounding (because even higher profits are promised).
The introduction of e-currencies has made it possible for HYIPs to operate on the internet and cross international boundaries, and to accept large numbers of small investments. HYIPs usually accept deposits by either e-currency, like e-gold, e-bullion and INTGold, or use specialist third party payment processors like AlertPay, SolidTrustPay, CEPTrust, TriStarMoneyChangers and StormPay. HYIPs typically offer a significant incentive commission (for example, 9% of invested funds) for members to attract and refer new investors.
Most HYIPs disclose little or no detail about the underlying management, location, or other aspects of how money is to be invested (often because money is not actually invested), and relatively little information (other than asserting that they do various types of trading on various stock and other exchanges) on how they actually generate the returns they purport. They are sometimes presented with some form of an emotional appeal, appeals for faith, and promises that they will help investors achieve financial freedom.
Arguably, the largest HYIP scam that has existed on the internet was PIPS (People in Profit System or Pure Investors)[1][2]. The investment scheme was started by Bryan Marsden in early 2004, (according to the Wayback Machine record of http://pureinvestor.com) and spanned more than 20 countries. PIPS was investigated by Bank Negara Malaysia in 2005 which resulted in Marsden and his wife being charged in a Malaysian court with 97 counts of money laundering involving more than RM77 million - US$20 million - (copy of New Straits Times article dated 11 Oct 2006). Even after these charges were brought forth many of Marsden's followers/investors continued to support him and believe they would see their money some day. This behavior and denial could be seen and still is seen on hyip forums such as Talkgold Forum and others.
Interest rates
HYIPs typically claim to offer interest rates of 1% or more per day on invested funds; some claim to offer much higher daily rates exceeding 200% a day. Allegedly, the highest-return HYIP on record has offered 1,100% ROI in one day. Claims of astronomical returns without large capital outlay or background information are indicative of a Ponzi-structured HYIP program.
As a comparison with a typical 1% per day claim, Warren Buffett, one of the world's most successful investors, made around 30% per year during his most successful period; that is on average, less than 0.1% per day. As the claimed returns of 1% per day are extremely unlikely to be produced legitimately, all HYIPs are therefore likely to be Ponzi schemes, and so most investors will in due course lose their money.
HYIP games
As a result of online forums and monitoring sites which have made HYIP investors more aware of their nature, a different sort of "honest" HYIP began springing up in the early months of 2006. Basically, the HYIP owner calls his or her program a "ponzi-structured game" where one should "not invest money one cannot afford to lose", and where there is "never a guarantee of earnings or refunds". They promise to pay out up to (for example) 95% of deposits, the rest going to hosting or other fees and the owner's profit.
In such "games", the first participants ("investors") may make a good profit and are encouraged to refer other people to the program because of referral commission, the fact that they have already made back their principal and are playing with profit, and that the more people who deposit money, the more money can be paid out to participants. In theory, strategies can be developed to maximize profit using these games (but, of course, since this is a zero-sum game, such strategies work by taking advantage of ignorance or errors by others). Some forum users may gain a reputation whereby others will trust their word that they have been able to withdraw their profits, encouraging others to invest in the hopes that more will invest after them and that they can therefore make a profit. As these games are by definition Ponzi schemes, it is inevitable that the vast majority of investors who are not at the top of the pyramid will lose their money.
These "games" might be considered as lotteries. However, the odds of winning cannot be determined, as one cannot know whether one is playing early enough to win money (that is, whether a sufficient number of new participants will follow). Thus, these activities are unlike a lottery or other forms of gambling, where a player has an equal chance of winning no matter when a ticket is bought, or where the odds of the game are known.
HYIP monitors
HYIP monitors, or HYIP listing/rating sites, are websites that list and/or promote HYIPs for referral commissions. The monitor charges each HYIP a listing fee which is usually then invested into that program, although there exist free listings and occasionally monitors which invest their own money. The monitor then labels the HYIP as "Paying" or "Not paying/Scam" depending on whether interest is received within the terms specified by the program. Monitors also allow other HYIP investors to rate and comment on the programs, based on factors such as promptness of payouts and responsiveness of the HYIP administrator. Programs with higher ratings achieve higher rankings on the monitor sites, which coupled with a "Paying" status may entice more investors who rely on the monitor.
In most cases, HYIPs only pay monitor sites to keep their "Paying" status visible, but do not pay other investors. As HYIP monitors are not affiliated with the HYIPs themselves, they are unable to prevent investors from being scammed; they neither help to recover lost funds nor track down the scammers. Promoting or perpetuating Ponzi schemes is a criminal offense punishable by jail terms or fines in most countries. That the monitor sites place disclaimers saying that they "do not promote the programs advertised on their website" does not absolve them from criminal liability.
In order to generate a "paying" status early (so that future visitors will see it) and maintain it for the longest possible time, newly opened HYIPs list their site quickly as well as constantly pay monitors their interest on time. Added to the fact that many monitors invest the listing "fee", and that a commission is received on each deposit made by people who visit the HYIP via the monitor, they are the most likely to profit when a program runs out of funds.
HYIP owners can manipulate monitors and forums, by paying people to comment positively or by using a range of IP addresses or proxy servers in different locations so that "paying" votes appear to come from around the world. This allows the HYIP to rise up the rankings more quickly than others, giving investors a false sense of security. Additionally, even if they know it will scam in the future, some investors will also rate new HYIPs positively until the HYIP stops paying, because they want more people to invest after them in the hopes that the program will last longer. Future scammers can also build up a good reputation on forums for a large payoff once most forum members trust them.
Autosurf
Autosurf
From Wikipedia
An autosurf is a type of Pyramid scheme. Autosurfs are traffic exchanges that automatically rotate advertised websites in one's Internet browser. Therefore, they are capable of bringing a large amount of traffic to the advertised websites. Members earn credits for each site that they view, which can then be spent to advertise members' sites by adding them to the autosurf rotation. Sites may additionally be added by external advertisers who pay the autosurf operators.
Concept
Autosurfing is a unique form of advertising: normally, advertisers pay intermediaries to display advertising to their target audience, and the advertising is presented to the audience in places where they are likely to see it, such as in public places, or packaged with entertainment. In this sense, no money changes hands between the audience and the advertiser.
In comparison, autosurfers are paid to view pure advertising (that is, advertisers' websites) for a certain amount of time (usually, less than 30 seconds). Interested viewers can pause the surf timer or open any site in a new window, giving themselves more time to peruse an ad. If the viewer is not interested and does nothing, the surf timer will restart after the specified period of time and a new site will be loaded into the browser. The surf rotation requires no feedbacks of any kind; in contrast to manual surfs, paid to read email or paid to click sites.
Autosurfing allows members to promote websites of their own choice, according to a system of credits earned by surfing. Members usually earn credits in a fixed ratio to the number of sites they view. Member-promoted websites may or may not be their own websites. If not, they are most often the members' referral page at another autosurf or an online money-making program. This is because many autosurfs are structured as pyramid schemes: members may earn a commission for each site that their referrals view, and are therefore encouraged to build a downline.
As autosurfs are run from websites, online payment processors are used for members to upgrade and withdraw their profits. The most popular form of e-currency used is e-gold or e-bullion. StormPay was a very popular payment processor until February 2006 but has now converted to an auction site.
"Investment" Autosurfs
A large number of autosurfs are investment autosurfs: to earn money surfing, members must pay a fee and are then promised a certain return on their fee. The "investment" is claimed to be a membership or upgraded membership fee and the "return", a per-site commission.
In the case of investment autosurfs, members either pay a fee to join and/or to upgrade their account level. This fee can usually vary from a few cents to thousands of dollars, and the minimum and maximum is set by the site operator. The program then offers a commission based on the member's account level for viewing a minimum number of sites, for example, for a period of X days, every day that the member views Y sites, Z% of the upgrade fee will be credited and can be withdrawn from the site. The product of Z% and X is always over 100% to ensure that the member makes a profit. Members also have even more incentive to build a downline because further commissions are received based on the amount of money that referred members put in or earn.
The investment autosurf concept is against PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy. Historically, Paypal has blocked most autosurf programs' accounts.
Controversy
A large amount of controversy is concentrated over whether autosurfs are inherently structured as Ponzi schemes. Traffic-only autosurfs that involve no monetary transactions can also be Ponzis if more credits are earned than page views available; older members are promised a certain number of website hits which can only be fulfilled by newer members joining. Due to the precedent set by 12 Daily, there is a strong possibility that most investment autosurfs are Ponzi schemes, and thus breaking the law and/or deceiving their users; whereas paid to surf sites usually had a viable business model where advertisers pay for the site to be viewed but not earn money in return.
On the other hand, autosurfs which require an investment and promise to pay a profit must, to not be a Ponzi, have other sources of income which can yield the high percentages they offer. Therefore, they often come under attack for failing to reveal their income sources or not registering with the proper authorities as a legitimate investment company. Ponzi schemes will end when no new investors are found, and it follows that autosurf sites have rather short lifespans, existing from one week to a few years depending on the popularity and "investment plans" offered. Additionally, if one pays a fee to join and receives commission for viewing ads, it makes no sense that those who "invest" a higher amount are paid a higher amount for viewing the same number of sites a day.
From Wikipedia
An autosurf is a type of Pyramid scheme. Autosurfs are traffic exchanges that automatically rotate advertised websites in one's Internet browser. Therefore, they are capable of bringing a large amount of traffic to the advertised websites. Members earn credits for each site that they view, which can then be spent to advertise members' sites by adding them to the autosurf rotation. Sites may additionally be added by external advertisers who pay the autosurf operators.
Concept
Autosurfing is a unique form of advertising: normally, advertisers pay intermediaries to display advertising to their target audience, and the advertising is presented to the audience in places where they are likely to see it, such as in public places, or packaged with entertainment. In this sense, no money changes hands between the audience and the advertiser.
In comparison, autosurfers are paid to view pure advertising (that is, advertisers' websites) for a certain amount of time (usually, less than 30 seconds). Interested viewers can pause the surf timer or open any site in a new window, giving themselves more time to peruse an ad. If the viewer is not interested and does nothing, the surf timer will restart after the specified period of time and a new site will be loaded into the browser. The surf rotation requires no feedbacks of any kind; in contrast to manual surfs, paid to read email or paid to click sites.
Autosurfing allows members to promote websites of their own choice, according to a system of credits earned by surfing. Members usually earn credits in a fixed ratio to the number of sites they view. Member-promoted websites may or may not be their own websites. If not, they are most often the members' referral page at another autosurf or an online money-making program. This is because many autosurfs are structured as pyramid schemes: members may earn a commission for each site that their referrals view, and are therefore encouraged to build a downline.
As autosurfs are run from websites, online payment processors are used for members to upgrade and withdraw their profits. The most popular form of e-currency used is e-gold or e-bullion. StormPay was a very popular payment processor until February 2006 but has now converted to an auction site.
"Investment" Autosurfs
A large number of autosurfs are investment autosurfs: to earn money surfing, members must pay a fee and are then promised a certain return on their fee. The "investment" is claimed to be a membership or upgraded membership fee and the "return", a per-site commission.
In the case of investment autosurfs, members either pay a fee to join and/or to upgrade their account level. This fee can usually vary from a few cents to thousands of dollars, and the minimum and maximum is set by the site operator. The program then offers a commission based on the member's account level for viewing a minimum number of sites, for example, for a period of X days, every day that the member views Y sites, Z% of the upgrade fee will be credited and can be withdrawn from the site. The product of Z% and X is always over 100% to ensure that the member makes a profit. Members also have even more incentive to build a downline because further commissions are received based on the amount of money that referred members put in or earn.
The investment autosurf concept is against PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy. Historically, Paypal has blocked most autosurf programs' accounts.
Controversy
A large amount of controversy is concentrated over whether autosurfs are inherently structured as Ponzi schemes. Traffic-only autosurfs that involve no monetary transactions can also be Ponzis if more credits are earned than page views available; older members are promised a certain number of website hits which can only be fulfilled by newer members joining. Due to the precedent set by 12 Daily, there is a strong possibility that most investment autosurfs are Ponzi schemes, and thus breaking the law and/or deceiving their users; whereas paid to surf sites usually had a viable business model where advertisers pay for the site to be viewed but not earn money in return.
On the other hand, autosurfs which require an investment and promise to pay a profit must, to not be a Ponzi, have other sources of income which can yield the high percentages they offer. Therefore, they often come under attack for failing to reveal their income sources or not registering with the proper authorities as a legitimate investment company. Ponzi schemes will end when no new investors are found, and it follows that autosurf sites have rather short lifespans, existing from one week to a few years depending on the popularity and "investment plans" offered. Additionally, if one pays a fee to join and receives commission for viewing ads, it makes no sense that those who "invest" a higher amount are paid a higher amount for viewing the same number of sites a day.
Pay Per Click
How To Avoid Pay Per Click Fraud
This article may be reprinted in it's entirety only.
A partial solution to a growing problem...
Click Fraud happens when a Pay Per Click advertiser receives illegal clicks on their paid listings by a competitor or individual who has no desire to make use of their services and whose sole purpose is to cause frustration and harm.
The financial cost to the advertisers and providers of PPC Services is estimated to be in the millions.
Currently there is no way to find and prosecute the individuals doing this. It's too easy to get away with it. A Click Fraud perpetrator can easily go to an Internet Cafe or Library and start clicking away for hours without getting caught.
One way to resolve this problem is to use misspelled keywords in your ads and listings ...how are the crooks going to find your ads unless they go through every misspelling possible?
It is estimated that over 21% of all internet searches are entered as misspelled words or phrases anyway. And it is much cheaper to bid on keywords that are misspelled as they are not as popular as the keywords with the highest search rankings.
Two excellent programs which have come out recently, will generate a list of misspelled keywords, which can then be entered into the PPC's with inexpensive bids. These keywords will get you top spot on the results pages most of the time since they are rarely used.
You can access these Click Fraud solutions at the two url's located in the resource box below.
Although this is not a complete solution it goes a long way in helping to reduce it.
--------------------------------------------------------
Choosing The Right Keywords For Your Pay Per Click Advertising Campaign
Introduction:
Of all the important decisions that go into a successful Pay Per Click Advertising program, the most critical one is which keywords to target. Choosing the right keywords will drive a continuous stream of qualified buyers to your site at affordable CPC's. Choosing the wrong keywords will negate even the most well planned Pay Per Click Advertising strategy.
Going Beyond The Obvious:
At first glance, choosing keywords for your Pay Per Click Advertising program seems easy. Anyone can come up with a list of obvious keywords related to their web site. The problem is, because the keywords are obvious, all your competitors have come up with the same list of words. This can lead to price inflation for these keywords on the Pay Per Click Search Engines, making it difficult for anyone to profit from these keywords. The key to a successful PPC Advertising strategy is to identify targeted, hard to find, niche keywords that drive profitable traffic to your site.
Monetizing The "Keyword Tail"
The enormous number of queries that fall outside the obvious keywords is known as the "Keyword Tail". An advertiser's ability to mine the "Keyword Tail" for profitable nuggets of Search terms is often the difference between a successful Pay Per Click Advertising program, and one that loses money.
Examples of keywords that fall into the "Keyword Tail" are singular, plural, and misspelled versions of keywords, and keyword terms related to the obvious keywords for your site. For example, if you own a site that sells fishing supplies, you may come up with the following list of keywords:
Obvious Keyword: Fishing
"Keyword Tail": Fly Fishing Equipment
Fly Fishing Gear
Fishing Lures
Fishing Reels
Many of the Pay Per Click Search Engines offer tools to help advertisers identify hard to find keywords related to their sites. Overture's is the most advanced in this area, but Google's works well too. The leading third party tool to help advertisers uncover profitable keywords is offered by a company called WordTracker. WordTracker not only helps identify good keywords for your Pay Per Click Advertising program, but it also tells you how many times the words were searched on across all the major Search Engines. This is important, because the more niche the keyword, the less traffic it will generate. It doesn't do any good to find a perfectly targeted keyword if it only generates a few clicks a month.
Because each targeted, niche, keyword by definition will only produce a small amount of traffic, it's important to identify as many as possible so their combined traffic will have a meaningful impact on your Pay Per Click Advertising program.
Summary:
The beauty of Pay Per Click Advertising is the more targeted the keyword, the less you'll likely have to pay for each click. This is opposite of how every other form of advertising works. If you use direct mail, magazines, TV, or even other forms of online advertising to market your products, the prices rise as the audience becomes more targeted.
To succeed you must take advantage of this unique dynamic of Pay Per Click Advertising by using every available tool to help you think "out of the box" to create a comprehensive, targeted list of keywords to drive a steady volume of profitable traffic to your web site.
----------------------------------------------------
The Truth About Pay Per Click Marketing
The key to an effective Pay-Per-Click program is driving the “right” traffic to your website. Since you pay every time someone clicks through to your site you want to attract only visitors who are interested in your product or service. And you want to be sure that, when they arrive at your site, they can find what they’re looking for— quickly.
CHOOSE THE BEST SEARCH TERMS (KEYWORDS)
Broad keywords (“shoes”) will generate many clicks with little or no benefit. Use specific keywords and phrases that accurately reflect your site. If you offer a product in a particular geographic area include the location (“men’s shoes Seattle”). And consider the many possible variations (“Italian leather shoes,” “men’s leather shoes,” etc).
For help refining your keywords, try Overture’s Term Suggestion Tool [http://www.content.overture.com/d/USm/adcenter ools/index.jhtml].
WRITE ACCURATE AND RELEVANT AD COPY
The most effective ads communicate a clear message to a specific target audience. Your ad should emphasize the unique benefits of your product or service. Use simple, direct language: avoid gimmicks and jargon.
It’s a good idea to include the search term in your title and/or description. Users will be able to immediately see its relevance to their search. Overture reports that listings which include the search term in both the title and description have a higher click-through rate (more than 50% higher on average).
In Google, ad titles are limited to 25 characters. The two description lines and display URL are limited to 35 characters each-- so you have to be concise.
CONTROL YOUR COST
Most PPC Search Engines let you set your own limits for the cost of each click-thru, as well as a monthly maximum. Start with a small list of targeted keywords and a few different ads. Then build on those that work best. Of course you can’t control what your competitors are willing to bid so choosing the right keywords for your specific audience is essential.
Just because you can bid high enough for a top position doesn't mean you should. A #1 spot may be less cost- effective than lower positions due to "compulsive clickers" who start at the top of the links and click their way down.
Some PPC engines share the top 3 listings with their partners so you’ll gain more exposure by bidding high enough for 3rd position or better. But don’t get in a bidding war for your keywords. If they’re too competitive, do some research and modify them so you don’t pay more than necessary.
EXPERIMENT-- AND MONITOR YOUR RESULTS
Try different messages and keywords to see what works best. One advantage of PPC programs is that they track the Click through rate for each ad so you can identify and remove ads that aren’t working.
You can also use unique tracking URLs for each ad to identify how many of your customers clicked through to your site from your ad. Then you can calculate which ads and keywords converted the most clicks to sales.
CONCLUSION
Pay-per-Click marketing is an effective method of driving traffic to your site, but that’s really just the first step. Once visitors arrive, you need persuasive copy, clear navigation and good design to lead them to take the action you want.
----------------------------------------------------------
Pay Per Click advertising for home business owners
Pay Per Click advertising to home business owners The biggest stumbling block for most home business owners is marketing their business. Most will start at free classified sites and free to post FFA pages. Most free advertising will never be seen by anyone and as a result business owners get discouraged and quit.
Pay Per Click search engines remain one of the most effective tools you can use to bring quick, cheap, targeted traffic to your site. True to their name, with pay-per-click search engines, you pay every time a visitor clicks on your link, anything from a few cents to a few dollars. For example, let's say you have a site that sells camping gear. And you want to rank No. 1 in the search engines for the term "camping gear." To get a top-ten position in the free search engines, you'd probably be looking at three to four month’s minimum. But in the pay-per-clicks, you can grab the No. 1 spot in just minutes! That's because all you have to do is see how much the person who has the No. 1 position is paying per click, and simply outbid them by paying one penny more. Then when your potential customer searches for the term "camping gear," your link will show up as the first listing on the search results page. And each time someone clicks on your link, you'll pay however much you have bid for that No. 1 position.
There are three advantages to bidding on keywords in the pay-per-clicks:
1. You get effective advertising, because you only pay when someone actually clicks through to your site.
2. Your listing will get posted quickly, anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days at the most. You can start profiting from increased traffic and sales almost immediately.
3. In order to rank in the No. 1 position, all you have to do is outbid your competitors, which is usually only a matter of a few pennies per click.
Done right, pay-per-click advertising can be very profitable and to help you ensure your campaigns are profitable avoid keywords that are too general. More general keywords will attract a lot of traffic, driving up the cost of your PPC campaign and converting few visitors to sales because general search terms aren't specific enough to attract the right audience.
Buzzseek.com is the worlds largest business opportunity search engine and directory focused solely on the home based business market. Buzzseek.com offers a complete range of marketing products from pay per click advertising to flash movie development for the home based business owner to start or expand their current business.
---------------------------------------------------------
How To Uncover Profit-Pulling Keywords for Your Pay Per Click Campaign
Choosing to bid on the right keywords can be key to your pay per click success. By choosing the proper keywords - words that your potential customers would use to search for your product - you can pre-qualify web traffic and skyrocket your conversion rate.
But how do you choose the right keywords? Here are 3 powerful tips to uncovering profit-pulling keywords for your pay per click campaign.
#1) Choose Relevant Keywords
While this SEEMS obvious, you'd be surprised at how many ppc campaigns bid on unrelated keywords (Their logic might have a foundation but we just can't see it from a searcher's point of view).
So for example if you're selling an e-book on how to make money buying foreclosures, don't bid on keywords related to stock trading. Yes, these both have 'money' in common but that is a WIDE net to cast - and a huge waste of your money.
Even when you bid on a keyword - make sure the description not only fits the keyword but matches what the searcher will find when they click on your ad. Nothing ticks internet searchers off more than misleading ads.
You'll not only NOT make the sale - but you'll be making a non-customer for life, even IF they would have eventually bought your product.
#2) Choose Lots of Low-Cost Keywords
Unless you're Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig, chances are you can't afford to spend $5.00 on the keyword 'diet'. That's ok, you don't have to.
Think niche with your keywords and you'll find lots of low-cost related keywords - sometimes with absolutely no competition.
Now obviously these keywords are low cost because there are not a lot of searches on them (say 50-100 searches per month). But if you bid on a LOT of these keywords (say 200-300) that adds up to a lot of CHEAP traffic over time:
100 searches x 300 keywords = 30,000 searches and possible hits a month.
How do you find these low-cost keywords?
Use the keyword selection tool provided by most ppc engines to look up a main keyword. Then start from the bottom up to pick out related, low volume (less than 1000 searches a month) keywords.
Also, don't forget to use misspellings. So many people don't bid on misspellings that you can usually top positions quite cheap.
#3) Use Your Keywords In Your Title or Your Description or Both
Using your keyword in the description can double your click throughs, which means more interested prospects visiting your website.
You want the visitor to click on your link, only if they are really interested. Including your keyword in the title or description is a great way to weed out the tire-kickers from the sincere customers.
It reinforces the idea that YOUR website can give them what they are searching for - a sort of mirroring back what they typed, which breeds trust and likeability.
So those are several tips to helping you choose the right keywords for your pay per click campaign. Good luck and may your traffic (and sales) increase exponentially!
----------------------------------------------------------
This article may be reprinted in it's entirety only.
A partial solution to a growing problem...
Click Fraud happens when a Pay Per Click advertiser receives illegal clicks on their paid listings by a competitor or individual who has no desire to make use of their services and whose sole purpose is to cause frustration and harm.
The financial cost to the advertisers and providers of PPC Services is estimated to be in the millions.
Currently there is no way to find and prosecute the individuals doing this. It's too easy to get away with it. A Click Fraud perpetrator can easily go to an Internet Cafe or Library and start clicking away for hours without getting caught.
One way to resolve this problem is to use misspelled keywords in your ads and listings ...how are the crooks going to find your ads unless they go through every misspelling possible?
It is estimated that over 21% of all internet searches are entered as misspelled words or phrases anyway. And it is much cheaper to bid on keywords that are misspelled as they are not as popular as the keywords with the highest search rankings.
Two excellent programs which have come out recently, will generate a list of misspelled keywords, which can then be entered into the PPC's with inexpensive bids. These keywords will get you top spot on the results pages most of the time since they are rarely used.
You can access these Click Fraud solutions at the two url's located in the resource box below.
Although this is not a complete solution it goes a long way in helping to reduce it.
--------------------------------------------------------
Choosing The Right Keywords For Your Pay Per Click Advertising Campaign
Introduction:
Of all the important decisions that go into a successful Pay Per Click Advertising program, the most critical one is which keywords to target. Choosing the right keywords will drive a continuous stream of qualified buyers to your site at affordable CPC's. Choosing the wrong keywords will negate even the most well planned Pay Per Click Advertising strategy.
Going Beyond The Obvious:
At first glance, choosing keywords for your Pay Per Click Advertising program seems easy. Anyone can come up with a list of obvious keywords related to their web site. The problem is, because the keywords are obvious, all your competitors have come up with the same list of words. This can lead to price inflation for these keywords on the Pay Per Click Search Engines, making it difficult for anyone to profit from these keywords. The key to a successful PPC Advertising strategy is to identify targeted, hard to find, niche keywords that drive profitable traffic to your site.
Monetizing The "Keyword Tail"
The enormous number of queries that fall outside the obvious keywords is known as the "Keyword Tail". An advertiser's ability to mine the "Keyword Tail" for profitable nuggets of Search terms is often the difference between a successful Pay Per Click Advertising program, and one that loses money.
Examples of keywords that fall into the "Keyword Tail" are singular, plural, and misspelled versions of keywords, and keyword terms related to the obvious keywords for your site. For example, if you own a site that sells fishing supplies, you may come up with the following list of keywords:
Obvious Keyword: Fishing
"Keyword Tail": Fly Fishing Equipment
Fly Fishing Gear
Fishing Lures
Fishing Reels
Many of the Pay Per Click Search Engines offer tools to help advertisers identify hard to find keywords related to their sites. Overture's is the most advanced in this area, but Google's works well too. The leading third party tool to help advertisers uncover profitable keywords is offered by a company called WordTracker. WordTracker not only helps identify good keywords for your Pay Per Click Advertising program, but it also tells you how many times the words were searched on across all the major Search Engines. This is important, because the more niche the keyword, the less traffic it will generate. It doesn't do any good to find a perfectly targeted keyword if it only generates a few clicks a month.
Because each targeted, niche, keyword by definition will only produce a small amount of traffic, it's important to identify as many as possible so their combined traffic will have a meaningful impact on your Pay Per Click Advertising program.
Summary:
The beauty of Pay Per Click Advertising is the more targeted the keyword, the less you'll likely have to pay for each click. This is opposite of how every other form of advertising works. If you use direct mail, magazines, TV, or even other forms of online advertising to market your products, the prices rise as the audience becomes more targeted.
To succeed you must take advantage of this unique dynamic of Pay Per Click Advertising by using every available tool to help you think "out of the box" to create a comprehensive, targeted list of keywords to drive a steady volume of profitable traffic to your web site.
----------------------------------------------------
The Truth About Pay Per Click Marketing
The key to an effective Pay-Per-Click program is driving the “right” traffic to your website. Since you pay every time someone clicks through to your site you want to attract only visitors who are interested in your product or service. And you want to be sure that, when they arrive at your site, they can find what they’re looking for— quickly.
CHOOSE THE BEST SEARCH TERMS (KEYWORDS)
Broad keywords (“shoes”) will generate many clicks with little or no benefit. Use specific keywords and phrases that accurately reflect your site. If you offer a product in a particular geographic area include the location (“men’s shoes Seattle”). And consider the many possible variations (“Italian leather shoes,” “men’s leather shoes,” etc).
For help refining your keywords, try Overture’s Term Suggestion Tool [http://www.content.overture.com/d/USm/adcenter ools/index.jhtml].
WRITE ACCURATE AND RELEVANT AD COPY
The most effective ads communicate a clear message to a specific target audience. Your ad should emphasize the unique benefits of your product or service. Use simple, direct language: avoid gimmicks and jargon.
It’s a good idea to include the search term in your title and/or description. Users will be able to immediately see its relevance to their search. Overture reports that listings which include the search term in both the title and description have a higher click-through rate (more than 50% higher on average).
In Google, ad titles are limited to 25 characters. The two description lines and display URL are limited to 35 characters each-- so you have to be concise.
CONTROL YOUR COST
Most PPC Search Engines let you set your own limits for the cost of each click-thru, as well as a monthly maximum. Start with a small list of targeted keywords and a few different ads. Then build on those that work best. Of course you can’t control what your competitors are willing to bid so choosing the right keywords for your specific audience is essential.
Just because you can bid high enough for a top position doesn't mean you should. A #1 spot may be less cost- effective than lower positions due to "compulsive clickers" who start at the top of the links and click their way down.
Some PPC engines share the top 3 listings with their partners so you’ll gain more exposure by bidding high enough for 3rd position or better. But don’t get in a bidding war for your keywords. If they’re too competitive, do some research and modify them so you don’t pay more than necessary.
EXPERIMENT-- AND MONITOR YOUR RESULTS
Try different messages and keywords to see what works best. One advantage of PPC programs is that they track the Click through rate for each ad so you can identify and remove ads that aren’t working.
You can also use unique tracking URLs for each ad to identify how many of your customers clicked through to your site from your ad. Then you can calculate which ads and keywords converted the most clicks to sales.
CONCLUSION
Pay-per-Click marketing is an effective method of driving traffic to your site, but that’s really just the first step. Once visitors arrive, you need persuasive copy, clear navigation and good design to lead them to take the action you want.
----------------------------------------------------------
Pay Per Click advertising for home business owners
Pay Per Click advertising to home business owners The biggest stumbling block for most home business owners is marketing their business. Most will start at free classified sites and free to post FFA pages. Most free advertising will never be seen by anyone and as a result business owners get discouraged and quit.
Pay Per Click search engines remain one of the most effective tools you can use to bring quick, cheap, targeted traffic to your site. True to their name, with pay-per-click search engines, you pay every time a visitor clicks on your link, anything from a few cents to a few dollars. For example, let's say you have a site that sells camping gear. And you want to rank No. 1 in the search engines for the term "camping gear." To get a top-ten position in the free search engines, you'd probably be looking at three to four month’s minimum. But in the pay-per-clicks, you can grab the No. 1 spot in just minutes! That's because all you have to do is see how much the person who has the No. 1 position is paying per click, and simply outbid them by paying one penny more. Then when your potential customer searches for the term "camping gear," your link will show up as the first listing on the search results page. And each time someone clicks on your link, you'll pay however much you have bid for that No. 1 position.
There are three advantages to bidding on keywords in the pay-per-clicks:
1. You get effective advertising, because you only pay when someone actually clicks through to your site.
2. Your listing will get posted quickly, anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days at the most. You can start profiting from increased traffic and sales almost immediately.
3. In order to rank in the No. 1 position, all you have to do is outbid your competitors, which is usually only a matter of a few pennies per click.
Done right, pay-per-click advertising can be very profitable and to help you ensure your campaigns are profitable avoid keywords that are too general. More general keywords will attract a lot of traffic, driving up the cost of your PPC campaign and converting few visitors to sales because general search terms aren't specific enough to attract the right audience.
Buzzseek.com is the worlds largest business opportunity search engine and directory focused solely on the home based business market. Buzzseek.com offers a complete range of marketing products from pay per click advertising to flash movie development for the home based business owner to start or expand their current business.
---------------------------------------------------------
How To Uncover Profit-Pulling Keywords for Your Pay Per Click Campaign
Choosing to bid on the right keywords can be key to your pay per click success. By choosing the proper keywords - words that your potential customers would use to search for your product - you can pre-qualify web traffic and skyrocket your conversion rate.
But how do you choose the right keywords? Here are 3 powerful tips to uncovering profit-pulling keywords for your pay per click campaign.
#1) Choose Relevant Keywords
While this SEEMS obvious, you'd be surprised at how many ppc campaigns bid on unrelated keywords (Their logic might have a foundation but we just can't see it from a searcher's point of view).
So for example if you're selling an e-book on how to make money buying foreclosures, don't bid on keywords related to stock trading. Yes, these both have 'money' in common but that is a WIDE net to cast - and a huge waste of your money.
Even when you bid on a keyword - make sure the description not only fits the keyword but matches what the searcher will find when they click on your ad. Nothing ticks internet searchers off more than misleading ads.
You'll not only NOT make the sale - but you'll be making a non-customer for life, even IF they would have eventually bought your product.
#2) Choose Lots of Low-Cost Keywords
Unless you're Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig, chances are you can't afford to spend $5.00 on the keyword 'diet'. That's ok, you don't have to.
Think niche with your keywords and you'll find lots of low-cost related keywords - sometimes with absolutely no competition.
Now obviously these keywords are low cost because there are not a lot of searches on them (say 50-100 searches per month). But if you bid on a LOT of these keywords (say 200-300) that adds up to a lot of CHEAP traffic over time:
100 searches x 300 keywords = 30,000 searches and possible hits a month.
How do you find these low-cost keywords?
Use the keyword selection tool provided by most ppc engines to look up a main keyword. Then start from the bottom up to pick out related, low volume (less than 1000 searches a month) keywords.
Also, don't forget to use misspellings. So many people don't bid on misspellings that you can usually top positions quite cheap.
#3) Use Your Keywords In Your Title or Your Description or Both
Using your keyword in the description can double your click throughs, which means more interested prospects visiting your website.
You want the visitor to click on your link, only if they are really interested. Including your keyword in the title or description is a great way to weed out the tire-kickers from the sincere customers.
It reinforces the idea that YOUR website can give them what they are searching for - a sort of mirroring back what they typed, which breeds trust and likeability.
So those are several tips to helping you choose the right keywords for your pay per click campaign. Good luck and may your traffic (and sales) increase exponentially!
----------------------------------------------------------
Pay Per Post
You've probably heard about pay per post by now, the website that pays you money to review sponsored products on your blog. If you haven't you might want to refer to this article which sums up my feelings more eloquently than I could have worded it.
I don't like pay per post. I think it goes against everything a blog is supposed to be about. When I want to know more about the online job sites I find I usually run a blog search before giving my time to them. This way I can learn about it from real people who have actually tried it. There is a level of trust there. Regular Google results are usually affiliate websites that you can't believe anything from. Pay-per-post turns blogs into little more than those sites, - resources you can't even trust.
The kick is that it doesn't even pay that well. The paying articles I saw on their site ranged from $5-$20. Most of them were in the $5 range. They should be offering a lot more for what they are asking to do, especially with the risk involved of someone finding out. People who write articles for money should take this into consideration. Even if you think nothing is wrong with it, there are people who do. This is probably the easiest way to drive out your traffic. Less traffic = less ad clicks = less money in the long run.
Even if no one actually knows who is being paid off, it can be pretty easy to speculate. If a site is so bad that it needs to pay $20 to generate mediocre traffic, how bad would it look to be the person who just wrote a three paragraph article about how wonderful the site is? You would probably lose a lot of credibility.
Then there's the content itself. You have to take into account that the content would probably not be newsworthy, therefore not digg, or del.icio.us worthy. If there were enough of those articles the site would probably just fade into the background.
I wouldn't take the risk. It's just not worth it.
I don't like pay per post. I think it goes against everything a blog is supposed to be about. When I want to know more about the online job sites I find I usually run a blog search before giving my time to them. This way I can learn about it from real people who have actually tried it. There is a level of trust there. Regular Google results are usually affiliate websites that you can't believe anything from. Pay-per-post turns blogs into little more than those sites, - resources you can't even trust.
The kick is that it doesn't even pay that well. The paying articles I saw on their site ranged from $5-$20. Most of them were in the $5 range. They should be offering a lot more for what they are asking to do, especially with the risk involved of someone finding out. People who write articles for money should take this into consideration. Even if you think nothing is wrong with it, there are people who do. This is probably the easiest way to drive out your traffic. Less traffic = less ad clicks = less money in the long run.
Even if no one actually knows who is being paid off, it can be pretty easy to speculate. If a site is so bad that it needs to pay $20 to generate mediocre traffic, how bad would it look to be the person who just wrote a three paragraph article about how wonderful the site is? You would probably lose a lot of credibility.
Then there's the content itself. You have to take into account that the content would probably not be newsworthy, therefore not digg, or del.icio.us worthy. If there were enough of those articles the site would probably just fade into the background.
I wouldn't take the risk. It's just not worth it.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Get Paid To Click
Make That Dolar ;)
MakeThatDollar.com - Where people who like to earn income from home and advertisers searching for active audiences, come together to form a unique and powerful revenue generating network. Our members enjoy earning thousands monthly by completing fun offers and visiting exciting websites. Registration is free and everyone in the world is welcome to join and earn, even you!
DollarMakers:
Earn money through Paid to Sign up, Paid to Complete Offers, Paid Surveys, and Paid to Click. Refer friends and participate in monthly contests to earn even more.
• Free membership and no investment necessary to earn
• International members welcome
• Get Paid for completing various offers
• Get Paid for signing up to sites or registering to newsletters
• Get Paid for clicking on banners and text links within member's area
• Get Paid for completing online surveys
• Get Paid for winning monthly contests
• Get Paid to refer other active DollarMakers and Advertisers
• Earnings update in real time
• Simple and easy to use navigational interface
• Cash out to PayPal, e-Gold, Money Order, or Visa Gift Card
Advertisers:
Premium targeted advertising packages available for a captive audience eager to visit and interact with your web site and product pages. Drive additional traffic of unique visitors to increase your exposure and sales.
• Site wide Banner Impressions
• Side Panel Text Ads
• Paid to Click Advertising
• Paid to Sign Up Promotions
• Mass Mail out Promotions
• Fully automated ad purchasing
• Ads instantly appear after payment
• Full control of approving sign ups and offer completions
• Real time tracking for impressions, clickthrough rate, and conversions
As a Advertiser or DollarMaker, you are eligible to upgrade your memberships in order to receive discounts on advertising and free referrals added to your downline.
Our friendly and knowledgeable Live Support staff is available throughout most of the day to assist you with your questions and concerns. We also have our paid to post forum available for payment proof and discussions about MakeThatDollar.
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Donkeymails.com :)
FREE Membership
No minimum E-gold Payout!
Low $1 Paypal and Alertpay Payout
Earn extra money playing games
High Rewarding USA/Search Country Signup Offers!
Earn Reading Our eMails
Get Paid for Clicking on ads
Get Paid for sign-ups
Complete tasks with the toolbar and earn money
Payouts through E-gold, Paypal and Alertpay
Payouts will be made weekly!
Earn extra money playing games
Get Paid To Promote $0.75 per 1,000 Credits!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clixncash.com :)
Welcome To ClixnCash.com!
ClixNCash is a professional online company that offers a wide range of online services and products. At ClixNCash you get paid to share this site with others and to click on links, and dont forget that we also offer affordable advertising that you can trust.
Paid To Click -$0.01 Per Click!
Paid To Promote -$0.20 Per Cpm!
Paid To Join -$0.10 Per Signup!
Paid To Read-$4 Per Cpm!
Low Payout! -$0.05 Minimum!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
globalcashclicks.com
Members
THIS SITE IS UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT
We are a paid to click and paid to sign up site. We pay you to view advertisers ads and sign up for products and promotions from our
advertisers.
We have a great new website owner who is honest and fair.
We will not tolerate cheaters and all cheaters will be immediately deleted!
Membership is free and we have a low 50 cent payout!
We offer one referral level with a 15% referral commission and upgraded members receive free referrals.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW > Paid To Promote !
Get Paid for Reading Your email
Get Paid for Clicking banners
Get Paid for Signup offers (more then $25 to earn)
Get Paid for Manual Surf-exchance !
Free Banner Exchance !!!
No-minimum Payout on E-gold !!
International Members are Welcome!
Bubblegame (with earnings!)
Lots of E-gold games.
4 Ref levels of commission under you
Level 1 -9%-Level 2 -6%-Level 3 -3%-Level 4 -1%
Get Paid To Post
www.goldage.net Join the leaders of the digital currency industry!
The GoldAge forums exist for the benefit of digital currency users, issuers, exchangers, merchants and gamers, in order to get together, learn, profit, and make the digital currency industry safe, secure and profitable for all.
At GoldAge you can get together with friends and associates, find reputable merchants and profitable online opportunities. You can also advertise and promote your products and services, including paying games, paying investment opportunities, gambling sites, paying referral sites, etc.
GoldAge is one of the highest rated and highest traffic digital currency industry websites.
Best of all, you automatically get PAID for discussing things of interest to you! What can be better than that?
You can accumulate points by making new posts, by replying in existing posts or getting a commission from referred members.
Post a reply - 5 points - $0.05 in Liberty Reserve
New thread - 3 points - $0.03 in Liberty Reserve
Refer a user - 5 points - $0.05 in Liberty Reserve
New Poll - 1 point - $0.01 in Liberty Reserve
Poll Vote - 1 point - $0.01 in Liberty Reserve
Commission from referred user - 10% of his/her earnings
Weekly paycheck to active users - 5 points
(you must be active on the forums every day)
You must have 10 reputation points or above to receive points for posting.
Withdrawal
We allow members to withdraw their points to Liberty Reserve or e-gold. Here are the rates:
100 points = $1 in Liberty Reserve
100 points = $0.50 in e-gold
Minimum withdrawal amount is $10.
You can automatically exchange e-gold, Liberty Reserve and other digital currencies on AutoCambist.com
More information and withdrawal procedure can be found in this thread.
How to use points
You can use your points to buy advanced user options like making your username glow, changing user title, increase your reputation level or steal it from others ... in vbPlaza shopping center.
Bank
You can store your points in a bank and earn 5% interest rate every thirty days! You have to be an active user to receive interest. Rates and terms are updated every one or two months.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.code4gold.com Code4Gold was created as a drama free place where we can all share information regarding business opportunities and making money online. We are not a free advertising forum and we appreciate members who work with the moderators to keep this forum a clean, harmonious and inspirational place. Personal opinions are always welcome here, but negativity is not tolerated because there are many other forums available for arguing and fighting.
We have only have one real rule here and that is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, Behave toward others as you would like to have them behave toward you"
Here are some informational links related to this forum and procedures.
Code4Gold General Information - http://code4gold.com/forums/index.php?board=62.0
Please use this board for any questions you might have about Code4Gold Forum Rules and for more information on how this forum works. You will be expected to be aware of the rules or else the moderators will give you negative karma.
Code4Gold PTP Members Area - http://code4gold.com/forums/index.php?board=61.0
If you intend to join the PTP (Paid to Post) program here at Code4Gold Forum and be eligible for .02 per post, the PTP member contests, and the PTP referral system you *must* read the rules in the Members Area.
International Discussions - http://code4gold.com/forums/index.php?board=44.0
The Interntional Discussion Area is a great place to communicate in languages other than English. Although Code4Gold is primarily and English speaking forum, we created the international section to faciliate the learning process by opening up to multiple langauages.
We'd like to welcome you all here to the C4G forums. As you can see, this is a new forum, so if you'd like to see anything added, don't hesitate to make a request.
The rules are :
1.) No evil posts - leave peoples color, race, creed, religion, sexual preference out of it.
2.) No blatant cheerleading - cheerleaders will be flamed to death.
3.) No spamming - spammers will be executed on sight.
4.) No scamming - scammers will be tortured and killed, then brought back from the dead to be drawn and quartered.
That's it.
BTW, this is a PTP forum, we are currently paying .02 per post via e-gold.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.moneytalkpro.com MoneyTalkPro is another forum that pays to post. They work on a point system - 4 points for each regular post and 10 points for promotional posts. Every point is worth $.005 each. Obviously you're going to need some dedication to make it work. I'm going to give the boards a try and i'll let you know how it works.
More about MoneyTalk's point system:
A word of advice: Just because these sites pay doesn't mean they pay good. I would only post in these forums if I were looking to post in a forum anyway, but I wouldn't go to these forums with the goal of having a second income. If you tried hard enough you might be able to make $2-$3 an hour, but you would have to work like crazy. A good idea might be to think of a good conversation starter and begin a new thread instead of posting like a madman.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
got-paid-forum.com:)
Welcome To Our Got-Paid-Forum!
We have built this Forum to be an Informative Research and Learning tool for all of our Members in their future Online Moneymaking endeavors.
We will pay all of our Members to post their Informative and Constructive posts to further enhance our Forum.
Each member will be paid .02 per post that are of good character and quality.
All posts must be a minimum of 50 characters long. This means words typed. NOT smileys that you add.
You are limited to using 1 -2 smileys.. All posts containing more will be deleted.
All posts must be of Important Substance that will contribute important information to our Members.
Do Not suggest that a site is scam until or unless you have proof!
Absolutely NO nonessential posts will be tolerated! EX: CMO, CMI, looks good, I will try.
Post bumping is an automatic deletion.
When starting a thread for a Topic, ALWAYS use the SEARCH feature to be sure that it has not been previously listed.
You must be an active and invested member of a Site to start a Topic on this forum. This means that you must list a referral code in your post.
Referral links are only allowed in the body of the first post.
You must always use the correct Format when listing a Topic. Title, plans and currencies.
If, you list a Duplicate Topic, you will be charged .05 for the Topic and an additional .02 for every post that was added that we will have to pay for.
If you encounter a duplicate topic, PM an Admin/Mod. DO NOT keep posting on the thread. You will not be paid for those posts.
No images are allowed in the body of a post other then got paid images.
When Posting, Always be sure to post in the Correct Category!!
No sites should be added to the closed, scam or on hold section unless they are first listed in the active section on our Forum.
Spamming on our Forum is an automatic 7 day suspension the first time. You will be Banned if you try it the second time.
No posting in the closed, scam or onhold section. You will not be paid for these posts.
We no longer compensate members that post in the International Chat section. That is only for the convenience of the members of those particular countries.
Each member is allowed to have one (1) account on this Forum. Any members found to have more than 1 account will be banned for LIFE!
We will not allow any member to use a Proxy to access this forum. If you are found to be using a Proxy, your account will be deleted and you will be banned.
Each member is allowed to have 1 avatar and 2 signatures for their account.
All members will be paid when they have accumulated at least 50 posts and have a minimum of 1.00 in e-gold. All posts will be checked and verified.
All payments will be in E-gold only.
All payments are paid manually once per day.
To request (not demand!) your payment, please PM Ms.Torch.
Please request the amount and include your egold number in your PM.
All payments will be paid within 48 hours. If you PM demanding your payment within the first 48 hours, you will wait an additional 48 hours.
We have added Referral links in your control panel. You will be compensated .10 for each member that you refer.
Your referral MUST be ACTIVE and have a minimum of 10 posts before you will be paid for them.
If you would like to earn a few extra cents, visit our casino. We have just added a few new games.
Our Live chatroom is now open. Please feel free to visit to chat with your fellow members at any time.
Got-Paid-Forum.com has all intentions on making the 2 cents per post last as long as it can. We cant give you a date if and or ever we might stop giving this offer. Please take advantage of it while you can. Although we are very sure it will last a very long time.
Please be kind to one another as this forum will be moderated heavily. We do not want to turn into what others forums have become. We will always maintain a Positive attitude in this Forum. NO name calling, cursing or false accusations will be allowed!
The GoldAge forums exist for the benefit of digital currency users, issuers, exchangers, merchants and gamers, in order to get together, learn, profit, and make the digital currency industry safe, secure and profitable for all.
At GoldAge you can get together with friends and associates, find reputable merchants and profitable online opportunities. You can also advertise and promote your products and services, including paying games, paying investment opportunities, gambling sites, paying referral sites, etc.
GoldAge is one of the highest rated and highest traffic digital currency industry websites.
Best of all, you automatically get PAID for discussing things of interest to you! What can be better than that?
You can accumulate points by making new posts, by replying in existing posts or getting a commission from referred members.
Post a reply - 5 points - $0.05 in Liberty Reserve
New thread - 3 points - $0.03 in Liberty Reserve
Refer a user - 5 points - $0.05 in Liberty Reserve
New Poll - 1 point - $0.01 in Liberty Reserve
Poll Vote - 1 point - $0.01 in Liberty Reserve
Commission from referred user - 10% of his/her earnings
Weekly paycheck to active users - 5 points
(you must be active on the forums every day)
You must have 10 reputation points or above to receive points for posting.
Withdrawal
We allow members to withdraw their points to Liberty Reserve or e-gold. Here are the rates:
100 points = $1 in Liberty Reserve
100 points = $0.50 in e-gold
Minimum withdrawal amount is $10.
You can automatically exchange e-gold, Liberty Reserve and other digital currencies on AutoCambist.com
More information and withdrawal procedure can be found in this thread.
How to use points
You can use your points to buy advanced user options like making your username glow, changing user title, increase your reputation level or steal it from others ... in vbPlaza shopping center.
Bank
You can store your points in a bank and earn 5% interest rate every thirty days! You have to be an active user to receive interest. Rates and terms are updated every one or two months.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.code4gold.com Code4Gold was created as a drama free place where we can all share information regarding business opportunities and making money online. We are not a free advertising forum and we appreciate members who work with the moderators to keep this forum a clean, harmonious and inspirational place. Personal opinions are always welcome here, but negativity is not tolerated because there are many other forums available for arguing and fighting.
We have only have one real rule here and that is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, Behave toward others as you would like to have them behave toward you"
Here are some informational links related to this forum and procedures.
Code4Gold General Information - http://code4gold.com/forums/index.php?board=62.0
Please use this board for any questions you might have about Code4Gold Forum Rules and for more information on how this forum works. You will be expected to be aware of the rules or else the moderators will give you negative karma.
Code4Gold PTP Members Area - http://code4gold.com/forums/index.php?board=61.0
If you intend to join the PTP (Paid to Post) program here at Code4Gold Forum and be eligible for .02 per post, the PTP member contests, and the PTP referral system you *must* read the rules in the Members Area.
International Discussions - http://code4gold.com/forums/index.php?board=44.0
The Interntional Discussion Area is a great place to communicate in languages other than English. Although Code4Gold is primarily and English speaking forum, we created the international section to faciliate the learning process by opening up to multiple langauages.
We'd like to welcome you all here to the C4G forums. As you can see, this is a new forum, so if you'd like to see anything added, don't hesitate to make a request.
The rules are :
1.) No evil posts - leave peoples color, race, creed, religion, sexual preference out of it.
2.) No blatant cheerleading - cheerleaders will be flamed to death.
3.) No spamming - spammers will be executed on sight.
4.) No scamming - scammers will be tortured and killed, then brought back from the dead to be drawn and quartered.
That's it.
BTW, this is a PTP forum, we are currently paying .02 per post via e-gold.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.moneytalkpro.com MoneyTalkPro is another forum that pays to post. They work on a point system - 4 points for each regular post and 10 points for promotional posts. Every point is worth $.005 each. Obviously you're going to need some dedication to make it work. I'm going to give the boards a try and i'll let you know how it works.
More about MoneyTalk's point system:
A word of advice: Just because these sites pay doesn't mean they pay good. I would only post in these forums if I were looking to post in a forum anyway, but I wouldn't go to these forums with the goal of having a second income. If you tried hard enough you might be able to make $2-$3 an hour, but you would have to work like crazy. A good idea might be to think of a good conversation starter and begin a new thread instead of posting like a madman.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
got-paid-forum.com:)
Welcome To Our Got-Paid-Forum!
We have built this Forum to be an Informative Research and Learning tool for all of our Members in their future Online Moneymaking endeavors.
We will pay all of our Members to post their Informative and Constructive posts to further enhance our Forum.
Each member will be paid .02 per post that are of good character and quality.
All posts must be a minimum of 50 characters long. This means words typed. NOT smileys that you add.
You are limited to using 1 -2 smileys.. All posts containing more will be deleted.
All posts must be of Important Substance that will contribute important information to our Members.
Do Not suggest that a site is scam until or unless you have proof!
Absolutely NO nonessential posts will be tolerated! EX: CMO, CMI, looks good, I will try.
Post bumping is an automatic deletion.
When starting a thread for a Topic, ALWAYS use the SEARCH feature to be sure that it has not been previously listed.
You must be an active and invested member of a Site to start a Topic on this forum. This means that you must list a referral code in your post.
Referral links are only allowed in the body of the first post.
You must always use the correct Format when listing a Topic. Title, plans and currencies.
If, you list a Duplicate Topic, you will be charged .05 for the Topic and an additional .02 for every post that was added that we will have to pay for.
If you encounter a duplicate topic, PM an Admin/Mod. DO NOT keep posting on the thread. You will not be paid for those posts.
No images are allowed in the body of a post other then got paid images.
When Posting, Always be sure to post in the Correct Category!!
No sites should be added to the closed, scam or on hold section unless they are first listed in the active section on our Forum.
Spamming on our Forum is an automatic 7 day suspension the first time. You will be Banned if you try it the second time.
No posting in the closed, scam or onhold section. You will not be paid for these posts.
We no longer compensate members that post in the International Chat section. That is only for the convenience of the members of those particular countries.
Each member is allowed to have one (1) account on this Forum. Any members found to have more than 1 account will be banned for LIFE!
We will not allow any member to use a Proxy to access this forum. If you are found to be using a Proxy, your account will be deleted and you will be banned.
Each member is allowed to have 1 avatar and 2 signatures for their account.
All members will be paid when they have accumulated at least 50 posts and have a minimum of 1.00 in e-gold. All posts will be checked and verified.
All payments will be in E-gold only.
All payments are paid manually once per day.
To request (not demand!) your payment, please PM Ms.Torch.
Please request the amount and include your egold number in your PM.
All payments will be paid within 48 hours. If you PM demanding your payment within the first 48 hours, you will wait an additional 48 hours.
We have added Referral links in your control panel. You will be compensated .10 for each member that you refer.
Your referral MUST be ACTIVE and have a minimum of 10 posts before you will be paid for them.
If you would like to earn a few extra cents, visit our casino. We have just added a few new games.
Our Live chatroom is now open. Please feel free to visit to chat with your fellow members at any time.
Got-Paid-Forum.com has all intentions on making the 2 cents per post last as long as it can. We cant give you a date if and or ever we might stop giving this offer. Please take advantage of it while you can. Although we are very sure it will last a very long time.
Please be kind to one another as this forum will be moderated heavily. We do not want to turn into what others forums have become. We will always maintain a Positive attitude in this Forum. NO name calling, cursing or false accusations will be allowed!
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