How to Protect Yourself from HYIP Frauds

Don't send them your money.

Yes, it really is that simple and easy -- if you can control your greed-induced stupidity.

Yes, I know some people claim that some High Yield Investment Programs are honest and legitimate. Unfortunately, I see no evidence to support this claim -- and find many good reasons to believe that all HYIPs and HYIP monitor sites are frauds from the get-go.

HYIP is short for High Yield Investment Programs. These are basically web sites which ask for your money in exchange for a guaranteed return on your investment which if true would shame Warren Buffett with his inadequacies and failures as an investor.

Returns of 1/2 to 5% DAILY! 6% weekly. 10% monthly. 730% annually.

Those are figures I just pulled from a small sampling of recommended HYIPs listed on an HYIP monitor site. Others claim more or less, but these are typical.

Hungry for returns like these? Most people are. They sure make ordinary mutual funds look weak and insipid don't they? Makes you wonder why ordinary mutual fund managers earn millions of dollars when they can't even guarantee a return of a mere 1/2% per day.

Even better -- these returns are available to anybody. The minimum investments range from only $10 to $100.

If you were a trader who knew how to make such astronomical returns, would you want to be bothered with managing money for investors who can only afford to send you $10?

In the United States -- and most countries have similar laws -- all securities must be registered unless they're placed privately with accredited investors. That's people who have a net worth of at least $US 1 million and/or net annual income of at least $US 200,000. Needless to say, those people are not $10 investors!

By seeking funds for unregistered securities on a public web site, HYIPs appear to be violating these laws -- even if the administrator has honest intentions.

But that's not likely, because all HYIP administrators want your money sent in the form of e-gold, so it's untraceable and nonrefundable. If they were honest, they'd accept your check.

HYIP experts advise doing due diligence before you invest, by investigating the administrators through their domain names. But if the HYIPs had honest intentions, they'd give you their names, physical mailing addresses and telephone numbers. Many HYIP sites don't even pretend to tell you who or where they are.

And how do HYIPs achieve their extremely high but guaranteed results? Gambling in Macau casinos, forex trading, day trading, certificates of deposits, gold investments, investments on the NYSE and Nikkei, oil investments, manufacturing, venture capital, a single matrix multilevel marketing scheme that moved you up as people sent money after you, playing online Texas Hold 'Em, the prime bank fraud and more. That's what their sites claim, anyway. Some HYIPs don't even bother to lie to you. They don't even pretend they're investing your money in anything.

As for the HYIPs that do claim to be investing in something legitimate (the majority) -- what's their trading edge that enables them to guarantee such high returns? They don't tell you. They don't brag about it. They don't even give you a clue. You're expected to simply accept their word for it. The lack of attention they devote to convincing prospective investors that their claims are credible is itself a show of contempt.

I've seen marketing materials for mutual funds, investment newsletters, investment books, trading software, investing courses and seminars -- and all of them go to great lengths to convince prospects that their methods are successful. They don't give away their secrets but they obviously believe prospects won't send their money unless they first establish their credibility.

And no such marketing materials claim they can guarantee results every day, week or month! All trading systems have downs as well as ups.

Oh, yes -- no HYIP has lasted over one year. Most go out of business long before that. Naive koolaid drinkers believe that some were started by administrators with honest intentions who just failed to make money, so they closed up shop without refunding any money.

If they were honest they wouldn't make claims they couldn't fulfil. They would give you their names and addresses. They would accept all legal forms of money, not just e-gold. And if they did go out of business despite their successful investment strategies, they would return as much money as possible.

They didn't "succumb to the dark side" when their business failed. They were on the dark side when they started it in a deceptive manner.

But some HYIP investors make money -- how's that possible?

The obvious explanation for all HYIPs is that they're plain and simple ponzi schemes. The first few investors and the traffic-generating HYIP monitor sites are paid with money sent by later investors. As long as the program continues for a time, the early investors can show a profit. When the flow of money from new suckers slows down, the administrator stops paying anybody and goes on a long vacation, before starting a new HYIP under a new name.

HYIPs rely solely on your greed -- and that approach seems to be working.

I hope that now you understand that if you want a real return on your invested money, you need to put it in real investments -- not send it to scammers.