Unlicensed Internet Financial Services?
Mark Herpel
July 30, 2007
All day long I surf the Internet reading web sites, scanning blogs and sorting news feeds. The targets of my quest are usually found in the digital currency/financial services arena. I love discovering new methods of payment and ways to transfer assets using the Internet.
I prefer the new legal and ethical ways to do business online without a credit card or bank, but that is not always what I find. While I don’t like scams, fraud or criminal behavior its hard to keep my head above water and not drown in this ocean of scams I find each day.
During my web travels its seems the digital currency ‘industry’ offers the world’s finest selection of ‘grey area’ businesses. Online businesses that uses digital currency also seems to be permanently linked to:
Unlicensed and unregulated ‘investment’ companies soliciting [stealing] funds across multiple jurisdictions
Businesses labeled ‘banks’ that are not directly affiliated with ANY part of the banking industry and not licensed anywhere except in some delusional world of ‘cyberspace’
Investment companies [ponzi schemes] advertising ridiculous high returns
Advertising or surfing web sites offering ‘high returns’ for an investment and a few minutes of viewing ads each day
Payment processing companies cash flowing national currencies into digital accounts on behalf of the investment scams
…..the list of scams in my PC world seems endless and very profitable
In my Internet world, this infinite online ‘grey area’, seems to encompass everything from lotteries to high yield/auto surf investments and all the way up to sales of illegal drug.
Yes, last month we uncovered multiple ‘work from home moms’ advertising the sale of pot on their web sites. Of course this naturally generated a two days discussion on whether it was legal or ethical to enable their cash flow by allowing the use of digital currency since pot is legal in at least a few jurisdictions around the globe. (definitely NOT my point of view)
Digital currency while supporting thousands of legitimate operators, seems to offer some distinct advantages that are often misused or exploited by these online scheme operators. The largest group I find exploiting the ‘grey area’ is ‘HYIPs’ or High Yield Investment Programs [ponzi scams]. They operate with impunity & no regard for any laws or even a self regulated hope of operating within the ’spirit’ of any law. Money, money, money…. that’s all they want.
This High Yield industry cannot operate without some help of a separate cottage industry which directly supports these irregular businesses. If they are on the Internet then someone has to register their domain, host them, provide DDOS protection, email and most importantly process their money transactions. Ultimately each day, I not only see the scams, but I see the ‘respectable’ businesses that deliver services to the scams such as ‘anon web hosting’, anonymous domain registrations, domains by proxy, online money exchanges, payment processors, secure-private-disposable-anonymous-offshore email, proxy servers (JAP, Tor etc), anonymous VPNs and a host of other ancillary services that feed directly off of the ‘bigger fish’ investment financial scams. I’ve been able to watch these web respectable web businesses not only grow but flourish across the Internet. This is definitely flawed logic, but here is how the industry sees it….as long as people are willing to throw their money away, why shouldn’t I get rich in the process? Right?
Without a doubt, the world of unlicensed Internet financial services and investments has to be one of the more profitable areas of the Internet today. I’m not surprised that every household in the Americas and Canada does not already operate their own ‘High Yield Investment Program’ or some version of one. Why not? Since these so called investment’s are not labeled online gambling, which according to the gospel of the United States has recently been identified as the eighth deadly sin, why doesn’t everyone have one or two of them generating profits?
Apparently HYIPs (ponzi schemes) are not recognized by anyone important as illegal because NO ONE ever gets arrested or jailed while operating them. Regulations…Taxes…Victims…What are these words? No one will prosecute you, unless you get too big. Once you get too successful in the ponzi world, what legal bank operator could try and ignore $100 or $200 million flowing through a local account under the guise of a Internet advertising company. However, keeping it small, a million euro, or say $800,000 in USD, who is going to even notice?
Are you unsure of how to advertise your new business? Don’t worry about a thing, both Google and Yahoo will support your endeavor. With Google Adwords and Yahoo Advertising so you will never go a day without a new audience of greedy high yield suckers. Apparently, neither of these Internet giants cares what they are advertising as long as they too get paid.
Having watched all of this action for many years now, I feel I’m in a rather unique position to write and discuss much of what I have seen. In the month of August, readers will get an inside scoop from my point of view on how these scam investment operations are flourishing, stealing money and laughing at law enforcement as they slide off into the night with their profits. It’s an embarrassment for me to witness this activity each day. Year after year the HYIP lies, theft, scams. I can’t seem to get the water hot enough to shower this stuff away. Frankly, I’m sort of fed up with it, so now I’ll pass it on to you readers and perhaps I can get your input.
During August, I’m going to show you the operators which prohibit all such ‘investments’ and also the payment processors and businesses that get right in bed with the crooks.
DigitalMoneyWorld
I prefer the new legal and ethical ways to do business online without a credit card or bank, but that is not always what I find. While I don’t like scams, fraud or criminal behavior its hard to keep my head above water and not drown in this ocean of scams I find each day.
During my web travels its seems the digital currency ‘industry’ offers the world’s finest selection of ‘grey area’ businesses. Online businesses that uses digital currency also seems to be permanently linked to:
In my Internet world, this infinite online ‘grey area’, seems to encompass everything from lotteries to high yield/auto surf investments and all the way up to sales of illegal drug.
Yes, last month we uncovered multiple ‘work from home moms’ advertising the sale of pot on their web sites. Of course this naturally generated a two days discussion on whether it was legal or ethical to enable their cash flow by allowing the use of digital currency since pot is legal in at least a few jurisdictions around the globe. (definitely NOT my point of view)
Digital currency while supporting thousands of legitimate operators, seems to offer some distinct advantages that are often misused or exploited by these online scheme operators. The largest group I find exploiting the ‘grey area’ is ‘HYIPs’ or High Yield Investment Programs [ponzi scams]. They operate with impunity & no regard for any laws or even a self regulated hope of operating within the ’spirit’ of any law. Money, money, money…. that’s all they want.
This High Yield industry cannot operate without some help of a separate cottage industry which directly supports these irregular businesses. If they are on the Internet then someone has to register their domain, host them, provide DDOS protection, email and most importantly process their money transactions. Ultimately each day, I not only see the scams, but I see the ‘respectable’ businesses that deliver services to the scams such as ‘anon web hosting’, anonymous domain registrations, domains by proxy, online money exchanges, payment processors, secure-private-disposable-anonymous-offshore email, proxy servers (JAP, Tor etc), anonymous VPNs and a host of other ancillary services that feed directly off of the ‘bigger fish’ investment financial scams. I’ve been able to watch these web respectable web businesses not only grow but flourish across the Internet. This is definitely flawed logic, but here is how the industry sees it….as long as people are willing to throw their money away, why shouldn’t I get rich in the process? Right?
Without a doubt, the world of unlicensed Internet financial services and investments has to be one of the more profitable areas of the Internet today. I’m not surprised that every household in the Americas and Canada does not already operate their own ‘High Yield Investment Program’ or some version of one. Why not? Since these so called investment’s are not labeled online gambling, which according to the gospel of the United States has recently been identified as the eighth deadly sin, why doesn’t everyone have one or two of them generating profits?
Apparently HYIPs (ponzi schemes) are not recognized by anyone important as illegal because NO ONE ever gets arrested or jailed while operating them. Regulations…Taxes…Victims…What are these words? No one will prosecute you, unless you get too big. Once you get too successful in the ponzi world, what legal bank operator could try and ignore $100 or $200 million flowing through a local account under the guise of a Internet advertising company. However, keeping it small, a million euro, or say $800,000 in USD, who is going to even notice?
Are you unsure of how to advertise your new business? Don’t worry about a thing, both Google and Yahoo will support your endeavor. With Google Adwords and Yahoo Advertising so you will never go a day without a new audience of greedy high yield suckers. Apparently, neither of these Internet giants cares what they are advertising as long as they too get paid.
Having watched all of this action for many years now, I feel I’m in a rather unique position to write and discuss much of what I have seen. In the month of August, readers will get an inside scoop from my point of view on how these scam investment operations are flourishing, stealing money and laughing at law enforcement as they slide off into the night with their profits. It’s an embarrassment for me to witness this activity each day. Year after year the HYIP lies, theft, scams. I can’t seem to get the water hot enough to shower this stuff away. Frankly, I’m sort of fed up with it, so now I’ll pass it on to you readers and perhaps I can get your input.
During August, I’m going to show you the operators which prohibit all such ‘investments’ and also the payment processors and businesses that get right in bed with the crooks.
DigitalMoneyWorld
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