Rabbit’s High Yield Adventure

Rabbit’s experiences and knowledge of the high yield arena

Archive for June, 2006

AdTitans added to PTS List

Posted by rabbit on 25th June 2006

I joined Adtitans and added it to my Paid to Surf list this past week. This program has some controversy surrounding it as many believe that they are owned / operated by Phoenixsurf. It was the Phoenixsurf administration that first introduced the program to the world about 2 months ago. Their setup is also similar to the way Phoenixsurf was setup with a fast track option (for payment within 48 hours). A few days ago their fees for fast-tracking was raised to 9% across the board. This was done to stem the amount of members choosing the fast track option. According to the Edward the admin, their business model is based on 30% of members choosing the fast-track option, and right now a lot more members are doing this. Some folks are jittery about the change (and rightfully so given the shakeouts the past few weeks). However, I do not see the change as anything to worry about personally. I think it is a good thing that the admin is being proactive in making the program work. I also think it was a good thing for the admin to offer a refund to those who were no longer comfortable with the program as a result of the change (apparently 6 members took him up on the offer). 

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Posted in PAID TO SURF | 6 Comments »

NowDollar + Some Commentary + Interview Link

Posted by rabbit on 25th June 2006

I added NowDollar to my PTS list this past week. Some may think I am crazy for doing this considering that I just lost about $1,000 in Compactsurf. I will post another article explaining why I like the autosurfs a bit later. I will also post some strategies that can be used to maximize earnings and minimize losses in another article.

NowDollar

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Posted in PAID TO SURF | 2 Comments »

Warning about egold-investments.biz from a reader

Posted by rabbit on 23rd June 2006

"I'm a newbie in the world of HYIP and in fact wasn't really looking to involve myself in the scene. However I was checking out a google adsense ad for the followinghttp://www.egold-investments.biz.

In the course of doing my DD on this, I discovered HYIP. This site claims it
is not a HYIP (thats what brought the term to my attention) but I suspect
that is what it is.

After doing a whois search, I can already confirm at least one lie on the
site - the US address is non-existant, even the ZIP doesn't exist. I used
their contact form to ask why the address wasn't valid but haven't received
a response.

A second lie found on the page is their claim of longevity. According to
Whois, the site url was granted in May 2006 but I'm not sure whether that
refers to the originating date or a renewal."

Comments:

Never join a program you see being advertised in Google Adsense as they are almost guaranteed to be scams. If you check out the site you will also see that they accept "invesment" amounts as low as $1. Real investments do not accept $1 as an initial deposit.

Posted in HYIPS, Other | 4 Comments »

Looking back at Compactsurf

Posted by rabbit on 23rd June 2006

Some of you have asked me what went wrong with Compactsurf. Almost a month ago I had it on a pedestal, now it is no more. Like I a lot of you, I lost money in the program. Looking back at what transpired over the past few weeks, I should have seen what was coming (and should have been in profit instead of a loss). Let's go back and analyze what took place to see if there are any lessons to be learned from this saga.

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Posted in PAID TO SURF, News & Updates | 2 Comments »

14DailyPlus back on my PTS List — Barely

Posted by rabbit on 23rd June 2006

I finally got paid from this surf program last weekend, after several weeks of waiting. It seems the extra long wait was mostly my fault. They switched from e-gold to e-bullion and I did not upgrade my profile with my e-bullion information in order to get paid. I also did not update my other information such as my address, which were also required in order to get paid. After weeks of waiting, I decided to contact the guy that introduced the program to me since he claimed he was still getting paid. He sent me back an email tellimg me to check and make sure my profile was updated. A few days after updating my information, I received the payment to e-bullion.

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Posted in PAID TO SURF, News & Updates | No Comments »

My Portfolio now up to date

Posted by rabbit on 23rd June 2006

My Portfolio links are now complete and up to date. These include my Dead & Dumped programs and my Problematic programs pages. I have added Wiredsurf, Compactsurfing, Phoenixsurf  and Alientrust to my Dead & Abandoned programs page along with my profit / loss numbers. On my main Portfolio page you will find a list of all the programs I am in at the moment that are working. Some of these programs are private or semi-private and generally do not want to be talked about. This is why they are not listed on my programs list on the right menu bar. 

Posted in BLOG | 4 Comments »

Compactsurf: The truth revealed

Posted by rabbit on 19th June 2006

Here is the latest from the Compactsurf admin:

"Dear Compact Surfing Members,

I hope you will read this update closely, and consider
all that I say here carefully, with the understanding
that the Compact Network will be implementing further
changes in the coming weeks, but we are here to stay
for the long term as I have promised from the
beginning. 

As of today, Friday, June 16, 2006, Compact Surfing
upgrades will be disabled.  Allow me to clarify our
reasons for doing this, and our plans for the coming
weeks ahead:

1. The price of gold per ounce, as all of you know,
has dropped significantly in the past several weeks.
Because of this, the Egold funds in reserves that I
had to maintain for the operation of CS diminished in
value tremendously on a daily/weekly basis.  There has
been a 15 to 20% drop in the value of gold in the past
several weeks, from above $700 an ounce in May to
around $570 as I write this.   What this means is that
most upgrade values that were sent to CS and held
online in order to provide the old trademark “fast
payouts” dropped in $$$ value while waiting to be paid
out.  This has been occurring for weeks now.  We
persisted, believing there would be a turn around with
the gold markets, that things would average out, but
to date, this has not happened. 

We’ve reevaluated the situation, and have decided now
to stop taking upgrades until such time as the gold
markets stabilize, we hope by mid-summer.  We feel
this is best for both the company and our members
financially.  Members have faced the same situation CS
has when their payments arrive to their accounts and
drop in value within hours…what took several days to
build in profits has sometimes been diminished within
hours, sitting in members Egold accounts.  In
accordance with this decision, the ability to upgrade
to CS accounts will be disabled today.

For those who do not understand why drastic drops in
Egold might affect the reserves of a program designed
like CS, here’s why.  The 3 cashout requests per month
combined with the processing of requests every day of
the week, and 48 hour “fast payment” meant we had to
keep a majority of Network funds in reserve in Egold
rather than offline.  48 hours was not long enough to
move funds through exchangers online for payments or
offline for protection of capital, especially on
weekends when banks are closed.  This is why, in our
last newsletter, we established the 7-business day
timeframe as being more realistic and manageable for
the future of CS, however, since that last update, we
have considered the situation further.

2. On June 9th, we processed nearly $500,000 USD in
cashout requests. I continued to use the remaining
funds left to pay as many requests as I could, and you can view a screenshot of
all payments sent here:
http://compactsurfing.com/first1.PNG
http://compactsurfing.com/second2.PNG
http://compactsurfing.com/third3.PNG
3660 payments were sent the last 2 days and each single sent was paid.    
                                                     
                         
Moving Forward:  We are going to do refunds for
members with pending requests, put the program on hold
and relaunch in the summer, when hopefully the gold
markets have stabilized and by which time I will have had
time to implement Compactpay with features available and
debit cards.  All funds in my possession
less operation costs will be used for refunds.   In
the coming weeks, the support staff will assist me in
this work.  Members in profit will not receive
refunds.  Those members not in profit will be returned
a percentage of their initial upgrade purchase
dependant upon the total available for distribution.
Earnings and referral commissions will be deducted
from your pendings in our calculations. Please be
advised that I am doing this despite the fact that our
terms have always stipulated that upgrade purchases
are non-refundable. 

3. All Compactpay members with funds in CP, please rest
assured that your funds are secure.  I will announce
next week the procedure for how returns of
whatever you funded into your Compactpay accounts will
be executed.  After the funds have been removed from
the system, during the next few weeks, the database
for Compact Pay will be inaccessible to members as my
programmers and I work to implement features which I
have not had the chance to dedicate time to.  Please
be patient and I will update further regarding this in
the coming weeks.  For those members who have made
recent Bank Wire Fundings, I cannot address those
until next week when the bank is open so please be
patient with this as well.

With that said, the following actions will be taken in the
coming weeks.  The Compact Network will be relaunched at the
end of August/early September and I have decided for now
that the following three sites will be the focus of my
time and resources:  Compact Surfing, Compact Lottery,
and Compact Pay

A. Compact Surfing

1. Expect a new layout and design to the site.  The site
will offer 14% daily for 9 days on your upgrade
purchases tentatively. Upgrade units will be $10 USD
each and the maximum member balance with active
upgrades will be $10,000 USD.  Payout Timeframe:
Upgrades will become pending in your Cashout History
automatically upon expiration. They will be processed
within 7 business days following date of expiration. No
more having to request cashout. This setup is
perfectly clear on when members will be paid. In
addition, I will know exactly what is needed ready in
my online payment processor accounts each week to
process payouts. As such, I can store the majority of
funds offline accordingly so that we are no longer at
the mercy of gold price fluctuations.

2. Compact forum will still be in place; possibly changed to
vbulletin format as I have received feedback requesting this from members.

3. More details to be announced when available.

B. Compact Lottery

1. Expect a new layout and design to the site

2. No more purchasing tickets from cash balance; you
will be able to purchase directly from Egold and
tentatively Compactpay as well. Winners will be paid
within 5 business days following announcement of
weekly lucky numbers.

3. Cash prizes will be greater in amount, though the
number of winners will be less than the past track record
to allow for ease of management in distributing payment of
prizes. The amounts for Weekly prizes will be announced on
the site as well. Distribution of rewards still to
be determined by the administrator.

C. Compact Pay

1. I will work in the coming weeks to develop
relationships with exchangers to bring on board to
offer funding/withdrawal options for Compact Pay that they
will handle individually and efficiently.
      
3. I welcome any member suggestions with regards to
implementing debit cards.  Compact Debit Cards are
still planned, but due to the current situation, and
recent comments made by members regarding their wishes
for certain cards, I have cancelled our previous order
for cards.  For those of you who prefer Cardoneplus
over Virtual Money, and vice versa, please contact
Nvus with your reasoning and he will forward me
details and I will make a final decision in the coming
weeks: cn_nvus@yahoo.com

4. The Shopping Cart Interface will be made available
and upgrades/cashouts through CS via CompactPay will be
available as well to coincide with relaunch of CS.

Expect further announcements from me in the coming
days. The Compact Network is here to stay and we are
not going anywhere, I assure you all. After 3 months
of hard work and dedication I will not give up and I
ask that you do not give up on me now either.  We have
faced obstacles beyond our control in the past several
weeks, but the above plan of action will allow us to
return, stronger than ever.  Thank you all for your
continued support.

Sincerely Yours,

Luuk Hendriks
Altus Financial Services Inc."

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Posted in PAID TO SURF, News & Updates | 7 Comments »

The Compactsurf admins speak….

Posted by rabbit on 13th June 2006

My comments and thoughts are written in blue. 

Dear Compact Surfing Members,
 
This is an important update on the status of Compact Surfing.  It clarifies what
the future holds for the Compact Network, and how I plan to ensure that what we
have built with our members in the past 3 months continues to grow and prosper.
 
I will be honest with all of you, recent events have given us cause for concern,
and the steps we have taken this past week, and are about to take, are to ensure
our security remains one of the best in the industry for both our Network, and
for you our members.
 
For three months Compact Surfing, as all of you know, paid usually within 48
hours of cashout request. However, when payouts were processed so quickly, many
members who attempted to contact support and have cashout requests stopped to
egold accounts that were hacked were unable to do so in time, and as a result,
their requests were paid out to hackers who ran off with their funds.

 
This has been a very serious issue for many members.  I have had at least 10
support tickets sent every day for over a month relating to such hackings.  The
amount of member money lost to hackers is now in the tens of thousands of
dollars, and it must be stopped.  I did not create this program to feed the
hackers.  This business and program was created for the benefit of the members
who have supported us and handed over their trust to us.

This view seems plausible, but shouldn't members be responsible for their own e-gold security? This stand / view seems somewhat paternalistic.

Then, several days ago, we had an even more serious issue to address.  During
our scheduled work on Compactpay, a situation arose that required our immediate
attention. We had a hacker access the database through a vulnerability, and
though he got no valuable information, and did not infiltrate anyone's money
accounts, we dropped all else we were doing, and set about encrypting our
database, among other things.  

Well good to hear that they caught the hacker in time. The story sounds believable enough.

 
In light of all the events above, I have now decided that CN will be
implementing new additional security measures regarding hackings, and revamping
our payment system accordingly to fit these measures.   There will be a required
step that all members must take before we continue on with our payouts.   The
changes we are implementing will allow members the needed to time to make their
hacking reports, and will allow staff the needed time to stop payments to
hackers, even during our busier times.  The following are the changes that will
be made, effective as of today:
 
1. As additional security, we ask that all members update
their passwords on the Compactsurfing site at this time with a unique password
you have never used anywhere on the internet before.  You can do this by
clicking on “Edit Account Details” after you log into your CS account. Then
scroll down to where it says “Password Change.” Type in your current password in
the field that says: “Your Password.” Then type in your “New Password” and
“Confirm New Password” and click on “Save.” This is to ensure that if any of you
have the same password with CS that you are using with other sites, or have used
in sites you’ve been with in the past, that hackers do not have easy access to
this information.   
 
2. Official Payment Time Frame: Members may still hold
multiple upgrades to a total of $10,000 USD.  Members may still make 3 cashout
requests per month.  However, from here on forward, Compact Surfing will now
make payments in 7 BUSINESS days following the date of your cashout request.
That means you will no longer count Saturdays and Sundays as work days for the
CS Payment Department, and you will be paid on the 7th business day after you
make a request.    
 
To clarify, if you make a payout request on a Monday, what day do you expect
payment?  Count:  Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday…. Monday of the next week is the day you are to expect payment.  This
new payment system applies to all current pending payments, and to all those in
the future.

Ouch. They will effectively turn the program from a 13% per day in 9 days to a 6% per day in 20 days program. This is definitely not as attractive as we have it now. 7 calendar days would be much better and would be enough time to sort out any potential hacker related issues.
 
This will be the same time frame as 12dailypro established, for
those of you who are familiar with that program.  It will end all discussion of
what day you are paid.  It will allow my  support staff and you, the members,
ample time to contact us in  the event that your payment processor account is
hacked so that we can put your cashout requests on hold and prevent your
funds from being paid to hackers.  (To date, tens of thousands of dollars   
have been paid out to hackers, despite our efforts to prevent   this, and we
feel, changing our payment strategy will result in  more profits for all
involved.)

Hmm. How will a longer time frame for payouts result in more profits for all involved?
 
I will allow until this Friday, June 16th for members to change
their account passwords and to review their account information  in their back
office for any other changes they may wish to make.  I will then begin
processing payments: all pending cashout requests made on the 6th and 7th of
June will be paid next Monday. This will be in line with the new payment terms
since, though I was ill last week for 2 days, I processed payments over the past
weekend.  Requests made on the 8th of June will be processed    by the end of
the day, this Monday, June 19th, and we will go   from there.
 
Please go now and update your passwords and review your accounts.  I will follow
up with further updates during the week regarding the status of Compact Surfing
and the rest of the Network sites.

As you can see, I am somewhat skeptical of the changes. Still, I will wait to see if people actually get paid when they are suppose to. For me this is the key. I guess we have to wait until next week Monday to find out.

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Posted in PAID TO SURF, News & Updates | 11 Comments »

Refund from wiredsurf on the way?

Posted by rabbit on 13th June 2006

The Wiredsurf admin team claim that they will be issuing refunds. If I was to get a dollar every time the admin of a failed program promise a refund and fail to deliver, I would probably be a rich man by now. For once I would like to be proven wrong when it comes to refunds. I am not holding my breath for this one either.

Latest Update:

"1- To those who have visited the forum to review the post and found "no threads
available", this is because you must first register a forum account to review
any of our threads. Simply create an account and log in and you will be able to
read our posts and participate in the discussion.

2- To those who upgraded recently, and even to those with outstanding pending
payments, you WILL be refunded per our policy that is available on our forum.

3- To anyone indicating that we are taking the money and running with it, I am
sorry to inform you that there isn't any money to run off with.  We paid out of
our reserve from when EMO went down right up through our DDOS attack. If we were
running with money it would have been at the prime peaks of activity, not when
our site experienced weeks of downtime and minimal activity.

4- To anyone who compounded your payment will be manually expired and set as
pending so you are also eligible to receive the refund as indicated in our post.

Once again, register a forum account to read our posts. Without a forum account
you can not see any new posts.

http://www.surfingwire.com/forum"

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Posted in PAID TO SURF, News & Updates | No Comments »

Another E-Gold Phishing Scam reminder

Posted by rabbit on 13th June 2006

I received this e-gold phishing scam message in my junk mailbox twice in the last few days:

" ** e-gold Security Update **

Dear e-gold users,

We are contacting you to warn you about a virus which is spreading within JPEG images. E-gold has developed a virus protection update to prevent unauthorized access to your account. We urge you to update your account protection following these easy steps:

1. Launch MS Internet Explorer (our security update is developed for MS Internet Explorer 5.0 and higher. Please visit www.microsoft.com for more information).

2. Download e-gold Security Update (less than a minute @ 33.6k)

3. Launch e-gold Security Update and follow the on-screen instructions.

4. Reboot your computer (not necessary if you have Microsoft Windows XP installed). "

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Posted in GENERAL, Ecurrencies & Exchangers | No Comments »