If you have never heard of the word “ponzi“, it refers to a man named Charles Ponzi who popularized the member- get- member- get- rich- quick- scheme.
StudioTraffic.com is a High Yield Investment Program (HYIP) program where members are paid to watch the advertisements that are targeted at them. You are suppose to put a pretty hefty “initial investment” before you can get started.
A friend of mine who’d invested some money in it alerted me on 17th March that he’d lost all his “investment”. I am really glad that he’s willing to share it with me, which is a valuable lesson that you and I can learn from. According to him, the forums in StudioTraffic are closed down and there’s was no one to be accountable for what’s went wrong.
Here are some sites where you can some insights on how the supposedly high return investment program can turn into a financial disaster:-
It’s not really difficult actually to differentiate between a legal business and a scam.
A real business has a value. It is usually in the form of products or services. Most importantly, a legal business entity practices proper accounting, files an annual report, a clear organization structure and of course, a legal business model.
Unfortunately, a scam usually also have products and services. In fact, it’s based on these products and services that they are masking their true identity from the unwearied end users like you and me. Their modus operandi are pretty much standard:-
1) Give you some advantage in the beginning of the program. In fact, this is the basis modus operandi of most scams and ponzis.
2) Once you bite the bait, you will start to “believe” in the program, unaware of the manipulation they had schemed since the beginning.
3) You will then unconsciously invest more “capital” into the program, and that’s when they start revealing their true colors.
The number one way to identify such schemes is where the only thing you need to do is recruit new members into the program, where the program will reward you based on the sub-sequent members that signs up under you. This is the fundamental of a “ponzi”, where no true wealth is really created; the money merely transfer from the poor victim at the bottom of the ecosystem to the upper levels.
Ultimately, I think the best defense that you have against such scams are your own instinct. You instantly know it when someone tells you something that’s too good to be true (which it often is!). Listen to that practical voice in your head and don’t let the emotional pitch gets into you.
There’s no free lunch.
You might want to read these too...
- IncomeAutomatik2u.com
- Budget 2007 to Introduce Car Scrapping Policy?
- Justified Toll Hike?
- Good Enough?
- Pixar Beats Estimate
- Suspicious Minds
- How To Earn More?
- Personal Finance Forum for Malaysians
-
KimMiau
-
Steven Yip
