In this article, I decided to present my thoughts regarding HYIP-investing and income from high-yield investment programs for beginners. You will not find any clear directions or recommendations here - however, I hope that some statements and pieces of advice will help you to acquire the necessary knowledge not only to avoid losing your money during the first month, but also to succeed in this complicated business. You will not see boring theoretic research and extracts here – only practical pieces of advice, coming from my own experience.

Prior to making the first step, let’s determine one thing: does this way of making money fit you?

HYIP is not for you, if:

1 You value your money and are afraid of losing them

In this case, you’d better head to a state or a commercial bank, where you will be receiving a very low but relatively stable income for “long years”, not being afraid to lose your hard-earned money. Keep in mind: there are no reliable HYIP projects. Some of them last for longer than others yet close down earlier or later.

2 You don’t even have a minimal amount of money (at least $100-$1000) for investing

As you know, money makes money. By not having deposited anything, you cannot derive anything – no matter how many times you multiply by zero, you will receive zero in the end. So in case you don’t have any money – go and work, HYIP – is not a magic stick, and there’s not way to get profits out of nothing.

3 You’ve got a weak nervous system

In this case, stay away not only from HYIP, but also from other risky ventures – otherwise, sleepless nights are guaranteed for you. If you are an emotionally unstable person making spontaneous, not well-thought decisions, HYIP is also not for you, since you are taking the risk of losing everything during the first month by making a wrong choice.

4 You like to blame others for your mistakes

If, once a failure occurs, you blame anyone (be it administrator, friend, boss, government, God, weather, coincidence etc) except for yourself, you should stay away from HYIP. Keep in mind that YOU are the only one being responsible for the decisions you are making, and all the fault in case of a failure is yours. If you have lost money in HYIP – you are the only one who is guilty in your unpredictability and greed, having taken over your common sense. Remember that no one was pulling you on a lace and you have voluntarily given your money to a scammer.

5 You’ve got a scammer’s nature

If you came to this world with the purpose of making use of others, to succeed by cheating and scamming – keep off HYIP. There are enough scammers even without you in this arena.

HYIP is for you, if:

1 You are a self-confident person, willing to take risk

If your life credo is “The ones who are not risking don’t drink champagne”, and you are ready to take reasonable risk, then HYIP is an ideal way of making money for you. HYIP likes the risky ones who are ready to sacrifice their last penny in order to either receive a million... or to lose everything.

2 You’ve got a well-developed intuition and common sense

Regardless of numerous pieces of advice and discussions, which you will find on HYIP-Forums, you should always conduct your own analysis (Due Diligence). The situation should be analyzed on the basis of your own experience, instead of recommendations of other people. If someone is trying to lure you into a program, you should keep in mind that the last decision is yours.

3 You are able to take losses and learn from your own mistakes

HYIP doesn’t like losers who walk aside after their first loss. HYIP is only for brave and persistent people, able to admit their mistakes after a complete loss, make the necessary conclusions, and then to rise from the ashes, like the bird Phoenix, and in brave pace not only to recover the loss, but also to double their capital.

HYIP Basics: what to start out with?

So, if the “yes” qualities are predominating in your case and you decided to take the risk of choosing the way of an “HYIP-Investor”, I will share some thoughts with you.

What to start out with?
First of all with studying the theoretical aspects: visit various HYIP forums, read articles and recommendations; listen to those who already have significant experience in this field. Don’t hop in without conducting a preliminary research. Our website HYIP-Navigator.com will help you with it: read different articles from our E-Magazine, interviews with well-known people of the HYIP world, familiarize yourself with program reviews, read our book on investment advising, visit the forums HYIPDiscussion (www.hyipdiscussionforum.com) and TalkGold (www.talkgold.com/forum). Try learning from the mistakes of others – not from the ones you make.

Initial capital
Don’t believe that it’s enough to have a couple of bucks for HYIP since many programs have the minimal investment amount set to $1-$5. If this kind of money is at your disposal, you’d better visit the nearest café and have a bottle of beer. You can start learning with the amount equivalent to $100, and the minimal amount for investing with the purpose of receiving some significant income should be at least $1000.

Finally, keep in mind the golden rule of an investor: deposit only what you can afford to lose with no harm to yourself and your family!

Diversification of funds
As you already know, the second law of an investor says: don’t put all eggs in one basket – in other words, diversify your investment portfolio. No matter how reliable a program seems to be, do not deposit all money into it, spreading it between 10 more or less reliable programs instead. Five of them will most likely close down in the near future, and the remaining five will provide you with the desired income.

Account safety
Take extensive security measures: install the newest versions of anti-virus software, carefully familiarize yourself with safety rules for E-gold accounts and follow them. Hackers and other online crooks and thieves don’t sleep! Remember that your carelessness may cost you your money.

Life stages of HYIP

Prior to depositing any funds, you should conduct your own investigation on the program you have chosen. Here’s the main misconception of newbies: if a program is around for a long time and holds top places on monitoring websites makes it look very reliable and safe. This is wrong. You are taking the risk of finding yourself at the bottom of a financial pyramid, since old programs are most likely to be on the verge of closure. For this, learn to estimate approximate terms of HYIP life and try looking for the date of the project’s commencement by its WHOIS data or the time it was first mentioned on monitoring websites and forums. Also, keep in mind that 99.9% of online investment projects are no more than mere pyramid schemes (also known as “ponzies”). That’s why you shouldn’t believe statements on their websites declaring the program’s involvement in FOREX trading or betting. Ponzies pay you from the deposits of new investors as long as the influx of new funds exceeds the total amount of payouts.

Life of a program can be split into several stages:
Stage I: A program has just opened, pays everyone, all investors are happy. A huge influx of capital is taking place. There’s almost no withdrawal requests, since most members either accumulate funds on their internal accounts or re-invest their interest. This is the most feasible stage for entering a program. However, you can anticipate some danger here. If a program’s website is of a very high quality and a massive advertising campaign has been conducted, there is a risk that a huge influx of capital will occur (the violet line), leading to a fast closure of the program, since the administrator will choose to run with the money instead of making interest payments to the program’s members. This phase can be determined by examining the program’s statistics. If a program is fresh, but multi-thousand deposits are indicated in the statistics – it’s either fake or the program is on the verge of collapse.
Stage II: If a rapid influx of capital didn’t take place at the initial stage, HYIP will continue functioning and paying you for a relatively long time. This is the most stable stage: the program grows, deposits gradually increase, few withdrawal requests are made.
Culmination: However, as time passes, the scale of withdrawal requests increases more and more. At the same time, the influx of new capital remains at the previous level. Once the amount of funds in withdrawal requests approaches the total amount of new funds being deposited, the critical moment of culmination comes, which in 99% of cases results in a collapse of any program, having no real base under itself. The administrator closes down his pyramid, receiving income, equal to the difference of deposited and withdrawn funds for the moment of closure.
Stage III: In case the program keeps functioning and remains open after the critical moment, two things are possible: you are either dealing with an honest and real high-yield investment venture – one of the very few online, or some commercial trick has taken place (fake statistics, introduction of new advertising plans, promising crazy income, “going private” having been announced with the purpose of making old members increase their deposits). In any case, this stage is the sunset of a program, and if you haven’t lost anything yet, it would be a good idea to get out with your money as soon as possible.
Special case: Certain extraordinary circumstances can be considered as “special case”: e.g. a program’s website has been hacked or a DDOS attack has taken place. They are most likely to cause the increase in withdrawal requests made by scared investors, leading to the collapse of a program.

Types of HYIP programs

Coming from the above-mentioned, all programs can be split into the following types:

Short Term Ponzi

This type of programs pays 10 to 200% (sometimes even more) on a daily basis. The life of such pyramids is fairly short: as a rule, they last 3 to 15 days. They cannot be called investments, since you will not be able to make any money with them, and the amount of money deposited into such “roulette” should not exceed $50. I would recommend staying away from them at all costs.

Medium Term Ponzi

This type of programs pays around 4-7% daily. Programs of this sort can be classified as extremely risky and normally last for the period of 15 to 30 days, at most 2 – 2,5 months if there were no big deposits at the initial stage.

Long Term Ponzi

This is the most optimal type for investing. Such projects pay 2 to 3% daily and normally function for the period of to 4-5 months. Some long-lasting programs of this sort can stay around as long as half a year. The recovery time for deposits in these programs is relatively short (33-50 days), so you have about a 70% chance for recovering you initial deposit and deriving some income.

Extra Long Term Ponzi and Real Programs

This category deals with low-yield programs (the interest rates are less than 1.5% daily or 25% monthly). Such programs can last for quite a long time (in some cases, up to a year), but you are not likely to derive significant income from them. For this reason, if the validity of a program’s business is not proven, I would advise you to stay away from them. In order to receive some significant profits from such programs, you will have to make a large deposit with them (from $1000), but the risk level in this case is not justified!

Private HYIP: truth and lie

You have probably heard of private investment programs, telling about their offshore registration and being kept in strict confidentiality. Don’t believe it: it’s no more than a cover, a lame story, created for attracting extra capital.

In most cases such programs don’t have a referral program and accept new members only by invitation (Invitation Code). Don’t make a big deal out of it. The only difference between such programs and the regular ones is that they last for much longer than public HYIP.

Also, be careful with programs promising to go private – in most cases, it means their upcoming closure. You have to realize that a pyramid scheme relies on the influx of new capital, so its closure to public and switching to the private mode means its death. In most cases it is done only with the purpose of persuading old members to make additional deposits in order to collect more money before the closure.

Speaking of lie in the HYIP world, there’s plenty of lies in this area. Try not to believe what you are reading on program websites, conduct your own analysis, and discuss projects on forums with experienced investors. Analyze interviews, given by admins: pay attention to the way they are answering questions, whether they try to avoid addressing the question directly or tell the truth? This will help you to make the right decision. If in response to the question “How do you generate income for your members?” the admin presents some standard phrase, like “FOREX, betting and so on” - he is most likely lying and doesn’t even know the current ration between US Dollar and Euro...

If you have been scammed

Sooner or later this will happen – a scammer has deceived you and ran with your entire deposit or its part. I often receive the following type of messages: “I have deposited $100. In a few days the program closed down and I lost my deposit. How can I get my money back?” The answer is simple: there’s NO WAY to do so! Keep this in mind and take it for what it is: currently, there is no mechanism regulating Internet payments. Neither E-gold administration, nor anyone else will help you to recover your money. Remember that the Disclaimer section of any HYIP indicates that the administrator is not responsible for your money and you are depositing them voluntarily. Of course, theoretically you can file a lawsuit, but even if you manage to prove that you have been scammed and a lengthy investigation will be conducted, which might take a few years, the most of what you can expect is the imprisonment of the scammer (just the way it happened with the admin of “Brideby”). You are not likely to see your money again even in case of a positive outcome. Not to mention that you will most likely not be able to cover the expenses of a police investigation if your deposit is very small – it will be much more expensive that way.

HYIP are always on the edge of law – never forget about it, since they might be against the laws of your country.

If, in spite of everything, you have decided to choose the hard path of an HYIP investor – we sincerely wish you best of luck in this uneasy business.