24/07/2010 When are internet entrepreneurs going to learn?

I don't know what others think, but when out of the blue you get an email like this:

Dear Sir or Madam,
This message has been send to you by Make 1000's Weekly Online, No Scams, No Hype to inform you about our web site http://www.VivaAndalucia.com.
Your will find detailed information about golf courses and special green fee discounts on this web site.
Visit us at http://www.VivaAndalucia.com
VivaAndalucia.com
-------------------------------------------------------
Hi Enterpreneur,
Congratulations....You’re about to change your
life for the better. Take a look and read some
of the info's that I am presenting to you.
How Many Emails Can You Process A Day?
Can You Process 30 Emails a Day? If You Can...
You'll Earn $750.00 Every Day.
GUARANTEED...
If you are serious and motivated like I am,
this is your Once in a lifetime Opportunity!
Visit The Link Below or Paste To Browser:
http://go2-url.com/go_here
Best Regards,
Ruth Hugheman
P.S.
I'm building my integrity as your TRUSTED source.
You can always expect that I only offer the one
that will deliver good results to you.

Yeah right!! You probably get them all day everyday. But to newbies out there, this is a trap. I do try and check some of them out as they could be something. To date none have responded to my inquiry, and not surprising. For many years I have thought that all these opt-in mail services are a bit of a con.
To get things in perspective from my side of things as I see it. For 10 years or so now I have been involved in one way or another making money online. Okay I don't have what people call a downline or an email list, I have always just poked around and made and of course lost money in various opportunities, but overtime I am still ahead with earnings. Not everyone can refer people. I am of the belief that if I join a program, which of course I only join if I see potential of earning there, from my own money, never relying on referrals, then I will add the link here and keep the site updated with how I am doing.
Of course I am always on the lookout of something that will work for me, and there must be plenty of others that are in the same boat as me. Hence looking at a few of the not-so-spammy emails. My beef is that their are so many what could be good opportunities that if driven by the right people, not just email spamming, (yes I consider the no-reply emails as spam) well to me this is doing more harm to the industry than many seem to think.
Ok, lol I admit I am a hard sell. Been round the block too many times to think that everything is a worthwhile venture. However, if these anonymous emailers were in a position to spell out clearly and be contactable, would there not be some better decision making? So if you find yourself presented with the best of the best claim, look closer at the fine print. Note: down the bottom of most of these splash pages is an earnings disclaimer!! yep, check it out (oh, not in this one, ha ha the link doesn't even work!) but saying it is guarenteed you will earn x amount then the disclaimer usually says something like >>> this is based on the highest possibility, and depends on members marketing ability >>> talk about cover their butt lol.
This was just something I wanted to share with whoever stumbles across this post. The moral of the story? If you have what you believe to be a great opp. don't SPAM it, only deters as many have wised up to the systems used.
Take care and live life. I hope I may have saved someone losing hard earned money.

19/07/2010 Eigeline Network's Strictpay News

I had a pending SP payment and have been waiting to hear what stance Eigeline Network would take. Checking the news today they have addressed the system.

News
19 July 2010
StrictPay withdrawals.
Dear customers.

Because of some banking problems the StrictPay has turned off its accounts financial activity, which use the API merchant. In this connection we can't process your orders for withdrawal through this payment system. We ask you to place a request through our support service, so our team of technical specialists could transfer your deposits to LibertyReserve payment system. In any case charging of interests, as well as their payment remain the same. We apologize for this inconvenience.

To date I have found Eigeline Network quietly going about their business, no big hyip attitude, just a steady mover. Payments have also been timely and paid within 24 hours of request. Customer support is great.

19/07/2010 - Obituary of the late Mr. Common Sense

I stumbled across this and thought I would share.  It is oh so true.

'Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as: Knowing when to come in out of the rain; why the early bird gets the worm; Life isn't always fair; and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend morethan you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are incharge). His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an Elastoplast to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband; churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault. Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim.
Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.'

I think many of us DO remember Mr. Common Sense, but in today's society it is so easy to blame others for our own inaccountability. Some comments here would be good :) hint hint

18/07/2010 Funds-O-Matic is rocking!!

Not much to get excited about these days, but with Randy from Funds-O-Matic is certainly the place to be. I read an interview done via email with Paul with MNO. Actually he answers and demeanor reflect a good thinking person with a sound knowledge of this arena. Gives some great thoughts on the industry as well. You can read it here. I was a member of his program Surf-O-Matic and I can confirm that he did send out bonuses for Christmas presents and ran and closed his program honorably. First time as a late starter that I actually didn't leave money in a program, all was paid with full ROI.
Currently we are looking for that "something" out there to make a buck on, and Funds-O-Matic is performing well and growing. The weekly plan is the best, both for admin and for earning, but he gives the option to suit members. Of all the tripe on offer, Randy's offer is by far a great opportunity.
 
Randy also issued this update today regarding StrictPay. 

Just a quick update to say that StrictPay payments have been made and had no adverse effects form testing.
Deposits have been re-enabled via StrictPay, to do so you will simply need to send payment to us directly, our account # is 56089-1. In the memo put your member # and plan daily or weekly. then use the contact form subject SP deposit.
Contact form should be simple.
Subject: SP Deposit
Body: Your sp #
Batch#
plan daily or weekly
Amount
Thank you all for understanding and continuing to use SP.
RandyM

Just for the record, I have been paid every week for three weeks now, heading for week four :) I am a happy camper there.

As always, gamble responsibly. 

14/07/2010 StrictPay Update - accounts frozen? options?

Update was posted.  After reading three times, slowly, I still can't see what all the hype was about.  No hurry, as there is nothing anyone can do at this stage.  Anyway if you haven't seen it yet, here it is.

StrictPay Customers

We have spent numerous months trying to battle this situation with the banks and authorities that are holding the majority of our funds, as well as trying to keep StrictPay in business by making the changes outlined in the email update sent on 5-29-10. The problem now is that we are not making any progress on the situation with those two entities, and we have received more news from our legal team. They feel that with the latest developments with the frozen funds, that we are very likely looking at this issue not being resolved for at least 12 months as a best case scenario, and possibly up to 24 months as a worst case scenario. We still cannot speak of any specifics, other than to say (as we stated earlier) that two of the major merchants that accepted StrictPay as a payment option were being heavily investigated by the authorities, and we were pulled into that investigation as well due to them accepting us as a payment option, and even more so because all three of us had accounts with the same bank. Due to the frequency and volume of their requests, one of them found out which bank we were using and specifically got an account at that same bank in order to get funds transfers more quickly, as well as to save them some bank fees. Only a select few customers knew the location of our main bank containing the majority of our funds, and
that will never happen again. This is also why we have always sent and received funds from banks other than the ones that hold the majority of our funds. We know it is frustrating for everyone, but we need to do what is right for our company, and that means that we cannot give any other detail on this legal matter. We want to stress again that there is not an issue with StrictPay being involved with these two merchants, but it is almost as simple as us having the majority of our funds in the wrong bank at the wrong time. It is important to note that we had a similar situation happen to us quite some time ago with Stanford Bank, and we recovered from that without any issues that involved our customers or the time we took to process transactions for you all. As a matter of fact, we still have not had a single penny returned to us from that situation, but we kept being able to serve our customers none the less. It is also important to note that our owners have recently added just over $100,000 of their own funds to help us try to continue to process as many of the withdraw requests as we could these last few weeks. They did this even though we have not had much support since the original update was sent on 5-29-10, and the situation looked like it was going to get
worse. We understand that we are very behind on many withdraw requests, but we have used this entire 100k with virtually nobody reporting to the various outlets that we have indeed paid them. 70k of this money was used for processing bank wire withdraw requests,including some to exchanger services in hopes that they would continue to work with us, 20k was used to process debit card withdraw requests, and 10k was used to process check by mail withdraw requests. We have not gotten very many deposits, and we have even held off on processing ACH deposit requests until now when we received a better update concerning the situation. We would hope this shows that we are not just trying to get new funds so we can run, as seems to be one of the widely reported rumors circulating. That being said, we will need new funds to support us in the future, as we will outline below, but this is not in order to accumulate funds for ourselves, but rather to help all of our customers recover their own funds more quickly.With this latest news of the possible best and worst case time frames it is likely to take to resolve this issue, we are only left with two choices to keep StrictPay in business. 

Those two choices are:

1. We put StrictPay on hold until this issue with the frozen funds gets resolved. This is going to take somewhere between 12 and 24 months to resolve, and during that time our customers would not be able to get any of their funds out of their accounts. This would mean that there is essentially no more StrictPay activity until this situation is resolved, and we feel that this option does not help
anyone in the short term.
2. We keep StrictPay in business and activity continues, including the customer support, transaction processing times, etc. that you all have commended us on in the past before this current situation caused us to fall behind. We do this by creating one sub account for every current StrictPay account, and start each sub account with a zero balance. We allow all current accounts to work as they are now, and all people that make deposits, or receive funds transfers, from this new sub account to another new sub account, will have their funds go only into their new sub account. Each customer’s older accounts with their current balances can still be used to send and receive funds if they wish, but the balances on those old accounts cannot be used to withdraw funds. We think this is very important as it allows customers and merchants to use these accounts freely again, and you will eventually get these funds moved to the sub account that can be withdrawn out as we will explain below. We have been told that many merchants are not taking StrictPay because they feel they are stuck with “dead funds”, but with the system we will explain below this will not be the case. The new system is a great way to build and work with your current account, and over time those funds will get moved to your new sub account that can have funds withdrawn from it. To continue with number two above, here is how the new system will be implemented. Any withdraw request from a current account will be refunded back into that account. New customer sub accounts will be the same StrictPay account number but with a “-1″ after them, so customers and merchants alike will know exactly what customer account sent the funds (either a sub account which can have withdraws, or the older StrictPay accounts that cannot have withdraws). Sub accounts with the “-1″ will only be able to send and receive funds to/from other sub accounts, and older accounts will only be able to send and receive funds to/from other older accounts without the “-1″. With this new system in place, if customers begin to use our services again as they have done for well over 2 years, we will then start to take no less than 0.75% of the 2% Send Funds fee every few weeks and credit that amount to the sub accounts of every customer. This same credited amount will also be taken out of the older account, and thus customers will be able to again begin to gradually see their funds move from the older accounts that do not allow withdraws, to the newer sub accounts that will allow withdraw requests.
We obviously feel that number two is the better of the two choices. Now it is very important to realize that this will only work if people use our services like they did before. We would hope that will be an easy choice for people to do, as this will help everyone eventually receive all their funds, as well as the fact that our superior customer service was what made us as big as we are now. StrictPay in fact started many of the trends you see in the payment processor industry today, such as the live chat support option, and shorter stated customer service reply time frames that were actually met. We have always been proud of the fact that we were heralded as having the best customer service in the industry, and this will continue after these new changes are implemented. We are sure that some will say they would not use us again, even with the implementation of these new changes, and to those people we would ask “Why?” Before this happened, StrictPay was a top option for many customers and merchants, and if we truly wanted to just fold up shop and disappear without trying to help our customers, we would have done so before dumping over 100k of our own money into trying to keep this afloat. We also will continue to use what is universally considered the best DDOS protection company, one that is not even connected to this industry,
and we would not continue to pay for this service if we wanted to just close up shop. Implementing these changes also allows us to offer better withdraw limits for our customers. We will still leave the “real time” withdraw request time frames in place so you can see how long requests are currently taking to process, but keep in mind that it will take the first few days of withdraw requests being entered into the system to really become accurate.
Here are the new withdraw request maximum limits:
Wire withdraws: $100 minimum and $7,500 maximum
Debit card withdraws: $10 minimum and $1,000 maximum
Check by mail withdraws (available to U.S. customers only): $10 minimum and $2,000 maximum
Please keep in mind that we still have the following options available for depositing funds, and all options will be “no fee” options until further notice: ACH (for U.S. customers only), bank wire, and personal check, money order, or cashier check by mail.
StrictPay continuing to do business should also be welcome news to one of the bigger merchants (and their customers) that were using our services until they had to put things on hold for sometime. There is word that they are about to begin processing refunds to their customers, and once they make a deposit into their new sub account,they will then be able to start refunding StrictPay customers as well.
This in turn will provide us with fees from the transfers that we will use to help to move funds from the old StrictPay accounts to the newer sub accounts that you can withdraw from.
The bottom line is this: If people use our services by depositing funds into their new sub accounts (which can also be withdrawn from at any time), and use us as one of their main payment processor options again as they always have, then we will recover from this. Eventually then ALL customers will get their full balances moved to their new sub account over time, and things will be back to normal more quickly than if everyone had to wait up to 24 months in hopes that we recover all of our funds. Lawyer fees will not allow us to get the entire amount back, but we do not foresee anything else cutting into that recovery amount. We all have a lot to lose if people choose not to continue to use StrictPay as a payment option, but we can all only gain if everyone uses StrictPay as they always have in the past. We would like to leave you with this one last question: What do you have to lose by using StrictPay again, knowing that we have always been there in the past for our customers without issue? If you stillhave a need for an online payment processor, then why not choose to use StrictPay as you always have.
As always, we appreciate you choosing StrictPay as a payment option, and we shall see over the next few months if everyone will actually help us get back to a sense of normalcy using this new system.
Thank you
Team StrictPay
www.strictpay.com

This is what I found interesting.

We still cannot speak of any specifics, other than to say (as we stated earlier) that two of the major merchants that accepted StrictPay as a payment option were being heavily investigated by the authorities, and we were pulled into that investigation as well due to them accepting us as a payment option, and even more so because all three of us had accounts with the same bank. Due to the frequency and volume of their requests, one of them found out which bank we were using and specifically got an account at that same bank in order to get funds transfers more quickly, as well as to save them some bank fees. Only a select few customers knew the location of our main bank containing the majority of our funds, and
that will never happen again.

The question is in fact, why just StrictPay and not the other payment processors, unless SP was the only PP they accepted.  Major Merchants? Merely an observation as I don't recall seeing anything big that only accepted SP.  The bank tie up?  Unless they have some common connection and clean funds couldn't be confirmed, well that could be a problem.

What do we do now?  Well technically SP is asking us what we want to do.  If my bank wouldn't let me withdraw unless I made additional deposits or the person who deposits into my account does not make fresh deposits of cash, well I would be skeptical and would err on the side of safety.  Each customer of SP has to make their own decision.  Comes down to personal choice, and whether being between a rock and a hard place is acceptable.  Or whether a rock and a harder place is the go.  It's a gamble really.  I know back to the same conclusion, but really what are the options when you weed out the facts as stated in the update.

As usual, this is food for thought, just another unbiased opinion on the situation as presented.

13/07/2010 Another teaser from StrictPay

Okay I might be a bit negative regarding StrictPay's approach to whatever they are going to tell us.  Why the build up to some big announcement?  Firstly this is the latest email I received just awhile ago.

StrictPay Customers
We will be taking the StrictPay website offline all day on Wednesday to complete some site maintenance, and to implement some updates. Shortly after we come back online late Wednesday, or early Thursday, we will be sending out an update concerning our banking situation. Any updates will be posted at http://extremesurfs.com/blog and http://www.yourplatinumfunds dot com.

We suggest you bookmark these two websites, and check them daily, as the update will be sent soon.  We will be releasing updates to these two websites to insure that every customer has the chance to see the news at the same time.  With the sheer number of customers we have, an email to all customers can take most of the day to get to everyone, and we want to make sure the new customer gets the important information at the same time as an older customer.

Thank you
Team StrictPay

www.strictpay.com

Just a few things that jump to mind. Okay, so emails can take most of the day to get out, does that really make that much difference?  StrictPay customers live all over the globe.  Do they really think all their customers wait 24/7 for their email?  I'm sure we sleep sometimes and do other things with our lives rather than waiting for "news" about our funds stuck in a payment processor.  (as I said, this is my personal take on what I am reading. Yes R E A D I N G.  Like everyone else, we are feed information electronically and it is at our discretion how we interpretate it.) I am erring on the side of it isn't good news, as it seems like stalling for time. But as we should all know and understand, this business is a law unto themselves.  Many differing opinions, also many languages also have to come into play here.  So translation plays a major part here with fed information.
All we can do is wait.  Just don't know why all the concern about getting the "news" out. News of this nature will spread like wildfire regardless.

11/07/2010 StrictPay?

In relation to the StrictPay news, well as expected really there is still no news.  Austin from extremesurf has noted also no news, and also acknowledged that posting of such news for a payment processor through two bloggers is a bit strange.  I also note an update today on Yourplatinumfunds blog (the other site mentioned in the StrictPay update as an outlet for their news) 

We have contacted StrictPay asking when everyone can expect the newest email update concerning their situation, and this was the reply:

There will be a new email sent to all customers concerning this situation within the next few days, and it will also be posted at the News link on our main page. We are trying to resolve this issue, but we can only do so when the bank and authorities release our funds.

Thank you
StrictPay Support

So if that is the response to the admin of their "chosen" media outlets, hmmm
As I said earlier, stay tuned as this could drag on for awhile yet, and StrictPay aren't doing themselves any favors by their totally unprofessional behaviour. 

07/07/2010 StrictPay Update? What a load of croc!!

I just received an email supposedly from Strict Pay.

StrictPay Customer
In the next few days we will be releasing our much anticipated news update that everyone is waiting for. Our mass emails can take many hours to reach everyone, and therefore we felt it necessary to let everyone know that our news will be given to the two sites below as soon as it is available. You will still receive your copy of the email, but if you would like your news faster we recommend going to the sites below. We are not affiliated with either of these sites, and in return for them helping us get this news out quick we are giving them some free advertising on our login page to StrictPay for a few weeks.
Please bookmark these pages, and check them daily for the news that we will be releasing soon. Your Platinum Funds said they will send an email as soon as they post the news so you might want to get added to their subscribers list. Extreme Surfs said they will also post this information on their blog as soon as the news is made available to them.
http://www.yourplatinumfunds.com/
http://extremesurfs.com/blog/
We thank you for your continued support and as always we thank you for choosing StrictPay.
StrictPay Administration

What a load of croc!! First thoughts what type of payment processor does media releases through bloggers. I already have preconceived ideas regarding SP, but are like everyone else and just waiting to see how things pan out.
I then thought, why release "a teaser". Plus the no name on the email?? "StrictPay Customer" good grief it is obvious it is either a spam email or a totally amateurish was to conduct business. Never heard of your platinum funds site. Had a look, forum new and plenty of empty advertising, hmmm. Yeah, guess many will peek and some will venture. Will get site hits for sure.

So to me this is just a SPAM type mailout. Just a ploy for the unsuspecting to sign up to a new site to "get the news first" lol more like collect more email addys :) I am sure throwing extremesurfs name in there is to just give it some credibility. Free advertising?? yeah>>> right!!!

As always, don't believe everything you read.  Player beware, as it is always best to err on the side of safety. Let's wait and see how this pans out, no giving any details to anyone now ya hear.

Update - few hours after posting >> Austin has confirmed that he got an email from Mike at Strictpay. Check his extremesurf blog post here. Hang onto your hats, this could at least be entertaining. Let's see if 1 + 1 = 2 in SP land.