e-Currency Trading As An Income Stream

While looking for ways to diversify my income streams, I came across a system that I'd never encountered before. You've probably heard of Forex (Foreign Exchange) trading where different currencies are sold in order to make a profit on the values of those currencies. It's a risky proposition and one I never felt was personally worth the risk.

But there's another way to make money from exchanging currency. The way your bank does it. Banks never lose money on any currency exchange, regardless of how strong or weak a currency is. Why? Because they charge a commission on the transaction. If there's a 2% commission and you change $100 into another currency, they still get $2 (2%) of the transaction whether you're changing to Yen, Euro, Rupees or Pesos. They don't care what the exchange rates are. They always get that 2% commission!

The rest of this article is here.

AutoSurf Industry in Turmoil

It's only in the last couple of months that I began using AutoSurf programs as another income source. For background information, see: AutoSurf Programs

However, in the last couple of weeks, a huge spanner has been thrown in the works by StormPay. Initially, at the end of January, StormPay issued an edict to any AutoSurf programs and High Yield Investment Plans (HYIPs) that used them as one of their payment processors, that either StormPay must be removed as an option or that StormPay could be used as the exclusive payment processor.

Since StormPay is easier to use than e-Gold, most members of these programs and plans used StormPay, so many programs and plans were forced into using StormPay only to stay in business and accommodate the majority of their members.

While that hiccup was inconvenient enough, a few days later, StormPay started freezing the accounts of a number of AutoSurfs and HYIPs, ostensibly because these programs where under investigation by "law enforcement".

That's in quotes because no specific agency was specified. Since accounts were frozen, these programs could not pay out to their members. In fact, some StormPay members had deposits to their StormPay accounts voided, seemingly because they were (or had been) members of AutoSurf or HYIP programs at one one. In my case, my StormPay balance went to minus several hundred dollars. The money that I had deposited was earmarked for things other than AutoSurfs and HYIPs and left me unable to pay membership fees in other programs.

Then StormPay issued a chargeback for funds I'd deposited into 12DailyPro, without any intervention by me, I might add. That then filled the negative balance in my StormPay account (i.e. StormPay ate part of the money they pulled back from 12DailyPro). I've read that some people have been charged $75 for chargebacks but, so far, I don't see such a charge on my account (on those rare occassions when I can log in to StormPay now that it's offline so frequently).

On the advice of others, I withdrew my remaining funds in StormPay to be delivered by check via DHL. No sign of it yet (although it's only been 3 days).

Mine is, apparently, a common story now. Stories abound of StormPay issuing chargebacks without consulting members, voiding transactions and a huge number of people now have negative balances in their StormPay accounts. Initially, it was thought that only people who were members of AutoSurfs and HYIPs were affected, but it appears that some StormPay members who have never been involved with these programs are also having their accounts cleared out by StormPay.

There has been an arguement going on between StormPay and 12DailyPro about what's been going on about the freezing of 12DailyPro's account. StormPay would never say what "law enforcement" agency was pursuing an investigation which has led many to think it was a cover story while StormPay scrambled to cover their asses. Now it seems the FBI are involved, although it's not clear if they were the original "law enforcement" agency or whether the FBI became involved later following StormPay member complaints.

StormPay's announcements can be seen on the members' front page. If you're a member, log in to read them.

12DailyPro's news announcements are also only available to members, but discussion by members of the situation are available to read at their forum.

Many StormPay members have reported StormPay to the FTC and to the FBI for fraudulent transactions (i.e. removing money from members' accounts without their permission). The dust has yet to settle on this whole debacle but there's been a huge ripple effect:

1. Many StormPay members have negative balances in their accounts
2. Some StormPay members have had their withdrawl requests reversed
3. StormPay has, allegedly, not been forthright about what's been going on (they've damaged their own reputation through their handling of the situation)
4. 12DailyPro seem to have been above board in reporting things from their perspective and they have a huge number of loyal members who are very supportive of their position while crying foul of StormPay
5. Many StormPay members are now in a position where they are unable to pay membership fees in various programs (not necessarily AutoSurfs) and are scrambling to cover their payments by other methods
6. Some AutoSurfs and HYIPs have already closed down, even after complying with StormPay's exclusivity demand due to a combination of their accounts being frozen, members unable to deposit or withdraw funds, etc (some, it has to be said, will have used the situation to their advantage and done a runner with the funds before StormPay could freeze their account)
7. It's possible that a knock-on effect of all this is that other online programs may go out of business or take a severe financial hit beacuse members can't pay fees or members will drop out because other payment processors aren't as easy to use, don't support those types pf program or because they feel very insecure about any online transaction now
8. StormPay's reputation is irredeemably damaged in some members eyes and they will never use StormPay again
9. Faith in all online payment processors has been shaken

Only time will tell what the ultimate outcome of all this is. Personally, I think StormPay has taken huge damage to its reputation. I'm not using it anymore and am in the process of switching to other payment processors. I don't currently trust StormPay as they have apparently stolen money out of my account. That may be reversed or refunded to my credit card but until such time as I receive every cent back, I won't be conducting any business with them.

There's one final bit of interesting information. StormPay charge a 6.9% fee on all money received into an account. They said that their bank would agree to a lower 2.9% fee if people were certified by an independent company called NetIBA. For basic certification, NetIBA charge an annual fee of $19.95. That was a good trade-off for anyone frequently moving money through their StormPay account. However, it's now become known that the same person who owns StormPay also owns NetIBA! Not very independent, is it? How many people can say "ripoff"? Umm, a lot apparently are!

This story's far from over...