Tuesday, January 20, 2009

To HYIP Or Not To HYIP?

In case you are totally not familiar with this term, "HYIP," which stands for High Yield Investment Program, is a modern version of the infamous Ponzi scheme. One has to admit that "HYIP" sounds much more politically correct than the Ponzi scheme, but there is really little difference between the two. Obviously, no HYIP advertises itself as a Ponzi scheme as those are illegal. You can, however, easily recognize them by their claims of compounding your investment at the rates of 1-10% or even more daily, which clearly is not sustainable.


In an excellent ebook on making money online that I highly recommend, "Honest Income Program," HYIP is listed as one of the things to avoid along with 14 other useless or even harmful "business" ideas.

I must say that my opinion about HYIPs is somewhat different. I don't think that an average HYIP is any more harmful than a lottery and, in fact, the difference between the two is only in details. I would even say that you stand a greater chance of making some money with an HYIP than with a lottery, but your potential is much limited as HYIPs are bound to collapse either because they run out of new members or the owner of such a "private lottery" decides that it's just about the time to abscond with the loot and you end up holding a bag. However, in both cases the risks are about the same, although usually you can make some money with HYIPs if you are not greedy and play it for small gains and diversify across a few such programs.

There is also another benefit from HYIPs that is not so minor at all: you learn a disciplined conservative investing at a very small cost. The keyword is "small cost." Don't even think about throwing huge amounts of money at this. Treat it strictly the way you would treat a lottery. Most responsible, intelligent adults do not spend thousands of dollars a year on a lottery, but they may spend up to a hundred bucks and that's fine as long as this is not the money that you desperately need for other things. You do not want to be one of those people who have lost tens of thousands of dollars with those schemes. Yes, such people do exist...

Do I recommend playing HYIPs? As I said, only in moderation, and in moderation almost everything can be good, but never on a grander scale. Personally, I would never invest more than $10-20 per HYIP and no more than $100 altogether. On the other hand, you might as well check out "Honest Income Program" and go with the programs it offers. That, in my opinion, is even a better deal. Moreover, if you really ever decide to give HYIPs a try, by following the first of the programs this ebook presents, you will be able to earn $100-150 pretty easily within the first month and that should be enough to fund your HYIP investing account.

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