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Alertpay has began accepting e-gold deposits again, despite the fact that many e-gold exchangers have stopped exchanging e-gold completely, or do so at very high rates. A blog post by DigitalMoneyWorld highlights some of the e-currency exchnagers and how they are charging for exchanging e-gold: “E-gold Exchange Agents Are Now Gouging Their Retail Clients“.

A check on Alertpay this morning reveals that e-gold deposits are now accepted again, but at 5.5%  which is different from the old 4% rate.

AlertPay.com, a privately owned and managed company founded in 2004, is an electronic wallet (e-wallet) payment system enabling any business or consumer with email to send and receive internet payments securely, quickly and cost-effectively. With its office headquarters in Montreal, Canada, AlertPay is available to users all around world.

e-gold is a digital gold currency operated by Gold & Silver Reserve Inc. under e-gold Ltd., and is a system which allows the instant transfer of gold ownership between users. e-gold Ltd. is incorporated in Nevis, Lesser Antilles.

An attempt to fund your Alertpay account with your e-gold balance displays the notice:

e-gold Deposits Offline

We are sorry. Unfortunately we cannot accept any more egold at this time due to certain circumstances.
For more details please see http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2007/April/07_crm_301.html

An attempt to withdraw to e-gold however, did not display any such error.

Alertpay had hitherto allowed users to fund their accounts via e-gold but this has been temporarily disabled as a result of an indictment by the United States Department of Justice against the key officers at e-gold Ltd about aiding child porn sellers, money launderers and other criminal activities.

It might sound like a contradiction to many - HYIPs that are scams. Why? Many believe that all HYIPs are scams. I am not about to give a verdict on that. I would rather leave the judgement to you. However, it cannot be disputed that most HYIPs on the Internet are scams. There are almost always ways of telling. Some of the ways of telling a scam are listed below:

1. The website promises outrageous guaranteed returns on investment
2. The website offers referral commissions in order to promote the recruiting of more victims to this scam.
3. The website only accepts e-gold as payment, due to the anonymity it provides. (This is not to indict e-gold)
4. The website collects personal information on  insecure pages, including account numbers.
5. There is no business address or contact phone number listed on the sites.

The  question any savvy individual would ask is: “What legitimate financial company would do such things?”Whats more? Wikipedia’s description of HYIP makes it even easier to tell:

Online HYIP schemes rarely last for the long term. Overwhelming number of cases suggest that HYIPs are Ponzi schemes, in which new investors provide the cash to pay a profit to existing investors, which they typically then withdraw. This approach allows the scam to continue as long as new investors are found and/or old investors leave their money in the scheme, known as compounding (because even higher profits are promised).

The introduction of e-currencies has made it possible for HYIPs to operate on the internet and cross international boundaries, and to accept large numbers of small investments. HYIPs usually accept deposits by either e-currency, like e-gold, e-bullion and INTGold, or use specialist third party payment processors like AlertPay, SolidTrustPay, CEPTrust, TriStarMoneyChangers and StormPay. HYIPs typically offer a significant incentive commission (for example, 9% of invested funds) for members to attract and refer new investors.

Most HYIPs disclose little or no detail about the underlying management, location, or other aspects of how money is to be invested, and relatively little information (other than asserting that they do various types of trading on various stock and other exchanges) on how they actually generate the returns they purport. They are sometimes presented with some form of an emotional appeal, appeals for faith, and promises that they will help investors achieve financial freedom.

Ultimately, it is up to the investor to decide but following the guidelines above could save you some money.

Moneybookers, an online payment system enables any business or consumer with an email address to securely and cost-effectively send and receive payments online in real time, has revamped its website and given it a fresh and more captivating look-and-feel.

In an email to its users, Moneybookers wrote:

Dear [Account owner name removed],

Today, we have a special surprise for you: The relaunch of our Moneybookers website!
Just go to www.moneybookers.com and check it out!

You will find a more modern and lighter design, combined with an improved overall usability. Especially the navigation is now much easier making Moneybookers more convenient for you.

Of course, we kept all the basic functionalities the same and even raised our exceptional high security standards!

Enjoy exploring our new website!

Your Moneybookers Team

What do you think about the new look? Share your thoughts here.

Graphcard seems to be doing something they should have done much earlier - automated customer support.

Their customer support before now, had been via telephone, fax and email. Their telephone were only answered by a customer service representative during US working hours, and on business days only. Customers were asked to leave a message and their phone number, at other times. Well, Graphcard would only call you back if you left a US phone number in your message.

Email was hardly ever replied. I have written them to cancel my “virtual address” because I have no use for it now, but they have not done that, after several emails. They keep charging me $9.99 monthly for a service I am not using. When I eventually used it, they could not send me the exact forwarding cost. They only emailed me once, to inform me that the letters would be returned on a certain date. I promptly replied, but never heard from them again.
Going to Graphcard’s contact page (on their website) now shows that they have added an additional button labelled: “Online Support”. A click on the button leads you to a sophisticated helpdesk system powered by Expinion.net. It includes an FAQ section, Knowledgebase, and a facility for submitting questions to Customer Service.

This new addition should make their customer service much better since the process will be automated. Customers will only contact them if they cannot find answers to their problems in the FAQ and/or Knowledgebase.

This is a good development and I can only hope that it will be well utilized by Graphcard users, and run properly by Graphcard staff.

One of the leading digital currencies on the Internet today, is ten years old. The following press release by BusinessWire drives home the point:

January 11, 2007

e-gold® Celebrates Ten Year Anniversary

MELBOURNE, Fla.– e-gold, one of the world’s foremost Internet payment systems, celebrates its tenth anniversary this month. As the pioneer of Internet payments, e-gold has flourished due to its strong fundamental principles of freedom from default and finality of settlement. e-gold has settled over 70M transactions, serves customers in 165 countries, and holds nearly 3.5 metric tonnes of gold.

e-gold has continued to successfully serve its customers, while other payment systems have come and gone losing millions of investment dollars. e-gold has always held true to meeting its User obligations. When merchants are paid they stay paid, and consumers can make payments without compromising their personal information online.

Dr. Douglas Jackson, founder and CEO of e-gold, commented on this milestone for his company: “It has not always been easy, but we have never deviated from our original vision. While we have seen others fail, we remain highly committed to the goal of bringing, for the first time in history, to people of any financial means across the globe, a secure payment mechanism at a fraction of the cost of any other system.”

e-gold is all about security. e-gold is a robust, secure system including its AccSent program and Secure Random Keyboard that combats password theft and unauthorized account access. e-gold represents one of the most secure mechanisms available to hold and transmit value across the internet.

e-gold is about privacy, but it is not anonymous. e-gold users can be assured that their online transactions are private, but those who may wish to hide illicit transactions should know they are not anonymous. e-gold’s advanced investigative protocols will identify and stop illicit users.

e-gold is about low costs. For any transaction, from micro payments to large values, e-gold is the lowest cost payment system available. And unlike charge cards, e-gold has no risk of chargebacks. e-gold is truly global, operating in nearly every country, offering isolation from fluctuations in individual national currencies.

Despite being new, innovative, and sometimes misunderstood, e-gold has thrived to become one of the world’s leading payment systems. Ten years old this month, e-gold is eagerly looking forward to the next ten years. For information, call US 1-321-956-1200 ext 127 or visit www.e-gold.com

e-gold is an alternative payment system that mobilizes the value of gold, as money, for Internet payments and funds transfers. e-gold builds upon the fundamental strength in proven customer demand for gold as a secure store of value. All e-gold is backed by a 100% reserve of physical gold in recognized repositories. e-gold offers customers a secure and robust payment system that minimizes exchange risk, operates globally 24/7, has finality of payment with no chargebacks, uses automated interfaces, and is low cost. Operational since 1996, e-gold has settled over 70M transactions, serves customers in 165 countries, and holds nearly 3.5 metric tonnes of gold.

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