Currency Exchange

Earnings are always shown as figures based on the principle in the account. This is flawed, since you cannot remove the money once it is put in - you can only remove the interest, and only at certain times in certain ways. This page may be a little convoluted in how it explains how all this works, but keep reading, it works itself around.

One source explains the compensation as $3.50 to initiate a transaction on a $100 exchange, plus $1 when the exchange concludes 24 hours later. He does not state whether this is a percentage or not, and does not mention fees which would reduce the profit. Even at that, with NO fees, you'd have to be working with a LOT of money to make substantial amounts each day, and it turns out there are a lot of fees he does not mention.

Another writer states growth of 6% per month if earnings are compounded (in other words, only if you turn them back over and reinvest them as more principle - meaning you then cannot withdraw them) - that means $6 on every hundred you have in the account... it is going to take a LOT of money in the account to make any significant monthly income, or to have enough to withdraw anything.

At first, I just reviewed one program. But I don't necessarily think that the writer is the issue anymore. The negative reviews I found on the first program were primarily from people who were marketing something else - suspect information. But a lot of the good reviews were by people selling the product, so who do you trust? I concluded that his program was possibly one of the better options for instructions, based on a number of reasons. But it is no longer about one program. The issue has become whether or not e-currency exchanging is in itself a business worth pursuing.

I did a lot of research on this initially. Information at the time was limited. It is more plentiful now, but it is very hard to tell who is telling the truth and who is not. What I do know is that the more I read about currency exchange, the more uneasy I feel about it. I have learned to trust that sick feeling in my stomach that says something is not right somewhere.

It appears that the organization backing this is located in a country without meaningful banking regulations. Red Flag One.

And some sources that back this forbid site visitors to even ASK where the company behind it all is making their money on the whole thing - because, you see, that company will not tell anyone how they make their money on the exchanges. Big Hairy Red Flag! Secrets ALWAYS raise suspicions, and rightly so! If a company is handling other people's money, even in passing, they ought to be open and aboveboard about so basic an issue!

There are reports, which I cannot verify, that some people are having trouble withdrawing money. Now, I have heard similar things from other offshore investment schemes - on paper your account grows astronomically, until you try to take anything out. I also hear people say they take money out regularly, but many who are touting currency exchange are rolling it over or adding in more to sustain higher growth.

It is riskier than they make it sound. Certainly any time you put money into an account, you had better be certain that you are going to get it back. With this, if it goes belly up, or if they just choose to defraud people (and there are certainly enough ways they can do that when your representation of your money is nothing more than numbers on a computer screen), you have no legal recourse because they are not within the legal jurisdiction of your country.

Now, any time you deal in investments, you put in HUGE amounts of money, for very small percentages of return. This is no exception. If you want to make hundreds of dollars, you must invest tens of thousands. And you have to leave the bulk of it in there earning just to be able to sustain the income - you leave hundreds of thousands in there earning if you want to be able to withdraw even enough to live on modestly.

As a sole means of income, you are going to have to keep putting money in, and work long and hard just to get to the point where it could replace a daytime job. The work is tedious and technical - many people say they learned it easily but that it took time. But like any other technical job, some people will grasp it easily, others will flounder. Many companies selling instructions tout e-currency exchanging as easy money, and fast money. It is neither.

I read some instructions on this topic, which were designed to explain how to get started. Here are my conclusions after that:

I don't get it all, because it is very confusing. I get the impression that it is MEANT to be confusing. And this guy explains what he means to explain much better than he explains what he intended to explain!

Here is what I DID get:

1. They say that digots (the unit that you make your purchases in) always increase in value. No honest business always increases... Everything is subject to SOMETHING. So that makes me uneasy. You cannot establish a system under which gains are guaranteed without something being fishy.

2. While digots always gain, currency fluctuations can negate that gain, so loss is possible.

3. When you withdraw money, it can take up to a month to actually get it. Average is 3-5 days, but sometimes it can slow way down. This indicates instability somewhere, but I don't know enough to tell where.

4. He says it is not investing. Yet you buy, and you sell, and your money has to stay in once you put it in. That is investing.

5. You can never withdraw your balance. You can only withdraw a percentage of your "gains". That makes the values mean something other than what they represent. No investment or business anywhere makes you leave your money there permanently. You close your account, you lose the TDV (the actual monetary balance that is doing the earning).

6. There are FEES. BIG ones. They hit you coming, and they hit you twice going. And they charge you for using the system. Losses can occur due to insufficient gains combined with large fees.

7. DX charges you to withdraw money. Plus, you cannot put money in, or take money out, directly. You have to use a third party system, which charges you a percentage on top of DX fees.

8. Someone said this is risk free because no one has your money at any one time... well, as long as you have an "account" that shows a balance that is not in your pocket or your regular bank account, then someone else has it, and the earnings are only theoretical, and highly vulnerable. Instability in any part of the system could make your electronic balance vanish in an instant.

9. You have to pay your fees from your interest - you cannot pay it from the principle. This means that you can lose big and end up owing if you do not make enough to cover your rather substantial fees.

10. There are constant changes. Most of the changes limit ways in which you can earn as quickly. This indicates one of two things: either it was not well thought out ahead of time, or the growth is not sustainable. Either one makes me uneasy.

I think this is complex enough, and so changeable, that it could take someone a long time to master it. Further, even when they thought they had it mastered, they could get blindsided by some little quirky rule somewhere that they did not understand.

I am not a stupid person. My IQ is in the Genius range (that is not bragging, that is a statement of fact), and yet it is highly confusing to me. I don't trust a business that cannot be explained in an understandable way, and this one cannot. There are layers and layers and understanding one just reveals another level of picky little complexities and issues.

It still makes me very uneasy. More so than before. Something does not feel right, only I cannot pinpoint quite what.

There are reputedly other ways to make money in the system besides just what he was explaining. His references to them don't make sense either.

If you go into this, be on your guard. If this goes under, there will be no warning because of previous problems which have resolved. By the time you know it won't resolve, it will be gone.

Written by Laura Wheeler, MicroBusiness Website Developer, and founder of the MicroWebmasters Alliance

Business Opportunities and Internet Marketing Systems that Don't Work

Highlights

Currency Exchange

There are a number of programs out there claiming that Electronic Currency Exchange is a good way to earn money. And they are all implying that the potential to earn is substantial. Our investigation suggests otherwise, and it turns up far higher risks than are ever suggested.