I bet you have heard about electronic money or e-currency or digital money. There are many kinds of electronic money in this world. The ones that I address this time are those being used in cyber world. People usually use them as means of payment and income from many HYIP (High Yield Investment Program) "companies". Yes, electronic money or you may call it virtual money is very popular among the HYIPers. I suggest you had better stay away from these so-called "companies", avoid losing your money. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
A High-Yield Investment Program (HYIP) is a type of scam. At one time, it was used to refer to an investment program which may have offered a high return on investment. The term "HYIP" was abused by the operators of scams to camouflage their scams as legitimate investments. Due to this overuse by the operators, HYIP has become synonymous with scam or Ponzi scheme. The usage of the term has evolved to refer to a kind of Ponzi scheme that recruits "investors" through the Internet.
A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that involves promising or paying abnormally high returns ("profits") to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from net revenues generated by any real business. It is named after Charles Ponzi.
There are about more than 7 types of electronic money out there which may be legitimate or illegitimate as listed below:
Item number 1 to 6 are very famous among the HYIPers or small traders in "forex market". I used e-gold and Liberty Reserve for dealing with Marketiva which is claimed to be "a financial services corporation specialized in providing traders with high quality online trading services" as stated in their website. Recently there are also warnings about Marketiva as a long scam so that I think I will not involve again in such a loose free digital money again (or I go broke due to forex market :-)
What is e-gold? Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
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 but the operations were conducted from Florida. In 2007 the proprietors of the e-gold service were indicted by the US Department of Justice on four counts of violating money laundering regulations
But then I left e-gold because there was problem with e-gold and I have found a likely-legitimate one ie: WebMoney Transfer. Be careful with e-Bullion because I heard they are also facing problem now?
IMHO, I rather choose WebMoney Transfer, or more trusted PayPay which is owned now by eBay and located in the US. WebMoney Transfer seems to be a real and well managed company though it is located in Russia and it offers a good security client interface, ie: WebMoney Keeper Classic and Keeper Light. I choose Keeper Light because it do not require installation onto your computer. What is WebMoney? Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
WebMoney is an electronic money and online payment system (transactions are conducted through WebMoney Transfer). WM Transfer Ltd, the owner and administrator of WebMoney Transfer Online Payment System, was founded in 1998 and is a legal corporate entity of Belize, Central America. Originally targeted mainly at Russian clients, it is now used world-wide. The company claims to have more than 4.5 million users.
WebMoney seems a little bit loose in its requirements than PayPal. But if I want a safer and surely legitimate one, I will choose PayPal for all transactions. Also you can use PayPal easily for eBay transactions.
Before you can use e-money, you have to change money from standard currency to digital currency. To do this, you must meet digital currency exchange by transferring your standard money to them and then they will deposit an amount of equivalent to e-money. Here are the list of these exchangers:
I used 2 of them, ie: eForexGold and TukarDuid. The process is quite long for eForexGold because it is out of Indonesia. So that I change the service to TukarDuid which is very fast due to simple and easy communication in the same region.
Recently I came across this site while surfing. The site is selling goods or services which one of the payment terms can be done in e-money. More over the shop is claimed to be located in Indonesia so that it is easier for us who live there to deal with the store. I haven't done any transactions with them yet because I have no more e-money and plan not to deal with such things again :-) So guys, be cautious with the world of capitalism and your own desires!
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