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This review used to be titled Mazu.com. It is now a general
review of e-currency trading in general.
Rating:

Level of Review:
Researched. Too high a risk.
Overview: An electronic currency
exchange program, instructional materials sold by many different
vendors, and free instructions available.
Product: Writers sell
you a program, and that is their product. Yours is
investments.
Costs: Free to hundreds
of dollars for instructions, plus investment money to
start.
Compensation:
Mazu.com 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. Another writer states growth of 6% per month if earnings
are compounded - 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.
Conclusion:
At first, I just reviewed Mazu.com. But I don't necessarily think that the
writer is the issue anymore. The negative reviews
I found on this guy 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 suspicious, 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.
No, I don't know
the ins and outs of currency trading. But the more
I do learn, the more slippery and unstable it feels.
I just cannot recommend it as having either a sound
foundation, or an acceptable risk. This was in no
way an easy review to write. I do not wish to destroy
hope in people, but neither do I want to recommend
anything that will harm people. And I think, in
the end, this will more likely harm millions than
help them.
UPDATE: 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 fluxuations 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.
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. 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.
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