Monday, June 4, 2007

The Possible Demise of E-gold, Online Payment Processor

Throughout my two years of using the e-gold online payment processor, I have come to realize that many illicit online businesses were favoring e-gold. They consist of bogus investment opportunities known as H.Y.I.P (High yield investment) scams & also dubious marketing schemes disguised as advertising opportunities called Auto/Manual Surfs. Should e-gold be gone, then such scandalous businesses are going to look for another online payment processor which also offer low identity verification requirements. Therein is the weakness of e-gold. Year after year, e-gold had still lacked decent account ownership verification. Anybody could open unlimited e-gold accounts without the need to provide any proof of identity. It was the very fact that made it a favorite payment processor for criminal activity including money laundering & possibly terrorism too.

I have also come to believe that the hype of an e-gold account getting "hacked" was possibly designed by criminals to instill fear in new & honest e-gold account owners. The fear ensured that beginner & honest e-gold account owners felt uncomfortable when storing significant amounts of funds in their e-gold accounts. The discomfort felt by e-gold users may have indefinitely influenced them to believe that their money was safer in the hands of mistakenly capable individuals whom operated "ponzi" schemes, promising wealth & building false trust in their customers. I myself had experienced the situation as a client of the now defunct 12dailypro auto-surf program in 2005. There were many more similar programs like it & they all utilized e-gold as a payment processor. Rumor had it that e-gold was also investigated by the F.B.I. (Federal Bureau of Investigation) that same year.

Now the U.S. Justice Department had Digital Currency Business E-Gold indicted for money laundering and illegal money transmitting after two & a half years of investigation by the U.S. Secret Service Orlando Field Office in collaboration with the I.R.S. (Internal Revenue Service), the FBI and other state/local law enforcement. The recent "crackdown" of e-gold's illicit activities by the U.S. departments is a possible sign that a monopoly of another online payment processor is now in motion. The authorities had wounded a twisted industry including its favored e-gold payment processor & most likely see to it that the target industry bleeds itself dry into a grave. Who knows, maybe the online child porn industry & another suspicious online payment processor is going to be the next target of the U.S. authorities. I doubt the situation is going to affect the online porn industry as it is not exactly a small income earner as compared to the online High Yield Investment Industry (H.Y.I.P) or the Auto/Manual surf industry.

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