Think fast:

Someone tells you that they’re making a fortune doing something that another guy with a fortune told you to do, because God told him to do it.

Welcome to the strange world of Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing, and the strange re-interpretation of a website called SuFortunaDVD.com.

First off, I think it’s impossible to have a company name with more industry buzz-words.
Fortune High Tech Marketing. It’s like calling a cereal Yummy Crunchy Tasty-Puffs.
I don’t doubt that the founder, Paul Orberson, has found incredible success as a salesman (here’s an article to prove it), but in his business plan, success is only to be found at the very top.

Regardless of that, it seems like things get a little convoluted when translated to Spanish.
Enter SuFortunaDVD.com, a website that is tailor-made for Prosperity-Gospel Christian latin Americans. In the middle of the video, the short man tells of Paul Orberson’s claims that God told him to create a company that would allow him to share his fabulous wealth with everyone (last I checked, that was called a charity). At the home page is a thirty-minute long video where a short man with white hair explains the way the company works. Here’s what I gathered:

You have to sign up three people as salesmen, then sign on customers that subscribe to 10 of these products. The money is made by subscribing these customers to “customer loyalty” programs. The problem is that if you only have 17 programs to pick from! Try convincing someone in this capitalist market that they’ll be locked into a loyalty program.

With such a poor business strategy, where does this company make their money?
This is where the 300 dollar entrance fee comes in. For licensing and other “startup costs”, Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing will charge 300 dollars from the starting block. SuFortunaDVD gets by this prickly subject quickly by saying that by signing up just a few people, you’ll be able to recoup that cash, and more.

SuFortunaDVD.com doesn’t seem to convince, either. The website is slapped together, made with Joomla, an automatic drag-and-drop website maker.

The Problem: To be sucessful in this business, you have to make sure that everyone in your “downline” is actively working. You have to babysit everyone below you.

At the end of the video, the short man talking re-introduces himself as Pastor Juan Ayala, the Executive Manager of all of Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing. Why he would want to present himself as a religious leader instead of a business professional shows that he has a very focused audience. When clicking on the “radio” button, a playlist comes up of christian songs proclaiming wealth and success, interspersed with testimonies.

It seems like this business is more about faith than work.

The last time I realized I was making money with Google ads, I made the ad space bigger.
This appears to have worked. I’ve made more in the last two months than I’ve made in the whole year-and-a-half existence of this blog. And I haven’t posted anything for two and a half months!

That being said, I’ve been able to pay for hosting for this year, and hopefully I’ll receive my check in the mail.

I have to keep writing.

I got a strange letter in the mail last week. It had my name and address printed out and glued to the envelope, and the return address said “finanzas forex”, and MY address. The letter was bulky, and scotch-taped on one side. I honestly expected there to be a cloud of white powder when I opened it. Going against my better judgment, I opened it. The letter was a bunch of printed-out internet articles from a website that purportedly exposes MLM schemes. It was page after page of Finanzas Forex flames and the dangers of it. The letter really concerned me, not because it was talking badly about FFx, but because someone actually took the time to do a WHOIS search of my website, copy my address, and send me something to my house. I think a simple comment would have sufficed, my snail-mail-stalker-buddy. Needless to say, I’ve made the WHOIS information private.

Holy crap!

I’ve risen the Google ranks to become the fourth site listed for “finanzas forex”! If anyone looks over my first posts, they’ll see that this boost in internet stardom is a far cry from my humble beginnings. There are even people quoting me! Like PhD students and Polish guys and even robots! I must say that I’ve become somewhat of a celebrity on the pseudo-investment-pundit-blogosphere.

Being true to my roots, I’m going to increase the space alloted for google ads. Maybe I’ll finally turn a profit.

Note: My apologies to Christine Folch, the PhD student, whose blog I linked to for the sole purpose of progressing my own selfish agenda. Because the forum I linked to above may have not been written in Polish, I also extend my aplologies to my Polish (or Slovenian or Czech or whatever) friends.

Thankful for God’s blessings every day, even for the things I take for granted. Good turkey, too.

Finanzas Forex recently sent out a communiqué, advising everyone that thay have nothing to do with GrupoSafengo.com, apparently an investment website. On their “Terms and Conditions” page, GrupoSafengo states that they are listed commercially as “Evolution Market Group, inc”. It seems like Safengo is registered with that name in Colombia, while FFx is registered in Panama… It’s strangely suspicious that Grupo Safengo would want to use the exact same name of a company that does the exact same thing they do. Reminds me of the “Abibas” shoes they sell at the flea market.

Finanzas Forex has been up to alot lately. They’ve lately required that every investor revise and sign a contract, and it’s rumored that they already have aquired a bank, and will finally have a defined place to send money to. It’s also rumored that Finanzas Forex is going to close itself off to new investors, and create a satellite company that will have all of the licenses needed to operate in the countries around the world (As of now, Colombians can’t sign up due to legal issues).

Although it’s annoying to have to sign a contract, and keep up on which country can and can’t sign up, it’s also reassuring. FFx is playing by the rules, which implies that they’re actually in the game. Every day I have less and less doubt that it’s a scheme. So far, I can’t complain. I’m coming up to the six month mark, and my investment seems to have paid off. Already people I know have taken out their original investment, and I’ve been able to withdraw without too much incident.

FFx or not, it’as always good to diversify. I recently bought stock in Calypso Wireless, a publicly traded company that has several patents in cell phone technology. Their big one is a patent on the technology that allows them to switch from the cell network to wifi seamlessly. T-Mobile is infringing on their patent. Last week, Calypso Wireless filed a lawsuit with them with the Williams Kherkher Law Firm, possibly the most powerful legal team ever (they hold the record for winning the largest settlement in the universe). The stock has jumped from two cents to four, and is rumored to hit 25 cents over the course of several months.
So i’m in. I’ll see what happens.

Okay, so I confess… I didn’t read the instructions completely concerning interest transfers. There are some rules that Finanzas Forex follows:
1) FFx will process your transfer request only after 10 days have passed
2) The transfers will take place either on the 5th or the 20th of the month.
3) They’ll take longer if you made mistake on your bank information

So, for example, I put in my request to pull money out on the first of the month. Ten days had to pass before they would even look at my request. When the 20th rolled around, I suppose they decided to punish me by making me wait until the NEXT payment period, the 5th of the next month, causing the 5 week wait. Mystery solved.

I thought I would look over the frequently asked questions (located in the “Attention to the Client” area), and sure enough, all the info was listed.

As I had mentioned in the last post, I put a request to retire another 300 dollars (after fixing the bank info), and after about three weeks, I found it in my account. Strangely though, they charged me 45 dollars AGAIN! I just put in a complaint, telling them the situation– Let’s see if they respond.

Finally!

After five weeks, I finally got my money.
“Make sure that all the data are correct, or if not, 45 Dollars fees will be at your expense”

Bad english and all, FFx made good on their threat, and for not putting in my full name and investor ID in the “note” box (something I find slightly illogical), I was charged 45 dollars. Either way, it’s real money. 255 real dollars, to my real account. I put in another request to withdraw 300 dollars more for this month, so hopefully the process will be faster (and fee-less) this time.

I’ve never understood this “security” feature on the sign in page of Finanzas Forex.
The numbers don’t look very distorted, and any “bot” with decent Optical Character Recognition would be able to recognize these numbers.

As it turns out, the truth is even more disturbing.
A right click on any individual number will reveal that each number is separated into its own file. I took a quick look at the properties of the file.

The file name CONTAINS the number! This goes beyond stupid. Although I can’t think of any practical application of sabotaging FFx’s website via bots, one would think that if a security feature were to be implemented, it would actually be SECURE. This is like tying a fence with a bowtie. A simple Java program could exploit this!

Finanzas Forex, you are a company that transacts business solely over the internet. I have money in your company. Your website sucks. Please protect my money and patch these gaping holes so I can write glowing reports about the profits you are generating for me.

Republic of Panama, September 12, 2008

Administrative Department

Friday came and went, and I’m still waiting. I sent out a quick notice to them through the “attention to the client” link. Let’s see what happens on Monday. or Tuesday.

P.S. the writer of Finanzas Forex Blog dropped me a comment on my last post, and explained a little more about commodities. I checked out his blog, and found a wealth of information. You can find the google translated version here.