I would love to slap you. Maybe you deserve it, but certainly you need it. I need to pour iced water over your head, flog you with a sausage and yell as loud as I can in your ears …

"FORGET EVERY BIT OF ADVICE THE OLD INDUSTRY GURUS TOLD YOU, THE OLD ADVICE ABOUT AUTOSURFS DOES NOT WORK!"

Yes, you might be a little surprised. Yes you've probably not been flogged with a sausage before, and you'll probably be a bit confused as to why I've got an entire website dedicated to an industry I don't hold much faith in.I really believe that right now (October 10th 2006) the entire ‘industry' exists because of one company alone and I'd like to use this opportunity to explain why you might have lost money on investment after investment this year.

I'm pretty much out on a limb here. Nobody else seems to share my pessimism, but then look around … where are the autosurf commentators and advisors of last year? Have you received any email updates from these people telling you how much money they've lost and how they are trying to recover it? Are they still providing advice and strategies? They aren't because when the autosurf industry is strong, its actually hard to lose money. Whether you tell people to diversify, or to invest only in one company, the advice will appear to work. It's only when the industry is not going strong that people follow the old advice which once seemed to work, and effectively flush their money down the toilet.

I'm dedicating this article to the people who are scratching their head this year. The people who've consistently lost money in nearly every surf site of 2006 and wonder what is going on. We can't blame Stormpay any longer, we can't blame e-gold or SEC regulations so I'm going to tell you exactly why the odds are so hugely stacked against you this year.

1) Due Diligence DOES NOT work.

Due Diligence was the pompous buzzword of 2005. Every forum post required it to be used to assert your status as an autosurf elite. It means "do proper research about a company" before you invest.

Due Diligence makes some very dangerous assumptions …

- It assumes that if you know the name and contact details of a webmaster they will never run away.

- It assumes that the webmaster is competent.

- It assumes that it is hard to falsify DD documents.

2) People are Wrongly Petrified of the Word ‘Ponzi' Because they Associate it with 12DailyPro's Collapse.

Before 12DailyPro was around last year, people were not really concerned about how an autosurf made money. Suddenly this Ponzi word began infecting everything to do with autosurfing. People began to associate 12DailyPro with Ponzis with losing all their money. The case is MUCH more complex than that. If it were that simple then other autosurfs would have been hauled in front of the SEC too and this has not happened.

People are convincing themselves that autosurfs are trading in forex, investing in offline opportunites are living a dangerous lie. I'll leave it again until another time to explain

exactly how an autosurf makes money but for now don't let autosurfs blindside you with this kind of rubbish. A company declaring links with forex traders is much more likely to be a scam than one which keeps its operations more private.

3) People Confuse Reputation With Competence.

People seem to be connecting experience in a forum with an ability to run an autosurf.

Haven't you noticed that all these new autosurfs and HYIPs are being run by people with no experience at all in running sites. Why do you believe they will learn the ropes and excel?

4) Diversification Doesn't Work if There are no Good Companies Around

There have been times this year where there has not been even one autosurf worth investing in. Often it is worth getting out of the market for a few months until something credible appears again. If we'd have all done that since January, imagine how much we might have saved.

5) People Believe That Low % Autosurf Sites Are More Stable Than High Percentage Sites

I remember last year hearing a respected autosurf commentator explaining that sites offering 1% interest per day for a year should be considered as ‘bankers'. He was explaining that they are much more stable that high % short-term sites. How many 1% for 1 year sites do you see now? How many of them are being advertised or are attracting attention? There's about three I can think of and not one would get noticed in a forum.

6) People Still Have Blind Faith in AutoSurf Owners

I'd argue that during 2005 nearly every autosurf owner began their website with the best intentions in mind. They genuinely thought that they'd be able to pay members and keep the site running. I argue that this year the story is different. People have come to realize that when a site closes it is the owner who comes out smiling at the members expense. I believe that some companies (perhaps CompactSurf) set off with a financial target in mind. When they got a certain dollar value in their e-gold account they decided to close. It really is impossible to read the mind of the autosurf webmasters and there is nothing at all you can do about it.

7) People are Still Following Tipsters Like Sheep

Nothing makes me more angry at how irresponsible HYIP and Autosurf commentators have become. Read most of the autosurf blog sites, or read some of the emails that you get from those people and you'll recognize that there is ALWAYS one company being marketed. As I said, there can be (and there have been) times where not one HYIP or autosurf is credible. Most of the bloggers take the least-bad company and market that. As soon as it has problems they switch their downline into another company, collecting their commissions on the way.

The most common question I'm asked is "Which autosurfs should I invest in?" My standard reply is … invest in the industry leader and nothing else. I'll define this industry leader later, but I'm keen to keep this article academic and don't wish to go off-track. Most people are disappointed by my reply.

They were expecting me to whisper a company name in their ear and magically unleash the next way they can make millions. I could pander to demands and reel off the company that pays me the highest referral commission but I very much want my reputation to last longer than a typical autosurf's lifespan.

To Conclude …

* I hope by now you can appreciate just why you've been losing money this year and can see that autosurfing now is very different to how it used to be.

* I do not recommend many companies, simply because it is extremely difficult to predict their motives and their future.

* A wise investor will not search for opportunities which really do not exist.

* I have not yet completed an article about what new strategy you should adopt .. but it is in my to-do list. If you understand the gravity of my arguments here then this update is essential reading.

Copyright (c) 2006 Martin Pavion

Dec
 

Total UK personal debt

Total UK personal debt at the end of October 2007 stood at £1,391bn. The growth rate increased to 9.7% for the previous 12 months which equates to an increase of £122bn.

Total secured lending on homes at the end of October 2007 stood at £1,169bn. This has increased 10.5% in the last 12 months. 

Total consumer credit lending to individuals in October 2007 was £222bn. This has increased 5.8% in the last 12 months.

Total lending in October 2007 grew by £8.8bn. Secured lending grew by £7.3bn in the month. Consumer credit lending grew by £1.4bn.

Average household debt in the UK is £8,920 (excluding mortgages). This figure increases to £20,741 if the average is based on the number of households who actually have some form of unsecured loan.

Average household debt in the UK is £55,877 (including mortgages).

Average owed by every UK adult is £29,311 (including mortgages). This grew by £250 last month.

Average outstanding mortgage for the 11.8m households who currently have mortgages is £99,090.

Two fifths of mortgagors have secured debts of over £90,000, up from one fifth in 2004.

Average interest paid by each household on their total debt is approximately £3,744 each year (this equates to ~ 9% of take home pay).

Average consumer borrowing via credit cards, motor and retail finance deals, overdrafts and unsecured personal loans has risen to £4,678 per average UK adult at the end of October 2007.

Britain's personal debt is increasing by £1 million every 4 minutes.

Today in the UK:

• Consumers will borrow an additional £335m today
• The average household debt will increase by over £13.45 today
• 77 properties will be repossessed today
• 305 people today will be declared insolvent or bankrupt
• 2,750 County Court Judgements (CCJs) issued
• Bank and building societies will hand out £1bn in mortgages today
• Citizen Advice Bureaus will deal with 6,600 debt problems today
• The average car will cost £15.40 to run today
• More than 7,716 loan repayments are going unpaid every day
• The average home will cost £30 today to run
• Raising a child to the age of 21 will now set you back £23.50 daily
• The price of a typical house will increase by £33 today
• £526m will be withdrawn from cash machines today.
• 24.5m transactions worth £1.4bn will be spent on plastic cards today
• 1/3^rd of all groceries we buy today will end up in the dustbin.