The Autosurf Demise - A Summary

In my last post I explained that "get-paid-to" Autosurf sites are not nearly as attractive today as they were two years ago.
In case you have not been following the industry lately, here is a quick breakdown of the Autosurf demise:

October 2005

StudioTraffic (ST), one of the largest autosurf programs in 2005, expands to China and invests in several subsidiaries around the world in what turns out to be a last attempt to secure their business.

Late 2005
ST runs into financial problems. Their in-house payment processor StudioPay cannot keep up with outstanding payments. StudioPay accounts are frozen to prevent customers from withdrawing money.

December 2005

Many other Autosurf programs which depend on the StudioTraffic investment have to close doors. Most programs are abandoned, sold or rendered useless in another way. Even traffic-generating Autosurf sites come to a halt with the exception of some "evergreens" like BreedTraffic and Autohits.dk which are still rock-solid programs to generate traffic in 2007.
INTGold, a huge payment processor which has been offering a card to withdraw money from online accounts, is subject to a raid and is forced to close down business.

February 2006

It is hard to keep track of the market, bad news arrive hourly. The StudioTraffic/StudioPay bubble bursts. A hacker gets access to the customer database and sells it via email. Website is defunct, nobody is able to withdraw money. Company is subject to an investigation by the FBI.

An FBI investigation is also started against another major player in the Autosurf business, 12dailypro.

After INTGold, another major payment processors becomes a victim. Being accused of supporting pyramid schemes due to the FBI investigation against 12dailypro, Stormpay decides to freeze accounts of all Autosurf program members. Even after an agreement with 12dailypro is made, both companies soon find themselves unable to maintain a business relationship.

Stormpay is out of business as an autosurf payment processor, yet "survives" as a payment processor for online auctions only.

March 2006 - Today
After that, everything went downhill. The two major programs were already taken down and most of their members lost 100% of their investment.
The smaller Autosurf programs had themselves invested in 12dailypro to be able to maintain their high interest programs. After 12dailypro went down, most programs were unable to pay their own members resulting in a collapse of the Autosurf economy.
Some members were able to get their money back by withdrawing it before the crash or by the use of legal means, but most were left with nothing but the sore feeling of "being ripped-off".

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) subsequently created a set of simple "rules" based on U.S. law that Autosurf programs in the United States have to follow in order to stay in business. An advisory paper concerning Autosurf websites has also been released by the SEC to help customers understand the risks of investment programs with pyramid schemes.

Since 2006, few new Autosurf programs hit the market and even fewer old programs managed to survive the shutdowns of February 2006.
Foreign programs which do not follow the SEC rules seem to have a hard time attracting new members. Apparently, the SEC measures against fraudulent Autosurf businesses were successful to some extent.

Compared to Autosurf, FOREX trading websites as well as HYIP s(High Yield Investment Programs) picked up a lot. These businesses both show a higher amount of new members. Customers who want to invest money properly rather than getting scammed by trusting a company with a non-existent investment plan (or in one word: actual Investors) are more likely to be busy with FOREX trading than willing to join another Autosurf program nowadays.



Related Tags:
12dailypro - studiotraffic - autosurf - scam - fraud - hyip- forex