I hope that some of the advice I have will help you in achieving an understanding as well as help you become profitable with your online investing experience. The absolute, most important advice I can give which I cannot emphasize enough is

NEVER INVEST MORE THAN YOU ARE WILLING TO LOSE OR CAN EMOTIONALLY HANDLE!!!

Whether you are investing in a HYIP, a long term program or a quick game, you should:

Please make your choices wisely! No one is forcing you to invest and there a high risk of you losing no matter what type of program you are in. If you believe you will get rich quick, then there may also be a hefty price to pay. You will profit and you may lose, so please be careful and try not to get caught up with the glitz & glamour of high profits combined with quick returns. Desperation & greed can become very costly and make you do things you wouldn't normally do. Mistakes are easily made then and when realized, it will be too late.

So, with that said, let's get down to business. Now please remember that this is for general online investing and not concentrated on a specific type of program.

START SMALL especially if you are new. If you have just entered the world of online investing and gaming, start off with small deposits. This will help you get the hang of things and see how the program works.

UNDERSTAND THE PROGRAM. Make sure that before you invest that you completely understand the program and how it is run. ASK QUESTIONS!!! Don't be afraid to ask questions. If you find that an admin or any of the programs staff is not helpful in explaining the program to you, then don't invest. If they don't take the time to help potential members, then how confident are you with entrusting your money with them? Other members can be helpful, but don't 100% rely on them.

DIVERSIFY, DIVERSIFY, DIVERSIFY!!! Don't put all your eggs in one basket so to speak. You are better off spreading your money around a little bit rather than a large sum in one program. If a program you are in ends up scamming, the game ends or it just ends for any reason, your loses are minimal.

KEEP INFORMED! I know it can be a pain as well as time consuming, but read the forums. And not just one forum, but several others to see how the program is going. I have saved myself a bit of money when I read the threads in a couple of other forums and not just MMG and found a few programs already in trouble. Seems the admin was taking care of MMG members to bring in more money before they scammed. You can also take a look at who is investing and if there are any "paid posters".

TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS! If you have a bad feeling or something doesn't seem right, trust your instincts to stay away. More often than not your gut will tell you if the program is right for you or not. If you are unsure, then watch a little or don't invest. It's better to be safe than sorry.

DON'T BE PRESSURED to invest with a site because everyone else is. It's easy to get caught up with all the glitz and glamour of a program. I have seen many people lose just because of this. If hyips, autosurfs or games offer large prizes like a car, IPODs, or things like Playstations, more often than not they are a scam and use this type of marketing to draw more people in.

DD does not necessarily mean that a program won't scam. It's generally information that has been researched on a program and is more helpful in determining the more obvious scam sites. Personally, my DD is more of a prevention tool to keep away from programs and have a lower risk of losing money. Here are some helpful tips on doing DD on a program.

WHOIS-I always pull up the whois on a program. Again, scamming admins are creatures of habit. I have seen numerous ones use the same whois information repeatedly. One of my favoite whois lookups is https://www.domaintools.com. It is free to sign up, and you are able to do a minimal reverse IP search so you can see what other sites are on the same host. Another one is http://www.hyip-help.com. This one also lists sites that have the same IP address. The one thing I really like about it that you can quickly access the whois on all of them as well as a thumbnail of the site. I tend to click on all of the sites listed and see if there are any similarities (as well as looking at the thumbnails and compare the templates). If the sites are still up, you may want to take a look at the plans and see if they are the same as well. My rule of thumb is to keep in mind that the anonymous whois info can be someone who is hiding something or may just want to keep their info private, but definitely stay away from ABSOLUTEE CORP. LTD & Katz Global.

FORUMS-Go to your favorite & the more popular forums to see what people are posting about the program. Some are more informative than others & you would be surprised that you can find other DD that others have done & it can be helpful in yur determination of the program. Utilize the search engines to find out what forums the program is posted in and you will be able to find blogs too. I like to use the search feature in each of them as it will pull up the program if it was posted before. I have actually busted repeat scammers using this method and not having to do any other DD on them. Use the search feature to pull up egold numbers too.

SEARCH ENGINES- Utilize several different seach engines to look up alot of different information. Don't limit yourself to just Google. My 3 top ones are Google, AOL and Yahoo. I have also used Ask Jeeves, MSN & Netscape. It's amazing what you can pull up with them. I generally use them for:

Nope, you aren't done with the whois info yet. Here is a list of searches I do on the different search engines. Now remember, if a program is new, it won't turn up many results. But you may have some luck with the admins name or other info.

*program name
*admin names (utilizing the whois info)
*do a search on the address as well as phone number (both in the search engines & the yellow/white pages of that country)
*search the email address
*admin nicknames from forums
*finding the forums they are posting in
*finding moniotors
*finding if they have been blacklisted anywhere
*seeing if other programs were run by that admin
*find blogs about the programs
*do a search on the IP address
*egold account numbers (type in "egold then the number)

For the US, here is a quick lookup for addresses and some other info. Might not be indepth, but it's easy to use http://www.melissadata.com/lookups/index.htm

For those who are a little more curious about the address, fo to Google Earth and download their softtware. You can get satellite pics of the locations. If the address is in the US, try http://local.live.com

EGOLD ACCOUNT NUMBERS- You would be surprised how much info you can get from them. Use the popular forums search feature to see if the account has been posted for one reason or another (too bad it doesn't pick them up off of screenshots).Also utilize the search engines with "egold xxxxxxxx". It wouldn't be a bad idea if you decide to make your own list of the ones that have scammed you or check your entire egold history to see if you have spent or received from them. Several of my friends do this on a regular basis just to make sure they don't get taken in by the same scammer. Some other useful egold checkers http://www.goldpolice.com/scamkiller.htm (unfortunately not updated enough) http://scamdatabase.com/index.php .Unfortunately there aren't more accoounts listed.

SUPPORT TICKET- Send in support ticket to see how long it takes to get a response (occasionally they don't even reply). Make sure you keep your reply email so you can look up the IP address as well. It wouldn't be a bad thing if you asked for their egold number to make sure you are "spending to the right account".

PAID POSTERS- Stay away from programs with paid posters. How do you determine paid posters? Check out the members in the forums. New members or members who post just in that thread can give you an inclination that they may be paid. Review their posts as well. It's funny how you will see major gaps in their posts as well as some of them post in the same exact programs. This is time consuming, but when you get used to it, you can actually breeze thru the posting histories pretty fast.Try to contact some of the members privately, just to make sure the Admin is not making multiple posts themselves under different usernames.

MONITORS- First and foremeost, make sure the monitor links work. I guess one of the new "tools" is that the scammers are just putting images of monitors on their sites (usually the ones on the bottom of the page) and they aren't actually monitored. I tend to stay away from programs when there are a ton of monitors in the threads. Of course monitors will get paid because they are traffic generators so figure out who the monitors are in the threads. Be careful with some of them as there are some known to be working with scammers to promote the sites.I personally can't stand them, but there are a few out there that actually watch out who they are promoting.

NEVER INVEST MORE THAN YOU ARE WILLING TO LOSE OR CAN EMOTIONALLY HANDLE!!!