Interview with Loretta, HYIPD Moderator

Hello, dear Loretta. First of all let us greet you on behalf of our readers. Of course, one can hardly find a person in the investment world, who would know nothing about you, but... still we ask you to introduce yourself? Please tell our readers, who is Loretta in the real life? Where do you live? How do you live? Do you have family, children?

- I'm a Texan with all the foibles that statement implies. Believing everything is bigger and better in Texas - ask any Texan. I'm slow talking and slow thinking that is why the forums are the perfect venue for me. I have time to reflect on what I wish to say, before posting.

At the present I live in a small farm and ranch community, though I am neither a farmer nor a rancher. I moved here 12 years ago after retiring from 30 years of teaching in the public school system. It was not a planned move, my father developed Alzheimer's and needed someone to care for him.

I have one son and 3 grandchildren. My son Steve and his wife Ruth have been missionaries in Nigeria for about 15 years. They only return to the states once every two years. Makes it difficult for the children to learn to know me. I miss being a real Grandma. How do I live? About 6 to 8 hours a day in front of the computer. :-)

What is your hobby? Are you a gambler?

- Art in all its forms. I draw, paint, build pottery, and do many crafts. Art was the subject I taught when I was a teacher. Time stands still when I am working in my studio. It is the right brain, left brain thing. The right brain doesn't know how to tell time. I guess you could call me a gambler; I invest in HYIP's.

Are investments your main job?

- That is a difficult question to answer. I am involved in many offline projects. Real Estate investing. Home renovations, although I do not do the actual work, I am the ideas person. I own an antique store, maybe a better description is Junk Shop. If we are talking about time spending, then investing is my main job.

Do you have many friends? Are they also constantly working on-line?

- Although I have tried to interest my friends in online opportunities, all but one have declined. If they own a PC, they only use it for email. It would be safe to say they spend very little time online.

I believe you need a certain mindset to get involved with online opportunities. One develops a real need to work with these program, not for the money, the money is a by product, but the fun is in the doing. Not only my friends, but many others do not have that mindset.

They listen to the news and listen to others who have been scammed and believe all online opportunities are scams and Ponzies. They do not take the time to investigate for themselves, thus they have a limited view of online opportunities. It is very difficult to change that attitude.

What is your friend's attitude to your job, dealing with investments? Are there any prejudices to you as a woman? To tell the truth now we don't know other women, dealing with investments, and achieving such a success as you. Does it affect your life? Or you see no differences between male-investor and female-investor?

- My friends and I do not discuss my investing. They do not know that I am a moderator at the HYIPdiscussion forum.
Three years ago, for Christmas, I gave 8 of my friends a $45 membership in a program I thought had great potential. After I left the party one of the group, said it is a scam.

She had recently watched one of those "Extra" news programs, which had a report on scams. Without any consideration of my 20 years of association with the group and without ever having visited the website, she proclaimed it a scam.

You cannot discuss possibilities with anyone with a closed mind. It hurt me that anyone would think that I would knowingly involve my friends in a scam. For me it is now a non-topic of conversation in that group.

Prejudice? I don't think so, there may be some, but I have not noticed it. There are those who disagree with me, but I do not view that as prejudice, just a difference of opinion.

Men do dominate the online investing field and I do not see that changing. However, judging by the increased number of women posting in the HD forum, more women are discovering the potential of HYIP's.

I really don't see a great difference in their investment patterns. We all seem to follow the same rules. Although, a few seem to me to be erratic in they are investment choices. I feel that is by design, not because they do not know what they are doing. I find some of the women's postings very astute and trust their judgment.

How do you measure success? Is it the amount of money you make or is it something else? I have only recently begun to feel I am nearing success. I am constantly amazed at the notoriety I have gained from being a moderator at HD.

I guess what surprises me the most is the number of people who PM and email me asking for advice. I frankly do not think my advice is any better than an other long time investor, but because I have been ask, I take that responsibility very seriously.

I never want anyone to lose a penny from taking my advice. It happened in the past before I knew much about investing and it is a terrible feeling to know you were the cause of their loss. I never want to have that feeling again.

Loretta, how long have you been working with computer? Please, tell us when were you involved in this mysterious and intriguing world of virtual business? How did it happen? Have you always been involved in investments ONLY?

- I was FORCED to buy my first computer in 1999. My sister-in-law and I were working some offline mail order programs and I was continually coming up with projects for her to do on her computer, she finally got tried of it and gave me her old lap top. I had resisted getting a computer because I thought I was too old to learn to use it. To everyone`s surprise, mostly mine; I took to it like a duck to water.

Of course the first week I was on the phone to her about every 15 minutes asking what to do next. Then I called in a panic, "Help, I broke it, the screen is black." My 9-year-old grandniece, who was with me at the time, found the problem, it had become unplugged.

Then there was the time my sister-in-law asked me to free up space by deleting stuff I wasn't using. That was a lot of fun, I deleted Word, she didn't ask me to delete again. I had a whopper of a long distance phone bill that month.

The laptop didn't last but a few months. It was old, very slow, and didn't have much memory. August 28, 1999 I bought my first computer and the rest as they say is history.

Didn't discover HYIP's until February 2004, up until that time I dabbled in just about every other online opportunity you can name. Didn't make any money, but that was not because I wasn't in some good programs.

I was, I am just not a good recruiter and most programs require recruiting. That is why I was overjoyed when I discovered HYIP's, recruiting is not a necessary function to making money in HYIP's.

How did you join the hyipinvestment project?

- HD was only a few months old when I first posted there, July 2004. They were just beginning to build a readership.

Although, Prime Plus was still paying HYIPinvestment, HI had moved them to the not paying section of the rating list. They had had numerous not paying complaints from members.

The Admin of Prime Plus was raking Steve and Jake over the coals with language unfit for tender ears. I posted he must have written the book "How to Win Friends and Influence People." Not sure how many other post I made at that time, only 4 or 5, I think, when Jake PMed me and asked if I would be a moderator.

Now, I know Jake didn't ask me because I was so knowledgeable about HYIP's. At the time I was still making all the newbie mistakes, losing more than I was winning. It is my opinion he asked because he thought I was funny.

I hesitated in the beginning, because of my lack of knowledge and wasn't sure what would be expected of me. My main concern was - would I be expected to support the programs listed at HI when posting on the forum.

Would rapping a listed program frowned on? After all that is part of HI's bread and butter. No problem, HD has never restricted what mods we could or could not say.

It would also be interesting for our readers to know your opinion about our resource?

- HYIP News is a great resource for all investors, new and old. There are timely and interesting articles, and timely updates on listed programs.

I especially like the listed problem hyip's in the forum. It is easier to read and find the program you are interested in, then most scam list. There is no excuse not to check that list before you invest. Could save you a bundle, if you take advantage of the information there.

As a real professional, please, tell your opinion of the HYIP arena nowadays. What is the stage of its development? What trends are going to be the most remarkable in the nearest future? What should we expect? What programs, services may appear?

- I see no great changes in HYIPs or the way they are presented in the near future. I do believe as we all work on the problem of identifying scams, we will see improvement in that area. If we could find a way to inform newbies BEFORE they invest we would have won half the battle. As the scams will find it less profitable to open, there would be considerably fewer of them.

Newbies tend to invest first then look for answers after they have been scammed, if we could turn that around we would be in much better shape. The person, who comes up with an idea to get to the newbies first, would be a hero.

Auto-surfs are very hot now and many HYIP investors are getting involved who would not have looked twice at these programs 4 or 5 months ago. I believe this trend will continue as long as the big ones do not run into any long lasting serious trouble.

These programs seemed to have learned from the past that it is not enough to throw up a site and collect fees; they must offer something with substantial value that will sustain the program.

I believe we will see more services like the Feeder Fund, site owners who are capable of a deeper Due Diligence than we can do ourselves. And also more sites like Invest Navigator, which provides us with up to date and useful information.

There have been a few Invest Navigator type-sites this year, which didn't last long as they were just a cover for their own HYIP program. The good thing is that investors are not as gullible as they were and soon root out the impostors.

It is a shame that we have to be as careful with those who are promising us help in identifying the scams as we do with the HYIP's themselves. That is why I am grateful for those who have proven themselves trustworthy.

Loretta, please, share your secrets the secrets of success? You definitely have some... Of course we are not asking you to tell us EVERYTHING, every woman should be mysterious, but at least lift the veil of mystery...

- LOL, there is not much mystery about me anymore. The longer you live the less mystery. Keeping secrets is difficult; you are bound to slip up sometime. I find I do not even care who knows my secrets. Even if you have had a misspent youth, it just isn't important anymore. But I am not tell whether my youth was misspent or not. Just take your best guest.

It is amazing to me the age diversification of the people investing. I do not remember who started the thread asking us to tell a little something about ourselves, but it was in April, I remember, because I was a few weeks away from my 70th birthday in May.

I was surprised to see members as young as 18 taking the plunge into investing. I had assumed everyone was at least 30 and older. Lordy, at 18/20 all I could think about was dating and dancing.

My secret of success is finding something I enjoy, learning all I can about that activity and sticking with it until I get it right.

What is HYIP for you?
- Fun and profitable.

Loretta, do YOU invest in HYIP?
- Yes, I am in 11 HYIP's and 5 auto-surfs. However, do not ask me for my list, as I can only recommend one HYIP with a clear conscious and that is the Feeder Fund. I suspect at least two of my auto-surfs have a limited life spand and are on their last leg at this moment.

The traditional question to HYIP famous persons: Have you ever been scammed? How did it happen?

- Oh yes, by the best and worst of them. Introduced to me by a friend three years ago, I bought $8000 worth of stock in a company called 5%. Turned out to be the biggest Norwegian scandal in history.

No warehouses full of merchandise and if I recall correctly, there weren't even any warehouses. My "real" investing started in February 2004. The only thing I had heard about investing was diversify and boy did I diversify. Between Feb and June I joined about 25 HYIP's all using the scammers script.

All the big ones got me. Trade Profit Gold, FLO, SHG, Weekly Interest and my favorite Golden Nestegg. All total I lost about $30,000 from Feb. to Dec. Doesn't sound too much like a famous HYIP person, does it? More like a infamous HYIP loser.

Along about May I came to the conclusion there must be more to this investing than I knew, so I began to get educated. I made better choices the last half of 2004, although I was still losing programs that had lingered from the first part of the year.

When I lost Golden Nestegg, I said that is enough and stopped sending out of pocket funds to Intgold and Egold. Now, I only invest with money earned from those HYIP's and Auto-surfs that are still paying. If I do not have money in my e-currency accounts I do not invest.

I guess the most difficult part of investing is withdrawing that initial spend, first and formost. So often we think, "If I compound a little while, then take out my money, I will made sooooo much more."

Along side of rule #1, do not invest what you are afraid to lose is PRESERVE YOUR CAPITAL. When you preserve your capital you live to invest another day. No matter how good the investment looks to you, get your spend out ASAP and play with the profits.

What are you working at on-line now, in the investment sphere?

- At this time I am adding funds to the programs in the Feeder Fund and upgrading a couple of the auto-surfs. The other HYIP's and auto-surfs will have to rock along on the funds already there until they show me they are worth more. I have not added a new program since May and although I see a few programs I would like try, I am resisting that temptation until they matured a little longer.

As usually in the end of our interview you may tell anything you want to the readers of ours. Of course it can be a farewell to them, though we`d like to know something about you as a person, that`s why we leave this field for your free thoughts, concerning HYIP, life, your job...

- My job in this latter part of my life is to have fun, be happy and get rich. In that order. The HYIPdiscussion forum is providing much of the fun and the be happy. Maybe HYIP's and Auto-surfs will provide the get rich.

I have found that getting old is not so bad. My IQ may only be average, but I find life experiences adds a great deal to your smarts and you can only get that by growing older. I plan to add much more to my smarts before I am done.

When I have messed up, it is usually because I have not followed the rules that have been proven to work. And that applies to everything in life. Those who do not follow the rules, find life a tough row hoe.

Contrary to what the very young think, you do not stop learning, wanting, and loving just because you reach a certain age. It hasn't happened at 70, we will see how I feel when I reach 80. Anyone out there a good dancer? I could use a partner. Do not apply if you do not know how to Cha Cha.

Dear Loretta, thanks a lot for finding time for us and answered our questions. Hope we can keep on communicating with you in future, ask for your comments on different subjects. Good luck in your personal life in your investment life. Have more smiles and higher incomes!

- You are welcome. I'm available anytime you ask. I enjoy being a know it all, even when I am wrong.