The third site down in that thumbnail of your google search belong to me. EBL (earn by loaning) has something called a “finders fee” which is equivalent to 5% of the loan amount. The “commission” if you may call it that is not available instantly and can only be used by you once the loan of the person you referred reaches maturity. Indeed if it was available instantly I’d be worried as it screams “Ponzi scam”.

Check out my blog for due diligence information and other info about Earn By Loaning.

*I am not in any way associated with Earn By Loaning. I am just a member of the program like many others*

Thanks for the posting Alan! I’m concerned about the promised rates of return. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but during my research I saw rates of return along the lines of 20% within a 3 month period. Now to the greedy person, that sounds great; to me, with about 7 years of investing under my belt, the red flags, whistles, and that big Lost In Space robot starts shouting “Danger! Danger Will Robinson!”

Yes, I was and still am concerned about the promised rate of return. However, I do realize that huge gains can be had via non-traditional financial tool, such as FOREX trading just to name one obvious one. The return for the current available loan terms is %20 for a $100-500 loan, %22.50 for $500-1000, and %25 for $1000-10,000. This is on a bi-monthly basis. They give you half of the return in 60 days and the rest at loan maturity, which is 120 days. If you do the math the monthly interest on a loan would be roughly %12.50. Can some people make this by non conventional means, yes. Can they do this forver, no. Is EBL making much of profit by offering such high return, for sure not. Are they going to lower it in the future, you bet! Even 6% per month is quite respectable in anyone’s book.

Now as for how they generate these returns, I honestly do not know because the program admins will not say because they are in fear that someone will do the same. So that is one “red flag” I guess. Where they do stand out above all such programs available to the public and non-qualified investors is that they require that you sign a legal contract with them and require proof of ID before they let you give them one penny. Basically you are contracting with a US Corporation (registered in Nevada). The company does exist and can be verified by checking out the Nevada State Companies Registries (link on my blog to that). A non-interested third party has met with the “financial brains” behind this business so we know that at least the main admin is real (this is quite rare in the shady industry of so called “online investing”). Also the EBL program passed the inspection of PENSCO TRUST for use in a EBL member’s ROTH-IRA plan.

Now, I am not an American so I do not know how stringent PENSCO would be with their due diligence, but this must count for something. PENSCO received all documents they asked for and they’ve aproved the PESCO customer’s plan to put some of his retirement assets into an EBL loan.

As far as payment, people are receiving their principal + interest once the loan matures. There are numerous people in the program’s forum attesting to this. A cynical individual might say that they are all paid, but I doubt so many of them would be paid.

As with any investment (except perhaps treasury bonds and precious metals) you are taking a risk. It is up to each individual to asses their own risk tolerance and choose accordingly. I believe this to be a legitimate opportunity and one that either will prove to be a debacle or great success. I put my bet on the latter.

As you read through my promotional site I hope you did not get the impression that I was trying to cajole anyone into joining (if so let me know and I will change my wording). I simply give you the facts and the due diligence info that I’ve accumulated so far. There is also the personal factor that comes into play. All members have access to the administrative staff via skype and such, and I keep in touch quite often. My gut feeling says that these folks are not out to get my money (and believe me there are PLENTY of people who are). However, I do realize that I could be wrong.

Now if only my forex trading would yield me 12.50% (so far I’m not quite up there with the pros sadly enough).

Sorry for the long winded response. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions about EBL or anything at all. Take care, and I wish you success with your investments.

I get worried when we get into promised rates of return. Banks can give promised rates of return, with the rates of interest subject to change due to Fed rate changes, because they make money off the money you deposit, ie loaning out to other customers.

Being a corporation isn’t really a something that puts me to any piece of mind. With some money and a lawyer, anyone can setup a corporation. Alot of people don’t understand what a corporation is; a corporation isn’t a big building. A corporation is some paper in a file folder in someone’s (usually a lawyer) file cabinet. They can file Chapter 11 just like anyone else. When that happens, bond holders get first dips on assets, stock holders, then any creditors, such as people who loan the company money.

Like the Croc Hunter says, “Danger, danger, danger”…

You are absolutely right. The only “redeeming factor” is that since you’ve made a legal contract with that corporation if it ever goes bust the corporation’s assets will be disbursed to its creditors (ie you who lent it money) - this is assuming that the said corporation still has any assets left to disburse lol :p..

As far as promised rates of return are concerned I share your suspicion but you’ve got to understand that when you form a legal contract promising to offer a specific yield you can’t quite change it every day - you have to wait until the “bond” - or loan in this case - matures. My guess is that the return offered to lender is significantly less so as to allow “room for play” in case their financial instruments aren’t performing so good for a specific period.

As for “Earn By Loaning” in 10 days away from my loan maturing and what I plan to do is place a scanned copy of the check I will receive on my blog as proof of payment. So effectively I will be in profit and I would have gotten my P+I (principal & interest) out.

Will Earn By Loaning continue to operate? - I cannot tell. However, I hope it does. I suppose time will be the ultimate arbiter.

What I would personally do, is treat it like gambling instead of investing from a money source perspective. Don’t use money that you MUST have back. Use only money you can afford to lose. After you win (get a return), put it back into the pot (reinvest), and keep doing that until you have winnings (returns) equal to your starting amount. Say you start with $100. Keep reinvesting returns until you have a total return of $100; then you pull out your $100, and keep reinvesting the returns. That way youi’re playing with the house’s money, and none of your money is at risk.

When you look at it that way, I do the same thing with my stock investments

lol..that’s exactly what I intend to do. In fact I am 10 days away from having my loan mature, and I’m taking my principal + interest out and leaving in some referral commissions that I received from referring a few of my friends.

As far as stocks, yes that’s a very smart way to proceed. In fact this strategy applies to just about any financial market.

Just to let everyone know EBL went private (invite only) which will definitely slow down the number of new members. This should prove to be a good test of the viability of this club.

I wish you all the best of luck with your investments.

Cheers!
Alan
c/o Alan’s Money Blog

Eric…

your site very full resources. i love to get more information from your site….

A friend happend on EBL about 2 years ago. He told me about it at a financially awkward time and I never signed up. Since then, we cannot seem to find a trace of how to sign on to the program. Someone please tell me how!

Richard

I’ve heard that EBL has closed.

That is true. EBL is now officially closed. I cannot mention the precise reason but a refund process in being put into effect. So far those who have loaned using e-bullion have been refunded.

All I can say about this is that it would’ve continued had it not been for a certain outside influence.

Happy investing to you all.

From my knowledge there was no illegitimacy involved. However there is no point in me revealing any info. The members involved should know or already know what is going on and that is all that matters.

Sounds about right. Just like Legisi, it will be all over before the “members” know what’s happening.

From the members I have talked to, NOTHING is happening. Even a rumor that funds were seized.

Good idea - keep a lid on it for the benefit of the people that run the program. Wouldn’t want any details to slip out of this “private” program.

Yes, I am familiar with that “rumor” Well, even if I started posting what I know all over the net, what good will it ultimately do? Nothing! This is our (ebl memebrs) problem and not anyone else’s.

If it turns out that this one is another LEGISI in the making, well then, I hope the main man behind this program ends up in jail just as Greg McKnight eventually will.

However, I do understand your cynicism. I too have had just about enough of these “private” investment programs. There are so few good private investment clubs around that the money you lose trying to find the good ones by far will outweigh the money you make in those rare ones that don’t end up being scams in the end.

I think the sensible thing to do is stick with more established investments. I chose to stick mainly to managed forex accounts with a little bit of self trading on the side.

I wish you and everyone else happy investing.

Alan - weren’t you promoting Legisi, or was that someone else? It appears that you previously were a supporter of EBL. If you acknowledge that you have “heard” the rumor, and you appear to be a member, you either know it is true or not. What “outside forces” could possibly be working against EBL that aren’t public? Will they be public soon?

I have friends in this that just watched Legisi flame out for good. Now they are in the same boat with EBL, as far as I can tell. Unless you know better, but it doesn’t appear so.

No I never promoted or was involved with LEGISI - thank god. However yes I was involved with EBL and yes I “promote” (invited 5 or 10 people into the program). I honestly believed the opportunity was genuine. Right now I am not sure what to think. From what I’ve heard the admin of the program has the intention to fight this “outside force” as he believes what he was doing was 100% legal.

I think right now is too early to jump to the conclusion that this is another LEGISI. However, some people have already threatened to take legal action, and maybe they actually carried out that thread - that I’m not sure.

I hope for our sake that we will see our refunds soon . Those who loaned via e-bullion already received their refunds, but us check and wire-payment folks have not.

Tell your friends to get in touch with me and if I can verify that they are EBL members I will invite them to a private forum where all EBL members have been gathering ever since the closure of the program.

Visit my website to get my e-mail address. Click on About - it’s there.

Cheers,
Alan

I appreciate your forthright responses. Good for you to not be in Legisi as a referrer. That’s going to be a big mess for some time to come.

I have a hunch that my friend is in the private EBL forum with you already. It’s a touchy subject, and I’m not interested in meddling further.

Good luck - hope you get paid, and be careful out there!

Thanks! Yep, it is a touchy subject for many. I know of some folks who were insane enough to actually borrow money using their credit cards in order to invest in this program. I feel so sorry for them, and I hope this thing ends well in the end.

I hope I get paid, but if I do not I didn’t lose any of my principal as I guess I was lucky enough to get that out before the program closed - some are not as fortunate however

Thanks for your concern - it’s much appreciated.

Yep, good advice. We should all be careful!

Hi Lonnie. I’m going to get in touch with the admin of the private EBL forum and try to get you in. However they do ask that your referrer vouch for you, so do you know his/her the account name or name?

Don’t post the info here. I’ll send you an e-mail and you can send it to me and I’ll forward the info to the forum admin.

Cheers,
Alan

Good luck getting into that forum Lonnie. There have been some outside forces (that’s a term for government agencies) that have been talking to EBL insiders.

If you’re referrer was Picard, best to try to hook up with someone else to get a backdoor into the private forum.

I think he’s kind of busy right now.