Got scammed in Vietnam on Hai San

This week second time I dream about Andy Lau. First is about him sponsoring coffee for $8.80 I ask if he is really endorsing on the product. Second time is when. Jackie and me walking in a tourist attraction I suddenly sing the song 我和我追逐的梦。I just fell asleep like a baby on the hotel sofa. We had been enjoying our one month travel in Nha Trang. This is like living the dream of working 4 hours work week on the nice beach sipping mojito. It must be the power of law of attraction. You are what your thoughts are.

Having Oc Zang with uncle and father

Tonight we went to eat hai san (seafood) again. After last night where we paid 460k/kg for the grouper fish which we choose the place as Jackie like to eat there. We felt we were scammed for the tourist price. Tonight we ask the same fish it was selling for 350k/kg. Although we got sold the tourist price. But on a brighter note without knowing the high price we would never to so sure of finding the cheap price. The reason why we will choose to eat at this place firmly is we felt we found the better price. 

I tend to have the ability to find reason to be happy even if I got scammed. Which is a very important attribute as I will be more resistance to adversity. Life is great. 

Speaking of scamming in Vietnam, I want to share that my Uncle got scammed for iphone repair in Vietnam. Uncle's iphone 11 got short circuited after it was splashed with seawater. The phone just kept restarting. He brought the phone to a shop near our hotel and was told that he will open up and help to dry the phone for a small fee of 50k ($3SGD). I was very skeptical why the shop owner was charging so little for the work of opening up the phone. I used to be selling and repair mobile phone back in the days and things like this was worth at least a repair fee of >$10 - $20 in SGD.

He opened up the screen and blow the phone with hair dryer, since I didn't want to sit there to wait so I went to away to buy fruit juice. You know end up the owner took the phone backstage and replaced his original screen with another used screen. I knew it when I ask Uncle to take back the old "spolit screen" which I observed is a China knock off screen. Kanna 狸猫换太子 liao. I saw the china sticker at the screen somemore is partially peeled off, this cannot be the original apple LCD.

Over the phone, Uncle ask if he should proceed with the repair cost of 2.2mil ($120). I didn't tell him about the scam, I just ask him to proceed with the repair since paying the money is the only way to solve the problem of turning on the phone again, the owner will disconnect and reckon the phone useless if Uncle dont' agree to the repair. 

Classic using low bait to entice you in the shop and disable your phone and say its spolit and provide you with "illusion" of choices of screen like grade A / original. Even worst they replaced the screen with an old "grab driver" phone LCD. I can tell cause there is burn mark of map navigation that is barely visible. The owner earned 2.2mil and replaced his fault LCD with Uncle working LCD. The LCD was not the issue to begin with since it was restarting loop showing apple logo all along which suggest that the LCD is not the issue in the short circuit issue.

However, the world is not ready to take the truth. People will do all they can or lie to themselve but to listen to the cold hard truth of the world. I must learn to 看破不说破。

Is finnciti a scam? a layman perspective

Recently, thru a friend introduced me a platform finnciti (previously known as smicap) where you can multiple your investment in folds. The return as per quoted is up to 100% just by holding your investment on hand. I was skeptical and interested at the same time so I went online to do a little research on my own. It is not difficult to return result by just searching:

"Is finnciti a scam" or "Is smicap a scam". Reviews were in mixed bag. Some mention that they earned big bucks and its a platform for normal people to get richer while some other point out some resemblance of a scam structure and therefore classified finnciti as a scam platform.

I am a layman using basic logic to analyst the concept and by no mean I am advising to invest or against it. But in my humble opinion, ALL INVESTMENT POSSESSES RISK AND PLEASE BE PRUDENT WHEN DOING ANY KINDS INVESTMENT AND ONLY INVEST IN YOUR MONEY THAT YOU CAN BEAR LOSING.

SMICAP was established in 2007 by Singaporean Simon Ng(黄彦清) and subsequently renamed to finnciti in 2012, at point of writing the company is 9 years old. I do not want to touch base on the history of the company as there are website like http://finnciti.blogspot.sg/ out there providing better information.

In China, Fuzhou, at least. He is under investigation.

How does it work?

The game had limited number of robot, you can view its as "token". Basically anythings that are limited with more demand will make the token price to increase in value. When new sign up comes in, value up and existing player get to profit from the price increase of the robots that they initially had. The game is designed in a new that the price of the robot can only increase but do not decrease.

How can a system increase in value infinitely? 

This is how its works, assuming that the robot is 30cents each. You holds 10 unit of robots so the total value you have is $3. Imagine the price goes up to 60cents each robot the designer of the game do a splitting of robot. So instead of 60cent of 10 robots, you now instead have 20 robots of 30cents. (simple illustration) In a way to help balance out the supply and demand. Noted that although now the robots increase in quality, but the value is adjusted to be the same.

If everyone earns money, how the money comes from?

analogy: like if you buy a house for 50k, and the demand is appreciated to 100k. The new buyer buy the house for 100k. You gained 50k profit but the buyer loses 100k from the pocket. (money had to be come in somewhere). So before the new buyer can profit form the house he brought he needs to speculate and wait for newer buyer to buy the house from him.

Just that instead of buy/sell house, you are buy/sell virtue token/robot/unit or whatsoever they want to call that. Its a paper value of something virtue and non existence. Just like forex you are buying the surface value of something without actually owing anything except the contract.

Is it a ponzi scheme or a scam?

Ponzi scheme is often the concept of taking new comers joining fee and pays it to the existing overwriter. But because of the high amount of guaranteed returns, the scheme is fail at some point of time. So no, I don't consider finnciti as a ponzi scheme.

A system that is sustainable compared to ponzi scheme is that all the level of particant need to profit from the platform. Finnciti tried to take it slow and make sure everyone is profitable so like MLM, the designer, pioneer batch and the veteran existing user will no doubt gain from the system. But one thing is the money cannot be reproduced for thin air hence the money will have to be coming out from the new comer. The leverage and damage will transferred to the newer hirer and so on and so fore. So in another words, in my humble opinion as long as there are new comer or recruit, the existing players are still capable of gaining from the system.

To I support the concept?

I do like the way it was designed so that the poorer group of people do benefit and I actually thinks that they can earn money thru the platform. However I really advise only to play with money that you can bear losing.

In the nutshell, finnciti contain certain elements of MLM and its do not consider a scam unless the company resolve and folds. Its open to public srutinity so if you are confident that the market will be confident. Ultimately it will only be as strong as the faith of the people willing to believe in it.