Lots of folks are asking about this one, so we’re pulling it to the top of the page again — the article below has not been updated or revised since it ran on March 10, though in the interim the stock teased bumped from $10 to $13 and is now back down below $12, with solid recent earnings… it now trades for about 19X 2016 estimated earnings and growth expectations remain about the same as they were in March.
—from 3/10/15—
It’s now been quite a while since the Bitcoin mania peaked, but there’s still a lot of curiosity around that virtual currency — particularly because of the “millionaire” stories that circulated when it was in its ridiculous runup in dollar value a couple years ago… so I guess it’s natural that the idea of the “next bitcoin” still has some traction.
This time, however, it’s not about one of the other “next bitcoin” cryptocurrencies — but about something that they folks at True Alpha are calling an “alternative currency” that’s already in use in households around the country: reward points.
This reward points story has been circulating for a while now, and our readers had some good discussion of it and proposed solutions (mostly correct ones) when it first started getting attention last Fall, but I never wrote about it. Now, though, the questions are piling up again… and the latest version of the ad is spilling hype out over the top of the jug even more than usual, so I thought I’d quickly chime in and give it the Thinkolator treatment for you.
The spiel is from Robert Williams, and most version of it that I’ve seen are still dated October 2014 — though I’ve had the ad sent to me quite a few times in just in the last couple days. Here’s how they describe this “alternative currency” …
“An alternative currency – already in circulation across America – could soon explode in value.
“As you’re about to discover, it could hand you as much as $56,700 over the next 9-12 months.
“Some people are already calling it the ‘next Bitcoin.’ And that’s saying a lot.
“As you may know, Bitcoin is the digital ‘cryptocurrency’ that has disrupted economies worldwide. It has also made some investors a fortune along the way.
“Over the course of just three years, Bitcoin’s value skyrocketed more than 1,632,316%.”
Which, of course, does not make you think of the word “currency” — currency is something you use for transactions, and if it’s jumping around in value like that no one is going to either offer or accept it in transactions… for a while there, bitcoin might have doubled in value while someone was in the process of trying to use it to make a purchase. Bitcoin did rise that ridiculous amount over three years, but essentially all of the jump came in 2013 when it went from about $10 to over $1,000 — until then falling by 70% or so since then.
(I bought a few bitcoin to check it out and experiment at the time, largely to see how it would work for money transfers and as a substitute for credit card and bank transfers that generate such large fees… and I think I still have something less than a full bitcoin in my Coinbase wallet, for full disclosure — it didn’t end up being useful for me, but perhaps it will be someday.)
All of which is irrelevant to the point here — despite the value bitcoin has in capturing your attention. The point is that Williams is saying that “this one simple investment could put as much as $56,700 into your bank account over the next 9-12 months.”
And, of course, that was originally written back in October — so we should be at least halfway there, right?
Not so much… but more on that in a moment. Here’s the meat of the pitch:
“Another currency is poised to upset Bitcoin as the world’s No.1 cryptocurrency.
“In fact, it’s fast rivalling the dollar for many transactions online.
“Already, dozens of Wall Street banks including Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, Credit Suisse, Bank of New York Mellon, and Bank of America are amassing positions alongside this currency in their “in house” accounts.
“Forbes calls it ‘profit enhancing.’
“Business Insider says it has the potential of ‘taking over our wallets.’
“Bankrate.com says ‘You can beef up your individual retirement account with it.’
Are you getting our free Daily Update
"reveal" emails? If not,
just click here...“According to our research, this currency is about to boom – worldwide.
“One simple investment now could set you up for years. (And I can show you how to get started for less than $20 bucks!)”
So, as you have probably guessed, this “currency” is just a broad term that Williams is using to describe rewards points — the points you get for charging stuff to your special credit card, or using a particular airline or hotel chain or retailer, and that you can redeem for discounts or free stuff.
And no, Williams is not, at least, being crazy enough to suggest that people actually buy rewards points — though you can do so in many rewards programs, and I suppose it could make sense if you were just 100 airline miles away from a free trip to Tahiti or something like that… but is otherwise, of course, completely ridiculous.
If you’re curious, the stories that those quotes are from are perfectly ordinary articles about particular rewards points deals — like the Bankrate clickbait article about the variouos kinds of rewards programs, including some from Fidelity that will let you turn “points” into (very small) cash rewards deposited into an IRA or a 529 plan.
So what is this “explosive situation” that Williams says we have with this “alternative currency?”
Well, first Williams has to convince us that these “points” have great value… here he goes:
“Unlike Bitcoin – and even the U.S. dollar – this currency is backed by real, tangible assets.
“That makes it perhaps the only currency on Earth with intrinsic value.
“Some folks even prefer it over spending regular dollars.
“At any time, you can use it to buy a brand new Samsung HD TV, an iPhone 6, or even a fresh cup of coffee. And even if the U.S. dollar crashes, this currency’s buying power could skyrocket! (No, it’s not backed by gold.)
“For reasons you’re about to see, this currency is PERFECT for buying high-end merchandise: Tropical vacations in the Caribbean… Golf equipment… First-class travel around the world… Stays at top-end hotels… The list goes on.”
That’s all rather silly — if you’ve ever used rewards points you know that, yes, every once in a while you get a nice bonus, like a free hotel room or a free flight after spending $10,000 or so on other flights… heck, I’ve even gotten a few nice, enduring rewards like a couple new laptops over the years. But I don’t think anyone will be focusing on their rewards points as a way to survive if the US dollar crashes. And of course we prefer using “points” to buy our vacations and golf clubs — duh. That’s because points aren’t really money, they’re just a more direct expression of a company’s marketing budget and we know we have to use ’em up before the company changes the terms and the points suddenly become worthless.
So how is it that we’re going to get rich from these things? Here’s what Williams says:
“In order to collect rewards points, you have to buy a TON of stuff. To get $50 worth of rewards points from Best Buy, you’d have to accumulate 2,500 rewards points. But to get those 2,500 rewards points, you’d have to spend $2,500!
“However, I’ve discovered an amazing ‘loophole’ in America’s rewards-points system.
“By spending between $15 and $30… you can profit from MILLIONS of dollars’ worth of rewards points!”
Sound better? Can we really “mine” rewards points?
“It allows you to (legally) bypass traditional rewards programs – without stepping foot in a store.
“Imagine being handed 11.34 million ‘Hilton Honors’ rewards points without ever reserving a hotel room…
“Or collecting 3.4 million ‘Southwest Rapid Rewards’ points without ever boarding a plane… “
Sounds appealing, right? Maybe you were already suspicious that there was a “secret” loophole way to get all those bazillions of points and live like a rock star?
Oh, but wait, then he says we’re going to do this in our “discount brokerage” account… so it’s a stock?
“In fact, depending on your situation, this currency play – which you can execute through your regular discount brokerage – could unlock up to $10,000… $50,000… and in some exceptional cases, up to $1 million in profits.
“It takes advantage of all of the most popular rewards programs available today….
“I peg the value of your first opportunity at upwards of $56,700.”
I hate to break this to you, but when a newsletter ad copywriter says that you could make huge profits “in exceptional cases,” it almost always means “if you invest an exceptionally huge amount of money.” Notice that he mentioned only the profits you could make, not the amount you’d have to invest to earn those profits.
So, yes, this is some kind of stock that’s involved in the rewards points business … here are some more clues:
“… one of my closest and trusted industry contacts – a technology genius – briefed me on a company with a direct stake in all of these very programs, I did a deeper dive.
“He told me that shareholders of this company – ordinary people, that is – are enjoying an opportunity to gain a controlling interest in upwards of 5.67 million Amazon Rewards points… without buying a single piece of merchandise.
‘It instantly moves you straight to the front of the line,’ he said.
‘Kind of like a “Cheat Code?” I replied.
‘Well, cheating,’ he said, ‘implies wrongdoing… this is a 100% legal way to leverage the rewards points systems of tons of top retailers.'”
And he further gets into that “cheat code” idea…
“Thanks to a certain company’s recent innovation… a four-digit Cheat Code could put as many as 29,076 cups of Starbucks coffee working in your favor. Or just skip the morning latte altogether, and still gain a controlling interest in tons and tons of points.”
No, there isn’t a “cheat code” … that’s a misleading reference to the ticker symbol of the company, which they’re implying is a four-digit “cheat code” that gives you “controlling interest” in millions of rewards points.
And apparently there are already some big time Wall Street firms involved…
“… some of the biggest players on Wall Street have quietly begun leveraging these rewards points systems, and they’re minting fortunes as a result.
“Deutsche Bank was among the first to hit paydirt. The value of its “points” portfolio now stands at $2.1 million….
“In fact, 42 institutions are positioned alongside this rewards points boom, representing a net value of over $166 million.
Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, Credit Suisse, Bank of New York Mellon, and Bank of America are among the early players.”
OK, so even if that wasn’t a silly way to describe the fact that a company has institutional investors, the amounts are laughably small — a net value of $166 million spread among all those big-name firms (and many more) might as well mean that Morgan Stanley is having a summer intern handle that investment.
And then one final clue for us:
“Likely feeling the pressure, the CEO of the company of the world’s first ‘rewards points’ farm released a statement a few weeks ago saying…
‘We continue to execute against our new partner pipeline. In June, we officially launched the Hilton Honors Program as planned. We’re pleased to have one of the world’s largest and most successful hospitality loyalty programs participating on our platform.’
“I expect the company to be actively mining the rewards points of 10 additional top retailers in the next six months.”
And one final bit of tantalization to get the greed receptors perked up…
“… the Cheat Code represents an instant opportunity to gain a controlling interest in upwards of 11,340,000 Hilton Honors Points… 3,395,210 Southwest Rapid Rewards Points and 141,750 My Best Buy Rewards Points.
“Your first opportunity is valued at $56,700.
“Do with the proceeds whatever you please…
“First-class seats whenever you want them.
“Room upgrades.
“Or just pocket the cash.”
So what is it? This is, as many readers have guessed, just a loooong and overly (and misleadingly) hyped tease about buying a stock called Points International (PCOM, PTS in Toronto).
And the stock has fallen at least 50% since Williams started touting it last Fall (depends on the day you pick — it has essentially moved steadily downward since mid summer of 2014)… so is it a better buy now that it’s cheaper?
Points is profitable now, though it’s very small with a market cap of about $150 million, and they call themselves the “global leader in loyalty currency management.” What they essentially do is sell services to loyalty points programs, resell points, and also offer (for companies who participate) a marketplace where customers can buy, sell and trade loyalty points. Here’s how they put it in their fourth quarter report, which came out last week:
“The Corporation operates in one segment, providing web-based solutions to the loyalty program industry. The range of ecommerce services include the retailing and wholesaling of loyalty program currencies, a range of additional ecommerce products that enhance either the loyalty program’s consumer offerings or its back-end operations, and management of an online consumer-focused loyalty points management web-portal. The Corporation’s operations can be influenced by seasonality. Historically, revenues are highest in the fourth quarter in each year as redemption volumes and promotional activity typically peak at this time, however this is dependent on changes in the Corporation’s partnership base and effectiveness of promotional activity.”
They have grown pretty nicely over the past year, largely because they added Southwest and Hilton to their client base, but they don’t really own the points that they deal with on a transaction basis so their gross margin has stayed about the same — meaning that the business doesn’t offer much leverage, at least so far. To make each $2 in profit, you have to make another $100 in sales — the margins have not improved over their last five years or so and have, in fact, often gotten worse, despite nicely growing sales. That gives some indication of the fact that they don’t have much leverage over their partners, I suppose, because their “cost of goods” is mostly the money they owe to the companies who own and run these loyalty programs… though they do continue to get new partners — they are losing much of the US Airways business because their relationship with American Airlines (with whom they merged) is not as good, since AA is taking more of the business back in and they effectively lose most of what had been their US Airways business, but they did just bring on United Airlines, and they remain confident of growth in 2015.
You can see the transcript of last weeks earnings conference call here. I haven’t read all the filings, but they appear to be trying to establish a standard for these rewards programs, push for transferability (through their platform, presumably earning a commission both for them and their reward program partner), and the building of what they refer to as a “loyalty wallet” where you can store the value of your dozens of rewards programs cards/numbers/accounts. I presume that’s at least somewhat of a tough sell, given that companies generally want to keep tight rein on their loyalty programs — or at least to keep control of their customers and the data — but I don’t really know. You can see the current progams they work with, on various levels, here on the consumer-facing part of the website.
If the Points marketplace/wallet is to achieve meaningful scale this will probably really be driven by whether or not it’s so enticing for consumers that they demand this trade and exchange service from loyalty program providers — they do convince partners to come on board, in part, by guaranteeing to purchase a certain number of points/miles from them, and that’s a nice cash infusion, but it’s probably not decisive for the larger companies. The more valuable partnerships, the ones where they run a Buy/Sell/Reinstate program for the loyalty card members (ie, you can buy in to “reinstate” your expired United Airlines miles, for example, or buy miles to get over the hump to get a free ticket), seem to mostly drive revenue on something like a brokerage basis, with the lion’s share of revenue from buying or trading or upgrading points being turned right around to pay the airline (or whoever).
So right now, this looks to me like a decent services company that has very little scalability but should be able to grow earnings by perhaps a little bit more than they grow revenues — and they are expecting growth this year, with the anticipation that the growth will be front-loaded (presumably because they just brought on United Airlines). Their guidance for 2015 is for revenue to grow 15-20% and EBITDA to grow 15-25% — if we are fairly optimistic and anticipate that they might grow earnings per share by 20% (they do have a buyback authorization and more than $30 million in cash, so they can juice their per share numbers a little bit if they wish… though they’ll probably also issue shares for employee compensation), then that would mean that 2015 earnings per share might hit 36 cents. The shares are just shy of $10 right now, so that’s about 28X 2015 earnings.
That doesn’t sound cheap, but I wouldn’t want to assume much more growth than that. If you go out another year, the analysts get super-aggressive with their forecasts and have the company creating earnings growth of 75% or so, which is why they have a forward PE of 15 (forward PE usually goes out at least a full year, so now that’s using 2016 numbers). I’d have to love this company’s product or prospects a lot to pay this amount, or to assume that they can turn a couple years of 15-20% growth into 75% growth all of a sudden.
If you want some reason for optimism, you can back out the $2.50 per share in cash and then you’d be paying $7.50 for 30 cents in earnings and anticipated 20% earnings growth… that’s a little more reasonable, an ex-cash PE of 25 and 20% growth, so the PEG ratio would be only 1.25. Not bad for a small company if you expect the growth to continue, though do note that a year ago the cash balance was over $60 million (they used much of that for acquisitions, including buying PointsHound, that will add to expenses and future potential — they largely bought to get the coders and a San Francisco office, it appears — but not to immediate revenues).
Still, I have a hard time seeing huge profits this year unless they sign a ludicrously massive partner — and with United Airlines and Southwest and other big players already on board as clients, and American Airlines leaving, the number of really “high impact” client adds seems small… unless their collaboration with MasterCard (which seems pretty early-stage, from the comments I read) generates a lucrative string of deals with big banks for their “points” cards… if the stock goes up by, say, 20% this year then in order to book those teased profits of $56,700 you’d have to start with an investment today of about $280,000 (and, of course, it might not go up 20% — it could double or triple and reach the old highs of $30, perhaps, or it could lose clients and revenue or hit a scandal and collapse to pennies). But, as you might have guessed, I see no possible way for this to generate the ludicrous bitcoin-bubble gains that are hinted at in the ad, there’s no 1,000,000 percent gain in store for PCOM, not even if they take over every loyalty program they can imagine — that doesn’t mean PCOM is worthless, but it sure means “cool your jets” and “temper your expectations.”
And that’s about all I can tell you after sniffing around the company’s filings for a couple hours today — if you look into Points (PCOM) and think it looks more appealing than that for some reason, I’d love to hear the reason — they are in transition and the industry is changing, it is an interesting idea, and revenue growth is certainly possible, but I just don’t see the scalability of it (from an income perspective) since so much of their cost of goods is simply paying to buy points from their loyalty partners and they appear to have very little pricing muscle with those partners… at least, so far. Please share your thoughts with a comment below.
Travis you were up all night penning this.
Not this time, thankfully — hopefully that means it seems intensive, not that I wrote it with my eyes closed 🙂
Hey, Travis……
What’s the real story on that 701c (hidden retirement account) option in the
Tax Code? They say it yields 5%/year every year and has done so since before
the Tax Code was passed in 1913.
I’m not much interested in a 5% return on my money……I can do better than that by far
by investing in hardware and manufacturing kits for steel framed geodesic dome homes
and quonset buildings for enclosed gardens……and have the hard manufacturing assets
sitting there where I can see and touch them anytime.
I always recommend getting a piece of arable land with your own water well and turn it into a paid for self sustaining farm retreat…..and owe NOTHING to anyone for the
assets on that farm. The only fly in the ointment is the government penchant for
levying taxes on your personal property…..and taking it away from you if you don’t
pay their extortion.
That’s the only reason I can see to buy and hold gold or silver bullion…..because the
Constitutions of BOTH the US and Texas say that only gold and silver SPECIE is real
money suitable for settling all debts public and private.
The rest of this crap….including the hidden retirement 701c account is just so much
toilet paper when nations collapse and nuclear war roams the world.
What do YOU say, Travis?
ol’ Lawrence
The 770 accounts? That’s life insurance, I’ve covered it a few times. Participating whole life can generate such returns … After you ‘break even’
Buying gold and silver is a good idea as long as there is nothing you have to sign. How did the gov. know who to take the gold from in the past? Or did they just rely on fear as I
found below? Don’t put it in a safe deposit box or any where the gov. can raid.
———————————————————————————————————————————-
Emergency Banking Act of March 9, 1933, violation of the order was punishable by fine up to $10,000 (equivalent to $182,185 today[4]) or up to ten years in prison, or both.
Order 6102 specifically exempted “customary use in industry, profession or art”—a provision that covered artists, jewellers, dentists, and sign makers among others. The order further permitted any person to own up to $100 in gold coins (a face value equivalent to 5 troy ounces (160 g) of gold valued at about $6,655 in 2014). The same paragraph also exempted “gold coins having recognized special value to collectors of rare and unusual coins.” This protected recognized gold coin collections from legal seizure and likely melting.
The only reason FDR seized gold was because we were on a gold standard — seizing gold and reproving it (mildly, we now know from recent context) was a way to inflate the money supply and force what we would now call “easing”. I’m not at all worried about the government seizing gold again unless the world turns against us and adopts a gold standard instead of a dollar standard… Unlikely, because a fixed asset backing for currency brings hard choices and politicians worldwide avoid hard choices. Forcing new tax rules or requiring t-bill investment for 401(k) accounts is, I think 100 times more likely … And probably won’t happen in a cataclysmic way, either.
That’s just my guess, though — preparing for the silly things governments or populations have wrought in the past isn’t likely to work… New craziness will
Emerge that no one has thought of yet.
SIR TRAVIS: Do you ever sleep? How do you do all this in such an eloquent, timely,
informative manner? Do you have a staff of hundreds of ‘little Travises’? Needless to
say I am just amazed to read all your articles, especially this one..Kudos..keep up the
good hard work…. : > )
Thanks Larry — Tell all your friends and neighbors!
Speaking of which: I constantly marvel at the quality of Stock Gumshoe output. I can never find a comma or apostrophe out of place, try as I might. No non-sequiturs, no malapropisms, no run-on sentences.
Truly a refreshing change to read something that doesn’t require constant mental editing by the reader to have it make sense.
I’m sure I’m not the only Gumshoe reader who appreciates being offered truly readable, lucid material every time, complexity of the subject matter notwithstanding.
that’s why I joined
I’d like to trade my frequent flyer points for the yacht I’m never quite able to afford because of my too-conservative investment strategy, which of course excludes stocks like PCOM.
An excellent idea. For airlines on which I’m a very infrequent flier I usually end up trading them back to the airline before they expire, in exchange for magazines that I don’t actually read — I also would prefer a yacht.
Be careful what you ask for. I was once told by the owner of a 45-foot yawl that I was privileged to sail aboard down the Atlantic coast years ago that “the two happiest days of a boat-owner’s life are the day he buys it and the day he sells it”.
Well put! I’m maxing out at “kayak.”
Hello Rusty,
As an owner and future seller of a boat I agree with your friend´s advice.
I also like “the best boat is your friend´s boat” no need to buy anything just have a friend with one and hopefully you will be invited once in a while…tha’s all you really need.
I worked at a marina. A definition of a boat is:
“A hole in the water where you throw money”
BOAT = Bring Out Another Thousand.
Or sinks it
It’s the same thing I was told about owning a printing company back in the seventies. I sold it and it’s true….it was the happiest day of my life!
2 best days in a boat owners life. The day he buys the boat, and the day he sells the boat!
I’d just like to comment that these points systems sound like a tax disaster area. When people learn the tax implications of the above, it is, at least, much more unlikely that trading points would occur. The IRS went after the income in airline points a while ago and then published Notice 2002-18 that basically said, “Oh, OK forget about it; it’s too complicated.” Available here: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/a-02-18.pdf. Part of this decision was based on the fact that points of any kind WHICH YOU USE YOURSELF are only income when someone writes off the entire purchase price in a business and THEN uses the points earned for personal expenditures. Lets call this a “kickback.” (This is accurate because airline miles started as a not too subtle bribe to employees: “Stick your boss with our more expensive ticket and we will give you points that belong to you.” Lawyers frequently refer to this kind of kickback as embezzlement — yes, you could go to jail.)
But this does not put the IRS’ imprimatur on trading points — especially when the company touting the “deal” is saying they are cash equivalents. A key concept in tax is realization of income — the IRS only comes looking for tax after a transaction or similar event in which money — or its equivalent — changed hands. Trading points, even for other points, even when the points were for personal expenditures, IS INCOME. The only relevant tax concept which can save you from paying tax on this income is basis. Basis is, generally, what you paid for something. I think it is clear points always have a zero basis — they were free!
This realization issue is the main bottleneck this point trading firm faces. In addition, computers and algorithms are always getting more sophisticated and faster so the “administrative issue,” which lead to the 2002 “Forget about it” Notice, will become non-existent some day. The IRS (and companies that want a deduction for the “real money” they paid for your “points purchase”) are seeing this as income as time passes. Here is a good Forbes article on the topic: http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonynitti/2014/08/28/tax-court-says-bank-thank-you-points-are-taxable-income/
The case discussed therein is available here: scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=5204266358767069389
A good technical article on the issue is here: http://www.cricpa.com/Tax_Free_Gifts.aspx
My last thought is maybe these issues are why the firm is located in Canada. This will not work: even before NAFTA, the IRS has jurisdiction over a company transacting with U.S. Citizens based on Points Programs with mostly U.S. Companies. As a practical marketing matter, even without jurisdiction, the company would have to hire a lawyer anyway to argue on behalf of its clients that there was no income involved. Also, any fines or penalties against the Canadian firm can clearly be collected from their U.S. “partners” and leave them to sort it out with the Canadian Firm. (These U.S. “partners” would clear also intervene in any points case as interested parties, no matter what the Canadians did.) Use of the word “partner” is another poor language choice — but not quite as bad as touting the cash equivalency of the points and profit that may be made on them.
Issue for another day: would the trading gains be capital gains (assuming holding period) or ordinary income? Again, the basis of zero, which would not be the case if you bought the points for cash, would likely obviate c.g. treatment but that is a closer “call” than the above income issues.
I guess I should state that I have no long, short or any kind of other securities holdings with this firm. However, I do wish them well with this fairly good idea but they must have answers to these questions before the firm has any real potential.
Good perspective, thanks for sharing — hadn’t thought about that, and I don’t think they mention taxes in any of their materials (at least not very visibly). I don’t know how the mechanics of the buy/exchange/redeem process work for those points that are somehow “tradeable” or exchangeable for points in other programs, other than the fact that there are fees in there for PCOM (and the points program owners), but that certainly sounds like a possible risk at least long-term for these kinds of trading programs. I’ve never encountered taxes as an issue in collecting or redeeming points, and I’m thankful that the tax authorities have given up on that level of scrutiny (for now, at least), but I have also never tried to trade or exchange points (or write them off).
Mr. Robert Williams is a bait & switch artist..he took a senior’s $9.99 in exchange for his newsletter and his so-called “Cheat Code” – PCOM…He wouldn’t give back the senior’s $9.99 when the senior citizen tried to cancel subscription to his no-good newsletter.
The only point I get is stay away!!
Travis,
Interesting article as always. One charge card I have had for many years has a neat option where you can convert points to gift cards at a reasonable rate. For example a $25 gift card costs 5K points and a $1k gift card costs 200K points. They usually go on sale from time to time at 50% off so now that $25 gift card is only 2.5K points. Since this card requires the balance to be paid in full every month I use it a lot for travel, meals and big ticket items so the points add up pretty quickly. Points also can come in handy for air travel upgrades as well. Not interested in PCOM as an investment though. Thanks again for breaking the code on another investment opportunity / pitch.
V/R
Tom
Appreciation to my father who shared with me regarding this blog,
this weblog is actually remarkable.
I saw my friends in USA was offered Credit/Debit Cards like Rewards Points . But I am not sure how that will help collect huge reward points without buying anything big, as Mr. Robert Williams said “Cheat-Code” found. Is it like Air Miles collection? How would it help to buy a yacht? I feel other than PCOM there must be other Tickers, if folks already know it.
You have really done your research huh?! I have not found this much information on a single subject in a long time! It was a long read and I did have to go back a few times to really gather what you were saying but it was worth it! As someone else said, when do you sleep? LOL Excellent article and I will be sure to share this.
Here is how I have it figured. A $19 spend can yield the $56,700 within the 9-12 months as stated. A stock increases in value at an average pace of 4% every trade day for about 205 days (= 9.5 months). I used the compound calculator at: http://www.moneychimp.com/calculator/compound_interest_calculator.htm
This is the same amount you can earn in a HYIP if you can find one that lasts that
long and pays you when you go to cash out.
I have long been a fan of the work you do. This is low hanging fruit. These people have been selling snake oil for years, and you have done a good service in fleshing out the garbage. It amazes me they continue to exist. Politicians and hucksters get rich.
Thanks Robert!
all due praise! but these comments have wandered far astray from – and in and out of- the original critique of wall st. daily’s venture cap strategist/ alpha alert/ true alpha,- what i think i started reading about. attracted by the sizzle of the ”secrets”,of this offer,
i was soon also being offered a one thousand dollar value personalized tracking of stock market moves. both for a 90 day ‘trial’ price of $95.00.
within 48 hours i knew that one offer was for a bogus scheme, and the thousand dollar ‘service’ was to track stock symbols i was to supply them with (i simplify). information i could easily find on line. so,i called for a refund. NON-REFUNDABLE. said the small print in the terms. unlike most trials, this 90 days was discounted off the thousand dollar charge, which automatically kicked in after 3 months.
my bad. lesson learned. but a lesson for us all…always READ THE TERMS, usually printed on grey or red over black….not designed to be read. READ’em. if you don’t want to read them, check in FIRST with stock gumshoe or other scam or comment fields
instead of having to scrape poop off your shoe afterwards. henry cavanagh
Folks in my book , “Cash Is King.” Get the American Express Rewards card for $75 per year and receive cash back 6% for gas purchases and 3% for your grocery purchases . You can’t beat the deal!
Poor Gerald, book sales must be horrible! I fear that your shameless plug on the gumshoe site will not bear fruit, we are learning here to avoid the pervasive scammers.
You couldn’t give me an American Express card for $0 per year. I had one, made a $1500 purchase and the seller emailed me that he didn’t have the product and refunded my charge. American Express said it would take a couple of weeks to get my $1500 credit for charging back on my card. I left them that day and will never go back. Both Mastercard and Visa give the credit back for charging same day after a dispute.
Hi Travis, I am your great fan since 2008. I went to points.com and registered there, just to find out they lost United and AA, there is no marketplace at all for trading points and all you can buy is some Delta points, Iceland air and Saudi airlines!
I went to the Gift card exchange program as well and all the cards there are sold for twice or more their fair value!
Sounds to me like the best business about that company is to SHORT IT 🙂
Glad to hear some first-hand info, thanks!
Today I received the invite to join in this fantastic opportunity of a ‘new currency’, that would make me a small fortune. Well my engineering, dairy farmer, and former stock broker background gave me pause at jumping right in. I found your blog
Travis, and I am very impressed with your analysis. Not that I was about to jump into the abyss, but you and your followers show excellent ability to get into the ‘nuts and bolts’ of things.
I have nothing new to add to the information you have provided about this sham of an investment other than to repeat on oft used phrase we used at the office in my broker days when some pundit promised how to make a small fortune, start with a large one.
Yes
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I want to taste that beer
It is a wonderful feeling to read your comments, especially for seniors, who may not have easy access to impartial advice. I, too, am very impressed with your ability to focus, explain and help us see the many traps. Fantastic writing ability. Thank you.
beenoch
Hi SuperOne,
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