At the beginning, a workmate introduced me into HYIPs. That´s quite strange, just knowing like some traders and the local bank profits, that a good netprofit is about 10%-50%% annually. Than a guy is showing you how he is making profits, 50% monthly - showing you payouts and so on gaining your trust.
But what he didn´t know is, that there are many different kind of HYIPs, such for small investors where you shouldn´t invest more thant 500$, MLM´s and so on - also in his mind a diversification of about 3-4 programs were enough.
So we have had several meetings and at the end I´ve invested about 5000$, splitted into 3 programs (would never do that again, totally out of moneymanagement). Nearly worst case happened, the first 2 programs scammed in the first weeks - but the third one made a profit of 4500$.
There are many things I didn´t know properly: moneymanagement, win / risk ratio, capital / invest ratio, diversification, market situation, lifetime of HYIPs (short, mid- longterms) and so one. Of course I am not claiming that I am a guru now, but have learned a lot in the past year, and still learning.
Example would be, I´ve learned that 1 out of 10 programs has to be profitable, to make profit - and first of all you should recover losses, before thinking of netprofit.