Ever visited an MLM review site that just didn’t seem right? ‘ Don’t join this MLM company, it’s a SCAM! Join MY MLM company instead!‘ There’s a lot of rubbish MLM review and news sites on the internet that masquerade solely as lead generation tools for their owners.

I believe there’s a distinct lack of concise and clear information out there regarding companies within the MLM industry and MLM itself. The aim of Behind MLM is to fill that void and prove to be a useful resource to people curious about the MLM industry and the companies that exist within it. I created BehindMLM out of a genuine interest in the MLM industry and a desire to provide the public with relevant and accurate MLM information, news and company reviews. I hope you find BehindMLM a useful resource and feel free to leave any feedback below. Additionally you can if you’ve got any further queries about the site, want to submit a company for review or for any general questions.

Thanks for reading! I don’t particularly see BehindMLM as a platform to recommend business opportunities. Along with some broader articles I try to analyse MLM companies and present an unbiased factual look to differentiate from the abundance of marketing spiel available.

Aug 23, 2009. But it was when Lonsdale and his team of 12, based mainly in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, realised the potential of the new iPhone that he was able to put his methods into a single 'learning machine' app, called Third Ear Kungfu English. Lonsdale hopes it will help people shatter the.

These days it’s quite hard to get information about MLM business opportunities without being subject to an ulterior motive (usually business related) in the process. Although progress is admittedly slow, I aim to over time build a sizeable cache of knowledge for those out there researching the various MLM business opportunities available. Just a quick note, I tried adding comment numbering and found that in doing so it was overriding the Gravatar placement. I wasn’t able to get both showing (I think this is a theme limitation of only being able to display one thing beside each individual comment. I think gravatars are more functional than comment numbering so for now I’ll leave it. As for quoting individual comments, even on the longer commented articles you can always blockquote or simply reference the date (comments are published via date hierarchy).

I’m just wondering why you are “anonymous” and don’t put your identity out there. Also, anyone can post negative things about MLM companies online, and they are usually by someone who has joined a company, bought the “dream,” yet sat around “dreaming they’d become rich” without doing much of anything. They blame their company, their sponsor, the leads, the system, their parents, whomever or whatever rather than take responsibility that they simply didn’t get off their “sofa” and get to work. Then they quit and the whining begins. Your site and others like them can ruin the reputation and business of a company without even giving them a chance. I believe there should be a process where the offending remarks can be removed if the person crying like a baby because they didn’t have the “goods” to make it in the big, bad world of MLM.

How about being fair and making the person PROVE what they say and not put the negative info up about the company until they get a chance to make a rebuttal and/or show the “whiner” never did a darn thing to build a business. Like the BBB-although even with them, if you are a PAYING member you won’t get a negative report. How about being fair in this horrible economy-give a company a chance. They may have many people who DO want to give it a shot and will actually work the business, but with negative info on the Internet it makes their chances at success harder to achieve.

Plus without proof it’s just mean spirited pseudo “journalism.”. I’m just wondering why you are “anonymous” and don’t put your identity out there. Because the information I publish should be able to stand on its own, regardless of who I am. It’s not about me, it’s about reviewing and analysing MLM and the various opportunities available. Also, anyone can post negative things about MLM companies online, and they are usually by Exactly.

That’s why BehindMLM is different. I’m not affiliated with any MLM company.

Instead I try to provide information from the viewpoint of someone doing their own research and analysis into a company. Informing people before the marketing side of a company saturates them with blind positivity. I believe there should be a process where the offending remarks can be removed if the person crying like a baby because they didn’t have the “goods” to make it in the big, bad world of MLM. You’re implying that MLM itself has a 100% success rate and that any failure is on the distributors part. This is as nonsensical as claiming that 100% of MLM failures lies within MLM itself. People have a right to publish their negative experiences, regardless of why you think they ultimately failed. Ow about being fair and making the person PROVE what they say and not put the negative info up about the company until they get a chance to make a rebuttal Companies are free at any time to publish rebuttals.

Instead, they usually take the path of lawsuits. This also ties into the anonyminity of BehindMLM as a lot of countries out there currently have judicial systems that heavily favour business over people in terms of capital needed to effectively defend yourself against legal allegations. Easier to bog people down in the legal system and hope they fold than to engage people. And as for proof, this works both ways. I don’t expect people to divulge personal information up on here.

But on the other hand, ever tried asking an MLM to back up its ‘multi-billion dollar this and over xxx thousand members’ claims? Good luck with that!

But with negative info on the Internet it makes their chances at success harder to achieve Information on the internet in no way shape of form changes the probability or percentage rate of succesful distributors/associates/representatives in a particular MLM business. This is a fixed statistical number. Plus without proof it’s just mean spirited pseudo “journalism.” BehindMLM is a blog, it’s not a major news broadcaster.

@ChrisMolinari — While associates have at least a part in failure of their own “venture”, it would be EXTREMELY unfair to blame it all on them without studying the overall picture. In fact, it is one of the 13 excuses I’ve identified by scams to blame their victims, i.e.

“you must be doing it wrong”. In fact, I’ll go as far as guess most of that attitude is pushed by their own uplines, who promised them success, and blame them for failure. This is just ONE blog among the bazillion different sites / blogs about MLM (or scams that claim to be MLM). If you really think one website can ruin a MLM, you need an attitude adjustment.

: Your site and others like them can ruin the reputation and business of a company without even giving them a chance. Almost every MLM has a disclaimer that tells the prospects to do their due dilligence. Still they are mad about sites like BehindMLM that actually do this work for them just for free. However, I can only speak for myself and my blog, and it has certainly had influence on the reputation of the companies Wealth Masters International and Carbon Copy Pro. The reason why I created my blog was the extreme amount of garbage posted everywhere about these companies, and my blog appearantly drowned in this ocean of deceit.

However, it caused enough attention from both journalists and authorities, and now the companies are in serious trouble. However, I have several times asked for information about the company and every time they have served lies that have been very easy to reveal. One example is the claim that the average annual income for WMI representatives is 1.300.000 NOK. Pretty stupid as the Norwegian top consultant Per Gunnar Hoem has denied such an income for himself. Still he seems to tell his new prospects face to face that he earns 300.000 or more each month as this is refered to in their marketing material. Even their Norwegian lawyer has not been able to point out anything wrong, he has only claimed that there is a possibility that it could be wrong to use the words “illegal”, “pyramid scheme” and “fraud”, and if it appeared to be wrong they would then consider legal action. He even accused me for hacking into WMIs data center, he appearantly did not know that this information was available in WMI’s homepage.

Every term he was mad about has been documented very clearly to him, and after then I have not heard from him. This is probably the reason that CCP has not contacted me yet. Instead they are treathening OZ for a comment citing my blog.

They are There were at least 500 websites in Norwegian describing the “fantastic business opportunity” of CCP/WMI when I started blogging. If these companies were solid, ethical and making success for their representatives there is no way that my single blog could ruin the reputation of these companies. The main reason is that my blog is based on proven facts, and these 500 websites were based on lies and deception that could easily be revealed (like people claiming to be successful internet marketers one week after signing up with the company). The chance that any online business opportunity is a scam is at least 99%. Giving a business a chance in this branch does not mean joining them by paying hundreds or thousands of dollars and eventually find out if it worked or not. According to you, if these lazy people with the wrong mindset were filtered out in the application process for all MLM companies, the success rate in MLM would explode. This is not going to happen.

There must always be hundreds or thousands of loosers in every non-retail scheme to produce one millionaire. I have no idea what you are talking about. Of course people that say they are successful internet marketers after one week, but those people are simply stupid and think by “puffing” they can get people to join. Saying 99% of MLMs are scams is untrue. Most of these companies have to pass through their state Atty. General’s office, file papers, fund the company, and spend hundreds of thousands if not over a million dollars getting off the ground.

How stupid to spend all that money just to create a short-lived scam. The “gifting” programs and their “ilk” are the scammers. The work from home deals where they want you to open a bank account and deposit checks then send one of your own to them, only to find their checks were bogus-THOSE are scams. You are in a foreign country and do not know how difficult it is for companies to even get off the ground. They have legal teams and if they screw up the Atty.

General will shut them down. And NO there are not hundreds of thousands of losers in ONE company to create one millionaire. Most GOOD companies tell new people if they follow instructions, talk to enough people and actually do some work, within 8 to 12 months they could potentially increase their incomes to say $500 to $1000 extra per month. For most people that seemingly small amount of money could change a person’s life especially in this economy. But there are NO guarantees.

I just think you have been unfair to a few people I see on your site and should have a way to find out the truth and if they person shows you some proof of what they say you should remove the offending report. It would make you seem very fair and give you a lot better PR. Incidently, I do online PR and SEO, so I know what I’m talking about.

Chris, I guess you have to find the difference between “hundreds or thousands” and “hundreds of thousands”. When I said that 99% of all online business opportunities are scams, I did not say that 99% of all MLM companies are scams. For companies that claims to do MLM, I will rather say the scam rate is at least 95%.

This will not include 95% of MLM participants, as the “good” ones are bigger than the dirty ones. Still it has been proved that 97% of all MLM partipants never earn money. You claim there is NO guarantee in MLM, which is completely wrong.

If you are an average MLM representative there is a guarantee that you will loose money. The online business opportunities that can not be considered as MLM, are gifting schemes, ponzi schemes, affiliate scams and classical pyramid schemes without any product. These scams pop up everywhere, new ones each day, and actually only a few of them ever succeed scamming a considerable amount of people. Most of them disappear within months.

I can again verify that no WMI og CCP member has been able to point out anything wrong in my blog, they just say it is full of lies without bringing any documentation of it. The reason is simple, I have the proofs, they have nothing to show and they stay away to avoid even more embarassing stories. I have even asked their lawyer for documentation, but he has not even replied to my e-mail. As the Norwegian authorities have confirmed that WMI is a illegal pyramid schemes, what is still missing to make you believe this MLM company is a scam? I have no interest of PR for myself, my only goal is to tell the truth about WMI and CCP.

If the truth is bad PR for these companies, it is not correct to hide the truth just to seem fair. BTW, I can guarantee that it is a lot more difficult to establish a business in Norway compared to USA. It is interesting what you write about what good MLM companies tell new people. If most MLM companies are good companies, why is it then so difficult to find them? Please bring examples of “good” MLM companies.

Chris, Carbon Copy Pro does not fit your definition of a “good” company. This is from an e-mail from CEO Jay Kubassek which recently was posted in a Norwegian forum: “So that folks with ZERO experience can plug right in and have success in a matter of weeks not years or decades like in the “old school” M L M model.” And Mr. Kubassek has no doubts about how successful you will be with CCP: “Tell your boss at your ‘JOB’ that you may not be needing him or her much longer. I mean that.” Read the rest of the BS here: PS! If you work with online PR and you are the manager of International Association of Home Business Opportunities, why does the homepage look like this:?

@Chris Most GOOD companies tell new people if they follow instructions, talk to enough people and actually do some work, within 8 to 12 months they could potentially increase their incomes to say $500 to $1000 extra per month. Uh, who are these companies?

A fair chunk of my research time is sifting through the marketing crap that MLM distributors love to market with; ‘multi-giga-infinity incomes!’ ‘2-3 hours a day is all that’s required!’ ‘tell your boss to go and get f.ed!’ etc. Exaggerated yes but I think you’ve got a bit of a naive view on how MLM is marketed these days. @Chris Molinari — Oh, please. The ONLY relation of a company with Attorney General’s office is a) if you incorporate and you need to report corporation officers to the state or b) you’re getting investigated by the AG. The former is usually a $25 dollar form to be filed annually. I had to file one just now. Nobody looks at the stuff until someone wants to research you.

It’s just public disclosure info, and there are ways to hide even that by going through a proxy that’s incorporated in Nevada. I know what I am talking about too.

And I believe you don’t. The information provided on this website stands on its own, irrespective of my ‘qualifications’ or background. Apart from my opinion, it’s mostly backed up with cited sources and is credible, but you’re still welcome to refute it.

Who I am or my ‘qualifications’ doesn’t factor into the equation. Moreso when we’re dealing with an industry where it’s touted that qualifications usually don’t matter. You yourself hold a degree in psychology, surely you can appreciate that that alone doesn’t define who you are or validate your opinion. Woah, careful there ozsoabox you show yourself to be a true idiot. Qualifications don’t matter???

I am afraid if you chose to comment on any subject as an authority which is what you do with your domain behindmlm you hold yourself out to be an authority. Cited sources?

Sorry I am not seeing any authority you have actually cited. My degree in psychology has nothing to do with my expertise in this industry. I have been in the industry for over 24 year, have been on the presidential advisory boards of multiple MLM’s and have been cited in 4 nationally punished books on MLM and have been a 7 figure earner so I think that gives me more authority than you speak with. I take real exception to all the internet junk that is generated just to get traffic such as your website. Woah, careful there ozsoabox you show yourself to be a true idiot. Qualifications don’t matter??? What qualifications do you have for MLM, where did you get them?

Is there a university for MLM I can go do a certified MLM course? I am afraid if you chose to comment on any subject as an authority which is what you do with your domain behindmlm you hold yourself out to be an authority.

If anyone believes I’m authority it’s on the basis of the information and opinions I provide and that alone. Qualifications can’t count because I don’t run around the internet telling everyone I have so and so years network marketing experience If people read what’s here and conclude I’m an authority, well, I’ll leave you to ponder what that says about the credibility of the information presented here. You demand authority because you’ve been in the game for X amount of years, I humbly accept it (if at all) based on my work. And I certainly don’t profess to be more authoritable than others simply because I may or may not have been doing MLM for longer than them. Cited sources? Sorry I am not seeing any authority you have actually cited.

Information is taken directly from the companies I write about or as close to as possible. As with anything published here you’re free to independently verify the information yourself. My opinions are based on this information and obviously don’t need cited sources as I am the source. I have been in the industry for over 24 year, have been on the presidential advisory boards of multiple MLM’s and have been cited in 4 nationally punished books on MLM and have been a 7 figure earner so I think that gives me more authority than you speak with. No it doesn’t. As I’ve repeatedly stated, my information stands on its own, irrespective of who I am or my experience.

Attempting to discredit the information here based on who I am and my experience is thus pointless. I take real exception to all the internet junk that is generated just to get traffic such as your website Please, don’t even try to group my website into the mountain of trash available on the internet that is nothing more than thinly veiled MLM marketing spin. Websites such as your own which exist only to funnel people into the opportunities you’re in (such as Wealth Masters International and Family IQ, both of which you appear to be involved in (and who knows what else)) are a dime a dozen and people are sick and tired of them. People marketing the companies they are involved in under the guise of hackjob coaching, such as yourself, are one of the major reasons I started this website and what I believe will hopefully contribute to it’s ongoing success in the long run. @Marc — clarification, if he is using his qualifications to support his opinion, then yes, you may attack his qualifications.

However, he is NOT doing so. Thus, you also qualify for intellectually dishonest debate tactic badge #4 and #5 red herring — attacking other side’s qualifications instead of evidence or logic changing the subject — ditto YOU, on the other hand, claims qualifications as if that explains everything. Based on your debate tactics demonstrated thus far, I have some doubts on your qualifications, on what they actually mean (not their validity). Come to think of it, this is the same Marc Barrett that wrote TVI Express is good opportunity: Very interesting MLM to say the least.

The main appeal is obviously the income potential and it seems that an average rep can get to the bigger dollars much quicker than in a traditional MLM. The TVI Express entry into the market has caused an un-level playing field and as a result has drawn fire from many in the MLM industry claiming it is not a legit deal. I can only smile as I remember an attorney general from some state on TV claiming that one of my previous MLM companies was a pyramid scam and then ten years later the company was publicly traded on the New York Stock exchange. Its funny how quickly perceptions can change.

In all fairness to this review, I have to say it does look to good to be true but that does not mean its not. TVI Express has an actual product that has value and they pay their commissions.

It will be most interesting to watch where TVI Express goes in the future. Your credibility just evaporated. You can’t recognize a pyramid scheme when you see one. Your 24 years in MLM apparently is full of ****. But did you read Barrett’s website?

He reviews “top tier” MLMs too. To him, MLMs that offers BIG ticket items (several thousand USD) are “top tier”, and he claims those are the future of MLM, because you can recruit less people to get paid, unlike “normal” MLMs where you have to recruit like hundreds of people to get paid. Apparently he considers every MLM he joined as a recruiting game, and that’s where he wants to sell his “Lead Generation System Pro”.

It’s mentioned at the bottom of just about every review he did. The fallacy of big ticket MLMs is that people need to have ‘big money’ to purchase the products. And they don’t have that without succesful jobs. That and it kills the notion of anyone can succeed in MLM.

Nobody with a job that enables them to afford products, services or membership that costs thousands of dollars is going to purchase from someone with literally no money in the bank. Given Barret’s lack of a reply, I think it’s pretty much safe to say he was just here for some market exposure. I guess even nofollow comment links help in the eyes of some website owners. 1 Marc Barrett did not mention his qualifications; you did OZ >Marc said:’My degree in psychology has nothing to do with my expertise in this industry.” he said his time in the industry did.

You Oz have never been in an MLM compnay. YOu have jsut decided to become the font of all knowledge on MLM companies. But really you are just here to put all MLM companies down: in other words a make wrong machine! You clearly have never been in business; you set out to ruin people’s businesses with you blatent lies. And no one it appears cna stop you. That is why you remain anonymous. So you cna tbe sued for defamation.

You are happy to put up other people’s addresses and phone numbers; put up photos of pople’s homes, accuse them of the most usnspeakable t things, make fun of them, abuse them but you are too gutless to put your own detail anywhere! You really are a joke. You allow others to upload lies about various people in these businesses, not makeing anyqueries to seeif they are true,some of the stuff you and your cohorts write is rubbish and very poisonous but you just don’t care.

Tha is why you don’t put your own details in. Just hopeless.

Ah Susan Susan Susan, still banging the ‘why are you anonymous?’ drum? Careful there, your Beyond Freedom doesn’t seem to be addressing your anger issues. Marc Barrett did not mention his qualifications Sure he did, how else did I find out about them?

And Mark very much presented his time in the industry as a certifiable qualification that trumps all else. Despite the obviousness that he was only here to promote his latest companies. You Oz have never been in an MLM compnay. Neither have a lot of people looking at MLM companies, are their opinions and concerns any less valid? YOu have jsut decided to become the font of all knowledge on MLM companies. Now now, a lot of work and research goes into the information presented here.

At least give me a little credit. You clearly have never been in business; you set out to ruin people’s businesses with you blatent lies. If your dodgy business gets ruined, that’s hardly my fault for pointing out it’s a dodgy business. You are happy to put up other people’s addresses and phone numbers; put up photos of pople’s homes, accuse them of the most usnspeakable t things, The first two are only made public to confirm whois records to establish ownership of companies and/or domains. This information is in the public domain and is verifiable by anyone with an internet connection. Fail Susan, fail. As for the second two, lol ad-hominen accusations.

The only person I’ve ever put up a photo of a home was of one mr. This was after he stomped about on here claiming to be living the life and driving his lamborghini about. His address was in the public domain and a quick google maps search revealed he didn’t even have a paved driveway.

After that revelation Mr. Greig mysteriously vanished along with his fictitious claims. But of course you’d naturally be totally against exposing those being untruthful. So you cna tbe sued for defamation. In order to be sued for defamation something has to be published that is false. By all means challenge any of the information presented here.

My own research is obviously not infallible but I do the best I can when researching an opportunity – corrections are welcome. You are too gutless to put your own detail anywhere! You really are a joke. The main reason for this (and you already know this, as it frustrates you to no end and has done so for nearly three years now), is that it detracts from the information presented here. My details in shape or form alter or have an impact on any of the information presented here. All it would do would provide a means for detractors such as yourself to divert people’s attention away from the information presented here. In the interests of professionalism and keeping this site of interest there is no point in cluttering it up with irrelevant information.

I’ve said it many times now, the information here stands up to scrutiny on its own. Who I am is irrelevant. You allow others to upload lies about various people in these businesses, not makeing anyqueries to seeif they are true,some of the stuff you and your cohorts write is rubbish and very poisonous but you just don’t care. Anyone is welcome to challenge anything published here, whether it be by a third party or myself. If you have an issue with a third party, take it up with them. : You Oz have never been in an MLM compnay.

YOu have jsut decided to become the font of all knowledge on MLM companies. But really you are just here to put all MLM companies down: in other words a make wrong machine! Why is it his fault that here’s so much **** for him to report on? You clearly have never been in business; you set out to ruin people’s businesses with you blatent lies.

And no one it appears cna stop you. That is why you remain anonymous. So you cna tbe sued for defamation. Now Oz can sue YOU for defamation, since you just accused him of lying. Can you prove he’s lying? Shaw, have a clear misunderstanding on what supports what. If Oz used his reputation to make claims (like Mr.

Barrett claimed “I am an expert in MLM because I have 24 years of experience”) then his details and his history is then relevant. However, he has NEVER (to my knowledge) used his reputation or history to support his claim. Thus, trying to attack his reputation or history is a red herring. And that makes YOU, the unethical debater.

On the other hand, Marc Barrett DID claim his reputation of 24 years in MLM made him an expert in MLM. He also claimed to have been in top tier on multiple MLMs, and claimed to be cited on “nationally punished books” (his words, not mine). However, one only needs to look at ONE example, from his OWN website, to find that his judgement is faulty, and thus, his reputation is clearly worthless.

He tried to support his claim with his reputation, and thus, his reputation is open to examination, and what did we find in there? Thus far you have yet to PROVE any of your points. It’s just one accusation after another. Did Oz steal your dreams? Is that why you’re so mad? @Hari I believe it’s better to use the “Contact” button near the upper right corner, and contact Ozsoapbox via email.

Questions asked in this thread are easy to forget. I had a look at the video presentation.

I don’t think this is a real business opportunity, but it may be a short term income opportunity for some (at least for the owner). I don’t think TravistaWorldwide have any retail sales at all, since I don’t see any relation between the money you have to pay and the service they claim to offer. You don’t pay for any membership in a “travel club” here, you only pay for the opportunity to make money by recruiting others into a scheme. I didn’t do any exact calculations, but most of the money involved seems to be distributed between members (and the company). RSI Reservation Services International use independent marketers like Travista, according to some BBB-reports I found.

Products & Services This company uses independent marketers to sell travel club memberships. Consumers report that during the sales presentation with the independent marketer, they are told they will be able to receive discounted rates for travel. According to consumers booking with RSI, the rates are not any different that what the consumer can book themselves. You don’t buy anything (like a travel club membership) from RSI when you buy a membership from Travista. They don’t have any products or services of their own, except for the income opportunity scheme. The so called ‘product’ attached to this scheme isn’t necessary at all (as part of the income opportunity), as far as I can see. It’s only needed to make this opportunity look more like a real business.

First and foremost, this “opportunity” seems more to be an incomesource for the owner of the TravistaWorldwide website, Andrew Zic / Destination Network Int. I don’t see any reason to pay him any money, unless he is a family member or something? Or unless you really know what you’re doing here, and have tried similar schemes before. I have one “red flag” if people consider to join this. The video stated “You don’t have to sign any contracts”.

Why does a company want to do business without any contracts or written agreements? I don’t see any reasons for a company to avoid written agreements, unless. @Bill – Oz remembered the Empower Network correctly. It’s not an MLM, but an affiliate program. A massive blog with 11k or 12k members on the same domain. Last I checked their Alexa traffic rank was at 1250 (and at 332 in the US). They are reporting great SEO ranking when blogging on their platform.

I assume if there is any competition for keywords you would still need good on-page SEO and backlinkingnot to just post something and expect to get ranked. They offer a reseller program that looks like an mlm compensation plan when explained, but’s it’s a complicated affiliate structure instead.

They let you keep your leads, so it can be used as a front end product to market other things. I’m starting to experiment with the SEO potential of blogging on the network. That’s where I see the value as a productand as a potential valuable product for re-sale if it’s effective in getting content ranked. Given that members appear to be paying for access to the domain (which is useless, seeing as each individual page is ranked individually by search engines), that’s not surprising. They can write whatever they want (assuming it falls within the Empower Network member rules).

Good to see Italy are doing something about the plague of investment schemes going around at the moment. I feel like I’m reveiwing 10 or so of these scams a week and they don’t show any sign of stopping. What the hell are the US authorities doing? Quite obviously the admins running these things have decided that the big boys (Zeek Rewards, JSS, Ricochet Riches, JBP etc.

Etc.) haven’t been shut down so there’s enough of the pie left for them to launch their own clones. MLM backend script + cheap web design + domain = your very own investment scam. According to PatrickPretty.com, the US Secret Service (who, besides protecting the president and visiting dignitaries, also investigates financial fraud they used to belong to the Treasury Dept) is well aware of HYIPs, and have previously specifically ID’ed MoneyMakerGroup and other HYIP forums as where HYIPs are pushed and spread. They tracked down several Ponzi schemes pushed from those forums, but only the really big boys got nailed. I think eGold got like 30-90 MILLION dollars that was seized. Seems the small-timers collapse before they attract the attention of the Secret Service, and the individual states don’t see big enough role for themselves to play.

Hey David, glad to hear you’re enjoying the site. Regarding the onslaught of investment schemes, I myself have been wondering what to do about this for a few weeks now. MLM Investment scams are definitely flavour of the month(s) at the moment and I think will remain so as long as ZR and co. Fly under the radar. Realistically after US tax returns are due and the audits begin on ZR members we’re probably not going to see any slowdown in the launch of such schemes. On one hand my preference of writing about newer opportunities has meant I feel like I’m covering ten or so of these shallow guaranteed return scams a week and perhaps one or two “meatier” MLM opportunities.

On the other if I ignore them then I feel like I’ve got catching up to do and later down the track backtracking analysis becomes harder. One of the things I look forward to in the longterm is creating a trackable history of opportunities that have come and gone. Undoubtedly the admins launching dubious opportunities now are mostly the same ones that have been doing it for years and via whatever means possible, if they can be tracked – even if it’s not by name and just similarity in the businesses themselves, I think that’s a valuable asset in the long-term. I can wholly appreciate BehindMLM reading like a Ponzi scheme directory over the last few months or so though.

Believe me as the author of the reviews I myself get tired of reviewing the same old advertising + guaranteed investment returns business model 5-6 times a week. Not sure what to do about it.

I do keep a list of companies to review in the long-term but it’s hard to get through that when I’m kept busy by five to ten shallow MLM scam launches every week. Any further ideas or suggestions are welcome. I do keep track of what people are reading on here and Zeek Rewards seems to be generating a lot of interest at the moment, so there is some interest in MLM investment schemes – granted Zeek Rewards dresses itself up with more care than the $2 ‘we’re a Ponzi and we’re not even going to try and hide it’ opportunities popping up all over the place of late.

: Do you or anyone over here have any suggestion on KB GOLD I have posted one comment about KB Gold in June 2010:: KB Gold: Another pyramid coming or have come to Australia are “KB Gold” / “KB Edelmetall” / “KB Precious Metal” – a German-Swiss networking company that started to be active in the Scandinavia in March 2010. [] I checked them when they first were introduced in the Scandinavian market in Spring 2010, presented in a typical pyramid forum in Norway.

They were presented in Talkgold and/or MoneyMakerGroup, too. This happened when they were in a recruitment stage, long before they had drowned the internet with marketing.

The Goldmine they claimed to have was obviously non-existing, when I checked with Google Earth and lots of other sources. They posted a “license” from correct Turkish authorities in TalkGold or MMG, but having a license to look for minerals in an area doesn’t mean you have a goldmine.

A license is relatively cheap, $5000 for 2 or 5 years But they were able to produce lots of photos from goldmines when I pointed this out. They tried to drown internet with “proofs” (videos and pictures). German reporters tried to check their office in Turkey around the same time, and the office was non-existent. The same reporters didn’t find any vaults used by KB Gold in the St. Gotthard Massif, either.

They had lots of signs of being a scam, but what kind of scam was hard to tell. The local leaders in Norway and Denmark were mostly known for pyramid schemes.

But I did also check if it was POSSIBLE to run it legally, focused on buying/selling gold rather than on recruitment, and it was probably possible (enough to earn on the difference between buying price and selling price). I found lots of other bad signs too, but they were only “signs”, and they created too much “loose ends” rather than clear information.

I decided to not waste more time on them. I have tried to google “KB Gold” one time after 2010, sometimes around August 2011, but then the internet was drowned in marketing (a bad sign in itself).

THE GOLDMINE IN TURKEY If you like to check for the goldmine in Turkey, using Google Earth or Google maps, the coordinates are: 41.460475°N, 42.039532°E (nortwestern Turkey, close to the border of Georgia. Place/capital/county: Caglayan, Artvin, Borcka). Check some pictures of a real goldmine first. A goldmine is far more than a hole into a mountain. 🙂 3-4 grams of gold per tons of stone will leave lots of signs in an area near the goldmine.

Check the terrain too, and compare it to the “proofs” from KB Gold. I laughed when they produced the first pictures of the goldmine, with trucks and workers nicely lined up in a FLAT terrain. * As a business opportunity? I don’t know, I was mostly checking for signs of a possible scam, and I found more than enough red flags.

* Buying gold from them? Probably safe enough, but it’s probably safer to buy from a more established company. The price was a bit too high, too. * Having a gold investment agreement with them? I would certainly NOT let them take care of my money or my gold. I wouldn’t feel very safe receiving a KB Gold “Certificate” produced by themselves, claiming to have stored some gold for me in the St. Gotthard Massif.

I read so many comments on the various articles on Zeek, that I lost the big picture, which is written in the “about” section of the homepage: The aim of Behind MLM is to fill that void and prove to be a useful resource to people curious about the MLM industry and the companies that exist within it. I created BehindMLM out of a genuine interest in the MLM industry and a desire to provide the public with relevant and accurate MLM information, news and company reviews. I have found this forum very insightful, but filled with more speculation than facts. The vast majority of comments are from the same handful of critics; the few defenders use little factual evidence, but often instead cry hope based refutes that have become cult like talking points. Until the company can prove that bids or subscriptions are actually purchased in a viable and sustainable ratio to affiliate growth, the naysayers of Zeek express valid points, and anyone that cannot recognize this critical red flag is foolish. However until Zeek’s model is proven to not be working, or until a proper authority says it is not compliant, this forum is simply an examination of possibilities.

Hiif I missed it, I appolagize, but was hoping to read your take on the MLM I have recently become involved with. The company is Nucerity. I’ve researched to the best of my ability on the past backgrounds of the founders, the product ingredients, and the overall structure of the pay tree. Dibal Dld Software. I’m satisfied with the company background, fine with the ingredients of the products, and convinced of the results proven by use of the main product, Skincerity.basically I do believe in the product.

I was also very comfortable with the MLM structure being branched out by just 2 direct recruits under myself and then needing to move down from there rather than across further, allowing for more opportunity for our entire team to work together and all benefit together. I guess what I’m saying is I’m comfortable and a believer in this company.yet if you had told me a few months ago that I would have been involved in any MLM, I would have told you “no way, never in my life”, so the skeptic in me is still looking for validation or any negatives. I would value your opinion as a non-biased source of information.

Any thoughts? : I had a reader put in a request for numbered comments and after tinkering around with it for a while I think I’ve worked out suitable code for it. That reader was ME, because of the SugarMums/Mannatech thread in late 2010.

🙂 After a while I didn’t try to answer the posts anymore, it was easier just to COUNT them and make some statistics out of them — “Most active near full moon and new moon, just like werewolves” and “Rapidly increasing activity, indicating it has become a habit or a lifestyle”. Numbered comments is a solution when you want to tell other readers appr. WHERE in a thread they can find something they ask for, so they don’t have to read through a full thread to find the specific posts they’re interested in.

It can save some crosslinks between threads when you can tell about the posts rather than link to them. The current solution seems to work smoothly.

The solution can also be user-friendly for new readers, making notes about the comments of specific interest they want to return to later, when they’re browsing through a thread. People will probably need some time before they starts to refer to comment numbers. A typical example for use will probably be something like this: “The tax discussions about Zeek can be found in thread ‘A’, in comments around number nnn”. Two years ago?

I may or may not have gotten distracted with other areas of the blog since then but I finally got around to it!:). This was actually a request a few days ago, in order to keep track of new comments left on an article since they’d last read. I hope to get comment guidelines and and possibly a FAQ up in August sometime. Comment guidelines in particular as I’m getting rather tired of sending “I’m getting paid, how can it be a scam?” type posts to the spam bin.

Although I suppose the existance of comment guidelines and a faq doesn’t necessarily mean people are going to read them. Respected Sir, A company named Profit Zone Edutech Pvt. (profitzone.co.in) is cheating to Indian public by its Business Plan. Its indian customers joining other people and pay their commission/incentive by cheque. They are commit people to pay 20% monthly throw it’s business plan and the are also distributing money like a mlm company, as we already cheated by this type of company like max forex, stock guru, money mantra, florenza, b.k house, speak asia, goldsukh ect. The company’s m.d Mohan Chauhan is already jailed in uttrakhand for another fraud smart link a survey base company was not registered in India.

All mlm leaders beware from this company he will be again cheat we all. Go and launch FIR against him, we at maharashtra already launch a FIR against him today.

He is a fraud be careful. Hi Oz, Have really enjoyed all the Zeek analysis, extremely professional. I too would like you to add a Company to your list which is Visalus as I did not see any in the search bar.

I’ve checked other sites but it’s the usual back and forth screaming matches both on product and business model whereas I would really like an unbiased comp plan/business model analysis. I am a customer and the product has worked for me so that’s non-issue for me. I’ve looked at the comp plan as much as a non-expert can. I’m seeing both ends of the spectrum in terms of Promoters as it seems with another other NM Co. – the over zealous and then the rational getting on with it types. I’m investigating becoming a Promoter with them and I’m also looking at one other Company but haven’t looked at that comp plan in-depth yet.

Would appreciate your examination on them or if anyone has and links to proper third party reviews that would be great. Thanks once again, Claire. Just a note to say I’ve added all the companies (except Banners Broker and Just Been Paid) requested above to my review list. The list is long and I can’t make any guarantees as to when I’ll get a review out. Banners Broker will not be reviewed here because it’s not marketed as a MLM company but rather a pure investment opportunity. That said, it’s pretty obvious it fits the Ponzi model (buying advertising space for a ROI? Please.) Just Been Paid appears to be an even more obvious Ponzi scheme (and thus falls outside the scope of BehindMLM)..

Ozyou might think about a ponzi sectionor HYIP, (like you dont have enough to do). They seem obvious to a lot of people, especially if you read your website regularly, but they take in so many people that dont know any better and its very hard if not impossible to find real objective reviews, until its close to being over. For example Banners is getting pretty huge, nothing I can find online right now that would covince someone of what it is. Couple mentions, but not enough. If anybody has any info on it would appreciate knowing. Andy Bowdoin said the same thing about his Ad Surf Daily Ponzi: no use of the word interest (use “rebate”), compounding, investment (use “purchase”), shares (use “ad units”). Didn’t help him when SEC came knocking.

Paul Burks said the same thing about Zeek Ponzi. They had affiliates supposedly recite a long disclaimer at each public meeting: not an investment, you buy bids, blah blah blah. Didn’t help him when SEC came knocking. So lack of those words doesn’t indicate innocence (or guilt).

You need to analyze the business model itself. This just came over the airwaves: I went to Seeking Alpha to review the online discussion of the topic of pyramid schemes as they may impact the stock market and the value of a stock such as Herbalife. What interests me in this respect is the uncertainty in these discussions as to just what a pyramid scheme is and what are the distinguishing factors between such a scheme and purportedly legal “Multi-Level Marketing.” It appears that a major area of dispute on legality is the existence of “retail sales.” This guy is pretty hard on MLM, and FTC for leaving stuff vague. Hello, Was out searching for me today, just like any anonymous person would, who may have met me yesterday, and quite possibly wants to call me tomorrow, once they do any due diligence! Well that might be good for them and good for me, but just because I am in business off-line and on-line does not mean I am required to, or have to help anyone who asks? Because I am in business for myself means I determine what work I do, for who and for what! The work I do, primarily involves helping or not helping and staying within my boundaries.

If I stray outside out of those boundaries, I risk losing everything today and everything before today! As far as any business, on the Internet, it is similar to 100 glasses of clear liquid sitting on a table in front of you. Two of those glasses contain tasty and prosperous liquid, eight of those glasses contain tasty and deadly, instant death liquid and the other ninety have some flavor and will cause you to wander around aimless for a bit, but you’ll be okay in a day, week or month after the dizziness wears off! There is a reason why your site is ranked within the top 100k on the Internet, many reasons in fact! Anonymity has it’s advantages, just as well as being the front man!

Keep up the excellent work! An unbiased, non-judgmental perspective is not new but rare these days, and is sometimes hard to maintain, just because facts do matter and opinion does matter! Unfortunately many people accept the latter, without little regard to the former! Keep up the excellent work! Banners Broker is an investment scheme, and an obvious Ponzi at that. You invest money, do nothing and they pay you a >100% ROI once enough new investments have been made. Your actual invested money is of course instantly used to pay out liabilities to previous investors.

They claim to have advertising networks blahblahblah but nobody in the industry has heard of them, and no evidence of any advertising, beyond some shoddily made websites exists. Yet they claim to be doing hundreds of millions of dollars in business each year. You know the story if something doesn’t smell right As for a formal review due to the workload in covering the MLM industry I try to keep the focus on MLM only (despite the inherent overlap between investment schemes and MLM at times). Thanks for the articles and reviews. I too would like to read your thoughts on Juice Plus as my parents have begun this Network Marketing business and I am curious about joining them.

Is there a difference in a Network Marketing business and a MLM? Curious about the distinction. Moms at work post on February 13, 2013 comment regarding online purchases and pay out is only true if people do not send potential customers to a distributor site which is personalized. My parents’ up line has been training them to process their customer orders personally through their virtual office, maybe to avoid their leads going to corporate or “someone at the top”? I did a test order on their site and if I backed out of the order to look at the products again and then attempted to proceed with an order, then the order form no longer auto loaded my parents name as my distributor. Rather it had a question about who sent you to the site or who was your distributoror some such.

Maybe not the best method to ensure your customers be credited to you? I have advised my parents to follow the training of processing orders of their customers from their office to get proper credit for their marketing. Thanks again, look forward to your future assessments. Learned a new word today: Misprision (of felony) Any one who knew that they are participating in a felony (such as fraud), then actively attempt to conceal it (such as filing false documents) can be charged with misprision, a Federal crime. One woman in New York state got nailed for it: U.S.

Attorney William J. Announced today that Kathleen Fuoco, 60, of West Seneca, N.Y., who pleaded guilty in June 2010 to misprision of a felony and willful failure to file tax returns, was sentenced to 18 months in prison by Chief U.S.

District Judge William M. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gretchen L. Wylegala, who handled the case, stated that Fuoco, who was known as Kitty, was the only employee in the offices of Gen See Capital, a business run by Richard Piccoli.

In early 2009, federal agents disrupted a massive Ponzi scheme being run by Piccoli through the business. Losses to investors totaled $25,000,000.Piccoli pleaded guilty in June 2009 and is currently serving a 20 year sentence.

Fuoco admitted that she came to realize that the business was a scam but kept working at Gen See and failed to notify authorities about the criminal activity. Incognito: There’s nothing between the contact button and the paragraph “About”. In IE9, the “Search” field/button is located on the right side Home, About “Subscribe” “Email RSS” “Contact” “Search” “The Latest”, “Your Feedback” “Most Wanted (30 days)”, “Archives” “Navigation” ********* Some additional hints: “Navigation” is a company list. Clicking on a company name there will lead to all articles sorted under that company name, a list in reverse chronological order (newest first). Clicking on a company name under the headline in an article will lead to the same list.

Not all companies are organised under separate names. And we’re back. Apologies over the downtime yesterday. Shortly after I published my Rippln article some injected spam code started to interfere with the sites layout (nothing to do with Rippln, just a co-incidence). I believe the code had been present for a while but was not showing up for me as I am a “logged in” user. Prior to yesterday the code wasn’t affecting the site’s layout, but I believe it would have been impacting search engine rankings (spam is never good).

I spent 11 hours pulling apart the site until I found the offending code, turns out it was injected into the WP theme I use. Anyway, long story short I cleaned it up and we should be right now. I’ve checked as a logged in and logged out (what you guys see) user and the payday loan spam is gone. Please let me know if it resurfaces (if you notice it) as it’s not good for the site. Sort of FYI, I did a guest blog post about “Cognitive Dissonance, Ponzi Schemes, and Reload Scams”: One of the more bizarre human behavior is how human deal with cognitive dissonance, when one suddenly have two conflicting truths, often one long-held and the other undeniable but recent discovery.

There are three ways to resolve cognitive dissonance. You believe in one, the other, or rarely, you somehow meld the two together into an amalgamated third. The abusive relationship is a common cognitive dissonance.

To an outsider, if the victim suffers abuse, the victim should leave. However, the victim, who had long lived under the abuser’s control and the fiction that the abuser “loved” the victim, often believes that he or she is at fault for angering the abuser, and thus “deserve” the abuse, and everybody else “just don’t understand” the abuser, who is “not a bad person”. This condition is commonly known as “battered spouse syndrome”. Chang: Spotted this briefing by Len Clements, a MLM comp specialist, on how to detect MLM Corp Hype: That video was actually good and informative, and most of his videos are.

But I also looked at the “Pyramid – Ponzi – Securities – ZeekRewards” videos, and he makes some fundamental flaws from time to time. He believes in Paul Burks explanation about “50% revenue share”, and that the reinvestments of “Cash available” actually brought in some money. That flaw is FUNDAMENTAL, and makes his conclusions become way off target.

Zeek had $162 million coming IN from new investors in July. It paid OUT $160 million to old investors in the same month. In addition, it had both new and old investors reinvesting “Cash available” during that month, monopoly money not counted in the report. Fosse Sam Wasson Epub To Mobi.

He believes the monopoly money actually generated profit. Zeekler generated a total of $25 million in revenue from the sale of ordinary bids during its lifetime, so it generated probably around $2 million in July 2012 (money coming IN, but not net profit). It generated around 10 billion monopoly money (VIP Points) during the same lifetime, with around 3 billion still in the system when it was shut down. Gushing positive reviews can usually be found on affiliate owned websites. They are of little value information wise and usually serve a sole purpose, to get you to join the opportunity (either immediately or by planting the seed). Critical analysis requires approaching a review from all sides, and more often than not that means bringing any shortcomings in an MLM business opportunity to the forefront.

Looking at analysis as positive and negative is just a cop out people use to dismiss information they don’t agree with or wish was ignored. A review is supposed to cover all aspects of the company, positive or negative. Often, the prospective affiliate have NO IDEA what constitute legal or illegal in a scheme. They would have NEVER heard of Koscot Test or Howey Test, much less Webster vs.

Omnitrition and how they defined the MLM industry. They somehow believe that an illegal company cannot be formed or be active, FHTM, Equinox, and Bernie Madoff notwithstanding. And even if a scheme is legal, there are serious questions on whether they can be made profitable for the average affiliate, given the way most MLM companies issue their income disclosure statements, as they never seem to cover “churn”, “expenses”, or “retail profit”.

Basically, they claim ‘that’s why the affiliates are independent contractors, we don’t know and we don’t WANT to know’, and we’ll spin the numbers any way we can to make ourselves look better. Ever notice that MLM income disclosure statements always say “active affiliates”? They don’t count the people who dropped out and quit, which would really brought down their averages. They don’t tell you the churn rate. They don’t tell you the customer to affiliate ratio either. Herbalife try to fudge this by extrapolating it from a couple surveys when it tried to rebutt Ackman’s charges. And despite Koscot and Omnitrition cases that states very clearly they can only pay commission on RETAIL sales, not sales to affiliate, most companies pay on sales to affiliate any way.

They simply assume that sales were done by the affiliates. Don’t YOU want to know how the companies manipulate the numbers to make themselves look better? I’m moving this discussion here because it doesn’t belong in the company review it was originally published in. But I feel still deserves a response. @Rick Weston You are correct, this isn’t Facebook, it is supposed to be a trusted resource you put yourself out there as an advocate, someone who is looking out for others and trying to keep them from getting involved with companies they shouldn’t. Please don’t project what you believe BehindMLM to be onto myself and expect me to respond. How you see BehindMLM is entirely up to you.

Ditto claiming I’m this or that. People should try to verify everything they read on this site themselves, and if they can’t then at least ask as many questions as possible until they get satisfactory answers. As a journalist you should be held to a higher standard than Facebook, deleting and editing or censoring comments because they don’t fall in line with your opinion or contradict your spin, is anything but journalism. I’m just a key with a keyboard and a site with open-book due-diligence. Who said anything about journalism?

Do not blindly trust anything you read on BehindMLM! If nothing else, at least stop and have a think about what you’re reading. If it makes sense then great, if not – have a think about why and address those concerns (either via comment here or elsewhere). Please define what you think a derailment attempt is and be specific and I will do my best to not post any further ‘derailment attempts’. Stay on topic. Do not change the subject, do not introduce strawman arguments into the discussion, do not go on tangents and do not crap on about journalistic standards and what you think they should be (at least not in the company reviews), do not crap on about victimised you are, do not crap on about your perception of bias.

In summary, if you want to publish anything that has nothing to do with the review you are responding to (or someone else’s comment), leave it on Facebook. If you want to challenge any of the information published here that’s fine. Do it without resorting to “you’re all wrong”, “you just don’t get it” or any other such waste of time arguments. I only have so many hours in the day and I will make the effort to edit out irrelevant parts of comments, but if it keeps happening things start getting sent to the spam bin in their entirety.

This is nothing personal, it’s a blanket (somewhat fluid) policy I’ve adopted over the years. Readability is important to me and those who read the site so if I see clutter it’s gone.

It’s not perfect but overall it’s worked well over the years and I think that’s reflected in how BehindMLM reads. I don’t know about scam but I know that legit MLM businesses don’t have tacky sales capture pages that tell you nothing about the mechanics of the business. From the RealScam thread I saw mention of membership levels, indicating that there’s no retail activity within the company. I also didn’t see any mention of multiple levels either when I glossed over it. I read it as a single level affiliate membership scheme. If your friend can send you compenstaion plan material for the company you can verify this yourself.

If none exists well I probably wouldn’t waste any more of my time with the company. Dan: Personally, I’m quite into “motivational crap” Then it will probably be OK to join for you. As long as people are interested in the products / services offered it normally works OK.

Bronze $5 per month equals a retail customer level, e.g. Customers on autoship.

Silver, Gold and Platinum are primarily about the income opportunity, but they pay very low amounts on the first 6 or 7 levels. Silver payouts can be defended as “minor incentive” rather than as “payment”. Gold and Platinum starts to look more like a pyramid scheme. They are PRIMARILY about the income opportunity, and they don’t reflect anything other than the right to earn commissions on additional levels.

I have only watched the video presentation, so my “review” has solely been based on their own presentation. And I’m rather critical by nature.

Red flag: The compensation plan is designed to mislead people / push money upwards in the system. That isn’t a good sign if he’s trying to sell the idea of “Creating Wealth” as a main idea. It pays out on 9 levels (for Platinum): 1. 20% (directly recruited) 2. 10% Down to level 6 or 7, it hardly pays anything at all, it will only cover your own monthly fee (plus some peanuts). Level 8 and 9 makes the potential payouts look more lucrative than they really are. You will need a huge number of people in downline to make any money here.

If I had been interested in “motivational crap”, I would probably have felt comfortable joining this and recommending it to others. But that guy is clearly not the right “Wealth Creation Advisor”. @Oz I simply watched the video found on a replicated / personalized website. I can probably find it if you want to write a review.

Dan: Apparently you can sign up for a 14 day free trial, so I will probably do that and check out if it looks legit from the inside. Try to get some details about the compensation plan, in writing rather than as a “presentation”? The compensation plan presentation is clearly misleading = a new red flag.

He says “You don’t need thousands of members in a downline to make money, only 1022 Platinum members to make $7,184 residual income per month”. But that will require 65,534 people in downline (6 levels in addition to the 9 Platinum levels). The compensation plan seems to cheat people, e.g. You won’t get paid for level 4 and 5 before you have filled them completely and have been upgraded to Gold. Details like that can be rather unmotivating.

🙂 I can probably add something to the existing thread at realscam.com, rather than here in “About BehindMLM”. Citron Research slams NuSkin again, cites Chinese reports that NuSkin reps are making completely fraudulent claims of curing cancer, dress up as doctor to trick unwary customers, and use cult brainwashing to keep reps in line with false promises of instant riches enough to live in Dubai (UAE). A year ago, while on a CNBC debate, Deutsche Bank analyst Bill Schmitz defended Nu Skin, claiming that even if China might have some issues that made all of China disappear from Nu Skin’s financials, it accounted for only 10% of Nu Skin’s business. WOW, HAVE THINGS CHANGED Citron observes that Nu Skin has become extraordinarily dependent on China for a disproportionate amount of its gross revenues, and all of its growth. With its Mainland China sales now accounting for an extraordinary 28.9% of its total revenues, investors face a tremendous amount of risk from Nu Skin’s business model. Can this revenue concentration and these growth rates be even remotely sustainable?

Actually they slammed USANA back in July, also about China. USANA is knowingly violating multiple Chinese laws: It is illegally importing and selling unapproved products in Chinese mainland via an extensive multi-level marketing network – in gross violation of Chinese strict anti-pyramid scheme law.

It is not legal to sell unapproved and improperly labeled digestibles in China, which is an especially sore spot with the Chinese government. And it is moving these goods into China with disregard to both import duties and VAT taxes, using its tens of thousands of “associates” from the Mainland as its “mules”. After 4 months of investigation and with thousands of pages of support documentation, we feel confident in claiming that USANA is running a criminal enterprise in China. As Glaxo squirms under the scrutiny of Chinese regulators, It is Citron’s opinion that USNA is far more vulnerable. We will stand by this opinion in a court of law.

@Meera I want to draw your attestation about a company which is cheating from last 2 years to us. Can any body advise us how we can File a case in USA Courts about this. It’s probably going to cost you a lot more than $2000 to pursue this. And looking at the website the perps are probably based offshore in anycase. Rule of thumb, if a scheme offers you something like this: Diamond Plan Daily interest: 2.7% Investment: Above $10001 Investment period: 70 business days Bonus Amount: 100% Principal Return: Yes Total return: 378% Compounding: No Deposit now! : I want to draw your attestation about a company which is cheating from last 2 years to us.

Can any body advise us how we can File a case in USA Courts about this. As to filing a case; there is only ONE correct answer. Contact an attorney in the US. If your group’s losses are in the millions you might find someone who will take you and many others on for a contingency fee. That being said I am experienced enough to know that if your total losses are modest no one will take you on as a contingency and you will need to pay as you go. Civil litigation is incredibly expensive.

It can take many years,and there is no guarantee of success. Generally, if an attorney is not willing to take your case on a contingency your case is not worth much and you should just lick your wounds and learn from your experience. Meera: I want to draw your attestation about a company which is cheating from last 2 years to us.

Can any body advise us how we can File a case in USA Courts about this. Post the same type of questions on the REALSCAM.COM forum (start a new thread there).

You will find many of the same readers there, but that forum is more specialised in how to handle different types of frauds. It will also be easier for other readers to find your post in a forum than in a blog. It’s also easier to have dialogues in a forum thread than in a blog, e.g.

If anyone want to ask questions about some details. Those readers who are specialised towards “scam investigation” will typically spend more time there than here. We have a slightly different type of audience (or a wider range of them). PatrickPretty is citing news from South China Sea Post that a mass recruiting pyramid scheme company was closed in hong kong. The amazing part is this is no less than Interush Hong Kong, a subsidiary of a company Interush, that was sponsor of NASCAR, indy Car, Rolex 24-hour, and so on. Searching Youtube for Interrush shows that it is a MLM modeled much like Vemma, with left and right leg, 7 sales each side completes a cycle, and so on and so forth.

However, all explanations seem to be in Mandarin (possibly recruiting in Taiwan? And China?) The similarity of this to WCM777 is amazing, and the fact that Interush had been open for many many years already.

MapageKA21: wow thanks for your quick reply. I’ve already read you opinion and sure I wont put money on it. My friend says the money comes from the company clients ADIDAS, DELL, AUDI, PEPSI But of course everything is a scam. There are scams like that popping up all over the internet each day. Some of them can be profitable for a short period of time if you join them early enough and accept joining a scam (e.g. Have friends accepting it too).

But the idea itself isn’t very good, i.e. You can’t rely on ideas like that forever. Individuals can have ideas for how to make it work, but most of them are simply fooling themselves.

I spend some time discussing different ideas from other viewpoints than the ones I’m using here, to be able to separate good ideas from bad ones. There’s very few good ideas, most people are simply fooling themselves. ENRICH OTHER PEOPLE = NOT THE BEST IDEA If you join Massive Ad, your friend and his upline will make some money, while you POTENTIALLY can make some. A good idea would be to reverse that idea, making them become the potential ones and making you become the one who LEGALLY makes money from them, e.g. By selling something of value to your entire upline. If you have a good idea like that (and the talents and skills required), then it suddenly can make some sense joining all sorts of opportunities with a minimum investment.

It will simply be a method to meet potential customers for a legitimate business. I’m a sales man. It WOULD have made some sense for me, if I was selling products designed for a market like that, to join the “systems” where my potential customers can be found.

People can have individual ideas like that, and then it suddenly can make some sense. Most people don’t have individual ideas like that. They will adjust themselves to the scams they’re participating in rather than starting with rational ideas. Most of them will enrich other people rather than legally make money themselves.

Why do you give companies crap about not listing any info about themselves? When we do not know who you are? I’ve bolded your answer. The day BehindMLM becomes an MLM business, feel free to hold it to the same standards I review MLM business opportunities with. For half a decade I’ve managed to keep MLM information at the forefront of BehindMLM and that’s not going to change anytime soon. I’m not the slightest bit interested in personal branding or selling you anything. The information, discussion and analysis on BehindMLM stands entirely on its own merit.

I joined Organo Gold and at first my friends treated it like a ponzi by just focusing in reclutint people, but then all fell apart and we tried the 4 steps system that they show about getting 50 costumer and we all focused in selling the coffee wich is a great product and now everything is working out great. The residual is growing by the month, but it wasn’t as easy as we thought at the beginning.

The review that Oz posted is very accurate and real. Is a great business if you do a good cosumer based network. If you just recruit and forget the product you will only earn a few bucks for a few weeks. I see, well i want to thank you for taking the time to respond. I followed all the articles in this site about Telexfree since about 6 months. It really gave me the red flag on telexfree. And it helped me know when it was time for me to back out of it.

One of my friends is now shitting his pants. He was reluctant to listen to me and to read the articles. I would appreciate it so much if 1CLICKDAY be in this site just like TF, wcm777 and Zeekler. I am so sure its a Scam and its using the same method as telexfree. I even think the same people are behind it as TF.

But it might just be my mind, thinking and wondering. Again, Thank you so much. To anyone interested MKM-thewholetruth.com (Lou Abbott’s website) is up for sale, with the whole content of MLM articles, training & education, etc. (I’m not familiar with the content). The content is “balanced” between pro MLM and anti MLM, i.e. He has generally balanced his use of sources.

Traffic rank is too low to get reliable data about the market, appr. 600,000 (world rank) and 174,000 (US rank). The primary market seems to be the U.S. And Canada (based on the comments I checked).

He probably has some visitors coming in from other MLM review sites, e.g. Production of new articles have been low, the newest article I found was from October or November 2013. Current bid (according to a Troy Dooly video) is $5,500. If I had been interested, I would have offered an IDEA for how to get the site up&go again rather than offer money. Who are you Oz? I am really curious about the people behind this blog. Because you use only “oz” I don’t know if you are a men or girl.

Because the time I see when you sleep or wake up, I imagine you are in Australia. You start running this blog in 2009, and aways use the same “style” to write your text.

This is good. Because I always try to create new ideas and in the end, don’t continue any project.

So, if you like to share some information, I will be happy (and can send only to my e-mail). 1- Are you boy or girl? 2- How old are you?

3- Where did you live? Is australia your country? 4- What is your job? Or if you are not working, what was your job? 5- Why do you create this site and why are you running it? 6- Did you win, directly or indirectly, some money for this work?

7- What do you want with this blog? You can’t answer things like make the world better, for something I can’t understand, you spend a lot of hours of your live in it, so you want something! This is something I don’t understand about peoples that create and spend a lot of hours in free projects. I have seen a lot of people that write open source code. You understand this because he want to improve his ability and knowledge and than win more money in your work. So if you say you are a journalist or want to be (or was one) I will understand.

Or if you want to write a book. Or maybe if you win money by advertising. But you need to win something!!! 🙂 8- How many hour did you spend in this project everyday? More than write the article, you need to search about it, read comments, etc. It is a lot of time 😀 9- Can you say how much money you win with advertising?

Is is more than you pay for make this site online? 10 – Will you answer it with true answer 😀 I am just curious. : Who are you Oz? I am really curious about the people behind this blog.

I am just curious. Those of us who have followed Oz since the LLI days know most of the answers and the questions about Oz’s personal life have no bearing on the contents of this blog. As for not understanding how someone could spend hours on a project and not wanting “something”, can you explain people who play on-line/computer games for hours upon hours? I, personally, find this site to be excellent in giving one’s brain a good mental workout through research, analyzing and understanding. As for making money. While I don’t know about this site in particular, I have known other sites that also use the same type of advertising to help offset the costs of running the site (domain, hosting, etc.) and it usually isn’t enough to cover the basic costs.

: Everybody has to have a hobby and blogging is cheaper than stamp collecting and more useful and rewarding than catching butterflies I’ve gotten into genealogy and am part of an on-line genealogy group. While we are all trying to track down our own family lines, we also help out people we don’t even know with theirs. We don’t make money off of it and it (usually) doesn’t help with our own research, but we find it interesting and will gladly spend our own time on it for nothing in return other than knowing we have helped others. Zrii the the drink promoted by Deepak Chopra, which means it’s pseudo-scientific woo.

Looks like red Kool-aid in a can. It stuck around because Deepak Chopra himself stuck around, but it’d been made fun of for many many years. Even Penn and Teller made fun of a seller of Zrii on their show Bull****!, the episode specifically on MLMs. Season 8, episode 5, easy money. It’s on Youtube, so warning: they like to shock people here and there with some naked bodies (not theirs) and they like to make the subject look ridiculous, but everything they say about the subject is true. The truth is, there are no-good opportunities out there. At least not to strangers.

And most people are too gullible to “friends” and “family” who was already recruited by such. Look up “Double Shah” in India when you have a chance. He was just a school teacher, no financial training.

He went to Dubai (UAE) for a couple months, came back, and claimed he can DOUBLE people’s month in a few days. And people believed him. And it only takes one or two (his old friends) to get the pyramid started. Many of the new opportunities are just relaunch of older schemes, albeit with some minor changes. Others are “inspired by” older schemes, often by just swapping out one part (usually the product). Yet others are clearly clones of original schemes, and intended as reload scams aimed at the same victim pool. And you wonder why so many MLM proponents claim that Oz is a MLM-industry-basher The truth is there are too many scams that parade themselves as MLM, and when the big names are shady as heck (see Herbalife and Vemma) it’s murky waters indeed.

The EmGoldex comp plan makes little sense to me. Here’s an example: If I have made the payment of the order, may I participate in a marketing program to attract customers? You have already fulfilled the order and bought gold. The marketing program is developed only for those that wish to execute the order at the expense of the combined payment, i.e. At the expense of personal means and the received bonus compensation. If you wish to participate in the marketing program it is necessary for you to issue a new Order and to get the Coupon for the payment of the made Order.

What is reinvestment? For full execution of the order, the Order of the buyer should pass two cycles of the Main table of orders. After completing the first cycle of the main table of orders, the company gives a possibility for transition of the Order of the buyer to the second cycle and on termination of which, there is a full performance of the Order. If the Order of the buyer has not received necessary quantity of credit bonuses for its end of two cycles, the Buyer has the right to carry out of the obligations on the end of the Order at the expense of own means. If the Buyer does not execute the Order, the Order is automatically extended for another two cycles at the expense of the bonuses of the Buyer.

And this way until the full execution of the Order. Sound intentionally confusing, which is probably to hide what otherwise appears to be a pay to play investment scheme (alarm bells should start to go off here).

Reading the FTC website revealed two interesting tidbits: FTC sued payment processor for helping a bogus payday loan scam, they settled for 1 million+ fine/refund NOLINK://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2014/06/payment-processor-agrees-give-more-1-million-settle-ftc-charges I don’t know if it’s laws specific to payday loans (it’s prohibited in some US states). Wonder if it can be applied to Ponzi schemes?

In a separate FTC case, another supplement maker got nailed for making bogus claims “Brainstrong”. Know any other “brain” supplement makers making similar claims? 🙂 NOLINK://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2014/06/supplement-marketers-settle-ftc-charges-brainstrong-adult-memory. The latest Citron press release is here: The two articles they link to appear to be identical. Here’s one: From what I can make out they are more exposes than anything else. However I do believe that’s how the NuSkin government investigation kicked off.

Although after a paltry amount of money changed hands and NuSkin promised to clean up their act, fat lot of good that did. We’ll see if a NuSkin investigation results, but it’s starting to look a bit like the Chinese government looking for red-envelope handouts over any serious regulatory action. Announce investigation into one company, get paid, move onto the next with little to nothing getting done. Quite obviously there a loophole with Chinese mainland residents registering virtual addresses in Hong Kong, and the MLM companies turning a blind eye. The article in Chinese says USANA bought a Chinese company “BaoYing” and is conducting sales through that.

NOLINK://www.baoying.com/ Baoying’s company about_us does not mention USANA at all. Only in “mission statement” was USANA mentioned. According to the Chinese article, USANA bought out the parent company of Baoying (for 62 million?) and when Baoying got direct sales license it became USANA’s backdoor into China even though USANA itself never received any such license, and may even be on the official government blacklist. The article covered repeated fibs by USANA Chinese affiliates. One apparently embellished USANA founder as “winner of Einstein Award 2007” when no such thing happened.

Another referred to “North American Nutritional Supplement Review and Guide” (not exact title) even though the author, according to Wikipedia, is not even a nutritionist. Ah here we go. That happened in 2010 NOLINK://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9HKRU300.htm The two links referred to by Citron are identical they both reposted an article from “China Retail News (Beijing)”. This book by MacWilliams may be this one: NOLINK://www.amazon.com/NutriSearch-Comparative-Nutritional-Supplements-Professional/dp//ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1K1ZNRR9TR9TRAVXY7F4 I’m linking to the English edition. It’s available in Chinese as well. USANA founder Dr.

Wentz did receive some sort of “Albert Einstein Award” in 2007 or so, but it’s awarded by “Global Capital Associates”, and it’s completely unrelated to the “real” Albert Einstein Award handed out by “Institute of Advanced Study” which has prestige equivalent of Nobel Prize. Don’t believe anyone else ever received this award. It was apparently made up specifically that year for Wentz.

USANA Watchdog website believe that USANA may have bought off Global Capital Associates for a PR prize. A guy who calls himself Lazy Man hates MLM.

He writes what he thinks are unbiased reviews of many including MonaVie, Herbalife, and Xocai. One of his favorite targets is Lifevantage. He is committed to bringing the company down. His rhetoric is so venomous he’s inspired others to create website to refute his assertions and criticism.

He recently posted that an unnamed party threatened his life if he didn’t stop posting about the company. He claims to have gotten the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to investigate these death threats. Have you heard anything about this?

Washington Post have a good piece on MXI the chocolate people and how they ruined one couple (who can’t get away from MLMs). Enrique Martinez didn’t like chocolate, but he was eating as many as 10 pieces a day, drinking chocolate protein shakes and rubbing a chocolate-based skin cream on his face. It was expensive chocolate, too. Martinez and his wife, Michelle, were going through $2,000 in chocolate a month. The debt they accumulated this way — more than $100,000 over five years — is now with a consolidation company.

Their credit is ruined. There is a crack in the driveway at their home in Albuquerque from a 14-wheeler that once delivered 12,000 cans of chocolate energy drinks to their garage. The chocolate came from MXI Corp., which uses a controversial business model called multilevel marketing. : He recently posted that an unnamed party threatened his life if he didn’t stop posting about the company. I’ve received at least two threats responding to my investigation of Zeek Rewards.

They are even posted in a public forum, told me to be careful as someone may pay me a visit for lying about Zeek. People desperate to hold on to their dreams will do some crazy things. I have no opinion on LifeVantage, but it’s likely to be woo like the rest of the “Big Placebo” supplement world. It has no effect until proven otherwise. Their poster boy Adam Green is/was heavily engaged in spammy marketing tactics. He had a whole network of websites going full of useless spun content.

The article, Martinez made most of his sales the usual way. He and his colleagues recruited salespeople, known as “distributors” or “direct sellers.” Enrique was the promoter, always scouting prospective buyers.

He’d cleared out all the hair products for sale on the shelves in the salon and replaced them with chocolates, telling clients that selling MXI products was more remunerative. And though he failed to find steady retail customers, he refused to admit that his pitch to recruits – that MXI was a profitable opportunity – might be misleading. There’s your problem.

Comp plan should not permit this, retail needs to exist. He and Michelle advanced to the Platinum level in MXI’s hierarchy of distributors in April 2012. To qualify, the couple bought $113,459.88 in chocolate, paying with their credit cards. Their income as Platinums didn’t cover their debts. After about a year, they were forced to confront their complicity in what they now say was a business model driven by recruitment. MXI are just as guilty for letting this happen. It’s likely Enrique was able to advance to Platinum without making a single retail sale.

It’s been far too long since I’ve formally contributed here. I’ve been a big fan of your work Oz for a few years now. Unfortunately the death threats seem to come with the territory of debunking MLM scams. I got one when I wrote about MonaVie as well.

It’s a side effect of brainwashing people and basing their business on recruiting others. When someone pulls back the curtain like in the Wizard of Oz, people can see the scam. I’m betting it isn’t easy to recruit people once those people have seen what’s behind the curtain. The fix is obviously to run a legitimate business in full transparency. Then there wouldn’t need to be people like me and Oz pulling back the curtain and exposing them. By the way, while on the topic of MXI/Xocai, let’s remember that there were similar death threats against a blogger exposing them in Norway:.

Kind of a sad world where people are so mentally messed up that they’ll threaten to slaughter and entire family for helping consumers making a buying decision about chocolate/fruit juice/green tea pills. This should be reason enough to declare MLM illegal under a RICO legislation. I’ve gotten a few comments that the Sherman E. Unkefer III is now in Visi: Hi Lazy Man, Good job on exposing the Visi scam, I have been doing the same as you, exposing the MLM scam Xango, and more importantly my step father, con man and ex con Sherman Unkefer(Xango top distributor). Well I’m happy to announce that on may 29th a civil RICO complaint was issued by the Maricopa county(AZ) Attorney against Sherman unkefer, Xango and co conspirator, Derrick Raynes (Unkefer’s son in law) with a $54 million dollar fine. Please google” Maricopa county sherman Unkefer news release”. How does this tie into Visi?

Mr Unkefer is now using Derrick Raynes as front person to start selling VIsi. Not sure what this is, but I’m going to have to stay up and see if it’s MLM related: On Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2014, FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez will join FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and state attorneys general representing all 50 states and the District of Columbia to announce a major U.S.

Government enforcement action. Could be MLM related or could be something else.

Stay tuned announcement will be made 12pm ET, which is roughly an hour from now. Edit: Wait the FCC are also involved. Probably not MLM related then. Still I’ll watch the press-release just to be sure. Anyone got any ideas?

Not sure what this is (Herablife?), but I’m going to have to stay up and see if it’s MLM related—-oz but, just yesterday ie 7/oct charlie gasprino of fox reported: Senior executives at Herbalife (HLF) are telling investors it’s all but certain the Federal Trade Commission will not shut down the company at the conclusion of its wide-ranging investigation, though they expect some form of disciplinary action, FOX Business Network has learned. Foxbusiness.com/industries/2014/10/07/herbalife-execs-all-but-certain-ftc-wont-shut-down-company/ the company can hardly give out such press, if this is ‘event horizon’. Unbelievable scary shit! Oz, I agree with you, there are many deceitful MLM companies and greedy people in the MLM industry, but that do not make the industry as a whole illegitimate or questionable. It’s that given the nature and structure of the industry, it’s easy for con men to take advantage of individuals who are not willing to be responsible and do their due diligence, but rather be driven by greed.

It’s no different than religion, though religion in and of itself is not bad, but given the nature and structure of it con men/women posing as preachers can take advantage of the masses, but that’s not the fault of religion, it’s the fault of the imposters posing as men/women of God and the gullible individuals who are susceptible to their message failing to study for themselves. Percentages of those deceived be it by MLM or religion do not make either entity right or wrong, it just speaks to the number that use it inappropriately. There are successful and upright MLM companies and churches, though the percentages are fewer, this speaks to the nature of human beings not industries. I have been and am presently associated with very successful MLM or Network/Affiliate Marketing companies. If the industry was so bad, I do not believe that Warren Buffet, Robert Kiosaki or Donald Trump would be involved in it with their own companies.

It’s a legitimate structure, many well known companies are opening network/affiliate divisions. Time, space and prudence will not allow me to go into the nuances of this topic, but suffice me to say this, governments do not give a damn about protecting individuals from ponzi schemes or scammers, they’re only concern is getting their portion via taxes, and if the companies structure complicates this, they shut it down. Hell, government institutes ponzi schemes, the USA Social Security system is a ponzi scheme and anything that would allow people not to need this system will be scrutinized and legislated out of business>Governments and the wealthy that control them do not want the masses to prosper, it would ruin the infrastructure that allow them to conceal their robbery of the poor. Sadly, there are individuals in our society who think like government or are just deluded and do not want to see others prosper either for whatever reason. So, I understand you are just reporting on an industry that is riddled with crooks, but the industry itself is not crooked and you’re trying to protect the gullible and unsuspecting, that’s your platform, but there are those who are saying to you, do not paint the industry with a broad brush, shed some light on the companies that are legitimate.

Finally, everyone has an agenda, that’s why some find it difficult to accept your opinion without an identity attached to it, yes the facts of these companies abuses stand on their own, but why are you the knight in shining armor willing to save the masses from their terror, have you been abused by such companies or by yourself failing to fulfill your responsibility in the process, what’s your ulterior motive? Are you just a nice guy, why? This is just human nature, why is it so important to you to “point out these big bad companies”?

You may say your identity is irrelevant, but it’s not, accusations and opinions are directly associated with the character of the individual who present them. You my friend could be a pathological liar or just a dream stealer, you may hate to see people succeed or you may be presenting solid truth, nevertheless, it’s not going to received well by most coming from an anonymous source, it just seems to lack credibility, like it or not, that’s just how people feel. Fact, insight into a person speaks volumes on how and why their opinions are formed. As long as you hide behind the shroud of anonymity your opinions will fall upon deaf ears, well, except for those who are jaded by or share your opinions and this is not saying they are right or wrong. There are many deceitful MLM companies and greedy people in the MLM industry, but that do not make the industry as a whole illegitimate or questionable.

No, it doesn’t. Not sure where you plucked that idea from but uh, good luck with that. The “agenda” and usual crap, couldn’t care less.

I’ve been writing about the MLM industry coming up on five years now. If there’s a secret agenda masterplan, someone better reveal it to me because it’s eluded and probably will continue to elude me. I encourage everyone to conduct their own due diligence. That’s pretty much what BehindMLM is, only it’s my own efforts.

By all means verify what’s published here yourselves. Everything published in a BehindMLM is based on facts unless otherwise stated – and that’s rare (and usually in the absence of official information provided by the company itself, which is a typical scam red-flag). The thousands of people who visit BehindMLM daily would disagree with you.

Ditto those who’ve invested in or joined shady schemes only to find BehindMLM after the fact. My track record speaks for itself, and is available on the pages of this blog for anyone to read. If that makes you butthurt, so be it – but don’t try the old “you must hate MLM” copout.

Every day I wakeup and there’s something interesting to cover, people to connect with, comments to moderate, reviews to research. The MLM industry fascinates me. You try write almost daily on a topic you don’t have a genuine interest in and see how long you last. So uh, that do not make the industry as a whole illegitimate or questionable. Do you run around the internet creating statements you acknowledge are false and then proceed to base entire walloftext discussion points around them?

Or was this a once-off? Whether 1 or 1,000,000 people visit your site or agree with me proves nothing. It wasn’t cited to prove anything to you.

It just makes your statement about deaf ears look rather silly. It’s not my overall experience. I have had bad experiences but my success has far outweighed them. Ah, well your personal experience means dick. We analyze the industry here, not your bank account. Can you please look into InfluencieRawlinson Souza and Roger Robles.

They are at the Innovation Hub at the University of Florida and have refused to pay the affiliates the earned incomes as we well as their commissions. We started off with traditional online advertising through our social networks. Then their website went down for 7 weeks and when it surfaced again it was a totally different setup and they are refusing to pay anyone. We didn’t have to recruit and now it’s mandatory.

They owe us thousands of dollars and refuse to pay. Pleasedon’t let these guys get away with this. I have screen shots of everything as proof. German news joins Vemma expose team: For Maik H. Burst his dream of easy money with “Verve”. For what he initially did not consider: He earned just 1,000 euros a month, have a total of 70 people buy cans – for each 146 euros, month after month. Although he invested in four months, around 1,500 euros in the business, the system did not work out for him.

In the end he got claims to only 30.42 Euro commission. Hi Guys, Company has Real Product, Real Services. Company has No Business Startup Kit purchase, NO monthly membership Fee. Customers will use the services and they will get paid for 9 level depth only for UNILEVEL Commissions. One requirement is they have to be ACTIVE. Active means they are using that services every month for example $100. That monthly spending requirement makes that ILLEGAL?

For example Organo Gold requires 100PV each month to be active to get commissions. So each month you have to drink or sell $120 worth Coffee. Oz, I’d like to offer a suggestion you may or may not have thought about I believe a lot of your readers would appreciate a link to a “sticky” report on how to recognize the common characteristics of pyramid and ponzi schemes and how to investigate them. For example, it would include common delay tactics and excuses ponzi operators use to keep participants hooked on the scheme until it collapses or is shut down. You might add a link/tab to it at the beginning of each of your reviews/exposes. Thanks for all you and the helpful contributors to this site do to keep us all informed here.

No comp plan on the website The Galaxy Secret game will offer you 12 events a year. 11 side events: 8 with lots of in-kind type: weekend, trip, Iphone. 3 endowed with € 80,000 in cash A fun treasure hunt offered on our website, based on reasoning and general knowledge, and highly rewarded on merit.

Galaxy Secret offers you twelve events per year. During these twelve events, we have the opportunity to help you travel across continents. Galaxy Secret will teleport you into the wonders of the World. And doesn’t sound like MLM (not enough information on the website to make a conclusive determination). Edit: Various YT videos show a comp plan, but nothing in English as of the 8th of August. They seem to only be targeting French, Spanish and Russian-speaking markets. From what I can make it’s 95 EUR to join and then 45 EUR a month – you get paid to recruit new affiliates.

The “events” are online puzzles, offering hundreds of thousands in EUR in prizes (funds are sourced from where???). Looks pretty suspect to me. Bitcoin Ponzi operarator pled guilty in Federal Court: Trendon Shavers pleaded guilty today to operating a Ponzi scheme using the virtual currency bitcoin.

The 33-year-old McKinney, Texas native started his own company, Bitcoin Savings & Trust, in 2011 and used it to collect bitcoins from prospective investors over the internet, claiming he would pay investors 1 percent interest on their investment every three days, or 7 percent a week. Instead, Shavers used most of the bitcoins to pay back older investors — a hallmark Ponzi scheme maneuver. I don’t know where this one belongs FTC Sues Marketers Who Used “Gag Clauses,” Monetary Threats, and Lawsuits to Stop Negative Consumer Reviews for Unproven Weight-Loss Products September 28, 2015 ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2015/09/ftc-sues-marketers-who-used-gag-clauses-monetary-threats-lawsuits?utm_source=govdelivery I didn’t find “Roca Labs, Inc.” or “Roca Labs Nutraceutical USA, Inc.” in any of the articles here, but Kevin Thompson saw it as relevant enough to post a link on his Facebook page. Noticed this bit about SEC was going after shady “cryptomining” companies such as GAW Miners back in August. They subpoenaed owner’s brother, who basically came, and answered “I don’t know” to everything, and produced none of the documents subpoenaed, and now SEC wants the guy to cough up or go to jail for contempt. NOLINK://www.coindesk.com/sec-files-suit-against-brother-of-gaw-miners-ceo-amid-investigation/ They basically suspect that GAW Mining is a ponzi scheme, and little to no mining is done.

: Do you know if they complied with the MoTC and are now licensed? WV’s posture in every Asian country thus far, including Malaysia, Taiwan, and so on is “we don’t actually sell travel in that country, all transactions are done on the Internet with our US office, thus we don’t need a license.” If WV has an office in-country, it’s only to pass out brochures and sell some travel related items like sunscreen and those annoying blue cushions.

They may even apply for direct sales license if required, but they never bother with travel seller’s permit. There was a Taiwan travel industry protest recently that wants a crackdown on WV in Taiwan by the authorities. There have been a couple of arrests in the Banners Brokers scam which operated out of canada: Two Canadians have been arrested following an investigation into a pyramid scheme that allegedly took in more than US$93 million. The scheme operated between October 2010 and March 2013, out of an address on Church Street, Toronto police said Wednesday. Police said the scheme, known as “Banners Broker,” offered participants a chance to double their money by investing in an advertising company. Toronto police worked with RCMP, the Competition Bureau of Canada, the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services, the Ministry of Finance, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency to investigate reports from victims.

As a result of the investigation, 45-year-old Christopher George Smith, of Toronto, and 45-year-old Rajiv Dixit, of Vancouver, have been charged.