About
Ever visited a 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 contact me 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!
June 24th, 2010 at 8:50 pm Jay Volles(Quote)
Can you give me your insight on Ignite powered by Stream Energy… Give me your positives and negatives, or write an article about it.
June 25th, 2010 at 12:14 am Oz(Quote)
Hmm an electricity MLM, that sounds interesting!
Due to travelling and other commitments I’m way behind the 8 ball on publishing articles for BehindMLM. I’ve added Ignite to my list though I can’t promise when I’ll publish my opinion of them.
September 6th, 2010 at 10:59 am Anonymous Aussie(Quote)
Hi Oz!
I’m definitely looking forward to hearing your views on the MLM industry and looking at some MLMs a little more in detail.
Should prove an interest read on what generally ends up being a hot topic of discussion.
September 9th, 2010 at 1:59 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Thanks Anonymous and I look forward to writing about them!
Finding the time is proving all to challenging at the moment but perseverence is the key hey.
October 4th, 2010 at 5:47 pm Vince(Quote)
Hey, you reckon Xyngular is worthy of a mention? Just when you thought you’ve seen it all, here’s a guy posing as a doctor, alongside a few sidekicks.
October 5th, 2010 at 1:58 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Haven’t looked into them but I’ve added Xyngular to the research list. Thanks for the heads up.
December 25th, 2010 at 4:47 am Tha Teacher(Quote)
Are there any companies that you do recommend?
December 28th, 2010 at 12:44 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
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.
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.
January 11th, 2011 at 12:48 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
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).
March 17th, 2011 at 3:40 am Chris Molinari(Quote)
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.”
March 17th, 2011 at 9:27 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
BehindMLM is a blog, it’s not a major news broadcaster.
March 17th, 2011 at 1:22 pm K. Chang(Quote)
@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.
March 17th, 2011 at 7:39 pm B.F.(Quote)
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.
March 20th, 2011 at 5:34 am Chris Molinari(Quote)
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.
March 20th, 2011 at 8:51 pm B.F.(Quote)
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.
March 21st, 2011 at 7:29 pm B.F.(Quote)
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:
http://forum.hegnar.no/thread.asp?id=1948693
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: http://www.iaohbo.com ?
March 22nd, 2011 at 12:43 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
@Chris
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. etc.
Exaggerated yes but I think you’ve got a bit of a naive view on how MLM is marketed these days.
March 24th, 2011 at 1:26 pm D. F. Halstrom(Quote)
Actually, most of those companies do not have to pass through their state Atty. General’s office. Surprised you don’t know that, since you do online PR and SEO
How does that demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about?
March 25th, 2011 at 1:03 am K. Chang(Quote)
@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.
August 7th, 2011 at 3:49 am Raj(Quote)
I am wondering why your domain’s whois information is confidential ??
August 7th, 2011 at 10:41 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
@Raj
Because it’s irrelevant to the information presented on this website. I’m not trying to market or sell you anything.
September 3rd, 2011 at 3:16 am Marc Barrett(Quote)
You have an interesting About section since it has no information about your background (or even your name) and what qualifies you to comment on the MLM industry.
So fess up here dude, what are your qualifications?
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:20 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
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.
September 3rd, 2011 at 12:34 pm Marc Barrett(Quote)
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
September 3rd, 2011 at 12:49 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
In MLM, no. 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 at?
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.
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.
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.
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.
September 3rd, 2011 at 1:04 pm K. Chang(Quote)
@Marc — claiming the other side is not qualified to comment on MLM smacks of “ad hominem” attack. If you want to attack his opinion, attack his opinion and his evidence backing his opinion, not his qualifications.
Right now, you’re using at least three intellectually dishonest debate tactics:
name-calling — unqualified
claiming membership with audience group — successful in MLM
my resume is bigger than yours — great, so?
cited from http://www.johntreed.com/debate.html
September 3rd, 2011 at 2:02 pm K. Chang(Quote)
@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).
September 3rd, 2011 at 2:11 pm K. Chang(Quote)
Come to think of it, this is the same Marc Barrett that wrote TVI Express is good opportunity:
http://askmarcbarrett.com/mlm-reviews/tvi-express-fast-lane-or-a-dead-end
Sorry, Marc. Your credibility just evaporated. You can’t recognize a pyramid scheme when you see one. Your 24 years in MLM apparently is full of ****.
September 3rd, 2011 at 2:42 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Uh lol?
That’s what happens when you’re just out there promoting the various opportunities of the day.
September 3rd, 2011 at 2:56 pm K. Chang(Quote)
I guess we have to throw him in along with Nettle’s CitizenCorp.
September 3rd, 2011 at 3:04 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Not quite, unlike Nettle at least Barret, to his credit, isn’t posing as a division of a government organisation claiming to offer impartial advice on ‘top tier’ home business opportunities.
September 3rd, 2011 at 5:44 pm K. Chang(Quote)
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.
September 5th, 2011 at 9:35 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
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.
September 7th, 2011 at 1:20 pm Susan Shaw(Quote)
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
September 7th, 2011 at 1:54 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
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.
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.
So? Neither have a lot of people looking at MLM companies, are their opinions and concerns any less valid?
Now now, a lot of work and research goes into the information presented here. At least give me a little credit.
If your dodgy business gets ruined, that’s hardly my fault for pointing out it’s a dodgy business.
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. Colin Greig. 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.
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.
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.
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.
September 7th, 2011 at 4:06 pm K. Chang(Quote)
Apparently his experience led him to conclude an OBVIOUS pyramid scheme, such as TVI Express, is a great opportunity, and will be declared LEGAL, according to his own webpage. See above for the URL.
As he can’t tell a pyramid scheme from a legit MLM, clearly his 24 years of experience is worth nothing.
Which renders the rest of your argument completely moot.
September 7th, 2011 at 4:29 pm K. Chang(Quote)
Why is it his fault that here’s so much **** for him to report on?
Now Oz can sue YOU for defamation, since you just accused him of lying. Can you prove he’s lying?
You, Ms. 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? Skeletons!
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?
September 11th, 2011 at 4:10 am K. Chang(Quote)
More than a year late, but here’s a relevant article on Ignite:
Atlanta newspaper ponders whether Ignite is a pyramid scheme or not
http://pyramidschemealert.org/atlanta-newspaper-examines-mlm-scheme-stream-energyignite/
December 9th, 2011 at 4:57 pm K. Chang(Quote)
It appears that Marc Barrett has some balls: that TVI Express review he did is STILL up on his website.
December 18th, 2011 at 3:11 pm Hari(Quote)
Please anybody tell about this company.
http://travistaworldwide.com/
December 19th, 2011 at 11:40 am M_Norway(Quote)
@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.
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. LLC. 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 …
December 19th, 2011 at 2:48 pm K. Chang(Quote)
The short answer about that company… it’s a TVI Express clone, and TVI Express is an illegal pyramid scheme.
ANOTHER TVI Express clone is getting hammered by critics: Bon Voyage 1000.
http://obtainer.posterous.com/scam-alert-bon-voyage-1000
December 19th, 2011 at 3:28 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
@Hari
I concur that Travista Worldwide appears to be just another recruitment driven travel club niche MLM that only pays out commissions from membership fees.
Travista Worldwide: A Travel Club Scam
@Kasey Why are they only reviewing Bon Voyage 1000 now? I myself reviewed it over a year ago…
December 19th, 2011 at 7:07 pm K. Chang(Quote)
Apparently they only reached Europe relatively recently. Seems previous efforts are mainly aimed at the US market.
December 22nd, 2011 at 11:09 am Bill(Quote)
Hey Oz,
Have you seen this yet? http://www.EmpowerNetwork.com
100% commissions. Over 11,000 members and $2M of sales generated in 60 days.
December 22nd, 2011 at 11:14 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
Yeah I glossed over the Empower Network a few weeks back. It appeared to be some affiliate type deal combined with blogs?
Didn’t seem like MLM to me at the time (although could be used to market MLM).
January 12th, 2012 at 1:33 pm rod(Quote)
@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 backlinking…not 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 product…and as a potential valuable product for re-sale if it’s effective in getting content ranked.
January 12th, 2012 at 5:46 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Do they publish on the same domain or sub-domains?
Free article directories took a massive hit in the last Panda update, I can only imagine that trying to manage 1000+ marketers on the one domain would be a content farm nightmare.
Imagine just fifty of these guys all trying to use Empower to push the same opportunity, it’d be a duplicate content disaster – moreso if they just copy and pasted official marketing spiel.
February 18th, 2012 at 2:31 pm K. Chang(Quote)
Empower Network is profiting on the MLM mentality: recruit people to get paid. It’s attracting MLMers like Jon Mroz and many other even shadier characters. You can already find articles on there pushing everything, even Wazzub.
On a completely different topic, JSSTripler, an HYIP, was charged by Italian authorities as an illegal investment scam
http://www.patrickpretty.com/2012/01/27/urgent-moving-bulletin-jss-tripler-promoters-targeted-by-italian-regulator-consob-in-securities-probe/
February 18th, 2012 at 3:03 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
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.
February 18th, 2012 at 4:04 pm K. Chang(Quote)
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.
March 3rd, 2012 at 8:03 am Pete(Quote)
Could you please check this company (investment company MacroTrade suppose to be in London) cause they do not return my e-mail asking about website(password) to see or withdraw my money. Thanks Pete
March 3rd, 2012 at 8:31 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
MacroTrade seem to have a MLM commissions structure so I’ve added them to the list.
March 7th, 2012 at 11:47 pm David(Quote)
Hi Oz,
Thanks for providing this valuable resource on MLM businesses – it has been quite an education for me!
If I may provide a bit of constructive criticism – please hold up on reviewing “investment” scams! I know that there are tons of the damned things out there at the moment, but hopefully regular readers of this blog have now got the message about them!
Your undoubted talents at researching MLM opportunities deserve a wider focus. Apart from that minor niggle, keep up the good work!
March 8th, 2012 at 12:06 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
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.
March 15th, 2012 at 11:44 pm Zac Hawkins(Quote)
Hey Oz,
Sorry if I’ve missed it, but have you taken a look at Minerva Rewards?
They definitely are incorporating a MLM comp plan.
Minerva Rewards Blog
Seem to be bringing in some big names, thought your readers would find it interesting.
March 16th, 2012 at 8:22 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
Hey Zac,
I’ve got Minerva Rewards on my to-do list. Will get around to reviewing them eventually. Cheers.
March 29th, 2012 at 12:06 am Zach(Quote)
Hi Oz,
You are my first stop when investigating an online “opportunity.” It’s tough to get the real story anywhere else. I’ve recently been asked about Banners Broker, but can’t find a hint of it on your site. Have you looked at it? Thanks
March 29th, 2012 at 3:00 am Anil Menon(Quote)
Hi Oz,
I am just new to your site. Do you or anyone over here have any suggestion on KB GOLD, or Karatbars international.
Thanks a lot
anil
March 29th, 2012 at 8:08 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
@Jimmy
I’ve had a few requests for Banners Broker, but last I looked at it it was a straight up investment scheme, there was no MLM side to it.
@Anil
I’ve had KB Gold on my list to investigate for a while now, Karat Bars International seems to be an investment opportunity without MLM?
April 11th, 2012 at 9:54 am Hi bye(Quote)
Y haven’t u done an article on jss or Jbp alone
April 11th, 2012 at 9:55 am Hi bye(Quote)
I would like to see
April 11th, 2012 at 9:58 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
Neither are MLM companies or trying to pass themselves off as one. Both are just straight up Ponzi schemes and are marketed as such.
BehindMLM, it’s more than just a pretty name.
April 27th, 2012 at 10:30 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
@Pete (March 3rd)
Went to go and have a look at MacroTrade again for a review and it appears they’ve disappeared. I’m guessing restricting access to your account (and others?) was the precursor to the company going bust.
May 4th, 2012 at 3:01 am K. Chang(Quote)
Oz, I’ve started a blog on MLM skepticism (with sidetracks to scam, tactics, and critical thinking). You’re welcome to link to it if you feel like it:
http://amlmskeptic.blogspot.com/
May 4th, 2012 at 5:25 am M_Norway(Quote)
I have posted one comment about KB Gold in June 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.
CONCLUSION?
* 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.
May 4th, 2012 at 8:33 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
@Kasey
Looks like the “theory” section I’ve set up here! I’ll be penning similar articles at some point.
For now I’ve decided a priority is getting through the long list of companies I’ve had requests to review over the last few years. Then I’ll start to work on the other areas of the site.
Still, any awareness is welcome – good luck!
May 21st, 2012 at 1:29 pm Daniel Claiborne(Quote)
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:
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.
May 21st, 2012 at 2:51 pm K. Chang(Quote)
@Daniel Claiborne — you are absolutely correct, however, I’d like to point out that hands of justice move slowly. By the time you get a definitive answer on compliance, or the company already imploded, it’s too late for all the victims.
“I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.” — Morpheus, The Matrix (1999)
May 23rd, 2012 at 12:08 pm Daniel Claiborne(Quote)
“It is more essential to learn how to believe than to learn what to believe. …Truth is in the least danger of being lost when free examination is allowed.”
–ca 1789, Rev. John Leland, Virginia abolitionist pastor who lobbied James Madison for passage of the Bill of Rights
May 24th, 2012 at 11:49 pm K. Chang(Quote)
Interesting hate mail received by PatrickPretty.com… a troll send him hatemail that claimed death of Patrick’s dog is a sign from God telling Patrick to stop exposing Ponzi and other scams.
WTF?! :facepalm:
May 25th, 2012 at 12:20 am Brazilian(Quote)
Because Ponzi schemes have the divine right to have nothing negative about them in the Internet
June 5th, 2012 at 12:44 am K. Chang(Quote)
The Verge did a LONG story on Internet Scams (disguised as Internet Marketing). It’s a FASCINATING read:
http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/10/2984893/scamworld-get-rich-quick-schemes-mutate-into-an-online-monster
July 12th, 2012 at 4:44 pm nu(Quote)
I’m researching about Banners Broker, but can’t find a hint of it on your site. Have you looked at it? Is there any independent reviews of Banners Broker?
Thanks.
July 12th, 2012 at 6:50 pm Oz(Quote)
Banners Broker doesn’t have a MLM component to it, it’s just an investment scheme and falls outside the scope of BehindMLM.
100% of the revenue they pay out in returns however is generated by members – that’s something to think about.
July 13th, 2012 at 3:16 am penny(Quote)
I’ve been reading throughout your site for some time now and I think that you’re doing a wonderful job.
I agree w/ much of what you have written and the results are based on solid evidence. Keep up the good work. I will be looking in from time to time.
July 19th, 2012 at 7:41 am Fritz(Quote)
You guys are doing an amazing job!! It’s great to see people come and try to defend themselves but never bring any proof to back it up.
You guys need more exposure to help all the poor suckers getting fooled into joining these scams!
July 24th, 2012 at 2:24 am Marilee(Quote)
Hi…if 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.
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?
July 24th, 2012 at 6:33 am Oz(Quote)
I’ll add Nucerity to my review list Marilee, no timeline on when I’ll get around to it though.
Thanks for reading!
July 30th, 2012 at 4:38 pm Oz(Quote)
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.
I’ve implemented them site wide so let me know if there’s any problems.
I know the preview comment always shows ‘#1′ but seeing as the preview plugin has no idea how many comments have been published on the article that I can’t do anything about.
July 30th, 2012 at 8:19 pm M_Norway(Quote)
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”.
July 30th, 2012 at 8:36 pm Oz(Quote)
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…
August 5th, 2012 at 2:30 am R.K.Swami(Quote)
Respected Sir,
A company named Profit Zone Edutech Pvt. Ltd. (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.
August 5th, 2012 at 7:34 am Oz(Quote)
Hey RK,
Forex investment schemes fall outside the scope of BehindMLM, in that they’re not MLM.
August 12th, 2012 at 1:45 pm Scott Bravell(Quote)
Just found your site and have really enjoyed reading the articles!
Is there any chance you can review what I think is a great MLM company: Numis Network?
Thanks,
Scott
August 18th, 2012 at 12:13 pm flh(Quote)
I’ve looked around your site and cannot find any mention of MyVideoTalk. (MVT)
I was involved with Zeek till today and now I am moving on as I need to find some stellar company to hitch my banner to.
Thanks in advance
August 20th, 2012 at 2:45 pm nabo(Quote)
I have looked for information on Coastal Vacations here, but don’t see anything. Please tell if you have heard of it and your evaluation of it.
Thank you so much
August 20th, 2012 at 8:23 pm Xabi Ungaro(Quote)
Banners Broker sbuys and sells banner places from the investors money on popular websites, and the profit is shared. i do not know, if this is true.
Bidify is similar to zeek.
The system was not bad, if the profit of the auction site was payed to the members.
Wealh4all and just been paid?
If not ponzi, how can they prove such a big earnings?
Regards
Andras Nemeth
August 21st, 2012 at 11:33 pm Bozon(Quote)
Hi,
Thank you for your MLM beginner help.
Could you make a list of credible MLM compagies ?
Regards.
Bozon.
August 22nd, 2012 at 12:39 am Oz(Quote)
@Bozon
I don’t make MLM company recommendations. I only review and analyse them.
August 22nd, 2012 at 1:41 am Claire(Quote)
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
August 22nd, 2012 at 8:47 am Oz(Quote)
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).
Wealth4All has already been reviewed.
August 22nd, 2012 at 9:42 am Oz(Quote)
Just a further note on JustBeenPaid, in the last 24 hours it’s been announced founder Frederick Mann has abandoned the scheme and has gone into hiding.
They’re now trying to reboot the Ponzi (because it collapsed, as all Ponzi schemes do), under the brand “Profit Clicking”. They have a bunch of testimonials up before the scheme has even launched (profitclicking.com)… and of course none of the information links work on their website.
Make of that what you will.
August 22nd, 2012 at 10:39 am Erin(Quote)
Oz…you might think about a ponzi section…or 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.
August 22nd, 2012 at 1:33 pm Claire(Quote)
Thank you Oz, I do really appreciate that you added it (Visalus) to the list and completely understand no time guarantees.
Agree with Erin (like you don’t have enough to do). Much appreciated.
August 22nd, 2012 at 2:14 pm nabo(Quote)
Thank you Oz..
August 27th, 2012 at 6:10 am ZeekJustice(Quote)
Thank you for all the work you put into this site. It is really appreciated.
September 5th, 2012 at 5:55 pm Kris(Quote)
I would like to read review about Banners Broker too.
Some people put e.g. $5000 into program like BB and they would like to know if it is any risk for them to keep money inside the system
September 5th, 2012 at 8:00 pm Oz(Quote)
Banners Broker isn’t a MLM, it’s a straight up investment scheme.
As for risk, you invest and earn a ROI. There’s no other documented form of company revenue other than member investments. You do the math…
September 6th, 2012 at 6:47 am Kris(Quote)
But in BB T&C (which are available on the button on their webpage ) in section H is info like that
So, it looks like BB is not an investment or ROI
September 6th, 2012 at 7:19 am Oz(Quote)
How a company defines itself in its Terms and Conditions doesn’t define what it actually is, its business model does.
You put money into BB, sit back and earn a guaranteed ROI over time. Mechanically, regardless of the psuedo linguistic compliance they push, it’s an investment opportunity.
September 6th, 2012 at 7:40 am K. Chang(Quote)
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.
September 7th, 2012 at 2:26 am Ak Sharma(Quote)
It has been confirmed that the more members join Banner Broker though an existing person the faster the ROI becomes. Try studying their business plan Or try to get BB pitch from an existing associate.
Just ask him one thing:
“If I introduce someone to Banner Broker will that help get ROI faster?”
September 7th, 2012 at 5:35 am Kris(Quote)
ok Thanks for your answers. It may be a ponzi scheme…
I think the best idea is to withdraw money which you put in after some time and for rest you can ,,play” on your own risk…If the company will colapse you do not loose your money.
September 7th, 2012 at 9:19 am Oz(Quote)
@Kris
not participate in Ponzi schemes at all. Period.
September 10th, 2012 at 10:16 am Dave G.(Quote)
Hey Oz, can you review Ambit Energy? It’s been big here in New York for quite a while but never really looked into it.
Thanks.
September 10th, 2012 at 11:51 am Oz(Quote)
I’ll add them to the list.
September 11th, 2012 at 2:36 am Eddie(Quote)
Oz,
I friend just lost money in Zeek, now they are looking at an investment called “Profit Sunrise” anywhere I can find out about it?
September 11th, 2012 at 8:23 am Oz(Quote)
I’ll add it to the list.
September 11th, 2012 at 9:00 am K. Chang(Quote)
Profit Sunrise? It’s advertised on some former Zeek sites. It’s an HYIP.
http://www.realscam.com/f10/zeek-members-again-targeted-1586/#post28053
September 26th, 2012 at 12:36 pm Shaneo(Quote)
Hi Oz,
Just stumbled upon this site and love the candid and honest comments. Thank you for enligthening me!
Are there any legit internet business out there where you can actually make some money without been ripped off or ripping anyone else off and where you’re not embarrassed to say what you do?
September 26th, 2012 at 1:53 pm Oz(Quote)
I don’t make MLM business recommendations, I only review them.
October 6th, 2012 at 4:24 am Marquita L.(Quote)
Oz may please approve my comment on the tvc/mca matrix thread.
(Ozedit: I read “blahblahblah everyone is biased blahblahblah Avon and Mary Kay” in the first paragraph so it was marked as offtopic spam.
Keep the discussion ontopic and don’t open your comment with “So I’m not going to address anyone’s comment specifically, here’s a mountain of offtopic marketing spam instead”.)
October 15th, 2012 at 9:24 am K. Chang(Quote)
This just came over the airwaves:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/918831-an-investor-s-guide-to-identifying-pyramid-schemes?source=feed
This guy is pretty hard on MLM, and FTC for leaving stuff vague.
October 23rd, 2012 at 11:05 am ray(Quote)
smartmediatechnologies.com (the virtual office)
smartmediamagazine.com (the executive summary)
gosmartmedia.com (the silent system)
homepagepays.com (the product)
i would love to get your take on this project…these guys seem to have created something very sweet…have you any thoughts
October 23rd, 2012 at 6:11 pm Oz(Quote)
I’ll add Smart Media Technlogies to the review list ray.
November 21st, 2012 at 12:09 pm ray(Quote)
hello mr oz!….i wanted to check check check back with you relative to anything that may have come your way on the SmartMediaMagazine.com, GoSmartMedia.com, SmartMediaTechnologies.com and HomePagePays.com program…..
i am hearing and see a lot of activity here in the OC (southern ca) about the project….anything from you?
November 21st, 2012 at 12:21 pm Oz(Quote)
It’s still on “the list”.
Due to Christmas coming up and a lack of new launches, I’m hoping to get stuck into the list a bit. KB Gold had been on there for over a year and I only got around to reviewing them yesterday!
November 24th, 2012 at 9:53 pm larry(Quote)
hey oz can you check out Viridian Energy and north american power
December 8th, 2012 at 5:31 pm Roy(Quote)
Do you know anything about Vemma Verve?
January 10th, 2013 at 1:06 am Sal Zingale(Quote)
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!
January 10th, 2013 at 10:10 am Seano(Quote)
Hi Oz,
Can you please do a review for Banners Broker? It looks dodgy as all hell and I need some concrete evidence to convince a family member not to get sucked in.
Cheers, and love your work!
January 10th, 2013 at 2:49 pm Oz(Quote)
Thanks for the encouragement Sal and of course thanks for reading!
January 10th, 2013 at 2:51 pm Oz(Quote)
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).
Cheers.
January 10th, 2013 at 4:34 pm K. Chang(Quote)
Got a note on MLMWatchdog that Bannerbroker’s office in Goa India got raided by local police. Probably just local rep though.
http://www.mlmwatchdog.com/MLM_Watch_list.html
January 22nd, 2013 at 12:48 pm Kari(Quote)
Hey, I was just wondering if you could please do a formal review on the Ecosway business especially so people can have a simplified version chance to understand the ins & outs of the Ecosway business model.
Thanks
January 22nd, 2013 at 4:06 pm Oz(Quote)
Sure Kari I’ll add them to the review list, cheers.
January 29th, 2013 at 1:17 pm K. Chang(Quote)
FYI, FTC just nailed FHTM
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2013/01/fhtm.shtm
January 29th, 2013 at 2:34 pm Oz(Quote)
On it, cheers Kasey.
February 6th, 2013 at 12:29 am Darren(Quote)
Great page with great insite.
Saved me the trouble of going through with World Ventures. My friend claims I should join her “business team” and become a partner. The whole thing didn’t seem right.
I searched but didn’t find anything on Primerica. What’s your take on them?
February 6th, 2013 at 7:29 am Oz(Quote)
Hey Darren, thanks for reading.
I’ll add Primerica to the review list.
February 11th, 2013 at 12:15 am Jay McHugh(Quote)
thanks for being objective….love your insight…..Jay
February 13th, 2013 at 2:05 pm Moms at work(Quote)
How aboit Juice Plus, they use people to bring people to they website and people buy from your website and you never see the money because they just give to someone in the top! be real
February 23rd, 2013 at 12:48 pm Ben D.(Quote)
What can I do to help behindMLM ? ? ?
Can I follow your method and help submit reviews/evaluations…?
February 23rd, 2013 at 1:12 pm Oz(Quote)
Thanks for the enthusaism Ben! Unfortunately though BehindMLM is not accepting guest post submissions at this time.
March 13th, 2013 at 4:05 pm KCK(Quote)
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 distributor…or 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.
March 25th, 2013 at 12:07 pm K. Chang(Quote)
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:
http://www.wivb.com/dpp/news/erie/Woman-sentenced-for-Ponzi-scheme
April 4th, 2013 at 11:36 pm Incognito(Quote)
This is off topic … really wish you had a search function for looking up company reviews that are not listed in the navigation column.
April 5th, 2013 at 12:25 am Oz(Quote)
Uh.. there’s a search box on the top right of every page (under the contact button).
April 5th, 2013 at 12:41 am Incognito(Quote)
There’s nothing between the contact button and the paragraph “About”. I have searched over and over, side to side, up and down on both the Home and About page and there isn’t a search function. Must be my computer.
April 5th, 2013 at 12:43 am Oz(Quote)
Definitely a search button there, try another browser.
April 5th, 2013 at 1:56 am M_Norway(Quote)
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.
April 5th, 2013 at 2:26 am Hossy(Quote)
It seems misprision of a felony is a misdemeanor. Misprision is not the participation in a felony (which would be a felony) but knowing that a felony was taking place and not reporting it to the proper authorities.
It sounds like something that is charged when there is not enough evidence to support a conviction on the underlying felony itself.
April 5th, 2013 at 4:34 am Incognito(Quote)
Thanks M_Norway, I sent Oz a screenshot of what I see on my screen, and the search function is not there. But I am using Safari as I have a Mac, so I am going to download Chrome and see if that will work. Thanks!
April 5th, 2013 at 4:43 am Incognito(Quote)
I had an idea it could possibly be adblock since that affects google, and I was right. When I clicked “do not run on this page” in my adblock dropdown menu, the little google search box popped right up!!
April 5th, 2013 at 9:46 am Oz(Quote)
Mystery solved!
re. Categories, I usually create a company specific one if I find myself writing more than a few articles on the one company. There’s no specific threshold, I just play it by ear.
April 5th, 2013 at 9:54 am K. Chang(Quote)
THere’s no search when using Chrome, latest version.
April 5th, 2013 at 9:58 am Oz(Quote)
There has to be, I’m using the latest version of Chrome and it’s there…
April 10th, 2013 at 11:31 am Campbell(Quote)
When it comes to MLM people seem to ignore all good business sense. Why is that ?
If people applied good business sense to MLM they would have a better than average result than that of what we would call normal business. Which by the way has an equally horrendous failure rate.
April 10th, 2013 at 11:37 am K. Chang(Quote)
The problem with MLM is its “person-to-person” nature, which is both a blessing and a curse.
A blessing because it builds lasting relationship between the seller and customer (if you’re indeed selling something). A curse because it also relies on the worse cognitive biases that people have, where mental tricks like compliance and other techniques can be used.
April 12th, 2013 at 2:27 pm K. Chang(Quote)
Found the problem. AdBlock somehow killed your search bar along with that banner ad near the top.
April 28th, 2013 at 8:13 am Oz(Quote)
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.
April 28th, 2013 at 9:06 am naabo(Quote)
well now that was dramatic
April 30th, 2013 at 5:29 am K. Chang(Quote)
Sort of FYI, I did a guest blog post about “Cognitive Dissonance, Ponzi Schemes, and Reload Scams”:
http://skepticsonthe.net/cognitive-dissonance-ponzi-schemes-and-reload-scams/
May 15th, 2013 at 7:07 am K. Chang(Quote)
Spotted this briefing by Len Clements, a MLM comp specialist, on how to detect MLM Corp Hype:
May 15th, 2013 at 7:21 am Oz(Quote)
I’ve been keeping tabs on Clement’s new video series. I don’t know whether or not he shot them all on the same day or not but he’s always wearing the same purple tshirt!
May 15th, 2013 at 10:04 pm M_Norway(Quote)
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. 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.
May 16th, 2013 at 1:53 am K. Chang(Quote)
He kinda made that audio podcast that explained why he wasn’t so sure about “not a Ponzi” when he saw that Burks video where Burks himself admitted the points will grow out of control. I left him a comment or two.