Due to a combination of government policy, the time required for a thorough investigation to be carried out and the inevitable appeals process, it’s all too well known that there’s often a large disconnect of time between the establishment of an MLM company, and a regulatory body investigating it.

At the heart of a scam MLM is the principle of extracting as much money from unsuspecting victims, in the least amount of time possible. And when you combine this with a long delay in the investigation process, a lot of people can be taken for a ride and driven to financial ruin in the meantime.

One group of MLM companies in Bangladesh sought to address this problem and have called upon the government to regulate the MLM industry.

According to Joint Stock Companies and Firms registrar, some 70 MLM companies are operating in the country.

Nearly two-thirds of them are involved in banking, which is illegal. The rest offers a very few products.

From the sounds of it, regulation, whether proactive or reactive in Bangladesh is pretty slow and the country appears to be overrun with get rich quick MLM schemes.

Gazi Md Zakir Hossen, chief executive officer of Uptrend Distribution Ltd (known as uptrend2u) ‘points fingers at unipay2u, TVI Express, Visa Ray, Speak Asia, Legend Venture, Unigateway, Goldtrend, Neway and Destiny-2000 Ltd‘.

TVI Express I’m well aware of but the other companies I’ve never heard of. Presumably they are similar ‘no product’ MLM clones of TVI that operate on a fast revolving, recruitment driven matrix.

Fed up with companies named above tarnishing the MLM industry name in Bangladesh and eroding consumer confidence,

a section of MLM companies at a press briefing yesterday requested the government to take action against those involved in illegal banking in the name of MLM.This group claims multilevel marketing doesn’t allow banking, and it must be product-based. This means profit will come from selling products.

Why this hasn’t happened before or why it hasn’t happened in other countries is a mystery to me, but good on them. Ultimately without a product all you’re doing is shifting money in some way or another and unfortunately it can take regulators months, even years to crack down on this activity.

If I was running a legitimate MLM company it would cause me no end of frustration to hear about scam MLM companies bursting into the market with largely unsustainable compensation plans.

I do know that MLM industry alliances and associations exist outside of Bangladesh, but it’s rare to actually hear them speak out against other companies in the industry.

Personally I think it’s high time they did.