CO2 Rewards Review: Selling carbon offset units?
The idea that people can simply pay money to offset their carbon output has always seemed flimsy to me.
The actual carbon being emitted isn’t reduced meaning people’s pollution habits aren’t changing. Furthermore it’s been reported that less than 30% of money spent in purchasing carbon offsets are actually used to reduce carbon emissions.
Personally I think it’s much more effective to actually change your habits rather than just throw money at it (ride a bike, take shorter showers, don’t leave the lights on etc.).
Nonetheless, seeking to combine the purchase of carbon offset units with a MLM style compensation plan comes the CO2 Rewards business opportunity.
Read on for a full review.
The Company
The CO2 Rewards website makes only one vague reference to who owns or operates the company:
CO2Rewards (CO2R) is owned and operated by Global Rewards Group Ltd. The Global Rewards Group is first and foremost a network of people united in a common cause.
The Global Rewards Group is simply a group of extra ordinary people, inspired by natural passions, empathy for our world, and each other. Our Group has come together to create and carry out an aggressive and revolutionary plan to restore some of this balance to our world.
Global Rewards Group Ltd. is incorporated in the Official Republic of Seychelles.
The Global Rewards Group is debt free with a staff of 30 in-house people with extensive resources in the areas of Management, Marketing, Banking, Software Engineering, Legal Consultation, and International Customer Support.
They say an awful lot but don’t really tell you anything. CO2 Rewards go on to list a company address in Seychelles:
Global Rewards Group Ltd
Reg No:. 103664,
Registered address: Suite 9, Ansuya Estate, Revolution Avenue, Victoria, Mahe, Seychelles.
And that’s pretty much it. I couldn’t find any further information about Global Rewards Group (Seychelles, a known tax-haven, has no searchable business registry).
That said, the domain co2rewards.com was registered on the 26th January 2012 and names a ‘Motasem Owda’ as the registrant. Owda’s supplied details indicate that he’s operating out of Riga in Latvia.
Owda’s LinkedIn profile states that he’s working in website and development in Latvia,
and I was ready to write him off as possibly being just the webdesigner of the CO2 website, however his Facebook profile:
mentions that he works at something called Ausante.
Ausante is a MLM company that claims to sell “carbon offset units” using a binary compensation plan structure.
Looking at the Ausante and CO2 Rewards websites, it’s quickly apparent that the same product line and being MLM companies are not the only characteristics shared between them.
(click any of the following screenshots to enlarge them)
Here’s Ausante’s ‘About Us’ page:
and here’s CO2 Rewards’ same page:
Here’s Ausante’s ‘Your Future’ page:
and CO2 Rewards’ homepage:
Short of perhaps being a member of Ausante, the company does not list Motasem Otwa on their management page so it’s unclear what (if any) the relationship between CO2 Rewards and Ausante actually is.
In June last year Owda tweeted:
Although which company he was talking about at the time isn’t specified.
Motasem Owda however most likely appears to at least be running the CO2 Rewards website however and therefore owns and runs the company itself. Whether or not he has partners in Global Rewards Group is unclear.
Update January 10th, 2012 – Motasem Owda got in touch with BehindMLM recently and clarified his involvement (or lack thereof) in CO2 Rewards and naming “Motahir Ali” as the owner:
I’m a Project Manager who used to work for Baltic Design Colors, working period April – September 2011.
After my contract expired with Baltic design colors, I applied to work as a copy writer and a project manager for a company called Intellesite, working period October 2011 – October 2012.
Intellesite is an IT company that develops MLM softwares and Led by Motahir Ali or his nickname (Tahir Ali).
This man owns the biggest shares of Ausante and Co2rewards his name was listed on Ausante’s management team page and here’s his linked in bio : http://www.linkedin.com/in/topsites.
All the companies that you see under his name (Treedy, Topsites , Ausante, etc.. ) he owns the biggest shares if not all of them.
I worked on treedy as a main project manager and (I still have the project documents if you want me to prove to you that), and on Ausante as a copywriter.
Motahir ali wanted to expand his operations in the US through a number of people such as a guy called “big john” (I never known this guy and never spoken to him), Rudolf Christen and Kevin Thompson. And by him running and maintaining the software he’s also controlling the money and the companies’ bank accounts.
Owda claims that Ali “pulled a stunt” on him and used his personal information to register the CO2 Rewards domain with. Owda states he is now ‘suing the people who recklessly used (his) personal details without (his) personal authorization‘. /end update
The CO2 Rewards Product Line
CO2 Rewards’ product are carbon offset units. In a nutshell, you buy these units to offset your carbon footprint, with the money used to purchase the units supposedly going towards “green” initiatives.
One of the major applicable concerns of carbon trading units is ‘widespread instances of people and organizations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions‘.
CO2 Rewards themselves don’t explicitly acknowledge any relationship, but the company website does have several PDF’s detailing green initiatives by the company OverSy.
OverSy bill themselves as a ‘Carbon Offset Verification System’ so it appears that there’s at least been some effort on CO2 Reward’s part to ensure verification of the units they are making available for purchase.
I do note that on the CO2 Rewards website the company states that members
MUST actually use the Carbon Offset Units that you purchase or give them away as samples to help grow (their) business.
The giving away part I get but I’m not entirely sure how you’re supposed to use the credits. As I understand it the purchase of units is a voluntary contribution to balancing an individual’s carbon footprint. Once purchased, there’s nothing to “use” as such.
You fund green initiatives that offset your own carbon output, that’s pretty much it.
CO2 Rewards’ carbon offset units are either purchased by members themselves or sold at a retail level by members. At least that’s what the company claims.
Currently the retail sales section of the CO2 website simply states that ‘This page will be avaiable (sic) soon.’ At the time of publication, there is no retail option to purchase carbon offset units from CO2 Rewards members, so 100% of the purchases are coming from the company’s members.
No prices for carbon offset units are provided on the CO2 Rewards website.
The CO2 Rewards Compensation Plan
The CO2 Rewards compensation plan revolves around a profit-share model.
CO2 Rewards claim that they share ‘up to 50% of the daily net profits with‘ their members.
How much of a share a member receives from this profit pool is dictated by how many ‘ProfitPoints’ a CO2 Rewards member has.
When a member purchases carbon offset units themselves and gives them away to customers, or sells units at a retail level, the company rewards them with ‘ProfitPoints’.
The more ProfitPoints a member has, the larger their share in the profit pool.
Customers can either be brought into the company by CO2 Members, or sourced from the company itself via a company customer acquisition co-op.
Whereas traditionally the size of the share is pro-rata against how many ProfitPoints a member has, instead CO2 Rewards use an investment model.
At the end of the each day, the company decides on a percentage return to offer members. Then, with 1 ProfitPoint equal to $1, the company pays out a return for the day (not guaranteed at any fixed rate, but typically between 1% and 2%).
The CO2 Rewards Affiliate agreements also mentions ‘referral commissions‘ but fails to clarify any specifics.
Joining CO2 Rewards
Membership to CO2 Rewards appears to be free.
There is an optional subscription package called a Management Active Platform (MAP). CO2 Rewards list the benefits of MAP subscription membership as follows:
- Everything executed electronically versus snail mail.
- Deep discounts on services provided, such as banking and internal transfers.
- Sales tools access all inclusive versus separate charges.
- Communication access and updates to and from select groups (In the loop vs. out)
- Paid weekly versus monthly
MAP membership costs 74 euro ($96 USD) a month. Interestingly enough CO2 Rewards claim that this membership cost ‘is taken ONLY OUT OF PROFIT, NEVER OUT OF POCKET‘.
It appears that either CO2 Rewards provide MAP membership for free if a member isn’t earning at least 74 euros a month, or that MAP subscription can only be purchased after a member is earning over 74 euros a month.
Conclusion
The biggest question mark in the CO2 Rewards opportunity is in the product itself. Carbon offset units are in effect entirely voluntary payments towards offsetting an individual’s carbon footprint.
As far as reselling them goes, offering a profit-share and referral commissions poses two problems.
The first is that in order to pay out a return in the profit-share, CO2 Rewards needs to be charging more than a company that isn’t offering a profit-share.
With there being no difference between verified carbon offset units other than the price, the chance of attracting genuine retail sales seems quite difficult.
Secondly there’s the profit share. As explained above, with CO2 Rewards themselves not owning any green initiatives, they’re obviously themselves purchasing the credits from somewhere. In that case all that can really be shared then is the profit margin between the wholesale price and what they are charging members and retail customers.
Is that really going to be enough to sustain a business in the long-term?
Typically in these profit share setups a large chunk of the money handed over finds its way into profit-sharing pool. However with CO2 Rewards having to compete with other offset unit resellers, they first and foremost have to be competitive.
Otherwise they will completely fail to attract retail customers. That in itself I suppose isn’t so much a problem but it then means that 100% of the sales are by CO2 Rewards members. These units then need to be given away (for free) to customers and that itself raises more questions.
Comparatively, if I signed up as a customer with Ausante, I can purchase carbon offset units for $320 (12.5 tonnes), $960 (40 tonnes) or $2880 (150 tonnes).
Through CO2 Rewards, I can sign up as a retail customer under a member and what, get the same offset units for free?
That doesn’t add up.
If I’ve purchased units and given them away, technically then any returns on the cost price of the product should be passed onto the owner, which would be my customer.
Unless of course I’m being paid not on the product purchase, but on the actual money paid for the offset units.
Unfortunately when you combine the fact that CO2 Rewards offer their members the ability to acquire customers through the company itself (whether or not they charge for this service is unclear), effectively it’s entirely possible to use CO2 Rewards as an investment program.
You purchase units, give them away to customers the company supposedly provides you and then earn a return on the money you fed into the company.
With the problems of CO2 Rewards remaining competitive at a retail level if they want to run a profit-share, I imagine the investment route is how most of their members are going to participate in the opportunity.
Based in Seychelles, a country with strong corporate secrecy laws, if members stop purchasing new units and the profit share percentage dips too much, Motasem Owda has made it quite easy for him to disappear should the company collapse.
You’re probably not going to have to worry about the authorities shutting down CO2 Rewards for operating what is essentially a masked investment scheme, but with the unclear relationship between Ausante and clarification on Owda’s involvement in CO2 Rewards and any other owners, CO2 Rewards’ business profile is not exactly confidence inspiring.
Great review. Thanks for the time and effort you’ve put in here, it saves me having to do the same as no doubt every man and his dog will be pitching this in the next few weeks.
It has lots of red warning bells. Personally, I think this is a HIGH RISK business and won’t be joining at this stage.
Thanks again.
Most Carbon Offset investment opportunities are “scams”. The word scam is used in the meaning of people investing in them are misled in different ways, by the different verification systems and the real market.
I haven’t checked this MLM-opportunity, so the statement was “in general” rather than specific.
I did check some of these opportunities in May 2011, but I had only an overview of the situation and checked a few details. The opportunities I checked was NWM/MLM investment programs rather than MLM sales programs – investments in the form of “units” in a project, like planting trees or saving rainforest somewhere in the world. “Units” in the meaning fixed price for investment-units, rather than the Carbon Offset units.
Carbon Offsets (in general) is a real market both for investments and for sale of Carbon Offset Units, but this market has also attracted lots of scammers.
CER and VER
The official standard in Europe is CER-credits, “Certified Emission Reduction”. This standard has a big market where companies can trade CER-credits, similar to trading stocks on a stock exchange.
Another version is VER, “Verified (or Voluntarily) Emission Reduction”. This version is voluntarily, and has only a small fraction of the market. It isn’t standardized in the same way as CER, which means a company can set up its own standard. There are some registered standards for VER, but this doesn’t mean much as long as they’re not the official CER.
NOTE:
I haven’t performed any detailed research into the CER/VER topic, and I’m also poorly updated here. But I did get some of the facts straight in 2011, checking both CER, VER, the Kyoto agreement and lots of related stuff. The real market for CER can be highly profitable, but I don’t think the market for VER is very profitable.
I haven’t focused on “CO2 Rewards” in this comment. A quick view tells me it looks more like an investment scam than a real business.
Here’s an example for what I believe is a real investment – “JP Morgan Chase Subsidizing Cooking Stoves in Africa”, just to show an example of real investments.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/11/technology/jpmorgan_carbon.fortune/
The rest of this post will be retold from memory. It’s some basic understanding of the market for Carbon Offsets, but I don’t bother to check all the details.
Most of the investment opportunities I found on the internet in May 2011 was fake investments, usually organized as MLM or NWM, with made up stories about projects, or real projects with no relation to the investments (the same project and investment unit can be sold to multiple investors in multiple markets).
The market for VER Carbon Offsets is usually related to goodwill, where a company likes to present itself as “Carbon Neutral” and “Environmental Friendly” in its marketing. An example for companies buying VER Carbon Offsets are banks. The VER market is voluntarily, and is not part of the Kyoto convention as far as I know.
NOTE:
Both VER and CER are temporarily markets. Carbon Offsets doesn’t hold any real value as an investment. The value is given to them by temporarily agreements between countries, rather than some “real value” in an ordinary market (like gold, silver, platinium, other commodities).
This investment will probably not exist 20 years from now, or will most likely have been heavily modified if it still exists.
Carbon Offsets are only valid within a specific timeframe, they are meant to be “used” and “sold” rather than “stored”. Some tons of Carbon Offsets from 2008 will have no value in 2013 (as examples, not as real years). It’s also important to note that if you buy some CER-credits (as a private person) they will be removed from the registry. They are more like a voluntarily tax than an investment.
Central Registry
CER Carbon Offsets are registered in a Central European Registry and in each country. This is the real market, and scams here are mostly “Return of VAT-scams” where Governments and companies are the victims (the seller have sold them with “tax included”, and then disappear without paying the tax, and the buyer won’t get the tax refunded, or the Government will take the loss).
The main purpose of Carbon Offsets (and having a market for them) is reduction of climate gases. A more “normal solution” when it comes to governments would have been taxes, but taxes aren’t very popular or flexible.
It’s possible to get more reduction for the money invested in a market, by allowing industries in high cost markets to buy cheaper improvements in low cost markets – or at least give them a choice for where they will invest in reductions.
NOTE 2:
I would have avoided the market for VER Carbon Offsets as an investor, because of the complexity of this market. Real investments in this market will usually not need any external investors. The so called “products” are close to worthless, unless you have a buyer willing to pay for them (voluntarily).
The market for VER is overcrowded with “investors”, selling them to each other as investments rather than selling them in a market. The market for VER was only a small fraction of the market for CER when I checked in 2011.
This market will still be voluntarily no matter how VERIFIED or CERTIFIED or “GOLD Standard” the VERs are. Having them registered in a registry won’t make any difference either, they will still be VER.
Some of the scam is in the marketing, where news that can be related to the CER-market is used to create an impression of a lucrative VER-market. “Airlines will have to buy Carbon Offsets from 2013” is an example.
The news itself is real enough, but the airlines won’t be buying VER. They CAN buy VER if they like to, but they don’t HAVE TO buy them, and VER won’t replace CER as an alternative. These two markets are completely different, where only the CER market is officially regulated.
Most of this information has been related to Europe, because they had identifiable markets. Carbon Offsets isn’t a globally market.
Or they could be faking the purchase of credits and being a pretty fake ponzi scheme disguised by a green initiative.
The whole idea of “carbon offset” is pretty bogus, at least to me, but leave that aside for the moment.
How does THIS business make money? It needs to be purchasing credits from somewhere, as you said, and them mark them up to be sold to members. So why having a MLM structure at all? The only “profit” is for reselling, and that means a huge markup.
In nutriceuticals and makeups and whatnot, there is a huge profit margin to be had. But in carbon credits? I seriously doubt there is enough profit for ANYTHING if this is run properly and ethically. As noted, the whole “industry” is a joke.
Furthermore, carbon credits is like virtually currency with NO oversight. Nobody is looking into it too closely because they will be perceived as anti-green.
So the net result is like “wild wild west”. I wouldn’t invest in a place like that. It’d be “dead money”.
Troy Dooley gives a shout out to Oz and BehindMLM again. Good stuff. If only Troy would get harsher.
As soon as the execs at the MLM’s talk to Troy or meet him at events like ANMP, he goes soft on them.
Troy is a true MLM promoter. He calls it as he sees them, but he’s more about catching outright pyramid schemes than picking out the bad MLMs, and he is, as you said, pretty easy on the ones who “bares its chest and begs for mercy” from him.
Just look at ZeekRewards. 🙂 (same update, actually)
I really appreciate your review, thank you. Well done. It stopped me from pursuing it – and that’s a good thing… I really thought it was legit – maybe I’m naive?
What I don’t understand is this: they show Mr Kevin Thompson from Nashville, Tennessee as their outside counsel. He has a good reputation so why is he associated? Unless they just put the picture without it being true?
I also could not find any information on their president Mr Rudolf Christen? Any more info out there? Thanks, Mary
Let me fist say, that I am a MLM guy and I am an Internet Marketer. I leave and breath MLM and internet marketing. I do it full time and I fired my boss last year. =)
I actually agree with this article. I did not agree on the Bidify review here…but this article makes some very good points. I am on the side of the author this time.
I was pitched this program from a top Zeek Rewards member… He offered me a paid for 1000 Euro “founders” position if I would work this program with him.
I asked him how the 1.5% a day for members can be sustainable…
He told me this…
“They profit from selling them for more than they paid for them. Don’t make it hard, when it is just like Buffet says, BUY LOW and SELL HIGH!”
That is funny… that does not make it sustainable.
I told the guy pitching me this that I needed to research it some more first, and that is what I did. I then said NO WAY… told him to keep the 1000 Euro. I could not with a clear conscious put people in this program.
They are trying to copy the Zeek business model, but Zeek makes huge profits on the penny auctions, the bids cost Zeek nothing and they sell a lot of them. I understand how Zeek, and Bidify make profits that fuel the pay plan.
I do not see how this program can be sustainable and there are just too many red flags…
I would stay away from this one. I am going to review it also on my blog. This one is a stinker in my book, it smells very fishy and it is half backed. It will not last long.
Thanks for the great information here. =)
One of the most common red flags are any type of OVER-whatever (over-simplified, over-complicated, over-selling, over-enthusiastic, and so on and so forth). People will often get too eager in “convincing the world” about something when there’s serious reasons for doubts.
I will usually consider it to be a red flag when a company or a sales-person tries to direct my attention away from important areas, what I really need to know about something, and have too much focus on other areas less important to me (as a customer, investor or whatever).
CO2 Rewards has several red flags related to over-focusing on unimportant areas, trying to draw people’s attention away from what they really needs to know. Oz has already covered most of those areas in the review, so I should probably avoid repeating them (but the over-selling in the company’s ownership is an example). 🙂
I want to applaude and recognise the amount of time you put into your research. It can be thankless at times but this time you have saved me a bunch of time by doing this.
So thank you. 🙂
Cheers Campbell, hope you found the information useful.
Yes i did saved me hours and hours of dreary googling and lead me down some interesting corridors of enlightenment.
I would also make a note that Co2 make claims that Kevin Thompson is retained by them, this i very much doubt, after deciding to retain Kevin myself. So check it out. I will also ask Kevin personally about it.
I also commend you reviews on the penny auction companies. I really see some striking similarites to ASD ( AdSurfDaily ) and wonder what the real differences are and how the AG will react.
Certainly the penny auctions are a dream to promoters and passive income seekers alike.
Campbell
Kevin confirmed he is doing some work for them.
This email from CO2 Rewards was published elsewhere on BehindMLM today,
Interestingly enough, Kevin Thompson is working with Bidify which has a similar daily ROI paid out based on point accumilation with re-invest business model. No idea why CO2 Rewards’ model was deemed unsustainable and seen as an investment scheme with legal problems, when Bidify seemingly isn’t.
This company is a ponzi scheme, This man (Motasem Owda) is nothing but an employee whom they used as a fall guy. The true story behind this whole mumbo jumbo is:
The man who is behind all this is (Motahir Ali), this man owns an IT company -called (intellesite)- that develops MLM systems in Latvia Motasem Owda worked as a copywriter in the company.
Let me give you short brief about Intellesite and what it does:
Intellesite was formed to provide support for Unaico ( a MLM company), after a short period of time Unaico fired Intellesite for their incompetence and fraudulent actions. Motahir ali started Ausante after that with a number of partners without them knowing that he will take over the company and steal the member’s money.
Ausante is also illegal as they sell bogus carbon credits which they claim that these carbon credits are verified by VCS.
Ausante has a trading platform built in their system and what this platform does, it rips people of their money by controlling all the units prices, the prices in there are not being controlled by the supply and demand, Motahir Ali changes the price whenever he wants.
After the company started growing Motasem Owda joined them as a copywriter not knowing that intellesite runs and owns the company which is owned by Motahir Ali.
Motahir Ali wanted to expand his operations in the US, and this is how CO2Rwards was formed. Most of the text that was on CO2rewards was ripped off Ausante’s website.
I’m 100% sure that these people used Motasem Owda’s Name on the domain without his personal Authurization and I think that this man is either no longer working for them or suing them for their sick actions.
2009 FINRA Alert on ‘Green’ scams:
http://www.finra.org/Investors/ProtectYourself/InvestorAlerts/FraudsAndScams/P120644
Of course, CO2 also purportedly was involved in “humanitarian” causes — rather like the Club Asteria scam popularized on the Ponzi boards.
PPBlog
AUSANTE is an outright con. Motahir Ali stole some of Unaico’s data and then got another guy who had been prosecuted for fraud to represent him in the field – this guy is called Nigel Allan, hes a brit who was peddling the “high yield investment scam” a few years ago.
I dont know if he went to jail but i know he got in big trouble. Anyway along comes ausante and they all run off to asia where they think everyone is stupid and start taking tons of cash off the chinese by lying that its a great investment.
Motahir is rolling in money then they have a fallout. Bet your life they both re emerge with a new “carbon scheme” (sorry should that say scam?) soon…
Update: Motasem Owda has been in touch and clarified that he is not the owner of CO2 Rewards. He claims a man named “Motahir Ali” is behind the company and used Owda’s personal information to register the company domain “without his personal authorization”.
Motahir was also linked to Uniaco which was a complete scam and has ripped people off all over the world.
Question I have is when will the authorities and banks stop these companies.
This is Motasem Owda and I have nothing to hide, I’m neither the owner of CO2Rewards Nor worked on it. my personal info has been used on the domain without my personal authorization and I’m suing the person who did it.
I’m nothing but a copywriter/project manager who worked for a company called Intellesite in Latvia, that company ran several MLM projects and CO2rewards was one of them. this review was the reason why I quit my job and it’s been hunting me ever since.
I’m 26 years old now my your review has destroyed my career. My phone number is (Ozedit: contact details removed).
I think ‘my personal info has been used on the domain without my personal authorization’ is what might have ruined your career rather than this review.
Feel free to misplace the blame though, if it makes you feel better.
Fixing the domain registration is easy… Most registrars accept “error corrections”. I know GoDaddy does.
I tried many times to contact the people from Tucows domains they told me that I’m not the account heart owner (whetever that meant) therefore the I can’t request for an info change.
And OZ 2 companies in Sweden turned me down after googling my name and finding this review. that’s why I’m going public with this cause I never thought that it would cause me that much of troubles.
If you Google my name the first thing that pops up is this review (Try it).
So they didn’t believe you had nothing to do with CO2 Rewards?
“This review” isn’t the problem then, it’s one of trust.
I googled it …
This article pops up at #2 in my browser, after the LinkedIn profile. It’s a stupid idea to repeat the name over and over again, so I replaced the name with Xxxxxxx Yyyy in this comment.
Your name will pop up in search results anyway in this article.
Google will typically display the first match it can find in an article (but it will obviously use some other criterias too). You’re currently popping up as the owner and organizer for CO2 Rewards, in the THIRD occurrence in the article.
The first. Putting your name in quotes (or placing it in the middle of a long sentence) made Google ignore it.
The second. Google obviously prefer finding the name first in a sentence, rather than in the middle of a long sentence. It skipped this one and jumped to the third.
The third. Pops up in search results.
The fourth. Oz’ update.
The best idea is to analyse the problem first, and THEN try to come up with solutions to it.
New registration:
From the article, the January 10 update.
Rudolf Christen popped up in late April 2012, as President for CO2Rewards, on a few websites (TalkGold, Picasa, etc.). “Big John” MAY BE John Anderson, but I didn’t find any conclusive search results.
It actually looks more like they “created” a President rather than hiring one. Googling “Rudolf Christen co2rewards” only gives 7 search hits.
1. this article
2. TalkGold (1 post, plus 1 quote from that post)
3. Picasa (1 picture)
picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/mr6hg-lkz6uRAg5cWCLVedMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0
4. Google Plus (1 page)
plus.google.com/105375180290933539366/about#105375180290933539366/about
5. LinkedIn, listing 4 Rudolf Christen in Switzerland
Rudolf Christen isn’t presented like a real business man either, most of the information is rather vague. From the TalkGold presentation:
Thanks M_Norway for the info about CO2Rewards management team.
OZ I don’t really know why you are going after me instead of trying to find the real people behind this scam.
I’m taking the fall for this and they most probably are still making the money from it.
And here’s another question why would they censor the info on the domain after this review? why they didn’t change it?
I have forwarded the emails that were exchanged between me and TUCOWS and me, and you haven’t taken then in consideration. or updated the review accordingly.
On another note I noticed that you have included my wife’s name in the cropped facebook picture (I don’t know why). I advise to remove it since this review has nothing to do with her.
Who’s going after you? Your name popped up in connection to a review about CO2 Rewards, which is merely documented here.
Actually you did that when you put her name up on your publicly viewable Facebook profile.
Actually, Mr. Owda, as you’re no longer the domain owner, all this is only of historical interest.
Oh Dear,
Rudolf Christen aka Andrea’s Chritean
And he is now doing This..
What I tried to tell you was that the management story looks rather fake. Someone has just made up a story and posted it on the internet, with a few details to make the story look “real” (1 picture, 1 Google Plus profile, 1 forum post).
And you repeated the fake story for some reasons?
I tried to analyse it from a couple of different perspectives, e.g. “How does it appear in search hits?” and “How does his story appear?”. The Rudolf Christen part of the story didn’t look real.
You should probably ask Kevin Thompson about the owner? Kevin Thompson have had CO2Rewards as a client, hasn’t he? I tried to check his website too, but I didn’t find anything there (he doesn’t publish a list of clients).
Andreas is a too common first name, in many countries including Norway, Denmark, Sweden.
Christensen is a common family name in Norway, Denmark and partly Sweden. The endings “-sen” or “-son” means “son of” in old name traditions, and is commonly used in all the 3 countries.
Mowjow seems to have been founded in 2008, and seems to be about business management and quality control.
CONCLUSION?
“Andreas Christensen, mowjow” doesn’t seem to be the right “Rudolf Christen, CO2rewards””.
It’s highly unlikely that anyone from Scandinavia will use “Rudolf” as a nickname, or any other “-olf” names. The name is typical for Switzerland or Germany, but highly uncommon in Scandinavia.
I’ll contact him and get back on this ASAP
I have found something backing up your side of the story, from “Our Team” at the new Brilliant Carbon company, mentioning the background in Ausante.
It indirectly backs up your side of the story. The first story about Rudolf Christen didn’t back up your story, you simply repeated a story that looked fake to most others than yourself.
The PEOPLE there are clearly pyramid scheme organizers, e.g. Haakon Grunnan has a track record dating back to the stone age or something. But that isn’t the point, they’re actually backing up your story about Tahir Ali and Ausante.