Hong Kong police launch BLGM investigation
Despite reports of Better Living Global Marketing failing to pay affiliates for months now, it’s an opportunity that continues to push on.
A relic of the Zeek Rewards penny auction Ponzi scheme craze, Better Living employs the familiar affiliate-funded 99 day ROI model. Under the guise of purchasing penny auction bids, new affiliate money is used to pay out existing investors.
Based out of Hong Kong, despite launching in August 2012 (the month Zeek Rewards was shut down), local authorities have refused to acknowledge the scam. For reasons not entirely clear, Hong Kong regulators appear to be unable or unwilling to tackle the growing tide of online global Ponzi fraud originating out of Hong Kong.
Appearing to make some inroads into the situation, is a report from eKantipur about Hong Kong based Nepalis and the companies KaChing Holdings, RSE Bid and Better Living Global Marketing.
Estimating that the local Nepali population have sunk RS 2 billion ($20,756,000 USD) into the schemes, eKantipur writes
Hong Kong Police’s Commercial Crime Bureau has started an investigation into these companies and the police have asked the deceived people to furnish details of their investment.
None of the three companies appear to be related, but all three investment schemes have now collapsed
RSE Bid has collected an estimated HK$ 7 million (around Rs 86.6 million) from 300 Nepali members. In a statement to the police, the proprietor of the company, who is now in police custody, has expressed inability to pay back the money.
Better Living and KaChing are still in operation, but are crisis-ridden. Better Living came into operation about one and half years ago, while KaChing was established nine months ago.
As mentioned earlier, we’ve received ongoing reports of BLGM failing to pay affiliates for some time now.
While I’m doubtful anything will come of the Hong Kong investigation just yet (tracking down Luke Teng can’t be that hard), I suppose it’s a step in the right direction. With not only Nepali people affected (“thousands of Chinese have taken memberships of these companies”), the authorities are sooner or later going to have confront the problem head on.
All too often now I’m reading that suspicious business are turning to Hong Kong (often cited as simply “China”) for their payment processor needs. And that’s something only the local authorities can do something about.
HK Police makes arrests, but actual prosecution seem to be a bit lacking. Last year’s arrest of the folks at Interush was hushed up quickly, and the sole “foreigner” (presumably an American reporting to HQ in SoCal) was bailed out and never heard from again. ZERO Western media covered the bust. NONE.
On the other hand, HK laws on pyramid and ponzi schemes seem to be quite well written.
Oz, you didn’t link to the article.
Oops, thanks for the pickup. Link added now.
Should investors not start being wary of Hongkong? Why are all the scams operating out of there and HongKong Police only engage in fake investigations and no one is brought to justice?
Proactive governments take action to safeguard the public once a scam or ponze is identified, but not in Hongkong. Once begins to wonder if they don’t receive kickbacks.
The US government stepped in to dislodge Zeekrewards before the ponzi or scam could go rotten, but this is not Hongkong’s way, a place supposedly governed by western standards. And especially if the scams have the outer semblance of credibility, they are allowed in Hongkong.
What happened to the Interush investigations? Did Interush manage to convince Hongkong investigators that promising affiliates that they will go public and extorting large sums of money was the right things for a company to do?
How could a case which made headlines suddenly disappear from the airwaves so speedily. The western press doesn’t have to cover the Interush scam for it to be taken seriously. What about the poor people investing in the company in the hope of it going public and it has not since 10 years?
Until there is bleeding on the streets of Hongkong from this scam, there will not be any action about the scams and ponzis there, and even then it will be too late. The sad truth maybe that Hongkong loves scams since investigations lead to officers lining their pockets to the detriment of the populace.
It is not a model of a free society anymore especially if its free speech and action status only means scams can operate out of there with impunity.
Been shown the BLGM model investment recently. Was going to invest encouraged by people I know Who invested in London!!!
Weekly conferences held in hotel conference rooms this new is scary
People are still investing in BLGM?! I thought Teng stopped paying people ages ago…
Is it still based on the penny auction profit sharing idea? “Invest in units of 2,000 bids, receive ROI for 99 days (5 or 6 days per week)”.
It had some plans about changing or combining that model with “watch online ads (or video ads), answer a few questions and earn a ROI”.
BLGM is highly fraudulent, but it continued to pay (real withdrawals) until October 2013. The fake “payments” to the back office didn’t stop as long as I watched this thread.
If it suddenly have popped up in London, it may be an attempt to reboot it in a new market. It may also be about some local people trying to get their investments back, indirectly from new investors.
If you have friends involved there, then I can potentially give you some information for how to remove the “fog of war”, the type of questions you can ask them to help them see things more clearly. There’s a big difference between “Hong Kong dollars” in a back office and real money. 🙂
The plan was that BLGM was supposed to get a windfall of pure retail income from Chinese bidders on Bidder’s Paradise. However, the most recent email from Luke Teng (which was difficult to decipher in translation–if anyone has a better translation than the one I saw, please post) seems to indicate that they’re only pushing the same Ponzi buy-in to Chinese citizens, but that Chinese citizens need to join the scheme by pretending they are not Chinese (literally selecting a different nationality when they go through the process).
Here’s the bewildering translation:
Not unlikely, but it could also be an unofficial reboot from leaders who have taken matters into their own hands.
Whatever happens, I think it’s safe to say that the Hong Kong police investigation didn’t amount to much.
It’s simply because venture capitals look to the futures & prospects of a business. The way we do advertising will even out-beat Google, and FaceBook, and YouTube, which is already a general recognition, right?
No just that our people watch commercials attentively. The module is not even imitatable(?) because they can’t afford to pay viewers anything valuable for answering questions.
Last but not least, we have the gigantic China market behind us. We are the only 100% international advertising site while Google, Facbook, nor YouTube cannot be visited in China. Chinese giants like Baidu, QQ, or Taobao, etc. don’t have non-Chinese viewers.
And, Google’s 2013 annual revenue was USD60 billion where 95% came from advertisings. Relative to this figure, what is USD50 million?
Let’s just stop and think about that for a second. An “advertising-viewing site”.
None of the companies you idiotically try to compare BLGM to are “advertising-viewing sites”. Advertising is complimentary to the services they offer.
What is that service in BLGM? Right, a Ponzi scheme.
Legitimate advertisers are not interested on advertising on Ponzi scheme websites.
Here’s a quote from Silby dated December 2013:
Thanks for the laugh.
“View ads (videos) and answer a few questions” is an idea that already has been used in other Ponzi schemes like AdMatrix and Mister Colibri (India and Brazil).
“Can’t afford to pay viewers” will also apply to BLGM. It has been nearly impossible for anyone to withdraw anything since October 2013.
* Anyone can afford to pay “Hong Kong dollars” to a back office. You don’t need any money for that, you will only need the software.
I have asked Mr Teng of BLGM whats with the investigations. Are they real? He has not responded back to me even after a second request.
You are now a “negativity” to be avoided, or in Gore words, “inconvenient truth”.
The Chinese market isn’t behind anything. The last email I read told Chinese people they had to register for the site by pretending they were in another country. Kind of puts a damper on the idea that the Chinese are going to salvage the dying auction website.
Aside from which, unless everyone who views ads buys more bid packs then they are expecting in return from watching ads, thery’re still going to have the same problem of more payouts due than cash coming in.
I’m not convinced advertisers actually paid for those incredibly hammy ads. Regardless, though, Google actually offers a service, and people don’t generally have to take surveys to rate the ad or product.
Even Hulu, which is constantly trying to better the “ad experience” offers something besides watching ads–the ads are just incidental to the actual service. Advertisers want customers; Bidder’s Paradise doesn’t have any customers.
Rather disappointingly, the FTC has only received 4 complaints about BLGM: http://www.mlm-thetruth.com/files/6914/0536/0181/Complaints2FTC-reMLM-2013-7-14-14.pdf
One of them links to BehindMLM.
4 People! I would have thought that after ten months, even the true believers would be turning to any agency that would listen.
Nah. Studies have shown that MAJORITY of fraud victims do NOT report to authorities.
An article published in 2003 by one of the asset recovery groups (who specialize in chasing down assets and help in seizures if need be) says there’s a 50/50 chance the client will actually authorize their firm to chase down the stolen assets.
NOLINK://www.aegisjournal.com/cognitive-dissonance-theory-and-the-recovery-of-stolen-assets/
What can the victims do?
* Walk away, accept the loss, hide the loss of “face”
* Try to make backroom deals with the scammer
* Side with the scammer and fight the law (in hopes of getting something back)
* Stay in denial
not surprised at only 4 complaints, due to complacency and also “what can a US agency do on someone in HK?”.
Best to chalk it up as a total loss (ask your accountant about a tax loss write-off) and in the meantime go after (sue if needed) your upline if he/she claimed to have made trips to HK and personally talked to Luke Teng and then “came back” with glowing reports about “investors”, “Samsung,” and asked you to buy with cash to him/her their units at a deep discount (like 40% ) with claims that they are doing you a favor, offering you a sweet deal, and that “everybody will be paid off soon, Mr. Teng said so.”
I just heard that HK police have dropped their investigation. Apparently, other MLMs in HK were shut down in the same investigation, but BLGM was allowed to keep operating. This is from a very unreliable source — can anyone confirm?
Also, my understanding is BLGM is setting up for a reboot later this year or early next. Don’t suppose anyone has the text of that email to share? I know that it’s opened fresh recruiting in Sweden, among other European countries.
It would appear from my limited exposure to affiliates that many of them are opting to stay in denial, which is amazing considering they haven’t even been paid real dollars for a year (Number on a screen apparently have way more psychological impact that I gave them credit for.)
It appears that our international con artist Luke Teng is still walking around promoting … something … to at least a few believers.
Someone signed up the account “Excitingnews” at Vimeo and posted this 60-minute video titled “Better Living Exciting News Updates”. At 1:40 he states, “We don’t hide anything; we are having financial problems now”.
At 4:06 he states, “The sales? How much turnover we have made in the past 23 months? Four … 3.3 billion US dollars. 3.35 billion US dollars. This is a world record. Not just MLM record.
You know, MLM? Multi-level marketing? Ok? Network marketing. In any business”. He goes on to state that Yahoo and Google have not been as successful in their first years as BLGM has been.
At 5:50: “WE are doing OK. Our daily sales, even like yesterday or today … I’m getting ready to show the sales … on regular days like these we are still making like eight, nine million US dollars a day. Lots of international conglomerates cannot do this”.
A calendar reference in the video at 7:25 dates the presentation to the middle of September, followed by:
“The problem is, ‘Hey, you make so much money … how come you’re not paying us?’ right? Cause everyone’s concerned.
The problem is … the reason: [points at earnings on monitor] These are not … real money … in cash. Ok? People are using this new cash to open new accounts, ok? And generating more in cash, but the money never comes to the company. Ok? Some leaders are still making good money.
It’s just the leaders are taking cash from the newcomers … the new members. Right? And they use them [for their] cash. So there is still a way for you to make money. Is that right?”
He devolves from there to explain how “the money” is going to come from “phase two” … which is selling more newcomers auction points, and then when the newcomers run out from “phase three” which is making MSP oil additive products a household name and selling some product that “can turn a 75 to 80 year-old person … very old man? … turn like, behave like legal age. What’s legal age? 50 years. Get it?”
$40 USD per month!
Please. Someone. Put this guy in jail.
SD
vimeo.com/107441537
password: blgm123
Those are his new Swedish investors in the video.
At this point, though, there are no new “victims” of Luke Teng. He admits he’s running a Ponzi, launches into a moronic spiel using one of those paid advertisements made to look like a press release and claims he’s going IPO.
If they’re smart enough to function as adult human beings, they’re smart enough to know exactly what they’re getting into.
I have no sympathy for anyone who gives money to Luke Teng.
Thanks for the heads up re. that video.
I’ve published my thoughts and a breakdown here – https://behindmlm.com/companies/teng-better-living-global-marketing-has-cash-flow-problems/
So.. Someone wants to share something very exciting with me.. And at first was reluctant to tell me the name of the company but wanted me on a presentation.
I’ve been on several mlm businesses and know when something seems fishy so said I must have the name or I am not interested at all..
Got this name and after reading all the reviews said… Please tell me you haven’t invested too much into this scheme.. And they said We’ve been in it for a year and yes we got paid and many others too..
Then she said.. Don’t believe all you read online at this site (a Swedish site) And then continued to tell me I don’t understand at all and that they know it’s legit as they’ve even been to see him in HK!
Is there anyone with more news about this “company”? I don’t want them to loose more money..
@Yv
Teng was recently arrested, Better Living Global is no more.
See here: https://behindmlm.com/companies/better-living-global-marketing-raided-luke-teng-arrested/
Anyone approaching you about the business is just looking to directly steal from you (you’ll have to pay them) to recoup their losses.
Now it’s also active in Sweden!
This company, Better Living, solicited my firm in 2011 to purchase membership for profit in a Penny Auction.
This Trust purchased several memberships for the children of the Trust for their future benefit because it even promised a Retirement income for each site.
The ROI 90 day plan worked for the first few months allowing this Trust to be paid small amounts and continue to purchase more memberships.
Then the payments stopped. We were told this was “Temporary”. Our funds earned from the Auctions were still being credited and placed in “Processing”.
We were still encouraged to purchase more memberships. Then the “Retirement” portion of the program was done away with no explanation other than the company was having trouble keeping up with members using their bids and winning on the Auctions.
In 2016 they did away with the standing ROI portion altogether after reducing it pay-outs previously reducing its value but still placing request for payment in “Processing”.
This Trust has had over $100,000.00 U.S. dollars in “Processing” now for over 3 yrs. from 63 Membership sites and have not been shipped or credited for the items Won(4)on the Auctions even though the Auction has taken in Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars over the last 4 years.
They are now using space on each of these membership sites to advertise products, with out permission or compensation to the owner of the sites.
Their is no Profit Structure for each of these sites, just sitting and we are being asked to further use the sites to purchase more of them! And they are now stone walling by not answering e-mails? But, are continuing to recruit new members?
Is there no Business Law in Hong Kong?
Confucius say when Chinese scammers steal from non-Chinese victims, police no care.