Norway launch Lyoness “pyramid” investigation
The Norwegian Gaming Board put out a press-release today, advising that they have launched an investigation into Lyoness.
Tipped off by members of the Norwegian public, the Gaming Board plans ‘to assess whether (Lyoness) is an illegal pyramid‘.
Among other things, the Authority received information that it costs 20,000 dollars to join Lyoness. We also learned that members’ commissions mainly come from recruiting members and not from the sale of goods and services.
With Lyoness being free to join, it appears the Gaming Board are going to target the accounting unit investment scheme Lyoness run parallel to their cashback network.
This is the same major red flag I identified in my BehindMLM review of Lyoness, as the scheme mechanically functions like a Ponzi scheme.
New affiliates join and invest in account units, hoping to earn a >100% cash ROI after enough new units have been invested in. A small percentage of the required units are created through the shopping network, but by and large it is affiliate investment in units that appears to sustain the MLM business side of Lyoness.
As for a lack of the sale of good and services, that much is a given seeing as Lyoness themselves merely provide access to third-party discounts. Beyond affiliate membership, access to these discounts and investment in account units, Lyoness offers no additional products or services to its affiliates.
It would seem the Gaming Board has already laid the groundwork for the investigation, revealing in a letter to Lyoness that they’ve been selected for investigation ‘after a risk and materiality assessment‘ was carried out.
In the Gaming Board’s letter, the regulator requests Lyoness supply it with specific documentation, so that the Board can ‘make an assessment of whether Lyoness is an illegal pyramid scheme or an illegal pyramid sales system under the Lottery Act § 16‘.
Of particular note are the requests from the Board that Lyoness provide
– The difference between being paid membership and free membership
– The number of members in total, paying and free members
– Bonus and commission system , including the turnover of the company split the revenue types
– Information about the products being sold
– Evidence of how that the turnover of the company in Norway in particular is due to the sale of products and not referral (of new members)
Points one to three will be interesting if the Gaming Board can define “paying member” as a Lyoness affiliate who has invested in account units. No doubt Lyoness are going to trot out the “it costs nothing to join Lyoness’ line, but it’s a hard argument to make when the majority of your affiliates who earn commissions have invested in account units.
Another question mark that the Gaming Board might be able to answer, depending on what information is provided to them, is whether or not the majority of commissions generated within the Lyoness opportunity are via invested in or shopping units.
Points four and five I imagine will be difficult for the company to answer, and a lot would seem to hinge on the Gaming Board accepting the third-party discounts Lyoness provides access to as a product.
Either way the Gaming Board’s response should be an interesting read, as they have a track record for making their findings wholly public.
Back in 2010 the Gaming Board released a damning assessment of Wealth Masters International’s business model, revealing that
between 59 and 71 % of the payment for the products will end up as commission or in the bonus pool when sold by an Elite Consultant.
More than 50% of the income is derived from enrollment.
Our conclusion is that WMI is a business model similar to a pyramid scheme where a payment is required to achieve income mainly deriving from enrolling new members, and not from retail sale of wares or services, according to second part of § 16.
Again Lyoness are likely to try to play the “but it’s free to join Lyoness” card, so it’ll be interesting to see whether or not the Gaming Board takes into consideration what the majority of Norwegian Lyoness members are actually doing, as opposed to what the company claims about its opportunity.
From the sounds of it, the Gaming Board appear to be of the opinion that joining for free and investing in account units constitutes paid membership to Lyoness.
Technically the affiliate membership is free however if a ridiculously low percentage of Lyoness affiliates generate no income without unit investment, then it’s a clear indication of what an affiliate has to do to generate commissions. That being to invest themselves and then convince others to do the same.
Wealth Masters was ultimately deemed a pyramid scheme by the Gaming Board and subsequently banned. With no products or services offered by Lyoness themselves and the dodgy account unit investment scheme they run, how the Gaming Board classify the company will be of interest.
Also the shedding of light on Lyoness’ internal revenue flow will enlightening, particularly the ratio of maturing accounting units that have been directly invested in versus those that have been generated by shopping.
Naturally whatever is happening in Norway is likely to be similar to how Lyoness effectively operate in other countries they’re active in.
Lyoness have been given three weeks to respond to the Board’s request for information, which puts us at exactly Christmas Day on December 25th (the letter was sent out on the 4th of December).
Note that the after receiving the information the Gaming Board then takes some time to reach a decision. In the Wealth Masters case the Board started their investigation in early 2010 and concluded it in December of the same year.
Let’s hope Lyoness’ lawyers don’t bore the Gaming Board to death with mountains of irrelevant marketing drivel, as they did when Troy Dooly contacted them with some concerns.
My thanks to the BehindMLM reader who sent in this news tip and, as always, stay tuned…
I tried to check the official database oep.no (“Public Electronic Post journal”). There has been a lot of anonymous tips since August/September, around 10 or so. The investigation hasn’t become visible yet (the system is delayed).
I added some information in May or June, but only basic information about the accounting unit system and Lyoness itself.
Regulators have some basic rules they will need to follow, e.g. about neutrality, objectivity and fairness, and about correctness. They will need to COLLECT information themselves from the correct sources (the party / parties). They can’t directly use third party information as a part of a case.
With that knowledge, it may sometimes be better to focus on “general information” rather than “proofs”.
Lyoness offers members an option to put a partial payment on future everyday purchases within the merchant network. Would it be okay if you could leverage your future everyday purchases in the accounting program and profit share through building the Lyoness community.
This is how it works:
Everybody knows we have to go shopping for our everyday necessities like gas, groceries, entertainment, travel, home improvement etc. With Lyoness if you show your loyalty up front by choosing to do a partial payment on your future purchases within the merchant network Lyoness will honor you for showing your loyalty before you actually do the shopping to create your loyalty units.
So if you do a 225.00 partial payment with a merchant offering a 2% loyalty benefit you are showing your loyalty on 11250.00 of future purchases within the Lyoness merchant network since 225.00 is 2% of 11250.00.
Now Lyoness will honor your loyalty with the 2% 225.00 loyalty benefit up front which equates to 3 loyalty units placed in the accounting program since it takes 75.00 in your loyalty account to create a loyalty unit 75.00 x 3 = 225.00.
You are showing your loyalty up front and being awarded the 225.00 in Loyalty benefits up front and this creates 3 Loyalty units placed in the accounting program.
It works exactly as if you put a partial payment on a car and went back later and topped up the remaining amount owing and received your car. The difference with Lyoness and what everyone knows is you never lose this partial payment. If you never went to top up the remaining amount for the car the dealer would keep the partial payment. With Lyoness you have 3 options.
1. Top up your partial payment and go shopping within the merchant network.
2. Choose the re-cash option. This redirects all your remaining discounts on purchases into your bank account until you have accumulated your 225.00 back.
3. Shop and recommend the opportunity of getting bonus benefits and cashback on everyday purchases and earn commissions and bonus payouts through the compensation plan.
What’s the problem?
It’s free with an option to do a Partial payment on future purchases. Why can you do a partial payment on a car at a dealership but not on your future everyday purchases.
The Gaming board wants to know if there is a product. The answer is very simple in Lyoness own literature. WE ARE A SECTOR SPANNING SHOPPING COMMUNITY.
In Lyoness you don’t have to shop. You just deposit money with them, and once a fixed number of new deposits have been made you get a >100% ROI.
You don’t have to shop though. In actuality Lyoness instead reward you for depositing money into the scheme (which they then use to pay off existing investors).
If I make a partial payment on a car, that money is going towards an actual product. Furthermore I do not receive a >100% ROI on my payment if enough new partial payments on cars are made by myself or others within a company.
Oh and “partial payment of a car” is not an MLM business opportunity, so there’s that too. MLM has its own set of rules, one being the need for products to be sold to retail customers. Lyoness has no products itself other than the accounting units affiliates invest in.
Or you can just invest in AUs, recruit others who do the same and eventually receive a >100% ROI. This is what all the top earners in Lyoness do, pretending of course that the opportunity has something to do with shopping.
Making participation in a Ponzi scheme “optional” doesn’t make it any less of a Ponzi scheme.
And as I’ve mentioned earlier, nobody is paying you a >100% ROI on your car payment when enough people you or your upline have recruited have also made payments on cars.
Does talking about uplines and recruitment sound silly when talking about car payments? Of course it does, that’s because buying a car is not the same as participating in an MLM income opportunity.
I know Lyoness’ “How to convince people we aren’t a Ponzi scheme” handbook is full of such nonsense but you’d do well to not quote any of it here.
That sounds like that boring as batshit lawyer talk from Lyoness I mentioned.
‘WE ARE A SECTOR SPANNING SHOPPING COMMUNITY‘ does not answer the question: “Does Lyoness have a product?”
Your description was vague and misleading. The article is about the pyramid scheme issue, something your “canned speech” completely ignored.
You’re probably not allowed (by Lyoness) to discuss the main topic.
If you are affiliate ” Does you have a product” ?
If you are media publicity ” ” Does you have a product” ?
If you are Visa, Mastercard, etc ” Does you have a product” ?
If you are bank ” Does you have a product” ?
etc.
Yes Lyoness have a product “Cashback”
Lyoness also has another product: buy accounting units and recruit other shoppers for extra units beyond what you bought.
I’m just going to let the idiocy of this sentence sink in.
And you can make all the silly non-MLM comparisons you want, Lyoness is still an MLM company.
When did chain recruitment become a consumer activity?
The chain recruitment system involves consumers paying $3,000 to Lyoness in exchange for 7+3+3 accounting units, and consumers receiving commission for recruiting other consumers doing the same, commission based on the payment from the consumers they recruit directly and indirectly.
What we call that payment is rather unimportant. The down payment is non refundable = it’s not a normal “lay away” or any other normal commercial solution.
But please don’t ask questions like “What’s the problem?” if you’re not permitted by Lyoness to discuss it openly on the internet.
It’s neither normal for a merchant to recruit other merchants or consumers into a third party chain recruitment system, nor for a consumer to do it. That behavior is only normal for income opportunity seekers participating in a pyramid scheme. I have pointed out WHY it isn’t normal in several discussions with Lyoness merchants.
If you’re only allowed to mention small down payments of $225 then please don’t bring up that topic.
Why should a consumer “show loyalty upfront” by paying $225, $1,500, $3,000 or $30,000 to a company? Consumers should normally not PAY for the right to shop, not even for discounted shopping (with some exceptions). That behavior is completely irrational for a consumer, but perfectly normal for a participant in a pyramid scheme.
The statement “with some exceptions” doesn’t apply to Lyoness, it applies to small fees to cover the costs related to organizing something.
When did multiple down payments on a car become a normal standard? And please name a couple of examples for car dealers having that practice?
“Never lose” is misleading. It doesn’t reflect the realities, it reflects constructed theories. Arguments like that will need to be backed up by some reliable data showing the realities.
In your theory, Lyoness can never terminate memberships, and people will always top up their down payments, and inflation will be non existent.
When did car buyers start to chain recruit other car buyers in a similar way, i.e. where the car buyers will need to make down payments on cars in order to earn commissions? When did car dealers start to recruit other car dealers into a chain recruitment system?
Your “canned speech” sounded like it was written by the marketing department. It’s clearly misleading, and it shouldn’t have been presented on the internet. It’s not illegal, but it will harm the company’s reputation. It would probably have been illegal if it had been part of a sales dialogue or a marketing campaign.
Information can be misleading even if it’s correct. The so called “half truths” are just as bad as lies. If you can’t speak openly about the WHOLE accounting program and how it works, then you shouldn’t mention a small part of it.
If you can’t support your own arguments with additional info and facts (e.g. about multiple down payments on cars, so the car buyers can earn commissions from recruiting other car buyers), then you probably shouldn’t use arguments like that.
I have the impression that Lyoness’ “brain washing facility” (training center) is using this website to test their newest ideas, e.g. some sort of beta testing for “canned speeches”.
I was not talking about the expenses people have with organizing their downlines in that statement. I don’t see being member of a downline as a “consumer benefit”.
Lyoness doesn’t make any sense for a consumer to join in 9 out of 10 parts of the compensation plan. The system is primarily designed for other purposes than consumer purposes, e.g. for chain recruitment purposes.
The part that makes some sense is the cashback solution, “money back on your own and your family’s purchases”. But the main engine in the program is the down payment chain recruitment system.
Lyoness doesn’t REFLECT what it claims to be. It acts like a dysfunctional cult rather than as a legitimate business.
Most legitimate businesses will try to address problems when they occur, to find solutions to them. Lyoness will try to disguise them or try to lead the attention away from problems, or try to “outweight” true but negative info with positive misleading one.
It tries to “drown” people in positive but misleading information. Just take a look at lyonessscamreview.com and all the misleading arguments used there? One of my favorites was the update about Troy Dooly, “lyoness TOP CRITIC changes his tune 180 DEGREES”.
Troy Dooly as one of the most vocal critics? He didn’t actually admit he was wrong, but he changed his mind when Lyoness paid him to become a consultant. His 2 million readers will probably ignore that, since most of them are imaginary.
The links at the end of the story of course leads to something misleading = part 2 of the Lyoness defense article, the one very few bothered to make any comments on.
Lyoness seems to be systematically looking for new ways to mislead people, whether it’s about statements from lawyers, certificates, charities or posts on the internet. But if I start to make too many comments about that, it will completely derail this thread from its main topic.
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
When people are asking “What’s the problem?”, they should probably have identified the problem themselves first before asking about it. But most experienced people will normally avoid asking questions like that, if the topic isn’t clearly limited to something very specific.
“What’s the problem?” will allow me to post 50 different replies based on the same question, all pointing out different types of problems people will LOVE to read about. 🙂
There’s absolutely nothing in that question that will prevent me from choosing my favorite Lyoness problems one by one or grouped together in groups. I can link to all my favorite material.
I can’t bother people with 50 posts, but I can probably post a couple of posts …
My statement about “Lyoness seems to be constantly looking for new ways to mislead people” didn’t contain any details other than the Lyonessscamreview example.
As late as September 2013, Lyoness hired a legal expert in Austria to clear it from its pyramid scheme reputation. His work can only be used in misleading marketing, it doesn’t have any other functions than that.
I assumed that the legal expert potentially could offer something of value (before I had checked the facts).
“What’s the problem?” is this time about that all the different attempts to mislead people makes Lyoness extremely time consuming. I had seriously expected to find some real legal defense arguments, not a new attempt to mislead people. Misleading people seems to have become a “habit”.
Cashy or shall we just call you Hubert?
It is normal business to make a partial payment on the purchase of a new car when a consumer cannot afford to make the full payment particularly when the purchaser is securing a vehicle which may be sold to another buyer.
No consumers make partial payments on gift cards outside of Lyoness.
Why would that be Hubert?
Other than the purpose of securing positions on Lyoness’s accounting systems to gain commissions over participants that also make partial payments it makes no commercial sense to make partial payments on gift cards that can be purchased outright for less than the partial payment, that is unless there is some financial benefit as in the case with Lyoness if Lyoness members recruit more Lyoness members to make partial payments that are higher than the retail price of the gift cards.
I am sure that no Lyoness members have ever made a partial payment on any gift cards prior to their involvement with Lyoness?
Each down paid unit represents a partial payment on gift cards so a Premium Member receives 13 units… 7 units on AC1, 3 units on AC2 & 3 units on AC3.
There is no shortage of gift cards so why would anyone want to have 13 partial payments on gift cards that retail for less than the partial payments?
One reason…
To gain positions in the form of down paid units on matrix accounting programs over participants that make partial payments that create more positions and that is what it is all about… Isn’t Hubert??
POSITIONS, POSITIONS, POSITIONS!!!
It gets even better for you doesn’t Hubert when you sell down paid units in your national & continental matrix programs inducing your Lyoness members to purchase down paid units on top of more down paid units ahead of the countries consumers, so tell us Hubert what happened to India? And more to the point where is the money that you induced your Lyoness members to down pay in the Indian market?
Lyoness members are making down payments on top of down payments, how many of these down payments or the new terminology is of course “Partial Payments” are ever topped up?
Let’s hope that the gaming commission in Norway is successful and consumers that have been induced into the Lyoness scheme receive their money back and the scheme is shut down.
Lets get back to the topic in a year. Lyoness will still be there. Expanding to prob a nother 10 countries and increasing Its rev. This year Its rev will finish with over 3bil in shopping thru the programm.
Please read again Lyoness will face the same problems like in all the other countries but it will susatain like in all the other countries it went to. No Lyoness member can loose money u can always consume ur down payment it by paying the rest of the money to the product or Service which u want to choose for the consumption of ur down payment.
In addition this is just an option. U can become a premium member by not down paying a cent!!!! The card is absolutly free and w no charge. This fact makes it legal and with no Chance of loosing money in the program.
If u dont know how to Re-cash or consume ur down payment Its Not The fault of Lyoness Its ur uplines fault.
Cheers and be ready for US cuz we will be around as long as shopping will exist.
“Please read again” WHAT? The only thing I found was some sort of “prediction” based on your own “wants and needs”. Reading it again didn’t make any sense.
The regulatory procedures in a pyramid scheme case normally will require more than 1 year to be completed. You’ll probably right about that part.
The regulatory procedure has an investigative part, where the regulators will collect information from the party and other sources.
* Then it has a preliminary conclusion, e.g. a warning where the party voluntarily can stop the illegal activities, or file objections to the conclusion.
* Then it has a final conclusion, e.g. being banned.
* Then it has 1 appeal to a Complaint Board. It will typically take more than a year before all steps have been completed.
If the Gaming Board finds it to be a pyramid scheme, it will be banned in that market, the illegal parts of it. How do you expect Lyoness to sustain in a market where it has been banned?
The potential illegal parts are 9 out of 10 points in the compensation plan, and the accounting categories. That’s the CORE of Lyoness’ business model, where nearly all payouts are generated.
Norway is a small country with only 5 million citizens, but people will typically “spread the word” if a company has been banned as a pyramid scheme.
You have a very funny definition of “legal” that has nothing to do with actual laws.
The Gaming Board is requesting the following information from Lyoness:
* General information about the company
* Registration details
* Ownership, structure of ownership
* Updated financial information
* Marketing/info material used in the Norwegian market
* Terms and Conditions
* Cost to join, other member costs
* difference paid member vs. free member
* number of members total, free, paid
* sales structure
* bonus and provisions (compensation plan)
* products and services
* Member benefits
* Cashback terms and conditions
* list of loyalty merchants
* specific financial documentation
* other relevant information
Some of the points are not very relevant for Lyoness, but they are relevant for a report. The information has to be COLLECTED from the party itself, the Gaming Board can’t use third party information in a report.
Source (Norwegian):
https://lottstift.no/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/13-06752-1-Tilsynssak-pyramidespill-Krav-om-dokumentasjon-om-virksomheten-til-Lyoness-i-Norge-755415_6_0.pdf
The document was found via the English Wikipedia article on Lyoness:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyoness
Actually this is wrong; You DO have to shop. Once your unit gets the required number of units behind it, your payout is in loyalty credit which MUST be used to shop within the Lyoness merchant network. EVERYTHING happens through shopping.
Further more, your partial payment is ALWAYS yours. At any point you can apply your partial payment towards a shopping withing the Lyoness network.
There is no investment, only shopping in full orders or making partial payments towards future purchases.
There is a >100% cash payout which has nothing to do with shopping. Loyalty credit can also be used to re-invest in more units.
Yes, yes we’ve all heard the marketing bullshit. No need to repeat it here.
That is a “half truth”, i.e. it doesn’t reflect the realities. “Half truths” will typically be used to mislead people. “Half truths” will normally fail if you analyse them.
“ALWAYS yours” normally means you can do whatever you want with it, there’s no extra ordinary conditions. “You can get it back through shopping by topping up the down payment” is clearly some type of extra ordinary condition.
If you can’t get your money back when you want, the money is clearly not yours. Your “ALWAYS yours” idea is clearly misleading.
The down payments also have other functions than acting as partial payments, e.g. they will generate recruitment rewards to people higher up in the system, and “trap” money inside the system. Your half truth didn’t cover that part.
The fact that you believed in the idea of “ALWAYS yours” doesn’t make the idea true in itself. It only tells us that you have failed to analyse it properly, you’re simply REPEATING what you have been told.
In that case, why is there an option to BUY the accounting units by paying Lyoness, if everything *really* happens *through* shopping?
If you earn the units through shopping the merchants are paying a couple percent toward your bottomline. Fine, that’s shopping loyalty program.
But what the heck is money going straight to Lyoness doing?
if you say that’s like a deposit/down payment, then it’s an INVESTMENT, because not only you can get back MORE than what you put in, it’s dependent on 1) you put in money in direct AU purcahse, 2) other people also put in money in direct AU purchase, 3) shopping by you, 4) shopping by them, 5) random mix of above 4 factors.
Yet you simply IGNORE 3 out of the 5 contributions above.
Clearly, you can’t even keep track of your own arguments, because they don’t fit the facts, or you just conveniently ignore them.
So what? FHTM lasted 10 years, Madoff even longer.
More evidence Lyoness has nothing to do with shopping:
The above is a Phillipine Lyoness affiliate explaining the business in the Philippines. Apparently they have 12,000 investors and are only now “getting ready to launch the Cashback Card”.
So uh, what have those 12,000 affiliates actually bought into?
Answer: They invested in AUs.
The take away? Lyoness doesn’t work without affiliate investment, just like every other Ponzi scheme out there. They need 12,000+ affiliate investments to get the ball rolling and only then do they launch a new Ponzi market under the guise of shopping.
You either don’t understand or are choosing to ignore the facts. When you make a partial payment, the partial payment is deemed as a commitment to shop within the Lyoness network.
There is never any CASH PAYOUT for making partial payments once the unit hits the required number of units. The payout is in Loyalty credits which can only be used WITHING the Lyoness network, therefore shopping MUST occur.
A partial payment IS shopping.
It’s nothing more than the depositing of money with Lyoness on the expectation of a >100% ROI.
According to the Lyoness compensation plan, yes there is. Please read up on it (guess you didn’t read the article or the comments in their entirety).
Or you can just use the credit to “purchase” more units.
Depositing money with Lyoness on the promise of a >100% ROI is not shopping.
Is that important, the “shopping MUST occur”?
Pyramid scheme rules are about chain recruitment systems, where participants pay something to participate (e.g. down payments), and where they can earn financial gains (e.g. commissions, bonuses) derived primarily from other participants payments (e.g. other people’s down payments).
Please be more CORRECT when posting here, e.g. don’t focus solely on small parts of the compensation plan and pretend that other parts of it don’t exist. You can get CASH PAYOUTS from other parts of the compensation plan if you recruit minimum 4 other investors.
You don’t need to shop for the Loyalty Credits either, you can reinvest them into more down payments (e.g. in other parts of the program).
Your arguments are CLEARLY not correct. You can CLEARLY earn cash payouts from other parts of the compensation plan, if you recruit the minimum 4 directs (and they recruit 4 directs each, and so on and so forth).
A down payment isn’t shopping (product purchase). MLM will require a sale to be completed before it can be counted as a sale. Some states use definitions like “bona fide sale to end user” as definition for commissionable sale in MLM.
In Lyoness, people do actually receive something in exchange for their monies. They receive POSITIONS (AU) in the Accounting Cathegory system, and those positions will generate different types of payouts if enough new positions are added after the first one.
The system will generate a positive ROI if most of the new positions comes from other participants, and if the owner of the units are qualified for different types of payouts (qualified = recruitment qualifications).
The payouts seems to be the PRIMARY function of the AU system, i.e. the system doesn’t have any clear commercial functions other than organizing some payouts.
You can’t claim the ONLY function of the down payment is shopping. You can’t claim it’s the PRIMARY function either, the system has been clearly oriented towards distributing payouts rather than distributing goods.
The Norwegian Gaming Board will normally check 4 points.
1. Chain recruitment system?
Lyoness will meet that criterion.
2. Payment from the participants?
The down payments will probably meet that criterion. It isn’t solely about monetary payment, e.g. it can be about recruitment too.
3. Prospected “financial gains” to the participants?
That is about if the marketing material and compensation plan is offering some “financial gains”, but primarily about if the company pays out rewards in reality.
4. Where and what those “financial gains” derives from, e.g. whether they derive from bona fide sales to end users, from personal work efforts, or directly / indirectly from the recruitment of other participants.
It will of course also check the arguments from the party itself.
The Gaming Board will analyse the REALITIES in the case.
“People CAN and DO make direct down payments to buy into the program” is a REALITY. “People don’t need to do it” is only an option. It’s about whether or not they DO buy into the program in that way, not about whether or not some people DON’T DO it.
It’s about if the programs pay out “financial gains” if you DO recruit 4 other people, not about if the program DON’T pay out financial gains if you DON’T recruit 4 other people.
It’s about whether or not the financial gains are being prospected, e.g. if it’s being reflected in the compensation plan and in the realities. It’s not about whether it’s hidden in other types of marketing material, e.g. if it’s hidden behind shopping community statements.
The NEW case number for Lyoness, after it became a formal investigation, is 2013/6752. It currently only has one single document = the letter from the Gaming Board to Lyoness dated December 4th 2013.
The old case numbers were 2013/44 (World Ventures and Lyoness) and 2011/1340.
Documents are normally available through oep.no (“Offentlig Elektronisk Postjournal”, “Public Electronic Post journal”), but in reality most documents will be sealed, only the official parts will be publicly available.
Hello all you smart ones.
So is Lyoness shut down in Norway or is it expanding in a rapid way? Yeez u still dont get it Lyoness is going to be the biggest MLM.
As per the article title, Lyoness is being investigated. I’m unaware of any further developments to date.
Lyoness Norway have changed lawfirm from Fornebuadvokatene DA to Advokatfirmaet Grette DA, a lawfirm partly specialized on international clients, with a German speaking department. It has around 70 lawyers.
It normally means the lawfirm is communicating directly with Lyoness’ top management rather than the local management in Norway, or with both. It indicates “professionalism”, most likely initiated by their first lawfirm.
Current case numbers (oep.no):
2011/1340 old number
2013/44 old number
2013/6752 formal investigation, 5 doc numbers
2014/16 some anonymous tips, 5 doc numbers
“Doc numbers” is about that all documents haven’t become visible in the database yet.
The report about Lyoness Norway can be expected finished around June 1 2014.
Source (in Norwegian):
https://lottstift.no/blog/2014/05/09/tilsynsrapporten-om-lyoness-er-snart-ferdig/
“Supervisory report about Lyoness will be finished soon”, published May 9th 2014. It has been delayed due to other cases / priority issues.