Smart Media Technologies pyramid busted in Bangalore
You pay your affiliate membership fees (upfront and then $30 a month), and then go off and find others to do the same.
And the more you pay, the more you earn.
Once the affiliate recruitment in Smart Media Technologies stops, so too will the commissions. I don’t even think it’s worth entertaining the idea that non-affiliates are using the YOBSN network.
–BehindMLM Smart Media Technologies review, December 2013
David Martin, the mysterious CEO behind Smart Media Technologies that people rarely see or hear from.
As with many of the suspiciously generic sounding one hit wonder admins you’ve never heard of, Martin was the creation of Indian Ponzi scammers.
Smart Media Technologies launched in 2013 and combined a social network with a recruitment-driven MLM compensation plan.
Affiliates bought in for between $125 to $400, and were then paid to recruit others who did the same.
How long police in India have been investigating Smart Media Technologies is unclear but after receiving a tip-off, City Crime Branch detectives raided a Smart Media Technologies hotel presentation last Wednesday.
Three men and one woman, the owners of Smart Media Technology, were caught red-handed attempting to solicit new participants into the scheme and arrested.
The four arrested have been booked under sections of the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Scheme (Ban) Act and Indian Penal Code section 420 (cheating), police said today.
“We have arrested four persons including a New Zealand national for illegally collecting Rs 50 crore through social media network,” a City Crime Branch (CCB) statement said.
RS 10 crore is 500 million or $8 million USD.
The foreign national has been identified as Driver Denise, who is the “Asia-Pacific Head” of the company.
She had been camping in the hotel since October 9 holding marketing sessions, they said.
The other persons arrested are Mohammad Khurram, Kiran Modi and Hithese Modi, all residents of Bengaluru.
As I mentioned earlier, how long Bengaluru police have been investigating the scheme isn’t clear, however police did tell Zee News that ‘further investigation was on(going)‘.
Action was also being proposed against the hotel for not sending Form-C to Foreigner Regional Registration Offices (FRRO) and allegedly abetting the accused, police said.
Preliminary investigation revealed that Denise has enrolled more than 30,000 people across the world and had collected millions of dollars worth about Rs 50 crore, police said.
Most of her members belonged to US (2,000), India (1,700), Malaysia (28,000), New Zealand (500), Dubai (200), Pakistan (100).
In India, her members are located in Karnataka (300), Maharashtra (800), Delhi (100), Punjab (100), Madhya Pradesh (300) and Hyderabad (100), they added.
Khurram has introduced 2,000 members and received US Dollar 10,000 as commission, police said.
At the time of publication the Smart Media Technologies website is unresponsive. The YOBSN (Smart Media Technologies’ social network) website however is still online.
The New Zealand national involved in the scam is a bit strange. Although the cynic in me chalks it up to wanting a white face to reassure otherwise cautious Indian investors.
Otherwise what Driver Denise (Denise Driver?) was doing in India scamming people escapes me.
Meanwhile here at BehindMLM we had scammers as late as August still professing the legitimacy of the company, so much for that hey.
Smart Media Technologies is done for and a pat on the back to Bangalore (Bengalaru) police for a job well done.
@oz
1] there is another name that crops up with david martin and that is steven wright .
2] this is NOT a creation of indian ponzi players. just does not fit at all . this is definitely from outside india.
3] the guys arrested in bangalore must be the top indian recruiters of this scheme, but not the owners. only 1700 indian members in how many years ? piss poor performance, i say. if this company was indian, and functioned over an year, nothing less than 50.000 members should have joined up, in my view.
4] 🙂 there is nothing like bengali police :
a] there is a state called bengal which has a language called bengali.
b] bangalore is now renamed bengaluru and it’s police can safely be called bengaluru police.
I noticed that a lot of activity seemed to be based out of New Zealand when I checked SMT / YOBSN in March 2014, but with the marketing directed towards other countries (e.g. Malaysia, South Africa).
I even suggested that it could be organized from NZ, but with companies registered in other countries (primarily the U.S.). But I had to drop that idea, it was too inconclusive to be valid.
@anjali
It does on the coding side. I’m thinking Indians partnered with a few NZ’ers. Base of operations definately wasn’t NZ, and targeting Malaysia fits that (lots of Indians there).
Thanks for the corrections on Bengali/Bangalore. So easy to mix up (and I didn’t know it had been officially renamed)!
Other than your opinion, do you have any hard evidence which would contradict the evidence already available here and on other sites which have reported the story ??
Denise Driver is from NZ, but Automatic Geek and SmartMedia are all Indian, and majority of top recruiters are Indian. The NV registration is a diversion/decoy.
Logically, a scam goes after a core group of victims, and in this case, that’d be Indians, thus it’s logical to assume the scammers are also Indian.
TVI Express, as a case study, was initially launched in Sikkim and met with disaster there so they sent in someone to payoff everybody and pretend it never happened. Then they relaunched elsewhere with confederates and spread into China and other Asian countries.
the idea that some small town, uneducated type, of indian ponzi hucksters, can pull off registrations in nevada , and tie up with new zealanders and still end up with ONLY 1700 members in india , is just implausible. cannot wrap my mind around this.
BTW the smartmediatechnologies.com lists a physical office address for Smart Media Development, Inc:
the language of the website , the certificates of incorporation , the creation of david martin [ is he really fake], is NOT the work of the bunch of idiots arrested in bangalore. some things can be, and some things JUST CANT.
It is what it is. Instead of the common UK registration route these guys went through the US. Just like the UK regos, obviously SMT has no actual presence in the US, it’s all smoke and mirrors.
I have no doubt their NZ connections helped them along but base of operations was obviously India.
Scammers get busted in India and the Smart Media Technologies site goes down immediately? Hardly co-incidence.
Not 100% conclusive but at this stage, pending further evidence, all signs point to India.
Anyway the focus should be on the scam itself, let’s not lose sight of what’s important.
oz, smartmediatechnologies.com is up and running ?
Ah, you know them personally do you ???
Enough at least, it appears, to know with certainty they are “small town, uneducated type, of indian ponzi hucksters”
Racial profiling, stereotyping and racism comes in many forms and can be found in the most unlikely places, apparently.
Uh, I swear it wasn’t when I wrote the article a few hours back. The whole domain was down.
Guess somebody from there must be reading BehindMLM…?
i called them idiots too . you missed that .
I had to abandon my own idea “organized from New Zealand, but primarily targeting other countries”. It simply wasn’t properly supported by facts, only by “indications”. It doesn’t mean it can’t be true, only that it’s not worth believing in too strongly (so I didn’t try to strengthen the idea).
Denise Driver (if that’s her real name) is probably some type of Master Distributor for Asia-Pacific area = Dubai to Australia to Asia.
“Denise Driver” will give very few relevant search hits, almost all of them will be about the arrest in India. Combined with other words like “YOBSN”, “Smart Media”, “New Zealand” etc. will give a few relevant hits.
SMT did get their start in the US back in 2010 when they were marketing their so called Smart Media Desktop.
It pitch was something about the “Home Page that Pays” and if I recall correctly there was some sort of browser front end or plugin you had to download and SMT would share 75% of all the “advertising revenue” on your page with you as long as you kept recruiting enough new paying members.
I am pretty sure it started in the US and I’m pretty sure some of the principles were using fake names even back then. I remember a few of the old webinars and the presenters were clearly American.
I’d speak with more specificity but the notes I had on the company died with the hard drive they were on.
I’m pretty sure SMT never sold a membership to anyone who had any technical background, they were a technology company the same way Telexfree was a VOIP company.
By 2012 they were having a hard time finding fresh victims in the US, dropped the “homepage that pays” pitch and moved their focus off shore.
It wouldn’t surprise me if their current YOBSN code base was freelanced from India and I wouldn’t be surprised if some US nationals didn’t turn up in the court documents. I’d be disappointed if they didn’t.
If you do a Google Search, you’ll find that it’s a desk in a “business incubator”
NOLINK://www.loopnet.com/Listing/18061199/390-E-Corporate-Drive-Meridian-ID/
Well, maybe not a desk, but a tiny office of 500 sqft (46 sqM)
That was my impression too, but I’m unable to separate clearly between U.S. English, UK, Australian, Canadian etc. (but I can exclude Scotland from those presentations).
Fake names was my impression too, but that impression was too inconclusive. David Martin is registered in official positions in the companies (Nevada business registry). He could have been an agent, but that idea was inconclusive too.
The link to India dates back to 2010:
NOLINK://behindmlm.com/companies/smart-media-technologies-review-yobsn/#comment-228099
I think you have a lot of inaccurate information posted here.
For example you mention David Martin the CEO of Smart Media as never being seeing and leaning the story towards him being a person who was made up and does not exist.
So this post is an effort to try and put some facts in what you are writing here and hoping you are willing to post this and also hope it might have you do more research so you are posting the truth and not half truths or worse still information that is totally inaccurate.
The website link below is to a recent meeting between Smart executives David Martin CEO and Ken Brough COO in Las Vegas.
This is proof that David Martin does exist and I think if you investigate further they have a genuine product of value that they give away for free.
Already have YOBSN Games in the Apple & Google Play stores. They have YOBSN social network available as a free download for iPhones and soon to be available for iPads and android. Their social network is also available for free to computer users.
In other words they are a real company with real products of value and they are not a scam or pyramid. The India situation is currently under investigation and if you do more research you will find there is a lot more to it.
Please review the video: smartmediatechnologies.com/specialwelcome
I hope this information helps you to do more research
@Ken
David Martin has a face!
He’s obviously got a British accent and is the UK link for the Indian scammers, or he’s the guy running the show with Indian connections.
Either way he remains a mystery other than a figurehead who gives vague marketing speeches in videos begging people to sign up.
Hopefully Denise Driver et al will spill the beans on him and all will be revealed.
Having real products and services doesn’t negate the core of your business being to sign up as an affiliate and get paid to recruit others who do the same.
Arrests are what usually happens after an investigation. Anyone with half a brain can see this is a pyramid scheme.
The only question remaining is are they the ones running the scam or are those responsible going to step up?
Use the NOLINK method I used in post #16, or any similar method to disable the link but to tell where to find information. But add some relevant information, e.g. “Here’s the link I mentioned in post #17, showing the meeting between Ken Brough and David Martin” (only a suggestion, add your OWN information rather than mine).
Does it work, i.e. does the YOBSN owners drive enough free members to the Social Network to make any significant amount of money on it?
I have looked at the marketing activities, and I have interpreted it quite differently. People seem to BELIEVE they can make money on owning their own “branded social networks”, but the reality seems to be different.
If it doesn’t work in reality, then it doesn’t have any real business function (other than to mislead people). Then the main function of the business will be to recruit new YOBSN owners. That’s probably why it was shut down in India (“owners getting paid for recruiting other owners” is a pyramid scheme concept).
Oops, I found the disabled link near the bottom of the post. But the NOLINK tip should be relevant anyway.
yes, apparently he is real person . BUT i have some doubts about whether his name is real or fake.
there is another british national by the name of ‘david martin’ who is the head of a genuine company called ‘smart technologies’.
and we have this ‘david martin ‘ of ‘smart media technologies’
TOO close for comfort? is it probable – yes . is it plausible -no ?
Paid actor?
Those four in India roped in $10 million USD… Malaysia was their biggest recruiting ground so who knows how many millions have disappeared.
Not totally out of the question.
He has got a different voice, compared to “Automatic Geek” or “Home Page Pays” presentations? He’s sounding much younger, and he has suddenly got a British accent rather than the American one he had a few years earlier.
“David Martin” has actually participated in SOME calls, e.g. with Jimmie Schwinn. I’ll guess THAT was a fake one, and THIS is the real one?
Thank you for sending me this link as added information on Smart Media LLC.
The Ken who posted the information in this thread and the link to the video is most probably Ken Brough. Thank you for showing their is a physical person behind the name of David Martin. Now I like to view his passport to see he is who he says he is, or some other real proof of his identity.
Fist time in relation to this company there appears to be some physical proof that David Martin exists in person but again only the leaders have access to him as shown by the video.
Denise Driver has been involved since Automated Geeks and then went on to eventually market YOBSN.
She has never been mentioned by any NZ Leader so other than the information your site pointed me to, her company registration details she is not known me or a lot of other NZ participates I would dare to say.
I note again they advertise a lot of products in their sales video which do not appear to be functional thereby making their advertising misleading and false.
The YOBSN platform has had very little done to it so I am informed and is still as it was when I was thrown out of the company so that speaks for itself.
I suspect there will be a follow-up story here in New Zealand due to Denise being a New Zealand national by the herald or some other media like TV. I will keep an eye out for them.
I sent the link of the NZHerald article to our Commerce Commission asking for an update to my formal complaint today.
I will keep an eye on this story in NZ to see where it goes and I like to see our ComCom investigate and either prove it is a pyramid scheme or disprove it and giving their reason why it is not a ponzi / pyramid scheme.
If proved, charge the leaders in NZ and force David Martin to give back all the money he has taken and is still taking by those still under the marketing hype of David Martin.
@Ken
Rather than post words like this:
please enlighten us as to who what Denise Drivers relation is to the company you are defending and what are the further details you allude to. Again shooting from hip, saying as little as possible with very little facts.
You have first hand experience with YOBSN, if I have guessed correctly?
Does it work, i.e. is there any interest among people in general to become free users only?
Or is the “free user” primarily used to attract people to the opportunity, e.g. as a “try it before you buy it” solution?
@M_Norway
1. Yes first hand experience – two odd years.
2. Common comment from paid users could not even give it away.
3. The free users is used in both ways that you mention.
“Feeder programs” or “lead capture programs” may work in the way I mentioned. They may offer something for free just to get in contact with new prospects.
If the free members don’t generate any significant income for the paid members, then the free members must have a different function than being a direct or indirect source of income.
SMT’s primary source of income seems to be directly from the people buying into the opportunity. That’s what the business really is about = “Sell people the dream of a long term income from their personal social network. Make them FEEL they’re building a long term business based on free users, while in reality they’re actually PAYING for the work they’re doing”.
Most of the YOBSN owners who have posted here have clearly believed in DREAMS (you have managed to wake up, but most others haven’t). Bryan Williams (the NZ leader) even called it dream stealing when he read the comments here.
@m_Norway
The idea was that the free users would generate income for the paid users. However of the 16 revenue streams promised by SM the only one that was operative was recruiting people into the business during my time with them. So this fits the bill of a ponzi / pyramid scheme.
The games Bryan Williams mentioned is an additional stream added recently, like this year. My understanding is if a free user downloads the game and buys upgrade packs then the paid user who the free member belongs to will get a percentage of the sale.
They appear to be absolutely focused on the gaming arena now and are putting the efforts there. But with all the money that has been raised worldwide from paid memberships like we see from India (10 million dollars) it is inexplicable why it is taking them years to develop these things and they wont answer this question.
The pat answer they give is “soon” and nothing more. Their soon ranges from now to eternity so it has no value at all. You are expected to wait forever for the features to actually be put into place. I called them the “coming soon” company.
Their answer to that is David Martin wants to ensure everything works and is secure. Now that is a lie in itself as I have watched a company in Iceland build a secure Social Network from scratch in just under 12 months and their membership base is growing really fast as people jump ship from the other social networks.
The only thing they don’t offer is any way to produce an income as that is not where their focus is. So for SM to say these things take time is a half truth and they are being deceitful about what they are doing and where the money is going.
They offer lots of promises but constantly fail to deliver and (the fun part) when you start asking questions as to why and be insistent about getting answers then they turn on you and eventually will throw you out of their company saying you are destructive to their users and network.
As it is said here, their target market seems to be those who are not technically minded as these people do not know any better and will not research to see what else there is out in the market place.
Quite frankly if they operated on proper business practices and delivered on all their products they may just have something. As it stands only those who are doing all out recruiting are making any money.
If Byran or Ken want or this so called David Martin want to come up here and provide solid irrefutable facts like their company books and other material that this is not the case and if they do not do this, then I think my words speak for themselves.
In all the comments i seen about this company across the net nowhere does Smart Media LLC provide absolute proof that the person is wrong. What they do is either attack the person or give some hyped up marketing rubbish.
Again I think this speaks for itself as any reputable company would fight to protect its reputation at all costs.
@Ian
That one’s easy – pseudo compliance.
They’ve been running a recruitment-driven pyramid scheme for years and are now trying to cover it up with mobile games.
Unfortunately the horse has already bolted. You can’t make a pyramid scheme legit, no matter what you tack onto it.
A short quote from Radio New Zealand’s website.
NOLINK://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/261195/nz-woman-confesses-in-india-police
I quoted it just for fun, because of the “front for international fraudsters”, “cunning people behind the scenes”, etc
@M-Norway
Thanks for the update and link, added to my file. Denise can be traced right back to Automated Geek so she has been involved a long time with Smart Media LLC.
The story mentions she had given police access to her back office. Smart Media control those back offices so it creates an interesting situation.
Do they lock her account to stop the Police accessing it or do they leave it open. Time will tell I guess on what actions they take.
If she is convicted in India then that adds weight to complaints laid in other countries like NZ and the USA.
not much chance of her being ‘convicted’ in india.
she should get bail within 2/3 months max.
then the case will, if a charge sheet is ever submitted in full, get in line behind 2.5 crore cases pending before the indian judiciary .
meanwhile with the help of the the new zealand high commission, she would leave india and never come back.
Okay, here’s some proof that somebody is fibbing.
According to BusinessWeek, “David Andrew Martin” of Smart Technologies is 65 years old.
investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=6356574&ticker=SMA:CN
There is a David Andrew Martin being award “Officer of Order of British Empire”, and Alberta Canada is listed. His age is not, but it’s not gonna be a 30 year old guy as on YOSBN’s website.
Furthermore, I am reasonably sure that there is yet ANOTHER “David Martin”, also a Canadian… This one a poet, and it may be HIS picture YOSBN appropriated for their website. You tell me if this is the guy on YOSBN’s website:
cbc.ca/books/canadawrites/2014/09/2014-cbc-poetry-prize-finalist-david-martin.html
it may be time to inform the mounties.
Plot twist: David Andrew Martin has a son called David.
DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUN!
Here’s the *real* David Martin, the 65-year old one
grand-nce.ca/newsandmedia/canadian-digital-media-pioneer-awards/david-martin-and-nancy-knowlton
This is a “sound-alike” fraud.
Canadian, dear.
Person in the link is not the David Martin in the video which Ken kindly provided a link to in the above comment here above.
Of course not…
But then, it’s not even the same company. Smart Tech is Canadian. Smart MEDIA is sorta US sorta India
What I meant to say is one may be living off the name recognition of the other through the sound-alike ness.
How many of us just live off the first page of Google results? 🙂
Said it before… Smart Media Technologies is a circlejerk… all references wraps back to itself. it sounds “close enough” to an existing company that noobs who barely speak English can be fooled into thinking it’s more legitimate than it is.
As for games, you can hire freelancers in India or Eastern Europe and they can probably whip out one over a week or two esp. if they’ve done something similar before.
The “magazine” and the articles may have been pirated from “Viral Loop” in South Africa to look “official” enough, but any one with a desktop publishing package could have made one easy enough.
Frankly, studying this company is a lot like studying “Bigfoot evidence” by cryptozooligists… As biologists remarked that the evidence makes no sense, the fakes starts to get better and it’s start to be more and more plausible.
We’re seeing something similar here: release just enough stuff to seem plausible while keep taking in money.
For all of you that believe everything you hear, you can find out the REAL truth here:
(Ozedit: Scammers lie. Unless the scammers behind Smart Media are going to post third-party facts to back up their rants, do not link to rubbish like this here.)
Smart Media is a product (service) driven pyramid scheme. Those earning in it only do so via recruitment of new paid members.
Trotting out the “but we have a product” line is irrelevant, as all modern-day pyramid schemes attach themselves to a product or service.
Ditto trying to mask recruitment behind “product sales”. If the only people paying for your service are affiliates, who pay when they are recruited – it’s a recruitment commission.
Squirm Smart Media scammers, squirm.
Ken is the new CEO and my friend is involve they try to recruit me to…
Ken you keep updating about selling package and putting in a promotion… Yobsn selling a dream.. there is no growth in USA, NZ, Aus, UK,Europe, they focus on Mayalayasia & South Africa where they sell the dream.
Any network marking company has Marketing Tools for there distributes right. .. not Smart media technology,no consumeable products,false advertising about online shopping of 800million products. .. where is it?
Why do people have to wait so long it’s over a year and no body in company heard about any progress on it…
My friend still worship this company but struggle to make money, Ken don’t have any network marking experience at all ,he when to a Go Pro network marketing even and think he knows it all over couple of session are you kidding me????
SMT wil only grow in SA and Malaysia because they sell the dream there.. but ask for the growth in first world countries there is non because people are not stupid they see that yobsn is a incomplete platform.
And why is there non Todd Felcano (big networking marketer) Jordan Alder, Tim Sales .. these guys are big names and they know why SMT is releasing incomplete thingo and it’s not ready but they stil have to make money by prompting people to sell package and that’s a fact.
Te highest paid people stop doing the business, why?? That’s a big reason why….