TelexFree Review: Spam the internet for $20 a week
If you were running a business and were looking at advertising options, how much would you consider paying someone to publish unsolicited and untargeted ads on ‘free to publish’ classified ads on the internet?
10 cents an ad? 5 cents… even less?
If TelexFree are to be taken seriously, they believe that advertisers are willing to pay you $2.85 per ad you publish.
Read on for a full review of the TelexFree MLM business opportunity.
The Company
TelexFree claim to be headed up by a Mr. James Merrill (also credited as “Jim Merrill”, photo right).
Born in 1961, Son of a traditional American couple, James Merrill graduated in the class of 1985 in economics at Westfield State University.
Man of great vision, he saw a large market at meeting some Brazilians and learning how much they spent to call Brazil. Knowledgeable of a new technology at the time (VoIP) decided to found in 2002 Telexfree Inc. to serve this market.
There is an image on the TelexFree website showing what appears to be company registration record in the US state of Massachusetts. A quick visit to the Corporations Division of Massachusetts (punch in “telexfree” into the search box) confirms that such a record exists, however “TelexFree Inc” itself only came into existence earlier this year.
Prior to TelexFree Inc the company was known as Common Cents Communications, which was established in 2002 with Jim Merril serving as Treasurer and Clerk and Carlos Wanzeler as company President.
No explanation is given as to why the company changed its name.
Furthermore I wasn’t able to find any information on Common Cents Communications other than they appear to have had less than 5 employees and were involved in telecommunications (probably VOIP as the TelexFree website mentions).
If I had to take a guess I’d say the renaming of Common Cents Communications to TelexFree was to start fresh and introduce a MLM compensation plan into the business (Common Sense Communications was not MLM). The domain ‘telexfree.com’ was only registered on the 30th January 2012 so this fits timeline wise.
Curiously enough, James Merrill is credited as being TelexFree’s founder and President, however the Massachusetts company registration clearly lists the President of TelexFree as Carlos Wanzeler (photo right). Wanzeler’s name does not appear anywhere on the TelexFree website, although his name does appear as the ‘administrative contact’ for the domain ‘telexfree.com’.
The actual registrant of the TelexFree domain is listed as ‘Disk a Vontade’, operating out of a PO Box in Massachusetts.
From the Disk a Vontade website, it appears to be a company offering VOIP services. Not surprisingly, Disk a Vontade’s domain (‘diskavontade.com’) is registered to Wanzeler indicating he owns the company.
Meanwhile Disk a Vontade offer a distributor program (I don’t think it’s in MLM but I’m not 100% sure as the company website is in Portuguese) and at a recent company event in Brazil, sitting next to Wanzeler was none other than James Merrill:
The exact relationship between TelexFree and Disk a Vontade is uncertain based on what I’ve been able to find but it appears as if both companies are operated out of the US, share key management and have a target market in Brazil.
Why none of this is openly disclosed on the TelexFree website is a mystery (particularly why Merrill is publicly credited as President of TelexFree when official documents filed with the state of Massachusetts show Wanzeler as holding this position).
The TelexFree Product Line
TelexFree has a “customer” section on their website where the company markets a product called “99TelexFree”.
99TelexFree is a telephone service that costs $49.99 a month and provides
- free calls between mobiles on the carriers “Vivo-claro-tim” and “Oi” (Brazillian carriers?)
- free calls to any landline in Brazil
- free calls to mobiles and landlines in the US and Canada
Additionally TelexFree company membership is also marketable by members, with membership granting participation in the TelexFree compensation plan and attracting a commission upon sale.
The TelexFree Compensation Plan
TelexFree offer members the opportunity to earn an income via the publishing of unsolicited advertisements on the internet, the sale of the 99TelexFree communications plan and the recruitment of new TelexFree members.
AdCentral Commissions
Once a prospective member has paid TelexFree $299 they are then required to publish one pre-prepared advertisement a day to a “free ad site on (the) internet”.
TelexFree do not state any further information, such as where the ads come from, who they are for or where specifically members will be publishing them.
If a member publishes one ad each day of the week, TelexFree claim a payout of $20 ($1040 annually).
One membership position in TelexFree is called an ‘AdCentral’, with each member able to have 5 membership accounts (called an “AdCentral Family Membership”) for an annual cost of $1375.
These five memberships can be bought together in a lump sum or incrementally ($299 for the initial membership and then $269 for each of the four additional memberships allowed).
Recruitment Commissions
TelexFree pay members $20 per recruitment of a new member who purchases an AdCentral membership ($299) and $100 per recruitment of a new member who purchases an “AdCentral Family Membership” ($1375).
99TelexFree Commissions
99TelexFree is a communications plan offered by TelexFree that costs $49.99 a month.
Using a 5×5 matrix, TelexFree pay out a percentage commission on the sale of each 99TelexFree plan sold.
A 5×5 matrix starts with you at the top and then branches out into 5 legs underneath you (your level 1). In turn, these five legs branch out into another 5 legs (your level 2) and so on and so forth down five levels. To give you a visual, the first few levels of a 5×5 matrix look something like this:
Each of these positions is filled by a 99TelexFree subscriber and how much of a commission earnt depends on where this customer falls on your matrix (matrices are filled top to bottom):
- Level 1 (5 positions) – $4.99 per subscription
- Levels 2 to 5 (3905 positions) – 99 cents per subscription
Binary Commissions
TelexFree use a binary compensation structure to pay out commissions on the recruitment of new members and their payment of membership fees.
A binary compensation structure starts with you at the top and branches out into two legs under you (your level 1). In turn, these two legs branch out into two legs (your level 3) and so on and so forth:
The first two members placed in your binary compensation structure form the basis of two teams, split equally down the middle. You have to recruit the first two new members in order to qualify for TelexFree’s binary commissions but thereafter any new members recruited by those already in your binary are also placed in your binary.
The first of the binary commissions paid out by TelexFree is a flat 40 cents a week commission per member in your binary team (regardless of which side they are on).
The second binary commission offered is based on the pairing of new memberships on both your left and right binary sides. For example, if you recruited 6 new members and 3 fell on your right team and 3 your left, you’d earn a $60 (3 * $20) paired binary commission that day.
If however 4 of these newly recruited members were placed on your left team and only 2 on your right, you’d earn a paired commission on two pairs (2 on the left and 2 on the right) with the extra 2 on the left team carrying over, waiting to be paired up.
These paired binary commissions are capped at 22 cycles a day ($440).
Bonus Pool
If a TelexFree member manages to sell 22 AdCentral membership positions in 20 days of any given month, they are eligible for a share in a bonus pool which is made up of ‘1% of the company’s business volume‘.
Joining TelexFree
Membership to TelexFree is $299 annually with members able to purchase an additional four membership positions for $269 each.
Conclusion
The corporate structure of TelexFree and the obvious business relationship between the company and Disk a Vontade and complete lack of disclosure on either company’s website is cause for concern.
As it currently stands, it appears as if TelexFree are mere resellers of the VOIP technology owned and operated by Disk a Vontade. Both companies appear to be owned by Carlos Wanzeler though but TelexFree’s website states that James Merrill is the founder of TelexFree.
I think clarification on these points by the two companies, Wanzeler and Merrill would go a long way as currently the nature of the structure and relationship between both companies is ambiguous to say the least.
Business model wise while there is a legitimate aspect of the TelexFree MLM business opportunity, it’s certainly disappointing to see so many apparently dubious aspects that overshadow the company as a legitimate MLM income opportunity.
On the legitimate side you have the telecommunications service plan which is readily able to be marketed at a retail level by members. Commissions paid out here are on the sale of an actual product and you don’t have to be a TelexFree affiliate to purchase the product.
The fact that TelexFree might just be resellers of Disk a Vontade’s VOIP services doesn’t really matter given that TelexFree members are able to market the service at a true retail level.
Things however start to fall apart when you consider the whole ‘AdCentral’ side of the TelexFree business. First and foremost is the weekly guarantee of $20 a week for what is essentially publishing spam on the internet (unsolicited advertising).
Obviously the idea here is to attract third-party advertisers but let’s face it, at $2.85 an ad published (where the ad is published appears to be entirely up to the discretion of the TelexFree member publishing it), this is pretty steep.
Far more likely I suspect is the idea that all TelexFree members will be doing is publishing ads advertising the income opportunity itself. I wasn’t initially sure if TelexFree themselves would be supplying inhouse ads to their members to publish but this was confirmed in the company’s ‘Terms and Conditions’:
The Promoter shall have no liability for the services and/or products announced in our ads that he publishes in ad sites on the Internet, thus the responsibility is on behalf of the advertiser itself, being Telexfree itself or any business partner that will use the announcement service of the company.
I don’t think TelexFree are going to have much luck attracting third-party advertisers at those prices, meaning the bulk of ads are just going to be marketing the opportunity itself.
It is my hope that this can be confirmed or denied at a later date if a TelexFree finds themselves reading this review and wishes to clarify this point.
Personally I believe the ridiculously high membership fee charged by TelexFree (a $299 fee to publish ads for the company?) and the fact that individual members are able to purchase up to five membership positions strongly indicates a lack of external revenue here.
Ultimately each AdCentral account is bringing in $299/$269 while paying out $1040 a year. The idea here appears to be the hope that a TelexFree member will bring in more than 3 new members during the course of their membership year to cover their $1040 commission payout.
When you consider that the binary commissions rely on a minimum of two recruited members to qualify, this again only strengthens this idea. Also supporting this is the qualification of the Bonus Pool being the selling of 22 new membership positions in 20 days with the company promising to pay out ‘1% of the company’s business volume‘.
What’s the bet that this “business volume” primarily consists of membership fees being paid for new AdCentral positions?
Not to mention the flat $20 incentive paid out exclusively on the recruitment of new members.
The problem of course with the above scenario is that once new and existing members stop purchasing membership, the entire business will fall apart due to the sales of telecommunications services and third-party advertiser revenue not nearly being able to cover a guaranteed $20 a week per AdCentral account payout.
There appears to be far too much weight on the dubious ‘publish an ad a day and earn $20 week’ side of the TelexFree MLM opportunity when contrasted to the telecommunications side of things and my opinion is this in itself inadvertently reveals where TelexFree believes they bulk of company revenue will be sourced from. That being the sale of TelexFree membership and AdCentral positions rather than telecommunications services and third-party advertisers.
Anyone looking to join TelexFree would be strongly advised to check with the person looking to recruit them as to how many telecommunications subscribers they have who are not TelexFree members and the percentage of third-party advertiser ads they have been required to publish since joining, as opposed to TelexFree ads advertising the income opportunity itself.
The answer to both questions should give prospective members a pretty good idea of what’s going on behind the scenes of TelexFree and where the bulk of their commissions revenue is coming from.
As a final note, I’d naturally welcome anyone who does get a chance to ask these questions to share the answers they receive as a comment below.
Another ponzi system, which is growing in Brazil, will soon collapse.
Payout option should be something like a Giftcards to be use off the books
Just like Mr. Colibri (Brazil), Speak Asia (India) and Ad Matrix (Holand). This last 2 knowing as scammers scandals.
The bussiness concept is the same, even the names (Ad Stations and so on).
Hello! I live in Brazil and this system is pumping telexfree here, I know a guy who has won over $ 100,000.00 in just 3 months. I know this is true, because I know the guy.
My question is … will it last long? How long usually last? You who live in the U.S. know Mr. Gerald Nehra, because telexfree hired to represent them legally. What do you think?
They do not have many customers in the U.S. there? Sorry for my bad english, I hope you understand. Thanks to all
Hello! What Giovane above said is true.
Here in Brazil is booming and many people making money.
A friend offered me and I decided to research on the subject.
They are saying that from September 17 may not purchase more than one “family” and will have to purchase the product “telexfree” too. With that staff are buying and I am desperately afraid that this is a scam and that the 17th they go away from the internet and even stop paying everybody.
What do you think or know about it?
What advice would you give?
I ask aid urgently, because I know more people who are entering it.
Thanks for help.
My analysis of Telexfree remains the same as it did in the original review.
What Telex do any don’t get you to do is irrelevant, follow the money. No legitimate company is paying out $20 a week to spam the internet.
Simone.
This company will have a short life! CAUTION!!
Good morning, friends. At start, sorry for my bad english. I living in Brazil, today a friend of mine show me a little about telefree business, them i decided to verify it on net.
There are a lot of american business in my country, like Herbalife, and more. This ones is very knowing in here, and most of them has a lot of followed people.
I believe that Telefree is one more company to operating in Brazil, that´s nothing new for us, but i hope it will be a honest company. That´s is i think. Who knows? Thanks.
Jorge
From Rio de Janeiro city,
Brazil.
I know people who are behind this business and I know they are honest people, the Disk will never closed as many claim.
Before entering the project Telexfree I knew that Wanzeler and Jim Merrill are both owners of Disk will quato of Telexfree (it’s no secret) and the headquarters of the Disk is serving the will to telexfree’s operations in Brazil, what harm is there in that?
As for TRANSFER Day 17/09 (Simone) is nothing less than a suitability Brazilian laws, and everything is being directed by Mr. Gerald Nhera that needs no introduction.
The Telexfree here to stay yeah, just bought its own building in Brazil in the state of Espirito Santo.]
Naldo Pereira
Natal RN, Brazil
Thanks for this great review!
I have asked several people who are in this business and, in fact, they only have “ditributors” in their network, and no clients for the telephone technology. So, it is clear that the money comes only from the subscribers, not for selling a product. So, this = PYRAMID.
Also the “telephone technolgy” product they sell is not competitive at all! $49 for free voip calls is cheap????
Just search the internet and you will find hundreds of voip company (such as voipraider.com, justvoip.com) that charge only $10 for THREE months of free calls!
I guess people can be making money, but will this company collapse?
YES! I give it between 6 months to one year.
There is also no Customer Service. If you get in touch with DiSKAVONTADE’s customer service and ask for assistance with TELEFREE, they pretend they don’t know what you’re talking about.
I tried myself. (On the telexfree paypal account, the contact telephone number provided is the same the Diskavontade’s… And when you pay, the money goes to an account in Luxemburgo… Weird, uh?)
Congratulations on this post again!
Have you ever thought of producing a Portuguese translation?
I believe your subject matter interests Brazilians mostly. I’d try to do it for you, but have no time do to that at the moment. Do you have someone who could do that for you?
Thanks again!
I live in the U.S. for 30 years even though I was born and lived in Brazil too. I wouldn’t be so quick to judge things as a ponzi scheme or a scam.
Many MLM companies (whether from the U.S or not) provide Brazilians and peoplea round the world an opportunity to make serious money rather than punching the clock and building someone else’s business in exchange for a meager paycheck.
Most U.S. companies don’t start out thinking they’re going to scam people. MLMs are highly regulated both in Brazil and in the U.S. What happens is that sometimes, like many businesses, things just don’t work out and like any business, they can go out of business.
If you want something solid, go buy a McDonald’s franchise for $1M dollars. Brazil, sometimes, creats problems for MLM companies that virtually puts them out of business or don’t even allow them to start. A lot of it has to do with protectionism and not surprisingly, with competitors bad-mouthing a new or promising company.
I for example, represent Organo Gold and we are anxiously waiting for it ot open in Brazil. We have a large team here earning $5K or more PER WEEK. Yes, my team are Brazilians, many don’t even speak English.
Bureaucracy can affect how a company functions and operates in Brazil. I have friends involved with TelexFree who are making money. That’s what counts if you want to be self-employed. MLMs are based on products and recruiting people. That’s the nature of the business.
More and more young people have open minds about MLM because they know that traditional jobs are not guaranteed and that their salaries area capped.
So, you either buy a franchse, start your own business or get involved in network marketing. Or hold a job and do MLM on the side. Truth is, working for other people is risky too.
@Mario
Of course not. Unlike yourself claiming otherwise, the Telexfree business model has been thoroughly analysed and the only obvious conclusion drawn, that it’s a money game based on the ridiculous price charged for advertising and cost to affiliates to publish ads.
Irrelevant.
Irrelevant.
Irrelevant.
Irrelevant.
Irrelevant.
Irrelevant.
By all means, however you’d do well to avoid money games, pyramid and Ponzi schemes. Which Telexfree, as per their compensation plan, obviously is.
The Telexfree is changing his plan, not getting this pay its distributors to post spam, this scheme collapsing as expected.
Telex Free 100% PONZI
Thank you for all the info. I just found out about this company through a brazilian newspaper in boston. I was very skeptical about it.
Yes, I believe this is a ponze scheme. Pretty soon the bubble will explode. Thanks for taking your time and doing the research.
sametimes i don’t wandestand why people is so stupid… just go to work iand forget about this thing of making easy money… we live on the world of 0% financing.
know why a company will pay over 200% return on you investment…if walk like duck and talk like a duck.. has to be a duck… do tou undestand… get a job…
This is the first time I hear about this company, I’m in Los Angeles.
The lack of disclosure and openness is reason for concern and stay away from this “bizopp”,I am.
The numbers simply don’t add up and no one will pay $2.85 for their add to appear on some free for all site nobody cares about, that’s ridiculous.
Kudos for the profound review…keep it up.
Can someone explain to me why one of the most respected MLM attorneys in the World would sign on with this company if they are a Ponzi. I copied the following from the web site.
Oh I dunno, probably the same reason Nehra signed up as Zeek Rewards’ attorney?
With Zeek Rewards being a proven $600M Ponzi scheme, I think you just shot yourself in the foot.
Lawyers don’t define whether or not a company is a Ponzi scheme, their business model does.
Nehra and Waak *was* a well respected firm in MLM compliance… but AFTER certifying both Ad Surf Daily and Zeek Rewards as compliant (and both turned out to be a Ponzi), having their certification of approval seem to be… a third strike?
Also note that
It doesn’t say anything about having hired them to go over the company for legal compliance review.
Or to put it another way… even mob need lawyers. 🙂
Maybe the same person can explain to us why anyone believes Mr Nehra is one of the most respected MLM attorneys in the world
Is it because Mr Nehra says so on his website and it’s reproduced all over the internet by failed HYIP ponzi scams like the aforementioned AdSurf Daily and Zeek Rewards, or is there something we don’t know about ??
Well thanks for the update, and dare I ask another question or two.. How long are Company’s like this usually around before they get shut down and– what do you think of Banners Brokers?
@LRM — well, Mr. Nehra’s resume did say that he worked at Amway’s legal dept for like 9 years before going out to start his own lawfirm… so I’m sure he understands MLM law well enough. The problem here is… had he do a good job since?
I’m say the answer is: not really, as he can’t spot a Ponzi scheme with a flashlight TWICE, and his name has been used by multiple suspect schemes as “reference” or “credibility by association”.
Please not another Fricken Ponzi Scam!!! The same leaders are trying to get themselves positioned for another 3-5 month run.
I just can’t believe anyone would even take a look at this, I’m not the sharpest tack in the bunch but it took me about 5 minutes to see that this is just another company that has a short life.
Networking is about sharing with friends, family, business associates ideas that are good, not to create enemies. Save yourself some time, grief and a lot of explaining.
I not in this company but I saw someone say that they give them 6 months. Have they not already be around for a year??
They’ll be around as long as people keep recruiting/investing. How long a business is around for doesn’t dictate it’s sustainability though, it’s business model does.
TelexFree’s business model is rotten.
They simply have to go to a different country, and convince more greedy people there to sign up, and they get another year’s extension on life.
TVI Express, which was kicked out of US, China, Australia, and most of Europe, is still surviving in Philippines and nearby countries.
The sign up page is not a secure page considering they ask for your SSN number.
I do not know about you people, I am in am for long as the company is paying me I will be here. You want to be outside talking and talking, thats ok, the opportunity just passing by.
If you do not try you will never get to it. BTW in just 3 1/2 month you get your money back. After that all is profit. The telexfree could fail, so what, do not invite no one, just kept puting your advertise on and earn your money.
LETS PEOPLE KEPT TALKING!!!! And keep waiting for the opportunity knocking on your door. mcgiver21
You’re also probably going to be one of the most vocal when they’re not.
And for each dollar you make in Telex, that’s a dollar someone else lost. But hey, as long as you’re getting paid, f’em right?
Even if they are simply paying you with someone else’s money they obtain through fraud, i.e. a “fraudulent transfer”?
Or you simply don’t give a ****?
I think you all missed the point, as I almost did. I was sure it was a ponzi scheme. But then I signed into some of their links and I got the big picture.
Facebook is free, but it is a multi billion dollar company. All because the millions of users on their web page everyday looking at the adds. That’s where they make their money. From the Adds.
When you sign into telexfree and you have an account, you are looking at a lot of adds, like the Marriott. The more people that sign up the more adds they get and the more revenue. That’s why you are limited to only a few adds and why you must publish every day.
So they are getting some revenue from the phone software, some from the adds people post, and a lot from the adds on their web page that people are paying a deposit, so to say, to look at. It may work.
Unlike Facebook however, the only people “signing into Telexfree” are members who are only interested in the income opportunity.
This represents 0 value to advertisers (click, click, click, where’s my commission?) thus the only revenue being generated will be that from Telexfree members (membership fees).
Paying out a fixed ROI of $20 a week that effectively makes Telexfree a Ponzi scheme.
You’re missing the point that Facebook actually provides value (wall, chat, messaging, groups, fanpages, like, etc.) to its users.
What does TelexFree provide to its users, besides the potential income opportunity? Or in other words, WHO is paying for the ads? And are there enough of them to pay for your income? What exactly are you being paid on?
I am still looking at this company, but just fyi the weekly money or “ROI” is not in fact a return on invest. The reason the pay the weekly income if you post your ad daily is because the company is actually buying something back from you.
Just curious if anyone was aware of that. There is actually a process that you must go through in order for the buy back to occur.
Please. You pay an annual fee and earn a $20 a week ROI.
Spamming the internet is just a token task to propagate the scheme and attract new investor funds.
“The company is buying your daily spam back off you” – lol.
I’m not sure if this company’s model is legit or not as both pro and con posters make acceptable points.
I won’t be joining as I don’t do these type of businesses but it’s pretty silly to complain about placing ads spamming the internet like it’s such a pristine environment to begin with.
Maybe the spam complainers should start a movement against porn next. That would at least be credible.
The issue isn’t so much the spam (as detestable as it is), it’s a company pretending that its paying it’s members to spam the internet when infact it’s just paying out existing members with new membership fees.
Instead of rallying against porn, perhaps a movement for increased comprehension might be a better use of time.
why is posting ads in classified ads considered spam or unsolicited advertising?
People who go to classified ad sites want to see classified ads. People who read the Daily Herald and go to the classified ad section want to read classified ads even though they didnt ask for it.
If people dont want to read the classified ads, then they do not go to classified ad sites or turn to the classified ad section in the newspaper.
I say that calling posts in classified ads sites ‘spam’ is ludicrous.
It is NOT spam. Spam is someone knocking on your door and throwing crap at you that you did not ask for. It is someone sending you email that is unsolicited.
Posting you have something to sell or offer in classified ad sites or in classified ads section of a newspaper is NOT spam. Spam is that garbage that i get in my postal mail box every day from people trying to sell me turkeys or Gillette Razors or Apples. That, my friend, is unsolicited advertising.
Get it right and stop acting as if you know it all. Because your credibility goes down a few notches. Now make your case otherwise. Don’t bastardize it by incorrectly stating that posting ads in classified ads sites is spam. IT IS NOT!
Being forced to spam the internet with recruitment ads so you qualify to get your Ponzi returns isn’t the same as publishing a genuine classified ad because you wish to sell a product or service. That much should be obvious.
Well there’s always the Telex Free business model. Pay an annual membership fee and earn a $20 week ROI paid out of other member’s membership fees…
Generally speaking, placing classified ads is NOT spam. I respectfully disagree.
I don’t purport to be an ‘expert’ about ponzis or whatever it is you are talking about. I am just saying folks placing classiied ads does not come under the umbrella of unsolicited advertising. I say, there, you are wrong.
I am not talking about any business model or ROI or whatever it is you are going on about. But placing ads online is NOT spam. As i believe you are well informed as to the definition of spam… right?
Place an ad in the newspaper or advertise Dove soap is not spam, right? So placing an ad for telecom services in an advertising venue is legit as it is only seen by those looking for the same, correct?
Make your ponzi case but that is not what I am talking about. And you know this, Oz. Focus on the ponzi aspect of the deal that you are trying to convey. But…
Does it make a difference that you had to PAY for classified ads in newspaper, but ads online are generally free? 🙂 Would you have paid to post if it was NOT free?
And how does posting the ad actually get you paid? Who reads that? How many people are recruited via that? Do YOU know who was recruited via your link? Or do you not care?
If those ads don’t work, what are they for besides disguise / busy-work?
@Just Me
It is if you have hoardes of Ponzi participants placing recruitment ads because the Ponzi scheme won’t pay out if they don’t.
Unless Dove are operating a Ponzi scheme and refusing to pay out a weekly ROI unless their affiliates spam the internet with recruitment ads, then no.
“Telecom services”? We’re talking about a $299 Ponzi scheme that pays out $20 a week.
Well if you’re not going to educate yourself (seeing as it’s all connected) then there’s not much more to be said I’m afraid.
The spam is relevant because it’s what Telexfree members are required to do to earn their weekly ROI. Otherwise, spam or not, I wouldn’t have even bother mentioning it in the review.
@ OZ,
Are you saying that 99 TelexFREE is not a genuine product and that if someone sees an ad and is prepared to pay $49.90 a month for the services because they feel it’s good value for money, they will receive no product?
If they are to receive a product that they themselves are able to use and believe is of value, would that change your perception of the ad that lead them to subscribe to the product?
Whether or not it is indeed good value for money or not is subjective right? So… is there a product or not?
What if TelexFREE chose to pay to have their product advertised on TV? As someone not particularly looking for that product and many others, should I consider it SPAM for the amount times it gets show to me.
I agree with Just Me that the advertising of any product via classified ads (paid or not) does not constitute spam. People go to these sites to seek out something specific (or maybe not) and they see a lot of ads for other things that they may not have been initially seeking, but may catch their interest – that is what the site exists for is it not?
Otherwise, where and how exactly should companies advertise their businesses? The model, the way it pays and what you think of it doesn’t make advertising a genuine product (however competitive it may or may not be) in classified sites unsolicited.
Just my consderation
Nope.
Ah but are the majority of Telex members advertising the service of the income opportunity? Simple maths dictates that $49.99 a month does not cover $20 a week in Ponzi ROIs.
Given that TelexFree needs as many people signed up at the $299 level to cover the $20 Ponzi ROI, I think you know the answer to that one.
Not as long as there’s a big Ponzi scheme attached to it.
You’re trying to shift attention away from the Ponzi to the product. Most Ponzi schemes these days have a product (ebooks, penny auction bids, banner advertising) but that doesn’t change the fact that mechanically they still operate as a Ponzi.
The product is of course irrelevant – but what does tend to happen are those that are participating in the Ponzi tend to argue the legitimacy of the scheme based on the legitimacy of the product the scheme attaches itself to.
Might dupe those looking for a quick buck but won’t work here.
How can anyone invest money in Telexfree without seeing and understanding the financial details of the company… such as audited income statement, balance sheet, cash flow, profit margin, etc.?
As I understand it, Telexfree is not a public company traded on a stock exchange, so how can one get an annual report and important financial data which are essential to any investment decision?
Telexfree is an advertising company, and for the time being they just advertising their own product, pretty soon they will have advertise better and more attractive products for other companies and make billions of dollars.
400.000 promoters in Brazil in less than a year. In the US, the number of promoters is growing that fast too. Whats gonna happen once they reach a million, two million…promoters, Can you see the advertising power the company will have? Thats worth billions.
They are paying their promoters so well that they will reach this goal and beyond very fast and you all trash talkers will miss a big opportunity. When it comes to advertising platforms, the internet is taking over the market.
New products are already coming out. WAIT AND SEE. Telefree will be a great success because its changing lives and everybody is getting paid will continue to get paid.
Ask and they will tell you, everybody is happy and making money. Maybe as of right now, the new subscribers fees are paying others but pretty soon the advertising power that they will acquire will pay for everything. JUST WACTH!!!
@Fire
This pretty much sums up the problem:
But I’ll indulge you and comment further.
without advertising. Right, as above you plainly confirm they are just operating a Ponzi scheme.
I’ll tell you what will happen, they’ll be unable to pay out their investors and will collapse. Then people like you will throw your hands up in the air and demand a refund, or if you profited tell everyone it was there choice to invest and they all knew the risks.
Oh and you’ll also deny having any knowledge Telexfee was an obvious Ponzi scheme. You just made the mistake of trusting management.
I hate to be the one to break this to you but advertisers have no interest in Ponzi schemes. As evidenced by the complete lack and relevancy of the advertising component of Telexfree.
Yes, yes everyone is happy in a Ponzi scheme while new investors continue to come on board and inject new funds into the scheme.
Unfortunately for you getting paid is not a measure of legitimacy in MLM, only the business model counts and I quote again:
Pure Ponzi.
any one here has been al ready cheated foe this company that can tellme
Hello, i´m Portuguese and i see people , in Portugal , that are starting on this telexfree business and for what i read and was told to me by someone that tryed to recruit me,
this business is centred on recruitment, otherwise the telexfree would allow that people or INVESTORS could decide when, how or the quantity of ads or use other means in form of really be an advertiser and really contact people to buy the VOIP service of the telexfree or other product ( that by the way look expensive , 49,90 dolares per month ? ).
Saying this, i think that if anybody want to be an independt an successfull person in life, work alot, prepare yourself alot, study the bussiness that you want to join alot.
try to see the different angles and work alot. dont destroy peoples lifes just to go up, when there are soo many products or services ( that really are wanted and nedded ) that you can promot and sell. you will not get rich, but you will make you life nice.
I will try to follow up this around me and we will see what happens. and one thing is for sure, no pain no gain.
The Ads that are placed are only for the product, there is a list of ads in the back office and that is what you must post.
I agree with the person who said its not cheap phone calls, $49 I can but a phone card for $10 and give me all the overseas calls I need. The only difference between this and a phone card is your phone number is registered and you don’t have to put in the pin number to make a call.
The rest of it is much that same as Skype, so if Skype is free why would I pay for this product?
My gut says its short lived. Most of the members don’t even mention the product, it’s just all about the money, that worries me.
If you are considering doing an MLM business or something like it, I think that the product comes first then the rest of it takes care of its self.
That´s rigth Angela Hargreaves
one thing I dont understand, which is – how can someone pay OR invest – 1400 dóllars ONCE and receive almost 5k in a year
Where does the money come from? This looks like money laundering.
@lopes
As long as new investors keep injecting new $1400 investments into the scheme, existing investors get their payout. Once those new investments dry up however…
Hi, i’m from Brazil and most of my family is falling for this TelexFree. I’m not a specialist but i know enough about technology and internet ads to see that their product was just for diversion and their ad scheme was unsustainable.
I tryed several times talk to them and discourage them from associating with this company but could not change their minds. But now, reading your article, you gave a lot more ammo to knock them down and maybe convince them to jump out of there as soon as they get their money back (if they get it back).
Thanks for your help I’m going publish this in Portuguese, and I hope the brazilian people don’t be too much stupid, I already said for some people, but they don’t believe, they still believing the money fall from the sky
I was considering joining this business to break the monopoly in Brazil; unfortunately we are the most expensive nation on wireless rates.
I liked the reason that you can call from land line to cell phones and is unlimited, we cannot do that using VoIP lines if so it is not cheap.
We have Vonage that is a very good service provider. Brazilian VoIP companies you have to avoid unless somebody proves me wrong! They don’t provide a good quality service.
I was ready to join because I thought this was an American company but them thanks to you I found out that Disk Avontade is together with Telexfree and I didn’t like to hear that, I’ve been through two companies that offered this types of plans and one of them was disk avontade and the services was bad and the quality even worse.
I don’t want to join in to just make money, I want to offer valuable services and I’m said to say the services is bad unless somebody proves me that the service is good and they provide a good customer service.
I saw an interview with the attorney that represents TelexFree in Brazil and he said if nobody joins, the company is going to pay the member until the end of his membership, you will not lose your money but I want to do a business to last not for only one year.
I don’t considered spam because you are posting ads on web sites that posts advertisement of all sorts so you are soliciting a service to people, now the service and products has to be good.
So this is not pyramid because you will not lose your money, they will pay you until the end of your membership regardless as long you post your daily adds, and this is not spam because you are soliciting on the proper web site not through invasive email.
I’m only question the services and the quality of the product that I hope somebody proves me wrong, I can tell you I tried two companies and failed.
Is anybody there that knows the service is good quality and they provide good customer service as well?
Thanks.
They did this “company” here in Brazil, cause they know that Brazilian laws, Justice and specially Politics aren’t serious and faster how it is in America.
Now that everybody is putting money at “rolet” everything is groing . And when people stop to put the money at “rolet”???
All racional persons knows that US$ 49, for a VOIP monthly is a high overvalued price. Specially if you can buy the same product for US$ 19.99 for a year in a serious Country.
@Al
Why? Because some random attorney said so? What an attorney does or doesn’t say is irrelevant, the business model and compensation plan is all that matters.
It’s a member funded scheme that effectively borrows from both the Ponzi and pyramid niches. Once new members stop investing the weekly ROI crashes.
You’re gunna go with “spam can only happen via email’?
Lol.
now my question: is the company pay at at this moment?
if yes then the people who have entry at 4 months erlier have already have is money back.
even if at this monet the company stop paying its not is money right???
As long as new investors come on board and invest, Telexfree will be able to pay the weekly ROI to existing investors.
They are being investigated by federal authorities in Brazil for scamming people on a pyramid scheme.
This one should be (DOA) already. Old zeek guys talking this one up in U.S., probably trying to raise money to pay “receiver” I can hear the meetings now. This one is just plain silly.
This is 100% ponzi. People are paying to work.
Why cant Telexfree change its plans and start paying the members after 4 months of work (promoting)?… This way, people wouldnt have to PAY … BUT Telexfree needs money to pay members and Top members.
Telexfree uses members money to continue the Ponzi scheme.
OMG!!!! They really are doing business in Brazil. BUT the goverment and authorities are after them.
If they are to receive a product that they themselves are able to use and believe is worthwhile, that would change your perception of the ad that lead them to sign up for the product?
Whether or not it is really good value for money or not is subjective right? So … there is a product or not? –
I am Brazilian and I just associate me with Telexfree interest in VOIP product – And if you want to know what I think of that “product”, here’s the answer: THE SOFTWARE DOES NOT WORK, NO EE MEMBERS, OR EVEN THE COMPANY DOES WORK “-
Therefore, in practice, the product does not exist!!!
Anyone know who the service provider voip and where is the central server?
In the software settings as shown Provider = xp.telexfree.com/xp?username = $ {username} & password = $ {password} = $ {& osname osname} & uuid = $ {uuid}
It doesn’t matter what you attach to the AdCentral Ponzi scheme side of the business, it’s still an effective Ponzi scheme offering a guaranteed weekly ROI of $20 after investors invest $299 with the company.
Moreso when the product they’ve attached “does not work”.
Why are you marketing a product you claim “does not work”?
I purchased the product/Service and i like it because it works for me.
@Oz
Oz, you don´t even know what is a Ponzi Scheme. It was used by Charles Ponzi (he was not the creator, but the most expressive application of it), by exchanging postal cupons in different markets (arbitrage), and it runs by itself. Not products, just a financial tool to make money.
TelexFree uses the MLM as a marketing strategy, rather than regular media channels like TV, newspaper and magazines that means bunch of money to a restrict audience.
Everybody that joins the network, obviously knows the company and is a potential popularizer of the brand, as they need to have more and more people under their position.
They use to use some regular media (as website redirecting people to their own TelexFree website to let the visitos, once conviced to join, join at his network, and also billboards of this personal websites) to broadcast their networks, of course broadcasting together the company´s brand.
Once stablished the network, TelexFree could use it to sell the products they need (in TelexFree case VOIP, Best Western Hotel ventures, in Brazil,a some other like a ecommerce website).
Of course the model is not sustainable, since the network could not finance itself totally, but of course they foresee some capital inputs along the network life. Strongly less than they could spend annually using regular media channels, but of course they need to input more money.
So, by the end of the year, the contract expires, so everybody in the network needs to pay (USD 299) again to keep the network position, and the cycle starts all over again.
So, my conclusion is that the key is, the contracts expires every year so the members need to input more money after a year of earnings, the balance is positive of course. The second key is, the company inputs money to keet the network on when needed, since it is a marketing strategy strongly cheaper than the traditional ones.
Cheers.
What exactly is “the brand”? Oh right, the income opportunity.
Recruit new investors… got it.
Ah right, the old “we need a Ponzi scheme to start our business” routine.
Of course it isn’t. No Ponzi scheme is.
You wanna know what the difference between MLM and a Ponzi scheme is? MLM is sustainable.
Yup, re-invest. Re-investment of new money is the only way to keep a Ponzi scheme going, until that money is dwarfed by the ever-increasing ROI liabilities that need to be paid out.
Running a Ponzi scheme isn’t a marketing strategy.
Oz, here in Brazil you never see a user of Telexfree really using it’s VOIP service. It’s complicated and often does not work.
You have to dial a free number (0800), then you type the number you want to call; then, you turn your cell phone off and wait for a call from Telexfree, so you can talk to the person you wanted to call. Got it?
Obviously the two fonts of earnings to Telexfre are a kind of lie, and cannot give it real gain. It’s sad to see people expecting to quit their jobs and getting rich with Ponzi Schemes.
Lol, and for $49.95 or whatever a month this is supposed to compete with Skype?
Riiiiiiiiight.
How are you? I am a journalist of the newspaper A Gazeta, in Vitória, Espírito Santo. I started an investigation regarding Telexfree and I wonder if I can assign information.
According to your text, you saw the social contract that the company president is actually Carlos Wanzeler. So this guy wanted to be James? Do you have a copy of the contract for me to pass?
Prosecutors and police began to investigate them because of fraud allegations. The suspect is a financial pyramid formation. All you can give me, I will thank. A pleasure to meet you.
My contact email is (Ozedit: contact details removed). I await contact. Thank you.
Hi Mikaella, you’re welcome to reference the information on BehindMLM.
If you go to the Massachusetts business directory in the US and type in “telexfree”, you can see “Carlos Wanzeler” listed as President and Treasurer (check the recent annual report filing).
Wanzeler’s name also appears as the admin contact for the TelexFree domain, which you can check by doing a WHOIS search of their website domain.
You’ll note the domain itself is registered to Disk a Vontade. Given Wanzeler owns the VOIP company Disk a Vontade it’s quite obvious he is owner or part owner of the company.
James Merril (unknown in MLM) I suspect is just a frontman. Maybe he was a master distributor in one of Wanzeler’s previous MLM ventures.
I spoke with a friend of mine today and in the conversation he mentioned this company. He asked me about what I think of it, I said I think it is a SCAM and I explained the cliche that we already know ” if it is to good to be true…..”
I asked him:
– Why do you need to pay $1400 for a family plan to be part of something and have part of your money coming back to you in pieces?
– Why do you need to spend few minutes per day just by posting ads and the company claims that you can become very wealth financially just by doing that?
– Have you ever heard about Mr. Mardock? well, he is jail now.
– Do you remember the collapse of 2008 and 2009 when the Real State collapsed?
– Do you know anything that it is happening right now with the USA economy ( dollar collapse, super inflation, etc)?
All PONZI SCHEME!!!!!!!!!!!! Like many stated above, the PONZI SCHEME will LAST as LONG as people are injecting money.
Mr. Mardoc held the his scheme for 20 years…..DAMN 20 years and one day…..ahhhhh onde day…..!!! COLLAPSED!
My sister asked me few months ago if I knew about telexfree and what I think…same question that my friend asked me today….she told me what people that it is and I said…..DO NOT SIGN UP!! SAVE YOUR TIME AND MONEY, because you will lose both soon or later if you do sign.
so, if you have the time RENT THE MOVIE
END OF THE ROAD – HOW MONEY BECOME WORTHLESS
Be prepared and you will the Biggest PONZI SCHEME THAT IS TO COME!!
The original source is Massachusetts business registry.
The rest of the information wasn’t easy to copy.
James Merrill = Registered agent, President, Secretary and Director. He’s probably only a frontman.
CARLOS WANZELER = Treasurer. He’s probably the owner.
We have 2 other articles here about Telexfree, one about Brazil and the other about the US.
behindmlm.com/companies/telexfree-under-criminal-investigation-in-brazil/
behindmlm.com/companies/gerry-nehra-fails-basic-telexfree-due-diligence/
This company is a scam called a ponzi pyramid.
It SUSTAINABLE??
Do the math with me: 650.000 advisers (x) 5,000.00 on average each invested = 3,250,000,000.00 bilões having to pay 20% every month 650,000,000.00 million.
telexfree says it sold 1.5 million voip not I know where over 1.5 million fine x 49.00 = 73,500,000.00 million ie have to pay 650 million and 73.5 million coming in every month, outside the company’s costs, is sustainable if you stop entering new “investors “???
This is fraud!
Address is fishy. If you type in JUST THE ADDRESS, you get quite a few companies that use that specific suite number:
http://www.iobridge.com/about/
http://www.healthgrades.com/provider/lindsay-friedman-y52kk
http://www.superpages.com/bp/Marlborough-MA/Verizon-Internet-Special-L2219967086.htmwww.eruditeaccess.com/index.php/contactus
http://www.kudzu.com/m/Worcester-Gold-30037926
http://www.netiq.com/company/contact/office-locations.html
http://www.theracos.com/contactus.html
Conclusion: it’s a virtual office.
Hello, Oz. Thanks for your help. I will continue the investigation here. Thanks for your attention.
Sorry for poor English. I’m still studying to improve myself.
K. Chang
Several of my friends already visited telexfree U.S.. It’s a commercial building which has several different companies.
In Brazil is located in the best commercial building in Vitoria, ES. It’s very easy to say, but prove that the company is a pyramid system is impossible, because it is not.
In a pyramid never underside can earn more than the party that nominated that is not the case with Telexfree.
If you do not get into this wonderful company, do not know what’s missing. Continue to work your whole life to make your boss rich.
Good luck to all!!
Hi, My friend in Brazil came to me with this company a couple of months ago. He purchased the adfamily package for U$1375 and all of his friends and family did as well through him, he must have around 30 people in his group by now.
The product offered by Telexfree DOES exist, I spoke with him through it, from Brazil to US where I live; however the quality of the connection is horrible and we could barely understand each other. Another point to be taken is that despite the product advertise that it works with any number, home or cell, we COULD NOT establish a connection to my cellphone, only home phone.
As I instructed him to not get involved in this type of business he disregarded my suggestion and went ahead anyway, and now defends it as a legit business as many others above.
In my point of view, it is working in Brazil for 2 facts: 1- lack of education to realize in 2 minutes that this could not possible be a legit model, and 2- Desperation for money. Both facts are implanted in Brazil’s roots, mostly driven intentionally by the government.
You didn’t read my comment properly. I said all those companies I listed have the SAME SUITE NUMBER as TelexFree USA: Suite 200.
Technically speaking, it’s a Ponzi scheme AND a pyramid scheme.
Investment = when you’re handling your money over to someone else, and are expecting to earn financial gains from the investment itself. A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment plan, where investors are paid from other investors’ money.
The AdCentrals are used so people can invest in the plan without realizing it’s actually an investment, to make it look more similar to a legit income source than to an illegal investment. The AdCentral system is a part of a Ponzi scheme.
The AdCentrals have a fixed interest of $20 per week, around 245-290% total net ROI per year. They have some qualifiers connected to the ROI, e.g. “post 1 ad per day”. That’s more like a qualifier than work.
TelexFree is simply a fraudulent investment scheme set up to attract investors and income opportunity seekers, rather than a real business set up to do trade or deliver services. It has too many fraudulent parts to be called “a business”.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, DO NOT INVEST MONEY IN THIS SCHEME.
DO NOT INVEST IN THIS PYRAMID. DO NOT INVEST IN THIS PONZI.
THE PERSON OR PERSONS WHO STARTED THIS SCAM ARE LAUGHING SHOULD BE SENT TO PRISON. THEY ARE LEECHES WHO PREY OFF THE VULNERABLE. THEY SHOULD BE SHOT, THE GREEDY DIRTY C***TS.
PLEASE DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS SCAM.
DONT DO IT
DONT DO IT DONT DO IT.
This is Brazilian mentality… as long as I can make my money, fuck everybody else…
That’s why this kind of business spread so easily in Brazil… a lot of people who is shameless about planting the seed of the evil, as long as they can get something…
Welcome to Brazil!!!
Nonsense. You can find greedy (and stupid) people anywhere. Brazil hasn´t the monopoly of this kind of schemes.
Hi everyone, Before saying that TELEXFREE it’s a Ponzi scheme AND a pyramid scheme,.. first you need to know what you are talking.
Telexfree is not in the category of Ponzi scheme AND a pyramid scheme.. WHY? the company has product $49.90 voip plan, with this Voip plan you can call upto 40 countries land line and cell phones. also this product has a software better then Skype.
To start making money with Telexfree all you need to invest is $50 per year. that will give you a website for you to sale 24hrs online, also a admin, so you can see your sales… you will start making 10% commission on voip product sold by you.
Also you have the option to make more money by investing in adcentral..you can get 1 upto 5 adcentral, each adcentral gives you the option to sale 1 voip plan weekly for 12 months, you will make upto 90% bonus on your customer first month.
Make money by advertising online.
Through a ADCENTRAL.
Membership U$50 (Partner) + ADCentral Kit U$289.00 (ADCentral + 10 accounts of 99Telexfree) = U$339.00 (Annual)
The promoter receives a 99Telexfree account for US$49.90 every week s/he posts 7 different ads at free ad websites on the Internet, Monday through Sunday. All in a fast, easy and standardized manner atin your Telexfree virtual office (BO).
Or you can get 5 adcentral at ones =(1 adfamily)$1,375
Adfamily gives you 5 voip plans of $49.90 for you to sale weekly in 12 month agreement..and you will make upto 90% bonus on your customer first month bill…example: if you sale 5 voip plan weekly = ($198.00 profit weekly) also you will make 10% commission on your customer monthly bill.
The company goal is to sale as many voip services plans
Also the company gives you the option to sale back each voip product not sold by you for $20. however you must advertise the company website daily to be qualified on free classified ads,sites provide by the company.
Having a product doesn’t make you a Ponzi scheme or not, your business model does.
Ignore the VOIP, invest in AdCentral (paying off earlier investors) and receive a weekly ROI – and where do you think that ROI comes from?
Not a Ponzi scheme? No worries champ.
That doesn’t exactly change much?
Trying to make it LOOK more legit by pretending to pay in products rather than money, but they still pay exactly the same $20 per week in reality.
Those $20 per week has to come from external sources, from advertisers willing to pay TelexFree for the work done. If no real advertisers are paying, the work will be fake (it generates no income for the company).
Without real advertisers, they will need to use the investors’ own money to pay them.
* Using investors’ money to pay other investors = Ponzi scheme.
* The recruitment commission and binary commission = pyramid scheme.
You can of course claim that “People do not buy the AdCentrals because of the income opportunity, but because of the product itself. AdCentrals are extremely popular among most internet users. They like to have them on their computers to look at the and play with them. The income opportunity is OPTIONAL, and hardly anyone is interested in posting daily ads to earn a couple of bucks.”
Now they calling it MultiClick Brasil, i guess it must be working for those desperate money seekers, DONT DO IT, SOME USES THEIR FAMILY AS AN EXAMPLE TO LURE YOU INTO IT, JUST DONT DO IT.
I WOULD RATHER BUY THE LOTTERY, AT LEAST I KNOW WHERE MY MONEY WENT AND COULD EVEN WIN..
Finally the Brazilian Federal Governament start to take some action, and started investigating.
Thanks for your website, OZ! The Telexfree issue got so big in Brazil, it is estimated to have over 900 thousand members. Over this past 5 days people started to get scared, and some are bailing…
Could you do a review on the upcoming Ciao Telecom?
Check the the Federal Ministry repport (in Portuguese):
http://www.advivo.com.br/blog/luisnassif/ministerio-da-fazenda-classifica-telexfree-como-piramide
Hello!
Well this company Telexfree already being investigated by more than 5 states here in Brazil .. promoter of justice Telexfree compared to a company already closed by civil policicia (Mister), for fraud, tax evasion, use of “Oranges” including following link to an article about the complaints of telexfree.
(Ozedit: link to non-English video removed)
As we say here in Brazil “a promesa de dinheiro fácil e furada”
If I read Portuguese correctly… that’s “There ain’t no easy money”?
Yes, or you could just translate it as ” there is no free lunch”
This scam started to crack here in Brazil. I had family and friends buying into it despite my protests and I won’t deny it feels good to be proven right.
You guys did a great job at warning people more than six month ago, too bad greed and wishful thinking made people blind to this.
I’m not sure if I’m understanding Google’s translation of that article either. Has the Ministry of Finance in Brazil actually classified TelexFree as a pyramid scheme?
They also seem to be naming “Ympactus Comercial Ltd.” as the parent company of TelexFree, wonder who owns that?
Here’s what Google’s giving me:
As I understand it (point 5), the Ministry of Finance has investigated and found indications of TelexFree being a Ponzi scheme. They’ve now forwarded their findings to the Federal Police Department hoping they’ll launch a (criminal?) investigation into the company.
Offtopic: I had a look at Ciao and only saw a Portuguese (?) compensation plan. Without an English one reviewing Ciao properly will be a problem.
From what I could make out though it appears to be a stock standard pyramid scheme. You sign up for either $20, $45 or $100 and recruit others who pay the same, with Ciao paying you out via a binary based on how many members you recruit.
They appear to have badly photoshopped branded products in their comp plan presentation, indicating the product line is paper thin. It’s not relevant to the comp plan anyway, with commissions solely tied into affiliate’s monthly membership fees.
I found that company on one of the affiliate pages in Brazil. The affiliate has posted 3 screenshots of registration documents, 2 documents from Brazil and 1 from the U.S.
Link (disabled):
telexfreeafiliados.com.br/a-empresa/juridico
It’s of course in Portuguese, but screenshots won’t be translated anyway.
TelexFree in Brazil is a “Nome de fantasia”, the equivalent of a registered tradename or a d/b/a (doing business as). The main company in Brazil is Ympactus Comercial Ltda Me, probably an equivalent to a Private Limited Company.
Note:
The use of disabled links rather than active ones is usually because of specific reasons, e.g. if I believe a very few people potentially can be interested in it but most people won’t be interested.
Another reason is because I will consider an affiliate link to a company under investigation to be “temporarily”.
If I read it correctly (I read Spanish, but not Portuguese) it says that MinFin has investigated and believed it to be fraudulent (5) prosecution is left up to the police (6). Could be a jurisdictional issue.
Cheers for that. I’m not confident enough putting out a seperate article so we’ll see how it plays out.
Sounds like every Brazillian authority reviewing it is coming to the same conclusion so why they haven’t moved in yet I don’t know. How many departments need to review it before action is taken?
Brazilian law is too permissive for this kind of system. I don’t even remember any case where authorithies shut down a scheme that was still active, recruiting. In nearly all cases, they wait until the “bubble” blows.
yes, there’s a doubt if it’s embezzlement, money laundering, crime against popular economy. Each of those crimes is under the jurisdiction of a different agency
Just a funny detail, for people from outside Brazil. They have hired a famous TV news anchor to record an institutional video for Telexfree, and are claiming that it’s a proof that the company is serious
Oh, this is VERY common tactic for fraudulent companies to utilize.
Bob Eubanks, US TV personality, was utilized by a scam company to promote a certain show. That was then misrepresented by the promoters into claiming “this can’t be a scam, Eubanks was involved!”
It was a scam:
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19960310&slug=2318071
Hilarious!
In this Youtube video you have a Telexfree affiliate complaining that someone from his downline was going to recruit someone and when the person went to the bank mto withdraw the money, the bank attendant dissuaded the person form investing in Telexfree, telling about all the things we have discussed in this topic.
The affiliate tells the story almost crying, saying things like “what an absurd thing” all the time and threatens to sue the bank attendant for defamation.
So, I just received notice that my debit card is locked down, until I can get a replacement mailed to me in 1-2 weeks, due primarily to a fraudulent online or phone charge of $1425 by some company called TelexFree in Marlborough, MA earlier last week.
I’m curious to know just what exactly they would sell for that amount… any information or clues would be greatly appreciated.
@Grumpy
Sounds like some billed a “Family AdStation” to your card. In simplified terms it’s the maximum buyin for the TelexFree Ponzi scheme.
Good thing your bank picked it up!
You’re invited to join a Ponzi/pyramid hybrid. Your generous contribution will be used to pay other members, and you will receive 5 AdCentrals ($1,375 “Family Pack”) and a “99Telexfree” subscription ($49.95). 🙂
Someone (e.g. some fraudulent company) have probably sold or used your debit card information to order something from Telexfree, to earn commissions on the purchase.
TelexFree is a Ponzi/pyramid hybrid (investment and recruitment), and companies like that are usually a target for other types of frauds. I don’t think Telexfree has tried to scam you, that would be too stupid. It’s probably one of the participants there.
Your bank stopped the transaction, so everything should be OK when they have replaced your debit card. But you should probably check your transactions for the last 3 months or so (for possible fraudulent companies).
Someone has been able to get your debit card information somewhere (number, expiry date, the 3 digits required for online purchases).
Oz, I will summarize what the Oficial document by the Ministry in Portuguese says: (Firstly, it’s only the initial analysis of theirs, not the conclusion).
Just states that the issue is not under the Jurisdiction of this particular Ministry Department (called SEAE/MF)
The company has no legal license to do any sort of commercial activities.
Telexfree doesn’t have partnership with other telephone companies in Brazil, which is needed to authorize the distribuition of VOIP services.
According to first analysis, there is: a) stimulus to informal economy; and b) requirement of to working activities (advertiser and salesman), but just being compensated for one of them.
The high compensation plan suggests a Piramid scheme, which is crime against popular economy.
Because of the stated above, the conclusions will be forwarded to the FEDERAL POLICE and Federal Public Ministry for approppriate investigation.
Telex responded saying they pay taxes accordingly, and they don’t need a licence to sell because who is actually selling is the Telexfree in USA, not them.
The official name of Telexfree Brazil is “Ympactus”. They claim they only “represent” or administrate in Brazil the business of Telexfree USA. Therefore, they claim they don’t “sell” anything, therefore, not needing a licence.
Maybe a loophole they found in the law, but I don’t think the police will buy it…
So basically, “we registered ourselves in the US so therefore we’re permitted to run a Ponzi scheme in Brazil”?
Of course they aren’t selling anything, it’s an investment scheme!
Lol. If the Brazillian authorities swallow that one move over India…
Thanks for the translation Frontier. Will be interesting to see if the Fed Police and Public Ministry initiate anything.
All this crap started in Brazil so claiming a rented PO box in the US is their base of operations is a bit silly.
If they don’t sell anything, what are they paying taxes on, huh?
Technically they would be paying taxes only on the money they are getting from the subscriptions. (Of course, where do they get money anyway?). So Telexfree Brasil would be proving only “services”, while Telexfree USA would be the one proving the “product”.
It would be nice to see the American government doing something about it too, so that would put a more definitive stop to all this crap!
As pointed out in that blog I linked by Luis Nassif, there are several problems in Brazilian laws that delay the investigation.
Among them, they’re out dated to cover internet crimes. So they are filed are a sort of Comercial crime, not quite descriptive of the real crime, which is under the jurisdiction of the states. But the since the scheme is “online”, the repercussion is federal. So one department pushes to the other, not knowing exactly what to do.
Internet crime laws in Brazil today only cover a very small percentage of the present day scenario, restricting pretty much to violation of privacy matters.
It’s time for a change of model in Brazil, because these schemes are popping like pop corn in the country.
Here’s the English link: (please cover it when publishing it here, ok?): ciaotelecom.net/
All that’s needed is for Federal Police to establish a “cybercrime unit”, much like the American iC3
http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx
Jurisdiction problems occurs when laws are designed too “specific”, e.g. when they identify the jurisdiction to where an entity is registered rather than to where the illegal activity has occurred (or vice versa), e.g. “We don’t have the correct jurisdiction if a company is registered in another state or country, or if the company isn’t registered at all as a company”.
The last one is typical. Serious Fraud Office in the UK could only handle investment frauds if the fraud was correctly registered in the UK. It’s jurisdiction covered a wide range of investment companies, but only companies REGISTERED as “investment companies”.
Another example, the Serious Fraud Investigation Office in India was unable to identify its jurisdiction because a company was registered outside India rather than through Ministery of Corporate Affairs.
The problem occurs when bureaucrats are writing the proposed law. They will try to make a law become as “correct” as possible, e.g. with “bright lines” for jurisdiction. So it will become technically “correct” but dysfunctional to use in the real world.
NORWAY
We have a similar problem in Norway. When new consumer protection laws (from EU) should be implemented in existing laws, the anti pyramid scheme rule was placed under a different jurisdiction than all the other new rules, in the Lottery Law rather than the Consumer Protection Laws (several commercial acts).
The agency (regulator) that has a relatively wide jurisdiction do not have the correct jurisdiction to handle promotional pyramid schemes. It can investigate and regulate a wide range of commercial crimes, except pyramid schemes.
The agency that has the correct jurisdiction only has a very limited one, it can ONLY investigate that type of commercial crime. It will effectively block the other agency from halting a scheme when it’s investigating a case.
In Norway, promotional pyramid schemes are placed under the Ministery of Family and Cultural Affairs’ jurisdiction, subdivision “Lottery and Foundation Supervisor”. 🙂
@Oz & M_Norway,
Yep, didn’t think that was the company itself, but rather someone looking for a free buy-in. Thanks for the swift response.
Solution to registration (or lack of) is simple: the law need to simply say:
Any company that operates in (jurisdiction) needs to be registered with (agency). Failure to comply has penalty (to be specified)
You’ll need to add some caveats about “operate” means having recruits/affiliates/representatives/whatever in the jurisdiction.
I remember some TVI Express pyramid schemers tried this excuse in China, claiming that due to free commerce they CANNOT be shut down, that TVI Express is beyond the reach of CHinese law.
They forgot that they themselves are not beyond the reach.
Finally the biggest TV network is starting to present the issue:
http://g1.globo.com/economia/noticia/2013/03/entenda-o-caso-telexfree.html
telexfree in Brazil this increasingly stronger with investigations.
fly telexfree, I am a promoter.
He Man has a lesson for Telexfree affiliates https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJb646u5hno
How brainwashed a person must be to dance like this?
@Oz
You said this early on:
I have seen the ads from telexfree and nothing in them is there to recruit people, it is all to sell the product. Just some examples of the ads:
So while in the end you may be right about the Ponzi scheme thing as a whole, the ads these ad people are posting are too sell the product, not to recruit more people for advertising.
You have to join TelexFree to use the VOIP do you not? In anycase, reel them in with 1 hour free and then hit them with the hard Ponzi sell.
Directly or indirectly it still boils down to getting new investors on board, and I’d imagine the retail customer ratio to affiliates in TelexFree would be pretty attrocious.
Is the REVENUE generated from selling VOIP to retail customers enough to cover $2.85 per daily ad?
If 540,000 people are posting 1 ad per day, some of the ads will convert into potential buyers, some of the ads will convert into real buyers. If the marketing efforts are able to generate 30,000 – 60,000 new VOIP customers per day it will probably cover the $2.85 per day.
1 out of 9 ads (or 1 out of 18 ads) will have to convert into a real customer buying a VOIP subscription. TelexFREE would have had a HUGE number of “VOIP only” customers, and the number of “VOIP only” would have increased much faster than the AdCentral affiliates.
“VOIP only” are customers only interested in the VOIP, not in the income opportunity.
No. You can use a Telexfree VOIP line without becoming a promoter. The problem is that almost no one does it (or much fewer people than it would be necessary to become the business sustainable).
But when we say it, Telexfree members say things like “you didn’t understand anything”,”you didn’t see the revolution Telexfree will do”,or “there’re much more things to come”
That’s what I figured. So effectively, TelexFree members are spamming the internet to recruit new investors.
You can’t make the argument that they’re advertising for retail customers if there aren’t any.
I also found this after doing some research on the subject.
What do you all think of that?
I think that as long as they’re running their AdCentral Ponzi scheme, it’s entirely irrelevant.
Yeah, except nobody can confirm this, esp. not Best Western or TelexFree.
Heck, if TVI Express can claim to own an airline in Indonesia…
someonde is trying to make Russians join Telexfree:
I guess my question to you would be….Has anyone tried to confirm it? Or have any of you seen the numbers Telexfree is doing in sales and such?
I get the skepticism about it but do we know they can’t afford this type of advertising? What do their revenue sheets look like?
Why not confirm that such a thing was actually announced by either BW or TF, THEN worry whether they can actually do it or not?
For all you know, it’s somebody “blowing smoke”. It wouldn’t be the first time someone faked “good news” in suspicious schemes.
You are just using the same argument on the opposite side. My point is this. You guys are bad mouthing all of these stories but has anyone found proof to the opposite? I checked for half an hour the other day and already found one thing where Oz was wrong.
In fact, of all the research I have done this is the one place I have found anything negative about the company. That isn’t to say you guys are wrong, but I am looking for some proof. On the other hand, I have seen many positive things.
– 23 recorded millionaires who joined telexfree
– Working with Best Western to build 500 hotels for the olympics
– Some 11 year contract that lasts through 2024
As for the last one, I only had time to skim it so I don’t know the exact details.
No, but we have seen several similar schemes, with AdStations or AdCentrals as the investment vehicle, e.g. Mister Colibri in Brazil, and AdMatrix in India.
Mister Colibri even used the appr. the same prices, $299 and $1375 for “Family Pack”. You can attach any type of fake internet work to the AdCentrals to make it look like real work, e.g. watch video ads, post 1 ad, do a survey.
You can probably find 100 failed schemes using the same basic script as TelexFREE. A reader named “Andy” digged up around 20 websites in India using the same script one year ago, in one of the SpeakAsia threads.
Sometimes you’ll have to use common sense. If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck it’s probably a duck. It CAN of course be something else, e.g. a zebra or a unicorn (trained to quack and walk like a duck). It’s not very likely, but it CAN be.
Have you read the 3 other articles about TelexFREE here?
There you will find other sources, e.g. to Brazilian newspapers.
Oz also received a letter from Gerry Nehra, TelexFree’s lawyer in the U.S. You can read both the letter and the answer. We haven’t heard from him since then. 🙂
The letter simply speaks for itself. Nehra didn’t even know about the AdCentrals.
You will also find one or two comments here from a TelexFree “official”. He didn’t return either.
I’m not bad mouthing. I’m saying these stories are NOT RELIABLE because they cannot be confirmed, and they are not from credible sources, such as newspapers, TV reports, and such.
Example 1:
There’s no report that millionaires joining TelexFree. However, there is a TelexFree member website claiming that TelexFree created 23 millionaires in its first year. However, it cited NO SOURCES, thus cannot be trusted.
Same thing. NOBODY except TelexFree member websites (not even TelexFree itself) has this report. And this is used as “Why would ____ work with TelexFree if TelexFree is a scam.”
This is the SAME tactic used by TVI Express scammers to explain why would all those airlines and hotels and cruises work with TVI Express if TVI Express is a scam. Turns out, there was no “working relationship”. SwissAir had actually sent cease and desist letters to TVI Express… all the letters came back as “undeliverable”.
I don’t know if TelexFree is working with Best Western. However, it is safer to assume that they are NOT working together. They presented the item, they are supposed to prove it exists.
@Talk About It
Oh do tell.
What on Earth does any of that have to do with running the AdCentral Ponzi scheme? You invest money and TeleFree pays you a guaranteed $20 ROI, paid out of new investor money.
If you want to find “proof of the opposite”, despite the above being TelexFree’s compensation plan (as far as the AdCentral investment scheme goes) be my guest.
Citing a bunch of irrelevant crap doesn’t change TelexFree’s business model, which is all that’s relevant here.
@OZ
You have proof that they pay you out of new investor money? Could you provide that please.
@Talk
You invest money and they pay you a ROI. There is no mystery where the ROI comes from, it comes from new investors.
The business model is all the proof you need. Read up on the comp plan.
@TalkAbout It
Are there 5 million people in Brazil that are not “divulgadores” (promoters, affiliates) and have Telexfree VOIP lines? If the answer is no, it means that the c0ompany has no money to “rebuy” the lines it gives every week to the “divulgadores”, unless the company keeps on exponential growth until the end of the world (what’s is impossible, as everyone knows).
Thats’s the key point to be observed, the rest (say that the company pays the taxes, that the company is properly registered, that unitl this moment everyone is being paid) is just a way to disctract people’s attention
Can anyone confirm or deny this? Saw it yesterday.
Aren’t court decisions public information?
WHO issued a favorable decision? Which judge? Which court?
He’s had to be pretty high up to order Ministry of Finance around, yes? To remove mention of TelexFree?
Why is this not covered in your newspapers or TV stations, like “Ministry of Finance slapped by judge” or something?
Or perhaps this is just some fantasy cooked up by a delvulgador (affiliate)?
NO (to the “confirm or deny” question). Your source hasn’t posted any reliable sources for his claim, so we can’t check it.
* People posting IMPORTANT information will normally carefully link to sources, show the original letter or do something else to verify it for an audience. The information there can’t be very important?
* The letter is either made up or edited. It doesn’t contain anything about which case it is about (e.g. case number), or what the decision is about.
* A court will never name itself “Federal court in the District”.
Common sense tells me it is false information, someone posting “positive news” to his downline (or others). It’s not designed for a critical audience but for people desperately wanting positive news.
If you read some other threads here, e.g. about SpeakAsia, you will see that we always will try to identify court cases correctly, e.g. “WRIT 3611” or “WRIT 3611 2011”, “ABA 1083”, “WRIT 383”. We usually don’t include the year, only the case number. The year is usually added in the first 2 or 3 months of a year to indicate “this year / previous year” if a case is relatively unknown.
Well everyone everyone wants to make that easy quick Buck. and if you didn’t you would not be here more than likely.
I will say this, it is like Gambling you may win or you may Loose more than likely loose! but people do it and Gamble anyway!
Except the odds in gambling is easily calculable (unless the house cheats). How *do* you know in MLM the company ain’t cheating you?
And please don’t use the “it’s risky business” argument. That’s like saying anyone joining MLM “knew what they were doing” and thus losing money is to be expected. Everybody is in business to EARN money.
Thank you for this post, I learned a lot about Telexfree through all the posts.
Important info: the company already has planned what they will do when the scheme starts to fail. In short, nowhere in their contract they claim to pay their members $20/week. Notice, I’m saying their contract, not their website.
telexfree.com/public/file/Contrato_Telexfree-PT.pdf
So, by contract, each member receives One 99telexfree line per week. He may then resell this line to Telexfree which pays $20 *today*. What about the future?
Item 13.2 of their contract says they may buy back the lines and, if they do so, pay a value that is purely decided by the company itself based on demand, volume, bla bla bla. Therefore they might not even buy back the line.
Or, if they decide to do so, to pay $0.01 per line. And the members cannot complain, it’s in the contract….
Be aware: Telexfree is now launching a new service for their members, called Telexcommerce.
It is going to be a buyers club, where the members receive a percentage of what other people they recommended purchase… So there might be a full product catalog from now on.
@Fernando
Uh, surely Brazil has false advertising laws… you can’t say one thing on your website and then bait and switch when it comes to signing on the dotted line.
The US certainly has these laws in place.
It’s not a Ponzi scheme since they have a contract that keeps them running Telexfree for 10 years therefore they can’t just get up and run which is the point of a Ponzi.
If they go bankrupt then they go bankrupt otherwise they have to keep paying the ‘investors’ also they’re starting to build resorts and such and start selling shares… Not an expert here but wonders what the internet can tell you plus I know people doing this that have turned a profit already…
Yeah… because Ponzi scheme contracts are worth the paper they’re written on.
Congratulations.
You win the monthly award for the poster including the most inaccuracies about the what, why and how of ponzi schemes.
You should be proud, after all, it’s only the tenth day of a 30 day month.
Are there external clients? Is there a mass of people who use Telexfree VOIP lines but are NOT “divulgadores”? if the answer is no, or “very few people” the conclusion is obvious, and the rest is only a distraction.
Each “divulgador” will pay 300 dollars and receive 1040 along one year, just to post ads. where does this money come from? if it comes primarily from other “divulgadores” it will only make things get worse and worse.
It’s clear, very easy to understand.
Guys, Telexfree is the biggest scam in history. If it were that easy to make money, we could submit that plan to Dilma and end unemployment and hunger in Brazil.
This is the same dirty ponzi scheme as Profitable Sunrise. Do be stupid, do not throw your money away.
If your friend is telling you that it is a good business ask him to lend his money and you will pay him as soon as you starting making money. If everyone does that you see soon the pyramid collapse.
PLEASE DO NOT THROW YOUR MONEY AWAY!!!!! NEVER NEVER NEVER!!!!
Leftbehind, excellent advice of yours! 🙂
And if they get up and run, what happens to the contract? Hmmm?
With money from other investors, which is what a Ponzi scheme is.
Says who? WHO announced they are building resorts? Is it reported in newspapers? TV stations? Or just by people like you?
Are they registered as stocks in Brazilian market and Brazilian regulators? If so, selling shares is illegal, yes?
Don’t need to be an expert. Merely need to be logical. And so far, you are NOT logical.
Early people on Ponzi schemes get paid. That PROVES it’s a Ponzi, not disprove it.
So I was checking out the TelexFree opportunity. I’m not sure on VOIP package sells and I was curious as to how they can pay people just to post especially if nobody purchases the VOIP packages.
And it seems that they are JV with Best Western Hotels in Brazil and they have an Ecommerce site that has kicked off in Brazil, soon to be in the US, plus if people do sign up and just purchase packages at 289 or 1375 and they have to do it yearly I don’t see how they couldn’t make money as well as pay out the people who have joined this opportunity.
All online programs are risky, especially if you are promoting someone’s program. There is nothing stopping even the best intentioned person from creating a great product, getting affiliates to join and promote it, and then when they have made a ton of cash for themselves just stopping the program altogether and leaving a bunch of affiliates with nothing.
I personally don’t see the direct link between a Ponzi scheme and TelexFree. (Ozedit: this is not the place to whinge about government).
…you do the math, does $20 x 52 weeks equal $289? Where do you think that money comes from?
They can pay people as long as new affiliates join and invest in the AdCentral scheme.
Good point
From what I can tell the thing that should help this last (assuming it will collapse soon) is that there can technically be an endless supply of new investors for a long time.
Anyone who signs up is in for 1 year and would then have to sign up again when the year is up to continue on. So old investors become new investors again while new investors become old investors and brand new investors are still being added.
If we are talking specifically US it especially holds true since it is still pretty new which means the influx of people should keep coming as this starts to get bigger.
Everybody says this, yet I have yet to see a SINGLE bit of confirmation from a reputable source, such as newspapers, TV reports, or even confirmation from Best Western or TelexFree.
Yeah so uh… “endless” and “long time” don’t play together.
You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself of something.
Yeah they do, and I’m not. Just calling it like I see it.
For all those claiming Telexfree is a Ponzi, does anyone have proof other than the usual speculation/opinions? I am earning income from a family account very nicely.
For those saying Telexfree isnt good, then does anyone have any “legitimate” suggestions? We are always adding income streams! Thanks
Sure, check out the TelexFree compensation plan.
You’re actually being paid new investor money. But don’t tell your downline that.
Abolishing the entire AdCentral Ponzi scheme would be a good start.
Simple logic… do you HONESTLY THINK that this “AdCentral” thing is generating enough PROFIT for it to be paying you that “very nicely” money… AND ALL THE OTHER PEOPLE in your position?
WHERE is that money COMING FROM?
There’s a big difference between “not good” vs. “not legal”. Things “good” for you can be not legal. Conversely, things “not good” for you can be legal.
Nobody said that TelexFree doesn’t pay (i.e. good for you). But if it’s not legal does it really matter?
My point to ALL is none of you offer true proof so you are really making assumptions.
This is why the entire internet is full of non trust. I did not say any of you are incorrect…you all just have zero proof.
Amway was also a “scam” when it started. So were many other “MLM’s” until they passed the test of time. Try posting fact with proof…then maybe the internet will become a place where people actually trust what the read.
BTW, I am earning in telexfree but I don’t promote it and have zero downline…until I see the company around “passed the test of time”. Imagine that?
Then why do you trust TelexFree? Isn’t what they said also “non-trust”?
Why do you trust them (TelexFree and your upline/recruiter) more than strangers with facts and analysis? How do YOU know that they know more about this than we do?
Easy money wins over facts and analysis every time. It’s gotta hurt more than it feels good.
Not assumptions, but logics and experience. We have seen several similar schemes before, and we know where the flaws are. You will find assumptions too, but most of it are actually about experience.
You know perfectly well that internet doesn’t provide “proof”, other than all the false “proofs” made to suck people into opportunities. If you’re looking for that type of “proof”, we don’t have any.
I can probably “produce” some false testimonials for you, if you’re interested? I can probably also “produce” some payment proofs, showing negative payouts rather than positive? A big check showing negative numbers will probably be popular.
If that isn’t enough, then I can show pictures of lots of broke and sick people living under a bridge (as a “lifestyle proof”). 🙂
I’m pretty sure we CAN provide proofs like that, but it doesn’t make much sense to do it.
wow, seemed to have touched a nerve w/ all the accusatory replies? I don’t recall mentioning I have a downline in telexfree but someone here just said I did. More assumptions.Imagine that?
Still no facts. So which of all the responders here have LOOKED at the companies books? Their accounting structure and files? Took a trip to the corp headquarters to learn the facts?
(Ozedit: removed offtopic spam)
Having recruited over 2500 (not Telex) and shown many how to make a 1st sale online and more, I sleep well each night, knowing I helped someones financial status or just confidence that they can achieve. Good luck to all!
What accusatory reply? We’re explaining things to you, that you are not seeing it from a different perspective. You’re just “I don’t believe any of it”.
And now you want to believe what we’re “accusing” you or the company of something. When it is you who was doing the accusing.
Perhaps it is we that touched a nerve in you instead?
It’s a perfectly reasonable assumption, esp. from someone so eager to defend such with no counter-evidence. Your logic thus far can be summarized as:
* I don’t believe you (you “assumed”)
* I get paid (thus I don’t believe you)
The first M_Norway already explained that we are going by experience and analysis. You offered no ocunter-logic other than a blanket declaration “you assumed”. You have no proof that we assumed. Thus, it is YOU who assumed.
The second is a normal reply for any defender of pyramid or ponzi scheme.
Why should we treat you seriously if all you do is accuse and give bad arguments?
Then you went on claiming everything is a Ponzi, everything is a pyramid, which is a non-sensical argument. There are specific legal definitions for both, not whatever similarities you see in life. Thus your logic makes no sense.
Then of course, you have to bring out the “negativity” accusation. If truth is neither positive nor negative. It all depends on your context. If some people insist on treating the truth as “negative”, perhaps they prefer lies.
Perhaps you honestly feel that you’re helping people earn money. However, have you considered the possibility that you are a false prophet, a “judas goat”? And why are you not such thing? Are you so sure that whatever you chose to promote is 100% legitimate, and why are you so sure?
Or is asking reasonable questions “negativity” to be avoided as well?
Now, it was just to show you how meaningless it would be to ask for proof. I also made some jokes about that idea.
My favorite was the “lifestyle proof”, “broke and sick people living under a bridge”. 🙂
Most people already know what “proof” means in network marketing. They have probably produced some proofs themselves. If you haven’t, then the comment was designed for other readers than you.
No, but we have looke at the business model, and for whether or not they have external advertisers paying for the daily ads ($2.85 per day, per ad)
Take a look at one of the other articles about Telexfree, the one about Gerry Nehra. You should also look at the 2 articles about TelexFree in Brazil.
Here’s a list from the Search results here:
The TelexFree business model and compensation plan = all the proof you need.
Any further requests for proof will be marked as spam.
You’re still stealing from new investors. That’s how a Ponzi scheme works. Imagine that?
I have. The TelexFree compensation plan.
The comp plan reflects what will be in their books and their account structure. You invest and earn a weekly ROI paid out of new investor funds.
You can lie to yourself and pretend otherwise but a Ponzi is a Ponzi is a Ponzi.
You sleep well knowing full well you’re dragging new victims into an obvious Ponzi scheme? Shame.
@Stan Tomaszewski
“No one will ever be able to convince anyone about anything, unless they’re already willing to believe in it.”
Neither you nor I will be able to convince anyone, if they don’t already believe in it. So I won’t waste any time trying to convince you.
I offered a list of TelexFree articles, in case you’re interested in an overview. I can probably offer other types of information too, from a relatively neutral viewpoint.
Having an overview can be useful. Sometimes your potential prospects will do their own research on the internet, and ask difficult questions. People familiar with what they’re asking about will usually manage the situation better, e.g. be more relaxed about it.
The problem in convincing “true believers” is to them, not even a signed statement from the perp confirming “it was a scam all along” would be enough to convince them. They’ll make up a reason to disbelieve such evidence. (Such as “Zeek was not a scam and Burks was betrayed by his attorney” fantasy)
Dismissing logical analysis as “assumption” is a “valid” rebuttal, at least in their mind. They don’t realize (as I pointed out) that in itself is an assumption.
@Oz – You continue to provide false information as you did earlier. Maybe not fully false but not 100% right either. First I will start by saying you need to prove that people are being paid with new investor money. You have yet to do that.
You continue to say “look at the model” and “we have seen this before” but that isn’t proof. I have seen sports teams lose tons of times in the past and come out the next year as champs.
That said, lets assume you do only get paid by “new” investor money coming in. Those “new” investors get paid as well so who is being harmed? Your concern seems to be protecting people but everyone is winning in this scenario.
You could argue the people in before the newest investors are in a better position but they aren’t. They have to reinvest to continue making money and thus become the newest investors themselves.
And I want to stress that in the end you guys may be right. But the key word there is “may”. You should stop acting so high and mighty like you know everything when you haven’t actually provided the proof some people have asked for. You just keep basically saying “I know best”.
We don’t give people “proof”, we give them information. In network marketing, “proofs” are most commonly used to mislead people, not to prove anything important. And most experienced internet users already know that, so they don’t ask for it either.
You will find some of the information you need here. You should normally use other sources, too. It will eventually be up to yourself to make the decision you feel is right. You can’t expect other people to do all the work for you, e.g. digging up some special types of information.
If you seriously FEEL there’s a need for some type of proofs, dig it up yourself and post it here to share it with everyone else.
Anyone looking for proofs can use MATH, e.g. using a spreadsheet to calculate 52 weeks of investments and payouts, with one new investor joining each week buying one AdCentral.
Make it simple.
Column A: Week 1-53 (52 weeks, plus 1 week)
Column B: $299 added each week from new investors
Column C: $20, $40, $60, $80, etc. for 52 weeks
That model will run out of money after 29 or 30 weeks, and after that it will simply be DRAINED for money it don’t have (only $299 coming in each week, but the payouts will increase $20 each week).
So for anyone asking for proof, if you’re not able to use your own brain you won’t have any use of proofs from others, either.
Yawn, you invest in an Adcentral you get a guaranteed >100% ROI over 52 weeks. Other people invest in AdCentrals and everyone gets paid.
Honestly, where do you think this money is coming from? 2+2=5?
It’s proof conclusive. Unless TelexFree are publicly lying about their business model and compensation plan.
A compensation plan and business model are the DNA of an MLM company. It’s pretty much all you need to analyse one, assuming of course no external shenanigans are being perpetrated by the owners.
I think saw that movie. Cool story bro.
And that’s the crux of it isn’t it. You all know it’s a Ponzi so the next line of defense is “who gets harmed?”
The answer is the investors left holding the bag when the scheme collapses.
You invest $x in TelexFree’s AdCentral investment scheme and earn a >100% ROI over 52 weeks. Other investors do the same after you.
Please provide an alternative source of funding for this ROI. It’s all there in the compensation plan, stop living in denial (and wasting my time with “what’s so bad about Ponzi schemes?” idiocy).
@M_Norway
I don’t care one way or the other for myself, as I am not using anything to come to a decision. This is something a friend of mine got into so I decided to look into it and ended up here.
What I do care about is the spreading of misinformation and lack of proof. If you provide information you should back it up with proof or it is just fluff.
This is assuming there is no other money coming in. But people have posted that they have deals with Best Western and they also sell a product.
The money would come from the deal with Best Western, sold product and investors putting money in or back in. 2+2 = 4……Pretty easy to understand.
It isn’t necessarily the crux. Just a question that should be talked about. And again, you are not fully correct. Lets say for example the people who were in first have reinvested again down the road and are the “main” group left when it collapses.
They have already made or potentially made more than they are set to lose at the end from their initial investment. So nobody really lost.
And this is all based on the assumption that you are correct and it does collapse. And based on your arguments it doesn’t seem very likely you are correct as you fail to provide much evidence and your whole discussion is based on assumption.
People have already provided it. They sell a product and have a deal with Best Western. So again, lets see some proof of what you keep talking about.
It would be nice since you have already posted misinformation on here. So the whole of your argument started on misinformation and yet you continue to expect people to listen to you.
Uh, wake up sunshine. Ponzi schemes running out of money leaving new investors high and dry is the one and only crux. “Just a question that should be talked about”… geez.
TelexFree pay out more over 52 weeks than they take in from investors. This is not sustainable.
Being 52 weeks rather than the typical few months though, it does allow people like yourself to go around marketing the opportunity on the premise nobody has lost anything yet.
That’s the thing about Ponzi schemes, nobody “loses” anything till they collapse. Till then you’ve got clowns such as yourself running around telling everyone nobody has lost anything to encourage them to invest.
It’s a dangerous circle.
All Ponzi schemes collapse. Fact.
Wank, wank, wank. What does the price of fish in China have to do with the AdCentral investment scheme?
You join TelexFree, you invest in the AdCentral scheme and receive a >100% ROI over 52 weeks. Everything else is irrelevant smoke and mirrors. Best Western and “products” have nothing to do with the AdCentral investment scheme.
Provide an alternative source of proof for the paid out ROI other than new investors coming on board.
I made that model very simple just to show the idea, people can use a spreadsheet to get all the proofs they need.
After 15 weeks, that simple model will start to lose money, and will need to add MORE than 1 new investor per week. The more investors they’re adding, the faster the payouts will increase too. Adding new investors won’t solve anything, other than delaying the collapse.
The scheme will NEVER have money for more than 15 weeks to pay old investors, without a supply of money coming in from new investors. It will collapse RAPIDLY if the recruitment of new investors slows down.
The number of new investors will need to INCREASE each week to keep the scheme alive, until they run out of new investors.
On Easter Sunday, I saw an ad for TelexFree that was targeting victims of the Profitable Sunrise HYIP scheme.
According to the ad, if you give $15,125 to TelexFree, you are purchasing a “contract” that pays you at least $1,100 a week.
In other words, you purportedly can purchase an income that returns the principal of $15,125 and a profit of $42,075 in 52 weeks.
That is very much like the infamous World Marketing Direct Selling (WMDS) and OneUniverseOnline (1UOL) pyramid schemes. Those schemes put two purveyors in federal prison and launched a follow-up investigation because one of the scammers was implicated in a murder-for-hire plot in which the discussed targets included a prosecutor and witnesses.
Everybody within the sphere of influence of the snake, including people who have no clue the snake is in the grass.
Just what the Zeek people said. Approximately 86 percent of them, however, lost.
I suspect that number will be even higher in Profitable Sunrise because the scam there featured the pitchmen soliciting investment dollars that had to be locked up for specified periods of times to create the cash flow to pay the scamming pitchmen.
Some of those scamming pitchmen explained to their marks how the critics were spreading misinformation.
PPBlog
A sports team don’t suddenly become winners without some sort of catalyst / change, be it manager, coach, or players. Just moving them to a new stadium, for example, or change their name, will not suddenly make them winners.
I’m sure you recognize signs of a team that’s going nowhere. There are similar signs for Ponzi schemes.
And TelexFree is not all scam. Its problem is this “AdCentral” scheme they operate. It is very close to the Ad Surf Daily Ponzi in the US a few years ago.
Why have it? Shouldn’t you be selling TelexFree service, the way it should be? Why this “adCentral” thing at all? Where is the money coming from to pay them? What did people actually do to EARN them?
Except it’s been WEEKS and NOBODY (esp. not Best Western or TelexFree) has confirmed this “tie-up”, except other TelexFree promoters and defenders.
Perhaps you should demand proof of THAT, the same way you are demanding proof of Oz’s position? WHO said there was a tie-up? Why isn’t this info public, like press release, news report, and such?
And WHY would they give profits (from selling products) to people who simply post/watch internet ads, which is MUCH MUCH easier than give it to people are actually out there making sales face to face selling TelexFree service?
The business model you “assume” they are using does not make sense.
Wrong. The people who came AFTER them lost.
It would be a very poor bunch of fraudsters, indeed, if there was the level of “PROOF” you are demanding just laying around on the ‘net waiting to be found.
“smart” and prudent readers will take notice of the clues provided by those experienced in the area.
“get-rich-quickers” such as Talk About It, on the other hand, will argue about anything they think may advance their cause.
Math is actually a good enough proof to test one part of the business model, without assuming ANYTHING about other parts. If you know how ONE part of the business model works mathematically, you will reduce the chances for misleading yourself.
That’s how it works. Try to find the parts you’re able to identify and analyse relatively correctly, and don’t add any vague information too early.
When you KNOW that part of the business won’t work, look for the other sources of revenue, and try to identify the conditions for them to make the flawed part work.
“Sell a product” is an income stream. Add $50 for each of the retail customers your friend has. You’ll have to ask your friend about it. If he has 10-20 retail customers then it’s probably enough to support the payouts.
If every (or most) affiliates are buying the product you can add $50 per week in the spreadsheet example I gave you.
“People have posted that they have deals with Best Western” is not an income stream, so you can ignore that. You’ll need to separate between rumours and identifiable parts of the business. You were the one complaining about assumptions, but you’re willingly adding assumptions yourself.
If they HAVE any significant other income sources, I’m pretty sure they would have published very specific info about it long time ago.
Stop acting like a “Drama Queen”. You’re nagging about that other people don’t deliver what you want them to deliver, but you’re not adding anything yourself either.
I gave you the METHOD to find and analyse proofs for yourself, but you are much more interested in complaining. You’re not really interested in proofs, are you?
One of the quickest ways to disprove that argument is to take it to it’s logical extension.
Are you saying if 1% of income is derived from “sales” and the other 99% from members’ fees, in your world, that would be OK ???
The fact the fraudsters ensure there are ‘some” sales does not negate the fact the bulk of the income is via a variation of the “pyramid/endless chain recriting” model.
Firstly I am not going to quote everyone because there is just too much. Anyway…..
Why have advertising? I think the answer to that should be obvious. You advertise a product to increase sales. Instead of using TV, radio, magazines etc….They pay people to advertise on the internet.
Where is the money coming from? As I have said now it seems to me it would come from the selling of the product. Just as Coca Cola pays its employees and can spend millions on advertising. From selling their product and bringing in revenue.
What did people do to EARN them? I am assuming you are talking about the people doing the advertising but I may have misread you. They earn their money by advertising for the company.
I am slightly confused by this. Have you emailed Best Western or Telexfree to get confirmation about it? Or are you just saying their has been no major news announcement?
As I don’t mess with Telexfree I don’t care so much about demanding proof of that. The reason I ask for proof from some of you is because you are the ones who brought this whole thing up and continue on the same path. Yet along the way their has been misinformation and a noticeable lack of proof.
Admittedly the people posting the info about Best Western should provide proof as well, but that isn’t as important to me as that isn’t the reason I initially got involved in this topic.
Firstly they don’t give money to people who watch ads. They give money to people who post them. And your question is simply answered. Every company pays people who work for them regardless if they make sales.
You are advertising for their company and hopefully by doing so increasing sales for them and drawing attention to the company. Of course you would get paid for that.
As I mentioned that would depend on the time of collapse (again, assuming it collapses).
Here is how I am led to believe this works. You pay an initial amount of $1425. By posting adds you make $400 a month for 12 months. After that 12 months you have to pay another $1425 to continue going. So lets say the newest first time investors start in January and in June the company collapses.
In this scenario nobody loses because the newest investors break even at around 3 months. And if they are being paid only by “new” investor money they are getting paid by “old new” investors who wanted to get back in after doing it the first year or 2nd year or whatever depending on how long it lasts.
So you have investor A who started January of 2012 and spent 1425. When the year is up A brought in 4800. Subtract the initial investment and A made 3375. A decides to get in again starting in Mar 2013. Another 1425 is spent leaving 1950 left from year 1.
Investor B is brand new and gets in January 2013 and spends 1425. The company collapses in May. Investor B made 400 in Jan, Feb, Mar and Apr. 1600. A small profit from the initial investment. Meanwhile investor A made 800 losing a bit from the 1425 put in but still has a profit of 1950 that was never spent from the first year.
So it is really a thing of timing and circumstance. Nobody necessarily has to lose if their is loss to be had in the first place.
“smart” and prudent readers will also be aware of misinformation being spread and would also be aware that experience doesn’t negate ignorance or mistakes everytime.
Just quoting this to give one more example of misinformation and ignorance. I myself am not a “get-rich-quicker”. I am not involved in this program or any like it. I work in a family business doing landscaping. I am too wary of things like this to ever get involved.
Nice guess though.
Oh, I apologize then.
I should have said “people like Talk About It who go around the internet defending obvious ponzi/pyramid schemes for sport”
I know, you’re only here to defend truth, justice and the American Way.
Give us a break, willya ???
It’s quite painful to read the waffle from Ponzi scheme supporters. 50% squirm, 50% dodge and weave.
“Oh that proof is not important” – lol.
You can crap on about “the product” all you want, but when it has nothing to do with investing in AdCentral’s it remains irrelevant.
Pretending new investors aren’t propping up the AdCentral scheme is just silly.
It’s not “work” for other purposes than potentially for income taxes.
If the group of investors pay money IN, and the same money is being paid OUT to the same group of investors, the work hasn’t generated any new money. The company is simply returning the investors OWN money to them, pretending to pay for work.
The company is not PAYING them, it’s RETURNING their own money. If the company is paying some investors MORE than their principal investments, that has to be stolen from the other investors’ money.
If the advertising attracts retail customers, that could generate new money to pay the investors. So if 1 of 10 ads can generate a new retail customer then it’s work. If people hardly have retail customers at all then it’s fake work.
I gave you a METHOD = “use a spreadsheet, to see if you can make it work mathematically”. You don’t need to “believe” anything for that part of the business model.
You were the one asking for proof, but you have ignored most methods offering proofs. So you’re not really interested in what you’re asking for.
You were the one criticizing assumptions from others, but you’re using assumptions willingly in your own ideas.
I can show you the RESULT of the spreadsheet method, but that doesn’t make much sense if you’re not interested enough to test that method yourself. A spreadsheet will show you that it can work if you add enough retail customers.
It won’t work any better if you’re adding more investors, or if the investors are adding more money.
TYPES OF PROOF
MATH is actually proof. I have delivered what you asked for, for one part of the business model. So you can’t complain about lack of proof anymore.
A vague idea about old investors putting new money in after 1 year isn’t proof. It will fail mathematically, so it can easily be disproved.
Vague ideas about the ads’ abilities to generate revenue isn’t proof. It can’t be tested mathematically or logically, and it will fail if you can test it by adding realistic numbers. You can test it by asking your friend about how many retail customers he/she has.
Vague ideas about “people are posting info” and “deals with Best Western” are certainly not proof. Complaints about “You haven’t added those” are rather meaningless, because none of them are actually parts of the business model. They are imaginary parts, used to mislead people to believe in something.
Your actions are not reflecting what you’re pretending to be. You’re not really business experienced, or at least it isn’t reflected in your own statements. Most people involved in real business will have some insight into how a business can work. They wouldn’t have accepted the same ideas you believe in.
You can fool yourself, but I don’t think you’re able to fool others very well. You certainly haven’t fooled us.
Have you TESTED your own ideas by using a spreadsheet?
A spreadsheet should normally show money coming IN, and money going OUT. You have assumed that investor A will earn a profit in the first year, but you haven’t showed WHERE the money comes from.
The money doesn’t come from posting ads. Posting ads won’t generate any money in itself for the company. If they’re paying the investors for posting ads they will need to use the investors’ OWN money to pay them.
You’re seriously not THINKING like a business professional, so you shouldn’t pretend to be one either. If you believe the money comes from posting ads, then you’re thinking like an unexperienced investor or employee.
Stan Tomaszewski (e.g. post #174) received much nicer comments than you, even if he complained about lack of proofs, the same thing you have complained about. I actually gave him something that potentially could be of interest to him. You have only received the proofs you didn’t want, and critical comments about the role you’re playing.
Stan Tomaszewski didn’t ACT like a “true believer”, he only used the same arguments. So he was simply “testing arguments” / “placing his own favorite sales arguments” or something similar.
Experienced people will NOT engage too deeply in a discussion if they don’t find the right audience. He would have been out numbered and out manouvred if he had continued too long. So he made relatively rational decisions.
“Placing favorite sales arguments” is a strategy directed towards other readers, e.g. if a “true believer” is reading the thread. It will allow the “true believer” to find SOME arguments supporting his own viewpoints, e.g. arguments about “proof”.
You will need to read it from another viewpoint than your own to see it, e.g. from the viewpoint of a true believer. Some of them will have exactly the right confirmation bias for those types of arguments.
All these comments are actually directed towards other readers, at least partially:
* He placed points about proofs.
* I posted something about all the FALSE proofs.
* He posted something about “hitting a nerve”.
* I pointed out the jokes in that comment (i.e. “you didn’t hit a nerve, you only failed to see the jokes”). Most people will accept “broke and sick people living under a bridge” as a joke when it’s presented as “lifestyle proof”.
* He posted something about wasting time on blogs (deleted)
* I offered him a way out of it, by agreeing with him partially and offering him some other uses of this site. I also showed him a much wider range of “weapons” I could use, in the list of other articles.
“True believers” will usually NOT have “a way out of it” strategies, but he had. “True believers” will argue from the heart rather than the brain, but he switched strategies relatively rapidly based on decisions.
That narrative is not internally consistent. They work as individual explanations. When put together they make no sense.
The company wants CUSTOMERS, i.e. People who wants its products or services and willing to pay for it. Advertising is merely ONE WAY to GET customers. Sales staff / affiliates is another. It comes out of the SAME BUDGET called “customer acquisition”.
But the TelexFree comp plan is clearly incentivized to have you sell MEMBERSHIP (the $299 plan), instead of comm service ($49 plan). You make much more selling the $299 instead of the $49. For doing the SAME THING (posting ads).
Furthermore, people can hire staff to post ads on the Internet for pennies per ad.
Why would a company pay you to do something that can be done for pennies?
The difference is you already paid them. You’re NET NEGATIVE until you get paid. (remember, $299 membership)
If you WORK, you should get paid for your labor (as you claimed “advertising”). And internet rates clearly says your work is worth PENNIES.
So why is the company paying you higher rates? There’s no reason for them to be “generous”. It’s a business, not a charity.
Clearly, you’re being paid to RECRUIT, not for posting ads.
Furthermore, why have you pay that $299 at all? Or even $49? Why not just have you advertise to SELL $49 package and get paid PERIOD? Why do you have to PAY TelexFree ($299 money OUT OF your pocket) to get the RIGHT to sell TelexFree products and earn something (money INTO your pocket)?
What sort of a job that requires you to put in money first?
Clearly, it’s NOT a job. They don’t want you for your ad posting. They want your MONEY ($299) and your ability to RECRUIT other people to pay $299 into TelexFree. And they give you a piece of that $299, and make you think you earned it by posting ads.
This is fake right?
anti-hyperlink::faithsloan.com/2013/03/31/telexfree-scam-ponzi-brazil-ministry-finance-judicial-court-decision/
Please someone confirm.
Read what it says. The investigation is still open with the court notice having no bearing on it.
TelexFree affiliates seem to largely think it means the investigation has been concluded. The cited documentation states nothing of the sort.
This link was provided earlier in the comments above yours:
http://g1.globo.com/economia/noticia/2013/03/entenda-o-caso-telexfree.html
Hey friends,
I see this telex free website and the compensation plan also, but i cant understand properly what is the exact business model.
Anybody can give me easy way to understand that compassion?? I am an MLM leader in India and finding a new opportunity.
Sure. Invest $x and over 52 weeks TelexFree will pay you >$x.
It has one part that COULD be about retail, the $50 telephone service.
It has a more significant other part, a hybrid between pyramid scheme and Ponzi scheme (recruitment and investment). It’s a $299 – $1,375 investment, but it has probably been expanded from that level now (e.g. by selling multiple family pack positions at once).
The investment pretends to be able to pay back $1,040 per year per AdCentral ($20 * 52 weeks), by posting 1 ad per day to qualify week by week for payouts.
The business model is plain and simple:
* attract new affiliate investors by promising them a $1,040 ROI per year per investment unit, and additional rewards if they recruit more investors.
* Use the money coming in from new investors to pay the old ones, until the payouts no longer can be supported by new investors.
* Jump to another market (e.g. another country). Money coming in from the new market CAN be used to support payouts to the other market, e.g. paying a few loyal top earners to defend it for a period of time.
People will do most of the work themselves. You don’t need to CONVINCE anyone, they will typically convince themselves about how “smart” their own investments are.
The typical victims will be income opportunity seekers, eagerly looking for ways to earn money (on the internet) by doing little or no work. But they are looking for WORK rather than investments, so you’ll need to attach something that looks like work to the plan so they won’t get suspicious about it.
The work can actually be any type of internet based work, but the most commonly used methods revolves around ads or surveys (post 1 ad, watch 1 video ad, do a survey, click on ads, visit 20 websites, sell ads to other income opportunity seekers, etc.).
The scheme will need some type of “rational explanations” for why it can be able to pay, e.g. some big company logos as “proofs” for partners willing to pay for it.
Here’s two shorter explanations, videos rather than text. They are commercials, so I have disabled the links. Just copy the links into the URL address box in your browser.
“Ponzi 101”
youtube.com/watch?v=se9bvR8BLAE
“Know your victims”
youtube.com/watch?v=AuOiJBuOiZk
Indians are already familiar with schemes like this, so you won’t find an easy market there. It would have been an easy market 3 years ago, but now it works better in other markets like e.g. Brazil and Russia.
TelexFree HAS already partly “collapsed” in Brazil. It will become much more short lived in each new country. I don’t believe this solution is a good one for you.
I received the following correspondence via email. Adding it here trusting it adds to the discussion and is of use for people conducting their TelexFree due diligence.
If the various companies are true, (I haven’t looked into them) they are likely to be used as front companies to establish cover for “other” activities and to disguise fund sources.
Because money talks, maybe hes in it for just the money he has to eat too.
Post an answer to that?
1. He’s bringing in some new details about the companies’ registrations. Some people will be interested in that.
2. He’s asking about link to the contracts the members will have to sign.
They are trying to bend the rules by not paying out $20 directly. The company pays 1 VOIP subscription for resale for 7 ads per week, and then they’re willing to buy back the VOIP subscription for $20. I believe that solution came from Gerald Nehra as a temporary solution.
I found a “Product Terms and Conditions”, but it’s focusing mostly on the VOIP subscription. Link disabled (it was found at the bottom of the telexfree.com main page):
telexfree.com/public/file/TelexFREEProductTermsAndConditions.pdf
Oz can potentially add more info about any changes in the “Terms and Conditions”. The AdCentrals seems to have been disguised in the current version designed for the US’ market.
Here’s a general answer from me:
PONZI SCHEME ISSUE – primary issue
The Ponzi scheme issue is solely about the AdCentrals, “invest $299 or $1,375 in 1 or 5 AdCentrals, use them to post 1 Ad per day, earn $20 per week per AdCentral”.
That is a Ponzi scheme, the company doesn’t have any clients paying for the ads, they are using the investors’ own money to pay them back $20 per week, until they eventually run out of new investors putting money IN. We have seen several similar schemes here.
I have also seen investment offers greater than $1,375, e.g. 10 times that amount. That’s very typical for Ponzi schemes to increase the potential investments near the end of their life cycles, e.g. to stimulate people to reinvest money.
PYRAMID SCHEME ISSUE – secondary issue
Any pyramid scheme issue is about the binary compensation plan, where the participants can earn $20 per 2 AdCentrals sold to people they recruit into a downline (1 sale in left leg, 1 sale in the right leg).
AdCentrals are not products or services in themselves. A product is typically something people buy because they have the desire to own it, use it or consume it. That’s not the PRIMARY motive here, people are buying them because of the $20 per week promise. They are simply part of the investment / income opportunity, and can’t be used for other purposes than that.
We wouldn’t have ANY problems with the AdCentrals if Telexfree had CLIENTS paying for the ads, generating revenue and profit from the activity of posting ads. Ads attracting investors will be a different story.
VOIP SUBSCRIPTION
We have no objections to the $50 VOIP subscriotion, but that’s not the primary part of the business either. We are mostly looking at the primary parts, not the random parts attached to a business model. But we’re not analysing any laws either.
BTW, we’re not a typical anti fraud site. People can have quite opposite viewpoints here without problems. We’re not “seasoned fraud investigators” either, it would have required too much work and time.
An addition to that post about investments …
If TelexFree had clients paying for the ads, the posting of ads would have been WORK directly related to the income = a work based income opportunity rather than an investment based one.
Doing SOME work doesn’t mean the work is directly related to the income. It will still be a passive investment, with some random type of work connected to it (e.g. to sort out whether or not people are qualified for payouts).
When 400,000 people are posting 1 ad per day per AdCentral, SOME of the ads will receive clicks and potentially convert to sales of VOIP subscriptions. That could be used to defend the program in THEORY.
We have looked at different aspects of the case, e.g. whether or not the daily ads really are generating any significant income for the company (ENOUGH to pay for the work).
1 VOIP subscription will bring in gross $50 per month ($600 per year) if sold in retail to a customer. My examples here do NOT cover the company’s profit or costs.
* Each affiliate will need to have at least 2 customers like that to support their own payouts (per AdCentral).
* “Family Pack” affiliates will need to have 10 customers.
* “Super Mega Pack” (50 AdCentrals) affiliates will need to have 100 customers.
The “Super Mega Pack” was something I invented here and now, but I have seen one similar offer a few weeks ago. Experienced people will usually try to invent new solutions where they can sell much more to each new investor, e.g. by selling multiple positions where the investors can earn commissions from themselves.
I have asked affiliates about retail customers. I don’t think anyone have claimed to have any.
TelexFree is being openly promoted in a video in which prospects literally are told they can purchase an income. One of the video claims, for example, is that a prospect can purchase an income of at least $1,100 a month for $15,125 and that the income purchase lasts a year.
Amazingly, the video pitch describes the purchase as a “contract” — and viewers are told they can purchase greater or lesser amounts of income.
But the truly amazing thing is at the “contract” purchase claims were being targeted at victims of the alleged Profitable Sunrise pyramid scheme.
And the TelexFree pitch was aimed at Profitable Sunrise victims AFTER the SEC accused Profitable Sunrise of selling unregistered securities as investment contracts.
Equally amazingly, TelexFree appears to have a footprint in Massachusetts. That, of course, is the state in which the prosecutions of the WMDS/1UOL pyramid schemes were brought.
WMDS/1UOL got in trouble for many reasons, not the least of which was that prospects were told they could purchase an income for a specific amount.
From one of the claims cited by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit:
“For a lump-sum payment of $26,347.86, an investor could skip the Distributor level, become a “Director I,” and get an immediate “bonus” of $2,797, plus $300 every month for the rest of her life, her children’s lives, their children’s lives, and so on . . .”
PPBlog
Make that $1,100 a WEEK for a year — all purportedly for an up-front purchase of $15,125.
PPBlog
@OZ
Your knowledge and the ability to differentiate legit and illegit biz is amazing.
All I can say is that a lot of people will lose a lot of money to this Scam.
Just a matter of time when FTC will kick in and froze this company’s account.
Any update on why NOT to join “Telexfree?
We have been deluged with people emailing us to join and one group (former Zeek and GoFunrewards people), but people we personally know.. want us all to join.
They are pushing signing up for 5-11 contracts. They are saying it is the most exciting thing they have seen as it is signed contracts now. But, where will this be by the end of the summer and will anyone ever see the full contract paid.,
I am wondering if people are getting paid. They said one man is getting $200,000 a month here in the US.
True. I don’t know. Often people in these have heavy hitters who make tons and the rest lose in a few months and everyone is mad at the enrollers again.
Does anyone know if they have info on if the program is starting to go down hill now and fizzling out?
Thanks
Who do you think are the schmucks funding all those Brazillian investor’s ROIs right now?
Who is going to fund the US affiliate’s ROIs this time next year?
There’s never a good time to join a Ponzi scheme. You’re either ripping off someone else or about to get ripped off yourself.
It can be answered indirectly, but you won’t get any clear answers.
1. “When a program already has become well known in a market, it’s usually too late to join it”. That will normally be TRUE for most recruitment driven opportunities.
2. “You will normally see escalating problems when a program is very close to the end of its life cycle”. That NOT true here.
Zeek had several problems from May 2012, in the last 2 or 3 months before the shutdown. But Zeek didn’t have weekly payouts to ALL members.
TelexFree will NOT give you the same warning signals as Zeek. It will collapse rather immediately when the recruitment slows down, you can’t expect it to have that 3 months “warning period”.
3. “Increased investment limits are usually a bad sign”. That’s partly true, e.g. if the SAME investors in the SAME market suddenly are allowed to invest MORE money into the opportunity.
Most Ponzi schemes will have a $10,000 limit for individual investments. TelexFree will gladly accept $15,000 investments, and it has also standardised the solution as “contracts”.
CONCLUSION
There are several warning signs already. It’s probably about WEEKS rather than MONTHS before it will collapse or be shut down. “Weeks” = “less than 2 months”.
That’s how affinity scam works: people you know (and thought would never harm you) wanting you to join.
The only question is do they *know* it’s a scam, or are they merely judas goats.
Or to analyze M_Norway’s points in a different perspective:
If you look at it from a more of a Scamworld perspective, that means the normal victim pool is getting mined out and reaching saturation. By that I mean the people who can be easily convinced to jump into anything (risk takers) and the usual reload scam victims (grievers and debtors).
The new members are also stepping on a lot of toes. General public is getting immunized to the sales pitches.
Furthermore, they are going to have to convince the people who *do* their due diligence, or at least a limited version, like Google the name with “scam”. And they get to here, and they ask reasonable questions.
Actually problems exist for a LONG time, but the company was able to cover them up or “explain” them away or at least delay the inevitable.
However, the increased membership also increased the number of people who are NOT the normal sheeple and start asking the reasonable questions rather than wait. And they are far more vocal than the sheeple. THAT makes the problems more public, but it was probably there all along.
Zeek had been operating auctions ILLEGALLY in North Carolina since 2010. They didn’t get an auction license until March 2012! Yet NOBODY ASKED OR CHECKED (until their lawyer, and later, I, looked into it).
This is where you run into the standard excuses like “we got hacked”, “we had to change banks”, “overwhelmed by growth”, “government investigation (don’t worry about it)”, and so on.
The warning signs are already there: the investigation by government.
Increased limit is a VERY bad sign. That means they need an infusion of cash from the EXISTING victims, without them resorting to registering multiple accounts (using kid’s ID, for example). That means their existing cash inflow is not enough. To borrow a bad line from the movie 2012:
“When the government tells you not to panic, that’s when you panic!”
So, I have several ask about joining this in the US, but it does not seem to have heavy “negativity” if you will, at this point.
People are pulled in by the enticing videos and 1 year contracts of $20 weekly up to $100 weekly simply by purchasing contracts and placing a daily ad.
One thing that grabbed my interest was the statement that, “It is very important that you place your ad daily. If you miss one day, you lose your money for the entire week.”
I thought, all the other companies (ZEEK, GoFunRewards, etc) never did this and we only lost that day of income. This, of course enables them to not pay that out for the week. And, i am sure they are hoping that you do not place your ad for the day??? Who knows…but it appears that that is a sure “red flag”.
Do any of you see any “NEW” red flags? Is this appearing to be a red flag in the Brazil area now. Does anyone know if leaders here in the US are pulling back?
I have “leaders” right now jumping in and trying to get people in like crazy right now as it is the best thing since ZEEK, and now this makes me nervous, as , again, there are a LOT of little people joining with “little” money that they will probably lose in a few weeks…… comments?
It seems it might just be safe to go back to promoting traditional networking companies like nutritionals.. ??
Perhaps you need to view the problem a different way: look on the Internet… How much is your ad worth as a job? Can you hire somebody off Craigslist or Fiverr or something to post them and for how much?
(Just as FYI, when Zeek was still around I’ve seen ads that claims they’ll post your ads for you for like 25 cents a day)
Then consider how much are you getting paid to do the same. If there’s a HUGE discrepancy, something’s obviously NOT right…
Thanks…………..
And, (BOY!!) as we speak there is a conference (webinar) going on on how great this is..
Join now..there are all kinds of ways to earn here..
$20 weekly $100 weekly $80 and $100 in the binary
A real product.. You don’t have to sponsor, we will for you.
I am hearing all this on the phone right now with these top
ZEEK and GOfun people that I worked with and just saying, “You guys ..it is a scam (to myself as they are on the call)
But, it is kind of crazy. They are talking about security with contracts and how the money is coming to them from all different angles…
It makes me a little nervous ..as MANY of my friends are listening to this call tonight.
And, I fear……as you are saying..that it is NOT going to last much longer. There were 180 on the call.
I just wish I had some concrete RED flags to email to the leaders here.
Also, isn’t jubi-rev another one heading for closure?
I was shocked that this one started at the end of Go Fun’s reign.
Just ask them where they think their commissions come from.
Whether it collapses tomorrow or next year, the point is it’s unsustainable.
1. You can ask them how many retail customers they have, people paying for monthly VOIP subscriptions without being affiliates. That’s the only EXTERNAL source of revenue they have, money coming IN from other than investors.
2. You can use a spreadsheet to simulate appr. when and WHY it will collapse, e.g. 52 weeks with 1 investor joining each week, or 52 weeks with an increasing number of investors joining each week. That should SHOW you.
3. You have the investigation in Brazil, but we are relatively poorly updated on that (due to Portuguese language in Brazil). I posted a LIST for the articles here in post #176.
4. You can check the article about Gerry Nehra’s letter to Oz, where he opposed against the use of “Ponzi scheme” but where he later have disguised that part of the business.
We don’t have any “proofs”, but we don’t do police work either.
* A spreadsheet will give you mathematical proof by simulating the business model. Increasing the investments to “contracts” will make the make the business become more short lived
* Asking people about retail customers will probably give you LOGICAL proofs (a business model can’t work with money solely coming in from investors).
* Gerry Nehra’s reaction will give you a type of “social proof”. Oz have never heard from him again after the first letter.
You CAN’T convince your friends about anything. If they’re interested enough they will probably join anyway.
Leaders will STOP trying to recruit you if you ask them about retail customers, but SPECIFY “people paying for the VOIP subscriptions without being affiliates themselves”. Don’t ask for “proof” or allow them to show “proof”.
If you’ve warned them and they didn’t listen, then you’ve pretty much done all you can other than launch a lawsuit against it or call in the cops on them.
Right now their mind is so wrapped up with dollar signs that they will not see your reason at all. To them it’s just “negativity”. It’s “self-deception”, in that they only see what they WANT to see (i.e. evidence they can interpret in their favor of their own thinking).
BehindMLM had been raising alarms on Zeek for more than a year before it was closed. Anybody listen? Nah.
Remember, their contract doesn’t even say they’re going to pay $20 per line every week.
Instead, contract item 13.2 says they may buy back the lines and, if they do so, pay a value that is purely decided by the company itself based on demand, volume, etc. Therefore one day they might not even buy back the lines, or, if they decide to do so, only pay $0.01 each.
And the members cannot complain, it’s in the contract. Their lawyers you promptly say Telexfree never promised you anything.
That isn’t important at all. TelexFree has violated that condition on a regular basis, creating a new condition in REALITY overruling the written one.
They will have to follow the rule they have created in reality rather than the written one. If the written rule was meant to be followed then it had been followed from day one. Any potential violations would have been EXCEPTIONS rather than the rule.
Of course they can. You can’t regulate things like that in an agreement.
You can’t restrict people from access to any civil rights, e.g. the right to negotiate and resolve disputes about something. You can partly regulate HOW to solve disputes, but you can’t restrict any rights.
They can’t legally reserve themselves from that. The $20 per week per AdCentral is the PRIMARY motive for people to pay for them. If they have paid $20 per week on a regular basis, they have created a standardised rule in reality. The reality will have a higher rank than any written rules.
@M_Norway
Thanks, your comments are very instructive on the legal aspects and I wish it happens as you say when the whole scheme falls apart.
Norway is correct in the respect that you may not contractually waive your civil rights (in this case right to due process or the right of redress through the courts, but aside from that very important consideration you are bound by the contract you signed until you can prove otherwise.
And so is the OTHER party (bound by the contract). A contract is MORE than the written parts, e.g. oral agreements and practices, or how the conditions have been interpreted in reality between the parties.
Contracts have a relatively low and specialised rank in the legal system. They can only regulate “normal conditions” for the parties affected by them. They can’t regulate anything already regulated by laws, or regulated by common business practice.
“General clauses” are often seen in contracts, e.g. “TelexFree has the right to make changes to this agreement”. That will cover normal changes, what reasonably can be expected of changes within the contract period. It won’t cover anything other than that. Any disputes about changes will have to be resolved in normal ways.
A contract can’t regulate things like “This is not an investment, it’s a PURCHASE”, or “AdCentrals are products”. The parties involved don’t have the correct authority to regulate legal definitions commonly used in the society.
….and as we can see the OTHER party has provided themselves wiggle room and escape clauses by which they will be only to happy to abide.
Telexfree just bought a new Telephone company.
Can I still invest $x and get a guaranteed ROI of >$x in a year?
Yes.
What they do or don’t buy is therefore irrelevant. Much the less when they have some old bald guy shouting desperately at me to try and convince me otherwise.
Any besides, the facade that telecommunications and cable TV will pay out the ridiculous ROIs TelexFree offer isn’t going to stick. Affiliates put money in and TelexFree pay it out to existing investors.
That is still TelexFree’s business model.
And VoxBras looks DOA. An Alexa ranking of 22mill (not a typo) isn’t that of a healthy retail business. I’m guessing this was a struggling company picked up dirt cheap, given that the VOIP software facade wasn’t holding up to the Skype comparisons.
From what I can find Voxbras is only active in one state of Brasil, Espirito Santos (ES), and doesn’t even cover the entire state.
http://www.voxbras.com.br/voxbras.php
Yes, it’s a phone company, but it’s a TINY one.
I wonder if I gave VoxBras a few hundred whether they’d be able to give me a $20 weekly ROI?
I am having a problem in telexfree telephone service. Unable to register new customers. Can anyone tell me that how can i fix the problem
1) If you make your money back in 3 1/2 months, why wouldn’t Telex just let you post for free for that time and start paying you on month 4.
2) Do you know the actual number of people that use their software outside of the program?
3) The product you are marketing is $50 and is no different than Skype or 10 other VOIP services. All which run off smart phones or computers world-wide.
4) 99telex is not owned by telexfree, but Disk a Vontade, owned by Carlos Wanzeler, who also owns telexfree. The public is told James Merrill owns TelexFree- do you know why it is structured this way?
5) I’m sure people are being paid- but from what revenue? The $5 the company makes for the software they sell?
6) Anyone who takes 15 minutes with all the numbers can clearly see, if you take the software services sold minus the number of agents/promoters working, there is now way for the revenue to cover the promoters weekly “pay check”.
7) The model is structured with the hopes that for ever 1 person that signs up they will add 2 more people- those two people will cover the 2/3 balance owed to the first. Add that on with people that have money and it should be sustainable-right?
8) Why has telex not promoted for other companies? They claim this is cutting edge marketing, but it’s actually doing nothing but redistributing other people’s money. If you do the math, their ad’s would cost another company about $2.50 each.
Anyone with a fraction of knowledge knows google sells space for as little as 10 cents. Sites like Facebook and others with actual traffic. Not small, no name company sites. This is why the only product they market is their own, to keep everything “in house”.
I even tried my best to think of all angles and said, the companies that place ads on Telxfree’s site will be seen from their promoters- that could be revenue. But any company would know promoters go straight in to the back office.
9) A company survives on a good product and service. The actual 99telex (outdated) software is a terrible product, with terrible connection. I’m sure 90% of the promoters have never even tried the product.
As for service there is none- you can’t find any help or information anywhere on the site. Telex free is not a public company, so how can anyone get annual reports or any financial data to make a sound investment decision. People just hear the model(pyramid) and get excited.
10) The telexfree Modo- help others obtain a good life. “With telexfree you are helping people achieve a life they would never have”. This business is not sustainable as all pyramids fall.
The argument would be well many businesses fail. This is not a business, you are not giving someone a job, but false hope. Someone like myself can invest in this, for if I lose some money I will be okay. Here is why majority of the people you claim to be helping (business is not a charity) are actually being destroyed long term.
A person who signs up who does not have the means, will start making money, buy a house, car, things they could never afford before. They will tell all their friends and family, who will do the same in poor, 3rd world countries who are uneducated to understand all of the above.
Next, two things happen:
1) the pyramid crashes and all their money is gone and they can no longer pay for their house, car, etc AND their name is ruined. If this company has devised the perfect storm to avoid all prosecution, then it will just go under.
2) BUT if it does not and is charged as a ponzi/pyramid scam-then “net gainers”(which will be the highest earners) by the laws of the United States will have to return the money (I did not google this, I was advised by a corporate fraud lawyer).
Telexfree is socially and morally a disaster, but no one cares when they see green.
Good luck to you and your teams. I will never return to this site as I do not post reviews.
P.S The contract states that they are “not required” to pay the $20,$60, $100. The day they cut it in half claiming “expansion” is the year you do not renew any accounts.
This reeks of…. PONZI SCHEME !!!!!!!!!!!!
When you renew with telexfree after a year you will be asked for a fee of 20% over whatever was your gross income for the year, plus the initiation fee.
That plus the taxes you have to pay for the income you made, and the risk you’re taking by going in this business that could collapse anytime and I don’t see why people are so eager to go in such venture. And don’t forget enlisting people is not so easy.
They are now very active in south Florida and Mass.
South Florida and Massachusetts? Aren’t these the States with the largest Brazilian populations in USA?
http://www.city-data.com/top2/h153.html
From my understanding this isn’t the case. Or if it is you can simply bypass it by creating new accounts instead of renewing an old one.
Of course creating a new account with a different S.S would be an obvious choice.In Brazil that called a ‘laranja’, an orange.
Ten years? Really?
That’s possible. But according to local people, tornados and hurricanes are much bigger problems. 🙂
What would you answer to those that argue its not a pyramid because you have a yearly contract and you only renew it if you wish. Also they are now saying that they are in talks with Liberty insurance about covering their employees investment.
@takaro
My answer would be what does that have to do with the price of fish on Pluto?
You invest money with TelexFree and receive a 52 week ROI paid out of new affiliate investments. That’s what makes it a Ponzi scheme, not “12 month contracts” or an affiliate’s choice to renew (make new investment(s).
TelexFree are finally openly admitting they accept investments? Good for them. Still a Ponzi though.
Until the core mechanic of investing with TF and having them pay out a 52 week ROI with affiliate money is abolished, everything else is irrelevant.
Due to the ROI scheme being the core of the business, we all know they’re not getting rid of it. All this other noise is just attempts at psuedo-compliance so they can enter new markets (Brazil is obviously drying up).
Sorry about my last post. I wanna correct, they are not investors, rather they call themselves PROMOTERS.
Right. Because calling them promoters changes the fact that affiliates invest with TelexFree expecting a 52 week ROI…
And the company is in talk with Liberty Insurance about covering their employees’ “promotions” rather than investments? 🙂
It sounded a little “constructed”, so people will probably need some time before they can be fully adjusted. “We’re not investing, we’re promoting. I have promoted in a $1,375 Family Pack myself, as a principal promotion”.
Marketing video from old Brazilian guy shouting about TelexFree’s new Return on Promotions in 3…2…1…
I know some people that have bought into TF. I’ll let this site know what’s going on and whether or not they are making money or whether or not they are finding it easy to recruit new people.
I’ve gone to a couple of their meetings and a I don’t think it will be as easy as it was in Brazil to convince people to join in. I think brasilians here are a little more sophisticated than the ones in Espirito Santo, BR.
Post #217:
May 21st – June 20th = 4 weeks 2 days before it was shut down by a court in Brazil.
It hasn’t been “completely shut down” yet, but the situation is very close to that. Its local management in Brazil has been shut down.
New article, June 20 2013:
@ M_Norway,
Is there any article written about this. Where can the facts you mention be found?
https://behindmlm.com/companies/telexfree/brazilian-court-suspends-telexfree-operations/
You will find all TelexFree articles here by clicking on the company name, right under the headline in the article, or in the menus on the right side.
After reading the court decision(in Portuguese). One of its paragraphs states that
Well, I opened the site today june 20th, and saw no such ” POP UP”…
If they don’t comply, TelexFree run the risk of being fined.
In other news TelexFree’s lawyers have filed an appeal, which apparenly means the Acre court has ‘24 hours to decide whether to continue to prevent the company suspected financial pyramid, to make payments to publishers‘.
http://economia.ig.com.br/2013-06-20/advogado-da-telexfree-entra-com-recurso-para-suspender-decisao-da-justica.html
As blatant a Ponzi scheme as they come, I’m not really seeing what defense TelexFree’s lawyer can come up with in court to justify a reversal on the injunction. Quite clearly TelexFree pay out existing AdStation investors with new AdStation investor money.
It’s currently Thursday night in Acre so I’m guessing a decision on the injunction will be handed down sometime Friday Acre time.
Procon have also came out and said they aren’t accepting complaints from TelexFree investors who will not receive their “guaranteed” ROI from TelexFree as a result of the Ponzi company effectively being shutdown.
Dunno what the process is for Ponzi fund recovery in Brazil, maybe someone local can fill us in?
We will probably find it out gradually …
CRIMINAL OR CIVIL CASE?
It was a civil agency (rather than the police) which initiated the investigation. The news story reported “illegal financial pyramid” as a part of the court order.
The case is probably CIVIL, e.g. about commercial laws or financial laws.
THE CURRENT ORDER
The main purpose of the order was to halt TelexFree’s operations in Brazil COMPLETELY (rather than partially).
That indicates they have enough evidence to show that the PRIMARY and only function of TelexFree was illegal, i.e. they can’t separate any legal activities from the illegal ones (e.g. external customers or anything like that, solely participating in legitimate purchases).
The current Court Order will need several follow up orders. Halting a business’ activities and freezing assets is about PRESERVATION, an initial order rather than a final one.
That was all I was able to find out using logical thinking, without knowing anything about the judiciary system in Brazil.
Other than that, the case is FEDERAL rather than STATE.
I see faith sloan is promoting this crap big time. Wonder what she would have to say?
A quick look at the Constitution of Brazil shows a modernized and frequently updated Constitution.
From Wikipedia:
“Amended 70 times since 1988” is about a few major amendments and many minor ones.
I won’t bother to read the whole Constitution, but a quick look at two of the Chapters showed it was “well organized” and “fairly easy to understand”.
Other than that, I’ll guess we’ll have to wait and see. The current Court Order is probably for PRESERVATIVE and INVESTIGATIVE purposes. It has a 30 day deadline for filing a chargesheet, so it’s clearly an INITIAL order.
Victims should follow the case closely, and potentially ask for some legal advices. There’s two types of victims here = net winners and net losers, with rather opposite interests.
She has probably calculated the risk and has been prepared for a situation like this. She hasn’t been very active promoting it in the last few months.
She posted a few comments around February 15th in another thread, mostly about some “technical details”, i.e. about whether or not some support pages also were available in English.
February – June = 4 months = more than 17 weeks. She’s probably among the net winners.
We’re providing relatively neutral and factual information (along with different viewpoints), so people will be using it for many different purposes. Faith Sloan has been more interested in the situation in Brazil than in the general discussion about TelexFree. She has probably kept an eye on that situation.
There’s always something new with TF.If you go to telexfreeunitestates.com/telexfree-updates the news is that they are saying the court order is being fought and there will be more news about it probably by Monday the 24th.
Also it says only Brazil is affected by said order (business as usual elsewhere) and they have now secured an insurance policy with Mapfree Seguradoras de Guarantia e Creditos SA ,”a very large insurance company”, therefore proving TF is legal and compliant, and that their individual contracts will be secured by the company.
The insurance contract was approved by SUSEP (SUperintendecy of private insurances), a government institution.
I also read in a Brazilian blog that among the “promoters” there are senators and congressmen, plus pastors, doctors etc etc. impling it is therefore a serious company.
It might also mean the court order will be thrown out of the window. Acre is probably the least important state in Brasil with a very low population and prestige. So I think TF is not finished yet.
So what? TVI Express once named an Indonesia police chief among their followers. Paraded his photo in front of Indonesian convention goers. They also tried to claim the various licenses they got as “proving” they are legitimate.
Nope, none of the “proof” they provided proves anything upon closer examination. That’s just a new version of “we hired a big-name lawyer, he wouldn’t consort with scams, so we MUST be legal”, except substitute lawyer with “insurance”.
Do they sell burial insurance?
It actually contained some useful info …
* TelexFree had to obey to the legal order from Acre, Brazil. OK.
* “We feel” is not a proper way to inform people, but it can be accepted in the current situation.
* They have put up the warning message informing about the Court Order. OK.
* “The legal team is working hard to defend …” is too unspecific.
* More information will come on Monday 24.06.2013. OK.
* Recommendation about how to handle the situation. OK.
I copied that from the MMG forum.
“In times of trouble”, factual info will have a better effect than positive but vague messages. With the current info, they have actually managed to “buy some time”. People will be more relaxed for 2.5 days when they KNOW the next update first will come on Monday.
Vague messages will only lead to people desperately looking for other sources. TelexFree tried that strategy.
People will actually feel more relaxed if you “put words to something”, e.g. let them READ a description rather than having a vague feeling about something. I don’t think anyone felt very “relaxed” about the conference call or the press release.
People should actually feel more relaxed when someone is TELLING them that “We feel …” is not a proper way to inform people.
Thanks for all the info. We have a friend who was actively recruiting on his Facebook page. His whole family is in deep. His parents even borrowed money at a high interest rate to get in.
They all plan to do this as their major source of income. I plan to warn them not to recruit anyone else and to pull their investment out as quickly as possible.
I knew it was a pyramid scheme but didn’t connect it to Ponzi until I understood how the payouts were done. Thanks for the investigative work everyone has done.
You can’t convince people. They will need to convince THEMSELVES. Or they must actually have been willing to believe in it already from the start.
The best strategy is to find out what they potentially can be interested in, and to deliver that type of information. But you will also need to allow them to choose themselves between different viewpoints / different sets of information.
“True believers” will only accept one type of information. It will basically be about the same ideas they already have accepted and have repeated over and over again. You simply don’t have a fair chance if you’re trying to convince them about something else.
THE SITUATION IN BRAZIL
It’s actually very high risk for TelexFree to be shut down globally from that small state in Brazil.
TelexFree has an INJUCTION against the network marketing part of the company and 4 of the top leaders. It was appealed to a single judge late last Thursday (June 20th), the appeal was reviewed and rejected on Monday (June 24th), and now they have 5 days to file a full appeal (around July 1st).
If the injunction is upheld, a chargesheet will be filed within 30 days (before August 1st). Assets will be frozen relatively immediately from around July 1st. Payments made between June 20th and assets freeze date may potentially be reversed or freezed (made unavailable).
We don’t know anything about how the situation in Brazil will affect the network in other countries, but it most likely will affect them. It’s actually a full shutdown for the core of the company, but the participants won’t SEE IT in the first 1 or 2 weeks.
Your friends may potentially be interested in information like that if it’s completely neutral and factual. But if they’re “true believers”, you can’t serve information like that directly. They must first be looking for information themselves before you can offer them anything.
@Arizona Lady
Note that my description for “The situation in Brazil” was POTENTIAL, one of the possible “worst case scenarios”. The reality will probably be different. But I tried to keep the information FACTUAL rather than EMOTIONAL.
One tipical “promoter” of Telexfree have this in email signature:
One good *promoter*, of course 😉
Carlos releases a new video with Dr. Fuchs but I have no idea what is being said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nIYu71MOxPw#at=27
Hmm no subtitles though I’m sure someone will translate soon enough.
I wonder how much this Fuchs guy invested into TelexFree to put his face to their defense… or if he’s not an affiliate, what they’re paying him.
Here’s to hoardes of Brazilian affiliates quoting this guy on whatever he’s telling them (sigh). Costa lost all credibility with his silly predictions last week and fraudulent contract waving around.
Depending on what he’s claiming, Fuchs is probably going to go the same route.
Meanwhile I’m surprised they haven’t trotted out Gerry Nehra in the US yet.
Looks like more marketing PR BS, here’s the accompanying video description TelexFree put out:
Right.
According to most comments made on the facebook page, seems like most of what has been said was just a bunch of nothingness.
Yes guess will soon find out.
Basically, the video says nothing important.
Fuchs (the laywer) starts the video by saying a contradiction on the Court’s part: That the court said at one time that the advertisers could still post ads, but on another instance the court said they couldn’t, so Telexfree decided to suspend the ads, and complained about the contradiction.
Then Carlos Costa (the Director) defends the company regarding some newspaper news about people reporting the company to the Police.
He claims that all the cases were ones in which clients had their accounts invaded, and looked for Telexfree to correct the problem, and Telexfree itself asked them to do the Police report before so they could act to get their accounts back to them.
In sum, nothing regarding the process.
I REALLY wished you guys spoke Portuguese… this video is just too good:
That video Frontier posted, you can turn on subtitles and then translate them to English.
The bit at the end is amusing, with Costas blaming affiliates for using brand names and then the footage of him kickstarting it all by placing such emphasis on the insurance company Mapfre.
In itself, there’s nothing illegal in posting ads. People should clearly be allowed to post as many ads they want. 🙂
Assets freeze is about PAYING people for posting ads 7 days a week, not about the posting itself. But TelexFree should of course INFORM people about the changes in conditions.
I had actually expected more factual information from the lawyer when he finally appeared as a spokes person. There’s many unanswered question among the affiliates he should try to answer.
His appearance was exactly as ‘valuable’ and ‘informative’ as Carlos Costa’s own. They both gave a feeling of confusion to the audience.
There’s something else he said towards the end, where he points out that the rumors that HE was seen at the airport carrying 4 suitcases is totally false.
Theres a video on youtube where one team builder is asking the people to be calm and wait for the official communicates from “PLANTAO TELEXFREE”, before doing anything.
The funny thing is that he’s talking from the main office of TF, that now semms to be EMPTY, judging from the echo coming from the room.
Is investigative journalism something big in Brazil? Do they have programs similar to 60 Minutes there? It seems every country have their own version, though many end up more like “Inside Edition” (more sleaze or human interest than real investigations).
Maybe some investigative reporters would want to camp out at TelexFree offices (or across the street) then report whether people are really working inside or not.
Yes,such shows are big in Brazil. One in particular called “FANTASTICO” would be perfect for this subject and beats me why they haven’t pick it up already.
Maybe you guys, being in the same business could find out. globotvinternational.com/contactUs.asp
TelexFree has probably collapsed COMPLETELY in Brazil, but you have the management trying to delay the final collapse for as long as possible.
As long as they are still producing videos and calls, people will still have hope it will return to life, “changing the lives for so many people”.
The organization in the US is separated from the one in Brazil (source = telefreeunitedstates.com/updates/):
If this is such an obvious Ponzi scheme why is it still working? Who certifies these company?
The court in Acre keeps TF out of business until next Monday the 8th, when it will decide its fate. In the meantime in Rio Grande do Norte the public ministrie is starting an investigation on the many MLM companies that are sprouting in Brasil like acne on a teens face.
http://g1.globo.com/ac/acre/noticia/2013/07/decisao-do-stj-mantem-suspensao-das-operacoes-da-telexfree.html
That is also exist in Indonesia.
I feel sorry for all the people that are going to lose there money.
Oz,
One of the arguments the Telexfree “promoters” is using is the fact that operations in USA are still normal and LEGAL, claiming therefore that laws in Brazil are outdated and do not “understand” the “new age of MLM”.
My question is: Why is it still legal in US? Is it because it is still too small there? Is there a way you can report it to authorities so it doesn’t happen the same over there?
That would certainly help the process to shut down the company here in Brazil as well!
It’s not. Lack of regulatory action != legal scheme. A tired argument consistently used by Ponzi participants in the US.
Go over the TelexFree business model, it’s a clearcut case of Ponzi, which if a regulator in the US investigated would obviously be shutdown.
As for why the US authorities haven’t moved in, you’d have to ask them. Perhaps they’re aware gutting the scheme in Brazil guts it the world over. Wanzeler, Merril and Costa aren’t going to survive long as fugitives and continue to run the business.
Given that a Ponzi is a Ponzi and the business for now is rather crippled, perhaps they’re just letting things play out.
My question is if people in US, like you, could write a (annonimous even, if necessary) repport to the regulatory or criminal agencies, so that they start paying attention to it.
REmember, there are A LOT of Brazilians in US, and it won’t take long for them to start growing the company there as well.
Processes in Brazil are long and burocratic. It will take YEARS before the company is finally shut and anyone arrest, if that much.
What were you looking for when you found this website initially?
You found a platform where you can share information (among other things). You’ll need to fill in the other details yourself, e.g. types of audiences and services, style, etc.
Most people won’t find EXACTLY what they’re looking for, and then they will normally have to fill in that part themselves, as long as what they found was close enough to be useful. 🙂
It’s simple: majority of the illegal activity (gathering member money and paying it out to other members) have occurred in Brazil, not the US.
We have a different function than that. It’s not a PRIMARY function here to do some types of “investigation” designed for specific authorities. We can offer SOME information of interest for that type of “potential audience”, but we don’t have anything designed specifically for them.
And normally people must be looking for it, knowingly or unknowingly, before they can be interested in anyone offering it. “It” = any type of solution offered in any type of market.
And people often have very unrealistic expectations. If you first start to send them something they are interested in they will typically expect more of the same stuff, or even specify some wishes – “Can you send us a complete analysis of the case with all the evidence attached?”. 🙂
How long do you think Telexfree will last in the states? I knew it was a ponzi from the second it was pitched to me.
The Only profit that is generated from the sales of the product, which is 5 dollars, is redistributed in residuals to its affiliates in the form of .99 the first 5 levels.
I am not going to lie though the VOIP software does work really good though, any recommendation on a substitute when this company goes in the grave.
Depends how much money they manage to convince the rest of the world to invest now that Brazil is bust. If Canada catches on maybe they’ll stall collapse for a bit longer.
Skype is what the rest of the world uses… mobile VOIP apps have also caught on in recent years.
It will depend more on the Court in Acre than on money coming in / going out.
The injunction was filed 18th June, with a 30 day deadline for filing a charge sheet for the main proceedings = this week. The injunction was only a temporarily order, not the final one.
The injunction ordered recruitment stop, website modifications and assets freeze for TelexFree in Brazil.
It also ordered assets freeze for TelexFree’s management, Carlos Costa, James Merrill, Carlos Wanzeler, Lyvia Wanzeler. It also mentioned something about the company in the USA.
Some of them are geographically outside the jurisdiction of the Court, but inside its subject matter jurisdiction = what the case is about and the laws regulating the matter. The Brazilian Court CAN deliver court documents via a US court to defendants or witnesses in USA.
The charge sheet in the case will probably tell us more about IF and HOW it will affect TelexFree in other countries, but not WHEN.
I know, I didn’t mean that way. I guess my insatisfation with the company here in Brazil is so great I feel I have to do something about it. And I always said your blog is the best out there, and I think if more people in Brazil read it in the beggining maybe less people would fall for Telexfree.
Congratulations on your work.
I already discovered I can report Ponzi schemes online through the FBI website. They have a special form for that. I’ll be filling in (don’t know if it will do any good, but it’s worth a try).
The company has been running this whole time that people have been saying its going to fail. If it is and your not part of it so what!? Let people invest where ever they please.
(Ozedit: Offtopic stock market comments removed)
Come on now Frontier my friend you sound so little and petty.
Marketing via deception is a blight on the MLM industry and will continue to be blown wide open here at BehindMLM.
A Ponzi scheme by nature requires fraudulent advertising to proliferate, in that the ROIs it guarantees (whether implied or otherwise) are ultimately unsustainable.
The review is actually about TelexFree in Brazil. You wouldn’t exactly call it “up and running”, would you?
The review will also cover the US, but it was primarily about TelexFree in Brazil when it was written one year ago. Most of the comments here are actually from people in Brazil.
If your frustration was about the “Contact U.S. authorities” dialogue then you have also read my answer to it in post #292 = “We don’t have that as a PRIMARY function” (but we can discuss it like any other topic).
If it had been a primary function, it had probably been done a long time ago.
“Primary function” will normally require some organized plans for how to solve something, and we don’t have that type of plans (at least not any plans I know about).
Nobody is stopping you or anyone else. We’re merely releasing information that people don’t see, or were intentionally NOT shown in order to create the wrong impression.
One could always ask: what are you so afraid of? The truth?
Andre when 2/3’s of the leaders of your business go into hiding, wouldn’t you question the “why”?
Reports like these on BehindMlm help people into knowing facts about a business, instead of the usual recruiting hype you will read which has only 1 purpose of getting you to empty your wallet.
Andre, don’t you question things that TelexFree has lied about so many things, such as the fake insurance company contract and building hotels.
Andre, what would be your reaction if you found out that the supposedly main TF office doesn’t exist but is simply a rented mail box?
Just read about about Albania 97 and Colombia 2008 before saying so dumb things. It’s not only among Telexfree and the satisfied affiliates, it involves the whole society, since almost half billion dollars have been invest by 1% of Brazilian population ina business that has many signs of being a Ponzi Scheme. I only don’t afffirm that it’s a Ponzi because it will only be possible if the court discloses the company’s bank records and show that most of Telexfree income comes from people paying to become affiliate. Maybe the company is sustaionable, if there are 10 million people somewhere using Telexfree VOIP without being affiliates. But no sign of t.hat has been showed by the company until this moment.
New video from Carlos Costa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cT209zT1U-Q#at=408
He emphasizes the fact that Telexfree is becaming a corporation (Sociedade Anônima – SA), instead of its prior registry as a microenterprise (Microempresa – ME), as if it is a good thing for the investors.
Once more, he waves a bunch of papers to the camera. The same thing he did with the fraudulent insurance contract.
He also closes the video with the traditional religious words of hope, stating, once again, that they will win “with the grace of God”.
Quick: someone make a video having Carlos Costa doing his “waving paper thing” in both instances side by side
then below it put: CAN HE BE TRUSTED?!?!?!
Lol Waaaaay Tooooo Funny!
Keep in mind that if the industry fails to police itself….the regulators will do it, they’ll gain jurisdiction over the industry, they’ll regulate it and they, the regulators will be the pirates over yet another industry where the average person has once prospered and actually been provided ‘a fair chance’
As for the ASD, Zeek, Telexfree, WCM, Lyoness & CBK’s leaders they just depart the industry and talk about the time they got away with it all.
Meanwhile, Telexfree and BBOM leaders spread that this US$20 weekly ROI model is the “new MLM” and the other MLM companies are “jurassic”, “mak only few people make money”
Jurassic? That is just too cute! Whomever it is that claims the Telexfree model to be the future is obviously recreating the same BS dribble that was drabbled to them during the Newport Beach weekend event sponsored by your local friendly team Telexfree and the other knuckleheads right before they emptied his/her wallet of the initial investment of $ to anti-up
Sit tight boys and girls, this ride will get interesting from here on out…watch closely as those at the top get positioned on the next scam as you newbies are scammer your family’s and friends into this one
Well, this can be solved with another video:
“20 weekly ROI Model = new MLM”
then “Where is the money coming from?”
“What did people do to earn this money?”
Then “do money grow on trees?”
“Is it real?”
“If it is, why do I have to pay first?”
“Where is my money going?”
“Into YOUR pocket, perhaps?”
end on the huge question mark. 🙂
Another brand new video from Carlos “paper waver” Costa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYT013aQJ04
Now he waves a scrawled paper and keeps pointing with the pen things that we can’t see (4min 20sec).
Interesting that, earlier in the video, he showed a photo on his laptop and there was a special zoom so we could see it better. If they have this resource, how come there is never a zoom on his papers? If those papers are really relevant, why does he just wave them, instead of actually showing what is written?
The answer is that whatever is written doesn’t matter at all. He just expect people to believe him more if he holds a paper while talking. As far as I know, those might be something he used when he ran out of toilet paper.
One can always make a video or picture putting Costas waving paper next to a preacher waving the Bible. Then put a caption:
One is speaking for God. Who is the other one speaking for?
What is the penalty for worshipping a false idol?
That video Igor is really nothing more than a brainwash tactic to manipulate the crowd. It really seems like Carlos Costa is seriously delusional thinking a God is on TelexFree’s side and explaining that TF is not a pyramid.
Yesterday I saw on Facebook, in a page called “Telexfree affiliates association” a Costa’s photo woth the caption “the Brazilian modern MLM’s Pope” https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=272901209514749&id=261462763991927
I am a Malaysian. A friend approached me on Telex Free. I reckon it is one of those Quick Get Rich Scheme/SCAM. I did not want to jump into conclusion and check out TF with an open mind. I truly appreciate all the postings. It is most unfortunate TF has spread to this part of Asia and I feel sorry for those who are ‘sucked’ into TF. It is obvious that they are ‘opening’ more countries to recruit/ bring in more ‘promoters’ to ensure sufficient $$$$ for payouts ): With the collapse of Brazil market, there is the US market and many more other markets for them to tap. My friend told me TF is a US based company with a marketing plan on “Pay per Click” online advertising model. Obviously, returns are generous & lucrative for all participating ‘promoters’.
They have to keep opening new markets to sustain their payouts.
Unitel is the new AISPA, “All India Speakasia Panelist Association”. It will typically attract “true believers” and the people who have the most to lose in a shutdown. It will be a “stronghold for irrationality”, so the best strategy is simply to leave it alone.
It’s also reflected in the subtitle to the picture, e.g. “Pope of Marketing”. Why would anyone want to have a religious leader leading a business? It doesn’t make much sense if you know the difference between business and religion and the different methods used in both.
Different types of organizations will require different types of leadership, e.g. a “gang” will require quite different methods than a business. A gang is typically bound together by different sets of motives than a business, and it’s organized quite differently.
Religion is closer to a gang than to a business in its internal structure, i.e. its highly organized internally in different “structures” and “levels”. Its focus is mostly directed inwards towards its own organization rather than outwards towards a market.
A business wouldn’t have been very functional if it had been organized in the same way. It will normally be less tightly organized internally, e.g. you can find businesses where people have advanced directly from the floor up to high leadership positions simply because they had the right type of talent. They were simply useful in other positions.
Religion is set up to solve other types of problems than businesses, to cover people’s emotional needs rather than deliver practical solutions to something. Unitel will probably become a “stronghold for irrationality”, just like AISPA was.
(continued from my previous post)
For most rational people, it’s not a wise idea to post “annoying comments” in other people’s “stronghold of irrationality”. Attempts to do that will typically be deleted.
I posted a few comments in a couple of SpeakAsia related websites, but I waited until someone actually had ASKED for the type of information I was able to deliver, and when I KNEW the audience were balanced.
“Unitel” is set up primarily to solve people’s emotional needs. So far it has allowed 656 people to like the idea of being led by a Pope with rather strange paper waving rituals, but with few real results.
It’s probably some “New Age” paper waving cult or something. The papers are simply religious symbols, the physical manifestation of something they want to believe in. People are probably expecting some types of miracles to happen. 🙂
This crew just may break the world wide scam record set by Zeek! This will not remain a simple civil matter….There will be blood. The promoters of this one will have criminal consequences….Look up the word and the crime of CONSPIRACY …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_%28crime%29
That theory will be an exaggeration of the current case. A court will normally not allow “paragraph shopping”, i.e. looking through a whole registry of different laws and rules and apply every rule that has a potential chance to be accepted.
Defendants in a case have some rights too, not only the prosecutors. They will normally have some protection against “constructed charges” in a charge sheet. A court should normally reject a case if contains any “constructed charges”. It should normally also reject “constructed defense theories” from a Defendant.
A charge sheet should first of all reflect the realities of a case. If ONE business structure can be defined to be a “conspiracy” of some type, then ANY business structure can be defined in a similar way. And then the case will be flawed because it doesn’t reflect the realities of the case.
Current record is still TVI Express. Exact figures are hard to come by, but it’s millions of dollars, perhaps hundreds of millions, with millions of victims in dozens of countries. In South Africa alone the scam is estimated to be 1 billion Rand (over 100 million USD in current exchange rate).
Not sure about Brazilian law, but the AdSurfDaily in rem civil forfeiture action (August 2008/United States) was brought in part as a conspiracy case — specifically, conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The federal money-laundering statute also is referenced.
When ASD President Andy Bowdoin was indicted criminally, the charges were five counts of wire fraud, one count of securities fraud and one count of unlawful sale of unregistered securities.
About 28 months passed between the time the in rem case was brought (August 2008) and the criminal case was announced (December 2010).
There is a school of thought that the last shoe hasn’t dropped with respect to ASD because of the conspiracy element.
From the in rem complaint:
PPBlog
Which would be applicable if what was being discussed here was a “business structure”
“IF” Telex Free turns out to be nothing more than a pyramid and/or a ponzi scheme as many suspect, then “normal” business thinking no longer applies.
Rather, as PPBlog points out, charges of fraud, money laundering and conspiracy are more likely, depending largely on how Brazilian laws are framed.
Check the Wikipedia link?
My main points were about “paragraph shopping”, “constructed charge sheet” and “a charge sheet should first of all reflect the realities of a case”.
Your main points seem to be an irrelevant attempt to introduce Personal Construct Psychology (PCP) a theory of personality and cognition into the conversation. As you may know PCP is a theoretical psychotherapy approach which helps patients to uncover their own “constructs” (ways of seeing the world)
A main tenet of PCP theory is that a person’s unique psychological processes are channeled by the way s/he anticipates events.
Neat stuff if this was the Psychology Today forum, which it is not.
PCP has always been a minority interest among psychologists but it has been used to identify the ways in which consumers construe products and services. You claim to be a salesman so I assume you became aware of consumer “constructs” in a sales seminar or something. Well, that’s fine as far as it goes but I have my doubts that it is relevant to conspiracy law.
All of which are irrelevant to the facts at hand.
“IF” ( please note the use of the conjunctive “IF” here) TelexFree is, as suspected, a fraudulent scheme AND there is more than one person involved in orchestrating said fraud, then a conspiracy exists.
(Please note also, I deliberately used the word “FRAUD” without defining what “TYPE” of fraud is being perpetrated by those behind TelexFree)
I did so deliberately, based on your habit of deliberate obfuscation of otherwise straightforward subjects with pseudo psychology.
“IF” ( see that usage of the conjunctive again??) TelexFree is, as the evidence suggests, a fraud, then no amount of discussing business principles, paragraph shopping, charge sheets or even constructed charge sheets will have the slightest relevance to the fraud, money laundering and conspiracy involved
Neither, for that matter, will the usage of terms such as “pyramid” or “ponzi” or “failed business plan”
You’re acting more like a parody for a “Flame Warrior” than a real one, switching between different styles. First it was “Duellist”, then it was “Nitpick”, and now it’s “Therapist”.
http://www.politicsforum.org/images/flame_warriors/
That’s why I asked you to read the Wikipedia link to see what conspiracy is about, e.g. the type of cases it has been about.
Also note that my comment was related to another comment, where the conspiracy was about the participants rather than the organizers.
I simply don’t believe Conspiracy will be the right type of potential charges. It will require constructed theories.
Do I really have to? I rather let the Brazilian Court do the talking… (perhaps you didn’t hear them?). Maybe you’re so big, they will hear you… lol
Now Telexfree has posted videos and photos of their “Extravaganza” cruise tour in California. Funny to see speeches in Portuguese and how most of the US “promoters” are still Brazilians…
Latest news: so far, two afiliates granted their right in Court to get their investiments back. One of the had invested BRZ R$100.000. They will serve as jurisdiction predecessors to others.
In ACRE there are already another 50 law suits of big investors against Telexfree, which were filled in early July.
http://economia.uol.com.br/noticias/redacao/2013/07/25/justica-do-mt-obriga-telexfree-a-devolver-r-1015-mil-a-consumidor.htm
http://exame.abril.com.br/brasil/noticias/homem-consegue-liminar-para-reaver-r-5-8-mil-da-telexfree
Why don't you just define what a "constructed charge sheet" is so that there is no misunderstanding.
A charge sheet that doesn’t reflect the realities of a case (the MAIN aspects of it), or when you have multiple charges for exactly the same crime, e.g. charging a murderer for illegal possession of the weapon he used, or for attempt to destroy evidence because the weapon was thrown into a nearby river.
Some types of crimes should clearly be part of the evidence rather than part of the charges.
You are more experienced than me in constructing theories, so I believe you will find better examples yourself. 🙂
The discussion is actually about whether or not promoters of TelexFree should be / can be charged for Conspiracy. I identified it to be a “constructed theory”, it doesn’t reflect the realities of the case.
What absolute bloody nonsense.
It’s a bloody fraud and more than one person is involved in it.
Forget about what cockamamie pseudo psychological theories and Wikipedia definitions “M_Norway” comes up with, look at other recent similar fraud cases.
Fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to commit both.
What did you believe it was about? I asked you two times to check the Wikipedia link. What the discussion is about can be found in the same comment. I have even quoted from the comment, to show it to you.
The discussion is about whether or not TelexFree promoters can be / should be charged with conspiracy charges, and I believe that idea is rather constructed.
I’m clearly discussing the current case, not a hypothetical one. I’m not discussing other cases either.
“Clearly” and “M_Norway” in the same sentence is an oxymoron if there ever was one.
The only “construction” in this discussion is your “constructing” confusion where none is necessary.
I’m simply unable to follow your logics here?
I can clearly see what happened here, but I don’t expect it to solve anything.
Post #318 contained the Wikipedia link, and the statement about potential conspiracy charges for TelexFree promoters. My reply in post #319 was identified to be about that. Your post #322 replied to a small part of post #319, but out of context. My post #323 tried to direct you back to the original post #318 and back to the initial context. And so on and so forth in a few more posts.
I could have made it clearer right from the start, e.g. instead of making only 1 statement about “current case” I could have made 2 or 3 statements.
Then I have identified where I BELIEVE the discussion derailed from a track, and a potential solution to it. But a solution like that won’t work because of the chronological order of the comments. I can’t know or predict if something will be interpreted out of context before it actually happens.
Kiss and make up, lol.
And therein lies the problem with your theorizing.
There IS NO “business structure”
There is only something designed to LOOK LIKE a “business structure”
Rather than referring to Wikipedia to strengthen your theorizing, might I suggest you instead watch the Paul Newman / Robert Redford movie “The Sting” paying particular attention to the representation of a casino used to pull off said “Sting”
TelexFree may “look like” or “resemble” a real business, BUT IT ISN’T
It is an imitation “real business” established AS A CONSPIRACY between a number of people to defraud others.
I agree folks…Kiss and make up, this blog is designed to assist those in the direct marketing industry.
I have to agree that a so called business like TelexFree is not a business, but rather call it a scheme with a product.
As a matter fact: It IS true! any business CAN actually violate federal and/or state civil and criminal law AND when the requisite number of participants are involved (more than one person) there MAY BE an additional matter (a ‘tort’ in a civil matter) and (a ‘crime’ for criminal matters)that most likely will be stacked onto the instant offense and charge along with potentially others like, money laundry, tax evasion, structuring, wire fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud etc…what is important here is…Is Telexfree a scam! an illegal pyramid? and will it make it through the end of the year? how many will be hurt? how many reputations will suffer and how many lives will be shaken
Your comment doesn’t make much sense. You’re repeating points I already have clarified, simply ignoring the clarifications?
I identified where I believe the discussion derailed, and I have identified that to be the main problem. The discussion simply derailed from a specific topic to a topic out of context (where you were the only one discussing the second topic).
The initial comment was about charging TelexFree promoters with conspiracy charges, with a Wikipedia link to illustrate that idea. My reply to it (after I had read the Wikipedia article) was that it didn’t reflect the realities of the case, because of all the different criterias mentioned there.
To charge TelexFree promoters with criminal conspiracy charges, a prosecutor will need to prove beyond reasonable doubt (or other legal standard) that people actually KNEW they were joining a fraud (before joining it), and had the intention of defrauding other people.
That logic is simply related to whether people KNEW they joined a fraud or if they believed they joined a business opportunity. I’m not talking about the facts there, but about how to prove it in court (the KNOWLEDGE and the INTENTIONS).
Then I can take a look at your version of the problem. You’re identifying the problem to be about the comment itself, a small fraction of it, separated from other parts of the comment?
I identified that to be “out of context”, so I haven’t contributed to any discussions about it either.
“Hundreds of millions” of dollars aren’t so impressive. The amount blocked on Telexfree is R$ 660 million or about USD 300 million, and everybody knows it isn’t enough to cover everything. The exact loss is still to be known.
By the way, I am not sure TF will even be the largest pyramid in Brazil, at least not in money amount.
The “Boi Gordo”, for exemple, left R$ 2,5 billion in debts (http://www.estadao.com.br/noticias/impresso,criador-da-boi-gordo-que-lesou-mais-de-30-mil-se-livra-da-prisao,417937,0.htm). Some sources even mention R$ 3,9 billion (http://www.clinicadefinancas.com.br/web/artigos/os-golpes-financeiros-que-enganaram-milhares-de-investidores/). I am not sure wich one is more accurate. Perharps the R$ 3,9 bi counts the undrawn profits, and not just the initial investiment, or something like this. Anyway, both numbers are much more than “hundreds of millions”.
“Avestruz Master” is another famous one, vanishing about R$ 1 billion (http://exame.abril.com.br/seu-dinheiro/noticias/6-golpes-financeiros-que-enganaram-milhares-de-investidores?p=5#5)- by the way, this link also mention Boi Gordo, with R$ 3,9 bi. Clik on the ox picture to see it.
In 2004, Avestruz Master invested R$ 4 million in ads and olny R$ 100.000 in Ostrich feed (Ostrich was supposed to be their main product).
The only thing in which Telexfree is grater than all the other Brazilian pyramids is the number of victims. You can see reports from 400 thousand to 2 million. Any number is way higher than the 30 to 40 thousand from Boi Gordo and Avestruz Master.
“PEOPLE” and “PARTICIPANTS” are a long way different than “PROMOTERS”
The “PROMOTERS” are the people behind the scheme, the organizers, the financiers.
“Corporate promoter, an entity who takes active steps in the formation, organization, or financing of a corporation”
If we really want to split hairs, those who accept money for recommending others to participate in an “opportunity” via referral commission have moved themselves into an entirely different category WRT potential conspiracy prosecution, as well.
While such prosecution is not likely, that is not to say it is not possible
In TelexFree, all the participants are actually called “promoters” or “publishers”, depending on the source of information.
They are all called “divulgadores”, that could be translated as promoters or publishers.
It is because they recieve money to spam the internet with ads no one will read.
I think the best word is “exposer”, as in “show the world”, but that doesn’t translate very well in English. 😀
I mean, that word is used by everybody, from skeptics to “free-thinkers” to new-Age coo-coo stuff. 🙂
But I think LRM and Hoss and M_N have been going at it for a while. 😀 M_N is good with high concepts, Hoss is there with some snide remarks, and LRM is there with a cynical eye, demanding “Why can’t you just call a scam a scam?” 🙂
But they are really all on the same side, they merely can’t agree on the terminology or the semantics. 😀
It’s a fraud,
members are no more “promoters” or “publishers” than they are sellers of VOIP, banners, impressions, internet advertising, prime bank notes or discounted postal reply coupons a la Charles Ponzi
I have simply used TelexFree’s own expression. “Promoter” is commonly used in TelexFree’s own marketing and among the members (in English).
Some examples:
The main organizers will typically be identified by name, i.e. Carlos Costa, James Merrill, Carlos Wanzeler.
Thereby promulgating the myth that TelexFree members are anything but (unwitting) participants in a fraudulent scheme in which many/most of them will lose their money.
The same side of what?
Who do you think “maron” was referring to when he wrote:
“This crew just may break the world wide scam record set by Zeek! This will not remain a simple civil matter….There will be blood. The promoters of this one will have criminal consequences….Look up the word and the crime of CONSPIRACY” ????
He was talking about the very persons you just named!
You have drug this conversation down a rat hole, mainly because you do not understand the elements of civil vs criminal conspiracy and have been willing to defend your misconceptions unto death. In the process you have identified the very persons maron was talking about when he suggested there would be a prosecution of criminal conspirators.
Congratulations, You get it.
Secondarily……
No prosecutor would ever allege that every single divulgadore (no matter how you translate that into English) was part of a criminal conspiracy (as defined under the law.) That is patently ridiculous and it is not at all what maron suggested would happen. However, he DID suggest it is plausible (or even probable) that insiders such as Carlos Costa, James Merrill, Carlos Wanzeler could be charged.
Comparatively, under US law (and probably under Brazilian too) the vast majority and general population of divulgadores could only be held accountable for participating in a civil conspiracy…..not a criminal one. There is a huge difference and though you belittle “paragraph shopping” if the behaviour of the insiders conforms to the definition of civil conspiracy under paragraph this that and the other of the criminal code, then they can be prosecuted and found guilty.
Correction: ….though you belittle “paragraph shopping” if the behaviour of the insiders conforms to the definition of CRIMINAL conspiracy under paragraph this that and the other of the CRIMINAL CODE, then they can be prosecuted and found guilty.
In a nutshell the conversation declined into muddy incomprehensibility when you declared that nobody could be prosecuted under criminal conspiracy statutes because the hundreds of thousands of low level devulgadores could not be prosecuted under the same criminal statutes.
That is clearly nonsense. There is a difference under the law between culpable insiders and everybody else.
You’ve called him or something, to get it verified? Or else you’re simply presenting your own theories as “facts”, without having verified them first.
I identified “promoters” to be about the “divulgadores”, and it’s also clearly reflected throughout my comments. I have NOT tried to establish whether that interpretation is correct or not, it has been presented as it is. So I have very little “personal prestige” invested in the discussion.
The discussion started in post #318. You don’t need any input from me to continue it, you can simply post the logic for it. That method should normally prevent the discussion from derailing further.
My logic was plain and simple = the different criterias for Conspiracy simply don’t reflect the realities of the case (for the divulgadores). It was a rather quick reply, so I haven’t analysed it in each and every detail.
Well you should because what you said and defended over and over over was that criminal conspiracy charges were inappropriate as against the ringleaders because criminal conspiracy was not supportable as against each and every rank and file divulgadore.
All I can say about that is that your novel interpretation surely warms the hearts of Carlos Costa, James Merrill, and Carlos Wanzeler. Perhaps they will bring it to the attention of their attorney.
@Hoss
No I haven’t and it makes no difference if he meant Wenzler or Pogo the Magic Bunny. If they criminally conspired they can be indicted for criminal conspiracy.
END
Another MLM compeny(Multiclick) whose business model is very similar to TF(in Multiclick’s case, the ROI is to share ads in your FB account) entered with a lawsuit asking a “preventive unfreeze” of the company’s assets and bank accounts. Unofficial reports say that Multiclick(that was founded just after the fall of Mister Colibri) may be next MLM company to be closed of blocked by Brazilian courts http://industriadadecepcao.wordpress.com/2013/07/24/decisao-inedita-no-mt-que-pode-criar-precedente-contra-telexfree/#comment-18211
And Multiclick will not be the last one. There are at least 30 Ponzi Schemes under investigation in Brazil right now. Most of the names will not be released now, but the number is official. As soon as more judicial actions are taken, we are going to see which companies they are.
I hope they include also the “traditional” Ponzis, like Monavie and Herbalife. They are not as grotesque as Telexfree, BBOM, Prieples, etc, but still, they operate an obvious scheme.
This really looks like a pyramid and ponzi, the only people who make money are the owners. People stop wasting your money on this scams.
There is this one guy Dr. Lieven promoting this scam on his Facebook page. I wish people would do their research first before joining up. I cant warn people on his Facebook group because he kicks everybody out who post bad comments. But he is good at conning people into every program he is in.
He is promoting like 6-7 programs on his Facebook and all scams/ponzis for I know.
Now dubbed in English: the story of the street salesman who became a “leader” in Telexfree and bought a Ferrari.
The story is probably following a written manuscript, written by a professional testimonial writer to use it in marketing. It’s following a well known concept for how to build up testimonial stories, and for which elements to use to attract different types of people.
You can even buy libraries with several hundred beginnings, middle parts and endings so you easily can make up new “original stories” from scratch.
Reminds me sort of the empowers network deceptive “Tough Times” testimonials of Wood and Sharp. Touch on people’s emotions with a sad sob story and mix in greed, you then have a recipe to get folks to open up their wallets and blindly hand out their money.
I don’t know about you guys, but the salesman and his wife story brought tears to my eyes. I wonder if he will have a follow up story on how he lost everything he acquired through TelexFree.
Carlos Wanzeler’s lecture in Telexfree Extravaganza in California.
It was exaggerated almost right from the start, e.g. “We couldn’t afford to buy milk, so I had to give the baby crushed beans in a bottle”.
Some internet marketing coaches will teach you how to write stories like that, and how to present them as true testimonials. It’s about how to build up the story and how to make it become believable.
You can also find “unique story generators” choosing different beginnings, middle parts and endings from a library. You can use the stories they generate as raw models for your own testimonials, i.e. modifying and personalizing the story yourself.
You CAN also use them directly, but the results will be much better if you add some real parts from your own experience.
From my viewpoint, stories like that are only part of misleading marketing practices. They are not designed for closer examination, so they are primarily designed for “social marketing”.
When you have read 5 or 10 stories following exactly the same pattern, you will become rather immune to them. You will probably find dozens of copies of the story on the internet. For some stories, you can find hundreds of copies from different authors.
All stories have a rather tragical beginning (e.g. some reason for low income), a rather tragical middle part (where they have met some friends telling them about MLM, but where they failed for years), and a happy ending (where they finally were introduced to the right type of program by a friend).
All the stories are set up to meet different criterias for a wide range of people, e.g. you can write stories primarily designed for middle class people, 50-60 years of age.
You can also design them to meet different types of motives, e.g. from part time income to “fire your boss and become independent”.
Gasp! Scripted infomercials. What will they think of next.
Question, where do you buy something like this, and is it specifically marketed as a means to create fake testimonials? Could you post examples of books that teach people scamming 101, basically?
I knew fake testimonials were the norm, but thought everyone who taught this at least pretended they were being ethical. Can you just pick stuff like this up on amazon?
For some reason I thought that everyone kept their best lying secrets to themselves. I’m shocked at the boldness.
If you search on Google for “testimonial generator”, you’ll find tons of links, all of them offer to sell you such a thing for $$$$. 🙂
And you can certainly find people on Fiverr or such who’d record such a testimonial for you for $5. Written’s even cheaper.
The “best kept secrets” are actually sold to unsuspecting members. The *best* secrets are kept in-house in the “boiler rooms” (call centers) where they cold call prospects. The watered down versions are sold in packages as a part of “the syndicate”.
You’ll want to search for “The Verge Scamworld” and read their article about how such a syndicate of marketers use these tools and such to entrap people to hand over thousands of dollars on promises of internet income.
Here’s one such place… they’ll write a script for you, make a video (with an actor/actress acting out the stuff), with another person doing a voice over, plus at least 10 comments lauding the thing (who gets paid a nickel or a dime), with options to clone the video to all the other video services like Vimeo, at least 10 subscribers (who gets paid a quarter if they subscribe to your bogus channel). They’ll also spam forums for you. 🙂
videotestimonial(dot)org/order/?prices
Yes, I have actually seen “reviews” of programs like that (programs, “systems” or anything like that). But the idea doesn’t work very well other than as a raw model for a story, e.g. “How to build up your own story”.
I have never been interested in the stuff itself, only in how it works. I consider it to be junk even if it can work. K. Chang gave you an answer for how to find “testimonial generators”.
It’s typically part of internet marketing training courses, along with similar “How to” stuff (e.g. “How to write expert author articles”). I have heard about it INDIRECTLY from members in programs like that, e.g. when they’re telling about all the efforts they have invested in the program.
K. Chang also pointed out (indirectly) that most of it is a waste of time, i.e. you will only get some basic stuff and no “real secrets”.
AFAIK, it ONLY works for income opportunities. You can’t use methods like that to sell products or services.
A disadvantage with methods like that is that you will be competing in the same parts of the markets as everyone else, trying to attract all the “low hanging fruits” everyone else is trying to pick.
Professionals will normally use plain and simple IDEAS rather than “How to do” recipes. And they will use IDEAS they understand themselves. A “scamming 101” will typically be of most interest for wannabes.
Paul Burks (Zeek) used his experience as a magician to create some ILLUSIONS that fooled most of the MLM professionals and hundreds of thousands of investors.
He simply used some basic principles, e.g. “people will identify things like they SEE them”. If you call it “Cash available”, people will BELIEVE it really is cash (even when it’s only numbers on a screen).
A part of the same idea is “Zeek didn’t FEEL like a scam”. People actually felt their money grow through the daily payouts to the back office.
If you’re looking for long term solutions to something, the keyword should be “ideas” rather than “methods”. But most people will prefer “step by step methods”.
ILLUSIONS are actually about how people’s OWN brains are tricking them into believing in something. It will work if they ALREADY believe in it or if they WANT to believe in it. It will need to reflect ideas people already have.
in a recent video, the same guy form the video says that he spent US$ 20,000 renting a plane to go to Acre and try to gett support from politicians to Telexfree
How would he get support? Just because he rented a plane!
The plane rental is probably all bull anyhow. Like seriously!, couldn’t he have just, well, em… Flown on the next flight out. What did he do, give politicians a joy ride in the Telex”Freeze” mile high club?
There’s no drama, no story in that!
Great site!! A master piece indeed! Thanks to Oz, and other members also, specially Mr Norway and Mr Chang.
I was thinking of investing some of my savings in this “business”, easy money indeed. Certainly does not require any type of hard work. Click and click. Idiot proof indeed…
Despite its ability to fool those that have not the skills to recognise it has a scam, it really does impress me just how those who started this type of scheme, can be so open face. So dishonest. So blind to the misery that they encourage. To the debt that will, potentially, cripple a country for a good long time.
Brazil in itself is a society of survivalism. Where ppl would almost do anything just to have some money. Special reference to human organ selling on black-market is a must. Brazil is far to materialistic. toys toys toys toys …Too much soap opera and brainwashing about what is “success” in life. That Success usually means Ferrari, iPhone, Suits, rolex…Such is the idea of success to many.
Destroying this Planet wealth for trinkets…? Such silliness is costly…Obviously Brazilian government is to blame for many things. If not for ALLL things…such a RICH country Brazil is… Ah god, such potential. But plain old fashion ego self orientated “fu*k em” mentality destroys all things…
Being corrupt is a way of life in Brazil. A career. A means to and end. A goal…And the poor peasent, toils away, divinity inside, all of us, and yet a country in a medieval age mentality, makes him a slave. to eat he must steal? to feed his family, use Ponzi schemes???
Brazilian govermet has much to anwser for…and so do the Portuguese that crafted Brazil for exploitation. For the same old energy still goes on…It’s really sad.
Perhaps one day, the ppl will turn their backs on government and work together for their own welfare. I know…impossible. Too many ppl. Some tribes in USA manged it, native Americans, but at some cost.
In brazil, Toooooo much dissent and “survivalism mentality” for ppl to behave is such a radical way. Not to mention lack of funds and logistics. It may seem has if this has nothing to do with Telex free, yet, has all know, all things are interlaced and inter related.
7 billion humans living” The wealthy” soap opera brain wash life style, is NOT possible. Those that do it, are, for lack of a better word, blind.
Anyway, the sheer balls and gall of the owners of this company, of going around promoting this business structure, that has so many pitfalls and hazards to society, shows zero honour and integraty. Just because it pays for toys…..????? Its something that reeks of a mind that is indeed intelligent, but extremely childish. No wisdom. Does not care.
We are the Human family. We should treat ourselves with more respect. Honour. In Japan, the loss of face and honour in business (and other things) is of such magnitude that, well, I suspect Telex free will never get a foothold there.
And the TelexFreeze reality show continues. Stay tuned for the next episode when the Costa clan report back from the inside of the penitentiary. Will they get bailed out by their fellow TelexFreeze members from across the USA and beyond.
Does anybody know what happened to the supposedly demonstration scheduled for this past Monday in Brasilia?
Oz – will anyone go to prison for being involved with this Ponzi scheme?
Hey look, You know its one thing that the company and its founders have put together a program to grow a network of people talking about the company and the product, That’s the focus of the majority of business.
But when the mechanism in place which creates that word-of-mouth promotion becomes the centerpiece of the business model and where the cash and profits flow, then you have the potential to focus only on that part…This is what has clearly happened with Telexfree.
The leaders and the promoters of this scam already know the score… They are the street level ‘pushers’ of this scam and they are the ones who really need an ass whipping, they are thieves of the lowest form, they are stealing nickles and dimes from their contacts and they do so with extreme prejudice…
Their penalty will be to lose their reputations (eventually).
PPBlog just broke a story that TelexFree doesn’t even have a license to offer VOIP service in Brazil:
http://www.patrickpretty.com/2013/08/14/report-telexfree-has-no-license-to-offer-voip-services-in-brazil-claim-reminiscent-of-u-s-government-assertion-against-adsurfdaily-ponzi-schemer-last-year/
Is that why they claimed to buy Voxbras earlier? To get around this little “problem”?
To badly quote a bad quote… “It’s deja vu all over again!”
This sure reminds me of TVI Express in Indonesia, claiming they are NOT MLM and therefore doesn’t need the “direct marketing” business license rather than the regular business license they got.
And there’s also the Zeekheads, some of whom to this day still claimed that “Zeek doesn’t offer investment and SEC can’t close it”.
@MEO
That’s impossible for me to answer as it depends entirely on US and Brazilian regulators.
Quick answer is “NO”… a least as far as “Brazil” goes (can’t say about US) Brazilian laws only specify 6 months to 2 years of Prison for economic crimes, and in the vast majority of the cases they can be traded for community service and fines.
The ministry is trying to change the law because of that. Probably won’t change before this cases is over though…
Thank you for this review. Has telexfree been banned in Brasil?
@sarah
Not banned (yet) but effectively gutted. They cannot sign up any new affiliates or pay out existing affiliate investors.
Telexfree has been temporarily enjoined (prohibited) from distributing funds (no payouts… funds are frozen,) and may not accept any new funds (sign up new members.) The leaders/insiders are under investigation for criminal conduct.
Telexfree in Brazil is not banned, but it can not conduct business and will almost certainly be permanently shutdown in the near future.
You will get a quick overview just by reading some headlines and look at the dates when the articles were published.
1. Scroll to the top of this article
2. Click “TelexFree” link (just under the headline)
That will give you a chronological list of all TelexFree articles, newest first, around 20 total.
Point 2 can also be found in the menus to the right, under “Companies” – “TelexFree”.
A short summary:
18th June: TelexFree Brazil was “frozen” temporarily
12th August: The freezing was made permanent
28th August: TelexFree had its 12th appeal denied, STJ
29th August: Currently the last appeal, Superior Court STJ
The huge number of appeals is related to 4 individual defendants, where typically 2 of them are filing different types of appeals to the same courts (1 appeal immediately after an order, 1 appeal when the first appeal has failed, to the same court).
So you have 2 appeals to each and every court in the system, but most of them to the second level court in Acre.
* 1st level = 1 judge, state level
* 2nd level = 3 judges, state level
* 3rd level = Superior Court STJ, Supreme Court STF (federal)
“Freezing” is about a precautionary injunction. Hoss gave an accurate description of it. Defendants in the case are:
* Ympactus Comercial LTDA (TelexFree Brazil)
* Carlos Costa (owner)
* James Merrill (owner)
* Carlos Wanzeler (owner)
* Lyvia Wanzeler (wife of owner)
The individual defendants are also the owners / organizers for TelexFree USA / Global.
OMG I just got into this 4 weeks ago for the easy money…just think 17 weeks I would of made my money back.
Any updates on this? I have search the internet looking for the bad where do you find all thius stuff?
We have several.
* Scroll to the top.
* Click on “TelexFree” (under the headline in the article)
That will bring up a list of articles, newest first. Simply reading the headlines / looking at the dates will give you a quick overview.
A quick overview from me (about Brazil):
June 18th: Temporary injunction, freeze assets
August 12th: Injunction was made permanent
Between those 2 dates, TelexFree Brazil lost 10 or 11 different types of appeals. In Brazil, the activities have been frozen / shut down since June 18th, but it hasn’t DIRECTLY affected the U.S. yet.
I expected the situation in Brazil to lead to a shutdown in the U.S. too within “a few weeks or months”, but that time period has expired without anything pointing CLEARLY in that direction.
It’s impossible to predict anything, but it points towards a shutdown sometimes in the “near future”.
hey i did telex free….you guys do the math right, there is no money with telex free unless you got 10 people or more under you..
here >>> you only got pay every 45 days or more. 45 days in and year is 8 times or less depend if day pay you in 45 days. most cases is longer. them here is your final.
After 8 times getting paid and getting back what you invest in, not count every day posting adds, you only made about $200.00…. because you have to repurchase your account at end of year.
We know most of the details …
… but the review hasn’t been updated for all the “technical changes” when it’s about minor unimportant details.
You CAN create your own customers through the back office = no need for recruiting anyone, no need to sell any product.
You CAN withdraw money each week, but you will need to build up $300 first. But the payment system may be different from country to country, e.g. Brazil only allowed monthly withdrawals right before it was shut down in June 2013.
You don’t need to pay for the VOIP subscription other than in the first month. You will only need to pay for it if you want to use it. If you don’t want to use it, you can have it as an unpaid bill in your back office.
Creating one fake customer (to qualify for payouts) will cost you $49.99, but you will receive $44.99 in commission the first month. It can be paid directly from the back office, you don’t need to bring in any new money.
You can create several sub accounts under your main account, and use them to purchase more AdCentrals so you can earn the $20 retail commission yourself, rather than sending it to your sponsor.
You can buy 1 or more AdCentrals, Family AdCentrals or multiple “Contracts” (e.g. 11 Family Pack “Contracts” will cost you $15,125 total, and you will earn $1100 per week.
You can reinvest the payouts to the back office, buy more “Contracts” and earn more money per week. You can double your investment in 12-13 weeks using that method.
First of all, sorry for my english.. I really don/t know what is the problem, i bet that none of you critics, have tried the company.. I have! And im not sponsoring.. i got my money back in 3 months and everything additional is profit..
I don’t know how long they will last but i know they, at least, have many months ahead. They’re opening legal offices in other countries like Dominican Republic, Peru, Panama and working on the plataform and adding a new e-wallet for the payments..
So what is the difference between TF and the other companies like Amway, Herbalife or 4life.. People struggle on those and they’ve been for many, many years.. So imagine one where everyone gets paid..
Everyone WILL renew their contract at the end of it..So everybody wins.. That’s my view of it.. While all you complain, i’ll be earning money.. Be Happy! 😉
@Eric
Oh dear.
So as long as you’re comfortable taking money from affiliate investors in these countries, f’em right?
Neither of those companies have an AdCentral Ponzi investment scheme.
Well, except those you’re taking money from.
@Oz
First of all, I’m taking money from the company..All companies take money from thir affiliates.. correct me if im wrong..Do You know exactly when TF will close? Are YOU comfortable with all the other companies taking money from their affiliate investors?
For example, Let’s make a comparison between Amway and TF.. They both have products.. in TF you pay $1,375 upfront one time a year and that is it, you get paid weekly for sure either u sell or not (of course a lot more if you sell)..
With Amway you pay a small fee like $100 to enter..and you have to pay it monthly, so at the end is like $1,300 too, but no money garanteed. Most of the people in MLM quit because they are not making money, so u end up losing instead of earning. If you think that is fair because it’s not a “ponzi investment scheme” then it’s ok… it’s legal, right? so F’em right?
You are right in your idea, Amway or the others can be just as bad or worse than TelexFree. But that is derailing from the topic. We already have articles about Herbalife, and probably one or two about Amway.
We haven’t had much focus on how “bad” or “good” TelexFree is, it has mostly been factual stuff about the situation in Brazil.
No. No one can realisticly predict anything about how and when TelexFree USA will be legally affected, but there’s an upcoming trial in Brazil that potentially can affect it.
The courts in Brazil see the companies as a group of companies, they don’t see TelexFree USA as independent from its owners.
The upcoming trial can potentially be about violation of the injunction, by allowing Brazilians to join TelexFree USA. That can be legal reason enough to shut down the network completely.
The court in Acre sent out subpoenas to defendants and/or witnesses on September 3rd, with a 20 day (4 weeks) deadline. The upcoming trial will probably be held next week, but it can be delayed.
@Eric
No you’re not, you’re stealing from new investors.
Correct. However not all companies pay existing investors with new affiliate investor money.
They are already closed in Brazil. Well, the Ponzi side of the business has been gutted. No recruitment of new investors and no ROI payouts to existing investors.
My personal comfort is neither here nor there.
From new affiliate investment and your “$1,375 upfront” has nothing to do with TelexFree’s “product”.
No you don’t.
That’s no justification for participation in Ponzi schemes.
I live in the United States and can not escape the scams of many sites that look legitimate. one of these scammers is ProfitClicking = AdClickXpress.
I was in the presentation of telexfree but I do not think not reliable or stable investing anything, thanks to all who contribute information to this site is helpful.
hye. i live at malaysia. i want to know that the telexfree company is a true or not. i would like to join a telexfree, but i am afraid i will be cheated.
yes, this MLM can make it a lots of money. that is why i do some research about telexfree. i think it is a big investment. i hope you all can share your information about the telexfree. (sorry for my broken english )
@aisyah
Start reading – https://behindmlm.com/category/companies/telexfree/ (note navigation links at the bottom of the page will take you beyond the first initial ten articles)
Flip a coin. Heads, you will make money. Tails, you will lose money. Its an illegal scheme,
wow, telexfree illegal scheme? are you sure? why people said with joining a telexfree we can make it a money.
It’s haram.
okay. thank you.
wow just reading article on this page: telexfree.faithsloan.com/webinars-calendar/news/
And especially the facebook comments you can see how many people have wool pulled over their eyes. I’m postive that even this woman is part of it ,or just a sheep being herded.
Um, Faith Sloan is not by any means “a sheep being herded”. She’s the sheep herder. If you Google her it’s very easy to research her history in the MLM world. Oh, by the way…don’t let the fact she pals around with some preacher as giving her any sort of legitimacy. As we all know being a self proclaimed “Christian” doesn’t mean a rats ass as far as the quality of ones character and moral code. Any one can say “Ima goooood Christian” ….Acting and being one is an entirely different thing.
Have a look at this video:
It says Carlos Costa proves it’s not a Ponzi.
(Ozedit: 30 minute spam video removed, if you want to summarise why TelexFree is not a Ponzi scheme in text go right ahead)
How do I embed the youtube video I did not want to spam this site with double post.
It’s best to view the video then me explaining it.
TelexFree takes newly invested affiliate money and pays it out to existing affiliate investors at a rate of $20 a week per investment.
A 30 minute video of Carlos Costa ranting changes that how?
It doesn’t he basically says that what they pay with 20% a year renewal fee which will cover the affiliates.
I just wanted opinions on the video and nothing else as I agree it’s Ponzi.and it’s the same yadda yadda about Voip etc.
Well that’s that then. Let’s not waste any further time on it.
Telexfree on wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telexfree
TelexFree and WCM777 now illegal in Peru
http://www.andina.com.pe/Espanol/noticia-empresas-wcm777-y-telexfree-no-estan-autorizados-para-captar-dinero-del-publico-486768.aspx#.Uq0tNPRDt8E
Thanks for that. Will have an article up shortly (what a terrible week it’s been for reviews!).
OMG! Wikipedia? Telexfree has hit main stream!!!
Thank you Frontier…you gave me a giggle today!
Telexfree
Industry: Ponzie scheme, MLM
Wow, I’m sure some of these people have children. Now they can proudly say “my dad is on Wikipedia”… “Ok, so it’s for being a top dog in a Ponzie scheme but I bet your Dad isn’t on Wikipedia.”
Hmmmmm will Telex promoters tell their sheepling that the writer that submitted this to wikipedia is just jelouse of Telexfree sheep being successful????
Dorothy,
This Telexfree Wikipedia article is a result of a joint team effort. It is still under development, and has survived many attacks, and reviews by wiki editors to be on wikipedia standards.
We hope to provide true, notable and reliable referenced information there. The behindmlm.com blog was a big inspiration.
For who was still in doubt how “notable” these Ponzi Schemes are, they were in the TOP 10 overall google searches this year in Brazil!!!
http://www.istoedinheiro.com.br/noticias/136557_ACUSADAS+DE+PIRAMIDE+ESTAO+ENTRE+MAIS+BUSCADAS+NO+GOOGLE+EM+2013
Here is the list of some other companies’owned by Carlos Wanzeler and James Merril, probably made to keep the investors money diluted in different accounts:
Las Vegas:
JC REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT COMPANY LLC
http://nvsos.gov/sosentitysearch/CorpDetails.aspx?lx8nvq=Wfo7fXJ0utQBQetbB7grDA%253d%253d&nt7=0
and
JC REAL ESTATE MANAGEMENT COMPANY LLC
http://nvsos.gov/sosentitysearch/CorpDetails.aspx?lx8nvq=JjGM3LG4WpwQ39d8CztYEA%253d%253d&nt7=0
World Telexfree –
http://nvsos.gov/SOSEntitySearch/CorpDetails.aspx?lx8nvq=nSdP%252f1OdhJ3zZ%252bbDXJtNwA%253d%253d&nt7=0
Ok, so I’m not sure where these “ads” show because I was recently at my brothers house and he showed me how it “works”.
You log into your account and you click on a link that says “place ad” and thats all you see. There is no web page where you are directed to and see the actual ad or where these spams end up. You just log in into your TelexFree account with your individual login information you have for each of your individual accounts (as you can buy many) and click on that link each day.
You get paid to do that but the bulk of the money is made recruiting ppl or more affiliates. The big target it’s to get people to buy a family because for each person that buys a family you get $100 commission.
They don’t even mention the “99Telexfree” VOIP product. I asked my brother, “Show me the program” and he said, “what program?”.
They don’t even know what it looks like, they don’t promote it and it doesn’t even come up when they are trying to recruit you. Because it is not the main money maker. The money comes from signing up more affiliates. In turn after you made so much money you have to return or pay 20% of what you’ve made back into the company.
What my brother does to recruit people is this, he rents a conference room at a hotel for a weekend and advertises the event. Usually 300 to 500 people show up.
I don’t know how many he is able to recruit for one weekend but imagine if only 50 are able to buy “families” and let’s say 100 more buy just the “tier”. There is also another package called a “building” , and that is when a person invest enough to buy 5 families. And that’s where the money comes in.
They don’t care if after you sign up you place your Ad , their big emphasis is sign you up and get you to sign in more of the people you know. That is all they talk about.
Part of the plan to recruit or gets people’s attention is to show off what you’ve made. So they encourage you to buy expensive items (jewerly, clothes, cars) to promote the luxury lifestyle people acquire once they are member of the TelexFree family.
They also talk about sponsors like ATT, Verizon, TMobile, and Best Western as a way to validate the authenticity of the business. As if having big name sponsors backs up the honesty of the company.
Thanks for sharing that Lee. As obvious as it is due to the business model, it’s still interesting to observe the divide between the PR-spin corporate bullshit machine and what actually goes on in TelexFree.
They now entering indonesia and become a boom here.(im indonesian). Since it’s now not active in brazil.. how do they pay out the member at indonesia? (In case when the office at brazil been shutdown).
*sorry for my bad english
@ganzo90
Most of that money will be paid out to US affiliates (and others who “got in early”).
Some TelexFree money was frozen in Brazil but not all of it. TelexFree use offshore bank accounts in undisclosed locations.
You new Indonesian investors are investing on the hope that the company attracts new investors from somewhere else. That’s how Ponzi schemes work.
@Oz
You mean even the main office at brazil been shutdown they still can live on other country? Is there any way to shut down this company permanently?
You’ll just have to get DPMK to issue a public statement: NOT authorized to do business in Indonesia, and get local police to make a few arrests… Like they did the TVI Express.
Having the local Ulama Council declare it haram should help too.
I hope “Rudy Phan” is not in this crap. He made up all sorts of crap trying to portray TVI Express as some legitimate company mainly by making up new lies every week. I better get back on kaskus forum…
@ganzo90
TelexFree didn’t keep all of their funds in Brazil, most of it was sent offshore. The US operation for example was able to continue running despite the seizing of assets and suspension of business in Brazil.
This applies to the rest of the world.
TelexFree was rooted in Brazil but once the investigation was announced two of the three owners fled to the US (and remain there). Now they effectively run it out of the US, sending Labriola and top affiliate investors all around the world to recruit new investors.
Need a little help as a “John” wants to debate TelexFree on my blog. 🙂
http://amlmskeptic.blogspot.com/2013/11/breaking-news-what-is-telexfree-us.html
I can do some of it, in 1+ hour (I have a meeting now). He also had relatively long posts, and is arguing about details. I haven’t found his main points yet.
The price argument is rather meaningless if he want to prove legitimacy. $5 is net price for the first month after commissions, $5 goes to TelexFree / $44.90 is paid out in commission. It’s designed that way so people can “qualify” for commissions by creating fake customers.
Most people will actually disable the Voip subscription after the first month. The $49.90 is more like a membership fee, “everyone will need to pay it to become promoters”, even in countries where the service doesn’t work.
I would have used the strategy of letting HIM update details, by asking some questions.
I gave him 2 comments, one about VoiP prices and one about AdCentrals. He’s repeating marketing statements in some parts, e.g. about the 60+ countries. Neither he nor we will be able to prove nor disprove anything like that.
If he want to make claims like that, simply identify it for what it is.
@Kasey
He keeps going on about “minutes” and dodging your AdCentral question.
I send people who refuse to engage in a two-way discussion and think they can solely “control” the subject (and ignore everything else put to them) to the spambin.
Otherwise you get stuck in this waste-of-time cycle:
“How do you explain A?”
“Nevermind A, what about C!”
“C has nothing to do with A. How do you explain A?”
“You just dont understand A. Now let’s talk about C, why won’t you discuss C?!”
“Because C has nothing to do with A.”
“OMG Why won’t you discuss C! Why are my comments being deleted! etc.”
I’ve joined telexfree in early Dec. I just want to make a lot of money. Then maybe franchise like a pizza place or something. First of all I want to say. I’ve worked in a private company for 12 yrs.
Yes, I punch the clock and my goal is to make daily quota or production. It’s all about profit. Make more pay less to employees. It was American owned. They sold it to the French.
I volunteered for layoff ecause I thought the grass is greener on the other side. It got strict, rules were changed a lot. Benefits were taken away. I’ve put up with a lot of bs because I got mouths to feed and bills to pay. That I didn’t like.
I feel the system in the private company is corrupt too. It involves a lot of politics. You could be making less than your coworker because of favortism. But see you don’t know what they are making because it’s confidential and you could be given a bad review If your boss didn’t like you.
My point is a private company is more corrupted and there are more politics involved in it then this MLM.
Cool story bro.
Doesn’t justify TelexFree being a Ponzi scheme and your involvement in it though. Enjoy the ripping off of investors who come after you.
Let me see if I understand this correctly…
Your quit a job that pays you real money, but you don’t like.
You join a suspect ponzi scheme, where you paid THEM money, but you do like.
So you like giving people money, but hate earning money. Do I understand you correctly?
Hi there Mr K. Chang? If that is your real name as anything coming from the net seems to be always fake. I’m not here to defend nor to attack the “company” but to share what I’ve seen so far.
Maybe I was a “victim” paying the fee to get into the “business”, to be honest I’ve recovered my “investment” and still doing money, you maybe be wonder “How?”, I personally have used the minutes to call outside the USA paying way less than getting prepaid cards, phone plans and so on, and I can’t get to spent those 3000 minutes in a single month!
What I do and the way I got my investment so quickly is NOT because the people I’ve recruited which are none = 0, the way I did is selling air time to people I know who call outside the states and they are happy with the service let along the software which I’ve used too.
So if this is a “Ponzi” or a “Pyramid” how come I work by myself without recruiting people and how do I get the air time to call outside USA saving hundreds of dollars if there’s no product?
I see that there’s a service that I’m using and selling and I haven’t even recruit anyone so I can get the money from, like people in this comments said . If you never try, you’ll never know how the globe rotates.
You have to think out of the box, if people says the road is bad but you haven’t drive thru it yet, how you’ll know it is bad? I’m up for a challenge to take you out your home and away from the screen where people tend to talk to much without trying and work with me selling air time or the software.
I can prove in person how I work and to watch me talking over the phone outside the states with the company’s air time so you can prove me if working by yourself is building a “pyramid” and to explain how do I get money from others when I do really sell the “product”. Are you up for the challenge?
I bet whatever you want and I can sign it on a paper but the question reamins.. are you willing to do it or are you going to keep talking sitting behind the screen talking about something you haven’t tried yet? If so, then all you’ve wrote here is totally invalid and worthless. Have a nice and wonderful day.
P.S. I can give you my personal info so we can meet up and show you how I do, if you prove me wrong then I’ll post it here to warn other people about this bad “Ponzi Scheme” too without a problem.
P.S. If you want to ask something, feel free to do so and I’ll be so glad to try to answer it. Btw I’ll leave a ss of my e-mail with a partial record of the minutes I’ve used and the phone numbers I’ve called. oi39.tinypic.com/20l1kw2.jpg
And there’s your problem. Every Ponzi scheme has a product or service to hide behind these days. The phone service has nothing to do with the AdCentral investment scheme, which therein lies the Ponzi.
And please, don’t waste our time trying to convince people that paying $50 for VOIP is saving you money.
The box is fine brah, Telexfree affiliates just keep trying to tell us it’s a triangle…
Just to clarify something first before the question …
* Ponzi is about the AdCentrals, $20 per week ($16 now)
* Pyramid is about the recruitment of AdCentral investors
Q: Where do you think the money you can earn from the Ponzi pyramid hybrid derives from?
Money has to derive from somewhere. Before they can pay money OUT to you, the money has to come IN from somewhere. That logic should be plain and simple.
The options for your answer are either from some legitimate business activities or from the investors themselves.
Legitimate business activities can be
* from the VoiP subscriptions
* from other legitimate business activities (specify?)
The question should be plain and simple. Yet most people seems to have problem answering it.
I know how a “Ponzi Scheme” works, believe me, I’ve been in lots of HYIP that you can’t even imagine. By the way how do you know the phone service has nothing to do with the AdCentral? I’ll tell you that it really has something to do as you don’t even know a thing because you haven’t tried nor care to see how this works and just speculate about it.
When you want to do your own business i.e. a Video game store, what are you going to buy in order to sell? Games, Consoles, etc. right? if not, then why do you care to open a store that is going to be empty?
Same as here you pay for a “Product” “Service” you are going to sell, does that make sense? Yes.
An Adcentral is a package of softwares worth the money you paid. The software do really exist. How it works you may wonder, well is a fusion of Skype, Teamviewer, Cloud and add to that the air time.
So, does Skype gives you all of that for free? as you all have been saying “why to spent to that when you have Skype”, let me tell you something, in Skype you have to pay “Premium” to get all the features, am I wrong? So is not free at all right? Same goes for the rest I mentioned.
Last night I was talking with someone in South Korea on Skype (She had Skype on her mobile) and the call dropped over 10 times in less than 20 minutes so I decided to call her with the company’s air time and it never dropped the call. Same happened to a friend in Mexico which in less than 7 mins we got annoyed and call over the phone instead.
As in conclusion, I’m not trying to convince you but showing you proof as I did on my original post of me using the minutes. Better yet “You! don’t waste our time trying to convince people that this doesn’t work, that the product doesn’t exist and doesn’t work too, and that this company is not paying and so on.” because you haven’t tried and didn’t even know what an Adcentral was….
Brah? That’s your mature comment? Thank you for showing me that you are either a kid or someone that dropped school.
I wont waste more of my time with you, so have a nice day and don’t worry is ok for me of you staying in your cave typing while I go to work and earn money 🙂
PS. If doing this by myself is a triangle then you failed at geometry too….
Just to clarify something first before answering…
*Adcentral is an inventory you get to sell
*$20 dlls is for reselling the software per week.
*If I recruit you to work for Walmart is a pyramid too
*If I invite you to invest in a Mcdonald franchise is a pyramid too
*Our government is a pyramid too, our schools, our church, even where you work is a pyramid
*The recruitment is OPTIONAL, as I haven’t invite anyone yet and still earning so…
A: I can’t answer to your question as I’m NOT building a pyramid but I can tell you where do I get the money from.
First of all, I get the “software” and “air time” from the company which I sell and guess what I get when I sell them? Bingo! You’re right, money. What does Domino’s Pizza gets when you buy a pizza from them? You’re right again! money.
So I get the product, sell it and get the money. Why is it hard to understand that? If I have a computer store and have the internet service too and recruit you to start selling my PC’s and to offer my internet services and pay you even more to recruit people to do the same as you so my store grows, how do you call that?
Also let me make this clear for you Mr. Norway, we live in a globe that is round but inside of it, is something different as we seem to live in triangles. Also there’s no subscriptions, is more like prepaid service, you use it and like it? you’ll continue, you don’t like it? then you’ll never buy it again as there’s no contract.
PS. I started posting in this blog not to invite people because I don’t care and I’m not even trying but to clarify and see why are you posting stuff you don’t even know about.
Is like doing a review on a new Iphone without even using it. Or review a food when you haven’t eaten. Sorry but that doesn’t make any sense to me.
PS. If you get all the features from Skype, Teamviewer, Cloud, plus 3000 to call land line and mobile over 40 countries, will you buy it? As a member of the company I get that for $5, will any of the programs I mentioned before will give me all of that for $5?
Hope I answered to your questions, if not then I don’t know what you expect to hear.
Each AdCentral has 10 “99TelexFree” software included. That’s correct, but it isn’t a retailable product in itself. That’s why I specified that as the Ponzi component.
You don’t get paid for inventory loading in MLM, so the software will need to be resold before they can pay any commission. You didn’t mention anything about resale, only that people CAN resell the software.
Q: How many “99TelexFree” software (and monthly subscriptions) have you actually sold to real customers, in the last 1 or 3 months (or in any other specific timeframe)?
You have clearly identified that you get paid from the sale of software, and I don’t see any problems in that. The problem is that most others are passive investors or recruiter investors.
I have a follow up question to that one …
Q: How many AdCentrals / AdCentral Family have you bought?
@Rick
So I’m dealing with a certified Ponzi pimp. Right, roll on the bullshit…
Because TelexFree’s business model is not a secret.
I invest $289 and they guarantee a $20 a week ROI (per $289 invested). Product schmoduct, all they require is my invest and some facade “advertising” work (already proven not to be “work” in US courts when it comes to Ponzi schemes, see Zeek Rewards and AdSurfDaily).
If you open a video game store it doesn’t promise you a $20 a week ROI if you invest $289. Please don’t waste my time comparing TelexFree’s Ponzi scheme to an actual business.
Software packages do not guarantee a $20 a week ROI. Also why does someone buy 5 or more packages?
And don’t tell me it’s to sell to 5 customers. All the affiliate investor does is sit back and collect 5X$20 a week ROIs.
California just nailed WCM777 for having affiliate investors invest in 5 year cloud service packages every 100 days. You can cite all the psuedo “but we have a product” compliance you want, US regulators and everyone else sees right through the bullshit.
No worries brah, good luck with the Ponzi schemes and ripping people off.
Hi there Mr. Norway
Exactly it has 10 software the package. If it’s or it’s not reliable, it all depends on the person doing it, as an example, I’m not a football player because is not my thing, I’m not a lawyer because I don’t like to be one, so is not going to be reliable if is not for you.
It can work for me but not for every other person but not because of that you can call it “Ponzi”. If a Monster drink don’t get me the energy they advertise that doesn’t mean that is just water mixed in a can and that I’m going to blog it as bad because it didn’t worked for me.
I did mention the “resell” because I buy the airtime and the software for the company and sell them to the people, isn’t that a resell?
To your next question, I’ve been 1 1/2 months and sold over 15 software and around 30,000 air time minutes. Yes, you’re right people is doing it wrong and I think the company is trying to fix that.
People just recruit others promising big earnings and doing it as the typical “pyramid” but is not like that and the company as far as I know they are not aiming to that and they want them to use and promote the real service and/or software.
Also most of the “promoters” don’t even use the services so how can you advertise or promote something you don’t even care to use or investigate how it works, that’s why I agree with you there.
I want to be %100 honest even tho we’re on the internet where I seem to find the people to be 90% fake on what they do or what they are and my answer is, I did buy just ONE Adcentral and haven’t recruit anyone yet. By the way thanks for being a decent person I can talk to. Not all the people are worth the time to be replying to.
PS. Also I want to add that people is the one that gives a bad image to the company and that’s why it looks like a pyramid and I don’t blame you for that because is true but they have to understand how it really works so the company can go on for years without the image to be a “pyramid” or “Ponzi”.
You’re talking about the 10 “99TelexFree” software here?
Q: Why do you need MANY of those?
For most consumers, 1 software pack should be enough, so why do you buy multiple of them? There’s 10 software per AdCentral, or 50 software per AdCentral Family.
Then you’ll need to clarify that one, if it was about something important.
#435: You offered to answer questions.
#437: I specified something, and asked ONE simple question.
#439: You derailed from that question in most of your answer.
#439: Your argument was related to your own derailing.
Do you seriously mean that I will need to use the software myself to ask ONE simple question about something else? Then you shouldn’t have offered to answer questions either.
I asked about REAL CUSTOMERS there. You didn’t specify anything about that?
A real customer is someone using his OWN money to pay for the software / “air time”, for more than the first month.
Since I’m familiar with some of the back office functions, I do also know about how you can generate your own customers (e.g. for marketing purposes or to qualify for commissions), for the net price of $5 per customer the first month.
Q: Please specify real customers? Use my “more than the first month” definition, and the “OWN money” specification.
The company CLEARLY allows multiple “contracts”. Your ONE AdCentral is the exception rather than the rule. One type of “standard investment” is 11 AdCentral Family for $15,125.
TelexFree also have a Ponzi scheme reinvestment part, where payouts to the back office can be directly reinvested in new AdCentrals, “to compound your investment and increase the weekly payouts”.
That type of reinvestment is a Ponzi type of reinvestment, i.e. it doesn’t involve any fresh money coming in from external sources.
You can’t fix a Ponzi scheme Rick.
Affiliates invest in AdCentrals and collect a $20 ROI per $289 investment because that’s TelexFree’s core business model.
Anything attached to that, including the selling of services to actual customers is irrelevant. It’s called a facade and is used to mask the Ponzi scheme.
Bravo for acknowledging a Ponzi scheme exists within the opportunity. I similarily also acknowledge it’s entirely possible to theoretically sell $50 VOIP packages to retail customers.
The problem is that this doesn’t happen, and the bulk of revenue flowing through the company is just straight up AdCentral investment. Pay your $289 or more and collect your $20 a week ROI for 52 weeks.
TelexFree could abolish the Ponzi scheme but they’d then have to refund everyone globally, which they can’t because Ponzi scheme liabilities (if frozen and compressed) are always >100% of investment funds.
Acre’s Public Prosecutor’s actually gave TelexFree this out, they were willing to permit them to refund everyone (as Costa claimed they could) but only on the condition they also shut the Ponzi scheme down.
Costa refused, because he can’t pay everyone out. He then countered with some bullshit proposal about offering refunds to net-losers, which was seen through because all it was was temporarily releasing funds to investors who would then re-invest it back into the company (Costa demanded they be allowed to continue the Ponzi).
His personal idea isn’t too bad. You CAN make legitimate money if you’re able to sell the software (subscription) for more than $5 to a new customer (for the first month).
It was the same in ZeekRewards. You COULD make legitimate money by selling retail bids to customers. I managed to find 2 real customers in 8 months, a $260 purchase (400 bids) and a $32.50 purchase (50 bids). I also found a few affiliates who actively tried to promote BOTH the auction and the opportunity.
Dear Rick,
Your obviously not 100% Telexfree since you began your own investigation which brought you here. Something isn’t ringing well for you about the “business”. I applaud your curiosity.
FYI for what it’s worth. I recently sent this blog to a friend of mine to get their thoughts on Telexfree. This person is a wealth manager for one of the largest banks in the USA. After reading only a few of the articles they responded that the plan looked “very convoluted and would be very hard to make money legally”.The only people that benefit from lieing to you are Telexfree.
If your wrong, you will lose your money and some self respect that you were taken. If the promoters of Telexfree are wrong….they get some pretty fancy orange jump suits to wear.
Orange is a very un flattering color for anyone. Then there’s the room mate named Jughead that wants to introduce Carlos and Steve as his girlfriend’s Betty and Veronica. Ugh!
I’ve been in sales my entire adult career. Working for small companies or large national corporations. I don’t sell anything that I wouldn’t buy myself. And I wouldn’t work for anyone that has a bad or shady rep.
There is “no way” that anyone is buying into Telexfree because they feel they have a wonderful product that they want to “sell”. Why would I purchase their VOIP when I can work with AT&T, Verison or the other big guys.
There are also smaller companies someone would consider but with all the crap that surrounds this company why would you waist your time? And customer service? Do they even have someone to contact when there is an issue?
Labriola…since last year has been admitting to poor customer service and how it’s “going to be fixed”. Yawn….Perhaps he multi tasks and the customer service is on his “line two”?
lol….How do they fit all these employees into that one small office in Mass?
Then why AT&T, T-mobile, Sprint, Verizon, etc. need lots of devices if for most consumers 1 smartphone is enough?
I do have several friends and relatives that make calls around the world and the minutes and software can’t be share between them so 1 software is not enough.
I’m still here right? I’ve been trying to answer to your question and I don’t know what you expect to get as an answer but it seems like you want to read what you really think but not what others think or what reality is.
See? that’s the thing, you don’t read Mr. Norway, the answer was there in my past comments, you asked before “How many software have you sold” and I answered to that and to this question is the same.
Actually what you ask now doesn’t make any sense as if you buy something how do you pay? With money right? Money that is not mine but from the people I sell the air time so the question is irrelevant. I can give you via e-mail the phone# of the people I’ve sold the airtime so they can tell you if the product is good or not and how did they paid me but believe me I wont share their personal info on the internet.
Let me give you an example on my last sell, I went to a meeting so someone brought up to conversation about the international calls and the high bills he was paying so I offered the minutes from the company, he agreed to buy the minutes and pay me cash, HIS OWN cash, not mine.
Can you define what you want? As I wont share my customers personal info here. A real customer is the one that gets a product from you and pays you in cash (american dollar currency), they OWN money, they use the service, in this case 3,000 minutes or a month that last till they expire.
That’s something that has to be fixed because you should be either buy the adcentral o the family one.
I mean I’m not going to spent $15,000.00 dlls that’s to much money for me to be honest and the people I know $339.00 could be more than enough to spend on a company like this so I don’t think the ones I know would spend $15,000.00 unless you’re rich or don’t care and have that much to spend.
About the rest could be or not be true but I don’t really care as I do this so passive as I said before just if the topic comes to a conversation then I offer the services as I already got my “investment” back so what I earn from the service is an extra cash for gas, food or whatever I buy.
Hi there Ms. Dorothy.
I’ve never been 100% with any company, sports team, clubs, etc. because at certain point in life they’ll let you down. You can’t even trust your closest friend because sooner or later you’ll be stabbed form behind and learn that nothing in this world is 100% secure not even life.
If I looked this page was because one of my customers did a research about this company and told me about it, he said “yeah right I’ve seen that company on the internet and is fake, there no product, blah, blah, blah”.
I asked “how much you pay to call to south america” and he said “For 3,000 mins? well around 15 prepaid cards” (a single prepaid card cost $5dlls) I said well try it out and see if there’s no service that’ll save you money and guess what? He bought it so I came here and decided to post, and I don’t think is wrong to comment what I’ve seen so far.
Also why would you go to a banker to ask for a thought when he’s not even in the business? That doesn’t make any sense to me to be honest with you. Is like going and ask to an architect about what’s good for a pain in your kidney… you always go and see a doctor right? If you do otherwise then you’re not thinking smart.
Have a nice day Ms. Dorothy
And therein lies the rub.
Instead of crapping on about VOIP products, you should have just opened with that.
“I invested, got my ROI so fuck all y’all who invest after me.”
If you “don’t care” about the Ponzi scheme that’s fine. It’s still there though and the Ponzi within TelexFree is very real.
Conversely the VOIP is largely irrelevant, as it has nothing to do with the Ponzi scheme business. I imagine however the irony is lost on you.
Always love the Ponzi “don’t listen to anyone who hasn’t invested in the business” argument.
Architects and doctors are trained professionals. What certified training to Ponzi pimps undertake such that I’d only consult them when I have a Ponzi question?
Even if the company has a really big name on the market but a new one comes up with a better and cheaper service, then I bet you anything that I’ll buy from the new one.
I’m tired of paying hundreds to those companies and I’ve been with Sprint, T-mobile, AT&T, now with Verizon and their customer support is horrible too, even the support from my ISP which is Xfinity Comcast is the worst in the world, I personally tried it and god… they need to fix that.
To your last question is so clear that you don’t know anything about how a company can work with few hundreds of people in a small big building(S).
Here’s an example:
Most TBM sales people prefer not to buy one themselves, for various reasons. 🙂
It’s not about buying it yourself, but about feeling comfortable with what you’re selling. I pointed out a similar idea in the Chartfords review = “I wouldn’t have felt comfortable using that specific marketing video to sell the opportunity”.
Now you’re partly deflecting that question, but you also gave ONE clear answer about it. The question was about how many software (subscriptions) you had sold to REAL CUSTOMERS.
The promoters can generate new customer accounts for $5 per account, for the first month. Some people will count them as customers when you ask them about how many customers they have.
So my question was genuine. I didn’t ask you to prove anything or to reveal some private information about customers, I only asked you to specify something, where your own answer actually differed from the question asked.
Here’s your only clear answer:
That should normally be good enough. I didn’t ask you to specify each and every sale, or to give me examples.
BTW, I didn’t like the part “someone brought up to conversation”. You told the story differently than what people normally do when they’re recalling something from the visual part of their own memory. The story became too “flat”.
The question was about the number of REAL CUSTOMERS = real people (other than yourself and your family members) who have bought the software and VoiP subscription, for more than the first month, paying for it with their own money.
I don’t need any long answer, personal details or examples. “The number of something” won’t require complicated answers.
I told you that I’ve answered to that, comments ago “I’ve been 1 1/2 months and sold over 15 software and around 30,000 air time minutes.” 15 software = 15 different customers, 30,000 minutes = 10 different customers (3,000 mins ea.)so 25 customers, 2 of them are my dad and younger sister (They call to Europe, Asia and South America.
It has no limit as far as I know, this will be the second month I’ve been in the company and still buying airtime and software for the same price from the company so is not limited to the “first month” so far.
Well, some of my friends on a lunch meeting was showing off his new Galaxy Note 3 with the accessories that came with the phone and in the conversation we were talking about the plans and the international rates topic came up for discussion.
I’ve been in the company for a month and a half so take the numbers I posted above and consider 1/4 of that for the half of my second month that followed a subscription.
I did it before and here’s again: 15 software, 30,000 minutes in on and a half month
Are you implying that you know who provides TelexFree’s infrastructure, and how big it is? or are you just talking hypotheticals?
Rick,
I did not go to a banker for an opinion. I went to a financial advisor. Perhaps your not familiar with the term. This is a person that someone with money goes to for advice on how to invest it. So, you couldn’t have gotten free advice from a more appropriate professional.
As far as your thoughts on how a company works and how many people you can cram in a building? I’ve stood in your Telexfree “corporate” office in Marlboro Mass, USA. NO, they don’t take up that entire building that James Merrill stands in front of. They rent a closet. There is no customer support that’s why no one can ever reach anyone.
Wake up!!!
And just how many VOIP packages have you tried that you think this is “normal”?
And how *does* your VOIP rates compare to current market leaders, who *does* have authority to operate in your local area (and TelexFree likely does not)?
I have had great difficulties accepting some of Rick’s stories.
I tried to visualise that story.
“Went to a meeting”
“someone brought up to conversation”
“the international calls and the high bills”
He’s focusing on the wrong type of details, for someone who really sells the software and subscriptions to others. And I didn’t even ask him for details like that. Other people have focused on WHO they sell to (e.g. to other Brazilians living in the US) and HOW they sell (e.g. reduced price).
In addition to poor stories, he’s also using methods from some 1980-ies book about some communication methods for how to deflect questions you don’t want to answer. I haven’t seen methods like that since late 1980-ies or the early 90-ies.
The method goes like this:
* Avoid answer anything directly
* Place your own arguments supporting your case first
* then answer the question partly
* then add your own arguments supporting your case
The difficult question will then be “surrounded” by arguments supporting your case, and you will also be able to “fill” more of the time with your own arguments.
It’s a defense strategy designed for debates, and I haven’t seen it being used in more than 20 years (in normal use, e.g. TV debates). I saw something similar used in the Lyoness discussion, but that’s the only example I remember. Most people use different methods now.
Experienced sales people will clearly try to make some profit from selling the product too, selling it to customers, if the product CAN be sold that way. I saw that for ZeekRewards and JubiRev, and TelexFree shouldn’t be any different. BLGM is different, it had disabled customer purchases when I checked.
It would have been much easier and much less time consuming if you had been clear right from the start, e.g.:
“Hello guys, I want to practice some of my outdated 1980-ies debate methods. I can pretend I will answer some questions, but I will mostly fill the discussion with fluffy arguments and avoid direct answers”.
You would have got a straight reply, “Sorry, we don’t offer that type of training, try to find a 1980-ies debate study circle instead of this website”. Then you wouldn’t have wasted anyone’s time.
Except for the one example from the Lyoness discussion, it’s more than 20 years since I have seen that method used in normal situations. It was partly accepted in the 1980-ies, but it isn’t accepted today.
I read all post and coments, many things is true, on other side i have friend who joined Telexfree last year and already made big money.
It is best to try, first with small amount until u get your money back, after that anything is good, or buy another account and wait until u get your money back. So u didnt lost any money. Enything extra is good with no hard work. Why dont try?
@Lily
Ponzi schemes work as long as new investors keep dumping new funds into them. That should be obvious.
Whether your friend made money is neither here nor there.
You can simply look at ZeekRewards, one of the Ponzi schemes that were shut down in 2012?
https://behindmlm.com/category/companies/zeek-rewards/
If you like to spend most of 2015 and 2016 dealing with tax problems and clawbacks, then a Ponzi scheme is probably a good idea. It will give you a lot of valuable experience.
TelexFree is a little more fraudulent, you will get more involved in fraudulent transactions there.
And you want to help them earn more? Then you should probably join ASAP, that idea sounds rather bullet proof.
Hi, there.. sadly this epidemic has reached Portugal, and the Madeira Island where I live. ‘Its sad to see some “suited up” gentlemen talking about this as a great idea, and convincing others to enter.
I’m shocked to see the way they brain wash these “distributors”..its simply anoiyng and I just cant wait for this scheme to be shut down. Any thoughts on how this scheme will start to fall?
Any prediction?
@TRVA
The Brazil legal action is slowly plodding along. I think if the US are to get involved they’ll do so after a decision is handed down.
Otherwise the scheme could just run out of money, but that’s a ways off due to the $20 a week ROI setup and migration to new countries (Portugual, Cambodia, India etc.).
Scheme nowadays just move from country to country, trying to stay ahead of the authorities.
Tarun Trikha started TVI Express in 2009, spread it all over the world, and was FINALLY arrested in India in 2013, and may be facing charges from all over the world.
“Make OTHER PEOPLE believe it’s a great idea to join” is usually a great idea. 🙂
It’s impossible to predict anything specific.
It’s organized from USA, and that’s where it will need to be shut down.
I can predict that TelexFree is already under investigation by some agencies in the US, and that a shutdown will be really “ugly”, but I can’t predict any exact time. The case moves very SLOWLY forward, much slower than what I expected after the shutdown in Brazil in June 2013.
A thought just hit me. Sann Rodrigues used to operate “Universo FoneClub” in the US that was shut by SEC in 2006 that bears an uncanny resemblance to TelexFree.
Foneclub’s alleged primary business is phone cards… and VOIP.
Who provided them? Would it be DiskAvontade? ran by Wanzeler?
If so, Rodrigues may be the real mastermind behind the whole thing, NOT Merrill and Wanzeler.
You hit the Ponzie right on the head!!!
hi guys, the virus spread to Croatia. telexfree is officially here. my relative is in it and… wow. I’ve been called stupid for not falling for this scam. and the story is full of lies.
my relative gave me the information that they’ve bought vodafone. I tried to look it up on the internet and found nothing about it. i’m so sorry for all those people, like my relative, who see a kind of a promised land in this thing. it won’t last.
I’m guessing there’s a reason TelexFree picked Madrid for their next conference. Looks like Europe is the new South America.
For all of you thinking of promoting this Unethical company why not have a look at Wikipedia for the latest updates on telexfree’s status on: EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG/WIKI/TELEXFREE … PARTICULARLY PAY ATTENTION TO REFERENCES 6 – 15…
My sympathy is with OZ and all the others that have spent unnecessary time trying to explain the pros and cons of ethical and unethical, what spamming is and isn’t, etc, bla bla bla… Tell people to go learn by themselves. The furthest you should go to is only by teaching people what tools are out there to learn and evolve and let them do the rest.
Handing everything over on a plater doesn’t teach them to appreciate the work involved into coming to conclusions and results. But maybe its just me…
We usually do it out of personal interest, e.g. because of some “personal usefulness”.
I use (and will use) some of the information generated here in my own local market, for different unspecific purposes. It will eventually save me some time and work. Most of us have personal motives like that.
By doing the analysis and the salient points we learn about the schemes and its various excuses, as well as their likely lines of “defense” (obfuscation, and twisted logic mostly), which are almost universal.
Besides, some sheeple just want to be TOLD something. 🙂
Hi all, its great to see a healthy debate on the subject here, although not surprising that the pro-TF people are not convincing.
My friend introduced me to this yesterday (in Spain) and alarm bells were ringing from the outset. He didnt know anything about the phone calls and said it wasnt important. He had no idea what happened after he posted his 5 ads each day, i.e. how these ads materialised on the web.
Ok, so my question for all those pro people out there is: If this add placement is so lucrative and easy, why do I need to buy a licence? The licence gives no training, so why cant I just start “posting the ads” (sooooo easy) and TF can take a commission from this. Why? BECAUSE THERE IS NO REAL PRODUCT.
The VIOP and “ad posting” is just a distraction to make you think there is substance where there is none.
If you dont mind future tax and income issues or risking that the house of cards will fall before you get a return (or putting others in this situation) then this is the scam for you…
To the people that says that the VOIP cost $49.00, this is for all the people who is outside of telexfree, if you are (affiliate) inside, the VOIP cost to you $5, and you have to use it every month. You have to start using it when you have sponsored 2 people (under you), in order to get the commissions to have sponsored somebody else.
Personally I have seen a big difference between the $5 phone card I used to buy and call to my country and last just 23 min; now with the same $5 dollars through telexfree VOIP system, I call 120 min to my country to a mobile and it expires in 30 days. I use the product every month and if I don’t have any more credits to call I have to repurchase, but I am not complaining about the price for the phone calls neither the service, sometimes takes a little bit longer to communicate, but it does an it is clear.
If you say that SKYPE IS free or cheap, maybe you haven called to countries in south America where the minute cost is $0.24 cents + tax+ connection cost. Also in the USA it used to be FREE to call cellphones using Skype, not any more….you have to be more accurate with the changes the companies are making before give your opinion.
On the other hand, someone of you had pay to FACEBOOK OR GOOGLE ADWORDS to advertise, I do. You can see there is a lot o money spent and you don’t have any guaranties of new customers neither.
When you post the adds, in the telexfree pages, I have seen BIG COMPANIES ADDS, like shopify, natural products, google adwors, etc. It means that they are paying for the adds to telexfree and telexfree is providing with a X number of impressions for their adds, this is how the adds and publicity works, the advertisers pays by impressions, nothing guaranteed.
The question is: is legal or not? Beacuse if it is legal, for now, I don’t mind risking $300 to get income in four months, and I have no problem paying taxes for that income. If the system colapse after 5 months, is still revenue
So where’s the “profit” they’re paying you coming from, when $5 is at cost? Hmmm? By the Adcentral they paid for, perhaps?
@Nando
MLM Ponzi schemes are never legal.
I think sometimes the people don’t understand the network marketing or referral marketing. We have a side business (service-construction) and if we get referral sometimes we have paid between 10-15% to the person who give us the referral meaning a job for $10000 we have paid $1200. It is no the same? but instead of paying advertising on tv or newspapers that doesn’t work, we get the word of mouth. Now answering to
where the $1200 I paid come from? obviously from the costumer that payed me $10000. I am not going to put money of my own to pay the person that brought the costumer, especially we charge 50% before to start the job. We would love that more people referral us even if we have to pay the 15% for that (instead of sometimes useless marketing).
I will tell you than, we all are all brained paying the big companies ATT & Verizon, ETC, I pay $180/month for 2 mobile phones. Don’t you think it is a way more expensive and if I want to call to my country directly I will pay around $2/min. Of course I don’t get any money if I tell a friend to join these BIG COMPANIES. They get all the money in their pockets.
Please evolve, to the new marketing, if not please read some books about it.
Before to start talking about a theme, you have to be inside and fully knowledgeable about it. Please tell me how many MLM have you joined in the last 5 years and why do you quit (if you ever joined one). Don’t be like the people or professors who are talking about entrepreneurship but they never have started one in their lives, they teach just what the literature says.
Also, nobody comment about how much I save using their VoiP services; I am saving around $23 for every $5 that I spend using their service. This is 130 min/ 23 min (not including the re-connection cost) 5.6 phone cards * $5 = $28.26 that I was spending sometimes in one week, when I needed to talk to my country (business-family).
Skype rose the prices at the same as the phone card ($23 cent/min).
You’re completely right, nobody comment about how much you save using their VoIP services. Most of the comments are about the AdCentral Ponzi/pyramid hybrid. We’re glad you finally noticed that.
Focus on what YOU do or don’t understand YOURSELF, rather than on what you THINK other people don’t understand?
“I think people don’t understand” means you will be constructing theories about other people in general, generating theories solely from your own imagination rather than trying to interpret the realities.
If you take a quick look at this website itself, you will see that we’re separating between different TYPES of network marketing. Some are called MLM, some are called NWM, some are called pyramid schemes, some are called Ponzi schemes. And they will all have complete rational arguments.
It’s probably something like that you should try to understand, rather than constructing your own theories?
“Aha, they’re separating between different types of network marketing. They’re probably ussing a different thought system than I do”. 🙂
@Angie
Perhaps. Although conversely I think it’d be more appropriate to state you don’t understand Ponzi schemes.
Yeah that’s the “theory”. Yet when the regulators shut it down and file their court papers, it’ll quite obviously be revealed that 99.99999999% or some such of the revenue was sourced from affiliates.
This is a familiar tune in the Ponzi underworld. So is claiming you have customers when there are none.
Be that as it may, it does not justify the running of a Ponzi scheme.
Stay on topic please.
Oz,
You really don’t understand the point, in this example I was saying that I have payed to some of my marketing referrals (in my construction business, NOT TELEXFREE) $1200 for the referral when I get the job for $10000. Discuss the point, or now your are going to say that my construction business in s PONZI SCHEME…JAJJA.
I have real costumers, that have their houses fixed, painted, etc. I pay you if you referred with some of your friends and I get the job. That is marketing.
(Ozedit: Offtopic spam removed)
@Angie
Unless your construction business is guaranteeing a $20 weekly ROI if I invest $289, please don’t waste my time with irrelevant waffle.
Do you sell it as an investment opportunity? Ponzi schemes are about investments and ROI/profit from investments.
It looks like you have used a completely irrelevant example to defend TelexFree’s business model.
A Ponzi scheme is generally:
* some type of investment
* promising the investors a prospected ROI or PROFIT
* that will arise primarily from their own investments
* in a business venture, opportunity or other profit generating system
* but where the profit generating system is false or insignificant
* and where the profit paid out to investors derives from other investors (“robbing Peter to pay Paul”).
If your construction business is something like that, it might be a relevant example. But it clearly isn’t.
The Ponzi component of TelexFree is the AdCentral investments, where the profit arises primarily from the number of AdCentrals people have invested in, where the ads themselves or the VoIP subscriptions don’t generate enough profit to support the payouts, and where they use money from new investors to pay the old ones.
TelexFree has a pyramid scheme component too, where some of the investments in AdCentrals illegally are being used to pay out referral commissions to recruiters.
Please focus on relevant examples rather than irrelevant ones? The irrelevant examples are only ideas you use to mislead yourself, they will not mislead anyone here.
You can test the CORRECTNESS of that description against other ideas, e.g. the idea that the profit is being generated from work.
PROFIT FROM WORK?
“1 ad per day, 7 days per week” is a QUALIFIER rather than a “profit generating mechanism”. If it really had generated profit for the company, it would have allowed promoters to post more than 1 ad per day, or it would probably have used a script to post the ads automatically.
The profit clearly arises from the investment itself. It will be affected by the number of AdCentrals, but it won’t be affected by the number of ads posted in addition to the qualifying number.
PROFIT FROM SALE OF VOIP PRODUCTS?
That’s about “Does the sale generate ENOUGH profit to support the payouts of ROI/profit?”. It clearly doesn’t.
NEHRA’S IDEAS
You can even test it against Gerald Nehra’s ideas, where the AdCentrals are supposed to be “products” rather than investments.
That MLM attorney has probably lost his sense of reality many years ago. He’s primarily focusing on his own theories, and he hasn’t recognized that people largely have started to ignore him completely.
People can ask themselves “Do I really buy those AdCentrals as products, or do I buy them as investments?”.
I have learned a lot by reading this thread, Oz and Norway, thank you. My buddy got into this a couple weeks ago and I was skeptical, as I was with WakeUpNow before I ended up joining.
But now after reading what looks like well over a year of explaining TF to people across the globe; I will not be joining this company regardless of profit in four months.
I heard people stating that they are making 10 to 35k a month… What I really know is who started in the begining will make money then all the group will colaps!!!!
Good news for everyone, yesterday the usa federal bankrupcy declined the second request for the company to file the bankrupsy!!!! GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!
Facts mister, FACTS!
http://www.uscourts.gov/FederalCourts/Bankruptcy.aspx
http://search.uscourts.gov/search?query=Telexfree&affiliate=uscourts.gov&locale=en
I love you guys for putting out a word of advice to people out there so they not loose money but if you’re going to post something like that, do it with real and solid facts, I found nothing on US Federal Courts and that make us look like liars just hating a pyramid or ponzi scheme. By the way nice spelling Gypsy.
The denial of the bankruptcy petitions took place in a Brazilian Court. There are no judicial proceedings concerning Telexfree in the US at this time.
You did that deliberately, right ??
It’s Brazilian court, and it’s already covered.
https://behindmlm.com/companies/telexfree/telexfree-lose-2nd-bankruptcy-case-costa-rages/
OK a quick question – I understand who James Merrill, Carlos Costa, and Carlos Wanzeler are and what their roles in TelexFree are, but what I don’t understand is who are Steve Labriola and Faith Sloan and where do they fit in the TelexFree puzzle.
Steve Labriola is Telexfree’s “Director of Denial..I mean Marketing”. He flys around the world telling people about how “awesome” Telexfree is. He’s “changing lives”… He’s from Mass. USA like Merrill and Wanzler.
Apparently he fell off a turnip truck because there’s no biography on the Telexfree site about him like there is on the other main charachters. Perhaps he ran the vacuum for Wanzler’s and Merrill’s cleaning business in Mass?
Ms. Sloan, (a fan and regular reader of this blog..: )….Is a team leader that has been involved with Telex in the USA from the begining. She is on the top “earning the big bucks” Give her a Google and you’ll get an eye full of her antics.
Telex fans and joiners? Take a good look at the faces of these two because they’re the ones spendin your money…
I believe she’s a Team Leader, primarily organizing her own team “Power Team Global” or something, secondarily acting as an all-round advisor when needed (primarily for the U.S.). She probably joined in January or February 2013, 6-7 months after it was introduced in the U.S.
“Organizing a team” should normally be about training people and fronting the team, “the team’s connection to the company”. It will also be about informing team members.
The team itself will be independent from the company, e.g. it can join multiple opportunities and won’t need to stay loyal to one single company. It will be like a third party organization.
Steve Labriola seems to be a hired Marketing Director. His job is to front the company’s public appearance in some countries, e.g. to stimulate growth after it has been introduced to local team leaders.
Sann Rodriguez seems to be the top organizer for the network, a “master distributor” or something, but maybe only for some countries.
Quite an interesting-long dialogues as I’m trying to figure out what telexfree is, and how it works.
@Mr.P.
You invest $289 or more, TelexFree use this money to pay off existing investors, and then if you rub your belly and pat your head they pay you $20 a week or more from newly invested money.
Try one of the back office training videos first?
Disabled link (copy and paste):
telexfree.faithsloan.com/telexfree-how-to-videos/backoffice/telexfree-backoffice-training-scott-miller/
I tried to write a step by step explanation, but it didn’t make much sense when I tried to read it myself.
The main point in some marketing videos starts with the fact that most people will not be successful in MLM, but TelexFree is a solution to that problem:
“Everyone will get paid, you don’t need to recruit anyone or sell anything. You will get paid weekly for the work you do = posting 1 ad per day. If you want to earn more, simply buy more AdCentrals (e.g. $15,125 investment will give $1,100 weekly payout)”.
The problem is that it will require an INVESTMENT from the affiliates, and the PROFIT you can earn will require money coming in from new affiliates (just like a Ponzi scheme, where money from new investors are being used to pay the old ones).
NOTE:
1. TelexFree is about to make some (potentially major) changes to the compensation plan.
2. TelexFree is most likely under investigation in Massachusetts. It has been confirmed by a spokesman for Galvin’s office 1-2 days ago.
http://patrickpretty.com/2014/02/28/urgent-bulletin-moving-massachusetts-confirms-telexfree-probe/
BTW, I can offer some other TelexFree marketing and training videos, but you will also be able to find them yourself on youtube. The one I mentioned was originally from “Scott Miller Telexfreetrainer”.
New plan noooo good
TelexFREE is now expanding in Italy also… looks really they’re need new markets to sustain the scheme.
With the actual economic situation in many European countries, it will be a fertile land, many people looking for a “fast, easy way to make money”.
TelexFree is in chapter 11. Nothing can be done when you log in! Looks like there will be a lot of losers as was summed up previously in this forum.
How much money is being made in the US now that Telexfree has publicly declared “We can no longer meet our operational obligations.”
Now that the Ponzi scheme has collapsed here, I would like to hear what the new argument will morph into about the “money I made” with this “business.”
This model was unsustainable from the start.
If someone has gotten back at least some of their money, please let us know.
Thanks
@George
You’ll probably want to keep up with the TelexFree category: https://behindmlm.com/category/companies/telexfree/