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
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.
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).
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 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
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).
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.
July 27th, 2012 at 11:53 pm Nogueira(Quote)
Another ponzi system, which is growing in Brazil, will soon collapse.
August 1st, 2012 at 9:45 am Hi bye(Quote)
Payout option should be something like a Giftcards to be use off the books
August 1st, 2012 at 1:53 pm Curious(Quote)
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).
August 8th, 2012 at 10:28 am Giovanni(Quote)
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
August 28th, 2012 at 6:05 am Simone(Quote)
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.
August 28th, 2012 at 9:54 am Oz(Quote)
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.
August 28th, 2012 at 10:16 am Nogueira(Quote)
Simone.
This company will have a short life! CAUTION!!
September 4th, 2012 at 10:15 pm Jorge Jojó(Quote)
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.
September 6th, 2012 at 6:33 am Naldo Pereira(Quote)
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
September 18th, 2012 at 9:49 am Fernando(Quote)
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?)
September 19th, 2012 at 1:21 pm Fernando(Quote)
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!
September 25th, 2012 at 12:03 pm Mario(Quote)
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.
September 25th, 2012 at 1:33 pm Oz(Quote)
@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.
September 25th, 2012 at 11:31 pm Nogueira(Quote)
The Telexfree is changing his plan, not getting this pay its distributors to post spam, this scheme collapsing as expected.
Telex Free 100% PONZI
December 14th, 2012 at 5:32 am Leo(Quote)
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.
December 16th, 2012 at 11:14 am marcos s(Quote)
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…
December 19th, 2012 at 1:34 am Wil(Quote)
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.
December 19th, 2012 at 9:37 am Carlos(Quote)
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.
December 19th, 2012 at 9:50 am Oz(Quote)
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.
December 19th, 2012 at 10:07 am K. Chang(Quote)
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?
December 19th, 2012 at 10:15 am K. Chang(Quote)
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.
December 19th, 2012 at 10:50 am littleroundman(Quote)
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 ??
December 19th, 2012 at 11:35 am Carlos(Quote)
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?
December 19th, 2012 at 11:56 am K. Chang(Quote)
@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”.
January 1st, 2013 at 9:48 am Toni Little (Tampa FL.)(Quote)
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.
January 2nd, 2013 at 7:03 pm Don(Quote)
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??
January 2nd, 2013 at 10:23 pm Oz(Quote)
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.
January 3rd, 2013 at 12:50 am K. Chang(Quote)
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.
January 3rd, 2013 at 2:11 am Ellery(Quote)
The sign up page is not a secure page considering they ask for your SSN number.
January 5th, 2013 at 10:07 am Mcgiver(Quote)
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
January 5th, 2013 at 10:23 am Oz(Quote)
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?
January 6th, 2013 at 4:20 am K. Chang(Quote)
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 ****?
January 15th, 2013 at 6:08 am Dan(Quote)
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.
January 15th, 2013 at 9:59 am Oz(Quote)
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.
January 15th, 2013 at 10:50 am K. Chang(Quote)
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?
January 15th, 2013 at 11:57 am Ray(Quote)
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.
January 15th, 2013 at 3:54 pm Oz(Quote)
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.
January 18th, 2013 at 3:43 pm Sam(Quote)
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.
January 18th, 2013 at 8:34 pm Oz(Quote)
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.
January 20th, 2013 at 12:39 pm Just Me(Quote)
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!
January 20th, 2013 at 12:47 pm Oz(Quote)
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…
January 20th, 2013 at 1:55 pm Just Me(Quote)
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…
January 20th, 2013 at 2:01 pm K. Chang(Quote)
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?
January 20th, 2013 at 2:13 pm Oz(Quote)
@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.
January 21st, 2013 at 1:36 am Interested reader(Quote)
@ 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
January 21st, 2013 at 9:12 am Oz(Quote)
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.
January 25th, 2013 at 3:54 am Lee(Quote)
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?
January 29th, 2013 at 1:41 pm Fire(Quote)
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!!!
January 29th, 2013 at 2:33 pm Oz(Quote)
@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.
February 3rd, 2013 at 11:10 pm alberto(Quote)
any one here has been al ready cheated foe this company that can tellme
February 4th, 2013 at 10:27 am Tuga(Quote)
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.
February 4th, 2013 at 12:41 pm Angela Hargreaves(Quote)
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.
February 4th, 2013 at 6:15 pm Tuga(Quote)
That´s rigth Angela Hargreaves
February 5th, 2013 at 11:38 pm lopes-anonimao(Quote)
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.
February 6th, 2013 at 12:01 am Oz(Quote)
@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…
February 6th, 2013 at 2:35 am Neudson Aquino(Quote)
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).
February 11th, 2013 at 2:45 pm Tony(Quote)
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
February 12th, 2013 at 9:31 am Al(Quote)
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.
February 12th, 2013 at 10:07 am Marcus(Quote)
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.
February 12th, 2013 at 10:34 am Oz(Quote)
@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.
February 15th, 2013 at 7:01 pm ilidio(Quote)
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???
February 15th, 2013 at 7:09 pm Oz(Quote)
As long as new investors come on board and invest, Telexfree will be able to pay the weekly ROI to existing investors.
February 16th, 2013 at 12:45 am HFQ(Quote)
They are being investigated by federal authorities in Brazil for scamming people on a pyramid scheme.
February 16th, 2013 at 2:44 am Scott(Quote)
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.
February 17th, 2013 at 10:24 am jajaré(Quote)
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.
February 18th, 2013 at 1:31 am Luciene Almeida(Quote)
OMG!!!! They really are doing business in Brazil. BUT the goverment and authorities are after them.
February 19th, 2013 at 3:55 am Joselito F. Costa(Quote)
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}
February 19th, 2013 at 8:14 am Oz(Quote)
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”?
February 20th, 2013 at 5:24 pm eliza(Quote)
I purchased the product/Service and i like it because it works for me.
February 22nd, 2013 at 12:37 am Gustavo Carvalheira(Quote)
@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.
February 22nd, 2013 at 10:52 am Oz(Quote)
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.
February 23rd, 2013 at 1:38 am Cezar(Quote)
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.
February 23rd, 2013 at 10:16 am Oz(Quote)
Lol, and for $49.95 or whatever a month this is supposed to compete with Skype?
Riiiiiiiiight.
February 24th, 2013 at 3:32 am Mikaella(Quote)
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.
February 24th, 2013 at 9:42 am Oz(Quote)
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.
February 24th, 2013 at 10:26 am Roberto(Quote)
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!!
February 24th, 2013 at 2:13 pm M_Norway(Quote)
Here’s the original source, from 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/
February 27th, 2013 at 6:38 am Diego Calabrese Cysneiros(Quote)
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!
February 27th, 2013 at 10:28 am K. Chang(Quote)
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.
February 28th, 2013 at 1:05 am Mikaella(Quote)
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.
March 2nd, 2013 at 12:15 am Marco Almeida(Quote)
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!!
March 2nd, 2013 at 9:43 am Breno(Quote)
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.
March 2nd, 2013 at 12:08 pm K. Chang(Quote)
You didn’t read my comment properly. I said all those companies I listed have the SAME SUITE NUMBER as TelexFree USA: Suite 200.
March 3rd, 2013 at 1:37 am M_Norway(Quote)
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”.
March 4th, 2013 at 6:24 am Jose Harris(Quote)
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.
March 6th, 2013 at 3:47 am Alexandre Lago(Quote)
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!!!
March 7th, 2013 at 7:38 am PauloF(Quote)
Nonsense. You can find greedy (and stupid) people anywhere. Brazil hasn´t the monopoly of this kind of schemes.
March 12th, 2013 at 12:27 pm almega(Quote)
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.
March 12th, 2013 at 1:36 pm Oz(Quote)
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.
March 12th, 2013 at 5:36 pm M_Norway(Quote)
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.”
March 14th, 2013 at 7:13 pm Mark(Quote)
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..
March 15th, 2013 at 8:24 pm Frontier(Quote)
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?
March 15th, 2013 at 8:27 pm Frontier(Quote)
Check the the Federal Ministry repport (in Portuguese):
http://www.advivo.com.br/blog/luisnassif/ministerio-da-fazenda-classifica-telexfree-como-piramide
March 15th, 2013 at 10:34 pm Ricardo(Quote)
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”
March 16th, 2013 at 1:05 am K. Chang(Quote)
If I read Portuguese correctly… that’s “There ain’t no easy money”?
March 16th, 2013 at 3:01 am Rodrigo(Quote)
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.
March 16th, 2013 at 6:40 am Oz(Quote)
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.
March 16th, 2013 at 7:57 am M_Norway(Quote)
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”.
March 16th, 2013 at 12:26 pm K. Chang(Quote)
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.
March 16th, 2013 at 12:33 pm Oz(Quote)
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?
March 17th, 2013 at 12:06 am Brazilian(Quote)
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.
March 17th, 2013 at 12:10 am Brazilian(Quote)
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
March 17th, 2013 at 12:20 am Brazilian(Quote)
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
March 17th, 2013 at 3:21 am K. Chang(Quote)
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
March 17th, 2013 at 4:27 am Brazilian(Quote)
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
March 17th, 2013 at 7:55 am Grumpy Californian(Quote)
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.
March 17th, 2013 at 8:34 am Oz(Quote)
@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!
March 17th, 2013 at 11:20 am M_Norway(Quote)
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).
March 18th, 2013 at 11:07 am Frontier(Quote)
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.
March 18th, 2013 at 11:14 am Frontier(Quote)
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…
March 18th, 2013 at 11:29 am Oz(Quote)
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…
March 18th, 2013 at 11:34 am Oz(Quote)
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.
March 18th, 2013 at 11:54 am K. Chang(Quote)
If they don’t sell anything, what are they paying taxes on, huh?
March 18th, 2013 at 3:20 pm Frontier(Quote)
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!
March 18th, 2013 at 3:30 pm Frontier(Quote)
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.
March 18th, 2013 at 3:33 pm Frontier(Quote)
Here’s the English link: (please cover it when publishing it here, ok?): ciaotelecom.net/
March 18th, 2013 at 6:28 pm K. Chang(Quote)
All that’s needed is for Federal Police to establish a “cybercrime unit”, much like the American iC3
http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx
March 18th, 2013 at 7:13 pm M_Norway(Quote)
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”.
March 19th, 2013 at 2:37 am Grumpy Californian(Quote)
@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.
March 19th, 2013 at 3:57 am K. Chang(Quote)
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.
March 19th, 2013 at 8:45 am Frontier(Quote)
Finally the biggest TV network is starting to present the issue:
http://g1.globo.com/economia/noticia/2013/03/entenda-o-caso-telexfree.html
March 22nd, 2013 at 10:15 am marcosjusto(Quote)
telexfree in Brazil this increasingly stronger with investigations.
fly telexfree, I am a promoter.
March 23rd, 2013 at 10:56 am Brazilian(Quote)
He Man has a lesson for Telexfree affiliates https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJb646u5hno
March 25th, 2013 at 9:14 am Brazilian(Quote)
How brainwashed a person must be to dance like this?
March 30th, 2013 at 2:44 am Talk About It(Quote)
@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.
March 30th, 2013 at 8:45 am Oz(Quote)
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.
March 30th, 2013 at 9:38 am M_Norway(Quote)
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.
March 30th, 2013 at 10:06 am Brazilian(Quote)
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”
March 30th, 2013 at 10:10 am Oz(Quote)
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.
March 30th, 2013 at 11:02 am Talk About It(Quote)
I also found this after doing some research on the subject.
What do you all think of that?
March 30th, 2013 at 1:19 pm Oz(Quote)
I think that as long as they’re running their AdCentral Ponzi scheme, it’s entirely irrelevant.
March 30th, 2013 at 2:54 pm K. Chang(Quote)
Yeah, except nobody can confirm this, esp. not Best Western or TelexFree.
Heck, if TVI Express can claim to own an airline in Indonesia…
March 31st, 2013 at 1:02 am Brazilian(Quote)
someonde is trying to make Russians join Telexfree:
March 31st, 2013 at 4:15 am Talk About It(Quote)
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?
March 31st, 2013 at 5:25 am K. Chang(Quote)
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.
March 31st, 2013 at 6:21 am Talk About It(Quote)
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.
March 31st, 2013 at 7:18 am M_Norway(Quote)
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.
March 31st, 2013 at 7:35 am M_Norway(Quote)
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.
March 31st, 2013 at 8:20 am K. Chang(Quote)
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.
March 31st, 2013 at 8:22 am Oz(Quote)
@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.
March 31st, 2013 at 8:14 pm Talk About It(Quote)
@OZ
You have proof that they pay you out of new investor money? Could you provide that please.
March 31st, 2013 at 9:55 pm Oz(Quote)
@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.
March 31st, 2013 at 11:24 pm Brazilian(Quote)
@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
April 2nd, 2013 at 5:09 pm Talk About It(Quote)
Can anyone confirm or deny this? Saw it yesterday.
April 3rd, 2013 at 12:28 am K. Chang(Quote)
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)?
April 3rd, 2013 at 12:51 am M_Norway(Quote)
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.
April 6th, 2013 at 12:14 pm B colvin(Quote)
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!
April 6th, 2013 at 12:54 pm K. Chang(Quote)
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.
April 9th, 2013 at 4:57 am Fernando B(Quote)
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….
April 9th, 2013 at 5:19 am Fernando B(Quote)
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.
April 9th, 2013 at 7:25 am Oz(Quote)
@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.
April 10th, 2013 at 3:31 am A person(Quote)
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…
April 10th, 2013 at 8:13 am Oz(Quote)
Yeah… because Ponzi scheme contracts are worth the paper they’re written on.
April 10th, 2013 at 8:53 am littleroundman(Quote)
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.
April 10th, 2013 at 10:57 am Brazilian(Quote)
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.
April 13th, 2013 at 4:59 am Claudia(Quote)
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.
April 14th, 2013 at 5:37 am Leftbehind(Quote)
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!!!!
April 14th, 2013 at 1:51 pm Fernando B(Quote)
Leftbehind, excellent advice of yours!
April 14th, 2013 at 2:47 pm K. Chang(Quote)
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.
April 17th, 2013 at 9:23 pm Johnson(Quote)
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).
April 17th, 2013 at 9:37 pm Oz(Quote)
…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.
April 17th, 2013 at 9:49 pm Johnson(Quote)
Good point
April 17th, 2013 at 10:18 pm Talk About It(Quote)
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.
April 17th, 2013 at 10:26 pm K. Chang(Quote)
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.
April 17th, 2013 at 10:58 pm Oz(Quote)
Yeah so uh… “endless” and “long time” don’t play together.
You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself of something.
April 18th, 2013 at 2:30 am Talk About It(Quote)
Yeah they do, and I’m not. Just calling it like I see it.
May 2nd, 2013 at 11:25 pm Stan Tomaszewski(Quote)
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
May 2nd, 2013 at 11:34 pm Oz(Quote)
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.
May 3rd, 2013 at 12:04 am K. Chang(Quote)
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?
May 3rd, 2013 at 4:01 am Stan Tomaszewski(Quote)
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?
May 3rd, 2013 at 4:10 am K. Chang(Quote)
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?
May 3rd, 2013 at 4:26 am naabo(Quote)
Easy money wins over facts and analysis every time. It’s gotta hurt more than it feels good.
May 3rd, 2013 at 5:23 am M_Norway(Quote)
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.
May 3rd, 2013 at 6:18 am Stan Tomaszewski(Quote)
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!
May 3rd, 2013 at 6:39 am K. Chang(Quote)
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?
May 3rd, 2013 at 6:55 am M_Norway(Quote)
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:
May 3rd, 2013 at 7:54 am Oz(Quote)
The TelexFree business model and compensation plan = all the proof you need.
Any further requests for proof will be marked as spam.
May 3rd, 2013 at 7:56 am Oz(Quote)
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.
May 3rd, 2013 at 8:12 am M_Norway(Quote)
@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.
May 3rd, 2013 at 8:54 am K. Chang(Quote)
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.
May 4th, 2013 at 8:26 am Talk About It(Quote)
@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”.
May 4th, 2013 at 9:59 am M_Norway(Quote)
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.
May 4th, 2013 at 10:01 am Oz(Quote)
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).
May 4th, 2013 at 10:20 am Talk About It(Quote)
@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.
May 4th, 2013 at 10:26 am Oz(Quote)
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.
May 4th, 2013 at 10:48 am M_Norway(Quote)
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.
May 4th, 2013 at 11:15 am PPBlog(Quote)
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
May 4th, 2013 at 11:36 am K. Chang(Quote)
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?
May 4th, 2013 at 11:46 am K. Chang(Quote)
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.
May 4th, 2013 at 11:47 am littleroundman(Quote)
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.
May 4th, 2013 at 11:51 am M_Norway(Quote)
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?
May 4th, 2013 at 12:27 pm littleroundman(Quote)
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.
May 4th, 2013 at 6:41 pm Talk About It(Quote)
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.
May 4th, 2013 at 7:11 pm littleroundman(Quote)
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 ???
May 4th, 2013 at 7:30 pm Oz(Quote)
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.
May 4th, 2013 at 8:12 pm M_Norway(Quote)
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.
May 4th, 2013 at 8:55 pm M_Norway(Quote)
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.
May 5th, 2013 at 1:31 am M_Norway(Quote)
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.
May 5th, 2013 at 3:15 am K. Chang(Quote)
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.
May 8th, 2013 at 9:31 pm ThankYouEveryoneForAllTheInformation(Quote)
This is fake right?
anti-hyperlink::faithsloan.com/2013/03/31/telexfree-scam-ponzi-brazil-ministry-finance-judicial-court-decision/
Please someone confirm.
May 8th, 2013 at 10:45 pm Oz(Quote)
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.
May 8th, 2013 at 11:52 pm K. Chang(Quote)
This link was provided earlier in the comments above yours:
http://g1.globo.com/economia/noticia/2013/03/entenda-o-caso-telexfree.html
May 12th, 2013 at 5:53 pm Mr. Yogesh patel(Quote)
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.
May 12th, 2013 at 6:52 pm Oz(Quote)
Sure. Invest $x and over 52 weeks TelexFree will pay you >$x.
May 13th, 2013 at 12:07 am M_Norway(Quote)
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.
May 13th, 2013 at 12:43 am M_Norway(Quote)
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.
May 19th, 2013 at 12:03 am Oz(Quote)
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.
May 19th, 2013 at 1:05 am K. Chang(Quote)
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.
May 19th, 2013 at 1:19 am timewill tell(Quote)
Because money talks, maybe hes in it for just the money he has to eat too.
May 19th, 2013 at 3:42 am M_Norway(Quote)
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.
May 19th, 2013 at 5:18 am M_Norway(Quote)
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.
May 19th, 2013 at 6:32 am PPBlog(Quote)
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
May 19th, 2013 at 7:38 am PPBlog(Quote)
Make that $1,100 a WEEK for a year — all purportedly for an up-front purchase of $15,125.
PPBlog
May 19th, 2013 at 11:16 am Long(Quote)
@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.
May 21st, 2013 at 9:31 pm Dan(Quote)
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
May 21st, 2013 at 9:42 pm Oz(Quote)
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.
May 21st, 2013 at 11:49 pm M_Norway(Quote)
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”.
May 22nd, 2013 at 1:39 am K. Chang(Quote)
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.
May 22nd, 2013 at 2:05 am K. Chang(Quote)
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!”
May 22nd, 2013 at 3:43 am Daniel(Quote)
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.. ??
May 22nd, 2013 at 7:05 am K. Chang(Quote)
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…
May 22nd, 2013 at 9:39 am Dan(Quote)
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.
May 22nd, 2013 at 9:40 am Dan(Quote)
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.
May 22nd, 2013 at 9:45 am Oz(Quote)
Just ask them where they think their commissions come from.
Whether it collapses tomorrow or next year, the point is it’s unsustainable.
May 22nd, 2013 at 10:49 am M_Norway(Quote)
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”.
May 22nd, 2013 at 4:19 pm K. Chang(Quote)
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.