7th Brazilian state opens TelexFree investigation
Following a weekend of protests by TelexFree affiliates over the business crippling injunction granted a fortnight ago, a decision on TelexFree’s second appeal was expected early this week.
Earlier today Roberto Barros, President of Acre Court announced that the appeal will be heard in court next Monday (8th of July).
No doubt the conspiracy theories from TelexFree affiliates will now start up, however Barros advised that because ‘the appeal was brought by lawyers on Friday, there was not enough time to schedule a trial (on Monday the 1st)‘.
Oh and those protests by TelexFree affiliates I mentioned earlier?
Turns out they are a complete waste of time.
The President rejected accusations regarding the delay of the judiciary and repudiated claims made by some publishers during the protests.
He said the demonstrations will not affect decisions made by judiciary. Any arguments must be presented by lawyers involved in the case.
“The arguments made by protesters through posters and reports should be made through the proper channels, not through demonstrations,” he said.
He also refuted the information that a TelexFree affiliate promised to donate a car to charity in Acre if the injunction was appealed.
The President repudiated the action, saying it was just a way of trying to buy the Acre judiciary.
In addition to bribing the judiciary, TelexFree affiliates have also sent death threats to the judge who granted the injunction and blockaded several public roads and bridges.
On a related note, the Attorney General’s Office in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Norte announced that they were launching their own investigation into TelexFree.
The investigation, bringing the total number of Brazilian states with investigations into the company up to seven, is civil in matter and was initiated following suspicion that TelexFree is a “pyramid scheme”. The AG’s Office advised that the investigation will begin on Thursday July 4th.
Several other companies are also being investigated, the most prominent of which is BBOM. We recently reviewed BBOM and found it looked to be a Ponzi scheme with a GPS tracker front.
Looks like The Rio Grande do Norte AG’s Office have drawn similar conclusions about the company that need to be investigated.
In response to the investigation BBOM’s Director, Ednaldo Bishop, stated
We are aware of these suspicions yes, but above all, we have not been notified by any prosecutor.
BBOM take money from affiliates to the tune of $300 to $1500, and in exchange pay back a ROI of $80 to $400 a month, depending on how much an affiliate invests.
BBOM claim the revenue comes from customers using the GPS trackers affiliates allegedly pay for, however the company pays out instantly, leaving a pretty big question mark looming over the legitimacy of the business.
Despite the absurdity of claiming customers buy the GPS trackers the moment affiliates hand over money (affiliates never sell the trackers, the company manages this side of the business with affiliates only paying money to BBOM), Ernaldo Bishop insists
The revenue comes mainly from the BBOM tracking services and the sale of equipment monitoring. This is the revenue that we share with the network.
If people today stopped entering the system, BBOM would still be operational.
No doubt it would be in the short-term, but with affiliates no longer pumping thousands of dollars into the scheme (BBOM claims to have around 300,000 affiliates), it wouldn’t take long for the weekly ROIs to dry up without new investment.
In the meantime, TelexFree affiliates and those following the case will now be waiting till next Monday to find out whether or not the Acre injunction will stick.
Meanwhile, Telexfree president Carlos Carlos launched a new video explaining about the rejected appeals, announcing thaat he has hired more lawyers to the case, telling that Telexfree has the support all of the Acre State Representatives, and promissed to launch a new product (a kind of USB phone) that he demonstrated making a VOIP call.
Do TelexFree management fail to realise the problem lies in their revenue source and how they pay their affiliate investors?
No amount of products changes that. USB phones? They’re what, $5 from any budget tech store?
No pun intended, but Costa it’s for you – the 1990s just called and they want their technology back.
And sort of an aside, is injecting ‘hockay?” into every second sentence you speak a Brazilian thing or a Carlos Costa thing? Someone needs to tell him it’s massively annoying.
I think Carlos thinks he has a magic pen! Not sure if it out of ink when he scribbles on the paper.
They make everything they can to avoid this point. They are making a big campaign to make the investor say “I’m satisfied with Telexfree”, “everyone is being correctly paid until this moment”, “show me a single investor who didn’t receive his money”, “the government can’t stop us just because the company may perhaps fail in the future”, “the company pays all the taxes” and other dumb things that don’t make sense.
The “strawman tatics” is being used in turbo mode by Telexfree.
Another nail in the Telexfree coffin.
The Telexfree knuckleheads will need to jump quickly now onto another scammers lilly pad while this next pyramid flushes out completely…
This is a business to these people. The business is refer to is that of being the front runner in illegitimate businesses, being he lead dog in the dog pound. This is not something that you become proud of or speak of in public as a real caring & honest business.
I’ve watched a person that I had a great deal of respect for recently front run thousands of family, friends, associates and others on the Zeek, Lyonese, CB168, WCM777, Profitable Sunrise, Living whatever…
When I called him to discuss the Telexfree train wreck (as he was pitching me the cb168 & wcm777 deals) this person that I really sincerely liked and respected, stopped speaking with me, he stopped emailing me and he spoke in public as if I were some sort of misdirected dumb-ass that didn’t know what I was talking about and who had ulterior motives.
He’s being run down by the receiver of Zeek for 7 figures, he’s a hell of a promoter! but he’s terribly misinformed, naive, stupid or criminal. Whatever he is, I do believe he’s not the person I thought him to be. He’s running through people like grain through a goose and he’s leaving a trail of bodies with every turn.
The feds will see this person soon as a dangerous person and will be forced to slow him down. In the mean time, he and his cast of characters will pull a few more distributions out of the Telefree scam, and he’ll count the spoils and he’ll look for the next target.
Good Bye old friend. I hope you make some changes BEFORE they are made for you.
I’m not quite sure what to make of it, but appears Costa is trying hard to bail water out of the sinking Titanic with a small bucket.
I get the feeling a growing number of affiliates are seeing the light and jumping ship, choosing to wait out the catastrophe in the making.
Heck, even if Costa offered a technologically advanced form of self-cleaning feminine napkins that glowed in the dark and attached a really cool comp plan to it, I don’t think concerned affiliates would hop back on to that rocking ship so quickly.
The end:
http://economia.ig.com.br/2013-07-03/ministerio-publico-pede-fim-da-telexfree-socios-tentaram-desviar-r-88-milhoes.html
He’s simply repeating the same tactics he always have used = “minimize problems / maximize positive news”. And if he don’t have positive news he will create some himself.
TelexFree in Brazil is clearly a sinking ship, the question is only about how fast it will sink and how it will affect other markets.
Affiliates in the U.S. have been relatively quiet since Friday (payday), but up until then they didn’t seem to have been too affected.
about 95% of Telexfree affiliates are Brazilian and other 4% are Brazilians living abroad
Fernando mentioned something about that around June 10th.
I checked it with some local people, and received this answer …
Distraction. It’s a way for the real criminals to liquidate their assets before the government lock them down.
Acre’s judiciary is smart in that the judge already locked down the company’s assets, but I have a feeling they’re moving the money in other ways, so when the investigation clears there will be contempt of court charges as well. No, I have no proof, call it… reasonable expectation.
As I said before, a drug dealer is a drug junkie’s best friend… Until a dealer has no more to sell (or junkie can’t afford the price). Same with TelexFree.
Five of Acre State Representatives are “promoters” of Telexfree.
The most or all of them are christians (Christian Party and others) like many of “promoters” in Telexfree. With this they always cite god and bible.
Here the video and text about Acre Representatives:
So what?
That’s not uncommon, but it’s interesting anyway. Politicians are people too, just like anyone else. But it should normally be separated from their professional life as politicians.
Acre had around 70,000 “promoters”, out of a population of 758,000 people. That’s nearly 10% of the population, or around 20% of what we can define to be “people in working age”. That’s rather extreme.
I have seen something comparable in Norway. World Games Inc. had an estimated 200,000 members out of a population of 4.6 million people in 2004. That’s less than 5%, so Acre is rather extreme. After WGI’s collapse the market became more immune to investment opportunities.
Ponzi schemes can actually drain the wealth out of whole communities if they grow big enough.
Hello! How are you? Can you tell me if it was already open investigation against Telexfree there in the U.S.?
We know that the company uses a virtual headquarters. Has no company. But the company insists is a multinational. You know how the situation there? Thank you.
The SEC will front run the Telexfree project here in USA. They have the lowest standards for investigating a target.
The notice will go out as an informal documents production request, from then on out the slow but deliberate process of opening the kimono will continue.
They’ve undoubtedly been recording webinars, conference calls and live meetings. They’ll connect the dots to all the players and then probably find a few of the Zeek scammers that they’ve been looking for.
This time however they’ll have another bite at the apple to grab some of the independent sales/investment reps into the criminal web (those that go get caught up in the criminal indictment will only wish they’d have listened to their gut), by then it will be too late.
You know when these documents are published? Thanks.
So they just went ahead and pulled a Speak Asia, transferring millions of dollars to non-TelexFree accounts (offshore?) despite an injunction being in place?
I’m sure that’s going to play out well in court next Monday. Basically Wanzeler and Merril just gutted the company and saved what they could for their retirement fund. They’ve obviously woken up to what’s coming down the road…
Maybe Carlos Costa can put out another video in which he waves around fake contracts that “prove” the money transfers never happened.
Brazil’s Superior Court denies TelexFree appeal:
So bascially they have to wait for Acre to be finished with them.
With the latest news of TelexFree transferring out $88M USD however, I think Monday’s appeal hearing is pretty much a foregone conclusion.
http://economia.ig.com.br/2013-07-02/caso-telexfree-stj-nega-recurso-e-pagamentos-seguem-bloqueados.html
but telex affiliates have nothing to worry about, their investment is insured 😉
Just a minor correction. The Superior Court of Justice(STJ) is not the Brazilian Supreme Court. Above it, there’s the Supreme Federal Court (STF).
Well, what did I say? 🙂
Crooks run the same way. TVI Express crooks did it in Australia, and SpeakAsia crooks did it in India.
Now they’ll claim “they are saving Brazilian money… by transferring them OUT of Brazil!” 😀
BTW, Oz, this is the link that says they transferred 88 million USD into non TelexFree accounts.
http://www.alagoas24horas.com.br/conteudo/?vCod=151541
The riot police better be prepared when the telexfree followers realize they have been scammed by their very own GOD Carlos, and will not see a dime of their money since he funneled it somewhere.
Wonder how all this will play out at the convention they’re planning in California. Maybe they hope to recoup some of their losses from affiliates willing to shell out money for a boat ride and hear the latest lies about new products, hotels being built and insurance companies willing to come on board to help protect the payouts.
People are desperate to prove TelexFree is not really a scam and really does pay its affiliates a legitimate income.
And if Carlos goes to the “BIG HOUSE” on charges, I am certain there might be guards, inmate relatives or even the warden who might have been involved in Telexfree.
Maybe he can use his VOIP call in a very wise way.
I just received this from my scammer friends at Telexfree…they called to inform me yet again that everything is fine with the program, between the hotels, the insurance policy protecting everyone from potential loss of principle in the investment and on through to the charitable giving of food to the underprivileged and then right back into the new BMW..
Its all good! Don’t worry about a thing.
Here’s the video:
Drink the Kool-Aide, drink the kool aide….drink
This is so great!…OMG, I just received this jewel. The legal department at TelexFraud should be very very very busy very soon.
It looks like it has developed into a religious experience. Has this type of thing happened in Brazil before?
@Brazilian
Whoops, I read “superior” as “supreme”. Thanks for the pickup.
You’re a reporter from Brazil, if I remember it correctly?
Most news or documents are published the same day they are released.
We are currently mostly publishing news from Brazil, and we have very little news from the U.S. related to TelexFree. We simply have readers in Brazil feeding the most important news from different sources.
* official sources (MP-AC, ST-AC, etc.)
* local sources in Acre (e.g. g1.globo.com)
* a Sao Paulo based newspaper (economia.ig.com.br)
* other sources, e.g. Facebook
Oz and other people here will normally link to the most important sources, directly in the articles or directly in the comments. That doesn’t include “other sources” like e.g. Facebook, but it normally includes newspapers and official sources.
TELEXFREE U.S.
We have no official news from the US. 90% of the affiliates seems to live in Brazil, and TelexFree in the US was in a startup phase when the injunction hit TelexFree.
The organization in the US are taking orders from Brazil. It doesn’t release much info, other than about its own recruitment events (e.g. “Super Saturday”, “Extravaganza” cruise). That’s not the type of information you’re interested in.
Organization in the US:
Steve Labriola
– National Marketing Director For TelexFREE
Santiago De La Rosa
– Team Builder & International Promoter
Source (link disabled)
telexfreeunitedstates.com/telexfree-updates
GENERAL INFORMATION
You can’t expect any official information from the US before July 8th = before the appeal has been resolved in Court.
Official bodies like e.g. Bank og Brasil will need a final decision from the Court before they can do anything “official”.
Bank of Brasil can use its own rules, informing banks about the current situation and warning them about potential legal actions. But it will need a Court order before it can do a full assets freeze.
As a reporter, you can ask “Officials” about their general procedures in a case like this. That should give you the most important information. You can also ask specific questions about how they will handle it “in general”.
* STJ = non-Constitutional cases
* STF = Constitutional cases
Supreme or Superior are typically used for 3rd level courts.
* trial courts = level 1
* appeal courts = level 2
* Superior courts = level 3
STF isn’t a “4th level Court”, it’s only a different type of “3rd level Court”. In this case, it doesn’t even have jurisdiction (and neither did STJ have at this stage).
Here one source you may be interested in, when and if the case becomes official in the US …
Jordan Maglich / ponzitracker.com
He’s an attorney, and he also writes for forbes.com (“Forbes Magazine”, business and financial news). “If he’s good enough for Forbes then he’s good enough for you.”
He will report AFTER a case has reached the court system. The reports are typically about factual info about the case itself, but also about related knowledge (e.g. how the law works).
US’s agencies will NOT release information about ongoing investigations, other than the typical “We have received some reports …” type of information.
I believe you have better chances in Brazil, e.g. asking Bank of Brasil about standard procedures for assets freeze, only using TelexFree as an example. It can’t give you any information about this particular case, but it CAN give you information about its own procedures.
MP-AG should TYPICALLY (but not 100% sure) inform the central financial authorities (e.g. the central bank) about the ongoing case, immediately when the injunction is filed before a court.
The central bank should TYPICALLY send a circular to all banks and other financial institutions, warning them about the ongoing case. Bank Laws in Brazil should TYPICALLY tell them how to handle the situation.
A few simple questions to the right authorities about their own general procedures should normally give you valuable answers, e.g. about whether or not any of the Brazilian authorities have informed authorities in other countries.
My “TYPICALLY” description is based on how SpeakAsia was shut down in India. The banks simply refused to accept any transactions, after they had received a circular from the central bank (a general warning, not mentioning that specific case).
Speak Asia was effectively shut down financially, but it managed to get a restraining order against an injunction, so it managed to siphon out several hundred millions from India in the process.
Now the “promoters” (in Facebook page) say iG is manipulative and “Telexfree did not move money”. It was “scheduled payment”. Before Justice lock. 😉
A scheduled payment of how many millions?
I have read both $88 million USD (2 transactions, $48 million and $40 million), and also $101 million USD.
The two transactions were done within 24 hours after the injunction became publicly known. So the “scheduled payments” must have been to 2 super affiliates or something.
James Merril and Carlos Wanzeler?
Worldxchange Intermediação e Negócios Ltda. ME and Simternet Tecnologia da Informação Ltda. ME. (Voxbras)
http://diario.tjac.jus.br/display.php?Diario=2942&Secao=374
15 thousand Telexfree affiliates call Superior Court of Justice to complain against the decision:
http://www.telesintese.com.br/index.php/plantao/23406-stj-recebe-15-mil-reclamacoes-apos-decisao-contraria-a-telexfree
Hey guys!
I found this document:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7SmS1jmHHxcQXhjQ3ZYZmFuQ0E/
Looks like Better Living Global will soon be picking up the crumbs of the Telexfree shoeple left with a little more in the bank of cash and friends…these deals are the the lower division or feeders clubs of the NFL…No Friends any Longer
Reply to #40.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7SmS1jmHHxcQXhjQ3ZYZmFuQ0E/
There are documents within that doc submission deck to the court relative to the actual independent agents marketing.
It would seem to me that the prosecutors have begun perfecting a case not only against the principles of Telex, but also the networkers. Looks like they’ve decided to take a run not only at those in the cartel, but also the dime bag junkies on the street. This is how its done in the USA too.
@icaro
Holy lack of formatting, even when translated that document is a nightmare to read. It appears to be the Acre PP subpoena’ing lawyers and management of TelexFree for information on the transfers?
Good thing the President of the court came out and said TelexFree affiliate protests will have no affect on the judiciary. Looks like they’re going to stick to the facts and analysis of TelexFree’s business model.
The Google Docs upload (80+ pages!), what exactly is it?
Prosectutors for both the Consumer Protection Agency and Group For Combatting Organised Crime have filed a civil lawsuit requesting affiliate investors be refunded, TelexFree be fined 8 million ($3.5M USD) and management be banned from running similar scams in the future:
Interesting that they’ve asked for a list of investors and the amount invested. Looks like they’re pushing ahead with clawback proceedings. And a list of top TelexFree promoters won’t hurt their investigation either.
http://g1.globo.com/ac/acre/noticia/2013/07/mp-do-acre-ajuiza-acao-que-pede-ressarcimento-de-divulgadores.html
The document was submitted and signed by four (4) Promotor(as) de Justica, that is five prosecutors representing government agencies.
Promotor is Portuguese for Prosecutor Wikipedia explains that
“The prosecution is the party responsible by law to present a case against an individual suspected to counteract the law in a criminal trial, or defend, in court or out of court, the collective interests of society.”
Therefore this is probably a criminal indictment not a civil action. By appearances the prosecutors have been documenting their case for some time. The action appears to be a joint prosecution by Special Prosecutors with jurisdiction in matters pertaining to defense of consumer rights, and organized crime with particular emphasis on cybercrime.
Correction, it may be civil
So it’d be the criminal charges (or beginning of that action) the PP were ordered to file within 30 days of the original Acre injunction being granted?
If they’ve already filed that guess they figure Monday is going to be a waste of time too…
I also thought it was interesting to learn that some of the $88M USD TelexFree transferred despite the injunction was sent over to VoxBras.
VoxBras as a service-based business is non-existant. Despite all the hype even Costas admitted on one of the TelexFree videos that before they bought them business “was nothing”.
Hello money laundering?
It’s a Civil Action. All about the “making money with Ads”. The simple profit and debt calculation of 240% with each “promoter”. Lies about Mapfre after Justice lock the money, etc.
These are probably money running out of the country. Good luck finding them right now.
Oooooh my the plot thickens!
Some serious pocket greasing happening here. Something the US telexfree promoters can be very proud of being part of.
Thanks, Norway!
Telexfree affiliates pretend to ignore something essential:
The problem doesn’t start when the company stops paying people, it starts in the moment the company adopts an unsustainable business model, and the more time the company works in this way, the bigger will be “the hole” when the unavoidable collapse of the company happens.
Dear Telexfree affiliates, can you understand or should I draw it?
As long as they get paid they don’t care. Zeekheads are the same way: there was no problem until SEC stopped the money spigot.
And of course the great irony is that if the government doesn’t step in, the same morons professing the legitimacy of Ponzi schemes publicly denounce the government for not stepping in earlier.
Prossecutors from other states are ready to, if the Acre injunction is revoked in next Monday’s trial, immediately file similar lawsuits against Telexfree http://economia.ig.com.br/2013-07-05/caso-telexfree-mps-criam-forca-tarefa-para-evitar-desbloqueio-de-pagamentos.html
Not sure how good the translation was that I read so I will ask…. did Telex attempt to transfer money and fail? The translation said “they tried.”
According to the word “sent” below, I take it that money was transfered:
Fuchs says that the transfers were legal and occurred before the notification of the blockade of goods. Half the value (U.S. $ 51.7 million), says he was sent to a company that would pay for the services of interconnection between VoIP phone system offered by Telexfree and conventional telephone network. The other half (U.S. $ 50 million) claims was intended for the expansion of the structure of a company newly aquirida by Telexfree. The money will be used to expand the structure VoIP
Yes I read the same which is why its confusing. However, the paragraph prior to what you quoted says, “On Wednesday (3), the IG found that, shortly after the decision in favor of the blockade, responsible for Telexfree tried to transfer U.S. $ 101.7 million for the accounts of two other companies.”
This suggests to me that the banking system caught the transfer, and stopped it. The translation is confusing. Maybe Fuchs, attorney representing Telex, was giving an interview and gave a statement to reporters that attempted to explain the propriety and bona fide purpose of the his clients’ actions. If so, the IG has a different opinion.
The document is very interesting. specially after the page 30, when they show who the ads are no more thana distraction
Using an alternative translator program yields the following:
On Wednesday (3), the iG has revealed that, shortly after the decision in favour of the blocking, those responsible for Telexfree tried to transfer $ 101.7 million to the accounts of two other companies. (English)
To the iG, the lawyer Fuchs says that the transfers were legal and took place before blocking notification of goods.
On balance it appears Telex tried to transfer but the IG blocked them. Fuchs is defending the attempt by asserting that the purpose of the blocked transfer was legitimate and that ACRE’s injunction did not apply since Telex operates primarily in another jurisdiction or some such nonsense.
The ads are simply meant to make it look like and feel like WORK rather than investment. People will assume they are being paid for the work, similar to a normal job. They won’t realize it’s their OWN money being paid back to them in small portions (or actually other investors’ money).
That’s one of the ideas.
The other idea is to sell it as an investment, where people can reinvest money (compounding) for e.g. 12-13 weeks and double their investments (e.g. 1 Family Pack will grow to 2 Family Packs in 12-13 weeks, or grow to 4 Family Packs in 24-26 weeks). So you can double your weekly payout in 3 months, and redouble it in 6 months.
The third idea is recruitment / binary commissions.
The 4th idea is “pay yourself via recruitment”, i.e. use the money you earn to generate new PINs (memberships), sell them to new members and keep the money from the sale (you have already paid for the membership in “points”). Income generated that way will not be directly traceable, neither to you nor the company.
I’m pretty sure they have many other ideas, too. But typically it will revolve around the 4 ideas I described here.
If Google translate is working, Carlos Costa has been named one of the three partner owners of TelexFree (hardly surprising given all the lies he’s put out there over the past month).
Sounds like we’ll also get to the bottom of TelexFree in the US. I can’t help but wonder if the US authorities are watching from the sidelines, hence the interest in TelexFree’s US activities.
Meanwhile, after trying to transfer $88M USD out of Brazil it appears Carlos Wanzeler and James Merril have fled Brazil (also not surprising):
Maybe they’re hanging out with Manoj Kumar in Dubai…
http://g1.globo.com/espirito-santo/noticia/2013/07/dono-da-telexfree-e-intimado-prestar-depoimento-no-es.html
Everything so similar to SpeakAsia that I wouldn’t be surprised if they create an ABTSA(All Brasil Telexfree Promoters Association)
They’ll have a fine time here in the US dismantling Randy Crosby, Darcy and the group leading the charge in Cali. Its going to get very interesting for these peps (perps) pretty quickly. Look out for the target letters.
Portuguese speaker (probably one “promoter”) record one video saying he live in Atlanta in the US and say all the lies about MLM in Harvard and Stanford and the “serious laws in USA about fraud” – “if Telexfree is legal here why not in Brazil?”
Ops, he is a “promoter”. 100% telexfree 😉
I forgot: he say Telexfree changing the life many people in the USA.
Telexfree is changing many lives in Brasil also 🙂
Two Brazilians who live in the US suggesting people in Brazil to join Telexfree with false adresses in the US, in order to bypass the injunction.
The assumption a business is legal because it hasn’t been shut down is a false one.
An MLM company’s business model dictates whether it’s legit or not, legality is up to a court to decide and to the best of my knowledge TelexFree hasn’t fronted a US court.
That said, a Ponzi is a Ponzi wherever you analyse it from and it appears TelexFree are about to have their arses handed to them in Brazil. It goes without saying the “but our affiliates publish ads, that’s work!” excuse won’t work in a US court.
But they say Telexfree have more than 10 years in the US and more 40 countries 😉
Very interesting one “Telexfree VoIP promoter” recommending Microsoft Skype.
TelexFree as the Ponzi scheme we know it today has only been active in the US for a year or so at best.
Anything Wanzeler, Costa and Merril were involved in before is not the TelexFree $20 a week ROI scheme it is today.
Why not use the 99Telexfree? 😉
TelexFREE Steve Labriola Published on Jul 5, 2013– Q&A on Upgraded Upgraded, Security & New AD Posting and Validation:
The above video will give you a good idea of the hype and crap that will be going on in California.
New platform?? Who cares… you pump in $x and TelexFree pay you out >$x over 52 weeks.
Whatever they add to it it’s still just a Ponzi scheme.
I have a strange feeling telexfree usa members are going after the the spoils of despair seen going on in Brasil at this time. Take what you can and run with it!
Now they are planing for Monday a demonstration in Brasília, at Ministries Esplanade starting on the Cathedral: http://facebook.com/photo.php?v=282070815271342
This is what the telexfree USA is pushing:
LifeRevs team:
Daniel J. Cowart President
Gary R. Harrison Vice President
Brazilian, have the video in Youtube? I don’t use Adobe Flash neither any proprietary software.
I may have something. It may eventually lead to a story, but I haven’t verified the facts yet.
SHORT VERSION
Some transactions in TelexFree has probably been done DIRECTLY between recruiters and newly recruited members, without involving the company in any monetary transactions.
The business model we normally can see has a few hidden functions. Some of them were partially described in post #65.
Idea 1:
Invest $1375, and earn $100 per week for 52 weeks (withdraw $100 each week). This is what we normally will see.
Idea 2:
Invest $1375, reinvest payouts 100% for 13 weeks to double your investment, follow a 50/50 plan 50% reinvestment 50% withdrawal. Ponzi investors will see this part. Look at first half of the video in post #29.
Idea 3:
Follow idea 1 or 2, but recruit people so you can earn commissions. Recruiters will probably see this part too.
Idea 4:
Follow idea 3, but use all your payouts to the backoffice to generate PIN’s and buy AdCentrals you can sell for CASH to the members you recruit. PIN = new membership. Experienced Ponzi recruiters will also see this part.
Idea 4 works like this:
The company pays a non-monetary amount to your back office each week (Ponzi payouts, commissions from a downline). You can use it to buy PIN’s and AdCentrals directly from your back office, and sell those to new members.
The new members will pay CASH directly to you, and will get memberships and AdCentrals in exchange.
* You have got CASH, but not traceable through a normal investigation if the company has been shut down by authorities.
* It will not show up in any tax audits either.
Idea 4 has a different type of risk. You will have received a lot of money directly from the people you have recruited, and you still have all their money when the company is being shut down. They can sue you rather than the company.
I’m pretty sure methods relatively similar to idea 4 has been used in TelexFree.
in youtube, this other video about the same thing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4deLt3jnQag
PPBlog has weighed in on the issue on his website patrickpretty.com
I checked some corp records, and it’s interesting.
Massachussets has a TelexFree Inc, which was known as “Common Cents Communications” up to 2012, when it was renamed TelexFree Inc. President is Merrill, and Wanzeler as VP. However, its address is a Regus virtual office. The “suite 200” is a giveaway… There’s a dozen businesses with that exact same address.
There’s also a NEVADA Corp called TelexFree LLC, also setup by Merrill and Wanzeler, and it has 3 “managers”: Merrill, Wanzeler, and Costas. Nevada Corps don’t name officers if they don’t want to, but the registered address is the local post office.
So essentially speaking, there is no TelexFree Corporate HQ in the US. It’s just two mailboxes.
Technically, it did not. Common Cents Communications was registered back in… 2002. However, it did NOT operate as TelexFree until 2012, AFAIK.
Kind of reminds me of those Zeek Rewards affiliates who insisted “the company” had been around for 13 years or whatever it was.
My previous post #87 will need an explanation, e.g. some Ponzi scheme logics. It will eventually lead to an “investigative story” where only a few parts are missing.
Here’s the 2 basic ideas for Ponzi schemes.
1. Ponzi schemes are about ILLUSIONS, e.g. “the illusion of making money”, “the illusion of a profitable investment”.
* payments to the back office is one of the illusions, an illusion of real money being paid to you. It FEELS like real money coming in to a bank account each week, adding to the balance.
* the illusion of being paid for work makes the feeling more realistic.
2. Ponzi schemes are also about REINVESTMENTS, “tricking the investors to reinvest the illusion of money rather than withdrawing real money”.
* Money being paid IN or OUT (to and from external banks) has of course to be about real money.
* Money being paid INTERNALLY is only about an illusion, comparable to monopoly money. They can only be used inside the game itself.
THE INVESTMENTS / REINVESTMENTS
New investors will of course have to pay real money to join the game. 2 typical investments from new investors in the US can be e.g. one of these:
* 4 Family Packs = 4 * $1,375 = $5,500
* 8 Family Packs = 8 * $1,375 = $11,000
8 Family Packs will pay out weekly $800, internally to the back office. It’s an illusion of being paid, but it will give the same feeling as real money. After 2 weeks, the investor has the illusion of having $1,600 in his back office.
He can reinvest $1,375 and buy a new Family Pack, to increase his weekly payouts to $900.
* He’s reinvesting 1,375 monopoly money, and has 225 monopoly money left in his backoffice.
If he continues like that for 12 or 13 weeks, he will have doubled his number of Family Packs to 16, and his weekly illusionary payouts have grown to $1,600.
The company hasn’t paid him any MONEY in those 13 weeks, it has only paid him monopoly money and allowed him to reinvest them. Ponzi schemes will encourage people to reinvest in that way, so people don’t withdraw too much money.
He hasn’t brought in more money himself either. The growth in Family Packs and weekly payouts are only illusions. If he’s lucky, he will be able to withdraw some of it as real money before the scheme runs out of investors.
Actually it’s even easier: Ferengi’s Rules of Acquisition #1:
“Once you have their money, never give it back.” (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)< How do you avoid giving back the money? By promising them even more money, but WAY in the future. There's a couple other characteristics, but the main idea is give people the ILLUSION of growing money. The program is also helped along through "secrecy", "fake business" (part of the "illusion'), and high returns. http://kschang.hubpages.com/hub/How-Ponzi-Schemes-are-disguised-through-secrecy-fake-product-and-consistently-high-returns
It is interesting though that in order to trick Americans, scammers incorporate offshore (BVI, Panama, Cyprus, Hong Kong, etc.) However, in order to trick Brazilians, they incorporate in the US!
However, my “internet scam blueprint” still applies. 😀
http://kschang.hubpages.com/hub/How-an-Internet-Ponzi-or-Pyramid-Scheme-Works-and-How-to-Avoid-Such-a-Scheme
Taken from the telexfree facebook page, it seems Brasilians are trying to transfer their accounts somehow. I’ve seen many comments on this matter, here is an example:
Did anyone care there is no US headquarters building for TelexFree? 🙂 Guess not. Join a mailbox! Yeah!
If all the “earnings” are frozen in Brasil what can they possibly be transferring to the US except their naivete.
Maybe they’re trying to get some of that 88/101 mil. 😀
they want new subscriptions to be paid in the US, with the comissions being received in American banks and then transfered to Brazil by the affiliates, not by the company
A lot can go wrong there.
There seems to be no physical office of TelexFree in the US. One’s a mailbox, the other a Regus virtual office.
http://amlmskeptic.blogspot.com/2013/07/telexfree-location-lie-its-tvi-express.html#more
there’s an hilarious video of a top Telexfree affiliate visiting the virtual office building and showing it as if it was Telexfree headquarters:
he spends all the video saying things like “look all structure Telexfree has to help you”, “Telexfree is a giant company that will bless Brazilian people”, “all those people are working for you success”.
Clearly, he only could say it because he and the cameraman were the only Portuguese-speaker people in the building. Otherwise, the other people would interrupt him and say that he was lying.
The brazilian website from Globo TV of Espírito Santo (A Gazeta) state said this in March [0][1].
[0] http://gazetaonline.globo.com/_conteudo/2013/03/noticias/dinheiro/1416366-telexfree-usa-sede-virtual-nos-estados-unidos.html
[1] http://gazetaonline.globo.com/_conteudo/2013/03/noticias/dinheiro/1416356-ex-dono-de-piramide-divulga-novo-negocio.html
Sann Rodrigues the creator of Ponzi scheme “PhoneClub/FoneClube”.
Seriously, dude walks into shared office TelexFre rent a mailbox in and starts talking about how everyone in the building works for TelexFree?
Gee-sus…
yes, taking advantage of the fact that he and the cameraman were the only ones who could speak Portuguese in the building
Good thing he wasn’t talking about Herbalife then hey…
BOOM! MLM slam, highfive!
A description will need to be general enough and vague enough for people to fill in the correct details themselves, or else it will most likely be misleading.
I have read official descriptions of pyramid schemes from agencies that clearly have been misleading, e.g. because of too much focus on their own field of expertise.
I like the “illusion” as a general identifier for how and why a Ponzi scheme works. Most other identifiers will describe them as something specific, e.g. as “fraudulent investment schemes”. That describes WHAT they may be, but not WHY and HOW they work.
Post #87 and #92 are about that I believe I may have a “story” for Brazilian reporters, but they will need to identify it themselves, i.e. whether or not it really exists and what it is about.
The core part of the story is that TelexFree CAN have been organized in a way that will disguise payouts to leaders on different levels, e.g. to prevent clawbacks (or to avoid reporting and paying taxes).
I have the following parts:
1. I know about a method that can have been used to disguise payouts, and it is built into TelexFree’s software.
2. I have descriptions of the method from different sources.
3. I know some potential methods for how to detect it in the company’s memberlist / financial records (for investigating agencies).
4. I know appr. where an investigation will miss to detect it
But I know far too little about TelexFree itself and how the company actually was organized from the start. Where Seven Rings was highly organized TelexFree looks rather random.
it only gets more and more bizarre:
Telexfree affiliate posting a “mother bufallo saves her puppy from lions” video to toch the judges’ hearts and make them unblock Telexfree accounts.
This video say Telexfree change from Telexfree, Inc to Telexfree LLC.
Indeed, the new contract have only Telexfree LLC not more Telexfree, Inc.
In the video have “they moved millions of dollars to Nevada”.
Other document with only TelexFREE LLC (Terms and Conditions): http://www.telexfree.com/public/file/TelexFREEProductTermsAndConditions.pdf
They killed “TelexFREE Inc”.
And is some random Brazilian going to know the truth if they don’t know about “virtual office” and such?
Ignorance is NOT bliss, but it’s not stupidity either. It’s vulnerability to fraud.
So TelexFree’s answer to what is likely to be a Ponzi shutdown in Brazil is to move the funds into the US and get their affiliates to re-register fake accounts from there?
Uh… good luck with that guys. Surely someone from the SEC is paying attention…
And how is this all going to look in court tommorow?
Who is the lion in that analogy and who is the mother buffalo?
If the regulators are the lion, then sending videos with TelexFree being represented by a mother buffalo is pointless – seeing as they can’t change Ponzi laws. And in that case shouldn’t they be sending the video to TelexFree and requesting protection?
If the regulators are the mother buffalo… then what, TelexFree management are the lions trying to eat them.
As close as that is to the reality of Ponzi schemes, again TelexFree affiliates claiming so makes little sense.
Maybe this is why Merril and Wanzeler are “missing”:
And that was just a local soccer match… What happens when hundreds of thousands of Brazilians realise TelexFree can’t refund them because their money’s been paid to top affiliates already?
http://www.news.com.au/sport/football/soccer-referee-in-brazil-beheaded-by-angry-fans-after-stabbing-player-to-death/story-fndkzvnd-1226675487467
They haven’t killed it. It does still exist in Massachusetts Corporation Registry.
Nevada:
The herd represents the Telex members. The lions are the government agencies attacking them. The point? The bufflo herd can beat the lions by working, cooperating and sticking together.
Next up red ants defending their turf from an invading beetle, macroghages devouring a bacterium, an irate mob of soccer moms swarming a referee and in the grand finale….Telex publishers running headlong into a brick wall…..hopefully wearing cool water buffalo horns when they do so.
and the nonsense videos never stop. Now, a man behind a curtain, whose voice has been mnodified by a computer program, says that he is an actor who works min TV Globo, and claims thaat the TV station is part of a “system” that wants to destroy Telexfree.
“Telexfree is redistributing income in this country”,”many affiliates don’t know how they will buy food due to the injunction”, “the taxes the company paid must be refunded” he says.
The DEAD:
http://economia.ig.com.br/2013-07-08/telexfree-e-derrotada-pela-3-vez-e-pagamentos-seguem-bloqueados.html
http://g1.globo.com/ac/acre/noticia/2013/07/tj-ac-nega-recurso-e-mantem-atividades-da-telexfree-suspensas.html
Goodbye Telexfree! 😀
By now they are making death threats to the judges, not Telexfree. I wonder what will happen when they finally realize they’ve been fooled by Carlos Costa, the man they worship so much.
http://www.advivo.com.br/blog/luisnassif/a-tropa-de-choque-da-telexfree-atua-para-intimidar-juiza
Sometimes it is difficult to know if those people are serious or just making a macabre joke. The guy on that link said he would kill the judges and their children with satanic sacrifices: “I am going to Miami next month and we are going to sacrifice a goat with the World’s greatest satanist”.
Wow!
The most impressive thing is that, even when the subject is black magic, those people think anything from USA must be the best. No wonder Telexfree made such an effort to pass as an American company!
Theres not one time that I go to Brasil, that I don’t get asked to bring something, like aspirin, deodorand, rubber gloves, q.tips etc etc….mundane things most of the time. So I ask ” don’t you guys have that over there?”, and the answer is always- “if is American is better”.
So Igor is right, if you can pass as an American company, its trustworthy.
You’re quite right, and it must be added that this case is not being conducted by state of Acre’s justice, but by the Acrean section of the Federal justice. Which means, in essence, that they are to be charged of FEDERAL CRIMES.
So far, it seems that the federal nature of the crime was initially established because it encompassed the country as whole, but apparently some of the accusations in order will be about proper federal crimes (tax evasion, money laundering, funds smuggling etc.)
In Brazil, much like the U.S. we have federal crimes and ordinary crimes. Federal crimes are those that involve a foreign party (like smuggling or tax evasion) or threaten national institutions (like money laundering).