tvi-express-logoYou’ve been running your TVI Express business for about a year now. During this time you’ve seen neighbouring countries strike out against TVI, labeling it a pyramid scheme or money game scam.

Still, nobody’s said anything in your country yet so, perhaps with a little more caution, you continue to publicise your business and recruit new members.

Finally, when the regulators in your country do announce an investigation into TVI, do you

a. Accept that what happened elsewhere is most likely going to happen in your country?

b. continue to promote TVI and hope for the best? or

c. play the race card?

If you live in South Africa, the answer is of course ‘c’.

Yesterday the South African Reserve bank announced that it had launched an investigation into TVI Express. The investigation came after TVI was being promoted in South Africa as able to ‘make millionaires of everyone who joins‘.

Naturally this claim is dubious and understandably South African authorities have a duty to investigate if this claim is being widely used to promote TVI Express.

In response to this investigation, seeing that trying to defend TVI’s obviously unusustainable recruitment driven  business model didn’t work out to well in neighbouring Namibia, TVI Express South Africa members decided to take a different approach;

Anyone against TVI Express you see, is ‘against black people becoming wealthy‘.

Yes, they went and played the race card insinuating that critics of TVI Express can be easily dismissed as nothing more than racists.

So how do you respond to something like that?

The answer is you don’t.

In a country where apartheid (white people ruling black people at the expense of the black majority’s basic human rights) are barely two decades old, the memories of having your rights curtailed is obviously still raw in a lot of people’s minds.

Frankly it’s outrageous that TVI Express members in South Africa would seek to defend the TVI by exploiting something as racially charged as apartheid.

What on Earth does race or the color of your skin have to do with analysing a business a model and establishing whether it’s illegal or not?

The South African Reserve Bank investigation comes just months after the South African Department of Trade declared TVI Express a pyramid scheme in South Africa, and that they ‘intended to launch criminal proceedings against the company and its distributors‘.

These criminal proceedings seem to be well under way with just yesterday Provincial police spokesperson, Col Vincent Mdunge stating that ‘TVI Express a genuine scam. We are going to get to the bottom of it‘.

Not too familiar with South African law I’m not sure what the Reserve Bank’s investigation covers, but I assume it’s to do with the continued recruiting to TVI (specifically  financial transactions between members) despite the pyramid scheme ruling.

Meanwhile what’s with the bizarre manner in which TVI Express is being promoted in South Africa?

Siya Mhlongo, a presenter of a religious programme at Igagasi 99.5 FM, led the charge in a (TVI) event that often sounded like a church festival.

He was followed by celebrity pastors and motivational speakers Sithembiso Zondo and Thomas Hadebe, amid singing, chanting and clapping from the audience, attracted by the “how to become a millionaire banners”.

Celebrity pastors, religious leaders, chanting, singing and clapping?!

…sounds more like a dangerous cult than a business opportunity.