Wealth Masters lose appeal, still banned in Norway
Back in March of 2011, the Norwegian Gaming Board upheld its original declaration that, after investigating the business model and products of Wealth Masters International, the company was nothing more than a pyramid scheme.
In response to the Gaming Boards decision, Wealth Masters launched an appeal accusing the Gaming Board of ‘colluding with a Norwegian blogger in order to ‘smear, libel and discredit WMI’.
Upon receiving the appeal, the Gaming Board ‘found no reason to reverse its decision‘ and in July 2011 forwarded Wealth Master’s appeal and WMI’s complaints to the Lottery Board for consideration.
In September Wealth Masters, being represented by Prashant Rørvik after firing their previous lawyers Helleroy and Co., submitted additional information to the Lottery Board they hoped would further clarify their complaints against the Gaming Board’s decision.
Through their lawyers, Wealth Masters argued that
- WMI do not pay compensation for recruiting
- WMI’s products are not overpriced because ‘there are considerable costs to hold courses’
- there is no annual fee to participate in WMI but rather ‘each participant is free to participate regardless of payment in the form of annual fees‘
- Section 16 of Norway’s ‘Lottery Act’ (which the Gaming Board used to asses whether WMI is a pyramid scheme or not) ‘may not apply to WMI’s business‘
In its decision, the Lottery Board acknowledged
it may, by the so-called pyramid schemes be difficult to determine whether the goal of the organization and participants is to develop a healthy business with sales and / or services, or if the goal is to make a future profit by paying money into the bottom of the pyramid
but reasoned that
that the Gaming Authority in its notice of decision and in the decision, has made a thorough assessment of WMI.
Pyramid-like sales structure WMIs turnover is built over levels.
The company’s consultants depending on the type of consultant status they have, receive financial benefits for up to five levels.
Lottery Board joins in the supervisor’s assessment and are similar to the Authority concluded that WMI clearly has a pyramid-like sales structure.
Participant Payment is a condition that WMI can be affected by the Lottery Act, 16 This means that WMIs participants must make a payment to the participant status.
When the consideration for purchase of starter kits, brochures, introduction material, education courses and the like do not correspond with the actual values of such material, it is considered to be an indirect acquisition of the status of participants within the system.
There is also an indirect payment for participation when the products that are traded in the system.
The Tribunal finds that WMIs products actually have a considerably lower value a price they are sold for.
Lottery Board is thus similar to the audit that regardless of whether the yearly fee is voluntary, indirectly provided compensation through the sale of goods that are overpriced.
It is stated that one can be a vendor / consultant without even having bought WMIs products, but the participant must, among else pay an annual fee of 99 that must be considered ‘payment to participate’ for this group of participants.
It seems clear to the Tribunal that WMIs members / consultants are lured into the system in that it made in view of financial gain in the form of bonus / commission.
It is the board’s clear opinion that the revenues of the system will come from the new participant’s payment for participation.
It is in the assessment not relevant to the quotes from the complaint that the revenue goes to the parent WMI centrally and that the consultants are paid from a central WMI as long as the income of the consultants generated from sales / recruiting of new participants.
It is the Gaming Board wrdering that WMI provides that its participants have the opportunity for large (unrealistic) earnings.
It is on the Board assessment that the products offered by WMI are not ordinary consumer products and find out from the documents is unlikely that the products purchased several times.
Revenues in the company is thus dependent on new participants to generate revenue for the company.
Authority has his view demonstrated that a large portion of the proceeds from the products are allocated to the commission and bonus. The products are also considered to be overpriced.
Lottery Board on the basis of this along with the Authority, concluded that the company’s revenues in the reality of large partly due to recruitment of new participants and not the sale of products or services.
Lottery Board parts thus Authority’s assessment that more than 50% of its revenues (are) derived (from the) recruiting of new participants to the company.
Ultimately, the Lottery Board concluded that
the complainant has the e-mail on 19 September asked for suspensive effect, which the Tribunal can not find a basis for.
Lottery Board. shows the connection to the administrative handling of the matter is now finally settled and the Tribunal is not in doubt about the result.
The language is a bit mangled with having to rely on Google Translate to convert the Norwegian language Lottery Board notification into the English, but the overall message is loud and clear.
The Lottery Board agrees with the Gaming Boards assessment and has dismissed Wealth Masters’ complaints lodged in their appeal.
As far as the Gaming and Lottery Boards are concerned, the issue of whether or not Wealth Masters International is a pyramid scheme or not ‘is now finally settled‘.
The promotion of Wealth Masters and sales of their products in Norway remains illegal.
You can view the original Lottery Board conclusion at their website (linked at the bottom of the press release), or a Google Translated copy into English here.
Here’s a few corrections (in the quoted translation), and you can delete this comment afterwards. I’ll correct some of the original typing errors if you want to look for other expressions.
blandingsformenc
blandings-formene (??) = “promotional pyramids”, or the mixed types of business, both recruitment and sales (I believe, since I haven’t read the document yet). The Lottery Act separates between “traditional pyramids” and “promotional pyramids” within the same subsection of the law. The expression used here relates mostly to some “background material” for the law. The most correct translation should be “promotional pyramids”.
deltakeme
deltakerne = the participants
pengeri
by paying into penger i bottom of the pyramid = by paying money into the bottom of the pyramid
irltroduksjonsmateriale (?)
introduksjons-materiale (?) = introduction material
opplærings-kms (?)
opplærings-kurs (?) = educational courses (I believe “kms” may be typing error for “kurs”)
deltakerstatlls
deltaker-status = the status of the participant(s) (like “M2 Consultant, L1”, “M3 Master Consultant, L4”, etc.). The L1 to L4 relates to some “leadership level” or something similar.
ârsavgiften
årsavgiften = the yearly fee (to participate, to be a member)
deltakerbetalmg
deltaker-betaling = payment to participate (or payment from participants)
—————-
Google has translated something too directly, I believe.
“in that it made in view of financial gain”
I would have used “lured into the system by being promised possible financial gain” or something similar. Or maybe “… lured into the system by being prospected financial gain …”.
“In view of financial gain” isn’t incorrect, but the sentence could be made a little “smoother” to read. Maybe it’s the “in that it made” that should be corrected?
The overall translation seems to be good, so I haven’t checked it in detail.
So based on reading this, and the previous decision, wouldn’t ANY Network Marketing or MLM company be illegal in Norway?
I read something else from the Lottery Board that said basically, “It is too time-consuming and costly to review MLMs, so buyer beware and you are on your own.” So it looks like because of the original complaint, Wealth Masters was one of the only companies researched by the board, found to be illegal even though they are just like the rest of these companies out there, and now has this extra “Badge of Dishonor”.
I could care less either way about Wealth Masters, but it does seem a bit un-evenhanded, and therefore does not deserve the kind of attention you have been giving it on this blog.
Thanks for the that M_Norway! I’ll update the article with your corrections.
No, because believe it or not there are MLM companies out there that have true retail sales. Not ‘we have retail sales but in reality all our retail sales are to people who are or become members’.
That and the membership fee to earn a commission are the two strongest points the Gaming Board had against Wealth Masters.
Not withstanding the fact that the reason Wealth Masters’ “products” cost so much is because of the commissions is pays out, rather than any true inherent value in the products.
Source?
Except there was no complaint. Former WMI Scandanavia CEO Harald Krystad asked the Gaming Board to look into Wealth Masters in an attempt to prove its legitimacy to members.
So… how long have you been a member of WMI for then?
@Mark W.
Norway has the same Consumer Protection Laws as the rest of Europe, based on the EU Unfair Commercial Practice Directive. Promotional pyramids are a part of that Directive.
WMI was mostly selling the opportunity itself, with some products / services attached to it. Having the business opportunity itself as the “main product” are illegal in most countries. Attaching products to a recruitment scheme will usually not make it more legal, it will still be a recruitment scheme.
WMI’s problems in Norway were partly related to their marketing methods. They drew too much negative attention when they used Carbon Copy Pro as a marketing system.
People trying to “drown” the internet with fake income claims and other ‘fake it till you make it’ wasn’t exactly a good idea. The first warning from Consumer Protection Authorities was published already in September 2009.
Most other companies will withdraw from a market when they’re under investigation, or do something to solve the legal problems. WMI didn’t do anything to solve them, they changed marketing methods instead (dropping Carbon Copy Pro and partially dropping internet marketing).
Being too focused on sales and income and ignoring other important matters is another reason for the problems they did experience. WMI didn’t seem to be able to handle problems.
Trying to ignore problems for more than a year isn’t a very good idea, and neither is the idea that problems will solve themselves if you pretend they don’t exist. Trying to send out lots of “positive signals” doesn’t work well either, and neither does the feeling of being a victim for some conspiracy to smear you.
So, there are lots of reasons for why WMI was banned, and most of the reasons are related to their own set of ideas, and a serious lack of skills in how to identify important matters.
Wealth Masters International was the only pyramid case opened in 2010 (out of 25-30 cases reported), and it was the first case after the law was adjusted to EU UCP Directive (in 2007/2008 or something).
The EU Directive had a deadline in June 2009 or something, to be fully implemented in the laws in each country. I don’t have exact details about laws or the UCP Directive.
Pyramid laws are very seldom used, since most of these cases involves more serious crimes. Most schemes will also collapse before they’re investigated, or they will shut down operations in that particular market and continue somewhere else.
Very few will ignore a voluntarily solution to stop business, like WMI did.
@Oz
You can use me as a temporarily source. I can confirm the statement from Mark W.
The Gaming Board has published a similar message sometimes around November or December 2011, stating that they cannot give these cases the same priority (as in 2010 / 2011). This doesn’t mean they won’t investigate any cases, it means they don’t have the capacity to handle lots of information and tips from the public.
The Gaming Board has only 4 or 5 lawyers handling these cases, and most of these cases should initially be handled by Consumer Protection Authorities instead of being sent directly to the Gaming Board. I believe they may have been “drowned” in information in some parts of 2010 and 2011.
I tried to advise people to avoid this method in a forum thread in 2010, when someone else started a thread “Where to send information related to pyramid cases”. But no one has ever been able to convince anyone of anything if they didn’t believe in it already.
All parts related to pyramid schemes are illegal, like organizing, running or participate in them. “You are on your own” is related to the responsibility each and everyone have. A similar message (without the capacity problem) has “allways” been present on their webpages (“allways” means 2009 and 2010).
Fair enough then. I suppose the fact the Krystad himself asked the Gaming Board to look into Wealth Masters just means that in the future operators of pyramid schemes are going to keep quiet about it.
In that sense publicly available information and discussion on these schemes becomes more important than ever.
@Oz
Carl Harald Krystad and some of the others obviously must have believed that WMI was legitime business, and that all the critics didn’t have the right skills to understand the business model. You have quite a few similar comments here and there, related to other companies. 🙂
The recruit driven business model was much easier to detect from the outside than from the inside of the business. Some people did detect it from the inside, though, and usually within the first month after they joined.
It’s like those “2-in-1 pictures” psychological tricks. People are unable to see the other picture when they have identified the first one. Both CCPro and WMI used lots of methods to trick the brain, and they worked on some people. CCPro even filtered out all those unwilling to be tricked at an early stage.
I had lots of different discussions with many of the members in forums and blogs. Most of them were totally unable to “see the other picture” in lots of areas. This also made them fail miserably when methods failed, since they usually were unable to switch from one method to another.
This problem seems to be dominant in the whole organization, failing miserably because of being too focused on one specific picture, and being unable to see other pictures within the same picture.
By the way, Carl Harald Krystad may have been tricked indirectly or directly by me into believing in contacting the Gaming Board, but I didn’t actually try to trick anyone.
I analysed the situation in a forum thread where some of the local WMI-leaders were active (anonymously), in late January or February 2010, and one of the solutions I mentioned was to do something similar. “This unsolved situation must be frustrating”, “seriously hurt the sale”, “better with any solution than the current situation” and similar expressions were used. I also used “speed up the case”, “make things happen”, etc. 🙂
On the other hand, he may have tricked himself. My analysis happened more than 2 months before he did something.
Yes, any MLM company that focus more on recruiting new distributors than selling products or services to end customers is illegal in Norway and most other countries. If the Gaming Board had hundreds of lawyers, MLM companies like Kyani, Tahitian Noni, Nu Skin and Agel would be banned too, because they mostly sell products within the distributor network.
What made WMI special was the possibility to loose big money, and the aggressive and misleading marketing. WMI tried to hide how many Norwegians they had lured into this, but then it was revealed that 1.100 Norwegians had been members.
Soon after the Gaming Board decided to start a serious investigation of WMI, and we all know the result. In Norway WMI did not make one retail sale. Every sale was actually a recruitment to a business opportunity.
I have estimated that the total sales that WMI have generated by recruiting these Norwegians are 30 to 40 million NOK. Tahitian Noni’s total sales in Norway are about 700 million NOK, and at least 20.000 Norwegians have been distributors, probably more than 30.000.
If you compare these two schemes it would make more sense to stop Tahitian Noni. The probable reason why they chose to investigate WMI was the big number of complaints against the marketing, support and refund policy, and the fact that a general warning about the company did not seem to keep new people from signing up.
In WMI a lot of the participants understood that they had been victims for something illegal and complained to the authorities. Most people that quit as Tahitian Noni distributors will never understand they have participated in a pyramid scheme.
@M_Norway:
Did you have any direct contact with Krystad or Hoem? Or did you discuss with them online?
@B.F.
The forum Hegnar Online “Annen virksomhet” as “Guest”, as all the others there. I was able to identify a few of the “Guest”s, because of the thread in “glabladet.no”.
The one that was most easy to identify was “Magnus H***”, because of the use of “MY LAST AND FINAL WORD!!!!!” and other expressions. 🙂
A few of the others were also possible to identify, some of them within reasonable doubt and usually only as other nicknames they used.
The analysis I mentioned happened sometimes after January 12th 2010, after the first press release from the Gaming Board. And I didn’t try to trick anyone, it was more like a “neutral” analysis of the situation without involving any personal interests in the case.
Expressions like “This may still take several months or maybe a year before we will see any conclusion” were actually TRUE.
@M_Norway
Magnus Haga is now marketing himself as a personal couch, without mentioning his experience as “Award Winning Master Marketing Consultant” in his CV:
http://magnushaga.com/?page_id=528
His lies about his income from CCP/WMI are still out there:
http://archive.aweber.com/magnus_engccp/1mogf/h/Start_the_new_year_to_your.htm
@M_Norway and others who posted all the reasonable and what appear to be factual responses – THANKS! Very interesting.
@Oz: As usual, your bias shows through. You should have STARTED your post with “So… how long have you been a member of WMI for then?” — that way I and possibly others could have saved the time reading anything else.
The fact that you assume that anyone asking probing questions MUST be a WMI member shows this bias very clearly.
I am not a WMI member or consultant. I just like to ask questions when certain things don’t add up. And thanks, M_Norway, for showing that yes, I did do at least SOME research into my question before posting it.
It was clear that @Oz thought I was making up the part about the Gaming Board really pulling back on their investigations going forward.
Maybe he’s just “jaded” from all the members of various dubious “opportunities” coming in questioning his facts and conclusions. 😉
@Mark W.
Bias against what exactly? That you are or aren’t a member? Bias against the company? How would you demonstrate said bias?
So do I, that doesn’t make me biased – it makes me thorough.
You made a bunch of claims, some of which were factually wrong and cited new information I hadn’t seen before and failed to provide a source.
Me asking for one makes me biased? Please.
@Mark W.
Some of the reasons why Wealth Masters International has received “special attention” is related to TIME (more than a year), and access to factual information from many sources, including from former participants and leaders in WMI.
The company itself doesn’t deserve that much attention on a blog, but some of the information related to the company deserves it. “It just happened to be” related to WMI instead of a bunch of other companies.
A MLM-review blog should cover some different aspects related to the business model, like some legal matters and other topics. WMI offered lots of “official documents” for a long period of time, a far more reliable source of information than in most other cases.
2 other companies have received even more attention, and the reasons are similar (time and access to information). These two other companies are
* Polaris Global Media (Liberty League International), Austraia 2009
* SpeakAsia, plus some related companies, India 2011
Most of the shortlived matrix-programs simply doesn’t last long enough to receive the same attention, and most longlived programs doesn’t produce enough trouble to receive attention.
I have posted lots of other information related to WMI and CCPro in Norway in other threads, like WHY and WHEN different things happened in that market. This is mostly related to some specific parts, and is mostly related to the period between August 2009 and June 2010. It was posted in case someone would have “special interest” in some specific details.
The main idea for this blog is to offer and share information, and preferrably factual information if it’s available. It’s more like a guideline than a ‘fixed rule’.
All these MLM’s need to do is sell some retail products to real customers. If they disguise it correctly, they can be deemed legal in most countries. US case law and FTC guidelines has the 70% rule. All MLM’s be should be required to report their retail to distributor revenue ratios once they hit a certain size, say 10 million in sales or 10,000 distributors. That would add transparency and solve many problems from the beginning. Of course that means many MLM’s would not survive long.
@Jimmy
Some MLM do have a similar system, a “retail to distributor rate” they have to follow, like “minimum seven new retail customers before you are allowed to recruit a new distributor” and similar solutions.
These rules are usually individual rules for each and every company, and based on experience rather than specific laws. Finding solutions from experience will usually work better than finding them in laws.
The “70 percent rule” in the U.S. and the “50 percent rule” in Europe are more like “guidelines” than “absolut rules”. Some companies may work well with less than 50 percent retail customers, and there shouldn’t be any need to declare them illegal if their business models works well with a lower percentage.
WMI had 100 percent distributors and 0 percent retail customers. They may have had a few retail customers in other markets, but I’ll guess most markets had close to a 100:0 ratio between distributors and customers. This is more like selling the opportunity itself than selling products, or like chain recruiting of distributors.
@B.F.
I really hope he meant “coach”? Having him as a “personal couch” (sofa) sounded really unappealing. 🙂
Having Magnus H*** or Lena B***** as a mentor was one of the worst “nightmares” I visualized. It seems like they’re using lots of methods from American “Self Development” books as a vital part of what they’re doing.
I can imagine
spendingsuffering 30 minutes per day 2 times per week being forced to listen to theories about “positive thinking”, “affirmations”, “how to feel like a leader”, “Law of Attraction” and other related topics – and the feeling when people realise they actually have PAID for it.@Oz: OK, I guess K. Chang said it better than I did — you are more “jaded” than biased. Either way, it would serve you well to keep to yourself the snarky comments and assumptions that anyone posting anything somewhat in opposition to what you write must be with the company.
They only shut down communication — they do nothing to encourage it. Even your reply was snarky with your “Please.” comment. Sounds like my 14 year old daughter.
I have found that if you simply engage them in the conversation with respect, the actual company shills and reps will eventually fully reveal themselves. And you will end up mining far more “gold” from them than you will if you get them riled up and on the defensive by “outing them”.
I’m not here to make friends with or earn the respect of company shills and reps.
That said, I’ll take your criticisms on board but I suggest you develop a thicker skin if somebody using the ‘please’ line upsets you.
I don’t assume that, but care to elaborate how you arrived at the conclusion that WMI was getting ‘un-evenhanded’ attention on this blog?’. I mean, to make that call you’d have to have read most of the WMI articles on here – and drawn a comparison on the attention WMI has gotten compared to other companies.
Your defense of WMI isn’t the reaction of someone not connected to the company, via membership or otherwise. Nor is it the reaction of someone who doesn’t care.
In the time I’ve written about the MLM industry two things (amonst others) were immediately apparent:
1. People who state they don’t care do and
2. Universally those that make nonsensical claims such as ‘because WMI was banned in Norway, doesn’t that mean all MLM companies should be?’ are in some way connected to the company past or present.
This is the experience of someone who’s been running a MLM blog for a few years now. It’s not bulletproof but it’s pretty spot on. The long-term readers here will attest to the number of shills we see here.
All in all it’s nothing personal, so don’t take it personally.
Well, Oz, I would say you do come across as quite snarky at times. 🙂 I recommend a reading of this “Debunking Handbook”, where it discusses the proper way to “debunk” (which we do a lot) as doing it too snarky can have the opposite effect.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/docs/Debunking_Handbook.pdf
I guess from time to time the snarkiness from OzSoapbox spills over to here.
Tough gig writing for two completely different blogs sometimes :).
@K.Chang
The Debunk Handbook was interesting, but some of the methods seems to be designed for “scientifical experiments” rather than for use in daily life.
“Can you please write a few sentences about a time when you felt good about yourself, because you acted on a value that was important to you?”
I may have a few problems adjusting from “It quacks like a duck” to “Please tell us about your childhood”. 🙂
I’ll guess they have tested methods on groups of people, and in the context of “doing tests” rather than as “real life dialogues”.
Nice, but let me ask you one question:
Have you been a member of Wealth Masters International or Carbon Copy Pro?
Correct, it was written to debunk pseudo-science, not busting scams. However, some of the approaches, and the backfire effects it described, are quite applicable to scam-busting as well, IMHO.
@B.F.: Hilarious — you really think I was just making a distinction based on “WMI” versus “Wealth Masters International” spelled out? No, I am not Bill Clinton. I was not being “literal while trying to hide the underlying facts that all could see.” I am not a lawyer.
@K. Chang: Thanks for agreeing that snarkiness serves no one.
@Oz: Point taken on how it is difficult to “switch modes” between two different types of blogs. I can totally see that. As to your other questions, I have been watching how other countries treat MLMs compared to the U.S. – that is what drew me to this blog and the stories about WMI in the first place. Once here, I looked over all of your posts. I noticed that for the guest-imated current size of WMI, they got a lot more articles than other current companies did here on this blog. Not a huge difference, but one none-the-less. So it appeared that you were particularly interested in writing about them.
Just so you understand, let me give you another example of why I thought this: Several times in WMI articles you discuss their woes in getting their new nutrition company launched. In those same articles, you talk about two of their executives going to ARIIX. Yet not a single article on here about ARIIX. From my research, their products are way over-priced, and they clearly are more interested in recruiting than product sales based on their “Starter Kits” for their new recruits. And they have Tim Sales selling for them — if that is not enough to warrant a mention here on this blog, well then it makes me wonder again about bias.
If you are still wondering why I even bother, without being involved with WMI, it is because I provide technical services to the MLM industry. So I try to keep up-to-date on what is happening with the different companies in the space.
@Mark W.
There is one “neutral review” about Ariix, like there is with any other company. It haven’t received any comments yet, because none of us knows anything about it. “Neutral” means the main focus is factual information about the company and business plan.
https://behindmlm.com/companies/ariix-review-nutritional-science-a-hybrid-binary/
If you feel their products are overpriced or have any other information, please post a comment there? A comment thread needs someone to start it, with some information that makes other people interested in doing more research. And then there will usually pop up other articles related to the same company.
The activity from readers indicates how “interesting” a topic might be, and so far people haven’t been interested in Ariix. This is not uncommon, usually it takes 3 months or more before someone starts to add valuable information as comments.
If you like to keep Ariix active, add some other types of information than “over-priced goods”. Do some research or something? Most “regular readers” here are interested in research. The background of Tim Sales sounded more interesting, since most people already knows that MLM has over-priced goods.
Most other companies reviewed here are in the same situation as Ariix. They receive focus for a short period of time, but are inactive most of the time. This pattern also relates to WMI, where most comments are pretty old. It will “wake up” each time someone adds some new information.
The key factor for keeping a topic active is “new information”, and some readers interested in making comments. Most threads will usually only be active for a short period of time.
Not exactly, but many people claim they are not WMI members without mentioning that they once were. Is it that difficult to answer my question as it is?
Kevin Knecht reveals that he attended the same conference in Cancun where Kip Herriage and Karl Bessey met in December 1999:
http://wmitoday.com/articles/februarys-consultant-of-the-month-2/
Was this conference hosted by TDI (Travel Dynamics / Tru Dynamics International)? It is true that they had conferences in Cancun in this period. Jeffery Combs participated in this scheme and Tim Darnell was there before founding Liberty League International.
It seems that TDI was one of the pyramids that rose from the ash of Global Prosperity Group, and in the filing of iWizard Holding, Inc., GPG is even mentioned as a reference for one of the leaders:
Source: NasDaq
Today she has removed GPG from her CV when promoting the investment scam Nouveau Riche:
http://www.newrichnation.com/your_founders/mary_piccolo.asp
BTW, the community http://wealthmastersinternational.net is down again.
@B.F. — Is it that difficult to be more clear, like asking, “If you are not one now, were you ever a member or consultant?”
It looked like to me that all you did was spell out WMI, and add Carbon Copy Pro.
So let’s make this clear, once and for all…
“I, Mark W., am not, nor have ever been, a consultant or member with any of the following companies or variations on their names: Wealth Masters International, WMI, or Carbon Copy Pro.”
Happy?
It amazes me that you still think I was avoiding the question or trying to be “slick.” Wow.
Yes, I’m happy that you did not fall for this scam.
You see, I have been debating with people who deny any connection to WMI or CCP, even if their landing page is still up and running with name and picture. It would amaze you a lot more to see how these snakes try to avoid the “difficult” questions and how they try to cover their involvment with scams.
Just take a look at the history of the Wayne Allyn Root article at english Wikipedia and see how Ryan Nelson from WMI over and over again tries to remove information about the pyramid scandal that Root is involved with:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wayne_Allyn_Root&action=history
I totally agree with you that a lot of MLM companies deserves investigation like WMI experienced in Norway, but that does not change the fact that WMI is an illegal pyramid scheme that really deserves this attention to prevent more gullible people from falling for their lies.
@BF: Thanks for the update. Dang it…now I am going to do MORE research, because I love digging in to things like this. I will report back here anything I find to be especially interesting.
Wealth Masters is not even able to pay their commissions. I WAS a associate until I realized they were weeks behind in payments. Their company is failing it is just a matter of time.
Now I know why so many people are leaving WMI = they are not getting paid commissions.
I did not get paid the $25,000 I was owed by the company for months. It was always once excuse after another. After I finally got my money i left. I even had the President of Wealth Masters Karl Bessey call me and beg me not to quit. He was really scared I was leaving for a competitors company. Come of Karl, how desperate are you.
Avoid Wealth Masters if you are interested in actually making money. Their products are ok if you are interested in hearing about armageddon and the world according to Kip. Kip has some very unusual political and foundational opinions and ideas that he rants and raves about nonstop.
I followed his Nostradamus of Investing advise and I have nearly lost everything I invested. The investment of the century has busted my portfolio.
If you like the Wealth Masters message without the desperate hype and Kip political spin, I highly recommend former WMI top earner Mike Dillard’s Elevation Group.
His top offering is a whopping $100/month or so. This is far less that WMI’s sticker price of $20,000+ upfront and $400+/month in fees.
“Falcon Oil & Gas” or “Swarm Technologies Inc.”?
https://behindmlm.com/companies/wealth-masters-international/sec-probe-wmi-for-possible-securities-violations/
how is kip herriage able to tell the members of WMI that he never gets paid from any of the offerings. he states that he does extensive due diligence and only recommends his winning picks.
I just google “swarm technologies and found out kip herriage is a director at swarm. He is also a director at cooking with monkey (aka cooking your money)
oddly enough, kip’s good buddy fred tissington is also a director of swarm. this is the same fred tissington that is the owner and founder of cooking with monkey and presented cooking with monkey to wealth masters in hawaii at the m2.
http://marketbrief.com/swarm-technologies-inc/people
This is the same Fred Tissington that is the founder of Cooking with Money. Not only that, WMI’s new offering Pure is run by Dr. Becky and Dan Maes. Dan and Dr. Becky are listed Board of Directors with Cooking with Monkey, along with Per Gunnar Hoem. Per is absent from wealth masters now that they are banned in norway.
Bet Rich Wise did not disclose to members that there is legal action pending. Regarding his patent claims in bc court. These actions have been going for some years now.
A long time since the last message so I hope Gord subscribed to this thread as I (a Swarm investor) am keen to know more about the legal action and hope he can elaborate. Is there a government website with court documents like PACER in the US?
Oh and by the way, Gord is correct, we investors were (unsurprisingly) not informed of any ongoing legal action. (Supposing Gord’s claim is true).