Norway launches World Ventures investigation
Launched during the heyday of the recruitment driven travel membership company boom a few years back, World Ventures is one of the few such remaining MLM companies still operating today.
On the MLM side of things World Ventures affiliates can only earn commissions by signing up new affiliates and collecting commissions on the monthly fees they pay. As such, as is typical with travel niche MLM companies what you wind up with is a company full of affiliates mass-recruiting, with little to no attention paid to travel side of the business.
Not at all surprising when you consider that the travel side of the business has pretty much nothing to do with revenue flow inside the company.
Facing what can only be assumed must be a resurfacing of World Ventures in Norway, local authorities have announced the launch of an investigation into the company.
Concerned that World Ventures might be a “pyramid” and in violation of Norway’s “Lottery Act”, the Norwegian Gaming Board issued a press release yesterday stating
Gaming Board has established a supervision of the company World Ventures’s activities in this country. We shall consider the Company operates in violation of Lottery Act which says that the pyramids are illegal.
Lottery Act § 16 states that it is forbidden both to create, operate, participate in or distribute pyramids.
The Act defines the pyramid as “pyramid sales system where the consideration paid for the opportunity to earn income, mainly because the other offices of the system, and no sale or consumption of services or other benefits.”
Looking at World Ventures’ compensation plan, it’s pretty much a given that they are going to fall foul of the Lottery Act’s pyramid scheme definition.
Nonetheless, on May the 14th the Gaming Board requested various documents from World Ventures to aid them in their investigation, giving the company a June 4th deadline to respond.
Tick tock guys…
Update 24th February 2014 – The Gaming Board has concluded their investigation and today ruled that, in Norway, World Ventures is an illegal pyramid scheme.
I realize you can only judge companies based on the information you uncover… but to label WorldVenures as anything other than a legitimate company only makes this site look bad.
WorldVentures representatives make absolutely NO commission based on the recruitment of individuals to join the business. In fact, WorldVentures representatives aren’t even given volume based on the business itself.
It is strictly a travel club, and representatives are only given credit and compensated for the travel and vacation club ONLY. Travel has been a commissionable good and service since well before any of us were born.
Furthermore, WorldVentures does NOT require nor push representatives to “pay to play” meaning that they are training representatives to push the product. In fact, the latest presentations from WorldVentures contains 80% about the product and only 20% about the business.
Furthermore, individuals can access the booking engine of WV without even becoming a member, and members can even bring individuals with them on Dreamtrips in place of their spouse.
To be fair, India has also launched the exact same accusations against Amway, and anyone that thinks Amway is a scam is absolutely clueless. Do I agree with Amway’s methods… no, but their results speak for themselves.
Furthermore, your reviews on WorldVentures is grossly outdated, respectfully.
Your definition of a “legitimate company” seems to be broken. If you’re in World Ventures though, that’s hardly surprising.
Y’huh. Join WorldVentures, pay for membership, upline gets a commission.
Bingbaddaboom.
Go have a look at the WV website. Three membership options to choose from, the same ones when I wrote the original review.
Travel Club’s don’t have MLM income opportunities attached, MLM companies do.
Y’huh. I’m a World Ventures affiliate who earns a commission everytime someone I’ve recruited pays membership fees. What am I going to do to earn money?
“Oh we’re not a recruitment driven scheme, nobody forces you to join our company!”
Presentations written by whom? Dodgy affiliates pulling figures out of their rear ends?
If World Ventures want to put out official documentation on their non-affiliate vs. affiliate numbers, then by all means link to here. Anything from affiliates is garbage.
Oh, and citing Rovia memberships vs. WorldVentures (MLM) memberships naturally is an irrelevant statistic.
WorldVentures affiliates currently paying membership fees vs. non-affiliates paying membership fees who bought said membership through World Ventures.
Either way, if the respond to Norway’s requests those figures are going to be revealed come June 5th. We’ll have to wait and see…
You mean they can access Rovia. Rovia != World Ventures.
Please, from what I can tell the Amway case is about product price inflation and affiliates self-consuming on the expectation they’ll make their money back by getting others to sign up and self-consume.
World Ventures is about paying your monthly membership fees and signing up new affiliates who do the same.
June 5th. Either World Ventures are going to reveal their affiliate/non-affiliate figures to Norwegian Gaming Board or they’re going to ignore it and be banned from Norway.
The problem here is you’re arguing a dead point due to your own lack of knowledge in this field.
A vacation club (i.e. a buying club) is NOT MLM, and is governed by totally different set of laws. Go look it up in mlmlaw.com. MLM lawyers say “do NOT classify your MLM company as buying club”.
That pretty much made your ENTIRE argument moot.
In fact, I seriously doubt even World Ventures claim itself to be a buying club. Which basically means you made it all up.
For what it’s worth “Anonymous” did leave a followup reply, however it was just filled with your standard “rahrahrah you don’t know what you’re talking about” rant that failed to address anything with facts and derail with offtopic statements. It was sent to the spam bin.
I have used the database “Offentlig Elektronisk Postjournal” (“Public Electronical Post Journal”), oep.no.
The case started in January 2013, with a series of “anonymous tips” to ForbrukerOmbudet (Consumer Ombudsman) and Lotteritilsynet (Lottery and Foundations Supervisory Authority). “Anonymous” includes both unsigned e-mails, and signed e-mails protected by law against public disclosure (e.g. e-mails from or to non-parties).
As far as I can see, most of the e-mails are from/to the same person, with a possible few from/to other person(s).
I also found one document addressed to a party in the case (Jim Sivertsen), a denied “right to insight” claim into the sealed documents (the “anonymous tips” documents).
ONE PROBLEM:
The “anonymous tips” are about MORE than one company, not directly related to each other, both World Ventures and Lyoness (and possibly other companies, too). So I didn’t find a complete list for all the documents when searching for “World Ventures”.
I will try a different search method later, searching for the case numbers (2013/44 and 2013/1662) rather than for the company names.
This time I only found one third of the documents (20 out of 58 documents), and all except 2 are sealed.
One document of potential interest is dated 15.05.2013, from Lotteritilsynet to Consumer Ombudsman. It has been given a new case number 2013/1662, Doc number 2. It’s about “Assessment of the legality (vs. the law) – World Ventures”.
That’s typically a reply to the other agency about “This case belongs in our jurisdiction ( … it is most likely a pyramid scheme)”.
FORMAL LEGAL STEPS
Collecting information from a party is normally one of the first formal steps in a case. It’s usually accompanied by a public warning, e.g. “the authorities have found reasons to believe that company X operates illegally”.
Most findings in the first information collected will typically be too inconclusive to make any decisions, e.g. because of jurisdiction issues when a company is located in another geographical juridiction.
CONCLUSION?
This case is in a ‘beginner phase’ rather than ‘close to a conclusion’. It has just recently been assigned a separate case number (2013/1662), making the case become more formal than just “anonymous tips”.
Browsing through the document list for case 2013/44 …
This is probably about one person (or a few persons) trying to make some noise in the pyramid scheme market locally in Norway, with a few other targets in addition to World Ventures (e.g. Lyoness, Better Globe, Leaf International).
There may also be one formal complaint against World Ventures here, but listed as “unsigned”.
In case he/they want anyone to add any information, they should probably try to communicate the current status of the case, some place where people can find it. I can find public warnings dating back to January 2012.
He/they have contacted
* 2 authorities (Consumer Ombudsman; “Gaming Board”/ Lottery authorities),
* 2 TV-stations (“Mastiff TV” producer of a consumer program for “TV2”; “NRK” producer of a consumer program)
* 1 newspaper / online newspaper (“Aftenposten.no”)
Most of the documents in the case are “right to insight” claims, plus denied/partially denied replies to those claims.
Here’s a partial list for the documents:
TV channels = the two main TV-channels in Norway:
* NRK “Consumer Inspectors”
* TV2 “TV2 helps you” (produced by Mastiff TV)
Potential parties (potentially from different companies):
* Inger Lise S. Kontochristos (“Soul training”)
* Magnar Kongestøl
* Olav Knudsen
* Jim Sivertsen
That was all I was able to find in a “Quick Overview” for the case documents, without digging too deep into details.
Right to insight is like that “freedom of information” requests in the US? Those only work on government agencies, not on private entitites.
A correction to that conclusion …
I found some early warnings from the same authority, dating back to January 2012. So this case isn’t in the ‘beginner phase’, it’s probably near a conclusion.
We can compare it to Wealth Masters International:
* August 2009: first complaints, about CarbonCopyPro
* September 2009: first general warning from several authorities, about CarbonCopyPro
* January 2010: public warning, but not conclusive
* Februay 2010: most Norwegian consultants dropped CCPro, and started to market WMI directly through meetings rather than through internet
* May 2010: WMI consultants initiated an investigation themselves, trying to come clean from pyramid scheme accusations
* September 2010: a 9 point formal request from the Gaming Board, asking for specific information about the company, products, compensation plan.
World Ventures is probably at this stage now.
* November 2010: The request for information was probably answered within an extended deadline, extended from 3 weeks to 6 weeks
* December 2010: the Gaming Board released a damning assessment of WMI, concluding it’s a pyramid scheme, giving it an option to voluntarily terminate its business operations in Norway.
* December – March: Complaint about factual errors
* March/April 2011: Final decision, but the case was appealed to the Complaint Board
* January 2012: WMI lose appeal
WORLD VENTURES
If I have guessed right, we can probably expect a conclusion in August/September 2013 (3 or 4 months from now), an offer to voluntarily withdraw from the market.
For a company, it will be a wise decision to accept an offer like that, to minimize damages to other markets.
* Then it will go 3-4 months before a final conclusion
* then it will go 6-8 months before an appeal has been handled
All the time needed is related to Civil Procedure Rules, e.g. to 3 or 6 weeks time between each step (to answer, complain, make corrections).
wow interesting article! Will see how this plays out with the fact that Numis Network & World Ventures just merged together.
Not sure how coins and travel go together, but I wish them luck 😉
You don`t know what you don`t know 🙂 fantastic
I didn’t guess right. 🙂
There has been SOME activity in the case, mostly “Anonymous tips” and “Request for information” from different people. The Gaming Board has also requested financial information from the company (in Norway), but that’s rather normal.
They demand much more than that, M Norway. Some of the points of the Boards list is as follows;
-Percentages of turnover from product sales vs. Recruitment
-Names of top reps/responsibles
-Size of downline requested to earn the 2000 $ income position
-Price comparisons of rovia products vs others
-Terms of how to achieve bonuses.
Among others.
I believe it will be a little bit shaky for WV to respond.
I have checked oep.no today (oep = Offentlig Elektronisk Post journal / Public Electronic Post journal). There has been some meeting activity between Lotteritilsynet (Gaming Board) and lawyers for World Ventures, around October 22nd and November 4th.
THE CASE SO FAR
May/June 2013:
Opened a new case (2013/1662) / request for information
August 2013:
Request for more information (Doc 22)
September 2013:
Extended deadline for some information
Some information sent
Some additional information sent (Doc 30)
October 2013:
More additional information sent (Doc 31)
Meeting between WV’s lawyers and Lotteritilsynet
November 2013:
Scheduled meeting November 4th (Doc 38)
CURRENT STATUS OF THE CASE
It seems like they have collected most of the information about World Venture’s operation in Norway. The different meetings with WV’s lawyers are probably about how to interpret the collected information.
Most of the information I have listed here should be publicly available, but the most current information hasn’t been updated and been made available yet.
I have checked the status of this case today. They have had a meeting on November 4th, with some detailed information about the company structure in the U.S. and financial records as part of the documentation.
All those documents are “internal / sealed”. But at least it show some progress in the case.
It has gone from collecting general information locally, to more detailed local information, to detailed information about the company as a whole.
It’s probably close to a (temporary) conclusion.
WMI received a temporary conclusion in December 2010, a final conclusion in March/April 2011, and a conclusion for its appeal around December 2011. “Things Takes Time”.
Please let us know for any new updates on the case
There will be a report published mid January, according to the Board.
It does not look too good. Before it will be published, I quote;
“We will give World Ventures the opportunity to reply to its contents”.
🙂
According to this article the decision is made:
dinepenger.no/regler/har-avgjort-om-reiseselskap-er-pyramide-eller-ikke/22739239
It will be announced officially in two or three weeks.
In november another Norwegian newspaper published a very positive article about WorldVentures and their top distributor Steinar Husby:
levangeravisa.no/nyheter/article8666719.ece
The article was written by the editor Roger Rein. What he forgot to mention is that he was a member of WorldVentures himself – in the downline of Mr. Husby.
About 10.000 Norwegian has been sucked into this scheme, which is quite much for a country with 5 million people. Still this is nothing compared to Iceland where close to 1 % of the population has been recruited to this concept. In Sweden there are a few thousand people involved, but in Denmark and Finland there are very few members.
The special thing about Norway is that nearly 30 % of the members are still active. In Sweden about 600 people were recruited in the first half of 2012, but less than 10 of these members are still active. Worldwide the average member quits within 4 months, which is rather extreme even when compared to other MLM companies.