With a company name like Xxxteme Exposure, I was a bit hesitant to browse over to their website when the company popped up on my radar.

Had somebody finally decided to start selling pornography using a MLM compensation structure? I know companies are out there pushing toys… but actual pornography?

Well no, at least not for now. Turns out Xxxtreme Exposure is just another recently launched investment scheme. Read on for a full review.

The Company

There is no information on th Xxxtreme Exposure website about who is running things or who owns the business.

The WHOIS registration for xxxtremeexposure.com is also set to private.

The website’s source-code however pulls multiple Javascript scripts from the domain ‘doublin.me’:

script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.doublin.me/js/jquery-1.2.3.min.js”

script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.doublin.me/js/jquery.easing.min.js”

script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://www.doublin.me/js/jquery.lavalamp.min.js”

Doublin.me looks to currently be hosting another type of dodgy looking MLM opportunity. The WHOIS registration for doublin.me names the individual ‘Dwayne Starchuk’ (photo right) who appears to be operating out of the province of Alberta in Canada.

From what I can tell Starchuk appears to have gotten into internet marketing around three years or so ago and has been involved as a member in various online ventures (nothing really worth mentioning).

Well I suppose there’s this, something called F5M-MC Downline Builder (a referral rotator) that looks pretty embarrassing.

The Xxxtreme Exposure Product Line

Xxxtreme Exposure don’t have any products or services to that members can sell at a retail level. Instead, advertising credits are given to members each time they make an investment into the company.

These advertising credits can then be used to advertise on the Xxxtreme Exposure website via an inhouse advertising network.

The Xxxtreme Exposure Compensation Plan

For each  investment members make into Xxxtreme Exposure, the company promises members a 200% return.

Investments must be made in separate $5 payments and the company pays out a 200% ROI when these investments reach $10. They do not specify a minimum timeline for this to happen.

Additionally Xxxtreme Exposure pay a commission on the amount invested for each member brought into the company, down five levels.

• Level 1 – 10%
• Level 2 – 5%
• Level 3 – 2.5%
• Level 4 – 2%
• Level 5 – 1%


Level 1 are members you recruit, level 2 members they recruit and so on and so forth.

Joining Xxxtreme Exposure

Membership to Xxxtreme Exposure is free, however commissions cannot be earnt unless members invest in the investment scheme.

Conclusion

With no retail products or services 100% of Xxxtreme Exposure’s investment returns are paid out of the money existing and new members inject into the system.

This is pretty much confirmed by taking a look at Xxxtreme Exposure’s refund policy:

Q: Are there any refunds?

A: No there are no refunds as people are getting paid commissions.

With commissions being paid directly out of member investments, you’ve got yourself a ponzi scheme.

Here’s an introduction Starchuk wrote about himself back in September 2009,

Hello, My name is Dwayne Starchuk, From Northern Alberta Canada.

I have been checking out NPN for a few months now, And Yesterday (Sept 9) I made the commitment.

I turned 46 and was wonder why I was still taking out the bosses garbage for him. NOT anymore (maybe 1 year or less)

Spent the last 2 days going through every link and video in the back office, and I’m now ready to take on world (as time permits).

Been messing around on the internet for a couple of years now, spent more than I could afford now its time to do the right thing 1 program and one only.

will have more later the other boss wants me to take out the garbage

Dwayne

Three years later and it appears Starchuk doesn’t appear to have learnt anything over at Global NPN and never did get around to taking on the world. Instead he’s too busy launching ponzi schemes over the internet.

If Xxxtreme Exposure is the sum total of Starchuk’s internet marketing ventures, I imagine he’s probably still taking out the garbage too.

There’s been a lot of investment scheme MLMs popping up lately and most of them either bundle some product or service with your investments, or make you complete some rudimentary task believing that this separates them from a Ponzi scheme.

Unfortunately it doesn’t because at its core, if you’re paying out existing members a return on their investments with new money injected into the system, regardless of what products are bundled with the investments or what meaningless tasks you have your members doing, you’ve still got yourself a scam.

Read on for a full review of the Get Paid Magic MLM opportunity.

The Company

Get Paid Magic make no mention of who is running the company or owns it on their website.

The domain getpaidmagic.net WHOIS registration information however lists a ‘Tim Carlson’ as the administrative contact for the company.

Carlson appears to be operating out of Scranton in Pennsylvania and has launched numerous dubious sounding opportunities in the past.

The more prominent and relevant to this review of these launched businesses would be appear to be ‘Daily Pay Tripler’, an investment based MLM scheme.

More on the relationship between Daily Pay Tripler and Get Paid Magic in the conclusion of this review.

The Get Paid Magic Product Line

Get Paid Magic offer no retail products or services. Instead, upon paying a membership fee, members are provided with advertising credits that they can then use on an inhouse advertising network.

This advertising network displays various ads on the Get Paid Magic website.

The Get Paid Magic Compensation Plan

The Get Paid Magic Compensation plan is a basic 1-up system. Members are paid out a commission for recruiting new members to the company, with the first membership sales commission being passed up to a member’s upline.

There are four different levels of Get Paid Magic membership, each paying out a different commission:

• $10 membership = earn $10 per member recruited
• $25 membership = earn up to $35 per member recruited
• $50 membership = earn up to $85 per member recruited
• $100 membership = earn up to $185 per member recruited


Note that the commission earnt depends on what membership level is being purchased.

Members must purchase each level of membership individually to qualify for commissions at each membership level.

The 1-up system works in that when you recruit your first new member, the commissions for that sale go to your upline. Everybody else you recruit after that you earn a commission on (as per the rates above).

In turn, each member you sign up then passes their first commission up to you, then keeping the commission earnt for each subsequent member they sign up.

Joining Get Paid Magic

Get Paid Magic has four levels of membership – $10, $25, $50 and $100. Various levels of advertising credits are included with each type of membership but the main difference is the commissions offered.

The more you pay in membership fees the more you can earn per new member signed up.

Conclusion

Breaking down the Get Paid Magic compensation plan reveals that it’s pretty much just a cash gifting scheme between members. With $185 being the total spend to purchase all four levels of membership, money is merely shifted between members once membership fees are paid.

The company itself makes its money by charging 20% on all cash outs made (indicating that until a cash out is made, all commissions are virtual).

Mentioned earlier, the admin of Get Paid Magic is Tim Carlson. Carlson’s primary MLM business is Daily Paid Tripler.

Here’s how Daily Paid Tripler describe their business:

Basically, You Earn 2.5% per Day for 60 days.

No sponsoring Requirements.

Use Daily Compounding to Increase Your Earnings!

Or in other words, it’s a straight up ponzi scheme. The trouble with ponzi schemes is that eventually they run out of newly invested money to pay existing investors.

Launched in December 2011, it appears to be where Daily Paid Tripler is at or very close to this point.

About a week ago the company announced it was restricting members from cashing out only on Fridays, effectively giving the company an extra two days on the weekend to process payments (and come up with excuses if they can’t).

In another update recently sent out to Daily Paid Tripler members, Carlson wrote

DPT is our anchor program and we have plans to add more projects, both offline and online to add on to the income for DPT. And there are even more projects to come.

DPT is in for the longer term and won’t solely depend on sales of tripler positions but will drive income from external sources, both offline and online.

External sources you say? Well, I guess that explains the launch of Get Paid Magic then.

The problem?

Get Paid Magic is a recruitment scam that itself will have problems once people stop joining. So what happens then? Launch more scams to keep the scams you’ve already got running going for as long as possible?

Good luck with that Tim.


Footnote: I’m not sure if it’s the same guy, but a Tim Carlson was busted back in 2009 for participating in Nigerian based check scam.

A Federal complaint obtained by CBS13 says that a Diamond Springs couple was helping to spread what Postal inspectors called “high quality” counterfeit postal and money orders.

The court documents say Susan Bickar and Tim Carlson were receiving packages from Benin, West Africa filled with money orders valued at $925.15 apiece.

Customs officials had intercepted a package filled with 97 suspected counterfeit money orders in Los Angeles. All of them had an Albertson’s logo on them with a total value of nearly $400,000.

Postal Inspectors say that Bickar and Carlson would take the fake money orders and mail them via FedEx and UPS to people across the United States.

Bickar claimed in a confession that she was doing this as a work-from-home job that she had found on the Internet She would send the checks and would get paid every week, depending on the number of checks she sent out.

She allegedly received 3-4 parcels a week that contained these fake money grams from Lucky’s and Albertson’s. Her bosses claimed to be from the United Kingdom, but she suspected they were in Nigeria.

She suspected that the checks were counterfeit, and even tried to cash one at a Wells Fargo. The bank told her the check was counterfeit.

Bickar’s husband, Tim Carlson, says he was told to separate the packages and send them from several UPS boxes throughout the community so it wouldn’t raise suspicion with anyone.

Carlson says that was a “red flag” for him and he was suspicious, but since he was unemployed and Bickar was on disability, they needed additional income.

When Federal officials searched Bickar and Carlson’s home, they found 340 fake checks totaling over $6 million dollars.

There’s a Diamond Springs in Pennsylvania, so it might very well be the same Tim Carlson behind Daily Paid Tripler and Get Paid Magic.

“The Common Man” is a character created by R.K. Laxman that features in the cartoon series ‘You Said It’. Laxman was born in 1921 and considered to be India’s greatest ever cartoonist.

For over a half of a century, the Common Man has represented the hopes, aspirations, troubles and perhaps even foibles of the average Indian, through a daily cartoon strip.

‘R K Laxman Ki Dunya’ is a sitcom created by Hats Off Productions based on Laxman’s The Common Man cartoon series.

On the 25th, 26th and 27th of January 2012, three episodes of R K Laxman Ki Dunya were based around a fictional company ‘Silent Asia’.

In keeping with the general humourous theme of the show, the Silent Asia episodes parodied the current events surrounding the Speak Asia scam.

You can see the three episodes of R K Laxman Ki Dunya as they originally aired below (note that the episodes are in Hindi, for those that don’t speak the language a brief plot summary is included underneath the videos):


R K Laxman Ki Dunya January 25th, 2012


R K Laxman Ki Dunya January 26th, 2012


R K Laxman Ki Dunya January 27th, 2012

Everybody in rk laxman ki duniya is in a run to make members for silent asia. they all want to make as much commission as possible by making members.

However they all get a shock of their life when they see news on tv that silent asia company is a fraud and they have taken money from all the people in the name of registration.

Bhavesh (a character on the show) calls Ramesh (another character) on his cellphone when they come to know that he has been arrested for taking money of people.

They all come to know that silent asia is not even registered in india and they have done this fraud with many other people. They get a lesson that people should not trust such kind of fraud companies.

Despite no actual explicit references to Speak Asia and the rolling disclaimer at the bottom of each episode which states that the show

is a light-hearted programme intended for entertainment/recreational purposes only.

All events, incidents, scenes of the program are entirely imaginary, fictitious and have no connection whatsoever to reality.

Any resemblance of any nature in the show to any character or person whether dead or alive is a mere co-incidence.

The channel does not intend to hurt, discredit or demean the feelings of any person, caste, community, religion, political party or any section of society,

Speak Asia have decided broadcasting of the episodes has damaged their reputation.

Obviously the disclaimer itself isn’t legally binding but put within the context of the show, it’s clear that the 62 years of success of The Common Man (and presumably R K Laxman Ki Dunya during its shorter production) has enjoyed is due to the series humourous depictions of events, situations and circumstances that affect ‘the common man’.

Furious about being parodied, on the other side of the coin you have Speak Asia. Speak Asia believe that parody constitutes defamation and as such, launched a defamation suit against those responsible for the R K Laxman Ki Dunya TV show.

Filed in the Mumbai High Court on the 30th January and heard on the 1st of February, the first part of the judge’s order is as follows:

1. Leave under Rules 147 and 148 of the High Court of Judicature at Bombay (O.S.) 1980 granted to the plaintiff to take out a notice of motion in terms of the draft notice of motion handed in, returnable forthwith.

The order makes reference to the Rules of the High Court of Judicature at Bombay (Original Side). Specifically, Rule 147 states that

147. Application for interim relief :- The Plaintiff may move the Court ex-parte for interim relief on the ground of urgency and the Court on such application may give leave to serve the Notice of Motion for a particular date and may also, if it shall think fit, grant interim relief on such terms and undertakings as shall seem just.

whilst rule 148 states

148. Undertaking to pay damages to be given by party applying for interim relief:- A party to whom interim relief has been granted shall, before the order is issued, unless the Court otherwise directs, give an undertaking in writing or through his Advocate to pay such sum by way of damages as the Court may award as compensation in the event of a party affected sustaining prejudice by such order.

A bit confusing so here’s a breakdown as I understand it of what the first part of the judge’s orders mean.

Rule 147. mentions ‘ex-parte’ which leads me to believe that Speak Asia originally filed for an ex-parte injunction against the creators of R K Laxman Ki Dunya.

It is noted that the defendants were all represented by council on February the 1st so it’s unclear as to whether or not there was a prior ex-parte hearing in which a judge decided the defendants deserved proper representation, leading to the February 1st hearing.

Regardless, after submitting a draft notice of motion, (demanding a resolution ex-parte), the court appears to have refused to grant Speak Asia any relief and instead given them leave to file a proper notice of motion (a formal case where both parties are represented and heard in a hearing).

Rule 148 refers to the party applying for interim relief to guarantee in writing that they will pay any damages the court orders them to pay the defendant, even if the court ultimately rules in favour of the plaintiff (Speak Asia).

This requirement is needed before a final order can be handed down in the case (which has yet to be heard properly in court).

So why did the judge deny Speak Asia the ex-parte relief it sought?

I believe the answer lies in the second part of the judge’s order:

2. Mr.Menon, the learned counsel appearing on behalf of defendant No.1 states that for at least three weeks i.e. upto 22.2.2012, there will be no re-telecast of the episodes of 25.1.2012, 26.1.2012 and 27.1.2012.

As pointed out by Mr. Menon, there are no scheduled repeat telecasts of the three episodes in question between now and the 22nd of February. With R K Laxman Ki Dunya being a sitcom, and several (non Silent Asia related) episodes having aired since the January 27th episode, it appears episodes are not repeated once they have aired. At least not in the immediate future from their original air date.

Thus Speak Asia’s application for ‘ ex-parte interim relief on the ground of urgency‘ is a bit silly. With no repeats scheduled in the near future, the court decided that, despite Speak Asia’s insistence, the case doesn’t have any urgency at all.

This is only further re-enforced by the fact that the episodes in question (as linked to above) are freely available for review from SAB TV’s official YouTube channel.

In light of the above, the judge has given Speak Asia leave to file a standard notice of motion and submit to the court a written guarantee that it will pay damages to the defendant should the court decide that Speak Asia’s lawsuit warrants so.

If the above conditions are met by Speak Asia, the case is scheduled for a proper first hearing on February 17th, 2012.

Since the hearing on the 1st an affadavit has been filed (on the 3rd February) in connection to the suit but what is in this affadavit and who it was filed by is currently unknown.

Speak Asia are currently seeking to legalize the ponzi schemes through various lawsuits it’s involved in, currently being heard in the Indian legal system. Will the company manage to make parody of current events in the public interest illegal in India too?

Stay tuned.

Way back in October of last year, Speak Asia COO Tarak Bajpai and his buddy Rajiv Mehotra (business partner of Speak Asia CEO Manoj Kumar, on the management team of Seven Rings International, listed as a director of Tulsient Technologies (Kumar’s private business) and “assistant for daily portal operations and incharge of regular pop-ups” guy who was running the Speak Asia website), had applied for anticipatory bail in connection with a First Information Report (30 of 2011, dated 21-06-2011 and lodged in Hyderabad).

Upon hearing the applications in court and the public prosecutors case against the two men, a judge denied the request.

Hoping to try their luck again, even though nothing had changed in the case against Speak Asia and their involvement in the company, on the 30th of December 2011 Bajpai and Mehrotra filed for anticipatory bail in connection with the same FIR.

Specifically,

to grant anticipatory bail to the petitioner in the event of his arrest in Crime in FIR.No. 30 of 2011 dated 21-06-2011 on the file of the respondent police SHO, CID, Hyderabad on any terms and conditions as this Hon’ble Court deems fit and proper in the interest of justice.

Not surprisingly, once again a judge refused to grant the bail application (Bajpai’s CRLP 14089/2011 case was disposed, as was Mehrotra’s CRLP 14088/2011 case).

As per the application itself, based on the evidence presented by the public prosecutor appearing for the CID of Andhra Pradesh, a judge ruled that granting Bajpai and Mehrotra anticipatory bail would not be “in the interest of justice”.

Last we heard, the Mumbai EOW had announced that they had approached the High Court to cancel Bajpai’s bail (he had previously been granted bail under a strict set of conditions).

The EOW claimed that  upon being released on bail, Bajpai was ‘avoiding cooperating with the police, and neither appeared before the investigators nor did he furnish the personal surety‘.

The status on this move to have Bajpai’s bail cancelled remains unclear at this time. However it is believed Bajpai remains at large with the EOW officially stating that Bajpai has gone into hiding and that they have no idea where he is.

With Bajpai having originally disappeared back in October upon his original bail release, that puts us at now five months that the EOW claim they haven’t been able to find him.

Regardless of whether this is due to incompetency on the EOW’s part or the effort Speak Asia’s lawyers have put into hiding Bajpai from the police (which we’ve seen before, when AISPA Secretary Ashok Bahirwani went into hiding for 2 months when he thought the EOW wanted to arrest him), an interesting article featured in the Times of India today addressing the issue of missing persons who are wanted in connection to the scams they are involved in.

Titled ‘Change the mindset of cops: HC‘, Rosy Sequiera writes:

“Before we changed the mindset of people, we must change that of the police”, said the Bombay High Court on Thursday while hearing a petition alleging police inaction in tracing a director of Aryarup Tourism and Club Resorts, which has cheated investors in a quick returns scheme.

The observation from a division bench of Justice V M Kanade and Justice P D Kode followed public prosecutor Pandurang Pol’s remark that during the hearings of scams like Citi Limouzine and Speak Asia, it had been suggested that the police must create public awareness programmes.

The investors’ advocate Nisrin Shinde said the police, including the Economic Offences Wing in Mumbai and Pune, were being negligent in handling the case. She said the directors, including Ravindra Deshmukh, as well as the core team members of the company were shown as absconding. “Deshmukh is the mastermind of this multi-level scam,” said Shinde.

To this, the judges said it was “inconceivable” that the police could not find Deshmukh. “The Mumbai police had good reputation. They were considered next to Scotland Yard. What has happened? Are you controlled by all these people? You can’t trace one man?

If you want, you can trace anyone from anywhere,” said Justice Kanade.

From the looks of it, the case against Aryarup Tourism is solid but, like Speak Asia, those in charge have fled and the EOW can’t track them down.

Ultimately it appears it is the investors who lose out and apart from the fact that some of Speak Asia’s members have petitioned the company and Union of India (an assortment of the government agencies investigating Speak Asia) in the Supreme Court, it would appear that the two cases are strikingly similar.

Ignoring the judge’s frustration at having nobody to hold accountable for the running of the Aryarup Tourism scam, what is perhaps highlighted here is an inherent incapability of the current police system (EOW or otherwise) to properly handle these scams and capture those accountable.

Then of course (specifically with the Speak Asia case) there’s the issue of bail being granted and those who are granted bail going into hiding (aided by high-priced lawyers or otherwise) never to be heard from again.

To date Tarak Bajpai, Rajiv Mehotra, Shaikh Rais Latif, Ravi Janakraj Khanna, Melvin Crasto and Ashish Dandekar have been arrested and released on bail in connection with the Speak Asia scam. With the exception of Dandekar and Crasto, all are confirmed by the EOW to have ignored their bail conditions and have gone into hiding upon release.

Regarding Crasto (President of AISPA) and Dandekar (Regional Director for Speak Asia and acting COO), neither have been publicly seen or heard from since their bail releases late last month. Whether they’ve followed the lead of Speak Asia’s Tarak Bajpai and gone into hiding too remains to be seen.

If you look at Speak Asia’s business model, that the company ran a ponzi scheme between May 2010 and May 2011 is undisputable. Members and employees of Speak Asia will shout and scream that it’s not a ponzi scheme until an Indian court says so, but that defense falls short in that it’s solely the business model that dictates whether or not something is a ponzi scheme or not.

With the ongoing Supreme Court case in which 115 panelists have demanded their money back, any commissions owing and that the police and courts ignore the company was a ponzi scheme and allow it to restart its operations, there appears to be a shift in position as the case progresses.

What was once ‘Speak Asia is absolutely not a ponzi scheme, in India or anywhere else’ has since turned into, as Ashok Bahirwani’s daughter Anju Agarwal put it yesterday, ‘saol satisfies indian law‘.

Along with the apparent ease of which lawyers and multi-million dollar scams are able to hide their operators from the authorities, what we might be looking at here ultimately is not whether or not Speak Asia are a ponzi scheme, but whether or not the Indian legal system is capable of handling the magnitude of some of these scams and bringing those responsible to justice.

An example of some of the absurdity so far surrounding the case is Rajiv Mehrotra being denied anticipatory bail just two days ago, but at the same time the existance of a case yet to be heard where Mehrortra (and four friends) are seeking to have the FIR that started the investigation in AP squashed.

The same FIR a judge has twice ruled that is serious enough that should the AP CID as a resut of their investigation need to arrest Mehrotra, Bajpai and friends, it is “in the interest of justice” that they do so.

The case (CLRP 10782/2011) is set for hearing next Tuesday, the 7th of February.

To date Speak Asia has been linked to money laundering operations across four continents spanning at least six countries. Doing their best to hinder police operations, the company (with the help of lawyers Phoenix Legal) have managed to keep their CEO’s Harendar Kaur and Manoj Kumar in hiding overseas.

Both are wanted for questioning by the authorities and both remain at large in locations unknown – eight months after Speak Asia effectively ceased running its scam and investigations into the company began.

As an observer, the fact that a multi-million dollar scam like Speak Asia can flout the law so openly, severely thwart police investigations at an international and local level and still have the audacity to approach the Indian legal system to squash and any all investigations into the company – after transferring hundreds of US dollars overseas, refusing to co-operate with authorities and having anyone even remotely connected to the company’s management disappear and ignore bail conditions – is nothing short of remarkable.

Remarkable not because it’s admirable, but remarkable in the sense it begs the question: How did this happen?

The next Supreme Court date is in three days time on Monday the 6th of February. As the Supreme Court of India and the country’s various regulatory authorities sit on the verge of either showing its citizens and the world that is capable of dealing with high-profile multi-million dollar scams such as Speak Asia, or that, with enough money at their disposal, those responsible are able to get away with it and repeatedly flout the law and hinder investigations – one would hope common sense will prevail.

A win in the Supreme Court would be a gargantuan victory for ponzi scheme operators everywhere but at the same time, a disasterous blow for the Indian population at large.

How exactly can Indian authorities and the police be expected to police such scams if the highest court in India rules there is no criminal liability or case for management to answer after they’ve  run the largest MLM fraud the country has ever seen?

The precedent this case could possibly set in the policing of exisiting and future ponzi schemes in India is almost unimaginable, bearing the utmost in careful consideration from all currently involved.

Over the past few weeks there’s been a lot of speculation as to what Zeek Rewards plans for compliance are.

Along with announcing that they were going to force all members to undergo a compliance course (at cost to their members), Zeek also made a big deal about the partnerships they’d gotten into with a bunch of lawyers – presumably in an attempt to assure their members that they were serious about the business addressing its compliance issues.

The latest news is that Zeek Rewards have banned any and all promotional material not authored by the company themselves, with the company threatening to terminate the accounts of any members who break this rule.

That and under the name ‘Zeek Squad’, the company is actively enrolling its own members to police the internet and report Zeek Rewards members they find breaking Zeek’s new compliance rules.

One thing you’ll notice is that, despite Zeek Rewards’ business model essentially operating as an investment scheme, rather than address why this is by going over their own business model, Zeek instead have cracked down on its members.

Members who, upon joining the company and working within the business model Zeek use, are simply advertising the Zeek Rewards business opportunity for what it is.

I’m no lawyer with a fancy degree, nor am I member of Zeek Rewards (you don’t have to be to understand any analyze the business model), but it strikes me that with a few simple changes, Zeek Rewards could not only ensure complete and total compliance from its members – but simultaneously put to rest the main problems critics have with the business model.

1. Publish the daily revenue generated by the Penny Auctions

Zeek Rewards claim to pay their members a share of the total revenue the company makes from its penny auctions (through Zeekler), on a day-to-day basis.

The problem?

As it stands there’s no transparency and members have no idea what the revenue being generated is.

When you consider that Zeek Reward’s daily profit share payouts have been suspiciously consistent despite the fluctuating nature one would think penny auctions have, there’s a strong case that Zeek Rewards are not paying out a profit share based on the penny auction revenue at all.

This could easily be remedied via the publishing of the revenue generated in the penny auctions. Furthermore this would serve as proof that people are actually using the penny auctions and allow members to pro-rata calculate where they stand in the company, based on their vip bid share of the profit pool.

And before anyone suggests that this is confidential information, to them I say hogwash!

Hundreds, if not thousands of MLM companies (Ok so I don’t know exactly how many MLM companies are out there today) utilise a bonus pool which is a percentage of the total global revenue generated (usually by sales) of the company.

Furthermore, seeing as the success of the penny auction side of things is irrefutable proof that Zeekler’s penny auctions are a roaring success, one would think the company would be all too willing to announce to members what the total daily revenue generated by the penny auctions is.

Not only that, but the reporting of the daily revenue generated would easily allow members to quantify what their share of vip points earns them on a daily basis and effectively stop member’s advertising based on speculation and promised returns.

Being able to say ‘I have xxx points and I earnt $xx from a total daily revenue share of $xx’ is much more compliant than ‘I invested $xx and Zeek paid me a return of $xx from an unknown daily profit share that may or may not have just been the daily real money Zeek members invested into the system’.

Keep in mind of course that it’s legally frowned upon to use proof of income as an advertising tool, but I digress.

2. STOP accepting members VIP bids and paying them a return BEFORE you’ve even given the bids away

As it stands, I can join Zeek Rewards, invest in some VIP bids, give the bids back to the company and enjoy a daily return on my investment immediately (provided I spam the internet with Zeekler ads of course).

This happens whether or not Zeek Rewards has even given away the points I’ve given it and is cause for serious concern over the legitimacy of the Zeek Rewards program.

After all, how on Earth can one receive a return when the bids they’re supposed to be receiving a return on haven’t even been given away yet?

Furthermore it’s unrealistic to suggest that over time, as each and every Zeek Rewards member’s VIP point balance incrementally increases, that Zeek Rewards can continue to give away enough points to customers they are supposedly generating on behalf of their members.

Infact, it would go a long way compliance wise if Zeek Rewards just did away with this component of their business model all together.

And why not? I mean, Zeek Rewards and Zeekler harp on about how important customers are to their business model right? So why not make their members share in the profit pool be reliant on how many customers they are able to generate and give VIP points away to?

There are absolutely no checks and balances as to how out of control Zeek Reward’s VIP point balance is vs. the actual points they give out on a day-to-day basis.

And as far as Zeek’s members go, the uncomfortable truth is that as long as the daily revenue returns are paid, they don’t seem to be interested in where the bids go they give Zeek and whether or not they’re ever eventually even given out.

If the company stops paying out returns on points it hasn’t given away, or better yet stops accepting member’s bids without any checks or balances, it would be hard to suggest that Zeek Rewards are simply paying out a profit share based on the money members are investing in VIP bids.


Like I said, I’m not a compliance lawyer with a fancy degree but if I was approached to give my opinion regarding compliance over the Zeek Rewards scheme, the above two points would appear to be no-brainers.

Best of all they require changes on the company end and don’t directly disrupt the activity of Zeek Rewards’ members. Let alone leave them worried about having their accounts terminated because a fellow member reported them because they got a little too creative with their marketing efforts.

To Paul Burks and the rest of Zeek Rewards management: I’m doing you a favour here and I’m not even going to charge you for it. If you want compliance in the Zeek Rewards programs the above two changes will guarantee it and silence your critics once and for all.

The ball is in your court guys.

I personally can’t fault a company that is openly transparent about where the daily profit share comes from and how much it is, nor can I fault a company that requires its members to attract genuine retail customers and only pays them a return once the points they’ve given away have actually been spent in Zeekler’s penny auctions.

Can you?

Much has been made of the links between the two scams Mister Colibri and Speak Asia.

Mister Colibri is a recruitment scam currently operating in Brazil that was founded by Seven Rings International, funded by founders Manoj Kumar and Elia de Prisco (named as primary investors and co-founders by Mister Colibri members).

Manoj Kumar today serves as the CEO of Speak Asia, currently being investigated in India for running the “largest MLM fraud in Indian history”, as per the Economic Offenses Wing, who are just one of the many government agencies investigating the company.

Meanwhile Elia de Prisco is pretty much the public face of Mister Colibri in Brazil and appears to be running things over there.

Both men serve on the management team over at Seven Rings International, but despite these strong links, Manoj Kumar insists on denying that he has any involvement in Mister Colibri, through parent company Seven Rings International or otherwise.

Prior to Speak Asia being launched in 2010 and Mister Colibri in 2011, Seven Rings International was active in India under the guise of Seven Rings International Limited.

Seven Rings International Limited, like Speak Asia and Mister Colibri, paid out the bulk of its commissions on the recruitment of new members upon payment of membership fees.

Needless to say the opportunity was short-lived and is now non-existent. Instead, Seven Rings International now serves as the parent company for Mister Colibri, the AdMatrix (an earlier scam upon which Mister Colibri was modelled) and Speak Asia.

It is widely believed the company launders members money through its various operational scams around the world using  companies (some known, others not) owned by the various members of the Seven Rings management team.

To date Seven Rings’ known money laundering efforts have been linked to Singapore, Italy, Brazil, the British Virgin Islands, India and Holland.

Looking back even further at Seven Rings International’s efforts in India, today I came across an interesting article from the November 2007 edition of the Business Diary linking Elia de Prisco to a one Mr. Ram Nivas Pal.

Interesting in the sense that Ram Nivas Pal is the prime candidate for ownership of Speak Asia in India (at least publicly).

Ram Nivas Pal’s brother, Ram Sumiran Pal notably ran the AdMatrix scam in India, before the company shut and Sumiran Pal, along with his brother, went into hiding. The AdMatrix scam of course being the original model for the Mister Colibri scam in Brazil (same website code, same business model, same YouTube videos, same recruitment scam).

Here we have the co-founder of Mister Colibri working with the founder (or possible one of the co-founders) of Speak Asia way back in 2007, under the banner Seven Rings International.

The same Seven Rings International who own Mister Colibri and serves as the parent company of Speak Asia in India, with Elia de Prisco on the management team of Speak Asia and the Business Diary article naming Ram Nivas Pal as a “founder member” of Seven Rings International.

Meanwhile Manoj Kumar continues to deny any and all involvement between these companies and even his own personal involvement. Despite being linked to all three companies as either an investor, CEO or serving as management.

The more astute of you will also note that the photo from the above article was taken in Goa, at a Seven Rings training event. The same Goa that Speak Asia held it’s ‘GenX Bazaar’ in last year.

It seems scammy business models isn’t the only thing Seven Rings recycle, they also recycle venues to promote their scams at too.

With the major players in Seven Rings being intrinsically linked dating back to 2007, it’s clear that Seven Rings International’s current known scams have been long in the planning pipeline.

Currently Speak Asia are non-operational  and are involved in court action that seeks to legalize Ponzi schemes in India. It’s founder, Ram Nivas Pal and Indian CEO Manoj Kumar remain in hiding and are wanted by the police in India for questioning.

Last I heard Mister Colibri was having payment problems and the website was not working (I’m not sure what the current status of the company is). Elia de Prisco I believe is still running things from Brazil (although this isn’t verified).

Does anyone really believe there’s no business links between Speak Asia, Mister Colibri, the AdMatrix, Manoj Kumar, Elia de Prisco, Ram Nivas Pal, Ram Sumiran Pal and Seven Rings International?

I’m sure back in 2007 the members of Seven Rings International Limited thought they were part of a legitimate company too, although Seven Rings probably used different terminology to “consumer empowerment” and “precision marketing” to suck them in.

Where is that company and its members now?


Update 2nd February 2012 – On page 2 of the Business Diary, Ram Nivas Pal reveals he made 95 lakhs ($193,000 USD) through Seven Rings International.

Pal claims he was able to do this because he ‘trusted the company beyond any doubt’.

Sound familiar? It should, it’s the same line that you’ll find Speak Asia’s senior panelists and management using to keep their members believing in the scam.

Another point of interest is that the article mentions that Seven Rings International Limited

is controlled by four Directors. Mr. Antonio Grasso is the Chairman (and) Mr Andrea Riccio, Mr Corrado Lantieri and Mr. Elia de Prisco are Directors.

Corrado Lantieri of course being the public face of Mister Colibri (he lists himself as the Director of Mister Colibri on LinkedIn), alongside his partner Elia de Prisco.

Additionally Elia de Prisco also mentions that Seven Rings’

business in Mauritious is very good. In Russia too we are doing well. Now we are poised to commence our business in China and Europe as well.

Whether de Prisco was just telling porky pies or Seven Rings International did actually get around to scamming people in Mauritious, Russia and China remains unknown.

This flier in Russian certainly seems to indicate that Elia de Prisco attempted to get something off the ground in Russia,

but the extent and success of Seven Ring’s scam efforts there (if any) is unclear.

The email address “noviypotok@mail.ru” is currently being used by a Tatiana Koloskov (English) to promote a cleaning company operating out of “Timiryazev” in Russia.

Of late there have been a seemingly endless stream of investment schemes launched with a MLM compensation plan attached to them.

Common to all these investment schemes is the problem that 100% of the commissions (effectively a return on the amount invested in the scheme) are generated from the money members invest into the scheme.

Mathematically you can’t pay out more than 100% of what goes in and with no other apparent revenue generation, you pretty much have yourself a Ponzi scheme waiting to collapse.

Attempting to try something different comes InnoCashAds, read on for a full review.

The Company

InnoCashAds make no mention of who is running things or owns the company on their website.

The domain innocashads.com was registered on the 26th January 2012 but the registration is set to private.

As always, if a MLM company is not upfront about who is running things or owns it, approach it with extreme caution.

The InnoCashAds Product Line

InnoCashAds run an in-house advertising network on their website.

Ads can be purchased directly (retail) through the company, not through members at a cost of $10 for 10,000 impressions of one 468×60 banner or two 125×125 banners.

Advertising credits are also bundled with member investments, which are sold to members by the company at $7 each.

The InnoCashAds Compensation Plan

The InnoCashAds compensation plan guarantees members a return on their investment via three levels.

• Silver – 1% ROI daily for 150 days (effective 150% ROI)
• Gold – 1.5% ROI daily for 100 days (effective 150% ROI)
• Platinum – 2% ROI daily for 75 days (effective 150% ROI)


InnoCashAds accepts investments into its scheme in $7 units and members must invest in the lower plans to unlock the higher ones. The Silver scheme must first be invested into to unlock Gold and then an investment into the Gold scheme unlocks the Platinum returns.

InnoCashAds also offer referral commissions on the money those you personally recruit into the scheme invest. For personally recruited members the commission is 10% of the money invested and for those your personal recruits recruit (2nd level) the commission is 5%.


Joining InnoCashAds

Membership to InnoCashAds is free, however money must be invested into the scheme if one wishes to earn any commissions.

Membership is not required to purchase ad blocks at a retail level.

Conclusion

Before we get into my analysis of InnoCashAds, let’s take a look at how the company describes itself.

Publicly, InnoCashAds state that they are

an advertising program that not only generates traffic for your opportunities – products and/or services, but also rewards you for advertising with us!

InnoCashAds.com IS NOT AN INVESTMENT PROGRAM.

The reality of how InnoCashAds are marketing themselves however tell an entirely different story.

First, let’s take a look at the meta keywords the owner of InnoCashAds has personally chosen to describe the purpose InnoCashAds to search engines with:

meta name=”keywords” content=”revenue sharing, profit sharing, alertpay, hyip, alertpay hyip, money doubler”

HYIP standing for ‘high yield investment program’, and of course you’ll note that there’s no mention of advertising or sales.

Furthermore here’s an official advertising banner from the company itself:

‘2% daily for 75 days’? That certainly doesn’t sound like an advertising network being marketed to me…

That’s because like the other investment Ponzi schemes doing the rounds at the moment, InnoCashAds is no different.

The company does differ slightly in allowing non-members to purchase ad blocks, however there are no commissions tied into these ad purchases, meaning that 100% of the commissions earnt by InnoCashAds are via the investment of money.

Furthermore there doesn’t appear to be any reason for anyone who isn’t investing in InnoCashAds to advertise on the website seeing as nobody will visit it and see the ads who isn’t attracted to the investment scheme the site offers.

Despite offering the purchase of ads separate from the investment scheme, the reality is the percentage (if any) of advertising purchased vs. the money invested by members is going to be negligible.

At the end of the day mathematically InnoCashAds can’t pay out 150% of what they take in (more if we take into consideration referral commissions).

With the retail advertising business not even remotely likely to cover the payouts, once again we’re looking at a simple Ponzi scheme that will eventually fail.

Q: What’s more unsustainable than a 3% daily guaranteed ROI Ponzi scheme?

A: A 4% daily guaranteed ROI Ponzi scheme!

Read on for a full review of the 4 Daily Pay MLM opportunity.

The Company

There is no information on the 4 Daily Pay website about who is running or owns the company.

The domain 4dailypay.com was registered on the 19th January 2012 but the registration information is set to private.

A quick look at the logo of the 4 Daily Pay opportunity pretty much gives away that the design is near identical to that of 3 Daily Cash, a similar investment opportunity launched just days ago.

Both 3 Daily Cash and 4 Daily Pay are hosted by ‘Staminus Communications’ (NEMTYMEDIA), located in Seychelles.

Both 4 Daily Pay and 3 Daily Cash companies have a bit of a peculiarity in that both websites contain the logo of ‘AdsRealm’ in their images directory.

Here’s 4 Daily Pay:

and here’s 3 Daily Cash:

AdsRealm was an investment scheme (2% guaranteed daily with a 60% ROI each month), launched in September 2011 by Rachel Goldberg. Goldberg operated AdsRealm out of Vancouver in Canada.

On September 17th and over the next few days the AdsRealm website went down repeatedly, causing Goldberg to switch hosting providers:

WE HAVE MOVED !

As some of you are aware, we were experiencing hosting issues, and therefore we have moved AdsRealm to a new and better server.

The move was completed earlier today with minimal downtime, and we are once more ready to Rock \’n Roll !!

Hope you are enjoying a happy and profitable week,

Rachel

On September 29th, Goldberg sent out an email to members advising them of the current state of the company:

AdsRealm continues to steadily grow. We now have 282 members, who have purchased $3,300 worth of advertising units, and we have paid out well over $400 in referral commissions, so we are well pleased with the start we have made.

Rachel and Team

One month later in late October, AdsRealm stopped paying out members (as all ponzi schemes do) and collapsed. Shortly thereafter the AdsRealm website went offline and Rachel Goldberg did a runner with the invested money.

The inclusion of AdsRealm logo templates on both 3 Daily Cash and 4 Daily Pay strongly indicates that Rachel Goldberg is also the admin and owner of both opportunities.

The 4 Daily Pay Compensation Plan

4 Daily Pay guarantee their members a daily 4% return and 250% return on investment (ROI) in 50 days from the original investment date.

Investments into 4 Daily Pay are made in $10 increments and 4 Daily Pay bundle a bunch of advertising credits with each investment. These advertising credits are to be used on the in-house advertising network running on the 4 Daily Pay website.

4 Daily Pay also pays a referral commission on members recruited to the company as a percentage of the money they invest.

For members you personally recruit to the program 4 Daily Cash pay 10% and for members they recruit you earn 5%.

Joining 4 Daily Cash

Membership to 4 Daily Cash is free, however an investment must be made of at least $10 to participate in the compensation plan and earn a commission (ROI).

Conclusion

It’s interesting to note that a domain called bannermoneyads.com points to the same IP address as the 3 Daily Cash website.

Banner Money Ads was another investment scheme that guaranteed a daily 10% ROI (up to 150% ROI in 15 days) on $10 investments.

Like AdsRealm, Banner Money Ads was launched in September and like AdsRealm, collapsed in late October (the exact same time).

The admin of Banner Money ads was never named however the timing of the launch and collapse, along with the fact that it was being run on the same hosting as 3 Daily Cash and that both 3 Daily Cash and 4 Daily Pay have the AdsRealm logo stored in their images folder strongly indicates that Rachel Goldberg was also behind it.

The simple fact of the matter is that you can’t create a 200% return out of thin air and with no other revenue stream to 4 Daily Pay other than the money members are investing into it, like AdsRealm and Banner Money Ads before it, 4 Daily Pay will no doubt soon crash with Goldberg again pulling a runner with people’s money.

After a cancer diagnosis which you survived, you then went on to found a candle company and for a few years tried to market $225 candles. You probably made a few sales but eventually decided there just wasn’t a big enough market for ‘luxury candles’.

So, after hunting around the internet for some alternative business ideas you stumble across MLM, recruit a few people and bing-badda-boom make a few bucks.

Combine your candle business with a MLM compensation plan and your cancer survival story… and that’s pretty much what you’ve got with the Power of 31.

Read on for a full review.

The Company

The Power of 31 lists a Jennifer Ballinger as its founder and CEO along with Cornell Jones as co-founder and COO. The Power of 31 bills itself as the ‘the marketing arm for the Gratitude Candle Company‘.

Meanwhile The Gratitude Candle Company website lists a ‘Bonnie LL’ (Bonnie Lennox) as its founder so I’m not sure what’s going on there.

Bonnie Lennox writes,

In late July of 2010, I was diagnosed with stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer.

After her diagnosis, Lennox attended some women’s conference.

I had 35 women surrounding me all praying over me. Once Jan finished her prayer, several women added their own personal prayers for me.

I was standing in the center of a circle of women who didn’t know who I was, but in their hearts wanted me to be better and asked God to make that happen.

I feel this is Christianity at its finest and God at his most loving.

Ballinger on the Power of 31 website claims now to be ‘tumor free ever since’ (despite admitting to having chemotherapy treatment) and wholly credits her recovery to god and prayer.

Every morning now, for months, I light a candle for God to praise him and thank him for healing me and making me feel better.

Because I have had chemotherapy I know that it often times makes people hyper-sensitive to odors, (so much that even the slightest odors will make them vomit uncontrollably).

I searched for the cleanest, unscented wax I could find to make the candles and I also looked for the best wicks, which wouldn’t smoke so much when I blow them out.

I also wanted to make sure my candles burned for a long time, and so far the combination I found works beautifully!

So my candles are 3oz. and burn up to 24 hours in a snug-fitting votive holder. I don’t charge a lot for them because I want everyone who wants them to be able to afford them.

And that appears to be the foundation for Gratitude Candle Company and Power of 31.

One major inconsistency I found is that on the Power of 31 website, Ballinger claims

I founded The Gratitude Candle Company on what I call “a dream and a prayer.”

We became an instant success with our signature bows and moms favorite cookie Jar turned into a fabulous 64 oz. candle. We are a debt free company.

Now four years later we are launching The Power of 31 the marketing arm for the Gratitude Candle Company.

Four years ago puts at 2008, yet on the Gratitude Candle Company website (which Ballinger states she is the founder of), she claims to have been diagnosed with her tumour in 2010, just two years ago.

The Power of 31 Product Line

Power of 31 claim to sell candles but from their website, the candles they sell don’t appear to be available at a retail level.

There is mention of customer reward points and signing up as a customer on the Power of 31 website, but this doesn’t appear to be tied into the compensation plan or the commissions Power of 31 offers its members through the compensation plan.

Instead, those wishing to participate in the compensation plan must pay a membership fee and included with the membership fee is one entry into the compensation plan (how much of a membership fee you pay dictates which part of the compensation plan you enter into).

Bundled with Power of 31′s membership plans are a 64oz. (1.8kg) candle (which Power of 31 claim retails for $225) and $15.50 smaller “wax melt” candles.

The Power of 31 Compensation Plan

Upon purchasing membership to the Power of 31, depending on the membership fee paid members are inserted into a series of matrices. These matrices must be filled with new members in order to cycle out and earn a commission.

In order to qualify for commissions Power of 31 members must recruit 3 new members into the company.


Retirement 31

Tied into a purchase of the ‘Gratitude Package’ membership pack ($31), upon recruiting one new member into Power of 31, members are entered into a 3×3 starter matrix.

This matrix requires 39 new members to fill and upon filling the matrix members are paid $31 in commissions (a refund of the entry cost via membership).

Members are also paid $2.50 per member they themselves recruit whilst in the starter matrix. If this number exceeds 49 members in any given calendar month, members then receive $5 per additional member recruited.

However with only 39 membership positions on the starter matrix, I’m not sure how this is possible.

Upon cycling out of the starter matrix, Retirement 31 members then enter into the ‘Wealth Generating System’ which is a series of 3×2 matrices (12 member positions to fill) which pay out various commissions once filled.

• Distributor – $60
• Manager – $500
• Director – $5000
• Executive – $60,000, plus either a Cadillac Escalade or Lexus car or $60,000 scholarship or loan repayment


Cycling out of the Manager and Director matrices pays out a re-entry into the Distributor matrix and along the way members are rewarded with “retirement keys” which are effectively Gratitude Package membership packs to be given away to new members (so they can join for free).

There is also a ‘Platinum Bonus Stage’ upon completion of the Executive matrix that pays out $8000. To qualify for this payment members must have recruited 31 new members who in turn have recruited at least 3 new members themselves each.

There is a $2,000 recruitment bonus for new members you recruit whilst at the Platinum Bonus Stage level, which presumably stops once you’ve qualified for the $8,000 pay out commission.


Fast Track 7

The $225 membership option to Power of 31 allows members to participate in the Fast Track 7 series of matrices.

These matrices are 2×2 matrices (6 member positions to fill) and there are 14 matrices in total to cycle through, each offering a different commission upon cycling out. Additionally, every time a new member you’ve personally recruited cycles out, you are awarded a ‘sponsor bonus’.

The cycle commissions and sponsor bonuses for the Fast Track 7 matrices are as follows:

Union (Stage 1)

• Silver 225 – $225 ($25 sponsor bonus)
• Gold 100 – $100 ($50 sponsor bonus)
• Ruby 200 – $200 ($50 sponsor bonus)
• Emerald 500 – $500 ($100 sponsor bonus)
• Diamond 2000 – $2000 ($200 sponsor bonus)
• Double Diamond 5000 – $5000 ($2000 sponsor bonus)
• Platinum 10,000 – $10,000 ($5000 sponsor bonus)


Penn (Stage 2)

• Silver 3100 – $3,100 ($3,100 sponsor bonus)
• Gold 5000 – $5,000 ($5,000 sponsor bonus)
• Ruby 10,000 – $10,000 ($10,000 sponsor bonus)
• Emerald 20,000 – $20,000 ($20,000 sponsor bonus)
• Diamond 30,000 – $30,000 ($30,000 sponsor bonus)
• Double Diamond 35,000 – $35,000 ($35,000 sponsor bonus)
• Platinum 60,000 – $60,000 ($60,000 sponsor bonus)


Various re-entry positions and free Retirement 31 and Fast Track 7 positions (keys) are distributed as members cycle through the various Fast Track 7 matrices.

Upon cycling through Platinum 60,000, members are awarded a $200,000 luxury car bonus (the specific car model is not mentioned) and a luxury home bonus of $500,000 (again, specifics are not detailed).

Power of 31 members who manage to cycle out of the Platinum 60,000 matrix seven times are also awarded a one million dollar bonus commission.


Additional Businesses

As part of the cycle commissions in the Retirement 31 series of matrices, Power of 31 also offer members the chance to participate in up to 24 various other income opportunities.

This effectively transforms Power of 31 into a giant feeder program for these additional opportunities, although participation in said opportunities is entirely optional (although no doubt strongly advised).

Some of the names of the companies mentioned by Power of 31 that are offered as additional income opportunity revenue streams are

• Zeek Rewards (investment opportunity)
• OneX (recruitment scam)
• QLXchange (recruitment feeder for shady investment group)


Going on this short list, it appears the legitimacy and legality of the additional income opportunities Power of 31 push onto their members is highly questionable.

Joining Power of 31

Those looking to join Power of 31 have three membership options:


Gratitude Package – costs $31 and qualifies member to participate in Retirement 31 component of the Power of 31 compensation plan.


Prosperity Package - costs $225 and qualifies member to participate in the Fast Track 7 component of the Power of 31 compensation plan.


Abundance Package – costs $160 (Party Pack 1) for entry into Retirement 31 and $285 (Party Pack 2) for entry into Fast Track 7. The difference between the Abundance Packages and the other two are you get more products included with your membership purchase.

Conclusion

Ignoring the ridiculous price of the Power of 31′s candle products ($225 for a candle, really?), you’d think the retail side of this business would be a no-brainer.

Having founded the Gratitude Candle Company “four years ago” however, it appears this didn’t work out and although apparently there is still a retail side to this business, the Power of 31 compensation plan makes no mention of it.

Instead, the focus is squarely on the recruitment of new members to participate in the compensation plan and be introduced to the other opportunities founders Jennifer Ballinger and Cornell Jones are pushing.

Jones appears to be the MLM force behind the Power of 31 opportunity and the cynic in me can’t help but imagine Ballinger being not too happy with her candle business, joining a recruitment driven opportunity Jones was marketing and realising that she could turn her candle business into a feeder for several of the opportunities she (through Jones) was now involved in.

This is evidenced by the extremely high reported retail cost of the candles Power of 31 bundle with their membership options and complete lack of advertised retail commission structure within the company itself.

A visit to the Gratitude Candle company’s website reveals no online store component (not even any products or prices) and asks you to call a phone number or visit another website, the Lennox Candle Company.

A visit to the Lennox Candle Company reveals another blog type website with no online store or product displays and again asks you to call a phone number to place an order for their “custom candles”.

As mentioned earlier, the Lennox Candle Company and Gratitude Candle Companies appear to be owned by a Bonnie Lennox whereas on the Power of 31 a Jennifer Ballinger claims to have founded the Gratitude Candle Company.

Exactly what is going on here and who owns what remains unclear.

Regardless, it appears as far as candles go there is virtually no retail business online, let alone anything members of Power of 31 can use to market the candles at a retail level.

This leaves the matrix commissions earnt by recruiting new members and essentially reduces the Power of 31 opportunity to a recruitment feeder for other opportunities, with a commissions structure for introducing new members to the feeder itself.

Both Jennifer Ballinger and Cornell Jones appear to have unproven track records in the MLM industry (the companies they’ve been publicly involved in are dubiously questionable at best) so I’d be thinking long and hard before joining anything these two have created.

Sustainability wise an opportunity with no less than nineteen matrices in total doesn’t really have much of a hope in the long-term.

For as long as I’ve we’ve been following Speak Asia, their domain registration data has always stated that the company’s office are in Singapore.

As of a few days ago, the domain whois registration data for speakasiaonline.com was listed as

Speakasia Online Pte. Ltd.

71 Bukit Batok Crescent #10-08

Prestige, Si 65807

Telephone: +65.91234567

Fax: +65.91234567

Email: support(at)speakasiaonline.com

with a last modified date of 19th December, 2011.

Sometime in the last 24 hours however Speak Asia’s domain registrar GoDaddy, have suspended the speakasiaonline.com domain citing “invalid whois information”.

speakasiaonline.com

This domain name has been suspended due to invalid Whois information.

As of 31st January 2012, attempting to visit the Speak Asia website returns the following suspension notice message:

At this stage it’s unclear what GoDaddy have taken issue with regarding Speak Asia’s domain whois information but it’s clear that after trying to validate it, GoDaddy have found the complete listing or parts of it to be “invalid”.

It could mean the company’s listed address, phone numbers, contact email are bogus – but specifically which we don’t at this stage know.

The Speak Asia Online domain was originally registered on the 21st January 2010, so after just over two years of operation it’s interesting that GoDaddy have pulled the domain over invalid registry information.

One possible explanation is that GoDaddy were contacted in regards to the EOW’s criminal investigation into Speak Asia.

Another is that the failure to verify Speak Asia’s whois information is part of the ongoing efforts to track down Speak Asia’s fugitive CEO’s Harendar Kaur and Manoj Kumar, both of whom are currently wanted for questioning and are on the run from Indian authorities.

If the Speak Asia domain returns, it’ll be interesting to see if any of the whois information has been updated.


Footnote: For those a little confused, note that only the domain speakasiaonline.com is registered through GoDaddy.

The Speak Asia website is still hosted over at Singapore based hosting company USonyx (confirmed by visiting http://113.197.34.110)

The various Amazon cloud storage components of the Speak Asia website (the e-zines etc.) are also still up and running.

All GoDaddy have done is to redirect the speakasiaonline.com domain to an internal server of theirs whilst they get to the bottom of the invalid information Speak Asia used to register the domain with.


Update 1st February 2012 – DomainTools’ WHOIS names a Varun Sharma as the admin and technical contact of Speak Asia’s domain, speakasiaonline.com:

Registrant:
Speakasia Online Pte. Ltd.
71 Bukit Batok Crescent #10-08
Prestige Centre
Singapore, 658071
Singapore

Registered through: Go Daddy
Domain Name: SPEAKASIAONLINE.COM
Created on: 21-Jan-10
Expires on: 21-Jan-14
Last Updated on: 19-Dec-11

Administrative Contact:
sharma, varun (varunsharma(at)speakasiamarketing.com)
Speakasia Online Pte. Ltd.
71 Bukit Batok Crescent #10-08
Prestige Centre
Singapore, 658071
Singapore
+65.91234567 Fax —

Technical Contact:
sharma, varun (varunsharma(at)speakasiamarketing.com)
Speakasia Online Pte. Ltd.
71 Bukit Batok Crescent #10-08
Prestige Centre
Singapore, 658071
Singapore
+65.91234567 Fax —

The date for this record is the 19th but curiously Varun Sharma’s name did not appear on GoDaddy’s own internal WHOIS database.

Looking at Sharma’s email address, he appears to have a personal email address over at Speakasiamarketing.com, a website allegedly set up by Speak Asia that houses their useless email harvester exit option.

The WHOIS registration information for speakasiamarketing.com lists Speak Asia, with no mention of Sharma.

The obvious question now is who is Varun Sharma and why did his name appear as the contact person for the Speak Asia domain?


Update 3rd February 2011 – Speak Asia’s domain has been unsuspended by GoDaddy and now shows the following updated WHOIS information:

Registrant:
Speakasia Online Pte. Ltd.

71 Bukit Batok Crescent #10-08
Prestige Centre
Singapore, 658071
Singapore

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, LLC (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: SPEAKASIAONLINE.COM
Created on: 21-Jan-10
Expires on: 21-Jan-14
Last Updated on: 19-Dec-11

Administrative Contact:
garg, anuj garganuj2011(AT)gmail.com
Speakasia Online Pte. Ltd.
71 Bukit Batok Crescent #10-08
Prestige Centre
Singapore, 658071
Singapore
+65.67493743 Fax — +65.63430887

Technical Contact:
garg, anuj garganuj2011(AT)gmail.com
Speakasia Online Pte. Ltd.
71 Bukit Batok Crescent #10-08
Prestige Centre
Singapore, 658071
Singapore
+65.67493743 Fax — +65.63430887

Changes include

• the addition of Anuj Garg as Admin and Technical contact (although who he is and what his connection to Speak Asia is remains a mystery)
• the changing of the postcode from ’65807′ to ’658071′
• the addition of presumably real telephone numbers – as the previously listed phone and fax number, ’65.91234567‘ was quite obviously fake


As per GoDaddy’s ‘invalid whois information policy:

The registrant is not required to respond to an email, phone, or postal mail inquiry. We need evidence that the email is invalid (such as a bounce), the phone is invalid (such as a disconnection), or the email has been returned as undeliverable.

Who reported Speak Asia’s invalid WHOIS information to the company, along with the accompanying evidence GoDaddy require remains a mystery.

For some reason the ‘last updated’ date is also still showing up as the 19th December, 2011 but with the records having just been updated, one imagines that is just a technical glitch that will rectified over the next few days.