5 Star Signals collapses, over $180,000 in commissions stolen
BehindMLM reviewed 5 Star Signals back in October of 2015. The review concluded 5 Star Signals were paying pyramid scheme recruitment commissions, tacked onto an unregistered securities offering.
About a week after our review was published, we uncovered 5 Star Signals was built on years of lies and deception. Hardly surprising given the company’s business model, but the amount of detail we were able to put together made for one hell of an interesting backstory.
Following the orchestration of a funeral for an entirely fictional persona, Mariska van de Langenberg and Dean Black continued on with 5 Star Signals as if nothing had happened.
By all accounts things appeared to be going well. Over the last few months Black, posting as himself, published regular updates on the 5 Star Signals Facebook page boasting of profits.
What was actually going on behind the scenes however paints an entirely different story.
In an announcement believed to have been made in the last few days, Mariska van de Langenberg (right) announced that 5 Star Signals has collapsed.
If Langenberg is to be believed, 5 Star Signals collapse is the result of non-communication and poor trading decisions on Dean Black’s behalf.
It is a very sad day for me personally, as it is the end of the existence of 5 Star Signals in the shape as we know it..
In the past few weeks it has been virtually impossible to communicate with Dean.
I’ve tried in every way possible but he simply didn’t respond. Or when he did, he never read any of the urgent messages I sent him.
I’ve worked so very hard to make this a viable company, but this is going nowhere, if anywhere it is from bad to worse.
In attempt to salvage the business (again), Langenberg and Black appear to have come to an agreement last week.
After long conversations in the last week, we found a way to make things right.
I refer to the post in the Facebook group of last Wednesday by Dean.
Langenberg claims Black soon reneged on the agreement.
How things were presented to you, well it took less than 24 hours for Dean to throw it all overboard and to start trading with way more risk.
When I woke up this morning, I saw huge profit in equity. Though trades were still running…no profit was taken.
I then saw a message in the FB group, and notified Dean on FB about it.
FB chat, the type of messages he had been ignoring for weeks.I then received an answer that because he read my message a lot of money was lost on the accounts.
Unacceptable…. has nothing to do with my message, has everything to do with him not acting according agreement and taking on way too much risk.
I cannot continue like this, any agreement is voided within hours and that is not in your best interest.
Langenberg claims over $180,000 in commissions owed to 5 Star Signals affiliates is “gone”.
In the past months over $180k in commissions have been generated and all of it has been used to add to the BlueMoon accounts…nothing is left, it is all gone.
Dean also took commissions generated on the news strategies to fund the BlueMoon Account, resulting in lack of funds to pay our trading partner. These amounts are included in the $180k.
Total losses of 5 Star Signals affiliates, including funds invested into the scheme, is unclear.
I feel bad for the people who have trusted me and invested on our accounts that Dean has blown.
He may be a brilliant analyst, the trading psychology when trading other people’s money is one he doesn’t seem to master, only in theory.
My supporting him has reached a point where I can no longer continue this support.
Blown accounts several times, and even though what he has projected to happen in the markets in the very near future has already started happening, enough people have been damaged by now, this HAS to stop right here and right now.
I have no choice but to stop exposure.
Refusal to communicate is definitely a point to draw the line. Ignoring agreements made and not acting like you’ve told members you would, that is unacceptable.
Volume trading in order to build cash for compensation was nice in theory, in reality it has failed.
This is that point of no return. Both companies in both Netherlands and Ireland will be dissolved.
I wish I could compensate all of you, I truly wish.
In an attempt to find something positive in the collapse, Langenberg states;
I don’t know what my personal future will look like, but I am confident I will get through this as an individual.
An expensive lesson learned: in business no one can be trusted, only yourself.
Her advice for 5 Star Signals affiliates however is less than inspiring.
For those who were under the BlueMoon accounts, you’d best try to contact Dean directly, since he gave a personal guarantee. It never was a company guarantee.
To be honest at this point: don’t get your hopes up, there is nothing to obtain from him, no possessions whatsoever.
In the last week he has seen no reason why he would have to be cut out of the company and he does not agree with it.
He also insists he will make it up to all concerned. That is his responsibility.
In November of 2015 the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets issued a warning against investment in 5 Star Signals.
The AMF began investigating 5 Star Signals upon suspicion it was operating an unlicensed investment opportunity within the Netherlands.
Langenberg is based out of the Netherlands and, despite being fully able to respond to the AMF’s enquiries, chose instead not to.
The AMF thus concluded 5 Star Signals were offering what amounted to an unregistered securities offering.
The AMF went on to fine 5 Star Signals €50,000 for non-compliance.
The company has yet to pay the fine, with Langenberg insisting, despite the AMF’s findings, that 5 Star Signals’ unregistered securities offering is compliant.
Add up to all of this that AFM, despite the fact we are in the green from a compliance perspective, is persistent in collecting €50,000 in fines.
Ridiculous of course and a clear example how a regulatory body is killing a promising company, if it hadn’t been killed by its Head Analyst already..
When an unregistered securities offering collapses, investors have no direct recourse. What Langenberg chalks up to being an “expensive lesson”, is actually financial fraud.
Yet despite this, Langenberg has vowed to relaunch.
I will start up another company, but without Dean. Our trading partner is still happy to work with us as we agreed upon last night..
IF there would be an affiliate program, it will be completely different, provided brokers can handle the commission side of it.
That still has to be seen, all is highly insecure at this point. I do know the new company will offer the news trading strategies.
Dean’s IP will be blocked on the servers, and all logins will be changed as soon as the master accounts are transferred to the new entity.
I’d like to thank all of you for your support and trust and from the bottom of my heart, I am truly sorry for letting you down.
It will be ONLY the professionals trading these accounts, no one else, ever again.
With the website being down, these news trading strategies will continue to be traded, with exception of HotForex.
All subscriptions are going to be cancelled from our end, so no more fees will be taken off your account on behalf of the Dutch or Irish company.
It is a very sad day for all of you, it is a very sad day for those who have put their heart and soul in this company.
I do take accountability for the fact I’ve supported Dean for too long.
See it as a mother who is reluctant to admit her kid has unacceptable behavior…. still care for him as a person, the behavior has to stop, right here, right now. It is truly saddening.
I never stopped believing in the concept, investing, compounding and sharing revenues that are actually made is a viable business concept, I wholeheartedly believe in it!
I realize for me personally this has been a highly expensive learning process…one that I am not willing to risk again in the future.
For this reason Dean will no longer be part of 5SS or a new company. He may choose to continue the forum, that is up to him.
In the new company there will be some general info on Forex, but no education and no signals and no Dean.
It is truly one of the saddest days of my life…I am very, very sorry!
Whether or not Langenberg’s 5 Star Signals reboot has an MLM-based affiliate program remains to be seen. We’ll certainly be keeping an eye out.
orrrr, dean will be back with a new fake identity and then langenberg can complain about being defrauded again when the new pyramid crashes.
mariska langenberg is such a smooth talker and a complete shyster.
saying ‘sorry’ wont cut it, she should return everyone’s money or spend some time in jail.
so, langenberg knew for the past few months that dean was mishandling accounts.
yet on july 11th she wrote in her ‘5 star mariska’ blog:
so up until 11th july dean black was a brilliant analyst, and suddenly by july 23rd he is the guy who lost everyone’s money? all the money gone in less than a fortnight?
mariska should show everyone which particular trades in the last fortnight lost all the money so suddenly.
or own up that her fraudulent pyramid scheme crashed and she has stolen everyone’s money.
Plot twist: Mariska van de Langenberg is Dean Black.
Dun-dun-duuuuuuuuuun!
but, on june 2, 2016, dean black posted on his FB page:
if 5SS was found to be legally complaint, why is langenberg claiming now that they have to pay a 50,000 euro fine to the AFM?
was dean black bullshitting bak in june? is langenberg shutting down 5star signals to avoid paying the fine?
Never believe anything an MLM underbelly admin says about a regulator, unless they have documented proof.
the 5starsignals facebook page is gone.
the website at 5starsignals.com is gone with this message:
so, after gloating all over FB about how great 5starsignals was doing, mariska langenberg has made a sharp left and exited with everyone’s funds.
i guess she’ll disappear from social media for a while, till she’s ready with her new scam, and will then hop back in bursting with excitement about ‘the NEW greatest opportunity EVER!!’
There is far more to the story.
I know it would not be long before you published this much of the story, however I have an arsenal of information to bury Dean and Mariska forever… Need time to digest all if this first and decide how to proceed.
Following this for updates, curious of Devin’s findings.
Mariska is a liar and she makes the wrong decisions in the entire process, for this alone nobody can trust her anymore because she will make the same mistake over again.
She calls herself tobe honest and ethical… Really Mariska after you became aware that Marie Shaw was DEAN BLACK you knit a an amazing stupid story together to escape the true and told your followers that Marie had tragically died .. and you call yourself HONEST..this is one of the worse lies I ever heard off.
I criticized this alcoholic liar and deceiver of the worse kind Black and you blocked me for this, because in your words “you dont know a thing” perhaps I did not know that your lies where even worse…..
Honesty is something total different, but to get to the core of your lies, you need to defend this crook Dean because you dont have a clue about TRADING at all, so he was the only one in the entire organization know about Trading and Forex.. thats the TRUE, Mariska you are a disgrace, because now you are blaiming it all on DEAN, your own shortcomings are again the errors of other.. you should be ashamed.
I knew this would happen and I told your Friend Bill about it, you did not pay him for month for all his work, so don’t play the victim your Mariska are the source of the problem, just you live in denial
It’s obvious where the money has gone. Marie, sorry mariska had her daughters wedding a while ago. A lovely expensive looking do. A holiday to hawaii and of course that nice big house she just bought.
Shame on you. Her daughters name is Kim Aiddoun Delfgaauw if that’s any help because I’m pretty sure ‘m’ will be disappearing pretty soon.
Scenario “NO”:
I was banned by Mariska from 5SS free membership for is representing company the company owners. Later Dean Black did add me to the free forum.
Scenario “YES”:
Some Dean Black texts read like Mariska’s style of writing!
We can not know if he just copy and pasted her copywriting about AFM. It is indeed amazing the two messages say the complete opposite.
I did call with the AFM and they confirmed that the fine was still pending payment.
Saw this coming when I first found about the Marie lie. Not surprising, but I do enjoy knowing I was right.
If it helps, I’ve personally been on conference calls with both Dean and Mariska at the same time and they are different people at least.
That isnt to say that they aren’t both in on this together though. Large sums of money have gone missing from 5ss before.
There was a time when I first started working with them that a rather large sum of money was paid to a man named Jerry Lewellyn who was supposedly from the Philippines for using his call center to make sales. The money was paid and we never heard from Jerry again. Stands a chance they were in on that as well.
Me suggesting they were the same person was solely tongue-in-cheek.
dean was ‘marie’ though wasn’t he?
He had a few personas going from memory. One was “Chris” who frequently posted on here.
They purposefully blew accounts to generate broker commissions to line their own pockets.
Mariska was boasting about window cleaners, gardeners, and maids in her new house over Facebook.
The Ponzi scheme the orchestrated using other people’s money to generate broker commissions happened more than once.
I think you will see at least the Liar that Mariska is by how she made up the entire death and funeral for Marie Shaw here! Dean, Craig, Marie, whatever his/her name is pleading for mercy.
I think if you can post these images you’ll see the plot unfolding… Insane!…. And there is still much much more!
(Ozedit: I already covered this here – https://behindmlm.com/companies/5-star-signals-forex-founded-on-years-of-lies-deception/)
And there she always claimed to be so humble hahahaha.
I am struck by the similarities in the way this scam was promoted, operated and dissolved to the game that Annegrete Krings and Mike Burrows played with the suckers via “fxglobal.info” back in 2012:
realscam.com/f11/annegrete-krings-mike-burrows-3462/
Maybe it’s just a Dutch thing …
SD
When Mariska van de Langenberg was pumping Bonofa hard, Bill MacFeat and Scott Ketelson (here in the USA) were also big promoters of that scam.
Note: Oz covered the Bonofa bust here: https://behindmlm.com/companies/bonofa-owners-arrested-in-germany/
These two “ponzi promoters” followed her into 5 Star Signals too.
They should be held accountable for their participation and responsible for all of the financial loss of the friends, family members and social media contacts they convinced to invest.
It’s time that serial participants of these ponzi schemes pay for their involvement in these fraudulent companies.
Will their be an investigation by the regulators of 5 Star Signals and the promoters here in the USA? It appears to be a clear case of selling unregistered investments by people who don’t hold the proper licenses.
cant wait to see what you have to post, perhaps I can find familiar stuff I forgot or know to edit..keep it coming.
I knew Mariska from the time when she promoted ZEEK and on she went.
The Dutch gov watchdog AFM did warn before:
afm.nl/nl-nl/consumenten/controleer-je-aanbieder?q=5+star+services
report your lost to the local police and file your claim asap against Mariska van de Langenberg. she is a resident of the city of Den Hague in The Netherlands.
changes are that she will pop-up with another ponzi!
I seen dean has posted regarding this and has started giving free signals again.
Just to make something clear, I know from a part owners of 5Star that they did not get paid their share for long long time, Mariska used it for whatever she decided but did not pay her Partners.
Now about Dean Black, Marie Shaw, Craig Walters, whatever his name might be, he is an imposter and liar, he is a horrible Trader.
If you are a PAMM account holder, just look whats left in your account and you are the judge.. dont believe this Creature a word, he will lie his ass of and sell his Mother to convince you about a bright future, just it will like the past, Same old Same old.
Remember the drowning man fights for AIR.
Dean is not only a drowning Man he is fighting to make money on your money, thats what he does.
He does not have a job, he does not have money, he rely on your funds to suck some life out of it.. he is a crook, a liar, an imposter an alcoholic and uses drugs.
What more do one need to know, he is the worse one can encounter ever on a FB page, because this is his mouthpiece, for his survival.. lie his ass of for an other drink.
His last post on his FB page:
Looks like the message on the 5ss site has been altered to read that the site is goi ng to be back up soon:
Sounds like Mariska and Dean might have made a deal then.
Probably a bit of money involved, not that 5 Star Signals affiliates will see any of it.
Mariska is legally in charge. All bullets need to be sent that way.
On the tallinex registration it says it was her. She gave dean everything, strategized, scammed, and slaughtered the clients of 5SS. Some of them are still loyal to the guy!
I was a client, but as soon as they messed up once and dean traded the money I closed all accounts because I was with Tallinex.
Charter Prime people could not get out. And dean refused flat out to let anyone out and lost all the money purposefully.
It is believed he was receiving funds from that broker to do that. Why else would he suggest a broker that nobody can get out of? Tallinex saved me. Thank you tallinex.
Totally true. The entire business is registered in her name, including the websites and what little legal paperwork there is.
It still blows my mind that people are still trusting Dean Black with money. This is the third time he’s completely blown all of the 5starsignals accounts, and it was probably done with the exact same copy trader as the previous two times.
It’s exactly the same every time, except I don’t know that he has anyone to “invest” money in him and his business this time to dig him out of it.
yeah, looks like they kissed and made up. the following conversation was posted on dean blacks FB page on 28th of july, 2016:
so, mariska and dean stole money from 5SS, and when their pyramid started to crash they had a fight and started to blame each other for the failure of 5SS.
then they come back and say – hey let’s reboot and start from the beginning!
this is the typical style of functioning of ponzi/pyramid scammers, who just keep relaunching their schemes with some ‘tweaks’ and changes, while assuring their investors that they will get it right this time and let bygones be bygones.
Hi, Dean here from 5SS.
I have not read this article and as such will not be responding directly to any points (Ozedit: then byebye.)
I have known Mariska van de Langenberg personally and she’s a very very smart lady. At the same time she’s also a very very dangerous lady.
Everything she touched in the past has been a scam and fraud. She never build one succesful company, and she never will, as she’s a psychopath type.
She kicked me out of her groups after we had a disagreement. She finds herself the ultimate leader. She thinks she knows best (according to all her websites).
She’s a narcist and selfish person. Her attitude is very dangerous for newbies as she will overrule them completely because of her demanding and yelling attitude.
I’ve learned so much from her how not to do business and how not to treat people. Sadly enough she’s a very fearful woman which results in panic attitude which results, in her case, into an obsessed focus on money.
With her big mouth she has made many many victims. A woman to stay far away from.
Mariska’s Instagram, @theduchess_nl, is currently linking to what seems to be some sort of cryptocurency peddling program at thedutchess.net/skill-dragons/
Really? That’s interesting. Skill Dragons is a reboot of Smart Media scam in India, according to a different review.
NOLINK://behindmlm.com/mlm-reviews/skill-dragon-review-smt-reboot-with-cryptocurrency-mining/
looks like she is back again.
and she call herself a bitcoin and blockchain expert….lol
i pitty those who will fall for her scan artist tricks…..
femalewaveofchange.com/speakers/
Mariska vd Langenberg (Netherlands) Blockchain/Bitcoin… lulz.
“How to scam people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars using bitcoin?”
I stepped in with 1000 dollars and in one week everything was gone. This liar Mariska stole it.