Auruma International Review: Bullion & recruitment
Auruma International was launched in late 2011 by CEO Victor Foo. Foo, a Malaysian national, operates Auruma out of Singapore however the company itself is actually incorporated in the British Virgin Islands (a known tax haven).
Foo has been involved in the insurance industry since 1991, with Auruma appearing to be his first MLM venture.
In addition to Auruma, Foo (photo right) has also operated SG Net Pte Ltd since 2009. SG Net
offers customers a platform to buy and sell physical gold and silver products on a secured online portal.
In early 2012 Foo launched a third venture, Singapore Precious Metals Exchange Pte Ltd (SGPMX). SGPMX is a “valuables” storage facility that ‘offers clients anonymity as well as speedy transactions‘.
SGPMX has a $1 million USD minimum deposit rule and operates out of a “free trade zone” that has been established next to Changi International Airport.
Citing Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) as a comparison, Foo told “The Star Online” back in February 2012 that
Moving 100kg of gold from your house to KLIA is no laughing matter. To clear a consignment at KLIA takes at least 45 minutes. But at Changi Airport, it takes only three minutes.
If you are a high nett worth individual, you wouldn’t want to expose yourself and you don’t want your name to appear in the export papers.
Foo reassured The Star however that he wasn’t ‘going to be laundering any blood money‘ though, because if he was ‘the Singapore authorities will close (him) down‘.
In an interview with “AurumaWorld” (April 2011), Foo claimed he set up Auruma after his previously launched SG Net business stabilised:
After SG Net found it’s footing, I started to look for easily accessible avenues for the man in the street to preserve his, or her, wealth.
That was what prompted me leverage on SG Net’s infrastructure and to start Auruma International.
Read on for a full review of the Auruma International MLM business opportunity.
The Auruma International Product Line
Auruma International trade in precious metals, offering members the chance to purchase (at “member prices”) silver and gold bullion, Dirham (currency used in the middle east) and various numismatic coins.
Auruma members are also able to sell precious metals through a replicated storefront to retail customers.
Upon purchasing gold and silver through Auruma, the company stores it at “Certis Cisco”, which the company states is a “24 hour maximum security bonded government secure warehouse”.
12 months gold and silver storage at Certis Cisco is included with each 12 month Auruma membership subscription. After 12 months (from the date the gold or silver is stored), Auruma members can continue to have their metals stored at a cost of half a percent of the value of the metal annually.
Alternatively (and during the first twelve months of storage) an Auruma member can have their metal shipped to them or pick it up in person from Certis Cisco.
Finally, Auruma also provides services allowing members to trade their metals between eachother.
The Auruma International Compensation Plan
The Auruma compensation plan was created by “original founding member” Michael Georghiou and revolves around the sale of Auruma membership and bullion.
Auruma membership and bullion commissions are all tied into separate unilevel compensation structures, which operate independently of eachother.
A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of the structure, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1).
If any of these level 1 affiliates recruit new affiliates of their own, they are then placed on level 2 of the original affiliate’s unilevel structure. If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth.
Using the above unilevel compensation structure, Auruma pay out down 8 levels of recruitment.
Retail Commissions
All paid Auruma members are provided with a retail storefront from which they can resell Auruma precious metal products.
Auruma themselves, nor any compensation plan material I cited went into any further detail about retail commissions so I am unable to provide any additional information.
Commission Qualification
In order to qualify for commissions, Auruma members must purchase a “half sliver of silver” each month (autoship).
The Auruma compensation plan material I cited did not go into any further details regarding the cost of these silver slivers, so I am unable to provide any further information.
Note that Auruma provide the example price of 10 oz of silver costing $40, so a “half sliver” of silver would no doubt cost less than that.
Membership Commissions
Paid Auruma membership is $299 and pays out a commission down 8 levels of recruitment using a unilevel compensation structure.
Level 1 pays out $60 per Auruma membership sold and level 2 pays out $30. The Auruma compensation plan material I cited didn’t explicitly mention what the commissions were for levels 3 to 8 on the sale of Auruma membership, however I believe these levels follow the level 2 $30 commission rate.
Note that in order to qualify for commissions on the sale of Auruma membership down levels 2 to 8, an Auruma member must be purchasing a minimum of 10 oz of Silver each month.
In their compensation plan material Auruma use the example silver price of $40 per 10 oz of silver, putting the above monthly required purchase at around $40.
Silver commissions
Auruma use the same 8 level unilevel compensation structure to pay out commissions on recruited downline purchases of silver, with members required to purchase silver themselves each month to qualify for commissions.
To qualify for levels 1-5 in the unilevel Auruma members must be purchasing 10 oz of silver each month. To qualify for levels 6 to 8 of the unilevel Auruma members must be buying 20 oz of silver each month.
How much of a commission paid depends on what unilevel level the affiliate purchasing the silver sits on and is paid out as a percentage of the total purchase price:
- Levels 1 to 6 – 0.5%
- Level 7 – 1%
- Level 8 – 2%
Gold commissions
Gold commissions in Auruma are paid out in much the same manner as silver commissions, with members required to first qualify before being paid on the gold purchases made by their recruited downline.
Whereas silver commissions require monthly qualification via the purchase of silver, gold commissions are an annual qualification of 50g of gold for levels 1 to 5 and 100g of gold for levels 6 to 8.
In their compensation plan material Auruma provide the example price of $60 a gram of gold, meaning the above two qualifications come in at $3000 and $6000 respectively.
The percentages paid out on the purchase of gold by an Auruma affiliate’s recruited downline are the same as silver:
- Levels 1 to 6 – 0.5%
- Level 7 – 1%
- Level 8 – 2%
Joining Auruma
Membership to Auruma is $299 with a $99 fee payable annually thereafter.
Conclusion
Let me preface by saying I’m not a gold and silver guy and largely have no idea or interest in how these markets work. Approaching Auruma from an MLM perspective however, at first glance all the right things appear to be in place.
There’s retail, a preferred customer option and an obvious tangible product. Sure the commission qualifications basically equate to pay to play but with a viable retail option that would place the legitimacy of the business in how the members participated.
Upon closer inspection of the Auruma business model though, things start to fall apart.
First and foremost is the lack of focus on retail, explainable I believe due to the paradox of bothering to offer retail but then having a free to join preferred customer option, which brings with it wholesale member prices.
As such your prospective Auruma retail customer will no doubt face the tough choice of buying as a customer at full retail price, or signing up as a free preferred customer with no requirements and purchasing at member wholesale prices.
To confuse the matter even more, Auruma compensation plan creator Michael Georghiou claims he “doesn’t know” why anybody would sign up as a preferred customer, only that “they can”.
From this we can take that the retail storefront Auruma members are given is largely useless, and that the paid membership option (according to Georghiou) makes the preferred customer option also useless.
So what are we left with?
Members signing up, paying membership fees and then being forced to buy metals from Auruma if they wish to earn commissions on their recruits also buying metals from Auruma (who are hoping their recruited downlines are going to buy metals and so on and so forth).
Before we get into the pyramid’esque picture above though, let’s take a step back and look at Auruma membership and how it fits into the compensation plan.
Referred to as a “commissionable product” by Georghiou, Auruma membership pays out a $60 commission as long as an affiliate has a monthly minimum order of silver with the company (autoship).
If an affiliate wishes to increase this commission down 8 levels of recruitment, they simply increase their monthly autoship order to a higher required minimum.
In effect Auruma members are being paid commissions upon the recruitment of others, with any products bought (at a non-retail level) merely incidental to the recruitment process, primarily resulting out of commission qualification on the sale of said memberships.
Be it silver, gold or any other tangible product under the sun, if you’re paying out commissions on the recruitment of new members the product automatically becomes irrelevant.
Auruma tries to get around this by claiming that its membership (referred to as a “business center”) is a product. But is membership a product? Not in MLM it isn’t.
Steering the Auruma opportunity into even murkier waters, in his compensation plan presentation Georghiou recommending viewers to ‘purchase a business center‘ and then recruit ‘3 others to do exactly the same… so you can earn commissions out of the them acquiring their business centers‘.
Things deteriorate even further with Georghiou explaining away Auruma’s mandatory autoship qualifications by telling viewers they can ‘buy silver out of (their) business center sales (commissions)‘.
With Auruma’s business centre’s being nothing more than a required qualification to participate in the income opportunity, as you can see there’s a strong case for what appears to be an effective pyramid scheme here.
Making matters only worse is the fact that even the maths behind the compensation plan doesn’t seem to add up.
Auruma make a big deal of not setting the price they sell precious metals at, instead simply deferring to the market value of them. Fair enough and I have no problems with that.
Throw in an MLM compensation structure though and I have to wonder where does the commission money come from then?
Even if we assume some of the membership fees are being diverted into the unilevel commission payouts, that still leaves a largeish amount of unaccounted for commission revenue owed.
Let me give you an example:
You buy $500 worth of silver as an Auruma affiliate, meaning Auruma give you certificates and what not and store for you $500 worth of silver. Assuming your commissions eligible upline (all eight of them) are qualified, where does the commission money come from on your purchase of the silver?
In traditional MLM it would come from the product markup, with the company taking the hit on the wholesale product price (if wholesale commissions were offered). But here Auruma themselves don’t set the price, the market does. So where is the commissions money coming from?
At $299 a pop ($99 second year onwards) Auruma membership fees are only going to cover so much. And what if we start talking silver and gold purchases in the thousands of dollars, what then? Where on Earth does the commissions money come from?
One possible explanation is the fact that Auruma guarantee members that they will buy back their silver and gold at whatever the going market rate is at the time – minus any commissions paid out on the original purchase of the metals (and a “small” processing fee).
These are the same commissions I am talking out above. But before you jump up say ‘ahah! Auruma are just taking in money and paying out commissions with it, as evidenced by the subtraction of commissions paid out in the offered “buy-back”‘, there’s one more consideration that needs to be taken. One that totally throws the above hypothesis out the window.
Auruma offer all members the option to ship the gold (immediately after it is purchased) door to door, or members can themselves rock up to Singapore and cart the gold off themselves.
Putting aside the logistics of either scenario aside for the moment, this presents us with the scenario of Auruma paying out commissions on the purchase precious metals and then having to actually stump up the good should a member wish the goods shipped or to pick them up.
Given the metals are sold at market price, where does the commission money come from? How are Auruma paying out commissions and selling the metals to their members at the market rate?
Giving Auruma the benefit of the doubt that they are indeed “storing” actual gold and silver for members, this problem is evident in all three options available to members – storage, delivery or pickup.
Is there a wholesale circle (from whom Auruma purchase from) within the wholesale prices Auruma claim to offer their members? Surely Auruma aren’t simply just banking on their members never actually taking the deliver or pickup options?
And finally, what happens if I buy $10,000 of silver today and the price of silver goes up tomorrow? Even after the commissions paid out (this money is paid to affiliates so it’s not in Auruma’s hands anymore) have been subtracted, how is Auruma paying me more the next day than I paid them for the silver the previous day?!
Again, where on Earth is the money coming from?
Despite spending a great deal of time trying to make sense of this I can only draw the conclusion that, mathematically speaking, the Auruma opportunity just doesn’t add up… literally.
Gday.
You acknowledged that you did not know much about bullion trading. So I will attempt to fill in the gaps for you concerning Auruma.
You asked, “how is Auruma paying me more the next day than I paid them for the silver the previous day?”
Bullion dealers make their profits from the ‘spread’, ie; the difference between market value (+ commissions) and what they purchased it for. Dealers re-buy at spot price (minus commission).
Even if the price does not go up, they make money on their commission. But when the price goes up fast they make huge profits because the product is selling much higher than what they paid for it earlier.
Maybe you misunderstand the products? They are minted bars and coins. No bullion dealer anywhere in the world will sell you minted product at ‘spot price’ (or the market value of silver). They have to cover their costs of minting and then profit on top of that.
The commission on the bullion products Auruma offers for sale totals 7%. The company takes 1% and the rest is shared out 8 levels deep. So actually, the math DOES add up : )
Have a great day.
Kind Regards,
Wolf
@Wolf
Is it legal to operate it in the US?
Technically speaking, buying gold and silver and storing it at a third party will be some type of INVESTMENT (as an opposite to e.g. TRADE). A “certificate of deposit” is a security, not a product or a service.
Investments will require different registrations than trade, e.g. locally registered investment agents, or a locally registered investment entity, and locally registered the securities and the owners.
@Wolf
I buy metal from Auruma for $x, I sell it later to them for >$x. Assuming the commission is less than the difference between $x and >$x), how do they make money?
In that sense the math doesn’t add up. Well, it does if you take into account membership commissions. Unfortunately in MLM however that is a red flag.
Oz, in answer to your question…
Auruma (or any bullion dealer you choose) resells your metal they bought for >$x at the going rate PLUS their commission. Each time they resell (for the going rate) they make a commission.
This is how they make money as a bullion trading business. The math does add up : )
M_Norway… Yes it is legal to operate in the US. There are US citizens operating Auruma in the USA.
If in doubt, I suggest seeking advice from an accountant. You could probably call one and get the information free over the phone.
I live in Australia and get the product shipped directly to me via fedex. I choose to not store it.
I have set up my Auruma site here: (Ozedit: link removed, no recruitment) if you want more information than what is available on the main Auruma site.
Yeah I get that, what happens if the difference between the initial sale price and current going rate is more than the commission charged?
Eg. I buy metal from Auruma at $x. 12 months later current going rate is $x + $100 with a commission of $10 (random figure).
Given Auruma’s guaranteed buyback, they’re obviously not making money on the above scenario.
Auruma isn’t primarily a bullion trading business, it’s an MLM company so I reiterate that the math doesn’tadd up.
They make money because the metal they bought from you at $x + $100 is at spot price (minus commissions). They then RESELL that same metal at spot PLUS commissions.
It appears that they are losing money to you, but you are forgetting that they then resell the metal at the same price PLUS commission. They are making up the difference on the resell AFTER they have bought it back from you.
I forgot to mention that EVERY reputeable bullion trader will buy back from their customers. Auruma is no different.
Uh, you can’t guarantee a 1:1 resell ratio.
If I sell $1000 of metal back to Auruma there’s no guarantees they’ll resell it anytime soon. What if it’s $10,000? $50,000? You’re gunna tell me Auruma have buyers lined up just waiting for me to sell?
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Your explanation is clearly based on a hypothetical scenario that is flawed. It works in a theoretical world with infinite people queing up to buy metal that the company buys back, but in the real world that queue doesn’t exist and Auruma lose money (conversely they make money if the price of the metal falls, but that’s obviously notthe idea from an MLM distributor’s perspective).
Recruitment commissions aside of course.
And I couldn’t care less about bullion traders, we’re discussing an MLM company here.
This is why Auruma is such a brilliant MLM. It IS a Bullion Trading company.
Over the decades I have looked at many networking businesses. The concept is very good (as people like Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki, from Rich Man-Poor Man fame, acknowledge).
But no matter how great the product is, very few people succeed at Network Marketing because;
1, it requires members to stockpile product,
2, it requires members to educate potential customers about the product extensively and ‘hassle’ them to keep buying month after month. (Especially the health product MLMs)
3, the products have more convenient competitors readily available from bricks and mortar stores at cheaper prices (like health food stores and shopping centres)
Auruma members WANT to stockpile the product. That is the reason they get involved. Issue 1 resolved.
Educating others is easy and quick. Everyone knows what silver and gold is and everyone is aware of inflation. Issue 2 resolved.
People can’t just go in to the local supermarket and buy silver and gold bullion at a cheaper price. Auruma’s prices are set to spot (plus the bullion trader’s (SG Net) commission of course). Issue 3 resolved.
And as you mentioned, they will actually buy the product back from their members at any time for spot.
No Networking company in the world will do that.
My ‘flawed hypothetical scenario’ can’t be too flawed as every Bullion Trader in the world relies on it to stay in business : )
Precious Metals rarely go down in price. In fact, the longer the trader has to wait until someone buys the bullion he bought back from you the better! Because the price will have gone up even more than if he sold it right away.
(Ozedit: URL removed, no recruiting links allowed)
If you would like some ‘non-recruiting’ links I am happy to forward them to you. Many are on the homepage in the ‘news’ on the right hand side.
Kind Regards,
Wolf
The problem is gold and silver certificates are considered INVESTMENTS in most jurisdictions. And as they are privately issued, they are only as good as the issuer, not the company they contracted to store the stuff.
As they are investments, Auruma is legally required to register with the SEC and probably with the individual state investment regulatory authority in order to do business in the US.
Or perhaps you don’t care about that?
You may want to read this:
http://www.24hgold.com/english/contributor.aspx?article=945026506G10020&contributor=Antal+E.+Fekete
It doesn’t attract typical gold and silver investors, the ones PRIMARILY interested in buying gold and silver as an investment. At least NOT in Europe (Western/Northern Europe). I have already checked that out by asking a couple of general questions for a comparable opportunity.
Gold and silver investors have very specific ‘preferences’, e.g. for WHAT they’re willing to buy and from WHOM and WHERE. Most parts of this program will be a turnoff for that type of investors. That market is extremely conservative, not looking for new opportunities.
Auruma has been compared to GoldQuest and other pyramid schemes. It will attract that type of income opportunity seekers rather than investors.
THE TURNOFFS FOR INVESTORS:
* Dinar and dirham isn’t easy to sell (in Europe).
* Singapore Assay gold isn’t easy to sell.
* 1 oz ‘legal tender’ bullion coins are generally more easy to sell than bars or “50 gram sliver”.
* “Certificate of Deposit” is primarily designed for other types of investors. For gold and silver investors, the rule is “if you don’t hold it, you don’t own it”.
* Singapore isn’t exactly considered to be a “secure location” for gold investors in Europe.
* Victor Foo is only poorly able to reflect what he tries to reflect, e.g. “sophisticated and wealthy” or “trustworthy”. He’s communicating “Malaysian scammer” rather than “wealthy business man”.
From my POV, this is neither fish nor fowl. It doesn’t look very popular among income opportunity seekers in general, and it surely doesn’t look very popular among investors.
So “blahblahblah, blahblahblah, marketing spiel, marketing spiel, blahblahblah” and we’re back at square 1:
Aruma lose money if they buy back member’s metals at a higher price greater than the commission amount.
This is not a sustainable MLM business model and quite obviously relies on membership money to sustain itself.
Oz, you really do not understand how bullion traders work do you?
I explained they do not lose money because the bullion gets resold at a higher price.
People, like myself, do not get into this business to make a lot of money (although the opportunity is there). I got into this business because I saw how important it is to accumulate physical silver and gold to insulate my family against inflation.
I do not store my bullion with Auruma. I get it shipped direct to my door via fedex.
As M_Norway stated… “If you don’t hold it, you don’t own it”.
And the reason it does not seem popular amongst “income opportunity seekers” is because for a couple of reasons…
1, hardly anybody knows about it. It is very badly marketed to date… and
2, Victor Foo is too busy running his bullion trading company SGNet to hire the right people who know how to promote MLM in this day and age.
The website (gag) is testimony to that. That is another reason I set my own up. (BTW it should read ‘realbullionWEALTH’ instead of realbullionTRADING. My mistake, sorry.)
If the right people got involved, people who now how to market in the 2010s instead of the 1990s, auruma would take off. The concept is brilliant. The marketing plan is very very good, and the product is perfect for MLM. It never goes off, INCREASES in value, and will save people from the coming financial armageddon.
Everybody feels it coming. Even here in Australia, supposedly doing okay from the so-called ‘mining boom’, thousands of businesses close up every month! Real unemployment is through the roof and people are losing homes left right and centre because they cannot keep up with inflation.
The US can only keep propping up the global reserve currency, the US$ by printing money for so long.
Sooner or later the proverbial is going to hit the fan and I don’t plan on being in front of the fan when it does : )
Gold and Silver (especially silver) is one of the only ways to survive it. Auruma has come up with a way that even the relatively poor can accumulate it.
And I am on a mission to inform as many people as I can about silver and gold. I really don’t care how you get it. If not via Auruma, get it elsewhere, but GET it.
(Ozedit: URL removed, recruitment is not permitted)
For your own sake, educate yourself before it is too late.
Kind Regards,
Wolf
Bullion schmullion. Auruma is an MLM company.
As for “higher price”, what part of if someone buys gold from you at $x and you then buy it back for >$x that you’ve lost money if the commission price is greater than the difference between $x and >$x.
You yourself stated that the price rarely drops so this (in a legitimate bullion company) would be an issue. You can’t assume 100% of the metal bought back will be resold, network marketing companies don’t work like that in the real world.
Are you talking about numismatic value here?
Other than that, 1 oz of gold will be worth exactly 1 oz of gold in 20 years, 50 years or 100 years, the same value it has today. The PRICE (in other currencies) will probably change, but the value will remain excactly the same.
The price for gold and silver (in USD) has been relatively stable since I started to follow them in 2011, or actually been reduced slightly.
It has been tried marketed on MMG and a few gold investor forums? That’s two completely different types of audiences.
For Gold investors:
You know perfectly well they don’t need to be “educated” about gold and silver, they educate themselves.
You probably know it’s not about “gold” or “silver” as a lump of metal, it’s mostly about “investor’s gold”, e.g. Maple Leaf, American Eagle, Austrian Philharmonika, Kruger Rand, Australian Kangaroo, Chinese Panda, and so on and so forth. It’s not about Dinars or Dirhams.
It’s not about paying $299 for the right to recruit other investors. Other investors will throw stones at them if they try. It’s not about recruiting a downline and building a business. It’s not about storing it in a “secured place in Singapore”, or about “Certificate of Deposit”.
Auruma simply isn’t DESIGNED for gold investors. It’s designed to attract money launderers and tax evaders rather than gold investors, people who want to STORE money away from “the evil gub’mint’s” control.
It works because gold and silver are currencies, “money”. The company makes its profit on the DIFFERENCE between buying prices and selling prices at any given time, the COMMISSION they charge buyers and sellers for.
It’s not about the difference between buy and sell for one single buyer or for one single coin as a product.
One example:
If a company sells you a $100 coin today, and charge you a 10% fee, it has made $10 profit on that sale. It’s deposited currencies in gold has been reduced by $100, its deposited currencies in USD has increased by $110.
* If it buys it back 2 years later for $125 minus 10% fee ($12.50), it has made a $12.50 profit on that purchase. The price difference $125-$100 isn’t a loss. The coin can be sold to another investor for a profit ($125+$12.50), or it can be stored (as $125 worth of coin).
* If the price has been reduced, and it buys it back 2 years later for $80, it has only made $8 in profit on that purchase. The price difference $100-$80 = $20 isn’t a profit. The coin can be sold to another investor at the current market price plus a commission, or it can be stored as $80 worth of coin.
The company will have a loss if it has stored huge amounts in coins, and the market price is heavily reduced, and it’s being forced to sell for some reasons. But normally it will make a profit on the circulation between buyers and sellers.
If it can convince some buyers to store their coins in a “secured place”, it won’t have to store so much coins itself. It can borrow coins from the deposited coins from time to time, and put it back later (e.g. to buy in larger quantities and reduce freight costs).
Or it can “borrow” the coins on a permanent basis, and let the owner keep his “Certificate of Deposit”. Or it can “borrow” 90% of all the coins deposited and sell them, and reinvest the money in other businesses more profitable than gold or silver. The owners will probably BELIEVE they have 100% of the coins at any given time, rather than 10%.
Actually, it doesn’t have to buy ANY of the deposited coins, only the coins it has to deliver physically. The coin investment can be 100% virtual for all the deposited coins, with only a little reserve in case someone want their coins delivered physically. And a little reserve as proof for deposit.
Victor Foo looked/acted more like a “Malaysian scammer” than a “wealthy business man”.
Auruma seems to be a part of a GROUP of companies, controlled and organized by TERRY GHANI, MyNET Capital Sdn. Bhd, Malaysia.
He TYPICALLY operates with groups of companies operating in different parts of a market, e.g. so they can act as “feeders” for each other or feeders for a main program (in this case either for MyNET Capital or SGPMX).
SGPMX is a virtual gold exchange (convert your gold or fiat money to virtual gold, buy and sell, withdraw as gold or as fiat money when you need it).
TERRY GHANI didn’t look less like a “Malaysian scammer”, but at least he talked like a real business man (when he was interviewed by a local newspaper).
VICTOR FOO talked like a man ACTING like he believe a wealthy business man will act, e.g. “I’m H. E. Pennypacker, a wealthy industrialist, philantropist and bicyclist, looking for my next huge investment”. 🙂
M_Norway….
Thank you for explaining to Oz what a bullion trader is. I tried but he did not/could not understand….
OZ…
It is not how network marketing companies work in the real world, but it IS how bullion traders work in the real world.
Experience thus far has shown me that bullion investors actually LIKE the idea of Auruma. Many I speak to have been trying to convince family and friends for some time to convert at least part of their fiat currency into ‘real’ money…. physical silver and gold.
Auruma provides an easy way to do so, especially for those new to bullion trading. Plus they actually like the idea of growing an income from their accumulation process as their current investments do not bring in an income until they resell.
On a side note: 99% of the bullion Auruma trades in are Perth Mint coins… Kangaroos, Kookaburras, etc.
I agree that Victor does come across as a Malaysian ‘scammer’ a bit. But I have seen no evidence that he is anything other than genuine.
(Ozedit: removed recruitment spiel)
@Wolf
Auruma is a network marketing company. You might as well be crapping on about fast food business models.
At the end of the day an MLM company is not sustainable if they are buying back product at a higher price than they sold it to their members at.
Storing copious amounts of metal might negate the loss from an investment perspective but commissions need to be paid and that’s in dollars, not metal. If Auruma have to sell metal to cover commissions at a loss, they aren’t making money.
You cannot guarantee they will be able to resell product at a 1:1 ratio to members in anycase. If 1000 people join today and buy metal, then quit over the next few years leaving 200 people in the company with nobody buying… if the price of the metal goes up they’re in trouble.
From an MLM business model perspective it makes no sense.
He’s trying TOO HARD sounding like a wealthy business man in interviews. It reminded me of the “I’m H. E. Pennypacker, the wealthy industrialist, philantropist, and uh, bicyclist” dialogue from “Seinfeld”.
He tried too hard to convince his audience about all the struggles involved in being a wealthy business man, “transporting 100 kg gold from his home to the airport”. It sounded like a poorly written “testimonial” for his own constructed credibility.
People will need to make their OWN assumptions that he is a wealthy business man. The more he tries to TELL people about it directly or indirectly the more difficult it will be to believe him.
James Randi explains WHY (short video 3.5 minutes):
I’m not a gold/silver investor, but I know the market as a market without knowing the details. The market is very conservative in Europe if we’re talking about personal investors, conservative in WHAT they’re willing to buy and from WHOM.
Auruma and SGPMX aren’t designed for that market, e.g. the virtual gold exchange seems to have been designed for a completely different market than physical coins investors.
“For those new to bullion trading” is probably the correct description. Combining that with “growing an income from their accumulation” will normally end up with income opportunity seekers eagerly spamming investor forums with wrong types of posts.
“Income opportunity seekers” and “physical coin investors” are two completely different markets in Norway, e.g. in discussions in forums. Opportunities like Auruma will normally be posted in pyramid scheme and NWM forums rather than in investor forums.
I’m relatively neutral, e.g. in that I write from different viewpoints to different types of audiences. I’m just trying to tell you the factual situation as I know it. I’m familiar with both those markets in discussions.
People on coin investor forums will probably look right through disguised marketing attempts from income opportunity seekers if they’re trying to market the opportunity on forums like that.
The income opportunity connected to it is a FLAW rather an incentive in that part of the market.
I really enjoyed that, very interesting. Thank you M_Norway.
It’s a pyramid scheme in itself, in the joining fee and the recruitment rewards. Gold and silver trade is only needed to make it look like a legit business.
The main objective is probably to attract investors to the virtual gold and silver exchange SGPMX, where money or gold will be converted to virtual gold in a virtual market, but where investors can withdraw real money or gold if they want.
Auruma is part of a GROUP of companies. Victor Foo is probably a front figure rather than the real owner. My guess is that it acts as a marketing arm for itself AND for another opportunity, the SGPMX or SG Net / MY Net Capital.
SGPMX is a typical fraud consept and can’t be marketed directly in most countries. So it will need a “front company” it can hide behind, to avoid drawing too much attention from financial regulators.
@Wolf
The normal method if you want to link to your own website is to use the “Website (not required)” field.
It will normally be accepted if it’s a “normal part” of your user information rather than “typical recruitment attempt”. It will show up as a link under your username over the post, like you can see in K. Chang’s post #10.
“Typical recruitment attempts” are about when people are posting comments for marketing purposes rather than because they are interested in the discussion.
I have already had a quick look at the website, without checking any details.
And those who still think Gold’s a good investment may want to read this article on Quartz:
http://qz.com/61896/gold-is-the-worst-investment-of-2013/
Add MLM on top of it (big margins to support MLM payout) and clearly this can’t work or something’s NOT as it seems.
I agree the main income for Auruma members comes from the membership package. KaratBars International has a similiar opportunity but also sells a “package” to get started. They do not have a requirement on monthly purchases.
I have a much better idea: Why not set up a blog that you can resell such as PureLeverage or Empower Network and start a blogging community about where to buy silver, how to store it etc, etc? Haha that’s what I do.