Bidify Prelaunch: Zeek Rewards clone or new idea?
Penny auctions have been around since 2005 but it was only last year that Zeek Rewards burst onto the scene combing the auction model with a MLM compensation plan.
Operating largely as an investment scheme, the company allows members to invest money via the “purchase” of VIP bids, give the bids back to the company and then earn a daily return on their investment.
Additionally Zeek Rewards remains tight-lipped about how much of its investment returns are paid out using money invested by members and how much comes from Zeekler, the company’s penny auction front.
Zeek Rewards CEO Paul Burks cites the reason for this secrecy being that such information is “proprietary”.
Looking to give Zeek Rewards a run for their money in the penny auction MLM niche comes Bidify.
So, how proprietary is Zeek Rewards’ business model and the obvious question? How does Bidify compare?
Read on for a full review of the Bidify MLM business opportunity.
The Company
Bidify reveal little no information about who owns or runs the company on their website:
Bidify is a privately held corporation owned by several entrepreneurs from different parts of the world.
The domain ‘bidify.com’ however was registered in May 2011 and lists ‘Larus Palmi Magnusson’ as the registrant:
Bidify Ltd.
Larus Palmi Magnusson
Unit 117, Orion Mall, Palm Street
Victoria
Mahe,K1S5P5 SC
SC stands for Seychelles and roughly matches up with the address Bidify provide on their website:
Unit 117, Orion Mall, Palm Street,
P.O. Box 828, Victoria, Mahé,
Seychelles.
Note that the PO Box part of the address is missing from the domain registration.
Bidify provide a registered company number (100478 ) on their website but as far as I can tell there’s no publicly searchable online database of companies registered in Seychelles.
Seychelles is a known tax-haven and if I had to I’d guess that Bidify has been set up as an International Business Company, meaning the owners don’t have to pay any tax in Seychelles provided they don’t do any business there.
As I understand it, Seychelles business law also means it’s extremely difficult to obtain any information about the company and/or take any action against the owners.
Larus Palmi Magnusson himself lists Iceland as his location in his Hi-5 profile. The same person appears in a Facebook profile and more importantly a SWOM profile.
SWOM is a social network for internet marketers and with the uniqueness of the name ‘Larus Palmi Magnusson’, I’d be very surprised if this wasn’t the same Magnusson running Bidify.
Why a resident of Iceland specifically needs to run his company from Seychelles remains a mystery, as do the identities and involvement of any other person(s) in the running and/or ownership of Bidify.
The Bidify Product Line
Bidify themselves have no retail product. That is to say that you cannot purchase anything from Bidify as a retail customer without joining the company and/or participating in the company’s compensation plan.
Retail purchase of penny auction bids is possible via Bidsson, however they are a seperate company to Bidify and as such don’t count.
Members of Bidify are able to purchase bids to give away to customers of Bidsson or purchase bids for their own personal use.
100% of the sales generated by Bidify are from company members.
The Bidify Compensation Plan
The Bidify compensation plan rewards members with a profit share, retail bid commissions made by customers, sample bid purchases made by personally recruited members and recruitment commissions.
Profit Share
When Bidify members purchase sample bids that they then give away to customers, the company allocates them a share in the daily profit pool.
Bidify state that this profit pool is made up of 50% of the daily net-profits generated by the penny auction website Bidsson.
For each sample bid given away by Bidify members, the company awards them a profit share point that is equal to one share in the daily profit share pool.
Each point has a lifespan of 120 days from the date of issue (the date the bid was given away) and expires thereafter.
As far the return goes, 20% is paid out in Bidsson bids (not redeemable for cash and must be used on Bidsson penny auctions), with the remaining 80% being paid out as cash.
Customer Bid Purchases
When customers a Bidify member has referred to Bidsson purchase retail bids for their own personal use, the referring member earns a 25% commission on the purchase price.
This commission is paid out as cash.
Recruited Member Bid Purchases
When a personally recruited Bidify member purchases sample bids, the member who recruited the purchasing member earns a 5% commission on the purchase price.
This commission is paid out as cash.
Recruitment Commissions
In addition to the bid commissions above, Bidify also pay recruitment commissions.
- a new affiliate pays out a 5 Euro ($6.75 USD) commission
- a new Executive member pays out a 10 Euro ($13.40 USD) commission and
- a new Premium Executive member pays out a 25 Euro ($33.50 USD) commission
There is also a unilevel component to the Bidify’s recruitment commissions that pays down 15 levels.
A unilevel compensation structure places each new member you recruit directly under you (your level 1).
Each new member one of your level 1 members recruit becomes your level 2, each member they recruit becomes your level 3 and so on and so forth.
For each Premium and Executive Premium Affiliate you have in your downline, Bidify will pay you a monthly commission down to 15 levels.
How many levels a Bidify member is paid out on depends on how many Executive or Premium Executive members they have personally recruited.
- members who haven’t recruited anyone you are paid up to 4 levels
- members who have recruited 2 Executive or Premium Executive members are paid down 9 levels
- members who have recruited 4 Executive or Premium Executive members are paid down 12 levels
- members who have recruited 6 Executive or Premium Executive members are paid down 15 levels
The amount you are paid depends on which level members are within your unilevel organisation.
- Level 1 – 5 Euro ($6.70 USD)
- Levels 2 to 4 – 1 Euro ($1.34 USD)
- Level 5 – 5 Euro ($6.70 USD)
- Levels 6 to 9 – 1 Euro ($1.34 USD)
- Level 10 – 5 Euro ($6.70 USD)
- Levels 11-14 – 1 Euro ($1.34 USD)
- Level 15 – 5 Euro ($1.34 USD)
Joining Bidify
Membership to Bidify comes in three varieties:
- Affiliate – cost 100 Euro ($134 USD) with no monthly fee. Affiliates are capped at spending 1000 Euros on sample bids at any given time.
- Executive Affiliate – cost 150 Euro ($201 USD) and 50 Euro ($67 USD) a month. Executive Affiliates are capped at spending 5000 euros on sample bids at any given time.
- Premium Executive Affiliate – cost 250 euro ($335.20 USD) and 50 euro ($67 USD) a month. Premium Executive Affiliates are capped at spending 10,000 euros on sample bids at any given time.
Conclusion
As far as I can tell there’s no option in Bidify to simply give your bids away to the company and earn a return on your investment in purchasing sample bids over 120 days.
With bids actually having to be given away to customers by affiliates, it seems as if there’s a much stronger dependence on the penny auction side of the business than with Zeek Rewards.
That said, it is noted that Bidify have quite a strong emphasis on the recruitment of new members and pay out sizeable commissions accordingly.
Obviously being paid out from the monthly membership fees it charges Executive and Executive Premium members, Bidify reward members for the initial recruitment of new members along with a monthly commission that is entirely based on how many members a Bidify member and those they’ve recruited recruit themselves.
This part of the Bidify compensation plan is hugely questionable as it strongly looks to be a pyramid scheme.
Unlike Zeek Rewards who acknowledge that some of their daily profit pool is generated by the money being spent by members on VIP bids (Bidify’s ‘sample bid’ equivalent), I couldn’t find anything indicating that the same happens with Bidify.
As far as I can tell, 100% of the Bidify daily profit share is generated by the penny auctions.
Without an option to simply dump sample bids onto the company and treat Bidify as an investment scheme, it certainly appears to be a step in the right direction in terms of legitimately combining a MLM compensation plan with penny auctions.
That said on the surface there are some serious problems with Bidify’s recruitment commissions.
Dubiously based in Seychelles, it appears that Bidify have set themselves up in a prime position to disappear with little to no accountability should they run into troubles further down the track.
I’d suggest approaching the Bidify opportunity with a decent level of caution.
Nice Review. I just joined Bidify and I am excited about it. I am a member of Zeek also. One thing I like is that they will have vacation packages on the auctions, something I wanted to see Zeek have. I think if the auction side does well then we have a winner here. Better products will equal more bids being used and sold.
There is not an ad posting requirement in Bidify and I think that is one of the things that made Zeek more popular and raised it’s Alexa ranking like crazy. I wish Bidify would add that.. or maybe it will make them different. I also like the prepaid debit card that Bidify will offer to be paid on every Friday.. Zeek makes you wait over 2-3 weeks to be paid on a withdraw.
I don’t see the company being based out of Seychelles as a bad thing.. but rather as a smart choice. I think they have a nice pay plan and a nice balance between the auctions and referral money. I hope this will be a great company and I am looking forward to bidding on the products and marketing the company to make some nice money. Only time will tell if this is a long term winner like Zeek. =)
Because if you swindle investors out of their money in the US committing wire fraud and securities fraud, and you are located in the US, you might face criminal charges and spend the rest of your life in jail (Google for “Ad Surf Daily Andy Bowdoin trial”).
But if you are located in Seychelles, well, just take the money and run. Sure, definitely a “smart choice” if you are the one doing the scamming.
That is a very negative view point. There are more reasons then that to be based in a “safer” country. There is no reason to say that this company will “scam” anyone. There are real products that will be sold on the auctions… really GREAT products. The company is also based on a proven system. I will see you at the bank. =)
Say high to Andy Bowdoin, Frederick Mann and Bernie Madoff when you get there.
And what would these be? Let me try…
Better legal system?
Better access to merchant services such as VISA, MC, and AMEX?
Faster access to web servers and other customer-facing internet applications?
Avoid gambling legislation?
Avoid wire fraud act?
Illegal tax avoidance?
There are many reasons besides the things you are posting. This program is a real company with real products. I will not argue with you, you seem like the 9-5 wage slave type that think all mlm are scams. I will just wish you a good day and say only time will tell how Bidify pans out. It is like anything in life… it is all a gamble and risk is involved.
Even the rat race life has risk. I wish you a happy life my friend and a more open mind. My life has been changed for the better thanks to network marketing and I wish happiness for all. Have a nice day. I am busy helping my team now.
And you failed to name even one of them…
And the proof is?
So what are you here for?
Ad hominem attack, used as a last resort by people who don’t have any counterpoints.
If Bidify is like your arguments, it is doomed.
I am researching bit of five and I’m told Justin to go for it that an entrepreneur assumes risk.
I think the entrepreneurs that assumes risk without any due diligence are immature. There have been far too many scams from overseas praying upon people in bad economic positions. There is a desperation that can be taken advantage of. Then every relationship is used to further promote the business.
And it is possible that in the end there are many strange relationships. I cannot find out the names of the principles in bidify. It would appear that they are hiding.
One large reason I joined to see was because they are US-based and in North Carolina. I wish harm on no one and try to hold a high level of ethics in my business. Bidify is not being transparent. please be careful.
Bidify are not based in North Carolina, they’re based offshore in Seychelles.
MLM Watchdog have recently named the owner of Bidify as Frode Jorgensen from Norway. Jorgensen has apparently been busted in the US previously for running the scam ‘PlexPlay’.
All I can say is……LOL….
This is a long term and great company….
The haters come out when they see a big one…
I have 27 founders under me and we will ROCK this… cars vacations i-pads……
Get in bidify or get out the way….
Google me….
Frode “Fraudy” Jorgensen is the right name. 🙂
I’ll guess B.F. may have some info, or be able to dig up some facts.
I got better search hits when I used a Norwegian/Danish spelling of the name, but this may be related to location:
Frode Jørgensen
Frode Fraudy Jørgensen
Rod Cook of mlm watch dog is a big JOKE. he is no “watchdog”. First of all the person in question is only a programmer for Bidify. Bidify has over 9 owners. There is millions of dollars from Norway in this program. Great products and a long term vision.
ROD COOK of is a crook and he has been in jail for fraud. See… his posts don’t let you comment… because he knows he puts B.S. out there. MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND……Bidify is the REAL DEAL…
We will step on the haters like lame RRod Cook…. I know Rod.. he is a broke joke and in 50 different mlm programs… he trys to talk bad about others to make his look good…..lol give it a break. Bidify is GREAT.
Proof please, name the 9 owners.
Wikipedia, PlexPay (Google translated)
Wikipedia, PlexPay (Norwegian), the original source.
People still join a blatant scam…unbelieveable…well go ahead and lose your money, mine is safe
When i read this I ran a mile…are you suckers blind, do you really want to trust this scammer with your cash…obviously so
Is that laugh of “impossible!” or “I was such a dunce”?
that’s a hypothesis. What evidence do you have to support it?
You can’t support an opinion with another opinion.
Sorry, but plenty of scammer said the same thing. Where’s the evidence?
And your proof of this is what?
No proof, again.
Even MORE unsupported statements.
Proof please?
is that your only proof? FAIL.
ANOTHER unsupported statement.
Proposed action, none of which supports your prior statements.
You’re the one full of hate (for Rod Cook and critics).
I am off to a great start in Bidify…
“Your total Group Downline: 451”
I do not need to “PROVE” anything to anyone here.
I have spoken to people in the program very close to the owners and I know for 100% sure that Bidify is a legit program. The auctions will be TOP NOTCH.
It is funny to me to see the “haters” line up.. usually it is the rat race 9-5 wage slave types that can’t stand any type of mlm. They like having a boss and could never work for themselves… most are too lazy and would rather watch TV then try to start a real home business.
When Zeek first launched there was a lot of people saying some similar things.. and they have paid out millions now.. I have made some good money with Zeek also.
I will “PROVE” that Bidify is legit in a few weeks when I will post some HUGE payment proof.. I have already made over 1700 Euro, and still in pre launch. (2,447.57 USD)
So haters… can hate on… but doers and networkers can get paid HUGE in Bidify.. I am SOOO looking forward to the penny auctions in 2 weeks.. 🙂
I agree Todd!
Bidify will be a long term program and will payout thousands of $$$$$ to its members!!101.1% that this program is not a SCAM…
Cheers!!
Funny you say that, because 99% of all people in MLM’s work full time or are homemakers and their spouse works full time and they depend on that income, where the MLM is the side business they hope can bring in income. Fewer than 1% of MLM’ers actually do nothing but MLM’s.
And Bidify is more an investment scheme than an MLM.
And I wonder how much profit share everyone’s making from the auction, considering that Bidsson has been offline this entire time. Hmm… guess those profits CAN’T be coming from the auction after all.
Zeek caught lightning in a bottle and had a bunch of heavy MLM recruiters join the investment scam. Are you sure you will be that lucky with Bidify? What if Bidify doesn’t get as lucky? Instead of lasting for 2 years like Zeek probably will, Bidify could collapse much sooner. So you made some money, good to know you recruited a bunch of people who got screwed. And if they made money on the scam, great for them, even more people who came on board after them got screwed.
Someone gets screwed. Just because it is not YOU doesn’t mean it’s not a scam.
Well I do MLM full time and I do the passive income programs also. I also own my own software company. I know the industry also inside and out… I know what kind of person it takes to do it full time.. and I know hundreds of people that work online FULL TIME…. so it is not as rare as you think…
Really no one has to get “screwed” in Bidify because the auctions will make HUGE profits…
Did you know that they are going to be auctioning off sport cars and dream vacations? Do you understand how the penny auctions work and that each “penny” is actually one Euro?
The auctions will make some staggering profits…
That is the edge that Bidify will have on Zeek.. besides having a better looking site, a smarter pay plan, a better back office.. better support.. THEY WILL HAVE WAY BETTER PRODUCTS ON THE AUCTIONS.
They will not “scam” anyone.. they would be crazy to do so.. they have in their hands the hottest new passive income program and the best penny auction script that money can buy.. They have drop shippers set up all over the world to send out the products won.. they have some of the TOP network marketers in the world on board…
WHY WOULD THEY WANT TO SCAM PEOPLE?? If they got a HOME RUN?? Bidify can and will out last Zeek Rewards.. Zeek started it.. then Bidify came along to perfect it!! Watch as Zeek stalls and keeps getting bloated and 75% of them all come to Bidify as they see the $$$$ and excitement…
This is going to be a GREAT RIDE with Bidify.. get in it or get out the way…
I think that’s what everyone said about Bernard Madoff, until he was exposed.
Sorry, that reasoning doesn’t jibe.
Then what are you doing here? Showing off?
Your personal relationship to some other person who have personal relationship with the owner doesn’t prove the program’s legit. It only proves you have good connections.
Blanket ad hominem attack. Sorry, you need a soap diet.
Irrelevant.
I thought you just wrote that you had nothing to prove? Changing your mind already? Or are you just wishy-washy?
I said.. “I do not need to “PROVE” anything to anyone here.”
I don’t “need to”.. but I will prove it anyways… Wait until you see my post in about 2-4 weeks….
Numbers do not lie….
Proving it earned money for you doesn’t prove it’s legit. Madoff paid (some) people for like 2 decades. It’s how Ponzi schemes work. Scams use that excuse all the time: it paid me so it must be legit. Sorry, no point for you.
Really no one has to get “screwed” in Bidify because the auctions will make HUGE profits…
Did you know that they are going to be auctioning off sport cars and dream vacations? Do you understand how the penny auctions work and that each “penny” is actually one Euro?
The auctions will make some staggering profits…
Do the Math…
No way the auctions can keep pace with the compound interest of the investment. Zeek’s auction profits are in 1% range of total revenue. There is no way auction profits can pay off investment unless you pay affiliates only and don’t require investment. But then, there’d be no ponzi scheme without the investment now, would there?
As for the penny auction itself, many of the new ones use shill bid bots to drive up prices. In fact, most penny auction specifically avoid large prizes because of this. There is a lot less incentive to shill bid for smaller prizes.
Finally, the penny auction and investment model just doesn’t work. Despite all the problems that penny auctions have, the one constant that does work for them is the equality of the value of a bid. If everyone competing in the auction all paid about the same for each bid, you won’t see crazy bidding practices. But when you wrap an investment ponzi around it, now the bids have a much larger differential value.
To one person, the bids were free or inconsequential. Another person will sign himself up as a customer and buy bids, then recover the cost of the bids in the investment ponzi as commission and equity. These bids have almost no value to the owner so he could bid use up hundreds of bids in an auction and not care, whereas a normal customer not in the investment scheme paid retail for the bids.
This inequality will mean that customers never win, and the price of goods at the penny auction are extremely high compared to how most penny auctions work. The auction itself will fail and is only propped up by the investment scheme.
We see this in Zeek already. Numerous boards and blogs are complaining about the auctions already. It doesn’t take more than high school math to look at the number of auctions per day, the average price, and the number of bids likely in circulation based on the 2011 corporate income disclosure statement and public statements about member numbers from corporate staff to figure out that the auction is just a sideshow.
The “grand prizes” auctioned off, whether shill bids are used or not, is just a PR stunt.
Also if you look at the history of PA’s. The ones that had the best prizes with the most advertising were the ones caught red handed with shill bidding. It’s easy to promise the moon when you know the moon landing will be fake.
Think about forex, think about lotto, and the like, connecting the dots to think about the next trend of wealth redistribution of penny auctions. Wealth can never be destroyed, it is always there and it should be circulated to keep the economy rolling.
When US monetary dries up that is because China has it.
@Moderator
And which planet are you living on?
Some imaginary place far out in the Universe?
Natural disasters will destroy lots of wealth. They don’t transfer the wealth to China or something. It seems like your theories are flawed, and only will work in an imaginary environment?
@Todd
So what’s the future like?
Did you know that end users aren’t stupid? If the company is to make massive profits from penny auctions, they can only do this at the expense of members. Why on earth would people stick around dumping money into penny auctions if they weren’t winning anything?
Long-term business is dead in penny auctions.
And how many customers have you introduced into Bidify? Y’know… seeing as this is where the massive profits are going to come from and all that.
You’re here touting off your recruitment numbers… I can think of only one business model where how many people you’ve recruited determines whether or not your successful.
We are registering retail customers and members also.
You obviously do not understand Bidify. People will win the auctions and want to come back over and over to bid on new items. There has to always be a winner for every auction.
Since you dodged the question, I’ll merely repeat it:
We know your recruitment number, let’s see what the percentage difference is with the amount of customers you’ve recruited (and why do you refer to yourself as we?).
Penny auctions have no long-term viability. You can flush all your money and walk away with nothing. Why waste your time and money shopping in this manner?
Swoopo, the world’s first online penny auction site went backrupt last year. Penny auction wise, this is the same model used by ZR and Bidify (without the profit-share).
The model alone is unsustainable as there’s no long-term retaining of customers. Whack on an investment scheme and you only prolong the inevitable.
Look at the traffic stats disparity between Zeek Rewards and Zeekler to see evidence of this. Furthermore we can get an idea of what Bidify’s disparity will be like between afilliate numbers and customers when you reveal how many people you’ve signed on exclusively as customers.
Why do people go to Vegas and spend thousands of dollars?
Why do people buy lottery tickets?
Why do people bet on sports?
Even they lose more then they win.. it is fun for some people and a hobby… when someone wins an I-Pad for example for $50.. they will come back and spend more on bids over and over again… for the chance to win something else…
You arguments are not that good…
I said “we” because I mean my team in Bidify and we are all getting customers and members.
I don’t have an exact % for you… sorry.. but the customer side in Bidify will be and already is HUGE.
Wrong again. Bidsson, the auction side, is raking in huge profits (according to you). Why have Bidify then?
Irrelevant. Having legitimate items for bid does NOT prove Bidify is legit. it proves that Bidsson, the auction side, is legit.
So are you saying that Bidify is NOT an auction site, but is in fact, a potentially illegal sweepstakes/lottery website? You are comparing Bidify to legitimate (and illegitimate) sweepstakes and lotteries and gambling and betting.
Penny Auctions are like gambling.. nothing wrong with that… and they are 100% Legal…
Bidsson is a 100% legal and legit auction site and many people will win many nice products there.
Running lottery / sweepstakes for profit is ILLEGAL in every state in the US.
http://www.lfirm.com/CM/MarketingLawBasics/Sweepstakes-Law-Basics.asp
The question is whether Bidify is a scam or not, not Bidsson.
@Todd Hirsch
Since we’re not familiar with the laws in each and every country, a statement like “Bidsson is a 100% legal and legit auction site” will be meaningless. I’ll guess we can agree on that? Try to limit your statements to specific countries?
This thread is about Bidify, so we should focus on whether Bidify is legal rather than Bidsson.
If the “founding member fee” and purchase of bids are considered to be “investments” rather than buying products the scheme seems to be illegal in the U.S., due to the offshore location of Bidify. Most offshore investment opportunities are illegal in the U.S.
“100% legal and legit” will usually mean you can advertise and sell something in each and every country, and it will usually mean that the market is regulated by some identifiable laws. Lack of identifiable laws means we can’t decide for sure whether something is legal or not.
You will also need to have exact understanding of the business model before you will be able to evaluate the legitimacy of a business, like whether it is a Ponzi-like investment scheme or a legitime business model.
We can however identify some of the previous business models run by the same people, and they have mostly been illegal investment schemes like PlexPay. We can also calculate the risk of loosing money to be slightly higher when a company uses an offshore location, due to the lack of proper regulations.
If I google “Frode Jorgensen” or “Frode Jørgensen” in combination with some collapsed scams I get lots of hits.
* PIPS, Private Investment Profit System
* PlexPay, a PIPS spinoff
* WGI, World Games Inc.
* T5PC, The 5 Percent Community
Most of these search hits seems to be Ponzi-schemes, and usually with some offshore locations.
@Todd Hirsch
I believe you should drop further statements about legitimacy and legality of the business model, or identify the statements to be ‘personal opinions’ rather than some ‘verifiable facts’.
At least one of the organizers seems to mostly have been invlved in scams in the last decade or so.
And usually 100x the # are losers. More people will try a penny auction and quit in disgust rather than purchase more bids like at a casino where they had enjoyment or a “taste” of winning. Most people never win anything at PA’s and there is no “taste”. But you are already know that, you are just spewing nonsensical marketing spin.
You also conveniently ignored my comments on how penny auctions combined with investment schemes and bid giveaway by definition destroys the penny auction business. It’s such good reading I will repeat it below:
Finally, the penny auction and investment model just doesn’t work. Despite all the problems that penny auctions have, the one constant that does work for them is the equality of the value of a bid. If everyone competing in the auction all paid about the same for each bid, you won’t see crazy bidding practices. But when you wrap an investment ponzi around it, now the bids have a much larger differential value.
To one person, the bids were free or inconsequential. Another person will sign himself up as a customer and buy bids, then recover the cost of the bids in the investment ponzi as commission and equity. These bids have almost no value to the owner so he could bid use up hundreds of bids in an auction and not care, whereas a normal customer not in the investment scheme paid retail for the bids.
This inequality will mean that customers never win, and the price of goods at the penny auction are extremely high compared to how most penny auctions work. The auction itself will fail and is only propped up by the investment scheme.
@Todd
Because you dodged the question again, I’ll ask one more time.
How many customers have you signed up?
If it’s 0, just admit it already.
And how many of those customers will spend money? If you compare yourself to Zeekler, most customers are fake accounts or people that just want free bids.
When they realize how terrible the odds are with a bazillion free bids and other forms of bid inflation all over the place, they never even bother to buy retail bids. These are the actual human customers and not the fake ones created to just dump bids away for profit share.
@Jimmy, how do you think you are an expert on penny auctions? Your lame comments are getting boring and they are so negative and false that you look desperate posting them here. You are not an expert on penny auctions or MLM!!
I did not compare Bidify to Zeek… the author of this website did… I did point out a few differences… after I was asked questions.. but I am not comparing the two programs…. I made a lot of money in Zeek and I will also make HUGE money in Bidify.
..also How can you say that bidding in a penny auction does not have the “taste” but you say gambling at a casino does? hahahah.. really… LOL Your comments make ZERO sense! You are terrible at making a point!!
Please stop making yourself look so silly.. you are no expert on penny auctions and you are no expert on mlm… so stop wasting your time on this thread…
I know for 100% that Bidify will be a HUGE hit in the market.. it already is!! also…
This is direct from Bidify….
@Todd
That is an awfully acerbic response. You sure make a lot of assumptions. All one has to do is read what I have posted on all the threads here to judge whether my analysis comes from experience and well reasoned logic, or just some crazy distributor hyping yet another ponzi scam.
I said the inflation of bids by itself makes the combination of poni investment and penny auction a bad penny auction business. You conveniently have ignored that simple reality twice now.
And how again are you getting profit share from the PA that still is not operational? Oh, right, the ponzi run by a known ponzi scammer.
Todd, cut the spam and answer the question:
How many retail customers do you have?
If your next comment does not answer how many customers you have, I can only assume that you don’t have any and 100% of your downline are Bidify members.
If that’s the case, that’s quite revealing in how Bidify is going to operate as a business. A downline of 400+ members and not even one customer?
Good luck with that.
Over half of my downline are customers. The profit share has not even started yet. Go study the pay plan to see how I have earned already.
Now for the magical question…
How much revenue has the company made on the customers in your downline vs. distributors?
@Todd
I believe we both know that Larus Palmi Magnusson is only a front for the real owners?
From Bidify.com, 8. March 2011:
It looks more like he has joined this recently, instead of being a founder?
Members or customers?
I’m talking about people who are just keen to use the penny auctions.
@Oz
We also need to focus on revenue. To compare, Zeek has orders of magnitude more customers than distributors, but the revenue generated from those customers are minuscule, or are just affiliates buying bids themselves for the points and commission.
Well as it stands right now, there are no penny auctions to bid on.
Ergo 100% of the revenue of Bidify is from members. That and the only commissions payable are on the recruitment of others.
Yet you have management running around telling everyone they are sure they are legal… and parrots like Todd towing the company line with imaginary certainty.
Correction:
The date is of course 8. March 2012 (not 2011).
The message sounds like Larus Palmi Magnusson has accepted an official position in Bidify/Bidsson. He doesn’t sound like a founder or cofounder.
You both need to read up on slander laws and be more careful what you say in public.
You need to read up on libel vs. slander before you start making yourself look stupid in public.
@M_Norway
Bidify was selling Founder positions. As of Feb 29:
The Founders positions were selling for 1000 euros. But they closed new Founders positions, so am curious why that announcement came out on March 8, unless Larus already joined and just waited until March 8 to announce.
And also this from the Bidify blog:
All companies has founders. If you’re a founder in your company with billions of dollars in advertising on tv, radio and other media sources I’m pretty sure 0% sales guarantee, simply losing advertising money.
There’s nothing wrong if founders are buying sample bids to give away as samples to customers because the owners are using their sound mind using marketers money as their sales force to market their product even before the launch date making sure for sales rather than spending billions of ads without a single sales, that method was successfully proven by big companies and go broke.
In any market, no sales = no profit. Naysayers will see how bidify will shake the world of its stunning products in bidsson penny auctions, surely scratching their head and kicking their ass of regrets. Create your own business broke watchdogs…
I knew about the founders. I would rather call them “founding members” than “founders”. I was thinking about “real founders” when I said Magnusson didn’t act like one.
Some of the founders may be:
* Frode Jorgensen (Jørgensen)
* Robin Bakkejord
Robin B’s name was found on an inactive networking site, networkmarketing.no (when I checked PIPS).
@Moderator
In the last decade or more they have only been able to shake the investors, when the schemes have been shut down as fraud.
Explain then how can “founder position” be for sale then? Definition of founder is “A person who establishes an institution or settlement.”
It’s an expense to attract customers. So? All business advertise, some through service (and word of mouth), others use the media and Internet. What’s your point?
So far so good, there’s nothing illegal about **** people spending money to promote a company who has yet to demonstrate a product or service, muchless run it.
You’re missing the point. Bidsson may be legitimate (there’s even some doubt about that) but we’re discussing Bidify.
(Oz: I don’t think having a handle of “moderator” is appropriate on a comment board, it may be misleading to people who don’t read this place often and don’t recognize that you are the owner)
@ Todd Hirsch — so, no further explanations are forthcoming?
All you’re proving is you’re a decent recruiter by growing your downline count. It doesn’t prove Bidify is legitimate.
As Mod’s points are rather just repeating your point, you’re basically agreeing with your echo.
And what happens when growth can’t keep up with payments? What do you say to the thousands that didn’t get paid. Look at Riochet Riches, lots of upset people now. Everyone in a year ago prompting it are dead silent all of a sudden. They made their money and ran.
No one is disputing that you might make money on the scam. What we are saying is that those entering might lose their money because it’s a scam.
The fact that a scam grows its membership, or the fact that a scam makes you money, has no correlation at all to its legitimacy or legality.
In fact, you have conveniently ignored all the hard questions which by itself says a lot – i.e. you know it’s a scam and you’re just putting on a smile and pimping it so YOU can earn, at the increasing risk of OTHERS who join later.
Todd’s triggered my spam filter one too many times so I’ve put him on permanent moderation.
I don’t mind the alias ‘moderator’. Should be clear enough that it’s not me.
This has Jørgensen all over, and for those who don’t know who Jørgensen is? From http://www.adressa.no/nyheter/okonomi/article577870.ece:
Translation: Profits were the investments of other customers
Translation: The customers thought they received 3% per day in profits. But in reality, the profit was pure fantasy – controlled by a computer program.
Translation: On the Internet, the customers could see their account balances increase daily. But according to the fraud indictment against Frode Jorgensen, the returns were manually created via a software program. The “profits” did not refect any real value increase as the company had not invested any money as the customers had been promised. The money was allegedly taken from later customers investments.
Translation: No increas in value
Translation: According to a jailhouse source, Jorgensen has partially admitted this in court. During the hearing to determine if he would be detained longer on Tuesday this week, he could not explain the judge how returns were generated. Profits, exchanges, interest or something else.
Translation: He has also explained that the payments were financed by the customers own investments because he hadn’t started investing as Plexpay and GPS were going to do.
So the previous venture was a Ponzi HYIP, in the exact mold as Charles Ponzi himself.
IP address for juugo.net = 141.101.124.65
IP address for bidify.com = 141.101.126.64
I think these are all ponzis with fake names from people all in same region of Norway, all establishing companies in tax haven areas where they can take the money and run with no consequence.
The following is not from me, you can google any of the text strings to find the source, didn’t want to put in URL so as not to do any promotion:
Everybody for himself in this case but I won’t be promoting this program. There are too many uncertainties and I don’t feel comfortable recommending it to others.
Although there is no real proof that Bidify is a scam I’m fairly sure it is ponzi scheme and people are going to get burned.
That is not to say you won’t earn any money with it now. There is a lot of momentum because a lot of the big dogs seem to be picking this up. But at the end of the line the people at the bottom end up paying the bill.
Comparing ZeekRewards to Bidify is comparing apples with pears. I’ll take ZeekRewards over Bidify any time. I just hope Bidify won’t cause so much trouble for the Penny Auction business that they will drag ZeekRewards down with them if they go down.
A final word of advice to the big promoters out there, coming from mlmwatchdog.com. If this turns out to be a BIG ponzi you will run the risk of being prosecuted. It seemed to have happened with Skybiz as well. The guy keeps a good archive of such events so this may not be so far fetched.
I guess the final question to ask is if you want to be part of this. You decide for yourself but I won’t.
Troy Dooly mentions Oz and BehindMLM and talks about warnings about Bidify (but he spelled it “bitify” in the blog post): http://mlmhelpdesk.com/mlm-news-report-xango-positions-for-sale-zeek-rewards-beats-bitify-co2-rewards-plus-vemma-limu-and-green-organics/
Troy still doesn’t understand Zeek, and thinks the compliance initiatives make the business model all of a sudden legal.
Bidify has a new attorney – one of U.S top attorney; so what is your opinion about that now guys? Legal or not?
Why would they run now? If it is a scam?
Attorneys don’t make company’s legit or not, business models do.
For now, the business model is the same. So is the fact that the company is operating out of an offshore tax-haven, meaning the owners can up and run with no liability.
Until Bidify is actually compliant, there is still risk. Just because they hire Kevin Thompson to advise them on how to get compliant, doesn’t mean they will be. In fact, in a well known class action lawsuit that Kevin Thompson led, he was suing the MLM for paying commissions on autoship only and being a recruitment scam.
Bidify at present is nothing but a recruitment pyramid. The investment scheme is new to most MLM’s and will be interesting to see what Kevin Thompson has to say about that, as he has not been involved with Zeek on this issue.
Kevin Thompson is one of the few public MLM attorneys (the others are Grimes & Reese LLC and Gerald Nehra, and one or two other guys).
Same comment as “why would they need to be looking at compliance NOW and not when company was started?”
As far as I know, none of their previous investment projects have been legal. But most people who joins an opportunity like this at an early stage knows what they are doing, and what will be required of them to make money.
Do some research yourself, and google “Plexpay”, “PIPS”, “AmityFunds”, “Juugo” and other keywords found in other comments here? And combine the keywords with some of the names.
Most of the stories you will find are old, but they will give you a picture of the situation – “more than a decade of scams, usually following the same basic pattern most of the time”.
Or as I suggested, look at juugo.net and see how the site is identical to bidify.com. It’s the same scam just repackaged. Tigers don’t change their stripes.
The hiring of Kevin Thompson is just marketing to convince US investors that it’s safe.
Your argument make sense, but I have a question. I found a lot of website that said, if the company does run and get convicted; then the affiliate would be prosecuted. Is that true?
Also, why would they even try to run. I mean everyone know who they are; so if they run, wouldn’t they be caught anyways?
Absolutely true. In the case of BurnLounge, which was supposed to be a new type of music publisher based on MLM, several of the top associates / affiliates / members / whatever was also prosecuted as accomplices / co-scammers.
quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BurnLounge
DeBoer and “two Texas men” are members, not a part of corporate, but they were raking in money, so as the top members, they are co-indicted.
They can run to a country that does NOT have extradition treaty with the US. Nicaragua comes to mind. And the US is not going to use extraordinary rendition on scammers (unless they are HUGE, like David Murcia, who’s also a drug lord of sorts in addition of being a scammer).
Not surprisingly, after hiring Kevin Thompson Bidify are setting themselves up to be a Zeek clone.
They’re also going on about ‘compliance courses’ for members to ensure the business isn’t advertised as an investment scheme. ‘Quack quack quack, no it’s now a duck it’s a cow!‘
I don’t have a copy of the newsletter (it included a link to more details about the specific changes) so I can’t go into more detail than that at this stage.
Yes.. a Zeek clone? Zeek as paid out millions of USD..and they are still are paying out millions a month!!!
So is this a bad thing that they are doing it right? hmmmm… sounds like you are missing the boat… my boat is looking nice… =)
You enjoy your boat… I’m more concerned where the money is coming from.
Some of us have bigger concerns than just making a quick buck at the expense of others.
I will love my boat.. and all the other nice boats I have in the waters in this great FREE market that is capitalization… you can ride on your little tiny boat called criticism… as my Yacht takes sale… on the waters of freedom and free market… =)
The problem with Bidify is they didn’t have a full year of unrestrained growth where members were making wild compound interest claims.
Bidify does benefit from those who are already in Zeek and have buyers remorse not having jumped on board earlier (but hindsight is 20/20), and not everyone knew about Zeek a year ago. So a lot of current Zeek affiliates are now trying to ride the Bidify train thinking it will produce a similar outcome, so might as well let compound interest grow for a year.
Except that if people started cashing out the money instead of reinvesting, then the daily profit rate would nose dive and the whole thing would collapse.
Those that got in early like the Disner brothers are making a lot of money. My guess is that $700k payout in the 2011 Income Disclosure Statement is Todd Disner. Note the Disner brothers follow ponzi after ponzi and had money confiscated when Ad Surf Daily was raided by the Secret Service.
I mentioned Disner since the reply above came from “The Todd”. Todd Disner’s YouTube videos of his back office are still floating around, though deemed non-compliant as of 3 months ago. I wouldn’t use Todd Disner as the example of Zeek success though, considering he follows ponzi after ponzi.
If anything, it is an example of the early-in ponzi chasers that may get prosecuted along with the parent company when SHTF.
I found some updates on MLM HelpDesk (Troy Dooly).
A. “Bidify hires Keevin Thompson” (already known here)
B. “Frode Jørgensen has legal issues in the U.S.” (already known)
C. “Frode Jørgensen makes some corrections” (to article B)
I mentioned point A and B only to show the context here, to give some meaning to “Frode Jørgensen makes some clarifications”.
Point C:
* Frode Jørgensen is not THE owner of Bidify, but he is probably AN owner (according to Troy Dooly’s assumption).
* His only connection with Bidify (according to himself) is that he owns the software they use. That’s what most of us will call an “organizer”.
* He admits the points about PlexPay, but “a guy can learn from his mistakes” (interesting point, since he repeatedly has been involved in scams for a decade or so, and the current project follows in exactly the same track in most of the major parts).
My impression is that he has learnt from his mistakes in one particular area: He will not front the scams anymore, only be an organizer. The projects seems to follow in the same track as before = Network Marketing with recruitment and investments, and where the money ends up in an offshore tax haven.
Frode was the speaker on several conference calls, so his role is probably more than just software owner.
At least he’s more upfront about his involvement than Wazzub’s DeBias.
What do you guys think of Wazzub though? Sounds to good to be true.
Earlier in the post, I asked if it is true that affilate would be presoecuted. Well, what if an affilate recruited no one. He would earn no commission, therefore he hasn’t scam anyone. He wouldn’t be in trouble would he?
P.S Why aren’t I getting the updates through my email when you guys reply.
I will reply to “hi bye”
I think Wazzub looks like a joke to me… I think the owners are using it as a big list builder.. then will change the way the program works when they finally do launch… similar to what Text Cash Network did…. that is my personal opinion…
As far as people being prosecuted for being in a mlm program…
The only people that would possibly be prosecuted would be the owners and MAYBE a few top members with big downlines… It is a SCARE tactic… to think that every member of any mlm program would even be prosecuted if the program was… there is not enough man power to make that happen…
I don’t believe that Bidify will even be prosecuted and they have a real business model and are doing things the legal way… I am personally looking forward to the full launch on the 15th.. I have over 1600 people under me and I am not scared one bit!! I am SUPER excited!! =)
@hi bye — there’s a separate topic on Wazzub. 🙂
When we all get huge checks we will let all the people who wanted to down the company know about it. I was involved with another company and am now completely retired so far from being dumb or gullible.
Do any of you have 2 (lux. cars paid) House paid and not have to work? If not your the “intelligently challenged” and people who want more in life are the smart ones. God bless 😉 and good luck to all in bidify
@nicole — I believe Bernard Madoff would disagree. And he had several multi-million dollar mansions, something YOU could never afford…
You’re supposed to *prove* your point is true, yet the best you can do is “you’ll see”, which is basically an admission that you CANNOT accomplish your goal: prove the company’s legit.
Then you proceed to hint that the rest of us are losers and sour grapes while you’re all high and mighty.
Clearly, your success has not helped with your critical thinking skills, or debating skills.
You got married to a wealthy man or something? 🙂
I have only ONE car, so I’ll guess I can accept the challenge?
This doesn’t tell us anything meaningful?
“Involved with another company” + missing parts + “now I am completely retired” + “not have to work” + “so far from being dumb and gullible”.
Logical path?
The logical path from “involved in another company” to “so far from being dumb and gullible” has some major missing parts, the most important details people will need to evaluate whether the conclusion is true or false. You’ll have to include some of the missing parts to make the conclusion become meaningful.
False conclusion?
The method itself is an indicator for a false conclusion. Most people will probably prefer to use other examples than themselves when they are comparing “gullible / not gullible” and “dumb / not dumb”, because of several different reasons.
One of the reasons is because you’ll never know where and when you’ll meet someone eager to analyse the conclusion, and eager to drive it through different “reality tests”. 🙂
When I tested the method (of using yourself as an example) against “dumb” and “gullible”, it tested clearly positive on both of them.
We don’t want the company down, but I’m sure you can tell us about it anyway when you all get huge checks. It should be acceptable as long as the information is ‘balanced’ and factual information about the company.
Will there be a follow-up review about this company after the recent changes? It looks like the changes are for the better, but I’m really curious as to how the experienced analysts here sees it. Thanks.
When they finally launch (not sure when that’s going to be) I’ll take a look and review them formally. I’ve heard all sorts of random stuff over the past few weeks (most notable that they are going to set up HQ in the US?), so I’m waiting and seeing what they do before putting pen to paper.
At the moment it’s all talk and not much has changed, nothing of real significance anyway as far as the business model goes (that I can see?)
Great, thank you! I’m glad this is still under your radar.
Troy Dooly reports in his weekly news that Bidify has finished incorporating their US Ops HQ through Kevin Thompson, MLM attorney and may be launching soon. (go to the 5 minute mark)
Been tapping to some webinars about bidify, something caught my attention and that is related to income taxes. According to the speaker, affiliates will only be taxed on the actual cash rewards taken out.
So if affiliates repurchase sample bids to increase their version of VIP balance using their cash rewards it will not count towards their income on their 1099…
I’m still waiting on Bidify to officially launch before looking back into it, but income is income whether you reinvest it or not.
If US based Bidify members want to claim sample bids as expenses they need to show where the money came to buy them from. Maybe not for a once off purchase but if the purchase of sample bids is part of a greater ongoing business model then yeah they’re going to have to explain where the money to purchase bids is coming from.
If this money is from the ROI they’d received from participation in Bidify then that’s income anyway you look at it.
Technically the ROI cash is paid out and then sample bids are purchased. That’s the exact process and that ROI cash is income.
Bidify has officially launched and apparently has registered in Delaware, US as Bidify LLC (according to the newsletter and webinars). Bidsson hasn’t launched yet…I heard it will happen this week/end.
Looked over the most recent business plan presentation which had some really positive salient points, but only time will tell if its true. So far though definitely a giant leap over Zeek.
Geez……How can someone make money in MLM having to wait sooooooooooooooo long.
From what I can see there is NO product at all if Biddson is not operational. So would that make it all transactions so far from Bidify are illegal?….
Sorry I’m not quite sure how it all works.
@wow
Not transactions but up until this point any earnings made through Bidify are solely recruitment based which is a red flag.
Yes thanks this is what I meant….RED FLAGS. A lot of money being exchanged without actually having a product.
So many people cannot recruit folks in this industry or have lots of difficulty even recruiting 1, which basically means all those select few at the top are really the ones who are seeing any money coming in.
The rest are paying big bucks hoping they will also earn big bucks.
Kevin Thompson interviews Frode Jorgensen and leads the video off with saying “I am here with a client and good friend of mine, Frode Jorgensen. See the video at MLMHelpDesk.
Remember early on all the the forums and Bidify supporters said Oz was wrong that Jorgensen had anything to do with Bidify. Now he’s doing a 10min interview with Kevin Thompson introduced as the founder.
Watching that interview, I would in no way shape or form invest any money with Jorgensen.
If you add up the monthly membership cost, PLUS the cost of bidding, PLUS the cost of shipping on any won bids, PLUS any costs they are selling folks to buy leads, PLUS any advertising you need to do in order to recruit, It can add up to be a very COSTLY adventure.
I view Bidsson as playing a slot machine…Dump your money in the slot and hope you will win something!
If you are a member…Good luck in trying to recruit new members, they already have all been recruited.
And keep in mind that a HUGE percentage of existing members will drop out within the next few months because of the high costs involved into being a member and also because they are not earning anything.
My take on Bidsson is that it is a well designed machine which will suck you dry before you can even count to 3.
All of this talk about “return on investment” and “compounding” would seem to me to place Bidify squarely in the column of “selling unregistered securities” – something that the S.E.C. (Securities Exchange Commission) looks upon with GREAT disdain!
I have no doubt that once the pool of money in Bidify gets large enough the Secret Service, the U.S. Marshal’s Office, and possibly even agents of the A.T.F. will descend upon any U.S. properties held by the company and seize them, while simultaneously going after the “top earners” (read: “Master Recruiters” – maybe even our friend Todd?), complete with their own personalized “perp-walk” in handcuffs as they’re led off to jail.
This is a Deja Vu of Ad Surf Daily, only with a slightly different “business model.”
This is especially true if the actual penny auction site isn’t even operational, since there’s no actual product or service being delivered to “customers!” Put simply, no customers = NO business!
In the U.S. it’s patently ILLEGAL to profit SOLELY FROM THE RECRUITMENT OF OTHER PARTICIPANTS WHO INTEND TO PURSUE THE “BUSINESS” FOR PROFIT. There MUST be an actual product or service that’s sold to consumers or end-users (who are NOT involved in promoting the “business” to others for profit).
Hiring a top-gun attorney after the fact – presumably to correct “compliance issues” – appears to be an afterthought, something you’d think that experienced scammers would have thought about long before things evolved this far.
Oh well, I guess it just goes to show that even experienced scammers sometimes aren’t playing with a full deck!
It’s too bad that there are so many gullible people out there who fall for these “get-rich-quick” scams. There are plenty of legitimate MLMs out there that have long track records of providing excellent products and services, and reward their distributors/affiliates handsomely.
I’ve seen plenty of “Kool-Aid Drinkers” like Todd before, although I actually suspect that he’s probably more than just an enthusiastic member – he’s much too persistent in his defense of Bidify, and the rhetoric he continues to spout to avoid directly answering criticisms and questions are at the very least the mark of a VERY experienced shill!
I notice that there haven’t been any posts on this topic for nearly 2 weeks now. Shouldn’t we have some screenshots of Todd’s checks by now? (BTW – “Check-waving” is another practice that’s frowned upon by the FTC, since it’s illegal to do THAT as well!)
I must say that I stumbled across this article while reading Rod Cook’s blog, where Zeek was being compared to Bidify. Although Zeek apparently passes muster with Rod (at least for now)- and Bidify DOESN’T, the whole penny auction game just isn’t MY kind of thing, so I’ll now simply step off my soapbox and fade back quietly into the shadows…
Most of my comments are blocked by the very biased owner of this blog.
Bidsson now has over 100,000 real customers.
You would not believe me, if I told you how much I am making everyday in bidify.
@Todd
Your comments aren’t sent to the spam bin on bias, they are sent there because it’s self promoting spam that contributes nothing to the discussion. Keep that crap on your own marketing blogs, this isn’t the place for it.
And what, 99.9% of those are dummy account set up by affiliates to dump bids onto? 100,000 legit retail customers? Please.
This is the Todd Hirsch avalanche of marketing spam I’m talking about. How much you’re making is irrelevant to the analysis and discussion on BehindMLM.
I have to say some very compelling information being shared here. I have been taken in programs just like this but I did it with caution. I only except risk that is afforded to me.
I felt the risk outweighed the promises and I have chosen not to use the platform. I have to thanks you all a lot for the reviews you have posted. I look forward to many more….
Todd, I am a very successful Zeek member who has cashed out 10’s of thousands weekly for some time now. I’m looking into Bidify and wanting to know more about it. All the stuff about the scams seems like stuff that needs to be addressed.
I’d like to personally contact you to discuss this if you’re interested.
(Ozedit: Todd Hirsch has been permanently delegated to the spam bin for spamming the crap out of any Bidify article on here with his irrelevant comments, personal insults and marketing spiels, so getting in contact with him is probably not going to happen).
Zikler is shut down today, with all assets being frozen.
Is Bidify next??!!
It looks like Bidify is going through some major changes in light of the current events.
https://www.bidify.com/corporate_statement.pdf
So whatever the new business plan is, the purchasing of sample bids and the leadership bonus is no more. I look forward to Oz’s analysis on the revised comp plan.
ALL the MLM + penny auctions will face some problems because of Zeek’s collapse, within a few weeks, if their models are relatively similar to Zeek’s model.
We can expect a stream of affiliates trying to keep their downlines intact, joining something they are familiar with. But the stream of NEW affiliates has received a serious and damaging hit.
Ordinary people will probably NOT believe in the idea about “how profitable penny auctions are”, the key argument that helped Zeek grow. So insteead of meeting people eager to join the recruiters will probably meet people asking critical questions.
Participants in those other MLM + penny auctions will probably start to “play safe” and withdraw their initial investments. I don’t think any of those programs will survive for more than a few weeks.
Zeek’s collapse showed how UNPROFITABLE penny auctions are when most of the bidders are the affiliates themselves, so people will no longer believe in that idea about profit sharing from penny auctions.
The only ones who will join these MLM + penny auctions now will be Zeek affiliates trying to save their own downlines, prevent the downlines from collapsing completely. But most of them will be jumping to ships that is about to sink — hit by the same torpedo that made Zeek sink.
I still don’t believe hardly any affiliates were wasting points on the auctions. The auctions for the most part were fake. The auction site was hardly functional. The bandwidth was often too slow to even bid.
I still wonder if the model could have experienced success with the of placing an ad, a good ad, not a bullcrap ad, or a fake lead, and with a real website, professionally designed with exciting and quality products.
Do any Bidify members have figures on exactly how much the daily ROI % paid out plummeted following the SEC shutting down Zeek?
Prior to last Thursday the lowest I’d seen was 0.8% but apparently that dropped even lower following Zeek’s collapse. For the records it’d be great if someone could share those figures (Fri, Sat, Sun).
The logic in claiming Bidsson auctions are so succesful fails when you consider that Zeek Rewards collapse had such a dramatic affect on the daily % payout.
Well…not if you assume that just like Zeek Rewards, Bidify’s daily ROI paid out was 95%+ new affiliate money as opposed to retail bid purchases from customers.
This is so LOL just some FYI here I work for a financial instiution and I can’t tell you how many people have come in to the bank in just the last two days since the “restructure” says they lost thousands of dollars Bidify FTW right? losers
Bidify/Bidsson is designed to be a money grab. Wow I am so impressed when I hear affiliates saying they earned $100!…Hmmm the fact is that your expenses are going to be far greater than any returns you might have coming.
The ONLY reason bidify/Bidsson still is floating is because of all the sucker affiliates thinking they are going to earn big bucks. Time to wake up folks and realize that when the affiliates all start dropping out, the business will collapse.
Who ever won that car by the way?…And why is it that nothing can be found online about the winner?
One would imagine Bidsson would have made a big promotion on the winner of this item!
As a former hopefull yet skeptical Zeek rewards affiliate, I’d like to put this issue in “laymans” terms. Let’s not make it more complicated than it is. In the wise words of Cheech and Chong, If it looks like dog poop and smells like dog poop, it probably is dog poop.
So, even if the dog originally ate really good weed that made him happy: in the end if all that comes out of it is crap, then that is what you’re left with. If, after it’s over, you’re willing to walk around reeking from the affiliation, then good luck getting anyone to hang out with you.
You might make money, and maybe your downline as well BUT eventually you are profiting off someone elses trust/misery. That’s why it is illegal. Sheep are always happy as they’re led to the slaughterhouse.
According to the “About Us” page of bidify.com ( http://www.bidify.com/index.php?page=about ) Frode Jørgensen (who is apparently now released from prison) is running the scheme together with an Icelandic former carpenter and vacuum cleaner seller, called Larus Palmi Magnusson.
Frode Jørgensen was founder, part owner and CEO of the pyramid/ponzi scam Plexpay Network, which was raided and shut down by Norwegian police on 20th September 2005.
In December 2007 the local court in Trondheim, Norway sentenced Frode Jørgensen to 2 1/2 years prison and confiscation of certain assets, for establishing and operating an illegal pyramid scheme.
On 15th December 2009, after appeals, the Norwegian Supreme Court confirmed the prison sentence (1 year was made a suspended sentence) against Frode Jørgensen, as well as the asset confiscations.
For those who can read a Scandinavian language, a summary of the ruling can be found at:
http://www.domstol.no/DAtemplates/Article____21792.aspx?epslanguage=NO
The complete Supreme Court ruling can be found at:
http://www.domstol.no/upload/HRET/Avgjørelser/2009/saknr2009-1255_anonymisert_.pdf
Members were recruited into PlexPay in the traditional pyramid scheme fashion. Those members who paid the highest entry fee, 800 $ for ‘Gold’ membership, were ‘allowed’ to invest in the Global Profit System (GPS), a Ponzi scam which offered profits of up to 3% per day.
There was also a shares fraud element: High-paying members were offered to buy shares in the PlexPay company Evolve Trading SA, a mailbox company registered in the money laundering haven St. Kitts and the Grenadines, which officially ran GPS. However, the money paid for these shares went straight into the pockets of Frode Jørgensen and the other owners. As the company has no real income and was only building ever-increasing debt from the Ponzi activity, these shares weere a guaranteed loss.
Before Plexpay, Frode Jørgensen was involved in the pyramid and Ponzi schemes “The 5 percent Community”, World Games Incorporated (WGI) and PIPS.
After Plexpay, Frode Jørgensen has operated the pyramid and ponzi schemes AmityFunds, YouGo, and now Bidify.
According to the online presentation of bidify.com, the official “product” of the scheme appears to be an online auction site.
However, most of the presentation focuses on “affiliates”, pyramid selling of memberships in the scheme, and related bonuses.
So this is obviously a pyramid scheme camouflaged as an internet auction site.
To put money into any financial scheme operated by Frode Jørgensen, is utter idiocy!
Interesting enough, I read that one of the top leaders in Bidify who is on top of the Bidify food chain called Linda Helin was also involved in heading the Zoom Mobile and Juugo scams a few years back.
Has anyone else read any of this information online?
Here’s one web page listing Bidify’s Linda Helin as a founder of the JuuGo pyramid. It obviously quotes a press Release from JuuGo:
( http://www.prlog.org/10415676-announcing-the-launch-of-juugo-inc-the-vip-travel-opportunity-of-the-decade.html )
“FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRLog (Press Release) – Nov 16, 2009 –
Juugo Inc. Co-Founders, Jan Olav Øfsti, Ronny Nesset, Are Vinje, Linda Helin and Frode Jørgensen have joined forces to form Juugo, a direct selling company in the lucrative international travel industry. They combined their visions of the ideal company, their individual experiences in network marketing and worked hands-on to build Juugo into the success it is today. Each Co-Founder remains actively involved in the management of the company, training of representatives and daily business operations worldwide.
….”
In addition to Linda Helin and Frode Jørgensen, the press release mentions Are Vinje as one of the JuuGo founders.
According to a Bidify newsletter from 26 May, Are Vinje is stated to be Chief Technology Officer of Bidify, and he appears to have been one of the people starting the scheme.
So several of the old pyramidsters from JuuGo have re-joined to start Bidify!
Additionally, Are Vinje and Frode Jørgensen are running a small web design company called First Innovation in Trondheim, Norway.
Will be interesting to follow all these same characters after Bidify flunks out and see what they decide to ponzie everyone into next.
Have they yet released the names of the Bidify board members? For some reason I believe they will not do so since it will likely only divulge names of who the ponzie leaders are.
This list of names will surely harm any future ponzies incomes they may already be conspiring to create for themselves.