Did regulators shut down Worldwide Solutionz?
As per the Worldwide Solutionz website, the company appears to have shut down on or around January 15th:
Kindly note that WorldWide SolutionZ will no longer be conducting business, effective immediately. Please refer to the email sent to all members on January 15, 2015.
The email sent to affiliates offers up some more information, suggesting that the company has shut itself down in the face of a regulatory investigation:
Dear WorldWide SolutionZ Members,
As you all know by now, we have been struggling to get compliance taken care of with the Reserve Bank from early 2014 with very little progress.
We have now received instructions of the first phase of information needed from all members and while this process is being dealt with the website and business will be closed down as we are not allowed to trade while the business is under investigation and reconciliation is being done.
Some of you will see refunds added to your funding processor as we progress.
Please send us the following required by the Reserve Bank very urgently:
-Full names and last name and proof of identity
-Registration numbers and papers for businesses if you had a business registered with us
-Proof of residence, must be physical address and postal address
-Reason (relationship) for doing business with WorldWide SolutionZ
-Denomination of funds sent to WWSz for Registrations, Life Jackets and other transactions
-Total out of pocket funds added to WorldWide SolutionZ Life Jacket Account, proof of funding attached
-Proof of income used to fund WorldWide SolutionZ accounts (where did the money come from ie, salaries, savings, loans, etc)
-Confirmation that membership agreement was read, understood and accepted
-Confirmation that Private Membership Agreement and Articles of association was read, understood and accepted
-Confirmation that the member has not been offered and does not own shares in WorldWide SolutionZ at this point in time.
Please send the above mentioned requirements very urgently to help us speed up the process. Send to (email address removed).
Kindly note that effective immediately, WorldWide SolutionZ will no longer be conducting business.
The Skype groups and Social Media groups will be closed to further comments at this time. We will not be available for direct communication via skype, mail, phone, social media or any other means of communication.
Please direct all enquiries to (email address removed)
Love, Light and Graitude
Marelize
As someone who has followed a number of company shutdowns due to regulatory intervention, I have to say that the above doesn’t sound so much as an investigation as it does gathering victims’ details.
The last “confirmation” in particular sees WorldWide Solutionz effectively ask their affiliates to lie, presumably to regulators as that’s who the company will forward affiliate correspondence on to.
From the sounds of it the Reserve Bank has finished their investigation, WorldWide Solutionz has shut itself down (or been ordered to), and now the regulator is looking to obtain information from the scheme’s investors.
Interestingly enough, the email address provided in Marelize van Niekerk-Venter’s email and which is also displayed on the Worldwide Solutionz website (above), belongs to Carlo Viljoen.
An ad on Gumtree classifieds outs Viljoen as a criminal defense attorney:
For Bail applications and criminal representation contact Carlo Viljoen on…
On his LinkedIn profile, Viljoen claims to specialize in “criminal litigation, bail applications and appeals”.
The hiring of a criminal defense attorney certainly fits the narrative of the scam being shut down by the Reserve Bank of South Africa.
The investigation sounds all but over, with Worldwide Solutionz’s owners now looking to defend themselves in court.
For those unfamiliar with the scam, Worldwide Solutionz used new investor funds to pay existing investors a $40 ROI on $25 investments:
When the 90 days is over, the original $25 pops back up in your account balance. Did you notice what just happened?
Your $25 became $40 while you were working on … Oh that’s right, you don’t have to do anything at all to earn this or make it happen.
Just purchase, relax, enjoy, rinse and repeat.
From the sounds of it, Worldwide Solutionz has likely been under investigation for some time. What happens next though is unclear.
Whether the Reserve Bank comes forward with any information remains to be seen.
I did consider that the closure might have been van Niekerk-Venter’s attempt to do a runner with what’s left of invested funds, but the hiring of a criminal defense attorney suggests that might no longer be an option.
This is a breaking story so stay tuned as more information comes to hand…
Well, at least Ruan got a new restaurant out of the deal.
This ran for a very long time
I want everyone to know that I am the “sole” reason why WWS was shut down. I know this because nwillis at MMG said so, and I quote:
Now if anyone can follow that logic, please contact me with the explanation.
But what he didn’t know is that we did report them to the authorities in South Africa and provided them information used in their investigation.
As much as I enjoy seeing these crooks put out of business and as much as I enjoy living in a country where everyone is entitled to due process of law, I also wish that there was an expedited process that would get more of these criminals shut down faster.
This one did a year’s worth of damage to thousands of people before the system caught up with them.
“Feeding hungry children” my ass!
Using the speed, convenience and cloaking factor of the internet to fleece gullible and/or greedy people requires a somehow more expedited approach to consumer protection in response, in my opinion.
SD
I think this is Carlo on LinkedIn:
za.linkedin.com/pub/carlo-viljoen/57/b9/425
Well, Carlo Viljoen made the following post:
TRADING? Now you know why they are in trouble if he truly meant “Trading” as we all understand it to mean.
Sounds like they want to sweat the members again to make sure everybody “signed the disclaimer”, acknowledging they are participating “of their own free will” and other CYA garbage.
And the information just keeps on coming:
So all the talk about how legal WWS was from the very beginning and met all regulatory requirements was all a lie. But what is hilarious is that they just now found out they were not in compliance?
I guess that’s why you hire a criminal advocate for yourself to handle all your dealings with the Reserve Bank. Yeah right.
So uh… the mysterious powers that be just decided WWZ wasn’t compliant without first conducting an investigation?
Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuullshit.
oz, somebody’s callin’ you a rumor mill and a sensationalist.
and a doom and gloom forecaster.
your heading ‘did regulators shut down worldwide solutionz’ did you in, boss 🙂
Greetings Everybody.
Carlo Viljoen Here.
Please note that WWS has engaged me for two simple reasons.
Firstly because Marlize the owner/director knows me very well as I assisted her with her divorce a few years ago.
Secondly, the problem is that due to endless red tape and obstacles in obtaining especially trading licences for the people that she has empowered with your gracious help these people are being obstructed from doing their business.
Then there is also other banking compliance issues regarding WWS that needs to be addressed.
I am well know to litigate against the Government and in order to address these issues she needs a litigator that can address the government and local authorities in a substantial manner and that’s where I come in.
THERE ARE NO CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS UNDERWAY.
I assure you that Marelize has only the best intentions herein.
WWS is NOT being investigated nor has it been closed down by any government or other entity, WWS has stopped trading voluntarily and TEMPORAILY in order to prevent any loses to the clients.
As soon as WWS have managed to overcome all the extensive requirements imposed on it, it will probably continue to trade, it would be reckless and negligent to continue trading until these issues have been addressed.
It was decided to stop trading in order to safeguard the clients, until such time when the issue has been addressed, we cannot commit to a time frame on how long it will take at this time , and thus the decision to stop trading was made.
WWS is still committed to its ultimate goal which to empower the poor and to act in your best interest, thus we point out to you that we are dealing with a huge volume of clients herein and our instruction is to deal with each one individually that our correspondence with you will not be immediate.
Kindly also note that by spreading false and malicious rumors that is not based on facts about WWS you are causing it serious damage and you are exposing yourself to possible Civil action.
Carlo Viljoen
I am beginning to wonder if there isn’t an agency in South Africa that is not investigating WWSz. When asked why the information was being requested the response was:
So now instead of it being the Reserve Bank wanting this information, it is now the Exchange Control; but they are not under investigation.
Sounds like wordsmithing. They’ve ALREADY BEEN investigated and found to be not compliant. There is CURRENTLY no investigation.
lol. that’s pretty much the way I was reading it too.
You forgot the most obvious reason, WWZ is a Ponzi scheme.
That red tape is there for a reason. Ponzi schemes steal from later investors to enrich existing investors.
Where do you think the money for that new restaurant came from?
You can’t “address” money-laundering issues that come with Ponzi territory. Either you stop running your fraudulent scheme or someone will eventually step in and shut it down.
Given that regulators do not typically confirm investigations unless court action is taken, how can you say that with any certainty?
TelexFree only became aware of investigations into them less than a month before they were shut down, despite said investigations brewing for around a year IIRC.
Too late. New investment dried up months ago (Alexa) and that means there’s little to no money to pay off later investors.
I’m sure Marelize and her friends profited nicely though.
Noted, but on your side kindly note that running global Ponzi schemes is illegal in almost every country on Earth.
Stick to the divorce litigation chief, you sound way over your head on this one.
Carlo:
Thanks for posting, but I have a question for you: What “trading” are you talking about?
The reason I am asking is that “trading” requires WWSz or its parent company to be registered to do trading and Marleize or her son must be registered to trade. Neither WWSz nor Marelize or her son registered to do any trading.
The life jacket program is definitely an investment and a security by US regulations. WWSz is not registered to sell securities in the US with the SEC, nor is Marelize or her son registered and licensed with FINRA to sell securities in the US.
Look forward to your defining what is “Trading” that you mentioned.
By forcing wwsz members to have to provide personal information such as 3 months income is UNHEARD of by a program. that information is only provided on a loan application.
The purpose of using a payment processor like eglobal is to collect and obtain that information. for that reason alone I am highly suggesting that members DO NOT GIVE YOUR DOCUMENTS to a divorce attorney.
Nope. TVI Express and Wassub both did so before. Seem to recall both also asked members to upload photo ID.
all that personal info has value on the black market. That’s why scams are collecting as much as possible lately under the guise of pseudo-compliance.
Well, Marelize has issued another update and attempts to explain what is meant by “Trading.” Yeah sure Marelize your definition of “Trading” is exactly what the term means.
Anyway, here’s the latest and greatest:
Marelize: You need to add one more question to your list and that is this: How many of you quit your job to make WWSz your full-time income?
From sources that have contacted me, there is a huge number of people who took out home loans, money from their savings and charged their credit cards to invest in WWSz.
Wouldn’t it be nice to see how many out of all the members did this compared to those who didn’t. Now that would be an interesting statistic to know.
Well, Marelize in her latest update defined what “Trading” means. She said, and I quote:
Yeah right Marelize, that definition is the first thing anyone thinks of when the word “Trading” is used.
But they missed a question that should be asked for the KYC rule and that is: Did you quit your job to make WWSz your full-time income?
I have also been told that there are a large number of members who maxed out their credit cards, took out home loans or used their live savings to invest in WWSz. The answer to the proof of funds question is going to really get the regulators attention if answered honestly.
What is shocking to me is that only 30% of the members have complied with the request for additional documents, and the remaining 70% only have until the end of tomorrow evening SA Time to get them submitted.
So much for them believing this was about “the children” and not the 5% weekly payout.
There’s a story over the news that in Ghana a bank lost 1.2M GNC (about 360K USD) to loans made to TelexFree victims… when one of those “business development” people decided to make loans to TelexFree participants and made a bundle… at the time.
Now 9 people are fired and the people getting fired claimed the higher-ups know all about it and firing them is a part of coverup.
marelize comes across as a more experienced, smoothtalking, version of kristi from the ‘achieve community’.
no one can check how many KYC responses WWSz actually receives. at any point they can restart their ponzi with 30% members and fresh recruitment, blaming the rest, for not upgrading their KYC data.
this could be smarter than fully killing the program, and starting afresh.
don’t have money to pay members? pretend your’e working on ‘compliance’, and chuck all the creditor members out. start afresh with a base of heavy duty recruiters. possible?
Well, the deadline for getting the members docs to the attorney has now ended. It will be interesting to see what update Marelize comes up with and how many actually did send in their documents at least according to Marelize.
But the truly interesting part would be to see how they all answered their questions. You don’t suppose that Marelize “coached” them on how to answer do you?
Isn’t that what her lawyer is for?
‘Hai guys I invested $xx where’s muh money?’
‘Uh, no you didn’t invest you um, helped starving kids.’
‘O rite, lolz I forgot.’
Actually I thought it was the lawyers job to change the information they submitted for why they really joined WWSz, to they were only wanting to help the children and believed in Marelize vision for WWSz. (before anyone goes off, I am just kidding here)
The answer that is going to totally doom WWSz is for all those who maxed out credit cards, took out loans or invested their savings to join WWSz. This percentage is going to be much larger than they realized or knew about. Shoots down “it was just for helping the children why they joined” mantra.
I do not play these money games, but ask yourself has any “program” ever lasted 5 years? Oz has it right as usual. Thanks OZ!! 🙂
Well, Marelize issued an update 11 days after the deadline for the documents to be submitted to WWSz/Carlo. Rather telling in what was not said, but here’s her update:
Now what was more telling was a response Marelize gave to someone who had done a chargeback with STP. They reported that she said:
Another poster let the cat out of the bag when they said:
which is not sitting well with the members who cannot get their money out.
This is toast no matter what goodness and light spin Marelize tries to put out for her next update. This is really going to get ugly and more so than other Ponzi’s due to this was supposed to be “all for the children.”
marelize speak:
1] Unfortunately no one is able to give us any indication for time lines at this point
2] I will be leaving all of the current Skype groups, including this one. In many cases, that means the group will close.
3] With everybody threatening and reporting us everywhere the delays are getting bigger and hope less
everybody wave, marelize is saying goodbye!!
I wanted to make a correction from my first post where I said that Ruan got a restaurant out of the deal.
Actually it was Quinton who started the restaurant. He is the one who was studying to be a chef.
Well, Marelize just issued her latest update and it is not sounding good for the members. Here’s what she had to say as it was posted at MMG:
Hey Marelize, how about you pay the costs since you were the one who kept saying how legal WWSz was from day one and not the members to fix your problems? You are the reason for all your problems, your members just compounded them.
So much for them NOT being under INVESTIGATION. Not going to be pretty when this finally shuts down, which this is truly the next step.
The authorities are not going to allow them to continue with their selling and offering unregistered securities.
Still in shock.
Has ANYONE received at least a partial refund or follow-up info from all this?? I was in for the max $25K.
I’m not very familiar with WWSz, but I don’t think you can expect any refund.
The newest WWSz article here is from April 2015.
behindmlm.com/category/companies/worldwide-solutionz/
People didn’t get any refund back then.