free-mart-logoIf an MLM company wants to issue a press-release, the legitimate thing to do is publish it in your website and social media accounts. If they want a bit more exposure, they can even publish the information on the countless press-release syndication websites that exist.

What Free Mart have instead chosen to do is imitate BehindMLM, complete with a bogus website, comments and who knows what else.

This is scummy, even for MLM.

The BehindMLMs website domain was registered anonymously on July 1st, 2016. That said, it appears content on the site only went live sometime in the last 24 hours.

There’s currently one article on the site with a bogus July 21st publication date, titled “Why did David Crookston and Bevonne Birch leave Free-Mart?”

I’m credit as author of the article, under the pseudonym “Oz”.

david-crookston-john-austin-cofounders-free-martThe article appears to have been authored by John Austin (based on the shameless flattery directed at Austin in the article), co-founder of Free Mart with David Crookston (right and left respectively).

Austin has tried to make it look like I’ve authored the article though, with paragraphs sprinkled in like this:

Although network marketing has some merit as a business model, it has been a feeding ground for Ponzi schemes and fraud and that is why I have taken it upon myself to expose as many of them as I can.

Only by knowing the truth about these individuals can innocent people be protected from them.

The lack of third-party objectivity throughout the piece however is pretty obvious. And to be honest I only skimmed over the article, it’s far too self-serving, poorly written and way too long.

From what I can make out, Crookston left Free Mart on bad terms in June. The BehindMLMs website appears to have been created for the sole purpose of John Austin to air dirty laundry on.

Why he didn’t just publish the story on the official Free Mart website is a mystery.

To what extent it’s truthful about the breakup of Free Mart management, I think that’s shadowed by the methodology Austin has employed to get his message across.

If you want to appear credible and have people to take you seriously, impersonating a relatively well-known website and author is hardly the way to go about it.

Regardless of the merit of your content, you just come off looking scummy.