Gold4Change Review: 1,000,000 EUR gold investment?

There is no information on the Gold4Change website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Gold4Change website domain (“gold4change.com”) was registered on April 5th 2011, but only lists “Gold4Change LLC” as the owner.

Gold4Change LLC is a company registered in Delaware, with details provided on the Gold4Change website itself.

GOLD 4 CHANGE LLC is a global company based in the U.S. since Aug. 28, 2011.

Gold 4 Change LLC
910 Foulk Road, Suite 201
Wilmington, New Castle County
Delaware 19803
U.S.A.

Using the file number “5027856”, one can look up Gold4Change LLC at the Deleware Division of Corporate website, however no information is revealed as to who owns or runs the company.

It’s worth noting that the US registration of Gold4Change appears to be in name only. All currencies listed on the website are in EUR, the Gold4Change domain uses European name-servers, a European payment-processor is used, the website is hosted in Germany and Spanish, French and English are the languages offered on the website (note that the English used is littered with grammatical errors).

Putting all of this together suggests that whoever is running Gold4Change is in actuality based out of Europe and not the US.

As always, if a MLM company is not openly upfront about who is running or owns it, think long and hard about joining and/or handing over any money.

The Gold4Change Product Line

Gold4Change doesn’t appear to have any retailable products or services. The company lists gold bullion and coins in the “products” section of its website, but if one clicks “invest” or “buy” buttons, they are redirected to a “contact us” page.

Here visitors can send a message to the company, however no direct purchase appears to be possible. Whether or not someone can purchase coins or invest in gold external to the Gold4Change MLM business opportunity is unclear.

The Gold4Change Compensation Plan

What do I have to do to start as a partner in one of the Advertising and Compensation Plans in order to receive my compensation prize/bonus?

It’s simple. You have to choose one of our plans, make the booking for a deposit in order to recommend our products to new customers, choosing the same plan you have chosen.

As above (taken from the company website), the Gold4Change compensation plan revolves around affiliates buying positions in the plan and then recruiting new affiliates who do the same.

Gold Investment Plans

Referred to as “contracts”, Gold4Change offer affiliates investment in 15 “plans”. These plans are little more than 2×2 matrices, which affiliates purchase a position in and then recruit others who do the same.

A 2×2 matrix places an affiliate’s position at the top of two positions, with those two positions branching out into another two positions respectively, for a total of six positions:

Each of these positions represents an affiliate buy-in, and once all six positions are filled, the position at the top of the matrix receives a payout.

There are 15 “plans” within the Gold4Change compensation plan, with each plan being a matrix level in and of itself.

Below are the 15 matrix plans Gold4Change offer, along with their respective payouts:

• Plan 50 (50 EUR a position) – 200 EUR
• Plan 100 (100 EUR a position) – 400 EUR
• Plan 200 (200 EUR a position) – 800 EUR
• Plan 500 (500 EUR a position) – 2000 EUR
• Plan 1000 (1000 EUR a position) – 4000 EUR
• Plan 2000 (2000 EUR a position) – 8000 EUR
• Plan 5000 (5000 EUR a position) – 20,000 EUR
• Plan 10,000 (10,000 EUR a position) – 40,000 EUR
• Plan 20,000 (20,000 EUR a position) – 80,000 EUR
• Plan 30,000 (30,000 EUR a position) – 120,000 EUR
• Plan 50,000 (50,000 EUR a position) – 200,000 EUR
• Plan 100,000 (100,000 EUR a position) – 400,000 EUR
• Plan 200,000 (200,000 EUR a position) – 800,000 EUR
• Plan 500,000 (500,000 EUR a position) – 2,000,000 EUR
• Plan 1M (1,000,000 EUR a position) – 4,000,000 EUR

Note that a 35% admin fee is charged on all commission payouts. Commissions are either paid in virtual gold or cash. Note that electing for a commission payout in cash incurs another 25% admin fee.

Joining Gold4Change

Affiliate membership to Gold4Change appears to be free.

Affiliates must invest in at least one matrix position however to participate in the business, which puts an effective initial cost on Gold4Change affiliate membership at 50 EUR to 1,000,000 EUR (more if multiple matrix positions are invested in when an affiliate signs up).

Conclusion

Under the guise of buying and selling gold, Gold4Change offer little more than a standard matrix-based recruitment scheme.

Affiliates buy in and then must recruit new affiliates and get them to also buy-in, in order to get paid.

Gold4Change go to considerable effort to project that real gold is backing the business, however from an MLM perspective, this is ultimately irrelevant.

Retail seems non-existent so in effect nothing is being bought and sold at a retail level. All revenue going into the Gold4Change is sourced from affiliates, and all revenues paid out similarly so.

With matrix positions tied into recruitment, effectively Gold4Change affiliates are paid to recruit.

This is wholly reflected in the company’s business presentation slides, which read like any other “recruit 2, who recruit 2, who recruit 2” pyramid scheme:

Betraying the true nature of the scheme, other affiliates openly advertise Gold4Change as an investment opportunity:

Gold4Change do themselves no favours, with the company website being littered with investment terminology.

Whether or not Gold4Change LLC have registered themselves with the SEC for the sale of securities is unclear.

Offering up a weak argument to counter the obvious pyramid scheme nature of the business, Gold4Change write

(Gold4Change) is not pyramidal because:

A – We always talk of 6 reserves and not people.

B – Companies from various sectors, recognize and use the recommended client system client.

Pseudo-compliance at its finest.

Renaming the recruitment of “people” to “reserves” makes no difference to the recruitment nature of the business. “Reserves” don’t invest in matrix positions, people do.

As for “companies from various sectors”, and MLM company that pays on recruitment (directly or under the guise of the sale of products) is a pyramid scheme. Furthermore, what “other companies” do is irrelevant. Analysis of Gold4Change’s business model should stand of its own, irrespective of what “other companies” are doing.

Seemingly aware of the pyramid-scheme nature of the business, Gold4Change (abbreviated as G4C) demand that affiliates

never speak as a representative of G4C, or oral or written. (Affiliates) may never use the company name G4C, or in print, Internet or in public forums.

(Affiliates) may only publish in print and Internet ads for the subsequent explanation of our plans, but always explicitly hiding the name of G4C Web and all those links that reference it.

No explicit reason is given for the above rules, so make of them what you will (hint hint pyramid schemes are illegal hint hint).