Karatbars International warning issued in Canada
March is Fraud Prevention month in Canada and, having already issued a warning on Phil Ming Xu’s WCM777 Ponzi scheme earlier this month, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) have now set their sights on Karatbars International.
The AMF’s latest warning, issued on March the 20th, warns Quebec investors ‘to be cautious about an investment program linked to the German company Karatbars International GmbH‘.
(Karatbars International’s) investment products are primarily promoted through conferences, the Internet and social media.
With the company’s “Affiliates” program, investors can make Internet-based purchases through Karatbars plans and they are encouraged to recruit two other Affiliates. These Affiliates are in turn encouraged to recruit two other Affiliates each, and so on.
Affiliates are lured by the possibility of earning large payouts, in particular through a percentage of amounts collected from the Karatbars plans and gold products purchased by referrals.
The AMF reminds investors of the risks involved when investing in companies such as Karatbars that are not reporting issuers and do not hold AMF registration or authorization. Quebeckers should therefore be cautious with product offerings from Karatbars since they might incur losses that are not covered by the financial services compensation fund or deposit insurance.
The AMF is closely monitoring this matter and will take any measures deemed necessary in the event of violations under the laws it administers.
Karatbars International (not to be confused with KB Gold) is currently on BehindMLM’s pending review list. My thanks to BehindMLM reader Calculus for the heads up.
Update 22nd December 2016 – On November 4th, 2016, a ruling on the case was made in favor of the AMF.
The ruling bans promotion of Karatbars International in Canada. Karatbars and three local promoters of the scheme were also fined.
Heh – this is the “opportunity” wcm777/kingdom777 pimp Steve Hoffman is now pushing.
Firstly, YOU have the option to take delivery (received within 2-3 weeks by FedEx insured courier), OR you can select to store it in secure 3rd party vaults, each a member of the World Gold Council and are LBMA Certified storage facilities…your choice.
The gold is not marked up, but in fact is competitive in price to any other currency grade gold produced by any other London Bullion Market Association Certified refinery in the world. Compare yourself…do your homework rather than take the word of so called “public protectors” that clearly have not done their due diligence.
Knowing what I know being in the Investment Banking industry for over 35 years…Karatbars is the gold I own in this volatile economic environment for many more reasons.
@Lloyd
What does that have to do with using new investor money to pay off existing affiliates? Whether it’s in gold or hard cash, it doesn’t matter.
Lloyd,
Are you the same Lloyd Merrifield who was pimping Tazoodle, ASD, Regenesis2x2 etc? If so, nice credibility there. Keep up the good work scamming people Mr Venture Capital Investment Banker.
LB
Steve Hoffman and Lloyd Merrifield …I fell sorry for you guys to be accused of PIMPERS while we hide on our initials.
I am hoping that any members of your family especially your kids, if you have any, can’t see these comments as scammers and pimps. Peace to all.
@AM31 –
Hey – they have the option to use an alias if they wish, just like you did. If he’s promoting programs which have been proven to be of a fraudulent nature, doesn’t the promoting (pimping) of the programs (scams) qualify that?
Maybe everyone should just get a trophy..
Nice to know..
Waiting for your review on this company Oz 😉
ripoffreport.com (0) reports
Repeated ‘fraud’ & ‘scam’ Google searches….nothing.
The most negative thing I’ve seen to date is ‘LB’ passing himself off as the smartest person in the room.
I’ve spoken with Lloyd on the phone only once and e-mailed a couple of times, but believe him to be of good character. I like him. God bless him and his family.
I have engaged the Karatbars program and feel confident in its offerings.
I find this article to be a simple disclaimer. Notice it says we will continue to monitor KaratBars, and they are pending review for approval.
Obviously, as with all investment opportunities one should be weary, but unlike MLM/ ponzi schemes, this is a program that rewards people for saving, not spending.
I encourage you to dig deep when doing your research, and you too will come to the conclusion that this is a blessing, and a legitimate opportunity. If you would like to know more, (Ozedit: recruitment spam removed).
Just an invite to a sales presentation for this “opportunity” to be held at a local hotel. Touted as a way to save money and of course make money.
Sent to me by a guy who lost a bunch of money in Zeek and a handful of other mlm/hyip deals. Don’t people ever learn?
Hi all, I’m doing some research about Karatbars out of interest/ curiosity. So far I can’t find anything about reselling back your Karatbars purchased gold.
Basically my question is: if I would like to cash out, do I get a return on my investment – or even better, is it profitable? Anyone experience with that?
Or should you wait for the moment that the whole financial industry to explode, increasing gold demand?
This is Ponzi smoke and mirrors. There’s no gold unless you specifically direct them to with your a withdrawal request. All they do is convert your virtual funds to real money to pay you out with.
This goes on as long as there’s new investor funds in the kitty. When that runs out, kaboom.
How was it presented to you?
* As an investment (e.g. “monthly gold savings plan”)?
* As “earn commissions from other people’s gold purchases”?
* As BOTH investment and recruitment?
I have only checked the predecessor to KaratBars, KB Gold. I checked it initially in 2010 or 2011. It wasn’t profitable as an investment, it was only profitable for recruiters convincing OTHERS to invest.
Gold based pyramid schemes will typically use any initial investment of money to pay out recruitment rewards to recruiter + upline. Money from “monthly purchases” will be used in a similar way, as “residual income”.
“The experienced ones”
The experienced ones will usually only make small investments themselves, i.e. they will rapidly sell back the gold they have bought (and lose some money on the premium IN/OUT).
They see the gold purchases as a “pay to play fee”, similar to a monthly membership fee, similar to autoship orders in MLM people pay for to earn the right to earn recruitment commissions. The only difference is that here you don’t actually need to buy any potions or lotions, i.e. you can reduce your long term monthly costs.
The experienced ones will earn a profit on the people they bring in, paying similar fees.
“Consumers and investors”
In a “gold savings plan”, people may pay e.g. $100 per month to the company until they have reached a “recommended minimum amount for delivery”, e.g. $400 as recommended minimum. Physical delivery of smaller quantities than that will be too expensive.
Consumers and investors will usually prefer physical delivery. “If you don’t HOLD it you don’t OWN it” is the commonly accepted idea in that market (they don’t like “paper gold”). But consumers and investors will usually avoid “network marketing gold” too.
“Recruiters”
Recruiters will try to convince others to join and invest, trying to build a downline they can earn commissions from. They will earn commissions from the “monthly gold savings plan” payments made by people they have recruited directly or indirectly. I haven’t analysed KaratBars’ compensation plan.
Physical delivery of gold won’t make much sense for recruiters. They want to earn MONEY, they don’t want to invest in gold themselves. Some of them might be interested in gold investments, but usually their main motive is to earn commissions from a downline.
Recruiters can most likely use their commissions to pay for “monthly gold savings plan”, e.g. $100 per month, i.e. they don’t need to bring in any fresh money themselves from the outside, they can use the recruitment commissions they have earned from other people’s investments.
KaratBars most likely have some extremely small “gold bars”, e.g. 0.5 gram or 1 gram “gold bars”. Recruiters can use their commissions to fill up any missing money and buy 1 gold unit like that each month, or each second month (depending on how much commission they want to withdraw, and how much they want to reinvest).
They can sell back that gold the next month, at a loss. They see the gold purchases PRIMARILY as a “pay to play” fee rather than as a “profitable investment”, i.e. they don’t expect to earn any money on the investment.
They will profit from OTHER PEOPLE accepting similar losses as themselves = the more money people lose on the investment, the more money the people who recruited them will earn in commissions.
A 20% premium on the gold (spot) price will only allow a low percentage commissions. The percentage will be low, but the amount will probably be “acceptable”.
If KaratBars is making 20% profit on BOTH purchases and buybacks, the recruiters will get 2 streams of income rather than 1. They will earn commissions first when people in their downline are buying the gold, and then they will earn commissions when people are selling the gold back.
Selling gold back, e.g. selling gold they have paid $400 for themselves back to the company for $300, will mean they only have paid $100 in “pay to play” fee. In other MLM (e.g. potions and lotions based), the amount of “pay to play” will be $400 (but people will also receive some products in exchange for their monies).
I wasn’t talking directly about monthly costs there. Autoship orders come in many shapes and sizes, but autoship based MLM usually have some “minimum monthly PV (Personal Volume” people must buy to qualify for the right to earn recruitment commissions.
“The company”
The company doesn’t need to own much gold. It doesn’t need to distribute much gold itself either. Product based MLM will need to have products owned and stored somewhere, ready for distribution.
A “Gold savings plan” is simply about paying money in to the company’s account, it doesn’t require any transactions of gold in the opposite direction (out to the consumers).
A gold purchase with physical delivery will require SOMEONE to send gold physically to the consumer. “Someone” can be the supplier in Turkey.
A gold purchase WITHOUT physical delivery will not require any transactions of gold in any direction. It will only require gold to be “reserved for purchase” SOMEWHERE. You can reserve a large amount of gold for a small amount of money. People do that regularily in the Futures market.
The company doesn’t need to reserve ALL the gold people are buying either, it will only need to reserve ENOUGH gold to look legitimate, e.g. if authorities tries to check.
The amount of gold it will need to reserve will be reduced if people actively are selling gold back each month (gold not physically delivered).
SUMMARY
I haven’t analysed KaratBars. The post here was about “general market knowledge” rather than about that specific program.
Most “normal investors” will avoid opportunities like that. Normally, programs like KaratBars will not be marketed to investors either, they will be marketed to income opportunity seekers, e.g. on TalkGold and MoneyMakerGroup forums.
Sorry for my long post containing mostly general info. It was related to that I haven’t looked closely at KaratBars as an opportunity (I have only looked at KB Gold).
The argument about “exploding financial markets” have been around for a while. I followed a gold investor forum from mid 2011 (a couple of months immediately before the top in September 2011) to late 2013 (when I lost interest, because the gold prices had been relatively stable for too long).
I have probably heard or read most of the arguments, watched several of the videos (probably a few hundred videos total, but I ignored many).
The reason why I became interested was because of “identifiable logical flaws”. Most arguments people used for why they would buy gold were emotional arguments, e.g. visual descriptions of how the market eventually would run out of gold and the prices would be stabilized at a high level (from $3,000 to $20,000 depending on which person).
People had made up whole stories in their imaginations about how the “fiscal cliff”, “the Greece debt problems”, “the Euro-zone problems”, “the Cyprus’ problems”, etc. would affect the gold price. The realities turned out quite differently – each and every time.
Gold investments of that type are about BELIEFS, and about FAITH and HOPE, about being among those few who were lucky enough and smart enough to “see the Light” when everybody else failed to see it.
None of the people in that forum would have been interested in KaratBars. A few of them were interested in referral sales, “earn small commission from the purchases made by people you have referred personally” (e.g. 1 or 2% of the amount).
Opportunities like KaratBars wouldn’t have been welcomed in that forum, I have specifically asked people there about different types of gold suppliers. That’s an area where they clearly are professional, they know EXACTLY which ones to buy from and what to buy.
Not enough information.
It is very lucrative. Karatbars is definitely not a scam. They have done everything they promised. We save gold. Have it delivered when we choose.
We help other people save gold and make money. Next?
Next?
Karatbars is a Ponzi scheme and you failed to address that.
Lloyd YOU are a scam artist!!
Hi all,
Many thanks for taking some time and effort to reply.
Sam, you seem to be committed to Karatbars. If I understand correctly, you have some gold delivered to your home.
Are you looking for an opportunity to cash out and if yes, when? If not, what is your goal?
Usally I buy coin gold to collect, and they sent to my home, but don’t make a lot money, beacuse I sell, I lost money.
the value not rite amuond coin gold just collect for fun, I rather buy solid gold, more value.
My parent say I need to keep some gold for yurself, not all the paper money ok.
What do they say about participating in recruitment-driven schemes?
I became involved with Karatbas before I did my homework. My bad!
After doing my diligence and finding that their gold price is, delivered to my door, between 29 and 35% more expensive than what I can buy on the open market…I wanted out.
I contacted Karatbars They said that I had to work through my sponsor and my upline. I wanted nothing to do with my sponsor as they had Seriously misled me 3 times In the first week.
My upline people said that they would work let me to solve the problem and for all intent And purpose have disappeared off the face of the earth.
All I wanted from them, with some of my money back that I paid for my position. I was willing to take $0.50 on the dollar. If they were to do that you could sell that position than to someone else and make even more money.
With regards to the positions that you purchase…. This is nothing but a Ponzi scheme. All you have to do is do the math to figure it out, but it is supported by overpriced gold.
My advice is simple. Unless you have a burning desire to build a business selling overpriced gold to Unsuspecting people, who once they know the truth will stop buying gold thru Karatbars.
Should you decide to try and attempt to build a Karatbars business, “Value comes from selling the same product For less money or a better product for more money! Setting up a MLM business, Karatbars, Indicates that you lack integrity and have no value for those who you will hurt!”
With that said I do believe purchasing gold and silver on a regular basis is a good strategy to build wealth… Up to 20% of your investment portfolio.
(Ozedit: Pitch for alternative gold company removed)
This above comment is simply stupid. Every single sales job works by selling products and making commissions off sales. The only difference is that Karatbars, rather than working like a slave for somebody else, offers the opportunity for people to become their own boss by maximizing their income through a business package.
Also every network marketing company in the world compensates their affiliates for purchases made in their downline. There is nothing wrong with that – it is one of the most stable and legitimate business models in the world.
The difference is that instead of simply making money from customers, a customer also has the option to promote the product and earn income.
Network marketing companies simply understand how effective word of mouth advertising can be, and have preferred to use that to educate people about the product instead of spending billions on other kinds of advertising.
Hi Stacy,
That’s actually not true. You cant find this sort of gold at the prices you are thinking of.
Karatbars gold is very specific – it comes with multiple security features, is LBMA certified, as well as the fact that the gold is sold by gram instead of ounces or kilograms. All those things together factor in the price.
Specifically, Karatbars gold is a kind of gold which is rare in the market called kinebar gold. They are usually out of stock in the companies which sell them.
There are only three refineries producing kinebar gold – that is, gold which comes with a hologram on it which proves the authenticity of the gold and that it has not been tampered with. This saves a lot of trouble and headache when one wants to sell the gold at a later time.
It seems you didn’t understand the Karatbars pricing very well.
Paying affiliates to recruit new affiliates != “selling products and making commissions off sales”.
That’s a funny way to describe a chain-recruitment scheme.
But what they don’t do, is pay affiliates to recruit new affiliates with no retail – which is the issue raised in the text you quoted (and then conveniently failed to address).
All I took from that is Karatbars is different to “making commissions off sales” and “one of the most stable and legitimate business models in the world”.
Using newly invested funds to pay off existing investors in a recruitment scheme is why. The gold only materializes if someone wants to cash out and opts for gold over cash.
That pretty much deems it irrelevant, with Karatbars otherwise operating as a pyramid scheme.
Kinebar gold is just gold with a kinegram (i.e. “hologram”) security seal.
NOLINK://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinebar
false. shocking I know.
wrong again. you have absolutely no idea what it is to be a real boss in the real world. you would be eaten alive.
Daniel, is your favorite flavor grape?
He’s got it bad. Poor thing.
This shows that you haven’t looked at what Karatbars is offering.
There is retail value in their business packages, which is what affiliates purchase to do the business. It comes with several marketing materials such as brochures, flyers, a few discount cards that offer customers a discount of three percent for a whole year, as well as a few grams of gold.
There is retail value – its not just recruiting people so that they are paying money for nothing, which is what an illegal pyramid scheme is.
Be completely honest with yourself, have you actually looked at what is being offered and taken the time, with patience, to understand the different aspects of it ?
Yes, I do. And there are many people who have become successful at network marketing and have chosen it as their profession, have leveraged their time and income, and indeed are their own boss.
That’s just a fact. Anybody who states that you cannot have a healthy, vital profession in network marketing is simply uneducated.
Not just a kinebar. It is a kinebar which is LBMA certified. You can compare prices with other companies which are selling a similar product, LBMA certified gold by the gram alone, and see that Karatbars pricing is extremely competitive – and in fact comes with more benefits like free storage, yearly discounts on the gold, and obviously the commissions.
You can look at a proper comparison here if you want to learn about it: (Ozedit: affiliate spam link removed, do not repost)
Affiliate purchases in MLM are not retail sales.
Retail value? You can’t have that without retail sales to retail customers.
Nothing or otherwise, paying affiliates to recruit affiliates in MLM is a pyramid scheme.
Yep. Have you?
Not if you are recruiting somebody who is also a customer at the same time. Everybody who is recruited in Karatbars purchases gold, it comes with the business package.
This aside, the discount cards which give 3 percent off the price of all gold purchases, are also valuable.
Depends what you mean by pyramid scheme. If you mean an organization with a pyramid structure, then most companies are a pyramid – where the owner of the company makes most of the money off everything happening in his organization.
The reason why they are not illegal – which is coming back to what we were saying earlier, is because most of those companies usually offer something of value.
Yes, Karatbars also has a pyramid structure. But what is being sold is of great value – LBMA certified gold which offers protection against inflation, and is likely to increase in value over time.
An MLM company paying affiliates to recruit new affiliates, like Karatbars.
Karatbars is a pyramid scheme, whatever else is attached to it is irrelevant.
PS. I’m marking any comments with broad vague generalities about “other companies” as spam. This discussion is about Karatbars.
I suggest you go read up on product-based pyramid schemes.
Every modern MLM pyramid scheme has some product or service attached to it.
Defining affiliates as “customers” is not enough, you need retail customers, which is impossible in Karatbars – thus it’s a pyramid scheme.
You can take the gold to any local dealer worldwide, and they will purchase it from you. Karatbars has also partnered with several companies worldwide as “K exchanges” which accept the gold as a form of payment for goods and services, buy gold, or also sell gold from their instore location.
The company will also buy the gold back from you at a buy-back price. There are many ways to sell the gold in the future.
This is incorrect. In Karatbars, you can decide to sign somebody up either as a customer or an affiliate. It is actually preferable to sign people up as customers – because that is what has long term potential.
You want customers to set up whats called “autoexchange”, which are automatic and regular purchases of gold every week or every month.
Every time the transaction happens, you earn a commission. If you have several people on autoexchange, your commission can build up quite well. Many people have built up their team with a good part of it being customers only.
You probably didn’t know that part, did you ?
It’s a shame we live in such a fear-base, neurotic culture, that everybody is quick to jump to conclusions about anything which they don’t understand well.
Karatbars is indeed a revolutionary company, nothing has been done like this to offer gold to the public in a way that you can also earn profit from helping people save in gold. Far from a scam for people who take the time to understand it.
That’s autoship, and it’s part of signing up affiliates. And even if it was within the context of Karatbars, it’s outside of the MLM opportunity (single-level commissions).
Retail customers as a concept within Karatbars makes no sense. The gold only exists when a customer asks to take it home which, outside of some slivers for marketing, never happens. It’s all cash, with affiliates paid to recruit new affiliates.
It’s a shame that someone would resort to broad baseless accusations as their rebuttal, rather than logic and evidence. Yet it is often the opening salvo of scheme defenders.
Oz,
That’s not autoship. Autoship is something which is often mandatory in most MLM’s. You are obligated to make a purchase of the product in order to stay in the program.
With Karatbars, you can either decide to purchase your gold manually to your convenience, or set up automatic purchases, or do neither and simply help other people build their savings.
Of course the customers receive their gold. All gold is physical, and is sent to their home address by FedEx. The business package which affiliates purchase to do the business, also comes with some gold in the package.
This is just like Amazon or Ebay – you simply do a checkout, and you receive what you ordered. Simple as that.
Often, but not always.
Only if they request it. Shipping gold around the world is cost-prohibitive, so instead the majority of commissions paid out in Karatbars (primarily on recruitment) is cash.
Gold is secondary to recruitment commissions in Karatbars, betraying what the actual core business model is.
I don’t think what I have said is baseless accusation at all. If you look at my earlier messages, I think you will find that I have been reasonable throughout.
I am not trying to “defend a scheme” – I am simply interested in communicating the truth. If I am flawed in my thinking, and there is always a chance of that, then I am willing to change my way of thinking.
So far, I do not feel that I have genuinely seen convincing arguments that what Karatbars is offering is so horrible like you are claiming. What I have heard is that one simply doesn’t like it because you can get paid based off other people’s sales and recruiting.
Most sales organizations work that way – where the founder of a business earns profit based on the total sales of his organization. But as I have already pointed out – there is nothing illegitimate about network marketing.
What is illegitimate, is offering a product or service of little value, or of no value at all.
What Karatbars is offering, is physical gold which retains its purchasing power. That is a valid and legitimate product.
In a product-based pyramid scheme… the product doesn’t matter.
You can argue the product’s merits until the cows come home. As long as recruitment commissions exist in an MLM opportunity, it’s a scam.
You mentioned shipping around the word is cost prohibitive. That’s why Karatbars offers free storage. Instead of purchasing a gram of gold, and paying shipping on top of it everytime – you can set several grams of gold aside in storage and then choose to have it delivered to you while paying the same shipping fee. If you have over 100 grams set aside in storage, then the shipping is free.
As for receiving commissions in cash, that is one form of payment. You also have some of that commission converted in the form of gold once you make a certain level of commission. So as your business continues growing, so does your gold savings.
Yes, you are right – most of the commissions are paid in cash, but you are also saving in gold through your commissions.
The storage doesn’t exist. Affiliate fees are kept as cash in a bank account unless a specific request for gold is made.
Then and only then do Karatbars purchase gold and ship it off (never happens because shipping gold in large quantities to private buyers is BS).
Nobody accumulates gold in Karatbars (beyond token amounts for marketing). It’s all recruitment and cash commissions.
And how exactly is this different from any other E-commerce site ? Amazon, E-bay, and so on – that’s what those sites are there for, so that you get what you requested.
However, even with Amazon and E-bay, from what I’m aware, I do not see that they offer a way to save on shipping by purchasing several products at a time and paying the same shipping fee, like the free storage in Karatbars.
In fact, most companies which are selling gold online, charge for storage, as well as have higher shipping fees. They also don’t offer 3 percent discount off the cost of the gold for a year.
You can check it out with companies like Credit Suisse, PAMP Suisse, UBS, or Argo Hereus. They do not offer those kinds of advantages as Karatbars, even though their product is of the same asset class and priced similarly.
I am telling you from personal experience, your information is simply wrong. Whenever a purchase of gold is made, whether one decides to have it shipped or in storage, the vaulting company is made aware of the request for each customer.
Karatbars has ALOT of pressure to make sure it is following all proper policies with world trade – and is audited by the German government twice a year. With partnerships like FedEx, MasterCard, Real Madrid football team, Vatican, and the LBMA certification on the gold – trust me, the company has ALOT of pressure to meet proper standards.
If Karatbars ever failed an audit, by German law, it must be made public in the news.
And if people do not want to have their gold set aside in storage, thats completely fine. They can always decide to have it shipped to them.
I have been purchasing gold regularly from Karatbars, and not once did I ever not receive my gold.
Absolute nonsense.
“Most sales organizations” are not the same as Multi Level Marketing and don’t conform to the same rules and regulations.
Likewise your definition of what causes MLM / network marketing to be illegitimate is also nonsensical.
What causes the problem (which you have not addressed, BTW) has nothing to do with the “product” or its’ value, but has everything to do with the fact recruiting is (or can be) the main source of income for the majority of participants
IOW, the product, whatever it may be, is secondary to recruitment as the primary income source of members.
If recruitment “IS” the largest source of participants’ income, you have a classic pyramid / endless chain recruitment scheme.
If recruitment ” CAN BE” largest source of participants’ income, then, from a potential members’ point of view the company should be avoided because 1) it is negligent in not preventing itself being used for illegal activity and 2) pyramid / endless chain recruitment schemes are illegal for a reason.
When recruitment slows, and it will, the pyramid collapses and upward of 90% of participants will lose money.
Then Amazon, Mary Kay Cosmetics, are running a scam ? (Ozedit: Offtopic derail attempts removed. Neither of those companies pay affiliates to recruit new affiliates.)
Seemingly you have a genuine belief in Karatbars.
I’d like to ask you what experience you have with MLMs?
MLM + recruitment = pyramid scheme. Stop trying to compare Karatbars to non-MLM companies or MLM companies that don’t pay affiliates to recruit affiliates.
Receiving a token amount of gold in cash incidental to the majority of commissions paid out on affiliate recruitment (in cash) != “saving shipping fees” on non-existent gold.
If Karatbars was really about purchasing gold, there’d be no reason for the majority of commissions paid out to be recruitment fees. Instead what token gold is paid out (in cash, not gold), is incidental to the recruitment scheme.
Yes, I’m aware of that. There are different laws for different types of business. I was only saying that if one is offended by the fact that one can earn profit from the sales of other people, then that principle alone would mean that you must find every sales organization offensive.
In Karatbars, the largest source of income is not recruitment. It is the purchase of gold.
As stated before, everybody who builds his business ends up saving in gold at the same time, that’s the way the system works, and one is a customer from the very beginning as the packages come with some gold.
What you have mentioned about making majority of income from recruiting being illegal, is not unknown to Karatbars or the German government. The German government is not full of idiots, they knew exactly what Karatbars is doing.
Karatbars is being closely audited by the German government twice a year. If they were running something which did not meet proper guidelines, they would have been shut down by now.
Also, the AMF warning – expect that to disappear from Google sometime soon. A court case was brought against the AMF by Karatbars, showing that their warning has no basis.
The judge has ruled in favor of Karatbars, came to the conclusion that nothing they are doing is illegal, and the AMF will be removing their warning from their site.
So the German government approves it, the AMF will be removing their warning, Karatbars has already opened their second headquarters in Dubai, UAE – the partnerships with FedEx, LBMA certification, MasterCard, Real Madrid football team, all are still healthy in place – I don’t know how much more evidence you need that Karatbars is following proper legal policies.
What do you mean non-existent gold ? I already told you that all gold is received physically by FedEx. It is also stored PHYSICALLY by the company, Prosegur – which by the way is a company OTHER than Karatbars.
This is all horseshit. Stop regurgitating your marketing material unless you’re going to provide evidence of your claims.
The gold doesn’t exist unless an affiliate requests it. Then and only then do Karatbars go and purchase gold to ship off.
This is from commissions earned, so it’s money you’d otherwise be requesting as a cash commission (which 99.9% of Karatbars affiliates do).
Otherwise it’s cash (numbers in your backoffice and funds in Karatbars’ bank account(s)). Karatbars need that cash to keep the recruitment scheme running. The scammers aren’t idiots, they’re not paying storage on non-existent gold.
Karatbars doesn’t classify as an MLM, it is legally registered as an E-commerce. With most MLM (Ozedit: is irrelevant to Karatbars being a pyramid scheme.)
Yes. And why is that a problem ? Do you mean to say that one should receive gold without having ordered it ?
Also, affiliates do not receive gold from commissions earned, that’s just one way that one saves in gold. They can login to their account at any time, do a checkout, and the gold will be in their hands in less than a week.
MLM compensation plan = MLM opportunity.
Recruitment commissions in MLM = pyramid scheme.
Because Karatbars pay out recruitment commissions, which gold has nothing to do with.
The ruse of purchasing gold is complete bullshit because it’s a by-product of affiliate recruitment, and even then only if an affiliate requests a portion of their recruitment commission be paid out in actual gold.
Otherwise (99.99% of all instances) a Karatbars affiliate is just paid a regular cash commission (on recruitment), which has nothing to do with gold.
No, no bullshit. If you want, inquire into it. Contact the authorities at the German government and see if they are being audited.
If Karatbars is simply “pretending” to be audited – you could be responsible for shutting down the whole company as giving such false information to the public is illegal.
Let the German authorities know that a company is pretending to be audited by their own government, I’m sure they wont appreciate that. But you will fail to do so – because they are actually being audited by the German government.
Karatbars do not pay out “recruitment” commissions. They pay out commissions to any of the products that are sold on their E-commerce, business packages are actually the minority of the products. Most of the other products have nothing to do with the business packages.
This aside, building your sales team is not the only way to build your team. You can add people exclusively as customers and still earn commissions. So no – this whole business is not about simply recruiting people.
Mate, you made the claim, you provide the proof. Don’t pass the buck.
No government regulator on the planet endorses businesses. Germany is no different.
Germany (and Europe to that extent) aren’t really known for cracking down on MLM pyramid schemes. Regulation there is decades behind (unfortunate but the way it is).
Sure they do. I recruit an affiliate, they buy into the scheme and I get paid. That’s a recruitment commission.
What Karatbars bundle with that is irrelevant, I was paid to recruit a new affiliate into the scheme.
See above, that recruitment commissions exist at all means Karatbars is a pyramid scheme. Everything else, “you can do this, you can do that”, is pseudo-compliance aimed as masking the core pyramid scheme.
Yes. That’s not illegal, sorry. Any business expert would tell you that. As already expressed a few times earlier, getting paid from recruitment is not illegal. Do you know that network marketing is a legitimate business or not ? Do you know most network marketing involves recruiting others to join the business ?
(Ozedit: Offtopic derail attempt removed)
Please listen to my words carefully. The German government is AUDITED not ENDORSING, but AUDITING Karatbars.
I’m not even sure if you’re aware how strict the business laws are in Germany. Much more so than the United States. The fact that the company has survived for five years in Germany, is active in 120 countries, has partnerships with FedEx, MasterCard, Real Madrid, do you think all of this would have been possible if anything they were doing were illegal ?
Do you think FedEx and MasterCard are idiots ? They don’t just join any company which claims to be reputable. They do thorough background checks on each and every company.
Please explain how these sort of partnerships are possible if what Karatbars is doing anything that even suggests illegality.
It’s what they don’t say!!!
Oh, really, partnership with a football team… You mean pay them, like Vemma, the pyramid scheme, sponsoring NBA teams?
Those don’t mean anything to legitimize the business. You’re just name-dropping.
@Daniel
A product-based pyramid scheme is not illegal? The hell planet do you live on?
Oh dear. Sounds like your “networking marketing” experience is limited to the MLM underbelly.
No they aren’t. Not until you provide proof.
You think the German government has nothing better to do than audit millions of companies?
“If we were a scam, we’d have been shut down!”
Germany is not known for going after pyramid schemes. And again, all those “partnerships” don’t exist until you prove otherwise.
Furthermore legitimacy by association is not a thing. If your business model defines you as a pyramid scheme, that’s what you are.
Karatbars’ business model defines it as a pyramid scheme.
Again, please distinguish between legitimate network marketing and illegal pyramid schemes – it seems you have ignored this point time and time again. According to you – all network marketing is illegal and a scam. This is plainly wrong. You don’t seem to understand the difference.
As for proof – that’s not much of a problem.
First, the LBMA certification. Take a look at the official stamp that’s on the gold. You will find it says NADIR. Then go to the LBMA website, type in their search engine Nadir, and you will find there is a refinery in Turkey called Nadir which is LBMA certified.
Check for any gold from the Nadir refinery, and you will find the same official stamp that is on Karatbrs gold. If you want, contact the company and ask them if they do business with Karatbars.
For proof of the MasterCard, visit: prepaid365awards.co.uk/winners/2013-winners/
Karatbars won the official award in 2013 for the best MasterCard design, which has been officially recognized. Also, do a simple Google and check if there has been any affiliate who claims they have not received their commissions on their mastercard.
And here is an official report about how Prepaid Financial Services has officially launched the Karatbars MasterCard:
prnewswire.com/news-releases/prepaid-financial-services-launch-gold-payout-card-with-karatbars-209156481.html
Next, FedEx. So you think Karatbars is delivering in 120 countries under a “Fake” FedEx company ? That, I cannot offer official evidence for, except I can claim that in 120 countries, anybody who has ever ordered a product has received it by FedEx.
I could send to you the emails I have received from FedEx with the tracking number of the product, but I cant really share that on a format like this.
Simply contact FedEx and ask if they have a partnership with Karatbars. Also look at their corporate video on YouTube, and you will see the gold being packaged with the official FedEx logo.
That an international company operating in 120 countries can claim to have partnerships with MasterCard and FedEx, and if that is untrue, somehow not be exposed – is simply not plausible or logical.
No, not just partnership with Real Madrid. FedEx, MasterCard, and the LBMA membership. All of these are extremely strong partnerships – to become LBMA certified, there are extremely strict laws in place for that, and less than 70 refineries in the world producing LBMA gold.
MasterCard and FedEx also do not get involved with scams, they make sure to do thorough background checks on every company they get involved with.
Good you mentioned Vemma, they are an excellent example of an illegal pyramid scheme. If you look at everything on the way it is structured, it is clear that the drive of the business is to encourage people to recruit, and that the majority of the business is centred around recruiting others.
Also, the court found the fact that you need to pay autoship fees every month to stay in the program something objectionable. Most of the affiliates were found to have been losing money from the scheme, and there was not a substantial customer base.
None of this is the case with Karatbars. There is a substantial customer base. Believe it or not, many people resonate with saving in gold as opposed to buying vitamin pills or skin cream.
If recruitment is the main object of the business and there is very little customers, its an illegal pyramid scheme. If recruitment is only secondary, and the main driving force is having customers who are given a product of value, then it is a legitimate company.
The error is to think that anything that involves recruiting is illegal. This is simply not true.
AT the end of the day, it comes down to something very simple – whether a company is intentionally exploiting people in a way where money is going in one direction, but value is not coming back in the other.
@Daniel
Mate the only one ignoring the difference between pyramid schemes and legitimate MLM is you.
If you pay recruitment commissions in MLM and/or have no retail, you are a pyramid scheme. End of story.
Go read up on Vemma and stop wasting my time.
Yeah, so Karatbars has a payment processor who they offer prepaid cards through. Not a credit card and not a partnership between Karatbars and Mastercard.
No, I’m saying gold delivery is pseudo-compliance when 99.9% of commissions paid out by Karatbars are cash and for recruitment.
What token amount of gold is shipped out for marketing purposes is insignificant.
QED. Your claims of lots of retail customers are just as BS as your partnerships.
As already explained, retail makes no sense because of prohibitive shipping. The only gold Karatbars ships out is token amounts for affiliate’s to market with. Otherwise it’s cash commissions for recruitment.
Yet this is what you wrote a few days back…
Automatic purchases *is* autoship. And “help other people build savings” is recruitment, is it not?
So you have FAILED to distinguish Karatbar from an illegal scheme. Clearly, you’re explaining it wrong.
I mentioned Vemma as someone who “partnered” with a famous sports teams.
As you put it, KaratBar has
Let’s not forget TelexFree and the Brazilian pro soccer team, Botafogo.
Heck, let’s not forget Houston Astros and Enron field.
Again, you’re just dropping names.
So, why is KaratBars so suspicious that it got a consumer warning from both Canadian AMF and Netherlands AFM?
See, I can drop names too. I think these names are more… authoritative than yours.
The Netherlands AFM was simply a copy and paste of the AMF which posted it first.
All of these sort of organizations are up to date with each other, and when one warning is issued, it is extremely common that the same warning gets posted in the corresponding websites of the other organizations.
if you take a look at the Netherlands warning – it was not because anybody has received complaints about Karatbars, but because it is an international company that is not registered in Netherlands – so it is simply a common note for due diligence.
If you look at the article – you will even see at the very bottom of it it warns about making international gold purchases online from companies in general.
The warning of the AMF is of the same nature – Karatbars is not registered with the AMF in Quebec, so therefore they have simply done proper due diligence.
It’s good that they posted it, because they don’t know what kind of company it is or all of the details involved, so it is understandable they want to be careful until they have more information. And as I said earlier, Karatbars took them to court and the judge has ruled in favor of Karatbars, so the AMF warning will have to be removed soon.
I wasn’t just dropping names. I mentioned MasterCard, FedEx, the LBMA certification, all of which (Ozedit: do not have partnerships with Karatbars. Stop reposting this nonsense unless you back it up with proof.)
Incorrect. Autoship is something which is mandatory and you have to continue making purchases to stay in the program. If simply making recurring purchases for a product or service is “auto-ship”, then a monthly gym membership is autoship as well.
If people want to build their gold savings automatically, then they can set up their account to automatically exchange paper currency into gold at regular intervals.
If they don’t want to do that, then they purchase gold whenever they want in their account. There is nothing illegal about any of this – it is entirely up to the customer to decide how they want to save in gold.
If you ask me – if somebody is wanting to save in gold regularly, it is only logical that they have an automatic system that does the purchases for them. That’s what technology is for, to make life easier. It sounds to me like you are just searching for excuses to complain.
Sure, the question is where does the emphasis lie and for what are most of the sales being made. If most of the sales are on recruitment, then the product is secondary.
If most of the sales are on the gold, then the recruitment is secondary. In one case, its illegal because people end up losing money. In the second case, its legal because people partake in real value. That’s the difference.
Ummm, no, they arent’. Perhaps you should meet some people in Karatbars and let them show you some of the technical details about their team. The teams which are very strong are those which most of the affiliates themselves are saving in gold, and the people they are helping are also saving in gold. In other words, the majority of money from the business is saving in gold.
Do you think there is much money to be made from these business packages?
They are just one-time commissions, and usually very small. Anybody who understands this business model well knows that the way to make passive residual income is to have as many people build their gold savings as possible, because that is what has long term potential. When you have 10, 20, 50, 100 people in your organization – all who have decided to purchase 1 gram of gold a week, for example, THATS where the money is made.
To make big money on the business packages, are you kidding ? I don’t know anybody in these teams who takes that idea seriously, and that’s certainly not how most of the powerful teams worldwide operate.
Most commissions are paid out for gold sales, not recruitment. That’s the reason why those people who do this sort of business well, and develop the skills needed, end up making a lot of money. For those who don’t, then like any business, they are wasting their time.
Where do you get your information from ? You are so well informed, its amazing how you can decide to post about the subject knowing so little about it.
No, nobody needs to purchase an affiliate package to receive gold, and most of the gold which is bought worldwide is NOT through the marketing packages. Why don’t you do some homework yourself ? Sign up as a customer, login to your account, and try to do a checkout without purchasing anything – and see if you can make a purchase without having a business package.
Gold is shipped out regardless of whether one is an affiliate or a customer, and most affiliates who save in gold are not buying business packages. They set up their auto-exchange or buy it manually to their convenience, like any other customer.
Again, show me one way that this system of selecting a product and doing a checkout is different from any other E-commerce site. Your claim that Karatbars only ships gold in small amounts for affiliates to market with, is completely false. This is not some gimmick affiliates are using, believe it or not, there are people who disagree with your way of thinking and actually feel its a good idea to save in gold through Karatbars.
Yet you have no idea how much sale to non-affiliate vs. affiliate is there, do you?
Where do you get your information from?
You’ve already conceeded the majority of commissions paid out is non-gold related (recruitment). Thus whatever token amount of gold is paid out is irrelevant.
Nevermind the fact that it’s paid out as cash and not gold in any case.
No need. That’s pseudo-compliance and irrelevant given the fact the majority of commissions Karatbars pay out are recruitment related.
Again pseudo-compliance, claiming you ship out gold is irrelevant when 99.9% of gold acquired is instead paid out as cash – on top of the majority of commissions paid out being recruitment related.
A legitimate e-commerce site will not be paying out recruitment commissions and using e-commerce as a front.
Prove it. There is no logic to requesting significant amounts of gold be shipped out when you can just receive the value in cash – on top of your recruitment commissions.
That the majority of commissions Karatbars pay out are recruitment related is proof enough.
Couldn’t give a shit what you disagree with. Facts are facts.
What a load of horseshit mate. There isn’t a regulator on the planet that publishes warnings without an internal investigation.
Jesus christ this guy is full of it.
they went over the business model and concluded that it was a recruitment-based pyramid scheme. That Karatbars was operating offshore was regulatory icing on the cake.
And yet there’s absolutely no proof of this. No media coverage, no court case, no complaint.
Like I said, this guy is full of it and I’m going to start marking unsubstantiated claims as spam.
This is a patently false statement.
Recruitment commissions in MLM = pyramid scheme = illegal.
If most of the revenue passing through the company is sourced from affiliates (and it Karatbars it is, given that most of the commissions paid out are recruitment related), then it’s a product-based pyramid scheme.
Ref. Vemma litigation and stop talking out of your ass.
Ummm, no, they arent’. Perhaps you should meet some people in Karatbars and let them show you some of the technical details about their team.
All affiliates, no retail sales.
Recruitment commissions extend beyond initial investment. Reinvestment by affiliates in your downline are still recruiment-based commissions.
Recruit affiliates and get them on autoship. That’s all recruitment-based and how the majority of Karatbars commissions are paid out.
Gold has nothing to do with it, as 99.9% of gold “saved” is just paid out with cash on top of recruitment commissions.
Affiliates recruiting affiliates != retail sales.
I am familiar with the Vemma situation. Karatbars has nothing to do with that.
Again, you seem to be obsessed with the fact that you can refer others to purchase products.
No, not all affiliates. I already explained to you that you somebody can register either as a customer or an affiliate, or if one wants to both save in gold and earn additional income, then one can also become an affiliate.
You seem to be ignoring that affiliates can also be customers who purchase a significant amount of gold. You also seem to be ignoring that you do not need to be an affiliate to purchase gold, and in fact many sign up as customers alone.
All of your statements show you are misinformed and don’t know what you’re talking about.
You still have not made the distinction, in your own words, between a legitimate network marketing company and an illegal pyramid scheme. Nothing about recruiting others makes a business illegal.
There is no purpose in carrying this conversation much further, there is nothing at all that can be said, no matter how much logic or good information is given to you, which will make you change your mind.
Even if the AMF warning is removed, and a court judge declares that everything Karatbars is doing is legal – you’ll still say that its an illegal pyramid scheme.
Even if data is given to you which shows that the majority of product sold is physical gold rather than business packages, you’ll still conclude the same. You are dead set in your opinion.
As for auto-ship, as I said before, there is no auto-ship in Karatbars. What there is are two ways to save in gold – one which is purchasing the product to one’s convenience, the other is setting up automatic payments.
Most of what you are calling autoship needs you to continue making these payments to get into the program, which I already said but you ignored. Monthly recurring fees are necessary, and if you don’t make enough money, tough luck – you still need to pay the monthly fees.
Nothing like that exists in Karatbars. I guess you are offended by the fact that there are automatic payments that can be done to save time and energy.
You’d probably prefer that people can only manually purchase they gold by logging into their account, choosing the product every time, and then doing the checkout. I guess then according to you, if its less time consuming and done manually – then its OK because its not automatic payments.
This is extremely strange logic. Please explain why you think having the option to save time and energy by making automatic purchases is so horrible, especially considering that its the choice of the customer whether or not he wants to do so and is not penalized in any way for not doing so.
You are not. Vemma tried to pull the psuedo-compliance crap with retail sales and customers. They had none and it didn’t work.
Your claims about Karatbars are the same.
Having retail sales and shipment of gold as a possibility is not enough. It needs to actually happen and it needs to dwarf affiliate activity.
In Karatbars it doesn’t, and that’s on top of the majority of commissions paid out tied to recruitment.
What you stated and that to which I replied to was an affiliates recruiting affiliates scenario. What “can” happen outside of that is irrelevant.
Yup, because it’s pseudo-compliance. What you can and can’t do doesn’t matter when the majority of funds paid into Karatbars is sourced from affiliates and related to recruitment activity.
Attaching commissions to recruitment in MLM is illegal.
Automatic payments = autoship.
Protip: Changing the name of something doesn’t change what it is. Neither does coming up with your own loony definitions of established MLM terminology.
Within the context of MLM, getting paid to recruit affiliates who go on autoship and then recruit other affiliates who do the same, with little to no retail activity taking place = chain-recruitment pyramid scheme.
Oh and thankyou for confirming you don’t have any proof to back up your AMF lawsuit claim. Neither do you have any proof to substantiate your claim of retail sales activity taking place.
In other words, you’re full of shit.
@Daniel: Could you please explain the following 2 questions:
1) The official site states(section Daily Gold Prices) that current gold price is 57.59 eur/g but various other sources (goldprice.org…) state that current gold price is 36.10 eur/g. Where does this difference come from ?
2)The latest published annual report (in the German commercial registry) is for year 2011. Where can I found annual reports for years 2012-2015 ?
Oz,
As for the AMF, no I don’t have proof (Ozedit: Snip. Waffle about unsubstantiated claim removed.)
As sales, obviously I cannot prove that (Ozedit: Snip. Waffle about unsubstantiated claim removed.)
The price per gram that you are looking at on goldprice.org is the price per gram when gold is sold by the ounce. You have both the price of an ounce and a price of a gram. Take the price per gram and multiply it by 31.1 (31.1 grams in a troy ounce) and you will get the price per ounce that is listed there ($1,278.41).
Gold is like any other product, in that the larger quantity you purchase, the more you get a volume discount per unit.
So you cannot compare the price per gram when sold in ounces to the price per gram when sold as a gram. You need to make an apples to apples comparison.
The vision of Karatbars is that it wants to make gold accessible not only to the rich and wealth who can afford ounces or kilograms, but also the average person by selling it by the gram.
That is one factor in the influence of the price, the fact that Karatbars is selling gold by the gram. The other factor is that all of the gold is LBMA certified. The price of LBMA certified gold to non-LBMA certified gold is different.
The gold is also a kinebar. This was a technology introduced in 1993 by the UBS bank.
Kinebars are gold that come with security features that prove that the gold is genuine and has not been tampered with. When gold does not have those security features, it can be both time consuming and costly to prove once again the fineness, purity, and weight of the gold to sell later on.
Kinebars are usually out of stock because of being in high demand, and they are also more expensive. And finally, the gold is privately issued instead of government issued – which means that it is far more secure against government confiscation.
So here are the main points that have an influence on the price :
1) The price of the gold is in grams, sold by the gram (not ounces)
2) The LBMA certification
3) The security features.
4) Privately issued.
Knowing these facts, you need to then compare the price of Karatbars to products of the same asset. Some companies I can mention are UBS, Argo Heraeus, Credit Suisse, Pamp Suisse. They all sell a similar product, LBMA gold that comes in a card that acts as the certification, and sell gold by the gram alone.
If you make the comparison, you’ll find that Karatbars gold is actually competitively priced.
Also, none of these companies are offering free storage (saves a lot of money on shipping), or 3 percent discounts on the price of the gold for a year, or the possibility of earning commissions on top of gold savings.
Changing the name of something doesn’t change what it is, but changing the nature of it does. Autoship are ordinarily mandatory payments. You must make monthly purchases of the product to say in the program and partake of commissions.
That is not the case with Karatbars, so it does not apply. I repeated this several times already.
Yes, attaching commissions to recruitment is illegal, but that’s not what Karatbars does. Affiliates earn a direct commission based on the sale of various products, not just the marketing packages.
That is commission based on product, not based on recruitment – there is no concept of a recruiting fee.
There is a range of products which you earn direct commissions from, and the marketing packages to help people do the business is just one small part of that.
Having most payments paid out to affiliates, even if that is true, still does not make it illegal. It is illegal if most of the money paid out is based on recruitment alone, and not on the product, if there is even one of real value.
Do know why Karatbars is not illegal, active in 120 countries, in spite of (Ozedit: Unsubstantiated claims removed)
As for Vemma – their case is completely different. You are obligated to make monthly purchases to stay in the program, and their advertising strategy was targeting vulnerable students, making ridiculous claims about the income that can be made, and encouraging students to drop out of school and take up a profession with the company.
Completely different context. Vemma affiliates, instead of being encouraged to make sales, were encouraged to simply give away their products for free as samples, and focus more on recruiting.
@Daniel
Thankyou for finally confirming you’re just making stuff up.
Any further made up claims will be marked as spam.
Autoship in MLM can be optional or mandatory.
I don’t know who told you it had to be mandatory (your Karatbars upline?), but this is false.
I’ve repeated this multiple times and am getting sick of stating it over and over again.
The products are tied to recruitment, in the event there are no retail sales.
You’ve conceded everything you’ve stated about retail sales in Karatbars was pulled from your ass. On top of that I’ve explained why retail sales in Karatbars makes no sense (as further evidenced by the fact that 99.9999% of commissions paid out are in cash and not gold).
Yet as a Karatbars affiliate, if I recruit a new affiliate I earn a commission. Whatever is attached to that is irrelevant, I was paid to recruit that new affiliate.
Furthermore if most of the revenue raised by Karatbars is sourced from affiliates paying monthly autoship fees (and it is), that means the entire commissions structure is recruitment-based.
Recruitment commissions are not limited to membership packages. They can be ongoing via affiliate autoship if said autoship is happening at the expense of retail (which in Karatbars it is).
Nice bit of wordsmithing there. Who else are commissions going to be paid out too?
If revenue entering Karatbars is mostly sourced from affiliates (and it is), that’s an illegal chain-recruitment scheme.
Not at the time they were shut down, and certainly not in the rejected compensation plan post FTC shutdown.
Vemma was a pyramid scheme because affiliates were the only ones buying the product (via autoship or otherwise). Retail did exist but it was insignificant (pseudo-compliance).
The similarities between Vemma and Karatbars should be obvious… unless you’re in denial.
According to this, then all of network marketing is illegal, as every network marketing company that I’m aware of pays commissions from recruitment.
No, autoship in MLM does not have to be mandatory, but it often is – and is a very strong reason why people complain about losing money from the program, and the fact that it is often mandatory can become a device to exploit people. But even then, the fact that a company has mandatory auto-ship (which Karatbars does not) still does not make it illegal.
Why should the company issue commissions in gold in order to be considered legal ? You get paid in cash like any other company would do.
Karatbars is not legally registered as an MLM, but (Ozedit: Unsubstantiated claims removed.)
This comment here is extremely deceptive and without much integrity. Just because I said that I cannot prove it, doesn’t mean that I made it up. Horribly dishonest comment.
You should edit yourself then, since you have made many unsubstantiated claims – one of which is that Karatbars is an illegal pyramid scheme.
Please provide evidence that most of the commissions that are paid out are because of recruitment and not purchase of gold.
If you cannot, please go back and edit all of your comments which you have said so, just as you have edited my message. But of course, you will not do that.
Yeah… I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of making stuff up.
False.
That you’re only aware of MLM underbelly pyramid schemes is neither here nor there.
Irrelevant. You just debunked your own bullshit claim that autoship in MLM has to be mandatory.
It wouldn’t but what it would do is demonstrate legitimate retail viability. That commissions are paid in cash (primarily for recruitment) completely destroys the “saving gold” ruse.
You’re not saving in gold if you’re getting paid in cash for recruiting new affiliates.
Irrelevant. MLM compensation plan = MLM company.
Sure thing. May I present to you Exhibit A: Karatbars’ compensation plan.
Have a nice day now.
Your compensation plan review is horrible. There are seven ways to get paid, and not only did you get the prices for each package wrong, but you completely dismissed other bonuses like the Unilevel.
Again, if Karatbars were technically an MLM, why aren’t they registered as one ? Why does the WTO consider that they have fulfilled all of the requirements of an E-commerce ?
OF course commissions are paid in cash. You want them to pay it in gold ? Do you know that there are some people who are making a living full time out of this ? You want them to go through the inconvenience and great hassle of converting your propsed payments in gold to cash every time, just so that they can put food on their table ? What kind of a ridiculous idea is that ?
If people want to save in gold, quite simply, use your money from commissions and buy some gold. This aside, Karatbars can actually pay you in gold also. They have an incentive program which rewards affiliates for gold sales – you can either accept the reward of the incentive (such as the rolex watch), or choose to have the equivalent given to you in gold.
This aside, every 200 Euros, a small amount is deducted into a gram of gold, so you are always saving while building your business.
Everything about the business is designed to help gold savings. The three percent discount codes off the price of gold for a year, you think that’s for recruitment ?
Get real and please educate yourself – you’re horribly misinformed its not even funny.
The review is dated and reflective of Karatbars compensation plan at the time. That they might have changed invetment amounts and added a unilevel commission doesn’t negate the core recruitment aspect of it.
Let me guess, unilevel = commissions on recruited affiliate autoships. That’d be right.
Which exposes the whole “saving gold” ruse. You’re not saving gold, you’re getting paid to chain-recruit in cash.
You’ll get no argument from me, I’m not claiming Karatbars has anything to do with saving gold.
Oh and the reasons you cited (which I’ve already cited) coincidentally are also why retail sales in Karatbars are a joke.
Getting paid cash to recruit new affiliates != “gold savings”.
I know that pretty much almost eveybody I know who is involved in Karatbars, whether an affiliate or not, is purchasing gold regularly and building their savings.
To get paid to help others move their fiat currency into a solid savings like gold, is in my opinion a brilliant and innovative concept with high integrity and far from a scam.
What is to me a far greater scam is (Ozedit: irrelevant. Offtopic derail attempts removed.)
No they aren’t. They’re purchasing income opportunity positions, which represents numbers in a backoffice claimed to be gold. Affiliates also earn commissions for recruiting new affiliates who purchase positions.
No gold exists unless an affiliate specifically requests Karatbars go out and buy gold with commissions earned.
If this request is not made, all commissions are paid out in cash.
Due to the prohibitive cost of shipping gold around the world, virtually all Karatbars commission payments are made in cash.
(Ozedit: Unsubstantiated claims about affiliate recruitment in MLM being legal removed.)
Retail sales in Karatbars are a joke ? On what do you base this ? Again, if what you were saying were true, Karatbars would have been shut down a long time ago, for reasons which Ive already explained.
My experience completely disagrees with you – Ive bought more gold than I ever previously thought was possible. What is a joke is your terrible misunderstanding and desire to twist the facts for your own benefit.
Numbers on a screen != purchasing gold.
You’re not requesting actual gold be shipped to you for the same reason no other Karatbars affiliates are. It’s cost-prohibitive.
Drop the facade and stop trying to bullshit everyone with your pseudo-compliance garbage about purchase gold.
See above.
The Madoff Investments scam lasted twenty years and was only discovered because Bernard Madoff himself confessed.
Your point being ????
Longevity does not signify legality.
Wrong. I request delivery for gold every time. And to save money on shipping, customers can take advantage of the free storage – put several grams of gold aside, and then have it shipped to them and pay the same single shipping fee.
docs please thanks.
Incorrect. First, your not purchasing a position. You’re purchasing a marketing package. Nobody needs to make any purchase to be positioned in the business – which is why anybody can open their affiliate account without any initial investment.
There are “ranks” in the company – like Bronze supervisor, Silver Supervisor, Gold Manager, Gold Director, Gold Director Elite, etc, but none of those can be purchased.
Each rank will offer you higher commissions depending on whether or not you qualify for them by the total volume of sales per month. You earn those positions, not purchase them.
What can be purchased is a marketing package which contains tools to help you run the business as an independent contractor.
Also, there are around 150 different products to purchase. Only four of those products are marketing packages. Get your facts straight. Affiliates earn commissions from any one of those 150 products – not just the four packages.
No retail ? You’re joking. Get up to speed with your information.
@Daniel
Unless you live next door to wherever Karatbars buy gold through, no you don’t. Costs are prohibitive.
Riiiiiiiiight. There is no gold until a customer puts an order through (never happens). Only then do Karatbars go and buy gold (with the affiliate’s money) and ship it.
PS. I’ve warned you several times about bullshit claims about investigations and the like you can’t prove. They’re now in the spam bin.
Spare me the pseudo-compliance BS. You’re buying a position in an MLM opportunity. You get paid to recruit new affiliates who do the same through a unilevel/binary hybrid.
Cool story bro, has nothing to do with anything.
Buy a position in the comp plan, get paid when those you recruit do the same. That’s all Karatbars is. Whatever they attach to that is irrelevant.
Retail is non-existent because shipping gold around the world on a regular basis makes no sense (cost-prohibitive).
What an ignorant statement. You are completely uneducated and obsessed about the recruitment thing its not even funny. There are over 150 products sold in Karatbars, and only four of them are marketing packages. If the emphasis was on recruitment, you wouldn’t have that many products, most of them gold, to sell.
Also, completely dismissed the fact that the marketing packages are optional – you don’t need to “buy in” to start your businesss.
Yes, the ranks do have something to do with what I said. You said wrongly that you need to “purchase” a position. There are no positions purchased.
If you have a position in your organization as a Gold Director, its because you earned it. The marketing packages are not a position, they are tools to help you do the business.
Network marketing is not illegal. I repeat – network marketing, that is, recruiting people who join a business who then go on to sell legitimate products or services, is not illegal.
If that is your claim, then you better provide evidence that such a structure is illegal – because countless well known and legitimate companies are doing it.
Traditionally gold is sold in ounces or kilograms. One kilogram costs around 45,000 dollars. An ounce is at least 1,200 dollars. That’s cost prohibitive, which is why most people do not own gold. Karatbars selling gold by the gram is the opposite of cost-prohibitive,
And as there being “no gold until a customer puts an order through”, if you’re going to complain about my lack of evidence, then you are entitled by the same standard to provide evidence of what you just said.
You simply invented that piece of nonsense. Karatbars offers LBMA certified gold. Being so uninformed, you probably don’t even know what that means. LBMA certification is extremely difficult and rare among gold.
There are less than 70 refineries producing that type of gold, and whoever has it, has gold which is internationally recognized and can be sold very easily at a later time.
To maintain their LBMA membership, do you think Karatbars would have “no gold” ? Ridiculous logic, excluding the fact that you have no evidence for your claim.
And if there was “no gold” – for a company that is active in 120 countries – it is extremely strange that nobody has complained about not receiving their gold on time. Takes only about 5-7 business days. Such quick and efficient shipping wouldn’t be possible if they did not already have gold stored in their vaults.
Again, provide evidence for your claim by the same standard which you have accused me, otherwise – your statements are baseless, biased, prejudiced, which falls in line very well with your traffic-hungry article.
Autoship recruitment commissions are still recruitment commissions. What you bundle to recruited affiliate comp plan position purchases is irrelevant.
Also there aren’t 150 products listed on the Karatbars website. Just a bunch of gold cards and a few gold-related cosmetic items.
Any more claims Karatbars has “over 150 products” without documented proof will be marked as spam.
You purchase positions in the comp plan, which you earn recruitment commissions on.
I never said anything about ranks, you went off on that tangent all by yourself.
It is when all they do is sell to subsequently recruited affiliates. It’s called a product-based pyramid scheme.
You think Karatbars is buying and storing it by the gram? Please.
They’re not idiots, they’ve got a scam to run. The gold doesn’t exist until they purchase it, and they only do that when the customer requests it. Most don’t, they’d rather be paid a cash commission.
Until a request is made, the “gold” is funds in Karatbars bank account(s).
Cost prohibitive storage and the fact that 99.9% of commissions in Karatbars are paid out in cash (something even you conceded a while back).
Or they just buy it from a supplier on-demand (when affiliates request gold). Spare us the waffle.
Why would people complain about receiving gold they didn’t order on time? They’re getting cash commissions for recruiting new affiliates.
All the evidence you need is in the Karatbars compensation plan.
wrong. gold may be traded on bullion markets in ounces or kilograms, but gold is RETAILED in grams. karatbars offering gold in grams is not unique, but is the common method of retailing gold.
certified gold coins of 2 gms, 5 gms etc are retailed by merchants to the common public. this certification is from a recognized authority, guaranteeing the purity of the gold.
for example in india, the BIS is the authority which certifies gold, and retailers sell BIS certified gold to customers. this does not mean that the retailer is a member or otherwise approved by the BIS.
similarly karatbars offering LBMA certified gold does not imply that they are a member or otherwise approved by the LBMA.
i found this list of LBMA members and as expected, karatbars does not figure on it:
lbma.org.uk/Default.aspx?CCID=19470&FID=124063&ExcludeBoolFalse=True&ID=/member-search-results
kindly furnish proof that karatbars is a ‘member’ of LBMA.
How about you answer this question:
Is Karatbar prices for gold competitive compared to the spot gold market price?
If so, WHERE are they getting the money to pay commission?
Hi Anjali,
On all Karatbars gold you will find the stamp of the refinery which is called the NADIR refinery located in Turkey.
That stamp is located on the front of the gold. On the back of the gold, Karatbars has made a special arrangement with NADIR for them to post the official Karatbars logo.
Simply visit the LBMA official website, and in the search engine there – type in NADIR.
As for the gold market in India – it is quite a unique situation that exists there. Just a short while ago, the bank of India has decided to start issuing gold by the gram to their citizens.
Most banks worldwide do not offer such a thing. A company like Karatbars is actually not allowed to operate in India because of the strict policies the government has which limits the amount of gold that can be imported into the country, which is why India is not on the list of active countries. Pakistan is also in a similar situation.
There are a number of companies that sell by the gram can be found online besides Karatbars – like Credit Suisse, Pamp Suisse, UBS, and Argo Hereus.
This was already explained earlier.
A common error among people who are not educated enough about the metals market is to go online, look for the “spot price” of gold, compare it to the price of a company like Karatbars which sells gold only by the gram, and then state that the gold is overpriced.
The “spot price” is only relevant to the price of a gram of gold when it is sold in ounces or kilograms.
Gold is like any other product in that when you purchase larger amounts, you get a volume discount. That is the reason why the price per gram when sold by ounces is cheaper than the price per gram when sold by the gram.
There are other companies selling a similar product – which is a gram of gold that is embedded in a card that acts as a certificate of authenticity. You will find all of the prices are in the same range as that of Karatbars, and the reason is because now you are making a proper comparison – you are comparing the price of a gram sold by the gram, with another company which is doing the same.
Please check the prices of such products from companies like UBS, Argo Hereus, Pamp Suisse, and Credit Suisse.
Karatbars gets money to pay commissions, mostly from the products that are sold by affiliates. Karatbars usually takes the larger percentage of the price of the product from the commissions.
They are also (Ozedit: unsubstantiated claims removed)
Yes, there are 150 products on the Karatbars website. This is again, another example of your speaking out of complete ignorance without doing proper due diligence. To have access to the complete list of products, you need to open a customer account.
Once you have created an account, on the dashboard as well as in the menu, you will find all of the products listed there. Actually, when I mentioned 150 products, I was just being modest and estimating. They have more than 150 products.
Is that an admission that Karatbar has a huge surcharge since it sells gold in tiny dribbles?
So like Ponzi schemes who register with banks using shell company names, Karatbars has no actual LBMA membership.
Instead they’ve bought off a third-party, who put Karatbars’ logo on LBMA gold they’ve acquired.
So I have to create an account to see products?
And you’re on here bullshitting about Karatbars having legitimate retail activity taking place???
This is just affiliate autoship recruitment, same old same old.
Hi Oz,
Call it “autoship” if you want. The point is that it is not mandatory, neither for a customer, nor for an affiliate to earn income. Customers can purchase manually or at regular intervals to their freedom.
Why do you have a problem with that ? I don’t see anything rational behind why you consider it such a horrible thing.
You can see some products on the main website without setting up an account, but the full list of products can be seen with a customer account.
Whether it’s mandatory or not is irrelevant.
Pay an affiliate fee, get paid to recruit affiliates and residually earn when your recruited affiliates pay autoship each month.
That’s all Karatbars is and ever has been. It has nothing to do with gold when virtually all commissions are paid out in cash on recruitment.
Yet another example of retail sales being an afterthought.
Karatbars does not pretend to be a gold refinery. The company is not a gold refinery, it is E-Commerce.
LBMA certification refers to the quality and standard of the gold itself, it has nothing to do with who distributes it. And to say that Karatbars is illegal, simply because they are working with a refinery who provides them with the gold, is not a strong argument.
That’s called a collaboration. Credit Suisse does the same thing, they are working with a refinery in Switzerland called Valcambi, who is the provider of their gold.
Any LBMA certified refinery would not be willing to put their reputation in jeopardy by working with a company which is a scam.
Thorough background checks are done, and NADIR is a refinery that is known to be of high integrity. NADIR obviously approves of them, which is why they agreed to put the Karatbars stamp at the back of the gold, along with the NADIR stamp at the front.
It seems whatever points are mentioned to you, you simply dismiss them by default regardless of what points are raise. Your argument is essentially an emotional argument.
I don’t see you changing your opinion, no matter what is said, the simple reason being that you already wrote a whole article about it which, I assume, you intend to generate traffic towards this site. To change your opinion would be setting yourself to appear foolish.
I am responding on your page, simply to offer some diversity of opinion. Although, I must say that compared to other blogs, which simply delete any messages that may include other differing opinion, I have to congratulate you on not falling into that same error.
Mate, you claimed Karatbars had LBMA membership. That was a load of baloney and you got caught out lying.
More speculative BS, known in MLM as “legitimacy by association”.
You do that. I’ll stick to facts.
If retail sales were an afterthought – you would see on the main Karatbars website mostly information about the business packages.
There is not even a single mention of them anywhere. Instead – the website only talks about gold and the product that they are offering to the general public, as well as the differing branding gold cards that companies can customize if they want to advertise their company.
If retail sales were an after thought – why would they go through elaborate effort to set up the many incentives for the gold sales? Also, why would they offer the K-Exchange option?
K-exchange is an option where companies can partner with Karatbars and set themselves up as what are called K-exchange centres. K-exchange centres are locations where people can either sell the gold from the store location, buy gold, or accept the gold itself as a form of payment without needing to convert it back into cash.
If you go on the K-exchange website, there are large numbers of companies which are operating as K-exchanges. If the company isn’t interested in gold sales, why would they offer this K-exchange option for other companies?
If you go back to my original review, that’s pretty much all that was available at the time. There was nothing about retail because it didn’t exist (added later as an afterthought).
What you see today is pseudo-compliance, a bunch of waffle added to mask the core recruitment-driven nature of the scheme.
Karatbars is and always has been about paying a fee and getting paid to recruit others who do the same.
So affiliates like you can run around the internet blabbing on about it, in the hope others will stop referring back to Karatbars’ recruitment commissions.
Pseudo-compliance.
Nothing to do with the MLM opportunity, irrelevant.
What I meant was that the gold they are offering is LBMA certified, not that Karatbars is a refinery producing their own gold. And yes, they would lose that privledge of offering LBMA certified gold is anything they were doing is illegal.
Seeing how LBMA refineries are extremely tight and strict with their policies, NADIR wouldn’t have even considered them if anything Karatbars was found to be illegal.
Before making contract agreements, Nadir needs to make sure that the company they are involved with is following all of the proper legal procedures.
I doubt you’re interested in “sticking to the facts”, because you do not seem committed to getting the facts right in the first place, you’re more committed to a prejudice.
Well, that’s not what you said:
But uh sure, that’s not what you meant…
No they wouldn’t, because Karatbars aren’t an LBMA member to begin with.
You have no idea what NADIR would or wouldn’t have done, so stop pretending you do.
Sign up as a Karatbars affiliate, pay a fee, get paid to recruit others who do the same in cash.
That’s a pyramid scheme.
Wrong. Gold sales (Ozedit: I never said anything about gold sales. Offtopic arguments built on a premise that never happened removed.)
The reason why Karatbars has talked about the affiliate program is because that’s what drives most of their sales. It’s typical network marketing. Instead of paying millions of dollars on billboards and other advertisements, take advantage of word of mouth and pay people who will refer others to the company to purchase the product.
If you have a company which is selling most of their products through affiliates, you need to focus on building the affiliate program, because it is directly linked to the sale of products. This is, again, typical network marketing – which according to you, is illegal.
An yes, what I have said is relevant. You’re the one claiming that the whole company is about recruiting others, I am giving you examples to show that it not the case – so it is highly relevant.
No, I’m not an affiliate. I’m a customer. I’m replying to your messages because of my own internal issues – Ive never liked to see people offering prejudiced opinions which are misleading, ill-informed, and in your case – designed to feed off peoples fear and neurosis.
Of course they would. If Karatbars has a bad track record with any LBMA certified (Ozedit: Karatbars has no LBMA relationship. Unsubstantiated claims removed.)
I agree and have been saying this all along. Of course recruitment is a driving factor in a pyramid scheme. The rest of the business doesn’t matter.
Affiliates getting paid to recruit affiliates in MLM is a pyramid scheme.
Y’huh, you’re quite obviously both. Genuine retail customers don’t research up on the ins and outs of a business opportunity, let alone feign knowledge of a detailed history of the company.
But I’m sure claiming to not be an affiliate “is not what you meant” either.
It is good that a company like Karatbars sells gold by the gram for people like me who cannot afford ounces or kilograms. I don’t have at least a thousand dollars in my pocket to purchase ounces in one go, but what I can afford are several grams at a time.
There are many people who are in a similar position, and selling gold by the gram makes it accessible to the larger masses rather than the elite few. It also has the other advantage that having gold by grams gives you more control over the amount of gold you can save and convert to cash – which ounces and kilograms do not because you’re forced to convert the whole ounce or kilogram.
Its a “super-charge” if you’re comparing it to the price of a gram when sold as an ounce. But then – so is a single carton of milk compared to several cartons, or a single bottle of water compared to barrels of it.
There is a reason why companies charge more per unit than when buying in bulk – and its because there are extra labor costs involved.
So if you’re thinking the gold is “supercharged” because you’re buying it in grams, and is therefore a scam, then every company which charges more per unit is operating a scam according to that logic.
The problem here is you haven’t told us what WAS the surcharge KB puts on its gold. Are we talking 10%? 20%? 30%? More?
it seems neither you nor karatbars understands what pyramid schemes are. the karatbars website says:
^^ this is wrong, because offering a product with innate value is not enough to be a legitimate MLM and not a pyramid scheme.
a product which has innate value will naturally show healthy retail, which is very doubtful in karatbars given its focus on its affiliate program
to assess whether a scheme is a pyramid or legit MLM, you need to ask WHO is buying the product and WHY:
-in karatbars the WHO is: mostly affiliates
-in karatbars the WHY is: ‘primarily’ to earn commissions. though the product may have value, it is being purchased Primarily to obtain commissions.
if karatbars itself misunderstands what a pyramid scheme is, its only expected that affiliates like daniel will run around claiming that recruitment commissions are fine because that how network marketing works!
and haha, the karatbars website refers to Vemma as a legit business, and we all know what has happened to vemma! [even though vemma’s products had some value, they were being purchased Primarily for obtaining commissions.]
karatbar website:
well, at least KB admits on its website that some of the surcharge is to cover for the affiliate commissions paid out:
correction:
the above quotes in post 141 and 142 are not from the karatbars official website but from kbgoldreview.com.
doesn’t seem like an affiliate website to me but seems more company sponsored.
That’s the question, ain’t it? Ya think Danny boy there will come back with an answer?
– just because karatbars uses fedex for the few gold deliveries it makes, doesn’t mean that fedex has a ‘partnership’ with karatbars or otherwise ‘legitimizes’ it.
please provide some documentary evidence of any karatbars/fedex ‘partnership’.
– are you sure that prosegur provides its storage facilities for karatbars, because this is what the AMF, canada reported;
if the AMF, canada is wrong, then please provide some documentary proof that prosegur is the storage company for karatbars.
also, i have found several references to real madrid’s sponsors and licenced partners on the net, but kartabars is not mentioned in them. the only reference to a ‘licensing agreement’ between real madrid and karatbars comes from affiliate websites/blogs/posts.
please provide proof of the relationship between real madrid/karatbars. printing a photo of the real madrid team on karatbar cards, does not mean that real madrid has ‘licensed’ them to do so.
daniel has already tried to misrepresent the relationship between LBMA and karatbars, and i’m pretty certain all his other claims are also BS.
ethan vanderbuilt did a comparative price study of karatbars with other companies in feb, 2016:
so daniel, how do you explain the high comparative cost of karatbars gold? isn’t the high price due to the recruitment commissions paid out?
isn’t the high shipping costs to dissuade affiliates from choosing delivery of their ‘gold’?
and since prosegur, germany is not storing karatbars gold, where is all this unclaimed gold held?
Hi Anjali,
Again, please do proper due diligence. You must do a thorough investigation before arriving at proper conclusions.
I am familiar with both of those sites. Have you tried to do a checkout ? I recommend that you do. You will find that JM Bullion will not allow you to purchase one gram alone, you will be asked to purchase at least 100 dollars. Because you are purchasing in larger amounts, again, the price per gram is cheaper.
Also when it comes to “free shipping” for JM Bullion, that is because they only operate in the United States. If they were operating internationally, they would be charging a shipping fee.
As for AMPEX.com , it is a similar situation – except when you do the checkout, you will be asked to make a purchase of at least $250 dollars before you will be able to get one gram at that price.
Neither of these websites will allow you to purchase one gram alone, the cost for one gram on their site is a marketing gimmick. They do not mention that you need to purchase several grams before you will be allowed to do a checkout.
Compare the price of Karatbars to another company which sells a similar product, and by the gram alone – like UBS, Credit Suisse, PAMP suiise, Argo Hereaus – and you will find them all to be within the same price range.
(Ozedit: Offtopic derail attempts removed)
No, the shipping costs are normal. Again, compare the shipping costs to the four companies I have mentioned. You will find that Karatbars actually offers cheaper shipping and all of those other companies charge for their storage.
Some of those companies have a cheaper price on the gold, but charge higher on the shipping, while Karatbars charges more for the gold, but less for shipping.
Here is a price comparison for you to research, as of 4/12/2016 :
UBS :
1 gram – $80.71
Shipping: $30
Storage: 0.42% per month of total market value
Argo Heraeus
1 gram – $52.46
Shipping – $30
Storage: 0.42% per month of total market value
Credit Suisse
1 gram – $56.50
Shipping – $30
Storage: 0.42% per month of total market value
Pamp Suisse
1 gram – $54.48
Shipping – $30
Storage : 0.42% per month of total market value
Compared with Karatbars :
1 gram – $66.16
Shipping: $22.13
Storage: Free
(Ozedit: Unsubstantiated claims removed)
As for providing “documentary evidence” – it is foolish to ask such a thing since I do not possess legal documents and (Ozedit: No proof = more unsubstantiated claims)
And no, I did not try to misrepresent the relationship between LBMA and Karatbars. That is extremely disingenuous of you.
What I said was that Karatbars gold is LBMA certified, and if they were doing anything illegal, they would lose the right to distribute LBMA gold.
No, the gold is held in their own private storage facility in Germany.
An international lawyer who visited the company headquarters has actually given very good details about how the company operates in his report.
Anjali,
By the way, here’s some more info on the situation for JM Bullion’s free shipping which is limited only to the US:
jmbullion.com/about/shipping/
Please don’t listen to misinformed idiots like Ethan Vanderbuilt.
@Daniel: You forgot to answer my question. Where can I found annual reports for years 2012-2015?
I am interested in profit and loss statement(especially retail sales). As far as I know every german limited company is obligated to publish this document.
I wouldn’t know that, I’d be curious to see that myself. Maybe there is a public archive where that sort of information on companies in Germany is published ?
@Daniel
What previous experience, if any, do you have with MLM?
@Daniel
I suppose this is yet another claim I’m going to have to start removing because you can’t back it up?
yes, JM bullion has free shipping only in the US and they require a minimum purchase of $100.
so riddle me this;
an american gold buyer can buy 2 gms gold from JM bullion for approx $100 [at current gold rates] and get it shipped free. JM bullion is a trusted american bullion seller.
OR
an american gold buyer can buy 1 gm gold from karatbars for approx $88 [gold + shipping]. karatbars is a german company of debatable repute.
what does common sense tell you? which purchase makes more sense for an american buyer in terms of spending and security?
alexa shows that approx 30% of karatbars traffic is from the USA and it is your main market.
so, why will so many americans have an interest in overpriced karatbars gold if not for the recruitment commissions?
also, though you say karatbars does not work in india, it does have a presence here and approx 5% of alexa traffic is routed from india.
why will indians buy 1 gm gold at $88 when they can buy BIS hallmarked 1 gm coins from their local jeweler at approx $47? i can tell you for sure that such buying is only for the recruitment commissions!
btw, alexa ratings show that karatbars is in continuous decline over the last year or so. is recruitment slowing down?
traffic.alexa.com/graph?o=lt&y=t&b=ffffff&n=666666&f=999999&p=4e8cff&r=1y&t=2&z=30&c=1&h=150&w=340&u=karatbars.com
i looked at the website at karatbars.com and could not find any information on storage or the address of the storage facility.
bullion traders like JM and APMEX give information about their storage facilities in clear view on their websites.
why has prosegur been widely advertised by karatbar affiliates as being the storage facility for karatbars? was that a part of the same misinformation campaign, as claims about LBMA ‘membership’ and ‘licensing agreements’ with real madrid?
bullshit. if karatbars had any partnerships with fedex or real madrid or membership of the LBMA etc, they would readily provide affiliates with legal documents to that effect and advertise it on their website. it would make the karatbars products and business opportunity so much easier to sell.
instead all we have is BS claims from affiliates like you who trot the net spreading lies.
yeah i saw that letter from a german lawyer ‘clearing’ karatbars in 2014.
looks like a paid puff piece to me, with some very generalized comments.
even onecoin hired some german lawyer to write a ‘legal opinion’ about them, so ponzi/pyramid scams impressing their sheeple with hired lawyer gobbledygook is not unusual at all.
the letter says:
yeah, thanks Markus Ch. Nöring, hope you were paid well for your ‘legal opinion’!!
the letter can be read here:
fraudandscam.com/investor-alerts/amazing-review-of-karatbars-international-based-on-personal-investigation-of-noteworthy-international-attorney/
Please find even one person complaining, in the 120 countries which are active, who claims that the packages they receive are not through FedEx.
As for storage, it is actually dangerous to reveal the exact locations of where companies store their gold and some companies prefer to keep that information private between themselves and the government in which they operate.
Suisse Gold mentions nothing about where they have their storage facility, and it is not uncommon for other companies to keep that information private.
(Ozedit: Unsubstantiated claims removed)
Nice strawman rebuttal, proof of the partnership was requested – not who the 0.0001% of affiliates who receive gold receive it through.
Ummmm yes, and there have also been many legitimate companies who have hired lawyers who have made accurate and truthful reports about their business. The lawyer was actually not hired by Karatbars, it was from the site scamandfraud.com, which is dedicated to exposing frauds. Nevertheless, even if the lawyer were hired by Karatbars, that would still not make any of the information inaccurate. This is a very poor argument. As far as the address for the storage facility, I believe it is mentioned somewhere there in the letter, which anybody is welcome to visit. Karatbars have even posted photographs of their gold storage on their Facebook page. The address is of the Delivery Logistics Center located at Friedrichstrasse 23b, in Stuttgart Germany.
Another failed argument from you.
It is ridiculous to ask me to provide proof – as I said before, I am not authorized to share legal documents which I don’t have. Simple reasoning however should suggest what is most likely.
So don’t make bullshit claims then and expect anyone to take you seriously.
ha. as if fedex checks out the business module of a company before accepting delivery.
you don’t need a ‘partnership’ with fedex to use their services.
you really have piss poor arguments.
I gave you examples of other companies selling a similar product, and have already demonstrated that the gold is not overpriced.
No, Karatbars is not active in India. You can take a look at the list of active countries which Karatbars delivers to on their main website. They simply don’t deliver to India.
About buying from a local jeweler for 47 dollars, I don’t know what mysterious jewelers you’re talking about – but most places don’t sell 1 gram alone, apart from India and Turkey which are rare exceptions.
Also, it is not enough to look at the price alone. Even if the gold is 24 karat, not all 24 karat gold is LBMA certified. As I said, there are (Ozedit: waffle about LBMA removed)
Of course they’re “active” in India.
Karatbars in India is the same as anywhere else, recruitment commissions that have nothing to do with gold.
The other part of my message seems to have been edited. I said that simple reasoning however should suggest what is most likely, then continued to detail that reasoning. That the company is (Ozedit: Unsubstantiated claims removed)
How are they active in India if they don’t deliver products there?
Take a look on their main website and check the active countries. They’re not on the list. They used to be on the list, but offered only storage of the gold without delivery because of the government restrictions on importing gold.
Also, it is possible to register your Karatbars business with an overseas address, but operate from India, assuming that one is not searching for customers in India because the company doesn’t even deliver there.
^^ THEN :
so, which is it daniel?
if karatbars is withholding storage information on its website for ‘security’, then why is this information provided in some german lawyers letter and on FB?
can either karatbars or you keep their story straight?
If you’re going to be delivering and packaging gold, yes you need a specific arrangement between your company and FedEx.
There are strict laws which must be followed when it comes to shipping precious metals, and FedEx is not going to (Ozedit: Unsubstantiated claims removed)
Oz,
You edited my comments again about the price of the gold, and the fact that gold that comes with security features like Karatbars is more expensive. Extremely dishonest of you.
I’ll repeat again, and this is not off topic – the price of Karatbars gold is influenced by the LBMA (Ozedit: Unsubstantiated claims removed)
And the only person who would believe the “genetic markers and DNA technology” nonsense is someone trying to market way, way overpriced gold and reading it straight from Karatbars sales spiel.
IOW, it’s bloody rubbish.
Amazing how many times my simple question gets ignored.
JM bullion in the USA offers pamp suiise gold which is LBMA certified, at approx $50 per gram. shipping is free in the USA for a $100 purchase.
APMEX bullion in the USA offers ‘kinegold’ from argor hereaus, which is LBMA certified, at approx $58 per gram. shipping is free in the USA for $100 purchase.
so why is karatbars main market the US, and why are these people paying for overpriced gold and shipping? must be the recruitment commissions!!
this crap about DNA and genetic markers is stuff found only on karatbar affiliate pages.
the site karatbars.com is down for maintenance, but when i checked this morning, i don’t recollect seeing anything about DNA technology and genetic markers.
daniel has made so many wild claims but hasn’t been able to back a single one with any believable evidence. ‘karatbars says so’ is not evidence, but rather evidence of a slimy marketing method used by scam schemes.
And if they’re making any significant commission money, say $1200, why not buy an ounce of gold at the lowest price from somewhere else?…….Since the goal is to buy gold.
Now there’s a thought. Yes? But wait, then who needs karatbars gold? I’m so confused!
why will indians take the trouble to join karatbars with overseas addresses?
it cant be for gold that cannot even be delivered to them. it cant be for the gold price, because gold is available much cheaper at local jewelers in india.
so, indians joining karatbars is only for the recruitment commissions they can make. the ‘gold’ offered is of no interest to them. they are not selling the ‘product’ but only ‘recruiting’ which is why karatbars is a pyramid scheme.
5% of alexa traffic for karatbars is generated from india, and its not because indians like looking at the website!
@Daniel
Because recruitment commissions has nothing to do with delivering products.
But KB don’t even ship the gold. They do. So your so called “competitive pricing” is still bull****.
Yes, they do ship all products. Simply open an account, purchase a product, and in the checkout – choose whether you want the gold shipped or in storage.
If it is shipped, as long as one’s country is among the list of 120 active countries, it will be shipped there.
The costs of shipping for Karatbars are in fact cheaper than all of the other companies I mentioned, but because they charge more for the gold, with the exception of UBS, the total cost is about the same.
Still invalid. An affiliate in India wouldn’t even be able to receive his marketing package, for the reason that I repeated already twice, they do not ship to India.
They wouldn’t even be able to receive the MasterCard on which to have access to commissions, again for the same reason, that they do not ship to India. I will repeat it for a third time – they do not ship to India.
Anjali,
They wouldn’t even be able to join from India, because when selecting a marketing package which would give you access to the higher commissions, you wouldn’t even be able to select “India” from the list of countries.
I mentioned that it is still possible for somebody in India to still do the business with an overseas address – just to get the facts right, not because I am familiar with anybody who wants to do such a thing.
But theoretically, an affiliate can live in India and still do the business. You’re correct, in that if they were to purchase gold, they wouldn’t be able to receive it physically because Karatbars don’t deliver to India. However, they could always have the gold shipped to an overseas address.
Hi Char,
It’s really depends on what features you find attractive. Some people like the idea of having gold with the multiple security features, which Karatbars gold does have but is lacking in most other companies – UBS and Argo Hereaus being the only other two companies with the security technology.
This aside, there are other reasons why somebody would want to save gold in grams – besides the fact that it makes gold accessible to those who cannot afford ounces or kilograms. When you save gold in grams – it gives you more flexibility over the amount of gold you can save and convert to cash.
It is just like, instead of having 100 dollar notes, you have 20 dollar notes instead. If you have gold in ounces or kilograms, when you want to convert to cash – you will be forced to convert the whole ounce or kilogram. Nobody can simply cut off one small piece of gold from an ounce or kilogram and then sell it.
So that is another factor to consider – having gold in grams makes it more transaction friendly and gives you greater control over what you want to do with the gold.
Anjali,
The DNA genetic markers is on the gold itself. Karatbars even sells the technology for you to be able to read them. And yes, anybody who owns Karatbars gold, can look at all of the security features.
JM Bullion shipping to the USA for free might save money on shipping for people who are in the USA. People outside of the USA can’t even purchase from there. And because JM Bullion only operates in the USA, that is why they can ship for free. If they were active in more countries, I can guarantee you they would be charging a shipping fee.
You are speaking as if the whole world were located in the USA. For people who want their gold shipped to other countries, they will have to pay a shipping fee – and the price for the gold combined with the shipping fee amounts to around a similar cost to Karatbars gold with their shipping fee.
I have already given you price comparisons. This aside, UBS charges much more for their gram of gold than all of the other companies.
Littleroundman,
That cannot be the case, as Karatbars gold, even with the security features, still amounts to around the same price range as all of the other companies without the security features.
Again, I gave price comparisons above. It’s not bloody rubbish, you’re just uneducated about the subject. Take the price of Karatbars gold along with the shipping fee, and do the same for Credit Suisse, Pamp Suisse, UBS, and Argo Hereaus.
I will save you the time. Here is the total cost for all the four companies – the shipping fee added to the price of 1 gram of gold, compared to Karatbars. In fact, taking the total cost, Karatbars is actually cheaper than Pamp Suisse and UBS.
UBS – $110.71
Argo Hereaus – $82.46
Credit Suisse – $86.50
Pamp Suisse – $88.48
Karatbars – $88.29
Yes, it does. You need to have a MasterCard to receive commissions, and the MasterCard is delivered and shipped to the address in your profile.
Another example of speaking without having all of the facts. A little bit of humility would do you some good.
@Daniel
How much gold has been delivered to your home?
We are talking mere pennies in price – not much to write home about.
Lets make one thing clear – If you using that as a selling point for Karatbars you have lost my interest in it already.
Gold being what it is GOLD – Exactly why do I need Karabars to buy it?
So far the prices are all the same.
@Daniel
Getting a Mastercard shipped to you via a third-party merchant has nothing to do with Karatbars’ own products.
Or just do what everyone else is doing, ignore the gold and get paid in cash to recruit.
Here’s two random examples (all I did was type ‘karatbars india’ into Google):
Basically sign up, invest and recruit others who do the same to get paid – slideshare.net/jainsanjeev74/karatbars-india
Note the use of “can”. You can opt for gold, or just do what all the affiliates do and request cash.
Also “no product selling” gives away yet again, Karatbars is just about “investing” and recruiting others who do the same.
franchiseindia.com/brands/Karatbars-India.15748
But uh yeah, Karatbars is totally not active in India.
What is bloody rubbish is the fact Karatbars “additional security features” add value to the product or are what buyers are prepared to pay a premium for.
One only needs to check out Karatbars traffic figures to realize genuine gold buyers are staying away in droves, leaving only those invested in the endless chain recruitment side of a dying scheme to defend it.
actually, i’m speaking about karatbars main market which attracts 30% of traffic [alexa], being the USA.
US citizens can get LBMA certified kinegold much cheaper than karatbars price. so its surprising that the USA is your main market.
without the recruitment commissions paid out by karatbars, how many americans would buy ‘gold’ from a disreputable german company?
as for karatbars DNA technology and genetic markers, ain’t it surprising that other renowned bullion traders don’t seem to require this ‘tech’ to sell their gold to consumers?
this DNA tech thing seems to be some pretentious gobbledygook to explain away karatbars high pricing.
It is not pretentious, because having the DNA technology and other features does nothing to make it more expensive than any other kinebar.
There are many people buying the gold in the US for other reasons. Karatbars affiliates offer a three percent discount code on the price of the gold which lasts for a year.
If one is deciding to purchase gold regularly, that means every time a purchase happens, youre getting three percent off the price of gold every time – so the more you save, the more of a discount one recieves.
There are plenty of reasons why somebody would want to purchase Karatbars, it all depends on what your preferences are. Not everybody shares your outlook.
Karatbars may have been once active in India, but it is not anymore. Again, you simply need to visit their main website and look at the current list of active countries to know this.
Ive been purchasing a gram of gold every week for the last seven months.
5% of Karatbars’ website traffic is from India. Karatbars is globally in decline but obviously still active in India.
You dont have to purchase from Karatbars. But not all of the companies that I mentioned before operate in many countries worldwide, while Karatbars delivers to 120 countries.
If those companies are not available to deliver in your country, and you want to save by the gram, Karatbars is an option.
Your circumstances and preferences however may prefer another company, its really a matter of what it is youre looking for and what features youre attracted to.
If affiliates are still active there, I dont see them being successful in India. They wont be able to find either customers or affiliates in their country, so they will have to find people outside of India. Thats always an option.
Which explains how they were recruited in the first place, right?
Lot of unsubstantiated speculation in your replies (as usual)…
That’s exactly the point. The prices are all in the same range.
People who are complaining that the gold is overpriced simply don’t know what they are talking about. It is priced properly for its asset.
The real question here is can you really count a “virtual purchase” (i.e. for storage) gold an actual purchase?
‘gold’ falls in the list of ‘restricted and prohibited’ products that fedex delivers.
any company wanting to deliver gold, will have to sign a contract with fedex, indemnifying them from loss and stating that they are themselves responsible if any regulations are being breached, etc.
such a contract with fedex, in NO way means that fedex is ‘assured’ that the client is engaged in a legal business.
as i said before, fedex is a delivery agent not a regulator.
you are trying the ‘legitimacy by association’ argument which doesn’t hold any water, but is used to impress new recruits in karatbars.
US citizens are buying gold like never before, because of the shakiness of the stock markets and the fear of an economic crisis.
in nov, 2015 CNN Money reported:
money.cnn.com/2015/11/12/investing/us-gold-demand-surges-markets-fed/
the world gold council report for the first quarter of 2016 also notes that american interest in gold bars and coins has increased by about 55%:
the US is karatbars main market, and daniel is adamantly arguing that karatbars gold bars/coins have ‘real customer demand’ due to its superior security offering and competitive pricing.
so why is karatbars in decline, while its primary market ie the US is showing a huge spurt in private gold purchase?
alexa notes karatbars decline;
alexa.com/siteinfo/karatbars.com
Sure, if people want to buy their gold elsewhere, then that is up to them.
As I said, there are advantages to purchasing Karatbars – besides the commissions if one decides to do the business, which you can then use towards purchasing more gold.
There is also the three percent discount, the fact that the company will purchase the gold back, that there are several K-exchange centres worldwide which make it easier to sell the gold later on, and the free storage (most companies in the US will charge for storage).
There are features somebody may find attractive, and others which one may not find attractive – but the fact that other companies in the US are shipping their gold for free does not make Karatbars a scam.
If that’s the case – then all of the other European companies which also offer shipping to the US are “scams” because they are charging for shipping. This is a ridiculous argument.
Karatbars is not in decline, it is actually opening up more and more in other countries. Starting 2016, they will be active in China. The company is doing very well internationally – but you are correct, the largest market has been in the US.
Other gold companies usually charge for a storage fee, so first lets be clear that offering storage for your gold is not unique to Karatbars.
Yes, it can still be considered a purchase even if it is purchased online. This is not “virtual” gold, or gold certificates – which some people sell on the futures market. It is physical gold that you can choose to have delivered at any time.
Daniel, honey, that’s not growth in MLM. That’s fizzle in one country so they move to the next.
I know it has been said before, but it really doesn’t take long for people to realize they are paying well above market value for tiny amounts of gold.
Once people figure that out they are out..
so, when private gold purchase is peaking in the US, karatbars shows a continuous decline inspite of its security features and discounts and what not? why would this be, daniel?
could it be that people are choosing not to purchase their gold from karatbars, because its pricing is not competitive and because it is not a trusted bullion dealer.
the only advantage to purchasing karatbars, seems to be that you can make commissions by getting others to buy it too. retail will be very very difficult and probably very low. and as recruitment in the US [and other countries] is slowing, karatbars is in decline.
the pricing alone does not make karatbars a scam. the pricing raises doubts about the ‘retailability’ of karatbars gold. the fact that karatbars is in decline, in a market where gold demand is peaking, shows that its product does not offer ‘value’ and the scheme is based on recruitment, ie it is a pyramid.
can you back up this claim with any hard evidence, because alexa tells a different story.
It seems you are bent on being prejudiced. First, do you have a paid account on Alexa ? If you don’t, when you do a search – you will get incomplete information. Next, did you compare and check other companies on alexa ?
Check AMPEX.com – 83 percent of visitors are from the United States. Check pamp.com – the only country which actually appears is the US (with a free alexa account) – which suggests that other countries are not even purchasing from them, even though it can be found that they sell gold in various countries on their main website. Check suissegold.com – most of their visitors are in Greece, according to Alexa.
If you check Karatbars – you’re going to find more countries appear in the search result on Alexa than those companies I mentioned, and it also has a higher global rank.
Please get your facts right. Karatbars main market is the US, but they are doing extremely well in other countries also.
They recently, as of 2016, opened their second major headquarters in Dubai, and they will be active in the Chinese markets starting 2017. They recently also entered into Hollywood, collaborating with actors in a film called Deprivation and producing branding cards for actors like Vincent De Paul.
Most international companies which have been around for only 5 years do not experience even half of this sort of success, Karatbars is doing extremely well both in the US and elsewhere.
You are obviously not educated on the subject. The “market value” for 1 gram of gold is usually presented as the spot price, and the spot price refers to the price of a gram when sold by the ounce.
Yes, people are paying “way above the market value”, if you are buying a product as a unit rather than wholesale.
1 gram of gold sold by the gram is obviously more expensive than a gram of gold sold by ounce or kilogram – and the fact is that there are large numbers of people who cannot afford ounces or kilograms of gold.
Do you want gold to be available only to the elite, as if it were some monopoly for the rich and wealthy?
How many people do you think own gold worldwide? How many of them are rich? Almost all of them who have many ounces or kilograms of gold are people with upper class income.
Karatbars is trying to provide a solution to global inflation by helping most people save in gold. Do you think that selling gold by ounces or kilograms is a practical solution to protection against inflation for the average person?
Think it through and be objective.
@Daniel so saving comes with its own compensation plan?
Most of the selling with Karatbars is done with the fear of gloom and doom that the whole economy is going to collapse and the only way to protect yourself is with these tiny gold bars.
Yet when push comes to shove I don’t think people with the gold bars will matter much to the guy that needs water and bread for his family.
My thinking is you prepare with more than gold bars in your basement.
@Daniel
Numbers don’t lie. Globally Karatbars has been in decline since October 2015.
i am basing my opinion on alexa ratings. do you think alexa is prejudiced?
even without a paid account on alexa, it is clear [and you have acknowledged] that the US is the main market of karatbars.
inspite of a sharp increase in private gold bar purchase in the US, karatbars is in decline. this implies that the growth of karatbars is disconnected with the growth in demand for gold bars.
you have not explained this.
karatbars may have its business in many other countries around the world, but fact remains that karatbars is in decline according to alexa ratings.
but but but karatbars opened an office in dubai, and look karatbars is in hollywood – are not valid explanations for karatbars decline in the US and the rest of the world.
karatbars decline, as in the case of other recruitment based MLM, is due to the slowing in recruitment.
I disagree. There is a good reason why governments used to have an equivalent amount of gold reserve to the paper currency that they have – and it was as a financial protection and securing one’s assets.
Karatbars enables a person to do the same thing for an individual which governments have been doing for a long time.
Every investor knows that gold is a very strong asset to have in one’s investment portfolio, and that it is a hedge against inflation and devaluation of paper currency. There is unanimous agreement on this among all of the financial experts.
What Karatbars does with advertising is not “fear and gloom”, it is simply stating the same thing which has always been said about gold.
Nothing they are saying is really new or original. They are offering gold as a hedge against financial inflation and paper devaluation, but making it affordable to the average person.
The important thing here is “used to”. NO major country in the world now use a true reserve system. It’s all “fiat” currency now.
But let’s not get too carried away on the peripheral issues…
If you are going to use that argument, then you should compare Karatbars ratings on Alexa with several other companies. (Ozedit: Offtopic derail attempts removed. “Other companies” are entirely irrelevant.)
This aside, even if Karatbars is in decline, that is not enough information.
It may be in decline now, but will increase in the future. It may have been in decline in the past, picked up the rhythm, fell down a bit, then picked up again.
These ups and downs of activity are very normal in business, especially one related to gold where the price is changing all the time.
It would be unrealistic to take a small slice, and then from that small slice, see that a business is in decline, and then conclude that the business is not doing well. One has to look at the whole track record, in Karatbars case, over the last five years.
And even if Karatbars is in decline, that alone says nothing at all about whether what is being done is legitimate or illegitimate, unless it is in decline because governments have shut it down – which is not the case. So it is really not that relevant.
Not really. Even until today, governments invest in their gold savings and even use gold to pay off their debts.
Gold is still used as financial protection among governments. It’s just that fiat currency is no longer attached to the gold standard.
I don’t for one minute think Karatbars is about buying gold, but I’ll play along.
If you’re buying this gold for investment purposes, it’s just, well, dumb. It saddens me that poor people who can’t afford gold are tricked into thinking this is their answer to build wealth.
When it comes time to sell, gold is gold. 31 grams in a Troy ounce means gold will have to reach at least roughly $2200 to recoup their money. Or am I missing something?
I mentioned earlier that it would be much smarter to recruit, collect $1200 worth of commissions and go buy an ounce elsewhere. Any reason why this couldn’t work if it’s investment gold one is seeking?
Major countries PRINT money to pay off their debts. US called it quantitative easing.
Did you know that there are conspiracy theorists who believe there’s NO gold in Ft Knox? 🙂 But we’re drifting WAY off subject.
@Daniel
Given that the majority of commissions paid out by Karatbars are tied to recruitment, a decline is very much relevant.
And stop trying to peg their decline to the legitimacy of the business, nobody is doing that except you.
When it comes time to sell, its not just about the gold. You are simplifying things far too much. First, the dealer needs to be certain that he is not being scammed, and has to verify the weight, purity, and content of the gold.
It may even be that something is gold only on its outer surface, but a mixture of metals beneath it. If the gold is not LBMA certified, then it will not have instant recognition. You will have to spend more time and money to once again prove its authenticity.
I also mentioned before that there are other reasons for buying by the gram, not only that it makes it more affordable.
Saving by gram offers more flexibility and control over what you can do with the gold, over the amount of gold you want to save and convert.
If you have gold in ounces or kilograms, you are forced to convert the whole ounce or kilogram into cash.
@Daniel I also mentioned before that there are other reasons for buying by the gram, not only that it makes it more affordable.
Saving by gram offers more flexibility and control over what you can do with the gold, over the amount of gold you want to save and convert.
If you have gold in ounces or kilograms, you are forced to convert the whole ounce or kilogram into cash.
So in the grand economic crash these karatbar people keep talking about.
There won’t be cash to convert to remember.
So exactly what are you hoarding the gold for?
So how does that karatbar real or not convert over to a bar of soap?
If you are going to take that perspective, then it is important for you to be aware that what youre addressing has little to do with Karatbars. You are in fact, criticizing the whole idea of saving in gold as a hedge against inflation.
It is a concept many well known financial experts and investors have been talking about for a long time, that gold offers financial protection against things like inflation and devaluation of paper currency.
First, think about the subject a bit more before claiming that its a bad idea to save in gold.
Youve also been talking as if an economic crisis means that there is no more money available to people. This is not true at all. You are also ignoring that economies can crash and then start up again – and even if you cannot convert gold into cash at a certain time, it could always be done when the economy springs back into action.
At that time, the gold will be more valuable. And even without any economic crisis – gold will still tend to increase in value over time.
The amount of gold produced every year is much less than the yearly demand. The Earth doesnt have infinite gold. Gold will only devalue like paper currency if we have something like the replicator from Star Trek, where you can make gold at will out of almost nothing.
Also, with increase of world population and the demand for gold – it will only become more valuable over time.
There are many good reasons to save in gold, if youre arguing that saving in gold is a bad idea.
Math Daniel, math!
You haven’t really addressed my idea about saving your commission money to buy an ounce for half the price.
If you really need small amounts, you can buy a melting kit for a few hundred bucks. There problem solved. And if takes a little time to confirm purity, big deal. Isn’t it all about the money?
If you are buying gold as an investment, and not jewelry, collectible coins, or art, it’s not very smart math to pay double for investment gold.
You really need to study MLM statistics i.e. the facts.
“The only honest people in MLM are the ones who don’t understand it.” – char 🙂
Karatbars isn’t about the gold!!!! If you haven’t figured that out, you will soon. Then what do you become?
Your comment is totalitarian and elitist. Not everybody can afford ounces. Then too, for the third time, it is wise to save in grams for other reasons that have already been mentioned.
Also, not everybody is interested in Karatbars for making commissions, so your comment basically wants only affiliates to save in gold. And no, melting a small piece of an ounce or kilogram to sell is not an option.
Is it smart to be paying double for almost everything you purchase as a unit ? Why dont you get everything wholsale and then save money ? Youre saying the same thing, why pay more for a gram when you can get it cheaper wholesale (ounces or kilograms). The answer is simple, affordability. Not everybody is filthy rich.
Get your head together and start thinking like somebody who isnt trying to discredit everything that is said, regardless of what is said. That sort of prejudice is the mother of being narrow minded.
the truth is daniel, that you have thoroughly discredited yourself here.
all your ‘stories’ about LBMA membership, and partnership with fedex and real madrid, and the ‘competitive price’ of karatbars kinegold, have fallen on the way side with you not able to back up anything with hard fact.
now you’re just giving little speeches about ‘why we must save in gold’ and ‘saving by the gram’ and blah blah which may impress your prospective recruits, but is quite wasted here. i mean, Yawn.
Nothing has been said which is inaccurate. I have already given you a list of competitive prices of companies which are selling a similar product, which anybody can take the time and verify.
That all the gold is LBMA certified can also be verified on the gold itself which has the stamp of the Nadir refinery and the serial number. Nadir’s LBMA status can be verified by visiting the official website of the London Bullion Market Association.
I have little interest in convincing anybody here to save in gold, it would be foolish to try and encourage somebody to do so when there is no willingness or receptivity to look into it.
However, if what you’re going to be contributing to is disinformation, then I feel that it is a disservice to others who are reading to be exposed to one opinion, which in my opinion is greatly misinformed, and that there must be some diversity in conversation to help people see all sides of the story and come to their own conclusions.
If you’re going to claim to be helping educate the public in some way, it is always best when done in a way which encourages people to come to their own conclusions out of their own intelligence.
You can tell the viability and integrity of a company by its leadership. While prior practice does not foretell the future it can be a good indicator especially when the IRS is involved.
So answer me this what or who does Karatbars and IGP of MLM infamy have in common?
As a secondary indicator, sure. But your primary yard stick should always be the business model.
Karatbars is a pyramid scheme dressed up as selling gold.
Pure nonsense. Karatbars was just investigated (Ozedit: No source, unsubstantiated claims removed.)
@Daniel
1. No source.
2. Paying affiliates to recruit new affiliates in MLM = pyramid scheme. Period.
And here is a second source, a lengthy and official report from the AMF itself :
dropbox.com/s/gr1jc5g2tzr5euw/jugement-amf-karatbars.doc?dl=0
1. Here is your source from the official invesgitation describing the reveral of the Tribunal:
canlii.org/fr/qc/qccq/doc/2016/2016qccq9663/2016qccq9663.html
2. The court disagreed and concluded it is not a pyramid scheme.
You are simply misinformed, as I expressed many times earlier. End of story.
Yeah, so I’m guessing you didn’t read the order hey.
Here it is in its entirety, pages 98-100.
Karatbars banned from Canada for violating both the Financial Market Authority Act and Securities Act, and the scammers promoting it were fined.
Yeah no, the Karatbars scammers totally won. What reality are you living in chief?
What on earth does the matter of inadmissibility of evidence in the civil case of
FRANCE PELLETIER Applicant C JACQUES DEMERS Respondent
have to do with Karatbars being a pyramid scheme ???
I didn’t even click the second link. The order from the actual court document was pretty self-explanatory.
Sure as h*** looks that way from here.
One should check if oneself is standing in quicksand before laughing at someone else.
Sure. Why then did the AMF remove their original warning from their site?
(Ozedit: They didn’t – lautorite.qc.ca/en/press-releases-2014-pro.html_2014_karatbars-quebec-activities-covered-by-prohibition-orders01-05-2014-09-3.html
The original warning was probably no longer needed now that Karatbars is banned in Canada.
No, thats not the reason. The warning was removed because (Ozedit: I’m sorry, you’re the AMF now? Unsubstantiated claims removed.)
So where’s the court decision? It’s NOT the one you cited previously.
I found the court order, and you guys have some SERIOUSLY reading deficiencies, as I have no problem reading it through Google translate.
It basically says AMF WON on all points except against one guy, Michel Galipeau.
The “Karatbars World Pool” is an investment contract, and banned, and Robert LaRiviere, Michel Desroches, and Antoni Snopek are banned from operating in Canada from selling any investments.
Karatbars was fined 3000 , and each of thee 3 individuals were fined 500 for offering investment without having permission to do so against Securities Act.
canlii.org/fr/qc/qctmf/doc/2016/2016qctmf35/2016qctmf35.html#_ftnref290 (it’s in french)
Please go back to your dreams, “Daniel”. Or get remedial reading lessons. The decision says NOTHiNG like what you described.
Don’t know what you’re smoking while you claimed it. Must have addled your brain real fierce.
Oh, and the original preliminary warning was lifted because there’s a PERMANENT injunction in its place. In fact, it was one of the earlier lines in the court decision cited above.
Total scam.