Mastercard denounce Lyoness (“no direct relationship”)
For some months now an alleged business relationship between Lyoness and Mastercard has been used as a major marketing point by Lyoness and their affiliates.
As with most third-party brand promotions, the idea is to create the illusion of legitimacy through association with an otherwise reputable company.
In the case of Lyoness, they don’t want you focusing on the questionable legality of their accounting unit investment scheme. I mean hey, if Mastercard have jumped on board surely everything Lyoness do is above-board right?
To give you an example of the spiels Lyoness affiliate investors have been spamming the internet with, here’s one recent example from our very own blog.
Published late last year on December 26th 2014, Mordechai Lerner wrote
With Salesforce partnering with Lyoness and the strategic alliance with MasterCard YES, MASTERCARD DIRECTLY!!! ( to prove this, the Lyoness MC has the Lyoness Cashback card in the chip or stripe of the card and when using it by a Lyoness SME you automatically receive the cashback and shopping points that the SME has agreed to pay on top of the shopping points for using the MasterCard.)
LyoliderPL from September 1st:
Yes there will be even 3 Mastercards. Yes directly with MC signed.
Cheers you haters keep writing about LYO.
And one more from Peter Fuhr, who in August wrote
Lyoness and MasterCard are forming an alliance effect November 8 2014. It will be 1 card with the ability to swipe at merchants and none merchants in 22 countries November 8 2014. Will be rolled out in North America in early 2015.
Lyoness affiliates have also taken to flooding YouTube with official Lyoness Mastercard advertisements:
The ads, produced by Lyoness themselves (through Lyoness.tv), are intended to be used as marketing aids by the company’s affiliate-base.
Modeled on MasterCard’s well-known “priceless” ads, the ads strongly suggest a direct business partnership between Lyoness and Mastercard.
Update January 21st 2015 – Comfort_Eagle shares in the comments below this article that that the above ads aren’t produced by Lyoness, but rather are edited Mastercard advertisements.
Lyoness corporate have simply edited in Lyoness logos during and at the end of the advertisements. Whether Lyoness sought permission from Mastercard to “rebrand” their advertisements for Lyoness’ own commercial purposes is unclear. /end update
Lyoness themselves go one step further in their “general terms and conditions”, explicitly claiming to have a “separate agreement” with Mastercard:
“Prepaid Lyoness MasterCard” is a prepaid debit card with Cashback Card and payment card functions.
It is provided under a separate agreement with MasterCard, a payment card service provider, whose additional terms and conditions govern applications for and use of the card.
According to Mastercard though, no such agreement exists.
Having run into claims of a business relationship between Lyoness and Mastercard in discussions about Lyoness, Krzysztof Bojaryn sought more clarification on the nature of the relationship.
Bojaryn claims that when he posed questions about the alleged relationship to Lyoness affiliates, they responded with “warnings and other veiled threats”.
Still wanting answers, Bojaryn then approached Mastercard directly on their Facebook page:
Some time ago I asked about your relationship with the company about Lyoness and you promised to answer what you have in common, and whether (as) announced by the participants of this “loyalty program” (there has been) a merger with MasterCard.
Please let me know how it really is with you (and) Lyoness, because it’s not the first time (I’ve heard such claims) and now I do not know myself what to think.
Bojaryn question was put to the company on January 13th, with Mastercard publishing an official reply a few hours ago:
Thank you for your message, and at the same time we apologize for the late reply.
We would like to announce that the company Lyoness is not a licensee of MasterCard.
The issuance of prepaid cards (is) work(ed) (through) one of the MasterCard card issuers. Therefore, there is no direct relationship between MasterCard and Lyoness.
(This) is also true (of) the merger between the company Lyoness and MasterCard.
Nowhere in Lyoness’ general terms and conditions, their “Lyoness.tv” advertisements or affiliate advertising is the name of the third-party card-issuer mentioned.
Misleading much?
In other Lyoness news, reports began to surface last week of progress in an Austrian criminal investigation into Lyoness and CEO and founder Hubert Freidl.
The Austrian Economic and Corruption Prosecutors (WKStA) have been investigating Lyoness for years now, and now, they have finally concluded their investigation.
They have decided to charge Hubert Freidl with several criminal offenses, all related to him running a pyramid scheme.
Awaiting his criminal trial, they have asked the court to freeze Freidl’s available assets, and the court granted this order.
The news is allegedly sourced from court documents pertaining to the case.
As per our European readers,
While the translation is obviously made by a non-native German speaker, the excerpts from the court documents are authentic. Austrian victims and their attorneys can purchase a CD from the Austrian DoJ containing all official documentation on Lyoness.
Unfortunately, this documentation is not made publicly available by the authorities. This might explain why Austrian media haven’t picked up the story yet; recently, they’ve been quite tame anyway.
Meanwhile in Australia, next month Lyoness and the ACCC are expected back in court to continue the regulator’s pyramid scheme case against the company.
Stay tuned…
i’m sure mastercard is aware that lyoness is being charged with being a pyramid scheme in australia.
why this facebook clarification? and this delicate side stepping : hey, we’re not Directly Dealing with lyoness!
mastercard should be putting its lyoness card issuer on notice, and probably on the MATCH (Member Alert to Control High-Risk) list.
Why wouldn’t MC ask Lyoness to stop the false advertising?
Please clarify – Mastercards response was communicated their website?
Mastercard’s response was communicated via an official (verified) corporate Facebook account, to whom Krzysztof Bojaryn directed his question to.
They only just replied to the question less than 24 hours ago. It took them four days to respond so presumably some research went on behind the scenes.
If anything further develops I’ll cover it (shoutout to European readers keeping on top of things), but otherwise it’s up to Mastercard to take this further.
Aren’t these nothing more than co-branded prepaid MasterCards? That’s not hard to get and and that’s not a “business relationship” at all.
I mean we could get some for BehindMLM if we wanted to spend the money. There are dozens of banks that can turn around a co-branded prepaid card in a week, such as omnicard.com/prepaid/branded-reward-cards
Press release in Europe says very clearly it’s a prepaid card:
ots.at/presseaussendung/OTS_20140625_OTS0133/lyoness-setzt-weltweit-neue-massstaebe-mit-der-prepaid-lyoness-mastercardr-bild
The problem is this is clearly NOT the sample card provided by the actual issuer, but some random card number they made up. 5215 70** is American bank JP Morgan Chase, aka Chase Bank, and is a real master card, not prepaid.
So the video they made up is… well, more made up than usual.
Co-incidentally the Sydney Morning Herald wrote their own story on Lyoness today:
smh.com.au/small-business/trends/lyoness-scam-or-straight-20150120-12bkhq.html
One would hope Lyoness are barred from attempting to introduce anything but their own actual business figures into the lawsuit.
They can crap on about their affiliate’s businesses all day long, but at the end of the day only their own numbers matter. And it’s there that you’ll find the AU investment scheme, which is precisely what the ACCC are going after them for.
not one word about AU units!
only happy customers, singing praises!
sydney morning herald, who’s paying for your coffee?
Clearly this guy is riddled with bad business decisions if he has a real business and people aren’t just referring him by word of mouth anyway. Even if lyoness goes belly up, why wouldn’t he retain those lyoness customers if he provides a good service/product.
What do you think the happy customers dropped thousands of dollars on?
Those interviewed seemed to have gotten in early. The paper didn’t interview anyone who got sucked into investing in stalled unit structures.
I’m sure the ACCC would have fielded complaints from such investors though.
Although it may be true that a pre-paid branded MC is easy to come by, this Lyoness card requires more functionality as using it creates benefits to your Lyoness account.
The point-_it would appear whoever issues the card had to invest in some integration work with Lyoness.
George
So why not name this merchant then instead of falsely claiming to have a direct relationship with Mastercard.
You and I know it was for marketing purposes, but what made Lyoness corporate think they could get away with the lie?
Actually, I approached MC with the question c.a. 1 month ago, and this was reply to my reminder.
The video ad’s Oz mentioned are not Lyoness-produced, they are photoshoped old “priceless” campaign videos ie:
Produced by advertisment agency located in Australia.
In general I decided to ask MasterCard directly and get such statement because some deluded lyo-followers tried to frighten myself and our blog readers claiming that MasterCard will sue us for voicing our opinions about Lyoness, because both companies merged recently – they really believe that 😀
They are like sect, every bull***t you can imagine can be believed if their upline says it.
Not necessarily. Nowadays they have what’s called “incentive cards”, which is half-way between a corporate card and a prepaid card, that is often used by companies to hand out continued benefits or bonuses to people, either loyal employees or valued customers. It can be reloaded on the fly by either party.
NOLINK://www.mastercard.com/us/business/en/corporate/employee/incentive_card.html
I clicked on the card issuers and JPM Chase is one of the issuers. Any one want to send them a question? 🙂
in this case its IDT Financial Services Limited:
fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10931530_723901657705284_8464245787227525800_n.jpg?oh=edae6d68f266431f58b290b0aa32ca91&oe=55324AE5&__gda__=1432862557_36dc12343536b4385d6c7d965f218f23
So their fake card was even of the wrong back. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
It’s the same service provider used by Towah. It had the required “financial services” licenses the last time I checked, i.e. it’s not a bank but a service provider selling some financial services.
Transactions can be divided into several layers:
VISA, MasterCard, etc.
Banks, insurance companies, etc.
——-
Financial services (IDT seems to belong here)
——-
Merchant services (Lyoness can belong here …)
——-
Merchants (… or here)
Consumers
@Comfort
So wait, Lyoness corporate pirated the commercials and edited them for distribution through Lyoness.tv?
I’m going to assume MasterCard didn’t give them permission to use the footage, what with there being no relationship between the two companies.
Bloody hell, how on Earth did they think they’d get away with that?
It has been reported to MasterCard some time ago, so they are aware of the commercials use for sure.
Might be, videos were purchased directly from McCann Australia, who produced them or via other advertising agency.
It’s not a matter of “getting away”- IMO this is part of reality inverting that aim is to convince Premium Partners to accept Lyconet contract and keep the illusion of Lyoness legality amongst them.
The target of this comercials is inside of shopping community, not outside.
Why would a commercial ad agency make such bad decisions?
This is looking like copyright infringement lawsuit at minimum, add in Lyoness association and you have brand reputation damage.
There is no way I see a legitimate ad agency selling someone else’s property essentially.
Well, I remember Banners Broker MasterCard prepaids that had been made invalid by MasterCard and can imagine they are able to kick Lyoness ass at least the same way. We’ll see how will this story unfold.
some more on Lyconet compensation plan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtCj6SQ4E6c
Dear MLM Behind Team,
It makes me sad that you are so against such a great company. It helps people to save money and also gives opportunity to make money from basiclly very small investment.
It helped me and I can say that because of Lyoness I’m finaly financialy free. Now I might not be a millionair but I dont even want to be…. It gave me freedome to spend more time with my belowed and get out of the rat race.
Other thing I wanted to mention is that I requested a check from Mastercard (official facebook site) to look into Lyoness and they confirmed that yes lyoness is launching a Mastercard early 2015.
I can prove it for you by ppicture if you let me know how to insert it here
Making money via Ponzi investment (stealing from people who invest after you) is not justifiable.
Yes, yes blahblahblah. We’re familiar with Lyoness affiliate bullshit claims.
As it stands, the only official communique from Mastercard is that they have nothing to do with Lyoness.
Furthermore, issuing cards != any sort of business relationship/partnership. Lyoness have been lying about this for months and were caught out.
the attraction of new marks must have slowed greatly with this and dubli that people have to come try and justify the scam so they can get paid.
There is no ponzi investment. This 2000 -3000 dollars investments you talking about is over and nobody was ever forced to pay it. It was people choice.
The whole marketing plan changed, so clearly you are not familiar with anything. Nobody is caught on anything here.
I think you people don’t even want to understand anything. Just come here in your little inner circle and being negative and talking nonsence about something you dont even know 100%. You are all probably unsuccsessful marketers or I dont know, but its amazing how everyone is full on hate here….
Nobody is caught on anything here.
Anyways it’s just an opininon of mine…. You all have a good day!
Don’t kid yourself. Nobody’s going to shop 100K to rack up enough units when they can just PAY couple K directly to Lyoness for the same number of units.
And the reply that prompted this post was ALSO from the official Facebook account of Mastercard… that Lyoness is NOT a licensee of Mastercard…
So the fact that you claim to have gotten an answer from the same account that clarified they got it from IDT in no way negates the original answer.
Tsk, tsk, tsk.
Oh, why did it happen?!
Oz, can you provide further details in regards to:
This is a myterial piece of information and I would fully expect that this information to be on public record or at least an artefact of some sort linking to the finding on the greater interweb.
Personally, I have checked the Wirtschaftskammer Österreich und Korruption Staatsanwälte (WKSTA) website > justiz.gv.at and the Austrian Parliamentary website > .parlament.gv.at
I was not able to find any references on the WKSTA website. However, performing a search on the Parliamentary website for either Lyoness and/or Hubert Freidl identified several entries.
The last entry is dated Nov 11, 2014. By following the links, pdfs and performing some simple Google translations gets you to article with reference 2315/J-NR/2014.
It states:
So, I just got news that John Costino from NAP and ACN (and probably some others) has taken a group from (now defunct) North American Power to Lyoness in the US.
A whole 5 days they took to make this decision by the way, but, upon questioning a rep on why such a stupid move, it turns out that (as typical) they just blindly follow their leader.
I guess there has been “confidential” promises of this guy turning the whole company around with some sort of super secrete plan, ha ha.
He’s got about 15 years of work ahead of him before they can even THINK of competing in the e-commerce space BUT the sheep will believe anything they hear from this guy.
I’ve seen some stupid moves in networking in my time, but this one HAS to be at the top of the list for THE ALL TIME DUMBEST decisions for reps in transition.
Yeah, a guy with NO experience in e-commerce or internet technologies is going to turn a “e-commerece” business around. What a freakin joke.
This guy know’s NOTHING but how to spin a yarn and recruit people that quit and he has NEVER been able to create a residual income for himself or anyone else.
This is the perfect environment for him, I just feel bad for the people that believe his BS. Hell, He probably believes it himself. ha ha.
@Adam
Uh yeah, but it still laid the foundation for Lyoness. Let’s not pretend investing funds and then receiving a >100% ROI from newly invested funds isn’t the cornerstone of Lyoness’ MLM business opportunity.
As per the Lyconet compensation plan, all that’s changed is funds are converted to shopping points. The investment scheme still exists.
Yeah, and opinions don’t trump facts. Just another Lyoness affiliate who is clueless about their own compensation plan…
@Kynikos
Would that I could. We’re relying on our European readers to leak information on the Freidl criminal case. Apparently Austria doesn’t make updates or court documents public.
This is presumably until after the conclusion of a criminal case so we’ll have to wait until then for media/regulator coverage and/or docs.
The asset seize is part of the ongoing case against Freidl. No ETA as to when things will conclude but I’m sure our readers will keep us informed of any major updates (I can’t as I don’t speak German).
I will do my best to keep everyone here posted, but at the moment, there aren’t any major developments. As said, MasterCard doesn’t cooperate with Lyoness and Freidl’s assets were frozen.
Now were awaiting the criminal trial in Austria and the court developments in Australia.
here’s a translation, with WKStA files signatures:
mlmtheamericandreammadenightmare.blogspot.com/2012/09/lyoness-is-lie-and-hubert-freidl-is-its.html
I am a lawyer (solicitor/attorney) practising in Australia and did my own due diligence and checked the facts and figures before getting involved in lyoness.
I am already financially independent having a huge property portfolio and know what I am doing and how to make money.
Lyoness is working for me. Some of the allegations made by people on this site are highly defamatory and I have passed this on to lyoness for their comment and feedback and and will recommend to lyoness to take legal if the comments and allegations made here are incorrect, particularly allegations that Hubert Freidl is under criminal investigation and has been charged and has had his assets frozen.
Such comments are highly defamatory and can result in court action being commenced against those people who have made such false allegations.
No offense, but your due diligence skills are pretty shitty. I hope you’re more competent as a lawyer.
So how many Shopping/AU units did you invest in then?
They already did, against those in Austria leaking the information.
Lyoness doesn’t want the details of Friedl’s ongoing criminal trial publicised. Herp derp, I wonder why that is.
So they’re false before you’ve even independently verified them? Nice.
You’re not interested in due diligence, you’ve already made up your mind.
Now you’ll spend the rest of your time in Lyoness trying to convince yourself it’s not a Ponzi scam. I hope you’re watching the ACCC action against them.
PS. Has your legal firm closed down? The “patellawyers.com.au” website is suspended. I suppose you don’t need to practice law anymore now that you’ve invested thousands in Lyoness hey.
You’ll strike it rich in no time… just wait for people to invest after you to show up.
hmm, maybe the website will be revived as ‘pattellawyers- exclusively in the service of lyoness AU’
after all, anita patel has done her due diligence into lyoness, without providing a shred of evidence in her post, as to why lyoness is top notch legal.
but, it will be interesting to hear it, from her legal point of view.
lets have it anita patel! waiting on you !
Most comments seem to be about the AU investment system, where people can make down payments. $600 USD gift card purchase and then $3,000 USD down payment to become Premium Members and to get 7+3+3 Accounting Units in 3 different matrices; where people can qualify for some bonus payouts if they recruit minimum 4 other investors.
Investment matrices like that don’t have any legitimate function in business. They have some functions in different types of schemes, e.g. in pyramid schemes or Ponzi schemes.
Lyoness may have made some changes to that system. Changes like that may not be reflected in comments.
Yes, please provide some updates or factual corrections. That’s how it usually works.
The only information you have provided so far is that you’re a lawyer in Australia; have done your own due diligence; that you’re financially independent and have a huge property portfolio and that you know how to make money; that Lyoness is working for you and that you feel some allegations presented here are factually incorrect.
That information could have been relevant if the article had been about you, but it will be too vague to have any function in the current article. It had a “wrong focus”, it focused mostly on irrelevant information.
The main focus should normally have been on some corrections you would like to make, on some factors you would like to point out or something similar.
It is abundantly clear from the comments made by various people just how ignorant you are.
I choose not to have a website as I already act for major corporations in Australia and internationally and do not need to get work from a website.
(Ozedit: Offtopic derail attempts removed)
I also suggest you read all the documents – lyoness and lyconet terms and conditions, the 19 page comprehensive compensation plan, court reports and the like and get your facts and figures correct before “mouthing’ off.
(Ozedit: Offtopic legal threats removed)
You must be new to Lyoness. We’ve been following them for some time dear.
So Anita, seeing as you dodged the question – how much have you personally invested in Lyoness?
again anita patel, could you provide the ‘facts’ that assure you lyoness is a legal multilevel business?
since you are an established corporate lawyer, you are the exact person to clarify the truth about lyoness.
generally the lyoness ‘leaders’ who comment here, may not be legally versed with the subject of of MLM or pyramid/ponzi schemes.
it would be a wasted opportunity, if you did not express your views here.
i request you, to state your case for lyoness here, it will help everybody. let’s drop the angrybirds attitude.
Given the number of interested parties, one wonders if Lyoness would be stupid enough to institute “real” legal action and not just issue thinly veiled online threats or threatening letters from pet lawyers.
Can anybody spell “Streisand Effect” or “Discovery” ??
Just how would a judge view the the Lyoness “business plan” vs “actual operation” juxtaposition ??
“Comments made by various people” is far too vague. You can’t expect anyone to spend any time on that?
Normally it would have been much easier if you had quoted the relevant parts, and had provided links to the documents?
I have only read the 2012 U.S. compensation plan. Lyoness’ compensation plans are generally too time consuming to look into and understand, but I will usually read them if someone is bringing up something specific. You were far too vague for that.
You didn’t respond when I asked you to provide some factual corrections. Your comments have mostly focused on yourself and how offended you feel.
If people are making some comments about your “due diligence”, it’s probably related to your own vagueness. You don’t exactly act like an experienced attorney.
and what if they are correct ?:D
It is abundantly clear how insulting you can be. But are you dealing with facts, or are you just a part of the PR machine?
You should probably check your own comments first before you start to complain?
One example:
That information will only be relevant if you’re acting in that role?
If you’re acting in a different role, e.g. as a Lyoness member, that information will be rather irrelevant and potentially misleading.
If that statemement was an attempt to add some “credibility” or “weight” to your own comment, that method isn’t really necessary. It doesn’t work very well either, it will attract critical comments rather than positive responses.
If you wish to complain about something, then you will need to be much more specific and clear right from the start. You can’t expect people to respond to vague and diffuse legal threats.
@anita patel
i have been waiting patiently for you, to state your case for lyoness.
but, it seems your only interest was to throw a bucketfull of legal threats, at this site, and run.
the net effect of that, to behindmlm was nil naught nix.
however your flyby hilarious attack, has damaged lyoness’s already doubtful legality/reputation even more.
when corporate lawyers, who claim to have checked lyoness’s facts and figures, and found them to be kosher, run away without explaining their conclusions, it speaks for the company itself, as not having any truth to support it’s claims, but resorting to ‘attack, as the best form of defense’.
poor show, anita patel.
Court in Austria: “61 clauses of Lyoness GTC are illegal, invalid and do not bound its customers”
verbraucherrecht.at/cms/index.php?id=49&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=3340&cHash=aaa23cdb7d17796efef5e449b7097776
The judgment isn’t final, it can be appealed to a higher court.
(INTRODUCTION)
Association for Consumer Information (VKI) was commissioned by Ministry of Social Affairs to commence a legal action against Lyoness, related to the “extended membership benefits” of the GTC and the CP
(MAIN PART)
Whether Consumer Protection laws can be applied to those extended memberships.
You will need to clarify your own role.
If you don’t represent Lyoness as a counsel, you can’t make any legal threats on behalf of Lyoness either. You’re not in the position to make that type of threats.
If you do represent Lyoness as a counsel you will need to be much more specific about the details you want us to correct. You will need to provide the correct information yourself. Pointing to a 19 page document simply isn’t enough.
Until you have clarified your own role, you can’t expect anyone to respond to your posts “in a polite manner” either.
Thanks for that breakdown. I’ve had a look at the 48 page legal document and… bloody hell, headaches ahoy.
As I understand it, the Consumer Protection agency in Austria are basically saying Lyoness is full of shit, and needs to adequately explain the flow of money through the system in a non-confusing manner.
Lyoness of course don’t want to do this because replacing a 5000 page compensation plan document with “We take newly invested funds and use it to pay off existing investors” gives the game away.
I think I’m going to sit on doing a write-up just yet. At least until a clearer picture of the decision is formed (perhaps when it is rendered final and a summary is written up).
I’m reading from the Consumer Protection agency that there’s a possibility they’ll launch a class-action lawsuit aimed at recovering funds for Lyoness investors at some point.
That’s probably more relevant than Lyoness being found guilty of breaching Austria’s consumer protection laws. Although it of course would be the foundation for such a case.
Anyway, I guess the reason Lyoness started this whole Lyconet mess should be abundantly clear now.
The case was a class action lawsuit, or the Austrian version of a class action lawsuit, with VKI as a plaintiff on behalf of affected Austrian consumers. So it was a “Consumer Protection action” rather than a “shutdown action”.
The action had been commissioned by Ministry of Social Affairs.
It’s difficult to identify the exact type of court. Wikipedia lists 3 types of ordinary courts:
* 134 BG (Bezirksgerichte) 1 judge District Court
* 18 LG (Landesgerichte) 3 judges Regional Court
* 4 OG (Oberlandesgerichte) Appellate Court
it would have been better, if the austria lyoness case had involved a government agency like the ACCC in australia.
the thing with class actions or private lawsuits are that they mostly get settled, with no prejudice to the company.
in herbalife, we saw a consumer activist body test aankoop, take on the might of herbalife, in belgium, and even win, in a lower court. however when herbalife appealed, test aankoop, never showed up to protest, possibly someone ‘convinced’ them to stay out.
i hope VKI Vs lyoness austria does not fade away in an undramatic death.
Oops, the Court identifies itself as a Commercial Court.
Any idea what the penalty or broader ramifications might be, once the decision has been made final?
With Lyoness being found guilty on all 61 counts, I can’t see them successfully appealing the decision.
It’s difficult to identify the exact type of case.
VKI seems to be a government agency without regulatory powers, without enforcement powers. It’s listed on the website “ConsumerRights dot Austria” (verbraucherrecht.at), a website with typical consumer information “from government to consumers”.
Lyoness received an injunction prohibiting it from offering its “extended member benefits” to Austrian consumers. 61 terms and conditions in its existing contracts from 2007 – 2012 were deemed illegal and unenforceable. That will also affect newer contracts.
It will also affect if consumers have been transferred to a different system, e.g. if units have been converted into “shopping points”.
i’m thinking ‘consumer protection type’ of cases would end in fines and changes in company policy etc, rather than ‘shut down’. i may be wrong.
Test Aankoop probably filed some vague protests, but the original case was from 2004, and the appeal was about how Herbalife currently was operating in Belgium. Herbalife had reasonable time to fix all problems mentioned in the complaint from 2004.
VKI seems to be a type of “government body”, not a private consumer protection organization. But it doesn’t seem to be a regulatory authority.
just so this doesn’t get missed:
as we can see, the VKI has filed an injunction against the ‘contract terms’ of lyoness austria.
but, since VKI is qualified, to file injunctions against ‘unfair commercial practices’ too, why didn’t they do that? running a ponzi/pyramid scheme falls under unfair trade practices?
here’s some examples of the kind of litigation VKI does:
1] In 2000, the ‘collective redress action – Austrian type’ was used by VKI in order to obtain compensation for 110 victims of food intoxication in a holiday resort.
2] [2005] The VKI is currently conducting several sets of proceedings against BAWAG [group of banks]. In those proceedings, the VKI claims that as the result of an incorrect adjustment of the interest rates applicable to variable-interest loans granted by BAWAG the latter charged its customers too much interest over a number of years.
3] [2013] Austrian consumer information group VKI said the Supreme Court has backed it in its case against T-Mobile Austria for automatically switching customers to internet billing unless they expressly opted out.
these cases end with fines, or settlements with the plaintiffs, if there is a ‘class’.
Well it’s interesting the focus is on the legality of Terms and Conditions and not the Ponzi AU scam.
Eric Breitneider, who successfully represented a number of formER Lyoness members in Europe who wanted their money back built his case based on the legality of the terms and conditions instead of focusing on AUs.
I would guess its less time consuming and easier to challenge the TCs instead of exposing the Ponzi portion of Lyoness….
According to what I’ve read Mr Breitneider successfully recouped some cash for discontented Lyoness members
It’s much easier to prove “invalid contract terms” or “illegal marketing”, where you only will need to analyse a limited set of data and not a complex one.
The state of Montana will usually use “local registration rules” to prohibit suspected fraudulent schemes from operating in that state. It used it against ZeekRewards, TelexFree and WCM777 several months before they actually were shut down.
It doesn’t completely solve the problem, but it can be an important part of the solution. “SOME regulatory action may be better than no regulatory action” whn it comes to limiting a problem.
Eric Breiteneder first got a declaratory judgment that Consumer laws could be applied to IBO Independent Business Owners, “it isn’t about what the contract say they are doing but about the reality in what they’re doing”.
Recruitment is a type of consumer behavior rather than a type of business behavior. Professional business people don’t recruit consumers into third party companies, only consumers do that.
Lyoness members don’t really have any “independent businesses”, all relevant parts have been organized by Lyoness.
if VKI and Mr Breitneider, successfully litigate and get a settlement between lyoness and their austrian distributors, it does squat, in stopping lyoness. in fact, it will strengthen lyoness’s public perception, in that: lyoness got challenged by some distributors, and it all got settled!
lyoness already has the Norwegian Clearance under it’s belt.
all hopes now, on the ACCC, australia, to make the cut which counts.
It wasn’t that type of case, e.g. it didn’t have any economical claims on behalf of consumers.
VKI asked for an injunction against Lyoness restraining it from offering the down payment option and various other parts of its GTC / CP to Austrian consumers.
It also asked for a declaratory judgment, declaring the contract terms to be illegal and non-enforceable. Consumers can get their money back without going through a court when the judgment becomes final.
VKI also asked for Lyoness to cover some consumer information expenses, what it will cost to publish the information in major local newspapers.
And finally it asked for legal expenses.
The court didn’t directly address any pyramid scheme issue or Ponzi scheme issue, but it pointed out that the contract terms covering AU investments were opaque and impossible to understand for a consumer.
It did the same with the Loyalty Credits. “It doesn’t meet the required standard for a contract between a business and a consumer”.
There’s Lyoness yearly summit going today in Las Vegas.
Empty seats, what a pity…
facebook.com/video.php?v=684065631719153&set=vb.100003471679062&type=2&theater
Yes. Empty for a reason. All talk no action. Lots of flashy lights and Lazers with noting to back it up.
There is ZERO substance with that company. You cant build an organization that will grow and last based on dreams and vision alone, especially not THAT vision.
At some point they will actually have to sell something or disappear all together.
I was involved with Lyoness for 3 years almost full time… I put my heart and soul into Lyoness… Why because I loved the concept and because I was suckered into believing all their bullshit.
Companies like Lyoness is what gives network marketing a sh#t name.
Promises, Promises, Promises — Lyoness have robbed thousands of people of their lifes savings and likewise hundreds of small business have also invested into the program.
Isn’t interesting that there were no announcements re MasterCard at their sensation event nor any announcements re the opening of India which was supposedly opening any day now.
My advise is that if you are already involved cut your losses and move on… and for those thinking about getting involved DONT! Don’t believe anything that you are being told.
The so called leaders that are still promoting Lyoness are desperate… desperately hoping that they will get something back for their efforts.
I cannot see how anybody with an ounce of integrity could continue to promote Lyoness.
In my view Lyoness is an absolute scam… I am hoping that that the ACCC will get some traction but I think that they could be a bit of a toothless tiger but lets hope that this case they get up!
There are some real negative, small minded people in this forum who would gloat and be happy about the failure of a great enterprise. I cannot believe the level of mean spirited, low minded, morally bankrupt and downright hateful people on this forum.
Yes Lyoness had some problems and the company has taken steps to fix them. Show me a company who is perfect, there is none. Why not focus on the good things about the company. The child and family foundation with a mandate to educate and assist children worldwide.
Why not talk about the fact that they have built or renovated 5 schools around the world in the last 4 years one built in Honduras, one in the Philippines, two in Nigeria and one built in South Africa in conjunction with Nelson Mandela before he died.
This is not just a photo op like so many MLM companies who just make one time donations. This is on going commitment to these schools.
Lyoness has close to 90 teachers from these schools on their payroll, and supply books and uniforms to the children. The school in South Africa was damaged by winds after it was built and they were there to fix it again.
Why not talk about the women in rural poor area of Brazil who are being taught skills of sewing so they can help themselves to a better life.
There are so many projects going on and not all of them in poor countries but we know even in rich countries children are suffering so Lyoness uses half the funds allocated to the child and family foundation in the countries where the funds originated.
We can all help just by shopping, part of the funds Lyoness keeps goes to these two foundations. The schools built are provided with solar panels so the school is self sufficient for energy and the children for example in the Philippines grow their own food to supply the school and surrounding village.
The school building is strong and is a place of refuge for the community when their is threat of typhoons that are so devastating.
The Lyoness concept is brilliant and Hubert Freidl should win the Nobel Prize for economics instead of being vilified by pea brains here.
No they haven’t. They just reworked the Lyoness AU Ponzi scheme into the Lyconet points Ponzi scheme.
New affiliate funds are still being used to pay off existing investors.
Because charity does not justify Ponzi fraud. It’s smoke and mirrors built for the sole purpose of having investors such as yourself run around the internet and attempt to use it to detract attention away from the Lyconet Ponzi scheme.
How about you get Friedl’s dick out of your mouth and join us in the real world?
first of all, lyoness is a company, not mother teresa or the pope. so, first of all, focus on the ‘business’ of the company.
since everybody here is pea brained, and i’m assuming you are not, care to explain why lyoness is brilliant, and how Exactly it generates funds, to pay it’s reps, and do [sob, sniffle] ‘charity’.
uh, that part about freidl deserving the nobel prize, cracked me up. let’s see what the australian ACCC ‘awards’ him?
@XMember
In three years, I’m sure you enlisted a lot of people for Lyoness. It’s interesting it took so long to see through the scam as here we have been calling them out for awhile
I am curious to know if you were part of Lyoness America or Lyoness Australia????
@ScamKiller99 – I am based in Australia. I personally enlisted 29 premium members and over 30 SME’s and I have about 2500 people in total in my team.
About 12 months ago I was beginning to see the cracks and started really questioning the legitimacy of Lyoness. However I continued believing/hoping that Lyoness was the real deal and that they would eventually live up to their promises. But alas that day never came.
In January I final realized that I was kicking a dead horse.
I am not crying over spilt milk here… What’s done is done… I simply made a very bad business decision.
My concerns are not for me but for those that are considering joining or have already joined and are relying on the promise of long-term passive income… So many people have been burn and lost in some cases 10’s of thousands of dollars.
I was just speaking to one of my colleagues who told me about a guy who dropped 20k into Lyoness and has recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
He asked for a refund but typically Lyoness had no compassion whatsoever and responded with the standard email telling him to read the GTC’s
@ Tony Hill… Yes Lyoness seems like a great organization on the surface but I even question the validity of the child and family foundation.
In any case all big corporates should be giving back by default and should not be using their charity as a major part of their sales and promotion.
The thing is all the leaders know and have the same concerns but wont come out publically cause they don’t want to jeopardize the possibility of getting some sort of return…
In the meantime they are letting people get burnt. In my view it is like leading lambs to slaughter for personal gain
I wonder if there is any possibility of some sort of class action?
India open date has been announced already.
Just wondering if this is true:
Any updates on this case.
As I understand it public reporting on the case has been prohibited by the court. This includes leaking documents out.
When it’s all said and done we’ll find out more.
It has been reported by someone but it hasn’t been verified by any official sources. The information looks real enough, e.g. there has actually been an investigation by that authority (if I remember correctly) and it should normally have been concluded.
The investigation was mentioned by newspapers in early 2012. I have only read translated sources, e.g. on BusinessForHome.org.
We will accept information if it looks real enough, e.g. based on what we already have been able to confirm.
In reading the Austrian papers (rather than scouring the net for translations like certain Norwegians do) it seems that so far the only thing that has happened is that 61 sections of the Lyoness agreement have been found to be invalid, but ONLY in Austria and only by the lower court.
Friedl is also in the process of attempting to relocate headquarters from Switzerland to Graz, Austria. There is some trouble brewing in Switzerland and France as well.
It was only one example (out of many). But it was the first example I found in 2012 where a criminal investigation was mentioned.
I tried to answer the question, I didn’t try to list a long list of factors. “It hasn’t been verified by any official sources” was the main point. If it has been verified then it hasn’t been posted here.
The link was posted in post #50, and I provided a Google translation in post #51. I also provided some additional information in post #67.
Note that translations like that may contain some misinterpretations. That’s why we don’t see them as “confirmed”, but they’re usually correct enough to be posted.
Yo Budstikka! VKI actually has WON their case back in February, but the judgement has not been entered as final.
What’s with the 2012 stuff, eh? Perhaps a visit to Dagmarhuis is in order to help ‘focus’ you 🙂
I don’t think there has been any disputes about that?
You must read it in context with the question. I simply told that a criminal investigation had been mentioned by newspapers in early 2012.
It has been mentioned by several other sources too, but that 2012 source was the first one I found (in 2012).
Here’s some additional information about criminal investigation in Austria:
NOLINK://behindmlm.com/companies/lyoness-lawsuits-and-investigation-in-austria/
I can find many other sources, but we haven’t verified the information you asked about. We have only verified that there was an ongoing criminal investigation in Austria by WKSIA.
Curious as to what your residuals were with 2500 on the team. Would you feel comfortable answering that here if you see this?
@ScamKiller99 – Less than $100 per month… A couple of days ago I received a whopping $50 🙂
@Viri
That’s not going to get you very far, seeing as media reporting on the case has been prohibited.
Anything you’ve read regarding Austria is incomplete.
Wow man.. Sorry to hear that. I work with the company that all these cashback/e-commerce deals are trying to copy.
My residuals were more than that with only about 4 to 6 people in the organization, back in the day. 🙁
Have you guys seen the TV interviews for the Australian court case.
2 People complained to the ACCC about lyoness…. So they decide to take Lyoness to court.
1 lyoness victim claim, he was promised to invest units and sit back and do nothing and it will grow like interest in a bank….how ridiculous is that..
ACCC case is so weak… the victim who bought the units from his upline is kicked out of lyoness for misrepresenting them.. ACCC case us dead!!..
i recently came back from lyoness convention in las vegas and talked to a few australians there and they laugh at the allegation…saying ACCC sues everyone and anything…
lyoness is stronger than ever they have in USA and Canada…My upline in Austria got his Mastercard and was using it on his current trip.
MC can be loaded at any bank or have your cashback and friendship bounus automatically loaded from lyoness to your mastercard..
mastercard is ammazing i was hopping to have it buy now.
After meeting hubert himself in las vegas, i asked about the mastercard being available in the usa and canada?
Too introduce MC to 46 different countries and many different languages and each country has different rules for mastercard and limits it was a bigger project than originally thought…so his goal was revised to later this year usa and canada will have there reloadable mastercard.
one other important change regard units.. once you purchase your units 3000.00 for example… you will be give 2000.00 in discout vouchers…with which you gave away to potentiall clients..
for example i would go to my account and create a $10.00 discount voucher print it up and give to a downline as a incentive to purchase gift cards.
he would take the voucher code enter it into his lyoness office and the 10.00 will be there.
he than would go order his 500.00 gift cards for a gas station and pay only 490.00 and use his 10 voucher that i have give him.. so this person just saved 10.00 on the gas purchase.
so when you buy units you are also given vouchers to give away..so techincal your purchase of units are really free….this option to create vouchers are only available for \lyoconet marketers.
1. Lyoness is dead in the US and Canada. No point pretending otherwise.
2. The ACCC sued Lyoness because it’s a Ponzi scheme. You invest in AUs and get paid a ROI when enough subsequent investments have been made.
(Ozedit: This is not the place for offtopic marketing spam.)
A discount voucher isn’t a retailable product or service?
People pay $3,000 as a down payment to become premium members (or whatever it’s called now). A down payment isn’t an “exchange of values” = it is not commissionable in MLM, and it’s not a fulfilled sale to end user.
It won’t become commissionable if you add some discount vouchers to that deal either. Discount vouchers are considered to be marketing material.
Some minor amounts can be accepted as payment for a service, i.e. organizing a discount system may have some value in itself, e.g. Walmart or others can charge a one time registration fee or a yearly fee for a “Members Only Discount Club”.
So your business logic is dead wrong here. And I can prove it, e.g. by linking to some of the MLM lawyers referring to case law, or by citing the report from the Norwegian Gaming Board.
I can probably also link to tax rules for “taxable events”, to prove that ordinary discount will be non taxable. It may be taxable if it isn’t ordinary discount, but a $10 discount on a $500 purchase sounds extremely ordinary.
@Peter
Dead based on what information, currently in Canada we have 93,000 members and during the past 2 weeks we just signed up 1100 new members, last year at this time we were just signing up a few hundred members weekly… we went from 900 business to just over 1200 business during the past year in lyoness….
i was introduced to a lady from medford oregon at lyoness convention inlas vegas it is a town of just over 75000 people and they have 18,000 lyoness members there with 200 lyoness merchants there.. i am from canada so i cant give you any numbers for the USA…but it is doing very well..
one thing i do know is they have 3000 lyoness merchants….and at this point last year they where at 1800…imo seems like they are doing pretty good.
i agree ACCC are have made a claim in a court of law…imho it is a very weak case.
they will lose there court case…i have done some research on it. i saw the people who have registered the complaint…so please do your research…
i have looked at all the articles the media has written about it and it is a very weak case.. imo…
hi peter fuhr
Where I can find pricess and the table with costs of wire transfers and so on? Could you please share it?
Dead based on the fact they’ve been trying to get it to catch on there for years. And it hasn’t.
Signing up free members who don’t do anything. Especially when you’ve got a few merchants handing out free memberships like candy (hoping to make Ponzi riches).
If anything Lyconet has slowed things down even further.
The US or Canada doesn’t even make up 5% of traffic to the Lyoness website, with overall visits in decline.
The US makes up 7.5% of visits to Lyconet, with overall visits to the domain pretty negligible. Canada doesn’t even rate a mention.
This was reflected in the scores of empty seats at the recent event you went to (we saw video footage).
Having looked at the actual filed case, I disagree. They’re going after the AUs, which is quite obviously a Ponzi scheme.
That and the ACCC don’t have a history of losing court cases.
Please don’t use indirect arguments like that. “A lady from Medford Oregon told me …” is a commonly used method in MLM to mislead people.
If you wish to use that type of arguments, you will also need to accept the same types of arguments from me.
A lady from Medford Oregon told me that it actually was plain BS, something she made up to impress other people during a Las Vegas convention. She also told me that Lyoness leaders had taught her to use that method.
That same lady told me a lot of stuff. 🙂
If you believe that, you really do need either some new friends or new sources of information.
The biggest complaint laid against the ACCC is that it is slow to react and doesn’t act against blatant fraud as quickly or decisively as it should.
the quality of the people or quality of their complaint is not the issue.
the complaint is about ‘lyoness is a ponzi/pyramid scheme’. the complaint is not about the individual transaction between the complainants and lyoness.
this is not a private citizen case/class action, where the actions of the particular member will decide his ‘damages’.
this is a govt regulator case which alleges the lyoness scheme is a ponzi/pyramid scheme which has to be shut down.
can you provide a link to the media articles you have relied on to decide that the ACCC case is ‘weak’?
ANybody can take anyone to court for 100.00 and wow you have court case…
the ACCC has a history of taking anyone and any company to court… all you have to do is log a complaint and bingo you have a court case… which means nothing at this point…
What on Earth are you talking about?
The ACCC is a regulatory body. They are not some private party filing lawsuits against anybody and everybody.
Regulators do not file lawsuits frivolously, as decisions set precedence in future scam cases.
Bloody hell, was there something in water at that Lyoness convention?
If you’re going to regurgitate crap, back it up.
I dont want to mention the ladies name in a sort of forum..I respect her privacy….. just go youtube for example and see how many video’s there town has created endorsing Lyoness… or go to go visit some business websites from Medford and you will see how much they promote Lyoness…
so go to USA Lyoness website and search how many businesses are in Medford Oregon.. and you will see for yourself… they set an lyoness office in the small town of 77,000 to accommodate the 18,000 members…
it’s a hard cold stone fact it is happening Medford had a different approach to the business, which has helped the Lyoness model work in other communities….
I can give you an example how a greener in the middle of know where has recruited over 4000 members in Oshawa Ontario called KIngsway Greenhousein like 3 months… and because of him there has been several business join him as well to take advantage of the shopping network….
this his happening everyday in Lyoness.. (Ozedit: attempt to take discussion offsite removed)
lyoness double its merchants every year and membership is growing exponentially in USA and Canada
There’s a link early in this article:
NOLINK://behindmlm.com/companies/lyoness/australian-lyoness-affiliate-complaints-revealed/
Perhaps a better question is… how many MERCHANTS in Medford takes Lyoness?
The answer is… 167. As per Lyoness loyalty merchant search. And some of those may be national chains.
We’ve been hearing Lyoness is “growing in the US” since the Zeek days.
Keith Laggos sold everyone an investment dream (“Plan B”) and then disappeared off into the wilderness.
As an MLM opportunity, Lyoness in the US is stagnant with Lyconet clearly in decline.
Once i get my card i will post the fees
Actually, make that 78 merchants. I put the city filter in the wrong field.
regulators like the ACCC, are always overworked. they do not have the time/funds to go after companies just for the heck of it. they have to show that they have spent time and funds on worthwhile investigations and cases, and not misused public funds.
here’s the ACCC consumer protection case record for 2013:
does^^ it look like ACCC stands outside the courthouse, peddling it’s power, to everyone with a complaint? does it look like ACCC LOSES?
FWIW, Los Angeles only shows 61 merchants, most are national chains like “California Pizza Kitchen”, iHOP, Sears, Office Depot, and so on. And each branch counts (i.e. if there are 5 stores in the area, they are counted separately).
So the actual number of stores are low, low, and low.
if you use the advanced search punch in the zip code 9001-90016 and search 100 miles you will find 1200 merchants.
Then you should probably stop referring to sources like that?
The method “Make up a story about a friend, relative or a nice lady from Medford Oregon” is too commonly used in MLM to produce fake testimonials. “My upline in Australia” is commonly used too.
People use methods like that to “deflect” questions, to make sure they won’t be caught if they’re making up stories. If you wish to refer to your upline in Australia then bring him in and let him tell the story directly.
Then we have statements like this one …
If you really have done some research then link to some reliable sources. The statement “I have done some research” doesn’t really tell us anything.
You’re a rather lousy researcher, e.g. you’re extremely vague and your work is usually poorly documented.
fuhr is just back from a las vegas convention. right now there is a lyoness brass band playing in his head.
if his cronies said – ACCC sues everybody!— then it must be true.
if the guy on the stage said — lyoness is growing in the US and canada! — then it must be true.
if his upline said —we’re all about the shopping, not the AU units –it must be true.
in other news lyoness is going to be the next president of the US and canada combined.
My question is, why would anyone invest in a dying paradigm?
Have you gone to a shopping mall lately? The employees out number the customers.
People are shopping online and getting FREE cashback and other incentives. They do not have to run around with a pocket full of pre purchased discount cards or loyalty cards. They can price compare at home and save way more than any single card will get them.
The merchants are moving online too and build loyalty with new methods and incentives. How many new brick and mortar stores are being built in YOUR area? Here in the US they are knocking down more than they are building.
If you are trying to drag people back into stores. Give it up. Its a losing battle.
I have cashback and discount cards too as a tiny segment of what we do. We would never try to build an entire company from that miniscule of a profit margin product. Especially because we know how and how often they are actually used.
At best, what people do with them is purchase them at a discount from companies like Raise.com or giftcertificates.com THEN use them to purchase something ONLINE and get cashback, coupon codes and/or other deals. They “double or tripple dip” so to speak.
But again, kind of a moot point because the margins are so slim, the gift card access is really noting more than a talking point or icebreaker in some situations.
You will never, ever ever, EVER! build a networking business that will last on margins from affiliate commissions alone. EVER!
If you can get in your time machine and go back to the early 1990’s you might have a chance for a few years with your loyalty card program.
Until then, get a grip and do some market research of your own, instead of listening to what you are being fed.
Rhetorical question: How many people were at your convention in Las Vegas?
wow really….. how are you supposed to fill up your gas tank… by sitting on your computer desk.
How are you supposed to buy your groceries, when I buy my fruit and vegetables, i like to make sure I am getting the freshest product I can, are you going to pay someone to come to your house and cut your hair…hummmmm….
lets say i want to take a trip somewhere i can book it online but i physically have to go on the trip. American Airlines is a merchant of Lyoness BTW.
The city I am visiting i can use my gas cards when i rent a vehicle through Lyoness like I did at christmas time in Florida.
I have 9 Loyalty cards and when i use my Lyoness card I double dip i get the store points and I also get my cashback from lyoness.
my upline in Austria will benefit, because everytime i shop he gets a friendship bonus. The merchant loves it because i traveled thousands of miles to shop at his restaurant.
No investment, no units no money laid out……and i can get back anywhere from 1-5 % cashback…better in your pocket than someone elses
I agree the margins are slim, at the end of the month i will have accumulated anywhere from $15-$50 per month in cashback and about 10 shopping points…
i choose now I also get money from other shopping which is about $50-$100.00 per month I do not have a big lifeline…
the only reason I dont get more back is limited amount of places to shop, If they had a dentist in my area or hair dresser and sports medical clinc, or auto dealer/auto body/auto repair i could easily be spending a few thousand more per month…
again no units, no laying out $3000.00 they option is there if you want to build your business but it is a clear choice..
i think just under 5000 from countries all over the world….it is not a cheap flight to fly from Europe, Australia, or South Africa..
these people are the builders of Lyoness the other 4.5 million are shoppers..
Is this as true as your previous statement about MasterCard & Lyoness “alliance”? Shall we ask AA for clarity sake?
so how many Lyoness members is in US currently?
Who drives 100 miles to visit merchants like doggy day care and fitness coaching?
The default setting on Lyoness search is 16 km, and that’s what I used. Stop moving the goalpost.
16% of my Lyoness merchant sales are from 150 miles or more…and i have a restaurant….16% are driving past many restaurants to eat of my place…
do you remember a post you made a few years back when they had zero there… and today they have 76 merchants.. i am sure they will have 150 tmerchant this time next year.
@peter
Yet investment in AU units is all that matters to the CEO and Lyoness’ top earners. Herp derp, wonder why that is.
You’ve been told about your anecdotal hypotheticals, they’re pointless. The option to shop does not cancel out investment in AUs, which is what anyone who earns decent money in Lyoness has done.
“It’s all about the positions!” – Hubert Friedl.
And you believe that’s related to the Lyoness cashback offer? 🙂
People usually eat when they’re hungry. Most people eat relatively regularly each day (breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc.).
And people are usually relatively specific about the type of food they want to eat, e.g. they may visit fish restaurants, sushi restaurants, Indian restaurants, Chinese restaurants, steak houses, pizzerias, McDonald’s, etc.
People may also be specific about the types of restaurants for other reasons, e.g. truck drivers may have certain “truck driver restaurants” where they can meet other truck drivers, bikers may have favorite meeting places where they can meet other bikers.
Business people may prefer certain types of restaurants. Tourists may prefer certain types or locations.
All in all, your information is too vague. You don’t tell the whole story here.
I seriously don’t believe that people will go hungry for hours or days just to get a 2.5% cashback at a Lyoness affiliated restaurant.
How far would anyone drive to get back $2.50 for every $100, $1.25 for every $50 or 62c for every $25 ??
and herein lies the truth of the lyoness facade.
the ‘shopping model’ brings barely enough savings/earnings to the affiliates, and barely any income to lyoness. the real game is hidden inside the AU investments. that is what ACCC is pursuing.
the ACCC doesn’t give a dang if you drive around for a 100 miles to save 5$. if you’re happy, they’re happy.
so, it’s time you and your mentors, stopped Glorifying the Greatness of the shopping benefits and addressed the AU question without blinking.
Without knowing of how many of your total customer numbers are coming from outside of a 150 mile radius, what you’ve given is a meaningless statistic
What you’re claiming is that 16% of your diners are driving over 150 miles to save $2.50 on every $100 they spend.
If that’s what you are basing your defense of Lyoness on, you are what is essential to every pseudo MLM pyramid scheme – the enthusiastic amateur who “proves” there is saleable “product” while the men-behind-thecurtain focus their efforts on the pyramid / endless chain recruiting / AU aspects of the business.
By using a single cashback visa card that awards shopping points, and cashback to the consumer and business associate alike.
You can also use the card online and get the cashback and points twice. But I guess you dont have one of those do you?
Sorry man, not trying to kill your dream. Just saying that you didnt do the market research. Just trying to let you know that Lyoness is simply a cheap, half hearted attempt at copying the real deal.
They do not have the backbone, buying power or (obviously) the inclination to do this right.
Trust me, they are not avoiding the “online and e-commerce” space by choice. They are not there because of what it takes to actually get there.
They are doing the bare minimum because they have no chance at competeing in that space the way they are currently setup.You really should look into the business behind the business and examine the market.
Internet Retailer Magazine & Forsee are some good sources of info to start with.
Look for what type of global demand there is for cashback cards VS online retailing… Which market is growing?
By counting multiple branches separately. But I guess you want to suggest that ain’t cheating, huh?
How much is the gasoline in your area? You must get a lot of noobs and not much repeat business, since the idea of driving 3 hours to eat is crazy.
You’re talking road-trip distances, which means it’s only done occasionally, if ever. Not much of a repeat customer base there.
Or perhaps you’re too busy thinking of the upside rather than the downside?
Your information was rather meaningless. You will need to add some information about type of restaurant, type of location, type of customers and similar information to place your statement into some type of context.
People may travel 150 miles because …
* they’re on vacation (tourists)
* they have business meetings (e.g. sales people)
* they have social meetings
* it’s a part of their job (e.g. truck drivers)
But people certainly don’t travel 150 miles to visit a restaurant. They travel 150 miles because of other reasons than that. You have failed to identify that other reason.
There was a girl in 2012 on our polish blog who was making statements like: ” nievermind we have 1000 merchants in Poland now, it started 4 years ago with 0 and will surelly double the next year, lets comeback to this disscussion in a year and we’ll see who was right”. I never heard her again.
It’s 1521 merchants here at this moment and got down last quartile.
Well, quite far if you’re braiwashed enough.
How you about you include, because they service/product is exceptional.
Or They are loyal.
Earlier on They have had flash mobs at my place.
I dont know why they come but I do know they use there Lyoness card. This called 101 marketing. They know I exist and they went our of there way.
how much, why how much they save… it’s marketing…
why does somebody order a dozen donuts to flown 1000’s of miles…. i have had Krispy Kreme donuts.. what idiot would pay hundreds of dollars for donuts, how does this lady in my city sell 700.00 cakes over the internet….. who does this…. who has that kind of money…
You are the expert to what people shopping habbits are.
Now now no need to be insulting people just because they don’t conform to your ideas.
I am also a gift card selling point. so they might have a meal at the same time.
They all have restrictions on them. I have a Visa rewards card, I prefer my instant cashback.
As far as credit cards, I don’t like them they give people the idea they can spend more than they have. many people credit cards are all maxed out than… so now this people have a chance to get out of debt with Lyoness.
Or how about the people who lost there credit now they have great chance to budget. get themselves a reloadable MasterCard and they are back in business with online shoppping booking hotel rooms.
There is a niche that is forgotten about. Places like Greece, Italy, Spain, where there economy sucks and many people have lost there jobs…Lyoness is excelling.
Hey, you’re the one who seriously expects people to believe folks drive over 100 miles to save 2.5% of their eventual bill.
What did you expect making outrageous claims like that – adulation ???
What you’re doing is called “confirmation bias” and while it may get you applause at Lyoness ra ra sessions, you can’t seriously expect experienced readers to accept your interpretation of the data.
That’s an admission you rely on outliers rather than the normal consumers, right?
One “Mordechai Lerner” (Lyoness SME couch) tried to contact you here, but his post was deleted. He wouldn’t post anything directly himself, so he asked you to contact him via email.
He will probably advise you to avoid certain types of arguments.
Business people will usually have some idea about WHY customers will visit a shop and WHY people may wish to buy something.
People don’t randomly travel 150 miles or more to eat at restaurants. They usually travel for other reasons than that. “Culinary tourism” may have visits at specific restaurants in specific areas as a main purpose.
Other types of tourism may also visit specific restaurants, e.g. certain Eastern European night clubs may get most of their visitors from Ireland and the UK while they have very few local visitors. “Kåre’s Party Bar” in Pattaya, Thailand mostly have male Scandinavian visitors (for some reason).
My main point was that your information was too vague to make any sense. You tried to give the impression that Lyoness attracts a lot of visitors to your restaurant from a long distance, but you failed to tell us the correct reason.
The Las Vegas “Sensation” convention = March 21 2015, Thomas & Mack Center (an arena owned by University of Nevada, Las Vegas).
NOLINK://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_%26_Mack_Center
The Las Vegas Leadership convention = March 22 – March 28 2015, Wynn Las Vegas and Encore Hotel (sister hotel of Wynn).
NOLINK://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wynn_Las_Vegas
When people travel 150 miles or more in that scenario, they do it primarily because they have been invited to the convention, not because they carefully have studied “Lyoness affiliated restaurants and hotels”
You tried to give the opposite impression, that people are willing to travel 150 miles or more because your restaurant can offer cash back and gift cards.
The metro area that I live in has over 1 million people. Doing a search on Lyoness, I found 10 chains (Office Depot, IHoP, etc)and 8 individual businesses (one of which was a psychic).
More trouble in Lyoness Disneyland?
I just discovered that Lyoness Americas CNO Jerry Yerke jumped over to DuBli along with some other high level Lyoness scammers including Pam Lewko.
Also, it appears that the idoot savant CEO of Lyoness America is getting replaced.
Why would people leave any business with real potential?
The answer is they wouldn’t ……is the Lyoness empire crumbling?
Just heard that Lyoness is launching in India in May… I feel sorry for the people of India…
Dubli have a history of paying “leaders” to join.
Kinda funny they’d jump one sinking ship for another, Dubli has been in decline over the last few months.
It seems the best country for class action against Lyoness is Netherlands wiht their arbitration law.
If VKI and Advofin establish SPV there, they can gai administrative decision that will be considered as a court sentecne in EU countries:
kleinezeitung.at/s/steiermark/4725342/Umstrittene-Einkaufsgemeinschaft_Lyoness_VKI-und-Advofin-streben
See 0:53, 1:53, 2:18, 3:09, 3:16, 3:41 – there are empty seats edited out (blurred) from Lyoness official video summarizing last Las Vegas convention. They say there was 5000 people in 20 000 seats in Thomas & Mack Center:
youtube.com/watch?v=2TpmIWzwfk8
Same reality inverting as was with MasterCard adds…
Has there been any recent development about the Freidl ACCC investigation? This topic stopped in may I’m wondering what’s the situation now.
The trial has been scheduled to begin on the 27th of July. We’ll have more for you at the end of the month.
It is very interesting to me since I was approached by a lyoness member in Croatia.
There are some interesting things about this whole story but since I read this thread it became clearer how they profit and how dependent they are on people to invest as premium members.
Has there been any recent develeopment regarding this case?
Same here…Just wondering if anyone is following the case?
No judgement yet. Still waiting.
I read the MLM Teeth “rant” about Lyoness, the constant criticism and negative reports, I wonder about why MLM- Teeth behave the way they do, it can only be to do with plain old envy.
Rest be assure MLM Toothless wonders that you are, Lyoness are a remarkably robust organization, full of vigour and energy, they are busy with continuing to business their successful business and adding huge value into the lives of so many ordinary people as well as SMEs….
but what do you do, just snipe from the side lines, well good luck and watch this business blossom and grow.
Compared to WHAT?
the fact scammers have to keep coming here to defend this scam proves what a scam it is.
There are thousands or more people that hate Windows or Apple but you don’t see Bill Gates or Apple having to send people out to defend a legitimate product.
The fact that you ONLY see “envy” suggests you have very limited thinking. You may want to look up “Dunning Kruger effect”.
Yea, sure. You keep doing what your doing. It WILL come back to haunt you.
Austrian Lyoness investigation concluded; Lyoness expects to be cleared of all charges.
kleinezeitung.at/k/wirtschaft/4807933/Bericht-an-Oberstaatsanwalt_Causa-Lyoness_Ermittlungen-abgeschlossen
steiermark.orf.at/news/stories/2728632/
The Plattform Lyoness founders (former Lyoness execs in Italy) were cleared of the charged filed against them by Lyoness.
kaernten.orf.at/news/stories/2728652/
so Lyoness is legit?
Of course it isn’t. What would make you think that?
“Lyoness expects to be cleared of all charges” can mean anything from HOPE to WISHFUL THINKING to FACT BASED OPINION. 🙂
Platform Lyoness is a group of former Lyoness employees, IIRC. They were cleared of charges.
[Auto translated]
When the scam threat and the court decision come near the end, all the voices of this post go silent.. sweet sweet silence.
I come to light up the discussion since now the “facts” that drove many of you to believe your malformed opinion was right are getting nullified with the end of this case and absolution of Lyoness as a pyramid scheme, scam, however you want to call it.
Not wanting to insult anyone, as most of you outrun me in legal knowledge, but if the law that we live by says its ok and having the option to change our opinions with new and clarified information do you now see the possibility of Lyoness actually being a functional NWM model with a great potencial for those that choose to use it?
So uh, how’s life in fantasy land?
Meanwhile investing in AUs and getting paid when subsequent investors invest in AUs? Ponzi scheme.
Which court, and which decision?
You’re making it sound as if this is going to be one lawsuit to rule them all, when there is no such thing.
Hi,
AS now the Australian AND the Austrian legal actions have BOTH been dismissed against Lyoness, will you make an update and let’s readers know that all charges have been removed and all is closed now?
This is good to inform about some law suits, this is the best to also report when this is over and the company won in each case 😉
@L Raynal
I covered the ACCC dismissal. As far as I know the Austrian criminal case is ongoing (?)
Also Lyoness didn’t “win” the ACCC case, it was dismissed on technical grounds. The AU investment scheme was not the focus of the lawsuit (the ACCC tried to introduce it far too late into proceedings when they should have lead with it).
Which “Austrian legal action”?
If you have some information then it’s better to post it yourself than to complain about that others haven’t posted it. But you should preferrably provide a reliable source for the info.
It looks like a company called MyCard might be the company that issues the cards to Lyoness. mycard.cards
Interestingly, the contact person for MyCard is one Gerhard Buckholz, CEO of Lyoness South Africa.
alacrastore.com/storecontent/InfoCredit-Group/MYCARD-INTERNATIONAL-FZ-LLC-2127-39161