My Travel & Cash: $381 2×3 matrix entry
My biggest criticism of the travel niche when it comes to MLM business opportunities is that 99.9% of the time membership to the company is being marketed rather than any actual travel.
Commissions are typically paid out when someone joins the company with only the company itself making any commission if travel is booked once a member joins.
With 100% of the commissions payable coming from membership fees, this casts a big question on the legality of most travel niche MLMs.
Attempting to deliver a true retail product in the MLM travel niche comes My Travel and Cash. Read on for a full review.
The Company
The My Travel and Cash website does not list any information about runs or owns the company.
The domain whois information however lists a ‘Louis Merlini’ operating out of 83 Victoria Street in London.
Portuguese language source blogs indicate that Merlini is the CEO of My Travel and Cash, however I wasn’t able to find any visual indication that such a person exists.
My Travel and Cash state they originated in Eastern Europe but most of the Portuguese information out there suggests that My Travel and Cash was/is big in Brazil before putting up an English website to attract a larger audience.
The email ‘ceomerlini@gmail.com’ is interesting in that it is linked to another domain, ‘travelaccessclub.net’.
Travel Access Club now lists the domain registrant as Louis Merlini with the same information used to register My Travel and Cash, however in the past a Harmeet Singh was listed as the registrant.
Domain Name: TRAVELACCESSCLUB.NET
Registrant:
mytravelandcash
HARMEET SINGH (ceomerlini@gmail.com)875 196 Ave
NE Apt
Lossangels
Texas,00501
USTel. +01.11111111
Obviously those details are fake, which could explain why now the whois information is different. That said, it’s hard to ignore the ceomerlini@gmail.com email address.
Travel Access Club appears to be some kind of recruitment scam in that you can’t even view the opportunity without a referral link.
As for who Harmeet Singh is, I have no idea but the name pops up claiming owernship of three other domains –
MLM Software (mlmsoftware.in):
Advantage F Invest (advantagefinvest.in):
and Astha International (asthainternational.in):
Mlmsoftware.in redirects to an Indian company called ‘SmartSoft MLM Solutions Pvt. Ltd.’ Headed up by Founder ‘Kishore Varma’, SmartSoft provides business backends to MLM companies.
Advantage F Invest appears to be a MLM company in the travel niche. The company uses a binary pairing compensation plan that pays out 100% of its commissions on the recruitment of members to the business.
Astha International also appears to be yet another recruitment scam:
To know the detailed information about the Opportunity, you need to contact your upliner or the senior distributor whom you have been referred.
The opportunity plan Information is being furnished in their Login.
The company does not provide any information on their business model unless you go through an existing member (so that they can recruit you and earn commissions).
What all these companies have to do with My Travel and Cash I’m not entirely sure, but if I had to guess I’d say this Harmeet Singh is somehow connected to SmartSoft (an employee?) and they are behind My Travel and Cash.
Perhaps SmartSoft got sick of just writing MLM backends for companies and wanted a piece of the action themselves.
Whether Louis Merlini even exists is unclear, but if the fake registration information provided on the other websites using the ceomerlini@gmail email are anything to go by, probably not.
These MLM companies, all linked via the need to recruit people to them to earn commissions appear to be the foundation of My Travel and Cash.
The My Travel and Cash Product Line
My Travel and Cash sell membership to the company, as evidenced multiple times in the company’s FAQ:
11. Waow, this system is fast, Can I purchase multiple Memberships ?
You understood that this system is easy, simple, fast and rewarding, you are totally encouraged to purchase as many memberships as you want to multiple your commissions !
Bundled with membership to My Travel and Cash is an accommodation package. Actual use of the package is irrelevant as the commissions paid out are solely tied into the membership fee being paid.
Given that My Travel and Cash utilise third-party affiliates to provide their travel services, you cannot purchase any travel services from the company. All purchases with My Travel and Cash are thus effectively membership purchases.
The My Travel and Cash Compensation Plan
The best way to explain the My Travel and Cash compensation plan is to split it into two parts – Independent Seller commissions and Member commissions.
Independent Seller Commissions
After paying a membership fee My Travel and Cash, Independent Sellers are able to earn a 7% commission on any membership sales they make.
This equates to a commission ranging from $12.25 to $26.67 per new member recruited.
Member Commissions
After paying a membership fee, Members of My Travel Club purchase entry into a 2×3 matrix system. Once filled with members, the person at the top of the matrix cycle out.
A 2×3 matrix has 6 member positions to fill and new members are fed into the bottom of the matrix. Once the matrix is full, the member at the top cycles out and the matrix splits into two new matrices with the two members on level 2 of the previously filled matrix now sitting at the top of the two new matrices.
Within the My Travel and Cash compensation plan are two 2×3 matrices, the Travel Board and the Cash Board.
The Travel Board is where all members start once they purchase company membership.
Once this matrix is full, if you’re at the top of the matrix you earn a commission based on how many members you’ve recruited.
- if you recruited 2 members, you earn $100
- if you recruited 1 member, you earn $50
- if you failed to recruit anyone, you don’t earn anything
Once cycled out of the Travel Board, My Travel and Cash members are then entered into the Cash Board.
The Cash Board operates in the same manner as the Travel Board with the same recruitment requirements to earn a commission once you cycle out.
- recruit 2 members = $3000 commission
- recruit 1 member = $1500 commission
Again, if you fail to recruit anyone you earn nothing.
Once cycled out of the Cash Board, members must repurchase membership in order to enter back into a new Travel Board and start the process again.
There is no limit to the amount of matrix positions a My Travel and Cash member can purchase.
Joining My Travel and Cash
My Travel and Cash membership comes in three varieties:
- the Client Package costs $380 and included with this cost is an accommodation package
- the Member Package costs $381 and includes one matrix position and an accommodation package
- the Independent Seller Package costs $175 and allows members to earn 7% on any membership sales they make
Conclusion
With just $1 difference between the ‘Client’ and ‘Member’ packages, it’s obvious that the only reason the Client Package exists is to provide the illusion that My Travel and Cash is not just another recruitment based travel niche MLM company.
From a member’s perspective however, there’s absolutely no incentive to sell anyone a Client Package. They don’t earn a commission on the sale of a Client Package (no matrix buy-in) and the money goes straight to the company.
As far as the Independent Seller membership option goes, I’m at a loss as to why anyone would sign up for that either.
Cycling out of the Traveler Board from the bottom requires eleven membership sales and the same again for the Cash Board. Thus off of twenty two membership sales a My Travel and Cash member earns $3,100.
Under the Independent Seller membership option, the same twenty two sales would result in just $586.74.
Clearly the Independent Seller membership option is also just included to add the illusion of legitimacy to the company.
Quite obviously the business model behind My Travel and Cash is that members buy into the matrices for $381, cycle out and then buy in again. The travel side of the business is merely a ruse and none of the commissions are generated via the actual use of any travel vouchers or bookings My Travel and Cash or its affiliates handle.
Add to this the extremely dubious company ownership details and well, pretty much My Travel and Cash starts to look like every other MLM travel niche recruitment scam out there.
Once people stop buying membership to the company, the commissions dry up and the company goes bust.
@Oz
You have missed this part
The address is completely bogus. There’s no such city in Texas and there’s no such zip code in Texas either.
Here n Brazil, this company is being promoted by a man who has has achieved the “president” level in 3 or 4 different VOIP MLM companies(all of them now collapsed) before
Yeah I figured as much, Los Angels in Texas? Lol.
@Brazilian
Has anyone seen this Louis Merlini guy?
Or is this yet another company being run by scammers out of India who list fake CEOs?
I think something similar to this is taking hold in Dalton, GA. I think they are calling themselves TVI Express. Anyone ever had any dealings with this group?
TVI Express was issued a cease and desist by state of Georgia back in 2010.
https://behindmlm.com/companies/tvi-express/tvi-express-declared-a-scam-in-the-us-state-of-georgia/
Oh and I track the TVI Express scam world-wide spread myself at my blog
kschang.blogspot.com
@oz no I’m talking about the Brazilian guy who “brought” the system to Brazil and is recruiting thousands of people here.
Another question: why so many MLMN companies based in India?
@Brazilian
India have a well established environment for scammers, like “MLM Fraudsters Guild”, “Con Artists Guild” and similar organizations, with branches all over India. 🙂
The real answer is that India is a big market, with more than 1.2 billion people, have had steadily growth in GNP in the last two decades or more, and have traditions for starting businesses or being self employed.
They also have a young population, more eager to earn money than being experienced – or what we usually will call “wannabes”.
Most western countries have other traditions, like spending a few more years on education, and being employed somewhere. Those who starts their own business will either start early (on the expense of education), or start business late (when they have experience and the finances needed).
Ordinary MLM contributes to growth in an economy, but most MLM-scams will do quite the opposite (make people poorer). That’s why I’m not very interested in supporting them.
Brazil seems to have been a popular target for MLM-scams from India, the U.S. and some local ‘entrepreneurs’?
Norway
We had the same situation in Norway in the early 2000’s. Scams like WGI World Games International recruited more than 200,000 investors in a population of 4.7 million people. Another scam, T5PC The 5 Percent Community recruited more than 50,000 members.
Today the market here is far more resistant, and most MLM-scams meets more trouble than they like. The local ‘professionals’ tries to avoid this market as best as they can, due to a few convictions in court and some cases of tax penalties. People have also been more careful in using the internet to market MLM-scams.
The resistance has to come from the population itself and in their own language, making it more easy for people to involve themselves in discussions (if they like to do so).
Rule number one if you start a MLM-like scam is “Don’t have your home country as the primary market”. You will usually meet more trouble there than anywhere else, if you first have started to attract trouble. 🙂
@Brazilian
Look at Speak Asia, they ran an obvious ponzi scheme for a year and are now in court arguing that because they had plans (which they never enacted on) to get their members to sell products, they should be cleared of all criminal liability.
The fact this hasn’t been thrown out of court and Speak Asia’s management and senior members prosecuted puts a serious question on the legality of ponzi schemes in India.
These guys roped in 1.2-1.8 million members (depending on who you cite) and management are dancing overseas with millions… so what’s the chance a smaller player is going to get caught and prosecuted?
Something else to consider, if Speak Asia win in court – that pretty much gives the green light for ponzi scheme operators to run their scams from India legally.
I don’t agree with you. I believe Norway is still the country in the world with the highest rate of pyramid scheme participants. The turnover for pyramid schemes in Norway is today higher than it was during the early 2000’s, but the schemes are more sophisticated, hide behind the term MLM, and some of them also operate more hidden.
3-5 % of the Norwegian population has been involved with a pyramid/MLM scheme during the last 12 months, and there are about 50 concepts that involves more than 1000 Norwegians.
A few examples of schemes that hides behind the term MLM:
– Innerlight
– Kyani
– Agel
– Silver Snowball
– Xocai
– Tahitian Noni
– Geon
– GoodleAdz
– Juugo
– Nu Skin
– MyShoppingGenie
– World Ventures
None of these schemes have focus on retail sales, it’s all about constantly recruiting new people to the network. Every month thousands Norwegians join one of these schemes, just to find out a few months later that they could not make it.
@B.F.
“Much more resistant” didn’t mean “fully resistant”. Most schemes seems to collapse or slow down before they reach a size of 10,000’s of members. Being able to get 1000 or 2000 members in a market with a population of 4.8 million people isn’t exactly a success.
My comparison was related to the situation in Brazil, where they currently seems to attract new schemes from India and the U.S., in addition to some local ‘President level’ persons importing or starting their own schemes. The situation is more similar to Norway in 2000-2005 than the situation today, and the comparison was related to RESISTANCE rather than the situation in a single market.
It should be nearly impossible to recruit 50,000 or 100,000 members to a scheme today in the Norwegian market. The population has been far more resistant than they were few years ago.
Some people will always be attracted to MLM and pyramid schemes. It’s worse when the more normal part of a population starts to join schemes.
@M_Norway:
I totally agree with you. It should not be possible to recruit 50.000 Norwegians to a pyramid scheme. But not because of stronger resistance in the population. The reason why it will not happen is the hard competition between the scams, and the fact that the current scams mostly run into continuous collapse instead of a sudden big bang.
Some of the big (and appearantly sustainable) MLM companies have had more than 50.000 Norwegian members in total, but not at the same time, as most people quit within a year.
If there were only one MLM scam available for Norwegians, I am sure they would recruit 50.000 members within two years.
You seem to believe that the Norwegian population has learned from scandals like T5PC and World Games. I have not yet found anything that can support this theory; they jump into new pyramid schemes like never before.
The annual amount of money that is lost in these schemes, is about 2 billion NOK. The MLM industry has succeeded in demonizing the pyramid schemes from the early 2000’s and making people believe that MLM is something complete different.
Actually there is something that divides MLM schemes like Nu Skin, Tahitian Noni and Agel from pyramid schemes like T5PC and WGI. In the MLM schemes the commission split is a lot more unfair than it was in T5PC and WGI. In most MLM schemes more than 50 % of all commissions are paid out to less than 0,5 % of the distributors.
The video I posted above describes Louis Merlini as “a big entrepreneur on construction industry who wanted to diversify his investiments”, but doesn’t say anyhing about what are the companies owned by him
I was almost going into business through the video posted above, just to travel to many nice resort in the world, but the system does not show anyone who has traveled by MT & C!
Glad I researched and found time through this blog.
I hope that this research on Louis Merlini continue …
Now they did a presentation in English.
Hello Everyone
I must say that I’ve known Mr. Merlini, in person. He was here at my city, Curitiba, in Paraná State, Brazil. There was the 1st International Convention here, in November 26, 2011, and the man was here for everyone present to know and to talk to.
Misinformation posted here isnt helping anyone… OBVIOUS there were several MLM-based companies, and SURE there was a ‘natural’ selection of the market, keeping alive those with the best system and/or product. We can see AmWay, Herbalife, Forever Living and many others with huge success for decades. Why not My Travel And Cash?
I have travelled with MYTC, haved earned some money too. I’m totally NOT spending my time trying to find a horn on a horse’s head, as we say here in Brazil. I’m working instead.
Good Luck! God Bless.
Because My Travel and Cash doesn’t have a product. Membership is not a product.
Membership in itself is not a product, and when a member (who paid to join) makes money by recruiting other paid members, it’s a pyramid scheme.
The fact that MT&C is virtually IDENTICAL to “TVI Express”, a convicted scam that has been kicked out of Australia, Indonesia, South Africa, and various other countries, should give you pause.
And their members aid the EXACT SAME THINGS YOU DID: I got travel, i got money, how can it be a scam?
Yet newspapers do not lie:
TVI Express declared a scam in US state of Georgia
https://behindmlm.com/companies/tvi-express/tvi-express-declared-a-scam-in-the-us-state-of-georgia/
Australia Judge declared TVI Express a pyramid scheme
https://behindmlm.com/companies/tvi-express/australian-judge-tvi-express-is-a-pyramid-scheme/
TVI Express business license revoked in Indonesia
https://behindmlm.com/companies/tvi-express/tvi-express-license-revoked-in-indonesia/
Before you say “that’s someone else”, study TVI Express compensation package yourself by going through the articles, and the news items. I have plenty more news items from around the world regarding TVI Express, but you can start with those.
Then compare their package to what you get with this one. They are NEARLY IDENTICAL. You get paid for recruiting, not for selling product or service.
Then ask yourself… how can this be legal, when that one is a scam, when they are practically the same?
They claim that they are selling hotel vouchers
They aren’t, seeing as the vouchers are part of third party affiliate services. As far as the My Travel and Cash opportunity goes, you are buying membership and a matrix buy in.
(is the commission paid by My Travel and Cash tied into the use of the hotel voucher?)
No, you don’t have to use the hotel voucher, you just have to buy it and recruit at least two people before you are sent form the travel board to the cash board
TVI Express said the EXACT SAME THING: they’re selling hotel vouchers. Doesn’t stop them from getting busted in Australia.
https://behindmlm.com/companies/tvi-express/jack-panaghis-attempts-to-validate-tvi-express/
Oh, great, TVI Express have two boards too: “Traveler board” and “express board”.
It’s an EXACT CLONE of a scam!
About 90,000 people have joined My Travel and Cash until now
An tvi express claimed to have 2 million members around the world, heh.
It’s unbelievable how authorities let this kind of company get so big
@Brazilian — I believe Grupo DMG in Colombia hit 2 million before it was dismantled. But there’s a BIGGER scam… DPRE, also in Colombia, that hit 6 million.
@K. Chang
Do you know what was Jean Marc Loger’s position on TVI Express?
In My Travel and Cash, he is the “international director”
According to himself, he left TVI Express because he didn’t agree with some things there
All I can find is Jean Marc Loger was in TVIExpress.fr, and a ton of comments (all copied) that he left over 1000 people without money. Here’s the Brazilian website that goes into it a bit, using our same methods:
http://industriadadecepcao.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/my-travel-and-cash-esquema-ponzi-detectado/
(in Portuguese, use translator)
Yesteday(May, 11th), Figueiró was sent out of the company, and few hours later he appeared on a web conference promissing to start a new MLM company next Monday. The company staff also did a web conference accusing Figueiró of a many things, and so did Figueiró, with various accusations against the company staff.
From the 70,000 memebers in My Travel and Cash, 53,000 were in Figueiró’s downline, including some top recruiters, and he is planning to take at least some of those people to the new company.
Let’s see what happens.
Sounds like they ran out of members to recruit.
70,000 angry downliners who can’t recruit… sounds like a nightmare.