OneCoin affiliates not paid for over a month
As part of the comparison between OneCoin and USFIA yesterday, I opined that, seven months in, OneCoin is probably at the stage where a Ponzi scheme “comes off the rails”.
Less than twenty-four hours after that article was published, we’ve now learnt that there are OneCoin affiliates who haven’t been paid for over a month.
Chris Stone joined OneCoin back in August 2014 and claims to be among the first few thousand to have signed up.
To put that into perspective, the OneCoin domain was only registered in June 2014. And just yesterday, OneCoin claimed to now have over 600,000 affiliates.
As per the OneCoin Ponzi points business model, Stone invested funds and then diligently began to grow his monopoly money balance.
Withdrawing funds from time to time as he compounded his points, Stone recalls
a wire transfer would take a max of 3 days to go from one bank to another.
About a month ago, that all changed.
In a recent post to OneCoin’s Facebook page, since deleted by OneCoin management, Stone attempted to raise awareness of his issue:
Still never received wired money from last Thursday from the 2 wire transfers that left my account.
The other 4 guys have not received pay also.
The other 4 wires have not left my account yet and two of them are even over 10 days passed due.
Support has not stated why the money transfers have not arrived in the accounts they were sent to.
Even though prior wires to those accounts would arrive within a day from showing out of the OneCoin account.
When will members actually receive the money that they were suppose too?
Is OneCoin actually out of money and actually not going to pay the members what is owed or what they said they already wired from the accounts?
Before posting to OneCoin’s Facebook wall, Stone claims to have sent “30 plus emails to (OneCoin) support”.
Stone asserts that OneCoin support are refusing to give him a tracking number for wire transfers they claim to have made.
That would be a very simple and basic thing to provide if the money was sent so it can be then traced and verified.
I’m still waiting to know where 2000 euro of my money is after a week of canned email responses or no replies.
In response to Stone’s post being deleted, fellow OneCoin investor Xieping Wang opined:
Seems no plan for our withdrawals, just grapped (sic, grabbed) money from members.
To which Stone replied, ‘at this point I don’t expect to get it‘.
Other OneCoin affiliates also began to share their experiences, complaining of similar withdrawal problems:
Waan Pimsuee: I wait for 3 weeks already and haven’t got any transfer to my account.
Edward McAlpin: I am in the same boat, no money received after 2 transfers 1 over 29 days, the other at 15 days now.
To all you who say it takes 30 to 40 days you are complete idiots, you can transfer money in seconds these days, and some lame excuse that the split has caused it and computers are catching up is ridiculous.
Juha Parhiala is one of OneCoin’s top investors. Parhiala resides in Thailand and, according to promotional material published on BusinessForHome, makes over $600,000 a month in OneCoin.
Parhiala is doted on by OneCoin Founder Ruja Ignatova, who last month presented him with a plaque captioned “one of the most inspiring leaders”:
Whereas OneCoin support were giving Chris Stone the runaround, Parhiala was all to happy to explain why he and other OneCoin affiliates weren’t getting paid:
Chris, you can’t just grab money away from he company without doing anything.
You gotta recommend two tycoons or one premium package to qualify for your withdrawal.
As per their website, OneCoin’s Premium investment package is €12,500 ($14,000 USD). The Tycoon package is €5000 ($5600 USD).
According to Parhiala, unless OneCoin investors convince others to invest at least €10,000, they do not qualify for withdrawals.
Parhiala didn’t elaborate on why this is the case. Nor why this is the first time anyone is hearing about OneCoin’s new withdrawal rules.
Needless to say, Parhiala’s announcement didn’t go down well with OneCoin affiliates:
Tracee Tim: Juha, your statement about having to recommend two Tycoons or a Premium package to withdrawal (sic) is news to me.
I came in because I read and was also told this was passive and I didn’t have to recommend others to join.
Xieping Wang: Seem (sic) they don’t have enough funds. Serious!
What can we do now?
At least one other affiliate announced they were selling their OneCoin account:
Nick Hetcher: FOR SALE… My position in OneCoin. I have 1179 One Coins.
I have some leaders on both legs, however, they are not doing much yet. Make me a reasonable offer.
Personally, the confirmation that OneCoin cannot continue to fund Juha Parhiala’s $600,000 a month ROIs unless new funds are invested comes as no surprise.
It’s just a shame that OneCoin investors weren’t told this before they invested. Instead we got mumbo-jumbo about cryptocurrencies and opening up banks across the world.
Having just written about OneCoin, I don’t really have insight fresher than my USFIA comparison yesterday.
The relevant take-away from which was probably this:
I suspect by the end of the year, April or so next year at the latest, we’re going to see financial institutions start to clamp down.
That of course won’t be publicly advertised, with OneCoin affiliates unable to access funds the only sign it’s happening.
Stay tuned…
Update 5th October 2015 – Fuelling speculation OneCoin is already having banking issues, is the announcement today that they have changed their bank.
In an update titled “OneCoin Withdrawal” published a few hours ago, the company writes:
Dear members, OneCoin has changed the bank we cooperate with.
Please note that we process now with a different bank. All withdrawals have been executed and processed and should be in your bank accounts soon.
Thank you for your patience.
The OneCoin Team
No reason is given for the switching of banks, nor whether or not it’s why OneCoin affiliates haven’t been paid for nearly a month.
Update 23rd January 2024 – Ted Nuyten quietly deleted all OneCoin coverage on BusinessForHome in January 2024.
This article originally contained links to cited BusinessForHome articles. Due to the deletion of the content, those links have now been disabled.
Nuyten hasn’t publicly addressed why OneCoin coverage on BusinessForHome was deleted.
well, ruja mama seems to be enjoying onecoin investor moolah too.
look at the diamonds she’s wearing in the photo in the article above, and in this photo from macao in september 2015:
facebook.com/OneCoin1/photos/pcb.718880171579427/718877704913007/?type=3&theater
if these diamonds are real, then onecoin investors should know where their money is going.
Question for the board:
Who would ever join any of these obvious money-games today especially since sites like this one can be found with a simply Google search?
Short List: Speak Asia, TelexFREE, USFIA, Zeek Rewards, uFun Club, WCM777, Achieve Community, Lucrazon Global
We know there are gullible, naive and just plain stupid people who join them in hope of making some easy money or even getting rich. However, it is now also clear there are people out there that KNOW these companies are ponzi-deals and join anyway.
This group of Ponzi Players will throw money into the deal (passive investment) with no intention of recruiting other investors. They are in it for the Free Money ONLY.
Oz posted an example of this type of Ponzi-Player above:
After the Zeek Rewards fiasco, there is now a Ponzi Scheme Investor/Player Model that this GROUP plays out with every NEW money-game that launches.
They KNOW these Money-Games run a high risk of getting shut down and in some cases, they visit Clawback City. Even though they know there is a chance the appointed Receiver will come after their PROFITS, with Zeek the clawback for most Investors (who settled) was ONLY 50%.
So, if they get in early enough, and withdraw their money fast enough, they can make Free Money.
Of course this “Free Money” is at the expense of those who got in towards the end or were too greedy to recoup their investment when they had the chance.
There is another Group of Ponzi Players that play BOTH sides of the Money Game. They Invest their personal funds AND recruit others who do the same.
I have heard them call it double-dipping. We saw this with OneCoin just recently and some of us have posted the names of a few of them.
EXAMPLE FROM SOCIAL MEDIA PAGE:
This character is no longer posting about OneCoin 10-12 times a day on his own personal FB page.
He knows the game but plays it anyway. He also knows the game is in the final innings, which means it is time to move on to the NEXT game.
The main problem I have with this type of person is that he plays on the naivete, ignorance, stupidity and ignorance of his OWN Facebook friends with one goal in mind – MAKE EASY MONEY for himself – screw everyone else!
Shame on them all! I hope the regulators finally take issue with all of them by sending a message to EVERYONE that participation in these PONZI DEALS/MONEY-GAMES, at ANY level, is illegal.
I was surprised to find a site with my name on it lol.
Here is the Outcome though of me raising hell on their Facebook Page. I received this in my Email today. 🙂
So they’ve terminated you for complaining about not being able to withdraw. I hope prospective OneCoin investors are reading…
Let’s see if you get a refund.
All Facebook posts quoted in this article have been deleted by OneCoin in the last twenty four hours.
The withdrawal situation continues to deteriorate, with this from OneCoin Facebook published a few hours ago:
OneCoin affiliate reactions:
I suspect with OneCoin now terminating affiliates who complain about withdrawal problems, that we’re going to see less chatter about it.
To date OneCoin has not officially informed affiliates of the new “you must recruit new investors to get paid” withdrawal rule.
It most likely came as a shock to everyone. 🙂
The first few payment problems became visible more than a month ago, just before they started to require Passport ID number and other details for withdrawals.
Those problems seem to have escalated, so it suddenly became non-compliant for members to mention OneCoin on social media — one or two weeks ago.
I don’t really think you will receive a refund. They probably added something about refund to make it look nicer when posted on the internet.
My Response back to them about sending me a refund was quite sarcastic. I know I would not actually get a refund from them.
The other 5 transactions that said was processed I never received before anyway and that was about 2000 euro worth.
The only thing they did by freezing my account is just show the Crypto-coin is not legit. I knew this already and Quit promoting it back in March.
I have 71000+ coins in the account they froze. What bank can legally steal money from you on that scale?
IF you go to their site that supposedly would show the value of the crypto-coin it says each coin is valued at USD 2.73730239 (Xcoinx).
So that would mean essentially at their market cost today they stole $194,348.46969 usd from me. 🙂
I have screenshots from a few days ago that shows my back office and coins I have in it etc. Although this site doesn’t allow me to upload to show that aspect.
Originally, when I joined back in Aug 2014 the pitch was the coin was the members and we owned them. Which is still the pitch they use now. This just shows more that it is a Fraud that the coins are just numbers.
Otherwise, they can’t just steal money from you for whatever the reason was. The same as a bank just can’t take your banking account with your money still in it, if they decide they don’t want you as a customer.
The MLM side could of stopped the bonuses etc if I was receiving but the investment side if it was how they are portraying it to be could not take what has “accumulated” from the investment to start with.
Can you send a copy of those screenshots via the contact form?
I think this is important to highlight the differences between a legit cryptocurrency and OneCoin.
No central body is able to steal or seize your coins in BitCoin.
Yes, hopefully more people see this page. All the 4-5 days of Posts I had on their webpage some of with is on here are gone now. They also blocked me from posting on their site. 🙂
He isn’t the top investor he shares the Top account in Onecoin with Sabastian Greenwood. He is also who formmed the entire Down line and his/Sebastian’s accounts are the top 22 accounts.
Juha is who got me into Onecoin back in Aug 2014 after meeting on Facebook I agreed to meet up with him for a beer to find out about this “Business Opportunity” he was talking about on Facebook.
I reside in Thailand on my off time. I also met Sebastian who is the “Master Distributor” which is also What Juha says he is as well at all the meetings in person etc etc..
A bit of a back story on Juha and Sebastian relationship they are involved in many businesses together as well as share a house in Pattaya which I had been to a few times. They have their own Condo’s separate in Bangkok though.
I met Sebastian as well a few days after meeting Juha. Juha and I spent a lot of time hanging out and partying etc when I was back on my time off for work. I was also going to meeting with him and trying to build a down line.
We Built a friendship up until the time I started catching him in many lies back in Feb time frame about the business and about what he was telling people.
His personality type is “if I say it, it has to be true so believe it and don’t question it”.
When asking him direct questions about issues with the business and him talking about the company building and going to the open market, he couldn’t reasonably answer basic questions like;
“How can that happen with the MLM set up the company has now?”
“How will the company handle transferring of coins to the members on a regular exchange platform?”
“How can the price stay regulated as you (Juha) and Ruja claim it will when its a market that will flux from one day to the next and there is no avenues in place for people to even spend and use the coins at?”
“What is the plan for the MLM side when the value of the coin goes to around .0001 a coin and you market it in the beginning as being valued at .50 euro cent a coin?”
“How in the beginning do you say it is the members coins to sell as they want and then put a cap on the amount that can be sold a day?” along with many other questions.
From that point on I stopped promoting onecoin and told my down line who was wanting to upgrade packets to not do so.
I also had down line wanting to bring people in and I explained to them the situation and it would be better to just wait and see what happens. Otherwise, they would be in the same situation as me which is bring people in and have a high potential that they won’t get the money back later.
I am glad now I did that because that is what has occurred.
Do you know how high up you were as an investor? Trying to suss out if stopping top investors from withdrawing and then shutting down their accounts when they question it might be the gameplan.
Also Thailand seems to be playing host to a number of western Ponzi pimps of late. uFun Club had a fledgling community before it was shut down. Crypto888 also has some main investors there from memory.
OneCoin isn’t a bank. The back office isn’t an “online banking service”. The Cash Account isn’t a bank account, and so on and so forth.
The money you have managed to withdraw from the system will be the only profit you have made. The money or investments inside the system can be compared to monopoly money / monopoly investments = a type of “game money” that don’t have any value out in the real world.
So you will probably not be negatively affected if they have terminated your account. You will only lose some HOPE that you eventually will be able to withdraw it as cash. You will also lose the opportunity to sell Gift Codes to others (with the related risks of doing that).
From that perspective, having the account terminated may actually be worth it. It’s not very fun to have money invested in a Ponzi scheme with escalating payment problems. It will often be better to look at it from a distance.
@ Chris Stone
Is this your first involvement in a Ponzi scheme?
I find it interesting that OneCoin pumper Tom McMurrain likes to post comments about Bitcoin in a rather feeble effort to legitimize OneCoin. However, avoids posting articles that specifically refer to OneCoin as Ponzi Scheme.
Here are a few examples of what he DID post on his FB page:
Mexico’s E-Commerce Giant Brings Bitcoin Payments to 7,000 Merchants – from CoinTelegraph.com
Greetings From Bitcoin Island
No place on the planet has welcomed digital currencies as warmly as the Isle of Man. – from Bloomberg.com
Why doesn’t he post these headlines?
OneCoin affiliates not paid for over a month – from BehindMLM.com
One Coin, Much Scam: OneCoin Exposed as Global MLM Ponzi Scheme – from CoinTelegraph.com
USFIA MLM cryptocurrency Ponzi busted, OneCoin next? – BehindMLM.com
I know he watches this site, so he is aware of the issues with OneCoin by now.
I just don’t understand why he is still pumping OneCoin and ONLY telling one side of the story….even today!
Surely that is a rhetorical question.
OneCoin isn’t a cryptocurrency gone bad or an MLM which unfortunately failed due to bad business decisions.
OneCoin is now and always was a fraud designed to look like an MLM based cryptocurrency.
@Oz & others
Am we seeing a pattern here?
Over the past couple of years, there have been several Ponzi Schemes that came to the USA after being created in Europe but were never prosecuted as such.
One day they were in business and the next day they were history and sites like this one never even mention them again.
The two that I am familiar with are FlexKom and Bonofa. Millions of dollars were collected by the parent companies in Germany and a lot of that money was paid out to the Promoters.
Why hasn’t a regulatory body taken action against these companies and the Top Promoters?
And, could this same thing happen with OneCoin? By that I mean, millions of dollars collected and hundreds of thousands of dollars paid out to the Promoters with absolutely NO consequences to them other than losing their credibility (which doesn’t seem to bother these promoters).
A lot of the pumpers of OneCoin were also involved in Zeek Rewards, Bonofa and/or FlexKom too.
Something needs to be done. Any chance you could write an article that highlights this practice? If so, could you shine some light on any investigations into either company that you might be aware of?
EU Ponzi regulation is behind that of the US, especially when it comes to holding those responsible accountable.
Asia is even farther behind.
@LittleRoundMan
Yes, it’s clearly a rhetorical question and don’t call me Shirley.
OneCoin is still paying the PROMOTERS who are bringing in New Money, that is clear. It appears they are no longer paying the INVESTORS.
At this point, due to sites like this one and people like Chris Stone, even the INVESTORS are starting to smell the coffee.
Do you drink coffee… if yes… what is your favorite brand? 🙂
MLM Ponzi schemes will be treated as pyramid schemes in Europe = only the organizers and top promoters may be prosecuted in reality (but theory is different). Net winners will be taxed for the income they have received, i.e. the tax authorities will handle that part.
Clawback from net winners is based on U.S. bankruptcy law, or on the same principles as the ones used for bankruptcies.
So the pattern you can see is related to differences in laws.
I think you maybe missed the point of the statement. They portrey this to the members.
Since this is the illusion they give members this action by them is just more obvious proof that the statement is not real.
I also have an email directly from Ruja that states how the members money and coins are secure for them.
When I get back to my room on my computer I will copy and paste that email from October of 2014 to this page also and see if I can get the screen shots of my account to post here also.
You will see she refers to the cash account and the Onecoin accounts as e-wallets. This they promote as being secure and your personal bank account, giving people the impression the cash and coins ares there as other crypto currencies are with their coins being in a e-wallet.
They just promote that Onecoins is more secure do to all the safeties they have in place and by using “KYC”.
To answer if this was the first ponzi I had been sucked into the answer is yes. It is basically the only MLM I worked on.
I joined Unicity in 2012 although only worked with it a few months before deciding trying to sell health items wasn’t for me.
NOLINK://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UPuhJAZ_NuEdLJYgtmvQPDbli83YxYGtuLLnrCBasbg/edit?usp=sharing
Why are Bulgarian accounts gone? They can’t “raid” if there’s no accounts in Bulgaria?
The Bulgarian accounts were most likely moved under Romanian accounts. There is abnormality on Romanian numbers at the same week when Bulgarian accounts disappeared.
This is hilarious! Ruja Ignatova to speak in the Fourth EU-Southeast Europe Summit:
hazliseconomist.com/en/event/Fourth_EU_Southeast_Europe_Summit/speakers
Onecoin is also a sponsor for the event, “a platinum sponsor” they say:
hazliseconomist.com/en/event/Fourth_EU_Southeast_Europe_Summit/Sponsors_and_Supporters
– Well, we all know where the money came from. Maybe sponsors are offered a chance to have a speaker in the summit? Anyway Onecoin is sure to exploit this.
Phil Ming Xu (WCM777) used to pay to speak at events to.
This is just the Forbes cover Mk2. Ignatova paying third-parties dirty OneCoin funds for publicity.
however Fancy the name “Fourth EU-Southeast Europe Summit” may sound, it is an event held by a local event organizer called Hazlis&Rivas:
a private event organizer will naturally need funds to set up an event and onecoin will be happy to help them, in order to get some spotlight in an official ‘sounding’ event.
it’s a bit late [the event is on the 14th of october], but maybe we should email hazlis, with some information about the ‘real’ onecoin!
there is information for contacting them on their website and the emails can be addressed to their CEO :
Hazlis & Rivas Co. Ltd
Nectaria Passarivakis
President & CEO
i must take this ^ opinion back.
the speakers at the event are high brow govt officials and corporate honcho types. ruja ignatova’s name stands out like a sore thumb!
i’m sending my email to hazlis&rivas NOW.
I emailed them. Told them my back story with Onecoin’s ” Crypto-currency” also sent along some reference materials with it.
We will see if it gets any traction with them or not.
Or Steve Chen of USFIA paid half cost of the “gala dinner sponsorship” at the AIMCongress in Dubai for Leonard S. Johnson just so they can claim “he was invited to speak about digital currency with His Majesty” blah blah blah
It was posted here on September 26th. Post #1068 in the review thread.
behindmlm.com/mlm-reviews/onecoin-review-100-5000-eur-ponzi-point-cryptocurrency/#comment-348019
We have seen similar behaviour many times before from Ponzi scheme organizers. They will try to add credibility to the scheme in many different ways. One of them is to add “social proofs”, e.g. “Ruja was accepted by Forbes’ Magazine”, “Ruja was accepted by The Economist”, “Ruja was accepted by SEVA Canada”.
“How can all of them be wrong?!!!”. 🙂
I use similar “accepted by” methods as a sales man. But I will also point out that there is a red flag if someone tries to drown people in “social proofs” — if that is the only substance they can offer.
And you also have those Photoshop’ed photos of Steve Chen + Obama, Steve Chen + Queen Elizabeth II, etc. 🙂
Ordinary people don’t see themselves as experts on investments, crypto-currencies, penny auctions, MLM, etc., etc., etc. — so they may look for not so relevant factors like “accepted by Oprah Winfrey”. They believe that she is an expert on everything, or that she’s surrounded by a team of experts.
It doesn’t need to be Oprah Winfrey either. Siemens, SEVA, Nehra & Waak or any other “credible name” may work. People believe “other people” already have done all the required work and have checked all relevant details, so they can simply look for “accepted by” themselves.
Technically those are photos of “Solomon Yang” and celebrities.
Hy,
I also tried to withdrawl the (small) amount of 100 euro. This was on September 23. After fruitless emailing back and forward with the site administration we feel it is now time for an official complaint.
Problem is: were to complain?
Does anybody know were we can file an official complaint against onecoin?
grts
S.G.
It’s a pyramid scheme so it’s only natural to lose money in it. You don’t have actual euros in your Onecoin account. You only have a fantasy of euros in your account that you would like to make reality.
There is no way in hell a pyramid scheme can convert all fantasy-euros into real money. This is why they have such a hard time paying the withdrawals in this stage where the pyramid is falling down.
You don’t have anyone else to complain than police. Let the justice system chew on those responsible for your loss.
Since it’s international pyramid scheme the claw of justice probably doesn’t reach beyond national borders. Then again it would be nice to have at least the local criminals to pay for this kind of shit.
You have many different options.
In the U.S., IC3 Internet Crime Complaint Center is an online option. Complaints will be organized in a database, available for all relevant agencies (both on state level and federal level)
That’s one of the options. “Accept” to see the form.
I don’t have any personal experience with IC3, I have only read some complaints in a couple of cases.
Check out the FTC’s latest effort to combat international fraud.
It’s a clever way for multiple countries to share data about international scams. If you’ve been a victim of any sort of scam, foreign or domestic, this is your place to lodge a complaint.
Be on the lookout for more collaboration from international governments to stop ponzi schemes.
econsumer.gov/#crnt
I know that.
It’s just that now I finally have something like an “official” proove that it’s a scam. And I kinda enjoy the fact that we’re now fast approaching the end-game for onecoin.
I think that people making official complaints can help speeding up the process.
S.G.
Ok… At least in Finland authorities seem to be quite helpless against international scams.
For example Emgoldex was under investigation but seems like there are no consequences for the Finnish participants – I guess they all lost money so police conlcluded that they already got a lesson.
I hope our NBI would not be so gentle while dealing with Onecoin.