onecoin-logoRunning a scam out of Europe that’s about to collapse?

Before you do a runner and make off with everyone’s money, you might want to get in contact with OneCoin and see if they’ll buy you out.

In what we hope isn’t the emergence of a disturbing trend, OneCoin appears to have acquired OPN and SiteTalk.

SiteTalk first appeared on BehindMLM’s radar back in 2011 as part of Unaico. Through SiteTalk, Unaico affiliates invested thousands of Euros in virtual shares.

By late 2013 the scheme had collapsed, with Unaico rebooting itself as The Opportunity Network (OPN).

OPN saw affiliates paid to recruit new affiliates, with Unaico’s failed virtual share program re-imagined as a failed public listing on the Cyprus stock exchange.

Last we heard OPN were stringing affiliates along with promises of breaking into the US, but that never eventuated.

Alexa statistics for the OPN website show a steady decline, suggesting the opportunity was in decline.

A few days ago OPN affiliates were presented with the following message upon logging into their backoffices:

Dear members.

We wish to inform you that we have, after great consideration made a decision to merge our OPN structure into the company OneCoin.

 

At the same time a long-term exclusive co-operation agreement has been made between SiteTalk and OneCoin similar to the one, which was in place with OPN.

Due to this merge of OPN with OneCoin, there is now limited access within your back office.

Any funds in your OPN ONLINE & EARNING account you will find consolidated along with a 100% refund of Marketing Pool units you may have purchased since introduction in the “CASH Account” of your new OneCoin back office.

Any funds in your MANDATORY Account, you will find in your new OneCoin MANDATORY Account.

Long story short, after year of losses OPN affiliates with funds trapped in the system now have funds trapped in OneCoin. The obvious hope is that OPN affiliates will invest these trapped funds, along with new money, in OneCoin and hope for the best.

How many OPN accounts OneCoin purchased and for how much is not disclosed. At the time of publication there is no information about the OPN SiteTalk acquisition on either the SiteTalk, OPN or OneCoin websites.

The OneCoin Facebook website meanwhile boasts of passing a 1.3 million affiliate milestone as of yesterday. A photo of a recent OneCoin event suggests up to 470,000 of those investors were sourced from OPN.

The acquisition of OPN SiteTalk by OneCoin follows a similar acquisition of Conligus in mid 2015.

Conligus launched in mid 2014 and paired irrelevant penny auctions with recruitment commissions. Early 2015 saw the scheme collapse, with payment of commissions owed to affiliates suspended.

OneCoin announced its acquisition of Conligus in April.

The owners of Conligus, reported to be the Aron, Christian and Stephan Steinkeller (the Steinkeller brothers) now feature prominently as top investors in OneCoin marketing material.

BusinessForHome recently reported the brothers are making around $900,000 a month from victims of the scheme.

Frank Ricketts, owner of OPN SiteTalk, appeared on stage at a recent OneCoin event in Budapest to formally announce the acquisition. I suppose we’ll see marketing material advising he too is now making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month shortly.

Sebastian Greenwood, who owns multiple top positions in OneCoin with Juha Parhiala, was a Unaico SiteTalk affiliate prior to his involvement in OneCoin.

What a small world the MLM underbelly is.

As far as strategy goes, the acquisition of failed scams is pretty slimy. You’re looking at the purchase of affiliates who have likely already lost money, with promises of riches in a new scam pushed on them.

“Just invest a little bit more, your dreams of financial prosperity are right around the corner!”

The reality meanwhile is these people will fund the latest round of withdrawals the Steinkeller brothers, Sebastian Greenwood and Juha Parhiala make. OPN management (and perhaps a few top investors) get sweet new positions in OneCoin, and the scamming continues anew.

Existing OneCoin affiliates meanwhile are left hanging as KYC verification requests go unanswered for weeks. It’s all part of the plan you see, to ensure as much funds as possible remain in OneCoin for withdrawal by those at the top.

But that’s a story for another time…