onecoin-logoThere’s one aspect of our “community of entrepreneurs” that’s sadly lacking.

We’ve got the marketing down pat, the self-promotion, the encouragement, personal development and training is available in abundance.

But self-regulation? Not so much.

Why exactly self-regulation lags so far behind the other aspects of the MLM community is debatable, but it’s certainly noticeable inside and outside of the industry.

Despite numerous schemes blowing up within the industry these last few years, MLM’s supposed representative groups remain silent.

We didn’t hear an official peep out of the DSA and ANMP about Zeek Rewards and TelexFree, together two of the largest MLM Ponzi schemes ever.

Both were also silent on Vemma, with the DSA only issuing statements after the FTC stepped in. Why weren’t they demanding Vemma (and other DSA members) initiate genuine retail incentives before regulatory agencies take action?

On the MLM blog side of things you’ve got BusinessForHome routinely publishing fluff pieces about OneCoin investors making off with thousands of dollars.

Worryingly, BusinessForHome’s blog posts do not disclose how much OneCoin or its featured investors might have paid for the coverage.

Every now and then though someone in the MLM industry speaks up about its underbelly, with that someone today being Tom Mower.

thomas-mower-CEO-siselMower (right) is a co-Founder of Sisel, a personal care MLM opportunity based out Switzerland.

After purportedly being contacted by a Facebook user via a friend request, Mower sent back the following response:

I cannot find you listed as a Sisel distributor Are you? I am also very concerned about One & Bit Coin and Binary MLM companies.

I am an Icon in MLM and one of the real authoritive/experts in this industry. Bit or One Coin and Binary companies grow fast because of the false hope they portray and are by design to do this BUT are in many MLM experts and in particular mine, a monster scam and all will eventually collapse or fail.

It is almost impossible for them not to inevitably collapse!

At their demise hundreds of thousands of distributors will be damaged, some severely. Big leaders may make a lot of money but do face prosecution from the government as is now happening with some companies and could face class action lawsuits from their downlines.

I do not want anyone affiliated with these kinds of get rich quick scam MLM schemes in my company exposing good enterprising people to this clever type of scam.

I am building a multi-billion dollar a year company and want to protect and significantly improve the lives of my distributors so they can achieve permanent lifetime wealth that will always be there and increasing for them.

A Sisel business with such real worth that it can be passed down as an inheritance to their families One or Bit Coin & Binary companies do not offer this in truth and reality.

Disaster awaits for most in them and it is happening with some even now as we speak and I believe it will only get worse..

What exactly Mower was asked about is unclear, but it appears to have been an enquiry about OneCoin investment. It might have even been a marketing pitch.

tom-mower-onecoin-illegal-scam-facebook-post-nov-2015After he posted the above reply, Mower took to his other Facebook account to expand his thoughts on OneCoin:

ONE COIN the MLM shut down & closed by the US!

WOW TALK ABOUT BEING PROPHETIC

I was just talking about how these Bit type & One Coin companies will not last and will inevitably be closed down. And within hours of saying it I find out that ONE COIN has been shut down by the US.

Granted OneCoin wasn’t shut down by the US, rather the company terminated business operations there (ongoing regulatory investigations?), the thrust of Mower’s comments is otherwise pretty spot-on.

Now I expected to start happening in other countries and very possibly the EU could follow up with the closure too.

In my opinion I see no other course than this to happen for all the Coin and binary schemes that are based upon scamming their distributors to enrich the companies and the overly compensated ultrarich distributors at the top of these types of illegal scams.

Mower’s repeated reference to “binary schemes” appears to be both a dig at Vemma and the fact that a fair percentage of MLM Ponzi schemes use a binary backend for residual commissions.

In my opinion they are certainly immoral dishonest and evil and the end result will be there collapse.

One binary was shut down in the EU and now in the USA leaving all of their disturber forced destitute and now the company and some of the big leaders are facing possible criminal action against them.

Look at Zeek Rewards Who took so many people in on there.

Limes and now the government is holding a quarter of $1 billion much of what should’ve been commissions to disturbers which I doubt they will ever see.

My suggestion if you’re in a Coin company or a binary to get out quick even though it might look so bright star explodes there’s nothing left except it blows a big hole in your finances and crushes much of you future.

People you have brought into the company may now not believe you and not trust you even though the company was to blame they will still fault you for showing it to them Zeek Rewards was first then Veema was for shutdown in the EU and then shut down in the US.

Not one going to shut down in the US and I would expect the EU was for shutdown in the EU and then shut down in the US.

Now One Coin is shut down in the US and I would guess and expect The EU will be coming after them very soon.

Does anyone think that governments are through with these kinds of schemes and scams hardly… which one is next is the question it’s not if it’s going to happen it is who is going to happen to next.

And I would hate binary or a Coin company because I believe many of them must all now I’ll be in the sights of some government agency in the USA or the EU and I would expect that they will soon see it happening to them to.

What do you think? Whose next!!!

I’ve left Mower’s posts largely intact, so apologies on his behalf for the grammatical errors above. Still, the thrust of the point Mower is trying to get across is pretty obvious.

Rather than look at OneCoin’s business model and realize that paying off existing investors with newly invested funds is a Ponzi scheme, I suspect the response from OneCoin and their investors will instead be to bring up Mower’s past as a strawman defense.

In 2003 Mower was indicted for tax fraud, which resulted in a 33 month jail sentence in 2006.

I’ve also reviewed Sisel and found it to be heavily focused on affiliate autoships and recruitment.

Neither however have anything to do with OneCoin’s business model, which needs to be called out as the Zeek Rewards rehash that it is.

To date the only other MLM industry figure I’m aware of to speak out against OneCoin is MLM attorney Kevin Thompson.

kevin-thompson-thompson-burtonIn an August 17th blog post titled “BitCoin, cryptocurrencies & MLM”, Thompson (right) wrote:

The purpose of this article is to serve as a warning.

I feel as though there’s a cryptocurrency ponzi scheme bubble brewing in the network marketing industry. It reminds me of the environment during Zeek Rewards.

I’m afraid this cancer has already grown into a mass larger than what we saw with Zeek. Ponzi scheme promoters, domestic and foreign (primarily in China), are taking advantage of Bitcoin’s complexity and its veneer of legitimacy to convince investors that “now’s the time to invest in XYZ alt-coin, which is destined to be the next Bitcoin.”

Consumers, completely uneducated about the technology behind cryptocurrency and unable to decipher good from bad, are making serious mistakes.

Plus, there’s the added excitement of investing in a coin cheaply with the hopes of it rising in value 1000% similar to Bitcoin’s climb.

After seeing the Zeek Rewards hysteria, there’s one lesson I’ve learned: People under the influence of easy money make stupid mistakes.

Be warned: There’s a chance the cryptocurrency program is a cleverly disguised ponzi scheme. In most scenarios, the coins are not OPEN; thus, there’s no way to confirm the coin’s legitimacy.

When the coin is developed in a CLOSED environment, the value of the coin is driven purely by new enrollments into the scheme i.e. ponzi.

The ponzi promoters that push these programs look like you and I. The difference is that they spend most of their time building their “businesses” in the dark corners of the world, seemingly beyond the eye of the U.S. government.

They’re hanging out in places like Thailand, Hong Kong and China.

They know they’re doing wrong, which is why they’re building away from their homes, amassing as much money as possible before the market wises up to the industry.

In Zeek Rewards, there was about a two year run where the ponzi promoters made their money before the market figured out the game.

The victims are uneducated and faceless, which makes their work that much easier.

Thompson doesn’t reference OneCoin by name, but reading between the lines should be an exercise in the obvious for anyone familiar with the scheme.

Zeek Rewards had Monavie’s then President Randy Schroeder call them out in July of 2012.

Claiming Zeek Rewards was “probably a Ponzi”, Schroeder described Zeek as

a company that comes along and sweeps people into a trail that turns into a trail of devastation.

One of the best ways to predict the future is to carefully and critically study the past.

Companies whose compensation methodology is even remotely similar to the way people are compensation in the program called Zeek Rewards, falls way outside of the FTC guidelines in terms of what’s legitimate in the network marketing or direct selling industry.

I mean way, way, way outside the guidelines.

As I’m sure Mower will be, Shroeder was derided by the MLM Ponzi community for his remarks at the time.

A month later the SEC shut down Zeek Rewards for being an $850 million dollar Ponzi scheme.

TelexFree went though it’s lifespan largely unscathed by the MLM industry, with BehindMLM and a few others going at it alone.

And while it is disappointing that by and large the mainstream MLM industry continues to turn a blind eye to its underbelly cousin, it is refreshing to see at least a handful speak up.

It’s your industry too people, and you need to protect it.

MLM Ponzi fraud scams thousands of people out of millions of dollars each year. And yet, after one global billion dollar scam is shut down, it’s barely a few months before I find myself covering “the next big thing” in MLM Ponzi fraud.

If you’re in the MLM industry and sick of seeing Ponzi fraud drag down its reputation, isn’t it time you spoke up about it too?

 

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.