QNet & Oriflame warnings from Indian Consumer Protection Authority
QNet, Oriflame and and fifteen MLM companies have received fraud warnings from India’s Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA).
As reported by MoneyLife on December 13th;
The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has issued notice to 17 entities that were found violating Consumer Protection (Direct Selling) Rules, 2021.
Of these, 13 entities are currently under investigation and reply from three of the entities is awaited, the CCPA says.
Qnet has been cited as Vihaan Direct Selling (India) Pvt Ltd, the shell company QNet uses to operate India.
Oriflame is cited as Oriflame India Pvt Ltd. The other fifteen MLM companies appear to be local entities I’m not familiar with.
The CCPA says some fraudulent entities misuse the direct selling model to promote illegal pyramid or money circulation schemes.
“These entities often make unrealistic promises of high commissions, foreign trips, entrepreneurship, high returns and wealthy future, contingent on recruiting others, which violates consumer trust and established laws, thereby exposing consumers to a fraudulent pyramid and money circulation schemes.”
QNet, Vihaan Direct Selling India and founder Vijay Eswaran (right), have a long history of fraud in India.
As documented in BehindMLM’s 2017 QNet review;
- in 2013 the EOW froze several bank accounts tied to QNet;
- in 2014 the EOW secured an order prohibiting Vihaan Direct Selling from operating in India;
- in 2016 the Delhi EOW registered its first criminal compliant against QNet and Vihaan Direct Selling;
- Vihaan Direct Selling India majority shareholder Michael Ferreira was arrested in 2016; and
- QNet founder Vijay Eswaran, a Malaysian national, is wanted by Indian authorities
Since then;
- seventy victims protested lack of regulatory action against QNet in Bengaluru (2018);
- an Indian QNet victim committed suicide after losing $28,900 (2019);
- an investigation into commissions owed to 200,000 QNet promoters revealed government corruption and a national security threat (2019);
- over 500 individuals, among them Indian celebrities, were summoned by the Cyberabad EOW to explain their public QNet endorsements (2019);
- QNet’s Vihaan Direct Selling India operations were shut down by the Union Ministry of Corporate Affairs (2019);
- three QNet promoters were arrested by the Odisha EOW (2019);
- $11 million tied to QNet’s money laundering operations in India was frozen in January 2023;
- $16 million tied to QNet was frozen as part of a Hyderabad criminal case in March 2023;
- three QNet executives were arrested in Hyderabad in May 2023;
- eighteen QNet scammers were arrested in Jaipur in October 2023;
- the Manipur QNet Victim’s Welfare Association called on Indian authorities to take action against QNet in October 2023; and
- a new QNet criminal case was opened in Indore in September 2024
Government corruption aside, despite the above Indian authorities seem unable to rid the country of QNet once and for all.
As of November 2024, SimilarWeb was tracking ~344,000 monthly visits to QNet’s website. India, typically the largest source of QNet website traffic, has slipped to third place (down 29% month on month).
Replacing Indian QNet victims we now have consumers being recruited in Russia (21%) and Turkey (19%).
Oriflame is a Swedish MLM company founded in 1967. Oriflame markets personal care, nutritional supplements and apparel products.
In line with Oriflame’s “pay to play” business model, it’s assumed CCPA’s Oriflame fraud warning pertains to pyramid recruitment over retail sales.
At time of publication SimilarWeb was not tracking India as a top source of traffic to Oriflame’s website.
