race-cycler-logoWhen a new scheme comes along touting the matrix cycler business model, upon launch one of two things happens;

  1. the scheme launches, early promoters pump their money into it and snatch up the lion’s share of what is deposited after – with the scheme slowing and then collapsing a week or two after, or
  2. the launch is botched and those who were poised to jump in first are left frustrated and angry.

Guess which best describes the recent launch of Race Cycler…

race-cycler-maintenance-message-launch-fail

Offering up yet another example of why schemes run by former-affiliates looking to collect a cut of admin fees should be approached warily, Race Cycler was set to open its doors on August 8th.

After heavily hyping up the launch with talk of “in excess of 200,000 verbal commitments” from prospective affiliates, things initially seemed to work after Race Cycler launched.

Those who got in first were going to collect their initial cycle bonuses, things would die down and everybody would then disappear.

A few hours in though and affiliates began to report that signup links had been disabled.

The signup page is temporary disabled, They found some cheaters and they are deleting them from the system. Once this is done the signup page will be enabled again.

We’re losing time, positioning and $.

With everyone left wondering what was going on and painfully aware that the opportunity to get in first was slipping away, affiliates on social media started up the rumour mill:

There were several issues to deal with. One issue was that people were sending in paypal payments before creating their accounts and this caused a real mess. They are now trying to match up payments with accounts.

This can take a while. I think when this is done the signup page will be enabled.

With the sign-in page locked up for over a day, eventually work trickled down that the company was going to re-open signups at 8pm August 9th.

That deadline came and went, with the site finally going live again a few hours after 8.

Paypal was still disabled, with Race Cycler now only accepting deposits through Solid Trust Pay.

That’s not to say things were now running smoothly though,

When you click to pay by STP there is an option to use a credit or debit card…it even says you don’t have to have an STP account to use it.
Problem is, I tried twice to use my preferred card and got a ‘declined’ notice both times…and I know the card isn’t the problem.

Two hours later, the Race Cycler website went down again:

So far this launch has been a total failure. I have not been able to access my account since Friday night.

Now the site can not be found.

Affiliates again began to speculate that servers were being changed, hence the downtime and access issues. Race Cycler themselves then put out an update twenty or so minutes after the site went down, offering up a completely different explanation:

We’ll be back.

We’re busy updating the database for you and will be back soon.

This morning a new message appeared and offered up a bit more information:

Dear Race Cycler Racer,

Many of you awoke up this morning to a server not found or blank server page. The reason being the servers were transferred to a much faster server within the past few days and not all the DNS records have been updated. Due to this inconvenience, we politely ask for your patience as records get updated.

Rest assured, Race Cycler is alive and well! As a matter of fact, the last few days have been enlightening as to the fact that we need to accelerate our efforts in growing as this is a great opportunity and we realize this. We look forward to bringing you a better experience as a result.

Currently, the page displayed on this website is a maintenance page. We apologize for this inconvenience, but it was a necessary step in ensuring that the information we gathered was correct. Your information is secure and if you have a position with us, it will be saved.

We will be letting you know very soon about updates and information as it becomes available.

We thank you for your continued interest and positive outlook in RaceCycler, and look forward to providing the best experience we can provide. From all of us here at the Race Cycler Team, we wish to simply say thank you.

Warm Regards,
Race Cycler Team

Does any of this add up? Not really.

For starters if it was simply a server bandwidth problem, access would have been intermittent. Typically when a site gets hammered it slows down and people have to refresh continuously to gain access.

That wasn’t the case with Race Cycler, rather the problem lay with broken links and payment processor issues.

The site itself never actually went down, it was pulled by the admin and then restored with a maintenance page (likely a feature of the purchased cycler script Race Cycler are using).

As for earlier chatter about databases, that doesn’t make much sense either. Cycler scams use scripts, where everything is automated. Nobody is sitting there manually entering accounts into a database (with the possible exception of pre-launch, where a cycler admin might stack the scheme with multiple accounts belonging to themselves, friends and family).

Looking at the fact that Paypal was used, and that Race Cycler launched on a Friday at 8pm… I think therein lies the actual issue.

Paypal are one of the world’s largest payment processors. They have a strict no-MLM policy which naturally includes Ponzi/pyramid derivatives using similar compensation models.

Being the size they are, no doubt there are several automated algorithms designed to pick up on any suspicious transaction activity taking place on their servers.

Only the naive might actually believe Race Cycler admin Kent Brown’s claim that hundreds of thousands of people had expressed interest in the scheme, but do you think even a fraction of that might trigger Paypal’s suspicious activity algorithm?

This fits with Race Cycler’s ‘we will be letting you know very soon about updates and information as it becomes available’ statement, indicating that they might not be able to do anything about Paypal suspending their account till Monday.

As for Solid Trust Pay, they are notoriously more lax when it comes to providing services to the MLM underworld, however it’s possible a large volume of transfers to a newly created account might have triggered a filter on their end too.

Guess we’ll have to see what happens on Monday going forward.

Meanwhile those who did manage to hand over their $230 are currently left in limbo.

 

Update 28th January 2017 – The SEC has revealed Race Cycler was a $1.32 million dollar Ponzi scheme. Herman Ronnie Young has settled with the SEC and will pay $342,510 in disgorgement.