SpeakAsia domain suspended for invalid information
For as long as I’ve we’ve been following Speak Asia, their domain registration data has always stated that the company’s office are in Singapore.
As of a few days ago, the domain whois registration data for speakasiaonline.com was listed as
Speakasia Online Pte. Ltd.
71 Bukit Batok Crescent #10-08
Prestige, Si 65807
Telephone: +65.91234567
Fax: +65.91234567
Email: support(at)speakasiaonline.com
with a last modified date of 19th December, 2011.
Sometime in the last 24 hours however Speak Asia’s domain registrar GoDaddy, have suspended the speakasiaonline.com domain citing “invalid whois information”.
speakasiaonline.com
This domain name has been suspended due to invalid Whois information.
As of 31st January 2012, attempting to visit the Speak Asia website returns the following suspension notice message:
At this stage it’s unclear what GoDaddy have taken issue with regarding Speak Asia’s domain whois information but it’s clear that after trying to validate it, GoDaddy have found the complete listing or parts of it to be “invalid”.
It could mean the company’s listed address, phone numbers, contact email are bogus – but specifically which we don’t at this stage know.
The Speak Asia Online domain was originally registered on the 21st January 2010, so after just over two years of operation it’s interesting that GoDaddy have pulled the domain over invalid registry information.
One possible explanation is that GoDaddy were contacted in regards to the EOW’s criminal investigation into Speak Asia.
Another is that the failure to verify Speak Asia’s whois information is part of the ongoing efforts to track down Speak Asia’s fugitive CEO’s Harendar Kaur and Manoj Kumar, both of whom are currently wanted for questioning and are on the run from Indian authorities.
If the Speak Asia domain returns, it’ll be interesting to see if any of the whois information has been updated.
Footnote: For those a little confused, note that only the domain speakasiaonline.com is registered through GoDaddy.
The Speak Asia website is still hosted over at Singapore based hosting company USonyx (confirmed by visiting http://113.197.34.110)
The various Amazon cloud storage components of the Speak Asia website (the e-zines etc.) are also still up and running.
All GoDaddy have done is to redirect the speakasiaonline.com domain to an internal server of theirs whilst they get to the bottom of the invalid information Speak Asia used to register the domain with.
Update 1st February 2012 – DomainTools’ WHOIS names a Varun Sharma as the admin and technical contact of Speak Asia’s domain, speakasiaonline.com:
Registrant:
Speakasia Online Pte. Ltd.
71 Bukit Batok Crescent #10-08
Prestige Centre
Singapore, 658071
SingaporeRegistered through: Go Daddy
Domain Name: SPEAKASIAONLINE.COM
Created on: 21-Jan-10
Expires on: 21-Jan-14
Last Updated on: 19-Dec-11Administrative Contact:
sharma, varun (varunsharma(at)speakasiamarketing.com)
Speakasia Online Pte. Ltd.
71 Bukit Batok Crescent #10-08
Prestige Centre
Singapore, 658071
Singapore
+65.91234567 Fax —Technical Contact:
sharma, varun (varunsharma(at)speakasiamarketing.com)
Speakasia Online Pte. Ltd.
71 Bukit Batok Crescent #10-08
Prestige Centre
Singapore, 658071
Singapore
+65.91234567 Fax —
The date for this record is the 19th but curiously Varun Sharma’s name did not appear on GoDaddy’s own internal WHOIS database.
Looking at Sharma’s email address, he appears to have a personal email address over at Speakasiamarketing.com, a website allegedly set up by Speak Asia that houses their useless email harvester exit option.
The WHOIS registration information for speakasiamarketing.com lists Speak Asia, with no mention of Sharma.
The obvious question now is who is Varun Sharma and why did his name appear as the contact person for the Speak Asia domain?
Update 3rd February 2011 – Speak Asia’s domain has been unsuspended by GoDaddy and now shows the following updated WHOIS information:
Registrant:
Speakasia Online Pte. Ltd.71 Bukit Batok Crescent #10-08
Prestige Centre
Singapore, 658071
SingaporeRegistered through: GoDaddy.com, LLC (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: SPEAKASIAONLINE.COM
Created on: 21-Jan-10
Expires on: 21-Jan-14
Last Updated on: 19-Dec-11Administrative Contact:
garg, anuj garganuj2011(AT)gmail.com
Speakasia Online Pte. Ltd.
71 Bukit Batok Crescent #10-08
Prestige Centre
Singapore, 658071
Singapore
+65.67493743 Fax — +65.63430887Technical Contact:
garg, anuj garganuj2011(AT)gmail.com
Speakasia Online Pte. Ltd.
71 Bukit Batok Crescent #10-08
Prestige Centre
Singapore, 658071
Singapore
+65.67493743 Fax — +65.63430887
Changes include
- the addition of Anuj Garg as Admin and Technical contact (although who he is and what his connection to Speak Asia is remains a mystery)
- the changing of the postcode from ‘65807’ to ‘658071’
- the addition of presumably real telephone numbers – as the previously listed phone and fax number, ‘65.91234567‘ was quite obviously fake
As per GoDaddy’s ‘invalid whois information policy:
The registrant is not required to respond to an email, phone, or postal mail inquiry. We need evidence that the email is invalid (such as a bounce), the phone is invalid (such as a disconnection), or the email has been returned as undeliverable.
Who reported Speak Asia’s invalid WHOIS information to the company, along with the accompanying evidence GoDaddy require remains a mystery.
For some reason the ‘last updated’ date is also still showing up as the 19th December, 2011 but with the records having just been updated, one imagines that is just a technical glitch that will rectified over the next few days.
Thanks Oz for the information.
@ Oz, Chang..
Can you Guys please explain what exactly Whois Information means and pertains..Most of us are layman regarding these Internet terms..
Also..it is getting on my nerves with no new info on Behindmlm on our favorite SAOL issue..I mean no news/conversation going on here..Reading Behindmlm is now a habit ..pls keep on updating ..
Now..dont you think that EOW is taking more than enough time for these investigations.. they should have filed their charge sheet with exemplary evidence by now..wonder what;s going on in their minds..
the SAOL pro websites still proclaim of JAI ********* ..but even then slowly but steadily the panelists are losing patience over all this.. and started blaming the Bhairwanis.. specially after the R K Laxman (Cartoonist) episodes on SAB TV on Silent Asia..(Its a pity you cant understand Hindi or else you would have enjoyed the show).
R K Laxman is a very senior Cartoonist in India and draws Cartoons on various topics like general problems of a Common Man and the Government. His short stories have been converted into series on TV. He specially writes about the bottlenecks a common man faces in India in their day to day lives.
When you register a domain (something.com, something.net etc.) you have to provide contact information to the company you register the domain with.
This is called the WHOIS information.
We don’t know why, but GoDaddy have attempted to verify the information Speak Asia registired their speakasiaonline.com domain with and have found it to be inaccurate.
Inaccurate is vague but it most likely means they were unable to contact Speak Asia using the information provided, meaning it’s bogus and/or out of date.
Again, we don’t know why GoDaddy attempted to verify Speak Asia’s supplied – they don’t usually do so unless there’s a pressing reason to.
Thanks for the explanation on the Silent Asia show, I suppose it could always be subtitled but I imagine that’d take a bit of time to do.
Regarding the updates, I’ve always maintained that this isn’t a blog exclusively about Speak Asia. Contrary to the nonsense put out by senior panelists, franchisees, AISPA and what not there is no war and there’s no paid agents or competitors.
When this mess started Speak Asia and friends quickly learnt that complete transparency was making them look even worse, so the official communications stopped. Then AISPA went dead (Bahirwani publishes the odd update a week after something happens these days) and anyone connected to Speak Asia’s legal matters appears to have been gagged.
The end result is a culture of secrecy (which began with the Lahoti Committee and is propagated now by hiding under the banner of ‘sub-judice’) regarding what’s going on, unless of course what is to be discussed reflects positively on Speak Asia. Then sub-judice (temporarily) goes out the window.
I take what’s being circulated on the various Speak Asia member platforms with a grain of salt. Apart from commenting on the court cases, there’s not much else really to report on and discuss.
Speak Asia will and always will be a ponzi scheme when it comes to their original business model, you don’t need a court to tell you that any more than you need a court to tell you that if you stop breathing you’ll die.
The extent of the liability for running the scam is pretty much all that’s left to clarify. Unfortunately this is a slow process, and unfortunatley in the case of Speak Asia is only more drawn out due to the campaign by the company, franchisees and senior panelists to legitimise a recruitment commissions model and the belief that an obvious ponzi scheme is going to be legitimised in court simply because they lie about their business model, are based overseas and dissappear anyone who’s in a senior position within the company.
It would be nice to get an update from the EOW and other agencies involved (through the media) but I guess all we can do is follow the court dates like everyone else.
To me Speak Asia is just another MLM company that I write about, nothing more nothing less and pending any updates (such as today’s news) there’s not really all that much to write about.
Tx.. Oz..That was enlightening ..nevertheless..I do miss the hot discussions.. specially the duel between M_Norway and our local Girl Anju..
(Anju pls come back here with your vicious comments..people have started missing you).Hahhahhah
Anju’s welcome to participate when she’s got something to add to the discusion.
Unfortunately like her father she’s got a bad habit of waffling on and leaving walls of text that don’t really add anything to the discussion. She comments for the sake of commenting and to derail.
FYI, the “invalid info”, according to Godaddy’s “report invalid WHOIS” form, are
” The registrant is not required to respond to an email, phone, or postal mail inquiry. We need evidence that the email is invalid (such as a bounce), the phone is invalid (such as a disconnection), or the mail has been returned as undeliverable. ”
So 1) fake e-mail 2) fake phone number 3) fake address
https://supportcenter.godaddy.com/DomainServices/ReportInvalidWhois.aspx?DomainName=speakasiaonline.com&prog_id=GoDaddy
2Mr. Y.
It wasn’t exactly a ‘duel’. It was more like me running out of new ideas, and having to return to old ones.
“If you can’t get them heated up with romantic talk, then at least try to get them heated up in one way or another.” 🙂
@Kasey
Guess it comes down to which is it then, and who was trying to contact Speak Asia to forward the evidence to GoDaddy.
In other news, regarding that Laxman tv show on Silent Asia,
More panelist money down the drain…
I’m not sure of the accuracy of the above story, seems rather fast for a defamation suit if it was only filed last week.
Edit: Nope, looks legit.
Speak Asia Online PTE LTD. VS. Multi Screen Media and Hats Off Production with a hearing date of tommorow:
Man, these gold diggers will go after anyone. Hopefully they’ll be slapped down tommorow. Last I checked, Speak Asia don’t own the company name Silent Asia.
and hello once again
ask yourself this stupid question?
if the company is planning to run away or has already run away according to lordgod soapbox WHY will it take on stoopid tv serials?
waiting on your answer reverend soapbox.
how will fighting against a STOOPID tv serial protect manoj kumars FAMILY or their MONEYS?
waiting on you to invent an answer .
DomainTools’ whois currently lists a Varun Sharma as the admin and tech contact for Speak Asia’s domain.
The update date is still the 19th December but Sharma’s name does not appear on the GoDaddy database, indicating the domain information was changed more than once on the 19th.
Who is Varun Sharma and why does his name appear on the Speak Asia domain registry?
Welcome back, anju.
Interesting question,
anju honeyMiss Agarwal.SpeakAsia seems to be eager to engage in any battle, so it’s almost impossible to answer how suing a TV-channel will protect the interests of Manoj Kumar or some others.
I have seen parts of the first episode, and it didn’t seem very defamatory to me (maybe because it was in Hindi). 🙂
By the way, you don’t have to use our formal titles on this blog, like “lordgod”, “reverend”, “Your Majesty” and so on. We’re trying to keep the style a bit more unformal than that. The formal titles are only used if someone specifies a need for them.
@ NORWAY, OZ, CHANG..
Here we go..Wellcome back “Mother Anju” , back with a bang and same viciousness. By just writing Asia in the script you guys connected it with SAOL, well.. that is rather stupid.
The TV Serial is a play. There are plenty of instances recently and also in past History in India where Companies have duped people of their hard earned money in guise of paying them exorbitant returns.
Even in Company like Amway.. which is absolutely clean and very good products, I had once attended a day long seminar where thousands of people had attended.. the moment I walked out of the hall.. I felt as if I was the future Billionaire of India with Bill Gates and Warren Buffet escorting me to my Hatchback..
Well the euphoria lasted for a couple of days and then I realized that only a few top people earn in MLMs and the rest join for some time and wither away… Thank God I left Multi Level Marketing there and then and joined another Industry and here I am.. traveled 17 Countries, made a lot of money and HAPPY..
What was shown in the Serial (which is about Common Man of India) is the creation of awareness against such fly by night operators which have duped millions of gullible Indians, who are drawn by the guise of a fast and easy buck, in the last two decades. And in most of the cases they have lost their money, peace and relationships.
If you check properly, in the last 9-10 months the Govt. Agencies have unearthed many such Companies and shut them down. As far as SAOL is concerned.. it is still fighting a battle in Courts.. hence nobody can brand them anything till proven otherwise ..so there is no need to panic and start suing anyone and everyone who talks negative about SAOL or/and portrays something similar in TV Serials..
Let the Court Judgement decide the fate.. using the hard earned money on Suing everything that walks is not the solution the Panelists like you are looking for… It is just wise to ignore them..how many mouths are you going to shut up??.. this is a Democracy.. where people will say/think whatever they want…
And yeah..@Anju..the formal title reminds me of young Girls fighting in School and calling names..and nothing ELSE.
There was a case for Court hearings on Tarak etc.. on 30th Jan.. anybody knows what happened??
Cheers for the explanation Mr Y. I think your mentioning of democracy is a good point. With democracy comes free speech – something that I’m sure will no doubt come up in the case today.
The anticipatory bail hearings of Bajpai and Mehrotra were supposed to have been heard yesterday but appear to have been delayed for hearing today.
Not sure if the applications were heard today or not. Will probably find out tommorow when the court websites are updated.
Ditto the result of the defamation hearing today.
mr y
the tv serial is blatantly showing a scheme which is copy paste of saol.when the matter is subjudice how can people make serials showing the company to be fraudulent?
is there a dearth of ponzi schemes which closed down in the past year ? gold souk and admatrix come to mind .
so who is this oversmart writer/producer who HAD to pick on a company which is fighting in the APEX court to prove it’s legality? did he run out of script ideas or is he showing unnecessary bravado.
the message saol is giving out is strong and clear.DON’T MESS WITH US.
if saol can take on the govt agencies, what are star news and toi and some silly billy tv production house?
Speak Asia own the rights to their name, not the scheme. You can’t copyright a business model.
A fictional company, Silent Asia was mentioned and used for the skit. Speak Asia was not mentioned during the broadcast, correct?
With democracy comes free speech –soapbox
if democracy means free speech to the extent of wrongfully casting aspersions on someones reputation and harming their personal interests then societies have invented a mechanism to prevent such free speech -it’s called defamation suits.
Apparently “parody” is a lost cause for when scammers have no sense of humor.
i see chang is exercising his democratic free speech ‘rights’ when he calls us all scammers.
i’d like to return the compliment -this site is worse than our media if at all possible.
our media is not halfway as inventive as you .
you publish opinion as fact ,cannot substantiate your reports with proof ,fictionalize events with huge artistic license and in the name of moderation don’t allow participants ‘free speech”.
but as i keep reminding soapbox -it’s your blog guys be as mean and biased as you like ,nobody is getting scared away.
Is Silent Asia an actual company?
Who do Speak Asia think they are… the thought police?
I’ll repeat:
But EOW called SAOL a scam too. That would make you all scammers. I’m just repeating what they said.
Feel free to do so. Unfortunately, opinions don’t count for much here. Fact and logical extrapolations do.
We provided proof: Indian newspaper reports and such. But you don’t consider those as “valid”. You simply dismissed them as biased, false, part of a conspiracy, etc. etc. without providing proof.
As for “free speech”, you are welcome to make as much free speech on your own, but this isn’t your space. Compared to the various SAOL groups on Facebook and AISPA forums, I’d say this place is far freer. After all, Oz posted quite a bit of your rants, when you really don’t have much if any proof behind them.
Nobody is trying to scare anybody, unless they are scared of the truth.
soapbox
if today i write a ‘fiction’ story about sonia gandhi, repeat all the instances of her life and career word for word and show her in an unfairly bad light will i be excused just because instead of calling her character ‘sonia ‘gandhi i call her ‘soapbox’ gandhi?
don’t be naive.any hindi knowing person who watches this silly serial will know within the first one minute which company is being parodied here.
chang i’m all for parody and humor and fun, but when you use a powerful visual medium like television to parody a company whose matter is subjudice and who 12.5 million indians are depending upon for their livelihood ,the matter is not SO funny anymore.
But EOW called SAOL a scam too. That would make you all scammers. I’m just repeating what they said. -chang
yes well,no wonder we’ve invited them to the high court and the supreme court to explain themselves.
aww, you were just repeating them? silly me ,i thought you were capable of independent thought.
We provided proof: Indian newspaper reports and such. -chang
see ,that’s not called proof .that’s called copy pasting our medias and eow’s opinions.
as an independent ‘intellectual’ blog you should have backed up such ‘proof ‘ with-
the site showing the ED case
the site showing the red corner notices issued
the court proceedings relating to cancellation of tarak bajpai’s bail.
As for “free speech”, you are welcome to make as much free speech on your own, but this isn’t your space.-chang
so is this site ‘by invitation’ only?
all AYE sayers enter please. all NAY sayers stand at the door and be moderated?
and why should we [speakasians] be scared of the truth?
we are the only ones speaking the ‘truth ‘ in this whole drama.
It’s not illegal to parody something. Nor is parody defamation, in that it’s not meant to be taken seriously – all parodies are a work of fiction.
Whether it’s funny or not to Speak Asia’s members is irrelevant. The point is it’s a parody (as per common sense within the context of the show and your own admission), which cannot be construed as defamation.
edit: lol, apparently there was even ‘a scrolling text message during the serial saying all the character are fictitious and story is imaginatory‘
As for the rest of the Anjuspam… she comes on here talking about proof.
To date Anju Argarwal has not provided any third party proof to back up any of her claims. This is in the entirety of the seven or eight months she’s been commenting here.
The EOW have no reason to fabricate the results of their ongoing investigations, so lets not waste our time entering into that pointless discussion again.
The case involving Speak Asia vs Multi Screen Media Pvt Ltd, Hatsoff Production & Ors has been adjourned to 17th February,2012.
I was present in the Bombay High Court and will post the details later in the evening.
Cheers for the update Navniit, will be interesting to hear what happened.
@anju
Most people here will have problems with your definitions, like “… 12.5 million indians are depending upon for their livelihood”.
Doing fake work isn’t exactly “support their livelihood”, even if it looked like SpeakAsia was paying for the work? People are dependant on money, but doing fake work is meaningless. Being paid for fake work is meaningless, too.
As far as we know, SpeakAsia didn’t have real clients paying for the surveys? 1.2 million members, $20 USD per panel per week = $24 million USD per week. And the average panelist had 10-15 panels?
Manoj Kumar and Haren Kaur may have managed to produce a few fake clients in the 8-9 months since May 2011, but I seriously doubt they have been able to produce many verifiable clients. With real clients they would have been able to prove the sustainability of the business, and SpeakAsia would have been up and running within a few days in May 2011.
We can be quite sure they didn’t have the clients needed, since they never have been able to prove it in court.
Now the DomainTools WHOIS registry is showing an Anuj Garg as the admin contact for the speakasiaonline.com domain:
Wuts going on lol?
AEONS ago i advised EVERYBODY to lay the question of survey sales to complete rest.
i mean you can go on about it if it interests you particularly, but our courts will not be asking harsh questions about it.
soapbox will complain and rain some nukes at me but hello,my hands are tied ,the matter being subjudice and all.
have faith, have patience ,you shall know all when the time is right.
tarak bajpai did not make bail today-sad sad sad.
andhra is TOOO anti-mlm. guess saol will have to depend on the supreme court directly then.
since today is not so good lets just wait for tomorrow.
bye.
Here’s the latest from the EOW:
Hmm, wonder the Union of India (of which the EOW are apart of) are going to have to say on the 6th after they’ve gone over the Lahoti Report…
its means the whois database has be updated
It’s still showing the same date for the record entry though, 19th December, 2011.
At any rate GoDaddy (who operate on US time so they might restore the domain overnight) appear for now to be not satisfied with the updates. As far as they’re concerned Speak Asia’s supplied contact information remains bogus.
@anju
If you use statements like “12.5 million indians need SpeakAsia to support their livelihood”, then we will also need to include the question of real clients.
Livelihood?
Paying people to do fake surveys is meaningless. If the surveys aren’t able to generate money SpeakAsia shouldn’t be paying for them either, and panelists shouldn’t be doing them.
Spending money on panels that doesn’t generate money is meaningless in relation to livelihood. Most of SpeakAsia’s panelists would have been more able to support their livelihood if they had kept their money instead of spending them on panels.
Their best chances for supporting livelihood is if SpeakAsia returns some of their initial investments to them, and if the company terminates this part of it’s business.
Real clients?
SpeakAsia’s Non-Disclosure Agreements aren’t valid in relation to police, tax-investigation and other official matters regulated by laws. This means that SpeakAsia would have been able to prove they had real clients within a couple of days in May 2011, without breaking any agreements with these clients.
Companies or individuals can’t “agree” with each other in all sorts of matters, like being kept secret from an investigation or something. Manoj Kumar’s trouble in showing up some real clients isn’t related to some agreements.
@Mr. Y.
Some of my comments are simply me trying to “expand my communication skills” into other areas. 🙂
And yes, there’s still a fair chance for “hot” discussions, “hot” in some way or another.
A year ago I used Google translate when I was writing something. After I stopped using a translator I have got training in different areas, but I do still miss some other areas.
Why? Most people will realise that it will be pretty boring being on a vacation, meeting a hot looking chick, and only be able to talk about MLM, business models and recruitment schemes. 🙂
Thus, I’m trying to expand the communication skills into other areas. The only problem is that anju hasn’t exactly been very “sales oriented” here on this blog. I’ll guess this may be related to some of the other “authors” here. 🙂
Some of the comments have other uses, too. Creating some variation in written material will sometimes make it easier to ‘digest’ for the brain. A joke here and there can actually make the other stuff become more interesting for the brain, and help it to recover some focus.
Here’s the latest from the EOW:-soapbox
what LATEST ?
rehash,rehash rehash.
and moneylife should know the supreme court date is on the 6 th feb. they are a couple of days early in reposting rehashed dustbin news on their site for DRAMATIC effect.
loosing their touch or what?
in yesterdays case of saol versus mad hat productions [or whatever] the following happened
the date of hearing was postponed to 17 feb.
the tv production house informed the court that pending this hearing they would not show any fresh episodes regarding ‘silent’ asia and neither would they air any re-runs.
V for victory.
norway
if a company wants your opinion on products in the form of a survey and are willing to pay for such opinion it is legal work.
whether saol sold all of it’s surveys or none,whether saol has other revenue streams ,whether the company is able to balance it’s incoming and outgoing monies are matters that are deeply discussed in the financial papers and balance sheets of the company.
without having access to ANY such papers do you think it is wise to comment on how the company can afford to pay survey income etc?
also ,if the supreme court feels that demanding a list of survey clients is a ‘requirement’ in the case at all ,i’m sure they won’t overlook it.
Number given in above registration information appears to be fake.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_Singapore
and http://www.ida.gov.sg/policies%20and%20regulation/20060508120124.aspx
Here is google on +65.91234567 Singapore.
Jai StupidAsia!
An interesting post on BizBasket, posted 8 months ago.
The good news in the EOW press release was that they didn’t specify anything in the last statement, like “with a 72 hours written notice” or anything similar.
And they used the expression “There is possibility” rather than “We’re absolutely sure”, too.
The Speakasia vs MultiScreen Media case in High court is in pre-admission state and next hearing is on 17-Feb-2012.
@anju
NOPE, it’s not. It’s fake work, paid by the panelists own money, the money panelists have paid for subscriptions and panels.
It would have been legal work if the panelists hadn’t paid anything to do the work (if it had been like a normal job), and SpeakAsia could also have been it’s own client.
It would have been legal work if SpeakAsia had real clients, if the work had generated revenue that were able to support the payments.
Without real clients, the work is meaningless in relation to livelihood. It’s like stealing from the poor and giving to the rich, except there may be both poor and rich among the victims here.
Doing fake work and get paid for doing it isn’t a human right, as long as the work is part of a Ponzi scheme or something similar. If you’re in doubt of the “Ponzi scheme”, then visit speakasiahyderabad.com and look at how it was marketed and sold until May 2011?
norway
the money paid by the panelists is towards subscription of an ezine and is paid to haren ventures ,which distributes the ezine.
the surveys and survey income come from saol which is a separate company and no money from the panelists goes to it.
these companies are separate legal entities and governed by corporate law so merely saying that haren kaur is in both won’t push it.
you guys love saying -if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is a duck.
i think it’s a keen intellect ‘masquerading ‘as a duck. people chase the duck because it’s good on the dinner table.some people are able to see whats really inside the duck but some people just go hoarse screaming duckduckduck.
even if it appears to be a ponzi scheme and the operative word here is ‘appears ‘ it does not fall into the LEGAL FORMAT of what defines a ponzi scheme in INDIA.
recruitment not compulsory
avenues of revenue apart from participation money
there is a third important legal stickler which i’m not allowed to disclose ,study and find out.
@anju
Here is an example for how the panels and surveys was marketed, from Speakasiahyderabad.com – and it gets even worse when we come to commissions for selling panels.
They clearly use the term “investment”, compare it to investing in banks, and are even trying to sell 10 panels at once.
This is more like an investment scheme than doing honest work. Organizing, running or participating in a Ponzi scheme has never been a human right, no matter how hard people are trying to convince themselves.
Hey Navneet where ru, u were suppose to give update on The case involving Speak Asia vs Multi Screen Media Pvt Ltd.
norway
is speakasiahyderabad.com an official company channel?
how individuals understand and further regurgitate an idea to others is their private business.
the intention of the company was never to present it’s business model in such a half understood manner.
for this very purpose the company has held over 3000 training camps covering 500 000 people so people understood the real idea behind saol.
this has really come to their rescue today ,because no matter how much the press and others scream ponzi, the panelists have dug their feet in and refuse to give up any ground.
people are not fools. this implicit trust in the company’s plans is because people have heard the truth.
ponzi schemes MELT AWAY. everybody has sense enough, not to stick their necks out for illegal schemes.
@anju
A ponzi is a ponzi. Being in one country or another doesn’t make a company a ponzi scheme, its business model does.
If India wants to be the laughing stock of the business world and legalise ponzi schemes that doesn’t make them any less unsustainable and scammy.
Ponzi schemes are illegal the world over for good reason.
It’s kind of amusing we’ve gotten here. It’s almost as if we’ve agreed that Speak Asia are a ponzi and now it’s just a matter of the company trying its luck in court to see if it can get ponzi schemes legalised in India.
It’s like talking to a brick wall at times.
1. the panelists don’t make Speak Asia a ponzi, its business model does.
2. whether people are fools or not doesn’t make Speak Asia a ponzi, its business model does.
3. whether it melts away or not does not make Speak Asia a ponzi, its business model does.
Yawn.
Ya that’s true. From a long time I wanted to hear that from someone close to SpeakAsia. Panelists beware! Try to understand this statement carefully, this is what you are going to hear from Speakasia in the end.
Speakasia is represented as a division of Haren Ventures Pvt. Ltd. upto now and it is a separate entity now? May be it is true in the legal terms. So it is planed from the beginning.
‘we’ve’ not gotten ‘here’ ,you fell into this ditch all by yourself.
i’m absolutely holding my ground that saol satisfies indian law.
for clarity read my post again.
Well, quite simply put – either ponzi schemes are legal in India or they aren’t.
There’s no such thing as an ‘Indian ponzi scheme’ or an ‘American ponzi scheme’. A ponzi is a ponzi is a ponzi.
@anju
I showed you how this REALLY was marketed and sold, and it was only one of many examples.
Other distributors may have used different ideas, like selling 3 IDs and 4 subpanels as a “package” and calling it a “Tripod”. I’m sure you’re familiar with that solution?
I calculated the number of panels/subpanels to be more than 10 panels per panelist. This means SpeakAsia will need clients willing to pay $200 million USD or more each week to be able to support the surveys.
I believe it will be better to agree on terminating the survey-side of the business, and not allowing it to continue? It has never been a real business, anyway. They can of course try to clean up this mess in other ways, but so far they haven’t had any plan worth supporting. All plans seems to focus on protecting the interests of those deeply involved in SpeakAsia.
Yes it is(They are just forwarding from SpeakAsia, AISPA etc). Also the official channel speakasiaonlinemarketing.blogspot.com was posting fake (edited) letters. So where is the official channel? Aispa, mobiclub?
Why speakasia opted for exit option if no money is paid to speakasia? If bahirwani is just a panelist, why he want to use technical terms to explain speakasia, haren ventures and panelists’ money?
somebody tell andy [yuck!]
neither speakasiahyderabad, neither aispa , neither mobiclub and there must be AT LEAST a HUNDRED other sites and pages , are official channels of saol.
saol has one official channel speakasiaonlinemarketing.blogspot.com
YOU think the postings on this site are fake and this is entirely your problem. we panelists ‘believe’, being a cult and all.
get educated.
in the supreme court writ both saol and haren ventures are respondents.
haren ventures is willing to return subscription money to panelists under the exit policy in support of it’s business partner saol. the companies are DIFFERENT but standing together in this difficult time.
don’t be scared of ‘technical terms ‘ they are used in matters of LAW.
start attending court cases and/or following them YOU TOO [!!!] will pick up some TECHNICAL TERMS to understand this case.
you can cry into your computer as much as you like ,but the mumbai high court saw and understood bahirwani to be a panelist only.
the TRUTH gets around whether you want it or not.
All plans seems to focus on protecting the interests of those deeply involved in SpeakAsia.-norway
NO
all plans seems to focus on repaying exit optioners ,satisfying all agencies about the legality of the business and going forth from there.
@anju
I believe you’re miscalculating something in the human nature?
People will gradually stop acting as “a united group of people”, and start acting as individuals instead. As individuals they’re more concerned about their own money than of SpeakAsia.
“This implicit trust in the company’s plans”? 🙂
Have you ever ASKED any of them (outside the loyal core of people) what they really believe in?
Have you ever LISTENED to any of them as individuals?
Are you SURE they’re supporting SpeakAsia, and not their own hopes of recovering money?
Some people in SpeakAsia needs to adjust to a level closer to reality, instead of feeding their own self delusion.
The panelists have heard the “truth” several times in the last 9 months, but the part they are most interested in has always failed to become reality.
Reality test
The first reality test will come 6. February, the WRIT 383/11 “Solomon Jemes & ORS”. My sense of reality tells me that the Supreme Court will not be qualified to make any decisions in relation to allow SpeakAsia to continue, but they’re qualified to make some decisions in relation to some payment solutions.
I don’t know if a court will make partial decisions in a case, but I’ll guess the case will be postponed to a future date, like 27. February (and 20. March if needed). They seems to use close to 3 weeks between each hearing.
It’s a reality distortion field (i.e. a cult sphere). People inside don’t see reality the rest of us do.
@K.Chang
Exactly. And then we can agree on that the best solution probably is to keep her occupied as best as we can, until some qualified personell in white coates have evaluated the symptoms and prescribed some treatment? 🙂
I have one possible solution. The local library has a book called “7 methods to treat difficult people”. It may be exactly what’s needed here.
@anju
As far as I remember, return of subscription fee was related to the period where panelists had paid for but not received e-zines? This point is fully acceptable, but it depends on how they calculate the value of the e-zines. The “real price” of the e-zines can be calculated to $20 or less (for both 26 and 52 weeks).
And then we have the EXIT-option. This option won’t serve the interests of most panelists, since it was limited to newly recruited panelists. This point should normally be unacceptable, but may partly be acceptable to panelists that have “identifiable rights” (where there is possible to identify specific payments as traceable to a specific panelist).
The EXIT-option offered:
1. Return of $220 to panelists who haven’t earned anything.
2. Return of $220 minus what they have earned, to panelists that have earned less than $220
3. Nothing to the rest of the panelists, they are forced to continue whether they wants to or not.
Panelists that have bought more than 1 panel ($220) will lose invested money if they accept the EXIT-option – as in point 1 and 2. This option looks alot like a trick to scam people, since in exhange for using the EXIT-option people will have to drop further claims.
The EXIT-option doesn’t protect the interests of most panelists. It seems more like it protects the interests of SAOL and a group of people heavily involved – by reducing some of the possible claims.
The offer from the company is limited to $220 max per panelist, the few that are relatively newly recruited. This offer doesn’t treat each and everyone equally. It will harm the interests of panelists that have bought more than one panel (paid more than $220).
I seriously hope the court system in India will be able to detect any conflict of interest, and be able to make a correct decision. This includes identifying whether or not “Solomon Jemes & ORS” are qualified to represent the whole group of panelists in some of the claims – if they are protecting their own interests rather than the interests of the whole group.
The main motive for joining SpeakAsia
When people joined SpeakAsia, they did it because a promise of income if they invested money into subscription and panels. I will believe most average panelists will confirm this if they are asked.
SpeakAsia has later tried to change this into that people were buying subscriptions for e-zines, and later they changed it into that people were buying panels.
I really don’t think Indian people are that interested in “e-zines” and “panels”? Do average people in India really spend between $220 and $6,000 on that stuff? Buying an average of 10 to 15 panels or subpanels, just to have them on their computers?
I don’t think anyone with a sense of reality will believe Indian people are spending an average of $3,000 USD on “e-zines” and “panels” because they are interested in this stuff. The main motives for buying them have been as an investment into an income opportunity.
I will seriously hope the court system in India will be able to identify this conflict of interest, and not be willing to accept those “made up explanations” that popped up when SpeakAsia’s management realized the trouble they were in.
Speak Asia’s domain has been unsuspended and pointed back at their USonyx hosting.
The company has updated it’s WHOIS information so I’ve updated the article with the accompanying changes.
The postode, additional of Anuj Garag listed as technical and administrative contact along with the phone/fax numbers have been changed during the suspension.
Phone fax is same as in prior PR material. Address is new. Didn’t SpeakAsia previously claim to reside in Ubi Tech Park?
Searching this address on Google revealed a TON of different businesses at the same exact address… interesting. It’s either a short-term rent office or a virtual office, IMHO.
here’s one example for you:
http://www.burgeonits.com/Contact_Us.html
BURGEON IT SERVICES PTE LTD
71 Bukit Batok Crescent, #10-08
Prestige Centre, Singapore 658071
Exactly same as SpeakAsia’s address, yes?
burgeonits.com’s whois points back to India:
Probably a co-incidence, but still.
SpeakAsia domain suspended for invalid information but now bring back as NORMAL with valid information form today itself. Cheers!! Oz & Chang 😀
You’re late by almost 3 hours, Arvind. 🙂
@anju
If we agree to disagree on something it will probably save us both some time. Agree to disagree means we don’t have to waste any time discussing some specific matters.
We can disagree on:
* “SpeakAsia is/was a Ponzi scheme or something similar”
* “Adding more products to the business model won’t make it more legal, the main problem will still be unsolved”
* “SpeakAsia didn’t have any real (significant) clients”
* “The main source of revenue was the money from panelists”
* “The surveys done was fake work, no real clients”
* “Doing fake work is meaningless, if it doesn’t generate revenue from real clients”
* “The main motive for buying subscriptions and panels was as an income opportunity”
* “The EXIT-option will harm the interests of most panelists”
* “The EXIT-options are too limited to be of any real use for panelists in general”
* “The real motives behind WRIT 383/11 Solomon Jemes & ORS are highly questionable, and doesn’t serve the interests of most panelists”
* “How the subscriptions and panels were REALLY marketed and sold are important”
This was the short list. There shouldn’t be any need to specify each and every point we disagree on, as long as we are able to identify “the main areas”. We do still have some areas we can discuss, like some matters related to the court system.
The disagreement can be summed up into that I prefer to analyse each and every (important) detail, while you prefer to use SpeakAsia’s management and senior panelists as “reliable sources for information” – more trustworthy than any other sources.
Why I suggest to agree to disagree is because I’m repeating most of my statements, “the discussion goes in a circle”, it’s time consuming work. I have still plenty of arguments that will get you “heated up” if I use them, but I prefer that “heat” in other areas than discussing SpeakAsia. 🙂
Speakasia Speakasia Online Pte. Ltd. is using different addresses.
displayed in speakasia’s contact details
for the registration of speakasiamarketing.com
Updated post code is still not right.
Speakasia exit option is never mentioned as haren ventures exit option. If we seperate haren ventures and speakasia then the subscription and franchisees are related with haren ventures. This leaves speakasia with no real products (either way ezine is not a real product) and as said in speakasia press conference speakasia has only panels to sell.
As the ezine cost is 11000 those who purchased multiple panels can’t ask for more than 11000 of their money. You have to forget the money you invested more than the subscription cost.
Why do you think people joined speakasia?
1. for ezine – NO
2. for doing surveys – NO
3. for buying panels – NO
4. for buying YUG products – NO
5. to perform precision marketing and market research – NO
People joined speakasia because of guaranteed income of 372% on their investment. Try to remove the money involved and see how many proud speakasian say jai *********.