TelexFree injunction denied, BBOM denies Ponzi
As was reported on Wednesday July 10th, TelexFree latest attempt to circumvent a business crippling injunction handed down against them in June was to file an injunction appeal of their own.
Upon filing their injunction, which marks the third attempt by TelexFree to lift the Acre injunction against the business, the company advised that they expected ‘a preliminary decision later this week’.
Last Friday TelexFree’s injunction request was heard by Chief Justice Eva Evangelista. The decision?
TelexFree’s injunction appeal was denied.
According to a spokesperson of the TJ-AC, the federal judge’s decision was taken after the completion of a ‘detailed analysis, in which the entire case was considered, with consideration of previous decisions’.
The decision by Judge Evangelista was reached after TelexFree presented it’s case on Tuesday last week, with lawyer Djacir Falcão arguing in court that an injunction against the injunction needed to be granted because should TelexFree
spend a few more days being prohibited from signing up new investors, they would have no money to pay the old ones.
As it stands now three appeals filed by TelexFree against the initial Acre injunction against TelexFree have been denied, with the company having failed to convince a single Judge, all of whom have analysed the business model, that the company is not a Ponzi scheme.
Looking forward it’s unclear what TelexFree’s next course of action will be. Several regulatory agencies in Brazil are investigating the company with criminal charges expected to be filed against the company by either Public Prosecutors in Acre or the Federal Police by the end of the month.
Whether, as put forth by their lawyer, TelexFree goes bankrupt as a result of the Acre injunction prohibiting the recruitment of new affiliate investors or not, remains to be seen.
In related news suspected Ponzi scheme BBOM has gone on the defensive after the company’s assets were frozen mid last week.
The decision to freeze BBOM’s assets was made after a Judge examined evidence collected by federal Prosecutors against the company, and ‘agreed there was robust evidence indicating that BBOM’s business model is actually just a Ponzi scheme‘.
Speaking to TribunaHoje, BBOM Founder and President João Francisco de Paulo (right) claims that
Prosecutors did no work in this investigation, they instead worked with information from malicious people.
BBOM (BehindMLM review here) take payments of $300, $900 or $1500 from affiliates and in exchange pay out $80, $240 or $400 a month respectively.
The company claims this money is sourced from the sale of GPS tracker units to customers, which an affiliate “rents” when they hand over money.
The problem however is that BBOM pay out their monthly return to affiliates, on condition of affiliates investing in the scheme, as opposed to trackers being sold to customers.
Affiliates who invest money with the company do little more than hand over money, with BBOM, under the brand Unepxmil, selling the actual units.
Naturally the question arises as to why BBOM need to collect payments from affiliates if they themselves are doing all the selling to customers on behalf of the affiliates.
The obvious answer? BBOM take money from affiliates and just pay it out monthly to existing affiliate investors, using the GPS tracker business as a front.
Francisco de Paulo meanwhile strongly denies this claim.
We have acquired 1.5 million GPS trackers. Of these 1.5 million trackers we generate a turnover of U.S. $120 per month.
Unepxmil via which the services are marketed through, including monitoring and tracking, is becoming the largest GPS tracking operator in the world.
Today we add between 5000 to 10 thousand GPS units per day.
Far be it f0r me to point out the obvious, but wouldn’t clearing the legitimacy of BBOM be as simple as providing a Judge with detailed receipts of all GPS trackers rented out to actual retail customers?
Why this has not happened and Francisco de Paulo is instead harping on about “malicious people” I have no idea.
In the interview, Francisco de Paulo also states that he “does not know why” TelexFree has been targeted as a Ponzi scheme. I’m taking a punt here but perhaps if Francisco de Paulo took some time to understand why TelexFree continues to have every appeal they file denied based on analysis of their business model – he might start to understand why.
And not only that, come to see why BBOM is in the same boat.
You can very much claim to have 1.5 million GPS trackers, but in taking payments from affiliates and paying them out a monthly ROI, it all means dick if you’re not actually selling trackers to retail customers as you claim.
Time to pony up those receipts BBOM or come clean. Either make the choice or have the Brazilian courts make it for you, either works for us.
Telexfree promoters have become culpable on so man levels.
This was just posted on Faith Sloan’s blog.
Audio at https://www.hightail.com/download/bWJvck8xeWFiR0o3czlVag
Labriola says they are learning from what is happening in Brasil and are fine tuning it. He also says their problems will be resolved, DUH! They also opened Canada? What are these scammers up to?
From the looks of it, trying to secure new investment money now that Brazil has imploded on itself.
I like this line:
Lol. And…
If not facts and analysis, he’s asking affiliates to base their decisions on what exactly? The continued suspension of reality those who have invested large sums of money in the US are trying to impose on their fellow investors?
Good luck with that guys…
Labriola uses the typical speech of making people believe they should go on good faith and not ask questions at all. If Labriola says so, you might as well do so!
Hey after all new Countries are being opened. Just fork out the money and forget about what really is going on.
I have to say that Labriola is good with his words, but comes across as a “REAL TELEXFREE SCAMMER” playing the crowd with the ultimate goal of greed. This is a perfect example of the bullshit leader.
If Steve Labriola had any balls, he would come here to BehindMLM and clarify many questions in regards to TelexFree.
We’re not the type of audience he wants to reach.
In other news, seems some Brazilian legislators have waded into the fray. One’s calling for refund of affiliate money (though what money he’s referring to is a bit vague)
And it seems yet another state in Brazil have announced an investigation? The auto-translate of Globo article is a bit vague on the details.
It clearly was. 🙂
The Attorney General (or Federal Prosecutor) in Rondonia has published a public warning against TelexFree and (15 or 16) other investment opportunity companies. He’s also asking people to report recruitment attempts.
Prosecutors of the Federal and State “Ministerio Publico” all over Brazil has organized a “task force” to investigate those 16 companies in civil investigations. For TelexFree, that will be about whether or not the company has some ongoing activity in each state (i.e. violating the injunction).
For TelexFree, all other state prosecutors seems to be waiting for the result from the court in Acre this week / next week.
The “task force” is probably a method to avoid chaos, e.g. multiple lawsuits in different states against the same company. That was actually a good idea.
How is it that Labriola is saying that payments are going through, but the women in the office have been flooded with requests and folks will have to be patient?
prosecutors from almost all Brazilian states are ready to file new injunctions if the Acre injunction is reversed
Not to worry kids….the Telexfree opportunity is in full swing here in the USA. They’ve got an international presence between the EU, Canada, USA and China, the feds will never be able to lay a finger on the directors and promoters…
Its all OK, go back to your stations…drink the kool-aide, you’ve got to drink the kool-aide, believe me, everything is good, this is the work of good.
Lol here we go. Just days after TelexFree’s third court action gets denied, now it’s “hackers”:
Coming up next,
And then
Hackers, lol! Oh NO!!! What is TelexFree USA going to say now?
No worries as says Maron, “drink more kool aid”, it might kool you down. But don’t worry, make sure you book your convention!
Surely there must be some person that is doing their homework in the USA before joining and actually going to the supposedly head quarters office to see if the place is just a rental room or mailbox?
One interesting thing: the “promoters” use Google Hangout to conference about injuction in Acre 😀
– youtu.be/IWi8b5fKbTs
– youtu.be/SVcT3VPg4hU
But the “Telexfree Software” have conference calls: telexfree.com/software/sobre#3
😛
Hello Fellow Telexfree, Can you say ZEEK THE SEQUEL PART 2? The writing is on the wall.
Appeal to Superior Court denied.
Source, original:
http://g1.globo.com/economia/noticia/2013/07/stj-rejeita-nova-acao-que-pedia-retomada-das-atividades-da-telexfree.html
Ah, “lack of standing”, interesting. WHO filed claim against Acre court? One of the affiliates hiring a lawyer?
“A lawyer” is probably Horst Fuchs, TelexFree’s main lawyer.
TelexFree had 2 appeals.
1. about jurisdiction issues (Superior Court)
2. about the consequences of the case, e.g. the risk of bankruptcy (the Court in Acre)
The first one was denied Wednesday 17th, published today
The last one was denied Friday July 12th.
But the fact that they have two lawyers / law firms being interviewed about different parts of the same case makes it difficult to identify “What is what?”.
The 2 main lawyers:
Horst Fuchs
Djacir Falcâo (“Jack Hawk” among friends).
Wouldn’t you think they would have standing?
I think its very obvious what Telex Free is. Does anyone use math anymore? Come on folks.
A Telexfree affiliate talking to a puppet rooster.
Pro Telexfree demonstration blocks access to Brasilia airport:
http://g1.globo.com/distrito-federal/noticia/2013/07/protesto-em-apoio-telexfree-fecha-acessos-ao-aeroporto-de-brasilia.html
So what? 😉 Want to see the aftermath of such a demonstration in China? (read all the comments too)
http://www.patrickpretty.com/2013/05/06/12-law-enforcement-agents-reportedly-injured-in-clash-with-pyramid-schemers-dozens-of-people-reportedly-arrested/
BBOM’s president says: “we are being victims of criminals, who are feeding courts with wrong information”.
*snort*
Blame slanderers and the government for shutting you down, yeah right.
Evidence presented would probably be BBOM marketing material. If that’s wrong, then ultimately the fault was his for bad leadership, right? 🙂
Didn’t Troy Dooly blamed some “Russia Mafia hackers” for Zeek Rewards turning into a Ponzi?
(Gee, is this a script they read from or something?)
Those damn Soviets just want to ruin the Capitalistic dream!
Oh..the Soviet Union dissolved in ’89?….Well nevermind then.
New Telexfree appeal rejected in court. Reason:Telexfree didn’t pay court costs, whose value was around U$18:
http://g1.globo.com/ac/acre/noticia/2013/07/telexfree-tem-novo-recurso-negado-notj-ac-e-permanece-suspensa.html
New lynchmob target: the TelexFree lawyers. 😉
I have already updated the MMG forum about it, 10 minutes before you posted it here. I have posted updates there since June 18th or 19th.
Here’s another news from Monday 22nd:
The reason for posting there = different type of audience. It will give me SOME insight into how the company in the U.S. have been or will be affected.
Sounds like Telexfree wants the Court to allow them to put up a bond. Its worth a try, but where they think they will obtain such a bond is anybody’s guess.
The R$ 659 million(US$300 million) that the company offered were the company’s trademark:
http://gazetaonline.globo.com/_conteudo/2013/07/noticias/dinheiro/1454070-garantia-da-telexfree-e-sua-propria-marca.html
Not a very good translation but the judge reportedly said “How can the company offer brand it as collateral in a process in which it requests the termination of the business? I can not believe this proposal.”
My sentiments, exactly.
Wait, so TelexFree is basically saying:
Judge: You have to stop doing whatever you’re doing.
TelexFree: What if we give up our name? Can we keep going? We think it’s worth ______
Judge: You’re kidding me, right?
Yes, so they will claim “we offered US$ 300 million to the court but they didn’t let us restart”. And affiliates will believe and get angry with the court
After the judge, now the prosecutor is also receiving death threats:
http://blogs.diariodepernambuco.com.br/economia/?p=16161
That seems to be the gist of it. Telexfree is offering their “brand” as a surety against potential affiliate losses.
The name’s worth exactly bupkis (zero) with the payments on hold. 🙂
Death threats are just so LAME nowadays. Just the other day, one of the game balance programmers for the popular Call of Duty series (Black Ops 2 to be specific) issued a patch that slightly detuned one of the weapons (among other fixes), and he’s got death threats. No kidding. Something about his kids and something.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/07/24/httpwww-pcgamer-com20130724cod-developer-receives-death-threats-following-blops-2-gun-tweaksutm_sourcetwutm_mediumemputm_campaignuk/
Sure. The Telexfree supporters want to hold onto the fantasy. Too bad for them, the the judge is a realist.
Speak Asia tried something similar and unfortunately managed to convince a judge to overturn an injunction on their bank accounts. I believe “paying panelists” was the argument used at the time.
Within 2 weeks the company had transferred over a hundred million USD offshore. That money was never seen again and has been used to pay for Speak Asia’s waste of time legal expenses and that of CEO Manoj Kumar’s cronies in court… going on two years now.
The injunction overturn was the biggest blunder in the case, and is primarily responsible for the case dragging on for over two years now.
Thankfully the Brazilian courts seem a bit smarter. With 2/3rds of TelexFree management in hiding who knows where, it’s pretty obvious any unfreezing of bank accounts would result in transfers offshore and most likely a swift abandoning of Brazilian operations altogether.
If cronyism is involved any rationale is good enough.
Telexfree director asks for anticipatory bail:
http://www.oriobranco.net/component/content/article/30-noticias/32822-dono-da-telexfree-pede-habeas-corpus-preventivo-ao-tjac.html
From “Globo”:
http://g1.globo.com/ac/acre/noticia/2013/07/telexfree-tem-dois-recursos-serem-julgados-pelo-tj-ac.html
All the different appeals makes the case difficult to understand from time to time, but it looks like a trial is coming up on Monday August 5th, about an appeal.
There will be no hearing on Monday. The subject matter “would have been” Telexfree’s appeal of the interlocutory decree (i.e., an appeal of the injunction)
The judiciary does not appear to be in any rush or have any particular readiness to revisit Telexfree’s already stale arguments a third time. A calendaring technicality permitted delay of this latest hearing and it would not be completely surprising if further calendaring problems were to occur.
There are a couple of interesting developments brought to light here. The defense attorney for Roberto Carlos Costa argues (rightly I think) that his client should be protected from a police/criminal investigation because it has not yet been established that a crime (against the economy) has occurred.
And a publisher (also by the name of Costa) has filed suit (as have 14 others) to recover their investment from Telexfree, proving that not everyone continues to believe and that there are some people who understand that they have been defrauded and are taking legal action to recover their funds.
Anticipatory bail? This is straight out of the Speak Asia playbook.
Management are overseas in hiding and what’s left at the local level are applying to the courts for protection against arrest.
Carlos Costa = Tarak Bajpai.
Also what might come are charges against the people behind the threats.
Has carlos been involved in instigating these threats?
In the usa someone will go and investigate the main usa telexfree office.
Is it simply a mail box?
The same link says Telexfree ordered a study from tributarist lawyer Otto Glasner, who was once an auditor for the National Treasure. Amazing how many people are throwing their names to the mud!
Here is a sentence of Otto’s 24 pages positive report on TelexFree:
Here is the EXACT translantion from google translator (try it yourself):
“I understand that the model is sustainable and doomed to success”.
Doomed to success? The word “fadado” (fated) is more used in a negative than in a positive way, so much that Google chosed “doomed” to translate it, although a positive meaning is also possible.
Perharps the lawyer is just joking, and the word choice was a tip.
Seriously doubt he would soil his hands like that. Probably some crazy affiliates, “subtly encouraged” by their leaders, who loudly exclaimed that they should be allowed to keep doing whatever they were doing, never mind any sign of illegality, and anyone who disagree is their enemy.
I am quite certain it is, and it’s explained here:
http://amlmskeptic.blogspot.com/2013/07/telexfree-location-lie-its-tvi-express.html
Interesting phrase, perhaps he means it was a business model so well adapted to Brazilian needs and culture that it was doomed to succeed and thus die at the hands of its own success.
Here in the real world if anyone makes death threats, they can be charged with severe sentences.
And the scammer Andy Bowdoin got both Gerald Nehra and Keith Laggos (plus at least one other lawyer) to sign off on his Ponzi scheme “Ad Surf Daily” as “not a Ponzi scheme”. And it was closed as a Ponzi. Then later, we found Gerald Nehra and his partner, Mr. Waak, working for Zeek Rewards, yet ANOTHER Ponzi.
And guess who’s “Gerry” Nehra representing now? TelexFree.
You really can’t make this **** up.
Slight correction. Keith Laggos is NOT a lawyer, but a MLM “consultant”.
Hello K. Chang. Rambo strikes again:
You are wrong. There is no way Telexfree brand is worth zero. Zero is a neutral number and, so, much higher than the actual value a brand like Telexfree would add to any product.
I estimate the value to be between minus R$ 500 million and minus R$ 200 million, but zero is just too much.
You mean people would be NEGATIVELY affected by being associated with that name, right? Like they would pay that much to get rid of the name? 🙂
Yeah, and I am not kidding. The whole idea of TF offering their brand as caution is that, if the scheme blows, the government would have their brand to sell and use the money to repair the losses.
However, if a company, lets say Oi or Vivo, were to buy a brand that harmed so many people, their market value would actually drop for having associated their products and services with that infamous thing. How could the government find any buyer to such a brand?
Following your idea, if any Brazilian phone company were caught in a strange and unusual judicial situation in which they were associated with the name Telexfree and actually had to pay to get rid of it, I have no doubt they would pay millions if necessary.
Someone might mention that Telexfree still have a legion of followers that associate the brand with good things. Today, the brand could have a significant niche market value.
But we must remember that, by Telexfree’s proposal, the company would be free to operate and the brand would only be handed after they could not pay everybody anymore. In this situation, the pyramid would have fallen by its own weight, without State intervention, and I doubt those people would love the brand so much when they realize all the losses they had.
Companies accused of being pyramids have suspected links with other schemes
http://gazetaonline.globo.com/_conteudo/2013/07/noticias/dinheiro/1454676-empresas-acusadas-de-serem-piramides-tem-ligacoes-suspeitas-com-outros-esquemas.html
If I’m reading this correctly, apparently a court trial date has been set for the 12th.
The article translates as June 12th though which I think might be August 12th.
So basically trial + 10 days for a judge to reach a decision. Thus far TelexFree has had seven appeals of various capacities denied, so I think it’s pretty obvious they’ve exhausted their defense pleadings.
If any of the native Portuguese readers are able to clarify it’d be much appreciated: http://economia.ig.com.br/2013-07-31/telexfree-bloqueio-sera-julgado-no-dia-12.html
Hello, Oz. Will analyze the appeal on 12 August. But even in the first degree the process will still be judged.
Oz, The owners are very concerned Telexfree. A task force formed by the prosecuting attorneys from all 27 states of Brazil will not allow the company to return to work.
She made a move to open their capital and become partners in the promoters and thus escape the damages.
I analysed it to be about the trial itself, following a logic like this one:
18.06.2013 Precautionary injunction, 30 day deadline
26.07.2013 Deadline for the charge sheet
12.08.2013 Trial in Court
The trial will be about whether the current injunction should be upheld or lifted, or extended. It should also be about the details for that.
If we compare TelexFree to ZeekRewards, it will be something similar to the August 17th 2012 court hearing in that case, with the difference that this isn’t a voluntarily shutdown.
I expect the outcome of the trial to be that TelexFree will be put under some type of administration. I also expect the order to be appealed to STJ, the Superior Court.