univerteam-logoBack in late 2013 Alexandre Arenales launched UniverTeam.

Based on the MultiClick Ponzi scheme, UniverTeam saw affiliates up to €1500 EUR on the promise of an advertised €75 EUR a week ROI.

UniverTeam affiliates were also paid to recruit new investors in the scheme, earning commissions based on the amount new recruits invested.

Earlier this month a BehindMLM reader informed me that UniverTeam had recently made changes to their compensation plan.

This is hardly surprising given the unsustainable nature of UniverTeam’s original Ponzi scheme model, which would have seen UniverTeam eventually run out of invested affiliate funds and collapse.

Today we take a look at UniverTeam’s new compensation plan.

UniverTeam affiliates still pay €25 EUR to join the company, however a slight change has been made to the pricing of the offered packages (positions in the UniverTeam compensation plan).

Whereas UniverTeam’s previous compensation plan saw the Senior package offered for €900 EUR, in the new plan it is now €500 EUR.

The three packages affiliates can now purchase are:

  • Junior – €150 EUR
  • Senior – €500 EUR
  • Master – €1500 EUR

Recruitment commissions are still paid out when recruited affiliates invest in any of the above packages, paying out as follows:

  • Junior – €10.50 EUR
  • Senior – €35 EUR
  • Master – €105 EUR

Whereas previously ongoing monthly fees were pegged to UniverTeam affiliate’s membership ranks, now they appear to be just tied into how much is invested:

  • Junior – €35 EUR a month
  • Senior – €150 EUR a month
  • Master – €480 EUR a month

Overall this is a reduction (recruitment commissions for Junior and Master packages were €25 and €150 EUR respectively), despite only the Senior package being reduced in price.

With the addition of monthly affiliate fees, residual recruitment commissions are also paid out when UniverTeam affiliates pay their membership fee each month:

  • Junior – €3 EUR a month
  • Senior – €10 EUR a month
  • Master – €30 EUR a month

These appear to be level 1 commissions (personally recruited affiliates), however the UniverTeam compensation plan does mention payouts from “1st to 10th Level”.

No further information is provided, so I’m not entirely sure if that means the above amounts are shared equally over ten levels of recruitment, or whether additional funds are paid out over the other nine levels.

Binary commissions (paying on points generated by affiliates investing in packages) have been increased, paying a flat 11% on the weaker side’s volume. Previously Junior and Senior affiliates saw a reduced percentage paid out.

Points calculated for the binary remain the same, that being €1 EUR is equal to 1 point (Senior is reduced to 500 points accordingly).

There’s no mention of the previously offered weekly ROI or bonus pools. The UniverTeam affiliate ranks and bonuses however look to be mostly the same, if not identical.

Conclusion

The obvious difference between UniverTeam’s old and new compensation plan is the abolishment of the Ponzi ROIs the company was playing.

This has been replaced with what is a more traditional pyramid scheme business model, requiring affiliate to pay large sums of funds to join the company. Affiliates are then paid when they recruit others who do the same.

The ruse remains the same, with UniverTeam bundling a series of software-centric services to affiliate packages. The ruse is that affiliates are purchasing multiple licenses of the services, which they then can go on to resell.

If they don’t it doesn’t matter, they’re still paid to recruit – which is the core of the business model.

UniverTeam affiliates sign up, pay up to €1500 EUR and then get paid up to €105 EUR for each new participant they bring in.

Residuals are beefed up through monthly fees, designed to keep funds trap into the system and force affiliates to recruit. Lest they lose any earned commissions through ongoing fees.

What I’m guessing is UniverTeam was on the verge of running of running out of invested funds under the old model. Hence the ditching and introduction of a much more heavily recruitment-focused one.

As with all pyramid schemes, once recruitment dies down no new funds enter the system. Those at the bottom stop paying their monthly fees and drop out, meaning those above them stop getting paid.

They too stop paying their monthly fees and before you know it UniverTeam has collapsed (again).

The only legitimate factor within the UniverTeam business model is the potential to sell the offered services to retail customers. With affiliates the only ones buying said services through packages though (positions in the comp plan), the services are sadly neither here nor there.

Given that reload schemes rarely do as well as their predecessors, I suspect UniverTeam will struggle to attract new recruits and collapse much faster this time around.

Maybe we’ll see yet another compensation plan deployed at that point, who knows…