Viral Angels Review: 39 – 990 EUR “credit union” scheme
Viral Angels launched a while ago but earlier this year rebooted the company as a fully-fledged MLM business opportunity.
Primarily targeting Europe, the company appears to be based out of Sweden and is headed up by CEO Anthony Norman (right).
According to Norman’s Viral Angels corporate bio:
Following the dot com collapse, Anthony worked as a consultant for a number of VC firms in Europe and the US, restructuring tech companies. After selling off his main business to a Swedish public company where he stayed on the management team for three years, he formed his stand alone venture capital firm in early 2006.
Anthony has in the past 15 years formed and managed over forty private companies and has been on the board of a number public companies as well as the advisor for over 15 public companies on various markets in the UK, Sweden, Poland, Germany and the United States.
Tracing Norman’s MLM history is tricky, but it has its origins dating back to early 2012 with the companies SpinGlo, Synkronice and Enwire.
SpinGlo was a shopping portal MLM opportunity. On the side they offered investment opportunities in other companies – which was intertwined with Anthony Norman’s company, Viral Angels.
Synkonrice was the company behind SpinGlo (appears to be a parent relationship), and was renamed Enwire in early 2013. SpinGlo shortly thereafter was renamed Trig.
Enwire kept on marketing Trig but a few months after launch the opportunity collapsed.
According to a message published on the Enwire website, they appear to have tried to salvage the company through a partnership or some such with OPN, however that also seems to have fallen through.
Who the “dream team” are is not clarified. Which is a little strange considering Enwire appear to blame them for the collapse.
In a Facebook posting dated 12th of September 2013, whoever was left running the company attempted to clarify exactly what went wrong.
It is in this update that Anthony Norman (appearing as “Tony Norman”) is referenced:
The Synkronice history to why we all had to do what we had to do. You should have been told the truth a very long time back. But here it goes.
In June 2012 we got, as you all know, if you where in Synkronice and Spinglo, into issues with our social media vendor for the Spinglo platform in Sweden.
We had meet Tony Norman at that time and Tony Norman was working at the dating company Jagodu as CTO. It was suggested to us that Tony Norman could handle the exit of the Spinglo DB to be in our own control (it was eventually messed up also with over 600.000 emails and accounts being empty).
Tony Norman initiated and also suggested the new product (that Tony had ran a few years back and failed miserably) called Viral Angels. We where all very excited and told Tony to set it up.
At this time, June 2012 we where also introduced to Phillip Cook, the person Tony knew since several years back.
Phillip Cook was living in UAE after crashing in the financial market in the UK a few years earlier. (Ozedit: This explains why Enwire claimed on their website that the company was “managed and run from the United Arab Emirates”)
New ideas were brought to the table that Phillip would be in charge of. One was the auction-bidding site Justbid.
The Justbid site was created and programmed by people hired by Tony Norman. It was financed by investors from Finland (they never got anything from that either) and like other development that Tony Norman was in charged of, he never paid for it.
One debt for developing Justbid.me was put on to Spinglo and had to go to court, where Spinglo had to defend its innocence regarding what Tony Norman ordered in the name of Justbid. The company is owed over 15.000€ and yet another programmer not paid by Tony.
In August 2012 the Tony Norman and Phillip Cook RAID started for real (even though we never saw it coming at that point in time).
Tony Norman took over the responsibility for the payment gateway and started to run it through DWW International GmbH, the same company Tony Norman used for Viral Angels. Justbid also used the same payment gateway when it was launched in September 2012.
Suddenly we started having issues paying networkers in the Synkronice network (you might all remember that).
Tony’s excuses were always that we had development costs for the money coming in through the network (we still wonder what was developed when we build the new Spinglo for less then 2000€ using Social Engine as core for the social media platform. See link here to the software license and stats postimg.org/image/jop2utt9j/).
Without all the investments brought in by others and us in Aug/Sep 2012 Synkronice and Spinglo would never have made the cruise for 120 people to the Caribbean.
The money coming in through DWW was now controlled by Tony, and besides that he made two smaller transfers to our banking system in September and October that was used to pay bonuses out, NOTHING came in to pay anyone. Over 130.000€ vanished! Where did it go?
Tony Norman was always saying it was used for developments!? He has yet to answer that question.
In this process it was also suggested that we should make Cellpoint into Synkronice (or Enwire as its called today). This so we quickly could become a listed company, since Cellpoint already was listed on Aktietorget in Sweden.
That idea was voted down and a new idea came up by Tony Norman and Phillip Cook that was sold to us all. Lets start fresh and new.
Enwire was thought up of. No papers were ever signed, the only thing was to focus on listing the company and that was no problem according to Phillip Cook and should happen in January 2013.
Again we all collectively started brining money into the company. Enwire struggled and could not even get a bank account or payment gateway opened and still is having issues paying its bills. Where did all the money go?
Over 600.000€ came into Enwire during the month of Dec 2012 to May 2013, through direct investments, through co-operations in Millioo, through Viral Angles monthly payments and through selling of shares received on deals made with Cellpoint and via the network.
And still many bills where unpaid and networkers where not getting paid. Where did it go?
Enwire has several black marks in Sweden for not paying its bills. Information about listing was promised every week by Phillip Cook and Tony Norman but nothing came out.
They slowly just tried to get the founders of the network and the investors out of the game. Manipulating information being sent to people and lying to people. New companies was formed that they controlled and funded using money you all brought to the table.
Many things are yet to be answered but if you start asking yourself questions of your own you should not be so cleaver to figure out that this has been a systematic plan directed by Tony Norman and Phillip Cook from day one.
They have put in their friends and relatives in the board of the companies. The chairman of the board for Enwire resigned in beginning of August 2013 since he felt the situation was getting out of control. He knows there are no real equity in the company or values, just a pumped up vision of Viral Angels owning large parts of none listed and delisted companies.
In fact not a single Viral Angels company is anymore listed. The one that was listed in January was delisted (IQMoney) and Cellpoint has been put on the observation list and have to reapply for listing since it is not meeting the criteria for a listed company.
Now to the questions again;
• Without a network, Tony Norman and Phillip Cook cannot sell anything. They can’t sell shares; they can’t sell Viral Angels (or any of the projects that are controlled by them).
• Not paying the network but instead paying themselves is rule number ones in business.
Where did Phillip Cook get money to pay for his cosmetic surgery in beginning of June 13?
He had nothing when he came to all of us. We send him money several times on Western Union so he could pay his phone bills.
10.000€ he used company funds to pay the cosmetic surgery. Is that what you do when you are not paying the networkers? Your money!
• Why has Tony transferred over 120.000€ in 5 months from Viral Angles to his personal account?
According to him, it went to all cases? The cases are Tony Norman’s and Phillip Cook’s! Besides investing in companies that are not listed on Viral Angels through a private company called Grey Knight Capital AB.
• Why has the Viral Angels Company in Sweden got its tax status revoked (well, for not keeping the records in order and field any tax declarations or yearly books).
• Why has Cellpoint got put on the observation list at Aktietorget? That’s because its clear that the audit did not go well and they cant really show what values they have in the company.
• Why have not Enwire listed yet? It was said in January, then February then March etc!
Tony Norman and Phillip Cook have different meanings here. Tony says that it has not been focused on (because he had to clear his own debt to the tax office and did not really have time to do it).
Phillip on the other hand is saying its because of the owners and people behind it (us all).
Looking at what he is communicating to others then Phillip Cook through Justbid FZE is the sole owner of all Enwire shares. Its my company Phillip roars!
• Why was all networkers promised to get their e-wallet money paid out and gift-wallet money? That was a way to keep people in the game directed by Tony and Phillip.
They have paid some leaders really well to keep them in the game. Some in Sweden (you know who) and some in Portugal (you know who) and that is why Viral Angels still are being promoted.
Not because it is working, just because some leaders are being groomed into the false picture they have been painting.
We were naïve and believed in it also. We were also stupid and very ignorant. We thought they could deliver on the promises we had been given by Tony Norman and Phillip Cook.
The truth will always prevail and the truth is what it is. We all got set up; you got set up and everyone else. They stole your money and our money! These two raiders came in and took advantage of all of us.
Neither of them has brought one euro to the table, or any one person that has build this up. You have all been a part of that and now they are trying to justify a re-start of the Network Enwire again?!!?
They have no experience at all and will fail again, like they have in the past.
If you choose to believe in what they are saying, good luck.
Call me cynical, but it would appear this latest incarnation of Spinglo/Enwire is Norman’s attempt to salvage whatever remains of his Viral Angels empire.
Phillip Cook is also still involved, listed as the head of “Strategy and Business Development” over at Trig. Trig itself still appear to be active, but are only mentioned on the Viral Angel’s website as a separate company (Trig Media Group AB).
Viral Angels today describe themselves as ‘the world’s largest private equity and business angel network‘. Given that, I’d assume there’s some way for Viral Angels affiliates to pump money into Trig once they’ve joined (via virtual shares or otherwise).
Anyway, now that you’ve got an idea of the mess Anthony Cook has been a part of these last few years, let’s take a look at his latest offering.
Read on for a full review of the Viral Angels MLM business opportunity.
The Viral Angels Product Line
Viral Angels has no retailable products or services.
The company markets affiliate membership packages on its website, ranging in price from 39 EUR a month (Silver) to 990 EUR a month (Black Diamond).
The main drawcard of each affiliate membership package (of which there are eight in total), is access to a “share-allocation” at each level.
Various other financial sounding stuff is also bundled with affiliate membership. And as an example, here’s what’s bundled with Black Diamond:
- Brokerage account
- VA Open
- VA Prime
- Saletraining
- Education
- Payvault (prepaid card)
- Option Pool
- Underwriting
- Performance Pool
- Index Pool
- T24 Black card
The Viral Angels Compensation Plan
The Viral Angels compensation plan pays affiliates to recruit new affiliates using a unievel compensation structure.
Various bonuses tied to an affiliate’s rank are also offered, along with a somewhat murky share offering.
Viral Angels Affiliate Membership Ranks
There are ten affiliate membership ranks within the Viral Angels compensation plan.
Along with their respective qualification criteria, they are as follows:
- Member – purchase a Viral Angels affiliate package (39 to 990 EUR a month)
- Trader – recruit and maintain 3 affiliates
- Senior Trader – recruit and maintain at least 5 affiliates (one of which must be Trader ranked), and have a total downline of at least 10 affiliates generating at least 1150 EUR a month in membership sales volume
- Executive Trader – recruit and maintain at least 6 affiliates (two of which must be Trader ranked), and have a total downline of at least 20 affiliates generating at least 2300 EUR a month in membership sales volume
- Manager – recruit and maintain at least 8 affiliates (two of which must be Senior Trader ranked), and have a total downline of at least 40 affiliates generating at least 4500 EUR a month in membership sales volume
- Senior Manager – recruit and maintain at least 10 affiliates (two of which must be Executive Trader ranked), and have a total downline of at least 80 affiliates generating at least 9000 EUR a month in membership sales volume
- Executive Manager – recruit and maintain at least 12 affiliates (two of which must be Executive Trader and one Manager ranked), and have a total downline of at least 150 affiliates generating at least 17,000 EUR a month in membership sales volume
- Director – recruit and maintain at least 14 affiliates (two of which must be Manager and one Senior Manager ranked), and have a total downline of at least 300 affiliates generating at least 35,000 EUR a month in membership sales volume
- Senior Director – recruit and maintain at least 15 affiliates (one Executive Trader, two Senior Managers and one Executive Manager), and have a total downline of at least 500 affiliates generating at least 58,000 EUR a month in membership sales volume
- Executive Director – recruit and maintain at least 16 affiliates (one Manager, two Executive Managers and one Director), and have a total downline of at least 1000 affiliates generating at least 115,000 EUR a month in membership sales volume
- President – recruit and maintain at least 16 affiliates (one Senior Manager, two Directors and one Senior Director), and have a total downline of at least 2000 affiliates generating at least 230,000 EUR a month in membership sales volume
Fast-Track Bonus
Viral Angel’s Fast-Track bonus rewards affiliates for reaching certain affiliate membership ranks within a set time period from the time they sign up.
The Fast-Track Bonus is paid out via shares and cash:
- Trader in seven days – 100 EUR in shares
- Senior Trader in thirty days – 500 EUR in shares
- Executive Trader in sixty days – 1000 EUR in shares
- Manager in 90 days – 2500 EUR in shares
- Senior Manager in 120 days – 5000 EUR in shares and 3600 EUR in cash (300 EUR a month for 12 months)
- Executive Manager in 180 days – 10,000 EUR in shares and 7200 EUR in cash (400 EUR a month for 18 months)
- Director in 12 months – 16,000 EUR in shares and 12,000 EUR in cash (500 EUR a month for 24 months)
The shares offered appear to be virtual shares in Trig.
Recruitment Commissions
When a Viral Angels affiliate sells an affiliate membership package, the company pays out a direct recruitment commission:
If you invite a friend or business colleague to Viral Angels and your invited member pays for a membership you will receive a bonus directly into your account.
This commission is paid out via a unilevel compensation structure.
A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a unilevel team, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1):
If any level 1 affiliates go on to recruit new affiliates of their own, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliate’s unilevel team. If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth down a theoretical infinite number of levels.
Viral Angels cap their recruitment commissions down five levels of recruitment. How the commission payout determined by how much a newly recruited affiliate pays for their membership, and what level they fall on the unilevel team.
- Silver – 1 EUR on levels 1 to 4 and 2 EUR on level 5
- Gold – 10 EUR on level 1, 3 EUR on level 2, 2 EUR on levels 3 and 4 and 4 EUR on level 5
- Platinum – 15 EUR on level 1, 6 EUR on level 2, 3 EUR on levels 3 and 4 and 6 EUR on level 5
- Ruby – 30 EUR on level 1, 10 EUR on level 2, 6 EUR on levels 3 and 4 and 12 EUR on level 5
- Sapphire – 45 EUR on level 1, 13 EUR on level 2, 8 EUR on levels 3 and 4 and 16 EUR on level 5
- Emerald – 60 EUR on level 1, 18 EUR on level 2, 12 EUR on levels 3 and 4 and 18 EUR on level 5
- Diamond – 80 EUR on level 1, 23 EUR on level 2, 16 EUR on levels 3 and 4 and 23 EUR on level 5
- Black Diamond – 105 EUR on level 1, 30 EUR on level 2, 20 EUR on levels 3 and 4 and 30 EUR on level 5
How many levels an affiliate can earn from is also tied into their Viral Angels affiliate membership rank (separate from their buy-in level):
- Trader ranked affiliates can down 3 levels of recruitment
- Senior Trader affiliates can earn down 4 levels of recruitment
- Executive Trader or above affiliates can earn on all five recruitment levels
Note that the Trader affiliate membership rank requires the recruitment of three affiliates. Until a Viral Angels affiliate has met this qualification they do not earn recruitment commissions.
Leadership Bonus
The Leadership Bonus extends a Viral Angel affiliates recruitment commission payouts beyond the initial five levels offered.
Starting at the Executive Manager rank, an affiliate is able to earn 0.5% to 2.5% on the sales volume generated from the sixth level of their unilevel team.
- Executive Manager – 0.5%
- Director – 1%
- Senior Director – 1.5%
- Executive Director – 2%
- President – 2.5%
Note that if an affiliate beyond the first four levels is at the Executive Manager or higher rank, then the difference between their rank payout and the affiliate qualifying for the commission is paid.
Eg. If an Executive Director has a Senior Director in one unilevel leg beyond level 4, they are paid only 0.5% of that affiliate’s sales volume (2% – 1.5%).
Quarterly Cash Bonus
As the name suggests, the Quarterly Cash Bonus is paid out quarterly.
I’m not sure how exactly it works, with the description provided in the Viral Angels compensation plan being rather poor.
When an affiliate qualifies at the Director level, I believe personal sales volume over the next four months are then tracked. At the end of four months, 5% of that amount is then paid out as a bonus.
Sales volume generated by affiliates who are that the same or a higher rank than the affiliate qualifying for the Quarterly Cash Bonus is not counted.
Annual Cash Bonus
The Annual Cash Bonus is a yearly bonus paid out on personal sales volume.
Sales volume is tracked for twelve months starting at the Director rank, and if an affiliate maintains at least the sales volume generated in the first month they qualified for the bonus over the next twelve months, a percentage bonus is paid out on the fourteenth month.
How much of a percentage is paid out is determined by an affiliates membership rank:
- Director and Senior Director – 0.25%
- Executive Director – 0.5%
- President – 1%
After the twelfth, the process repeats again for the next year (with the twelfth month counting as the sales volume benchmark for the next twelve months).
Monthly Leadership Bonus
The Monthly Leadership Bonus is a cash payment made each month an affiliate maintains various affiliate ranks:
- Senior Manager – 300 EUR
- Executive Manager – 500 EUR
- Director – 750 EUR
- Senior Director or higher – 1000 EUR
Shares (revenue-sharing?)
Be it Trig or another company, Viral Angels affiliates are given shares each month. These shares are supposed to be for Viral Angels companies that “will be going public soon”.
I’ve also seen affiliates talk about “dividends”, but I’m not really sure what that’s about (sounds like a points based Ponzi model):
Viral Angels is a credit union, and hence owned by its members. The profit of the four individual funds shall be distributed as a dividend to its members, pro rata their points.
Points in the above example could of course mean shares, which would explain the use of pro-rata (although the four funds sounds individual revenue-sharing pools).
Joining Viral Angels
Affiliate membership to Viral Angels is tied to the purchase of one of eight monthly subscriptions:
- Silver – 39 EUR
- Gold – 89 EUR
- Platinum – 145 EUR
- Ruby – 295 EUR
- Sapphire – 420 EUR
- Emerald – 585 EUR
- Diamond – 750 EUR
- Black Diamond – 990 EUR
Conclusion
The whole SpinGlo mess is a sad and sorry affair, with Anthony Norman latest attempt to resuscitate the corpse falling foul of multiple regulatory fronts.
First and foremost is the glaring problem of nothing being sold to retail customers. All that’s on offer in Viral Angels is affiliate membership, with the more spent on said membership increasing commission potential.
This is known as “pay to play”.
As for the commissions themselves, this is straight-up recruitment.
Affiliates buy in at whatever level, and are then directly and indirectly paid on the recruitment of new affiliates. How much they’re paid directly correlates to how much newly recruited affiliates pay when they sign up.
That’s about as pyramid schemey as you can get.
As to the whole shares thing, sounds to me like it’s all virtual, and reminiscent of the OPN debacle.
OPN ultimately were only able to register themselves under a different company name on the Cyprus Stock Exchange (they were terminated and banned from listing on theBritish GXG stock exchange).
Trig is certainly not a new company, so one would think if it was going to public it would have already by now. Yet all we see are vague promises about it happening sometime in the future.
In the meantime the money being pumped into Viral Angels by affiliate investors is most definitely real, and most likely to fail regulatory scrutiny if the company ever does approach a reputable stock exchange for listing.
The more pressing issue for Viral Angels however is what happens when the recruitment slows down and those at the bottom stop paying their monthly affiliate fees?
Will we then see yet another incarnation of SpinGlo/Synkronice/Enwire/Trig/Viral Angels?
Although I’m sure Anthony Norman has a barrage of excuses to explain away his involvement in the past failures of SpinGlo et al., his track record speaks for itself.
This whole “we’re going to go public one day” ship was first floated around 2012, and to date the ship hasn’t left port. In the wake of Norman’s failures, all we’ve seen is missing investor funds and a series of collapses.
Stay tuned for nothing different this time around I guess.
I honestly can’t tell what’s this guy’s game plan. There’s multiple articles on Realtid.se circa 2013 and 2014 about acquisitions and mergers, but all of companies nobody seem to have heard of, and never will hear from again.
It’s as if he and Phillip Cook are creating companies, buy up a couple small ones and merge them, while rename one (mobiCard into Trig), then have some sort of crossownership and collaborative venture, so the two are joined at the hips and can’t tell where one ends and the other begins>
I think they just skim a little off the top every now and again and keep stringing people along for as long as they can.
The idea is “Network Marketing meets Investment Frauds”, i.e. they have discovered that Network Marketing will offer the right type of “low hanging fruits” willing to accept almost anything as long as they believe they can make a profit on it.
I checked Anthony Norman in June 2013. It started with …
NOLINK://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=no&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fforum.hegnar.no%2Fthread.asp%3Fid%3D2182977&edit-text=
The translated source didn’t translate the last 3 posts in that thread. Here’s the original (Norwegian, Swedish):
NOLINK://forum.hegnar.no/thread.asp?id=2182977
It may be a “blame me” strategy, i.e. a method to actively trick the investors to believe a known “third party fraudulent business partner” was the cause of their losses.
It works like this:
* Organizer A will bring in believable investment projects, typically empty shell companies with believable facades (Bio Energy, payment processor, etc.).
* Organizer B will bring in the investors and organize the investment contracts, and do the marketing and recruitment.
* Organizer C (optional) will verify the investment projects.
Organizer B is the one at risk of being sued if the money disappear. To minimize that risk, organizer A has agreed to take the blame from the investors. He already know they most likely won’t sue him, since their contracts are with organizer B and they don’t have any direct business relations with him.
In addition, organizer B can use multiple methods to reduce the risk of being sued, e.g. multiple companies in multiple jurisdictions, offshore jurisdictions, etc.
Organizer B will organize investments in organizer A’s companies. In network marketing, investments are simply a type of “product”, and the experienced ones will know the right method to make money is to recruit additional investors.
When the recruitment slows down (no more investments coming in from new investors), the remaining money can be “lost” to organizer A in many different ways. Organizer A and organizer B can share the profit from that.
Organizer B will actively blame organizer A for the failure, to direct the attention away from himself (he’s the one at risk of being sued). Organizer A will indirectly support organizer B’s explanation, e.g. there will pop up some different “social proofs” showing that organizer A has been involved in frauds earlier.
As long as organizer A is much more believable in the role as a fraudster than organizer B is, most people will probably blame organizer A for their losses. That will reduce the risk of lawsuits from the investors.
The experienced network marketing “leaders” will support the idea that organizer A is the one to blame (they will need to show loyalty to be offered top positions in the next project).
The description here was based on a real fraud from 2010/2011.
* Organizer A = Jared Brook and Lincoln Frazer, Wharfside Holdings, UK. Brook/Frazer are best known for the Imperial Consolidated fraud in early 2000-s.
* Organizer B = Asle Gunnar Frydenlund, Quatro MPN, UK (network marketing, targeting Scandinavian countries)
* Organizer C = Saphrau Inc., Seychelles (owned by Frazer / Brook). Was used in multiple roles e.g. as “Accounting Firm” to verify investments. G4 Group, UK (owned by Frazer/Brook). Was used to add technical credibility to investments in Bio Oil investments.
* Investment types = £400 investment “units” in different business ventures (Bio Oil shares, E-Bank shares, shares in various developments of “patented products” to be sold via network marketing, etc.).
Hi thank you for the article on V/A very interesting do you have any further info or comments ref V/A Phillip Cook or Tony Norman?
Nothing further. We don’t tend to focus on individuals so much as MLM opportunities.
Hi Oz i need to know where i can get further info on on this as i am looking into the V/A thing and i do not know where to find the info that i want.
What info are you looking for? Have you tried contacting the company directly?
If they’re not answering your questions then that’s definitely another red flag.
It’s about pump and dump stock market fraud, disguised as a private investor club. You will sooner or later become one of the victims if you’re an ordinary investor, i.e. the companies you’re investing in there are typically worthless shell companies with no ordinary business activity (they make money on selling shares).
It has relatively “professional” methods, e.g. it uses real companies registered on stock exchanges. But that doesn’t mean those companies are worth anything.
The Viral Angels members are (unknowingly) a part of the fraud, i.e. they simulate a real interest in the market where the interest normally should be low.
I found a presentation of Trig.com from September 2014, when it was registered on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
NOLINK://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDVYGdMX8es
Anthony Norman’s business philosophy:
Shares only have value if they can be sold to others, if other people are willing to pay for them. Then you can sell them to others and receive money in exchange, and you can use the money you get to invest in something real (property, etc.).
A company doesn’t need to be profitable in itself, the profit can come from printing new shares and selling them to other people. If you can’t sell your shares to other people, then they will be just as worthless as toilet paper.
In the conext of MLM or network marketing:
If you’re participating in a program like that, treat it like a recruitment driven opportunity rather than an investment driven one = try to earn commissions by making other people believe in the idea of an investment opportunity, but don’t believe too strongly in that idea yourself. The companies are actually worthless.
Like Oz said, you will need to be more specific about which type of information you’re looking for.
Search string “Phillip Cook Viral Angels” brings up various results, e.g. that he is the secret Trig.com investor (Swedish source).
NOLINK://www.realtid.se/ArticlePages/201311/15/20131115165453_Realtid096/20131115165453_Realtid096.dbp.asp?Action=Print
I will probably find more from that same source realtid.se, a Swedish online “Financial News” newspaper.
The fact box on the right side of the article have some details about Omagis Capital Ltd., showing some regulatory issues with FSA Financial Services Authority in June 2011.
Some company names mentioned there:
Here’s 26 Vimeo videos from Viral Angels TV. I have only watched one of them, “Phillip Cook on Trig” (presentation meeting, Stockholm 2014).
NOLINK://vimeo.com/viralangelstv/videos
I have also looked briefly at another video to pick up some company names for the investments. Most of them seem to be empty shell companies or small failed companies.
I can offer some data from the Swedish business registry allabolag.se, 20-25 company names + some details. I have the data stored in a spreadsheet, i.e. it can easily be organized and sorted.
It’s not a complete list, it’s most of the companies belonging to that same group of people (Phillip Cook, Anthony Norman, Anders Lennart Sjölin, Roger Blomquist, Lars-Olof Hellewig, Erik Wilhelm Wachtmeister, Lars Daniel Danielsson).
FIELDS:
* Company name
* Parent company
* Address
* City
*
Country(all are Sweden)* CEO
*
Owner(not done)* Year founded
* Employees
*
Links to allabolag.se(stored in Notebook)I posted some of that as 2 posts in a local Norwegian investor forum.
Original, in Norwegian:
NOLINK://forum.hegnar.no/thread.asp?id=2267235
Translated to English:
NOLINK://translate.google.no/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=no&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fforum.hegnar.no%2Fthread.asp%3Fid%3D2267235&edit-text=
Some of it didn’t translate very well, but the primary content should be the company list in the third post.
The list of companies involved have been organized like this:
Company —– CEO —- Year — employees
Here are some of the companies:
The list will need some explanation. It’s a reply to the question “do you have any further info or comments ref V/A Phillip Cook or Tony Norman?” in post #5, but since he didn’t specify what type of info he was interested in then I’m not sure I’m offering the right type.
Thank you the info was very useful
I didn’t have any problem in finding various sources.
I used the videos to identify some of the company names, located some of them in allabolag.se, and then I clicked on the CEO names to find other company names, and then I tried to google some CEO names to look at other sources.
Long term investors will typically lose money. They may “win” something in the beginning (“to get the fish on the hook”). Network marketing will attract the right type of people (“low hanging fruits”), while more experienced investors ill be filtered out.
The companies are generally “empty shell companies”, with no real business activity. Some of the new partners have SOME business activity, i.e. the organizers have modified the strategy since I checked Cellpoint Connect in 2013. It’s difficult to make it look real enough if you only use empty companies, so some companies with real activity was probably needed.
April 29 2015 will be the date for the first “Annual Financial Statements” for Trig Social Media AB, the main investment for Viral Angels investors.
The company itself is empty. It was registered on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in September 2014 with an initial “market value” of more than 1 billion Euro (353 million shares * €3.00). The real value is closer to zero.
This may eventually become rather ugly for the investors.
They participate in a recruitment driven scheme where they can earn commissions on the sale of financial products to people they recruit. The investments are fraudulent “pump and dump” investments with very little substance.
For some reason, that first Annual Financial Statement seems to have been postponed to May 2015 unspecified date.
The reason why I’m waiting for that report is because Trig Social Media AB is the primary investment for the Viral Angels investors. I will need to check whether it has any business activity at all or if it’s solely based on thin air.
Viral Angels is a “new” type of network marketing fraud, based on real shares in publicly listed companies rather than on internal shares.
Here’s some old news about Trig Social Media AB, from the company’s own website → Investor relations → News
Here are some of the headlines from “investor relations”.
Why would one of the largest auditing firms in the world just “unexpectedly resign”?
Couldn’t be because once they got inside Trig they figured they wanted nothing to do with this mess could it?
Nothing suss…
Here’s the last part of that “How to keep investors happy and excited” list …
“How to keep investors happy and excited” was about those Viral Angels investors. They have most likely received those updates as newsletters / internal messages in the network.
* Net sales in 18 months (July 2013 – December 2014) €412 970
* Net sales in 3 months (October – December 2014) €60 313
* Total current assets (December 2014) €1 128 844
* Total assets (December 2014) €4 811 537
“Happy and excited investors” will not look at details like that, e.g. that 2,000 online stores only generated €60,000 income in 3 months.
I haven’t looked into details yet, e.g. quarterly reports.
Trig Social Media AB is the primary investment for the passive investors that have joined Viral Angels. It was publicly listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on September 18 2014 (IPO Initial Public Offering).
* Initial price per share €3.00 Euro
* Number of shares 363 749 998
* Initial Market capitalization €1,091 million Euro
Viral Angels is a “private investment club”, i.e. most of the shares are being traded internally in the network. “Recruitment bonuses” can partially be paid out as shares. Passive investors probably have a “monthly investment plan” where they buy more shares (as long as they’re happy and excited).
As long as Viral Angels have money regularly coming in from investors (and don’t have too high expenses), it can defend a share price in the range €2.60 – €3.30 (as long as everything looks okay).
Most of the activity seems to have been aimed at those internal investors, on the idea “Make Trig look successful”.
SOME DETAILS
Sponsorships and “Global Ambassadors” can be relatively inexpensive but still look very nice to investors. Some of them can be listed as employees or consultants= it will make it look like the company is growing rapidly and is expanding (it will look nice, without being bothered with real employees).
* “Offshore Powerboat Race” and “Porsche Carrera Cup” will have some appeal to that type of investors.
* All those eSport sponsorships are probably relatively inexpensive, but may still look nice to investors. I’m pretty sure some of them will be paid partially in shares.
* “Spanish TV-Presenter Paloma López“, “Spanish Footballer Borja Fernández” and “Former Real Madrid Player Michel Salgado“ will also look nice to investors.
From my point of view, most of the activity seems to be about making Trig look attractive to those internal investors.
Some “Make Trig look successful” details …
I don’t believe those people are very expensive to sponsor. FIFA 2015 isn’t exactly Superbowl or “Mayweather versus Pacman”. Some of them will probably be paid partially with shares.
LOW ON CASH “but make it look nice anyway”
“Northern Company Ltd.” and “Southern Company Ltd.” will probably never pay any significant amount of money.
That may be one of the reasons for why PWC resigned as auditor. “Agreed debt” isn’t worth much if it’s based on vague agreements.
Some other details …
It’s still about that same idea, “Make Trig look attractive to the investors”. Most of those other owners have too common names to be found online.
* Trig Media Group AB is owned by Anthony Norman and Phillip Cook, via Cellpoint Connect AB (new name).
* Social Media Investments Ltd. can’t easily be found, but Social Media Investments Nordic AB was owned by Philip Cook. Dissolved.
* “Southern Company” and “Nordic Company” can’t easily be found.
* “Waylander Management Ltd” and “Castleview Support Services Ltd” seem to be empty shell companies, registered at the same time and with the same address.
“Make it look attractive to the investors” will also include “Make it look like some big external investors are interested too”.
“Ms K.A. Muhammad” is registered as a director for 3 companies …
Karen Ann Lisa Muhammad also have a position in Social Media Investments Nordic AB, along with John Anthony Norman, Phillip Cook and Per-Ake Bergstrand.
Swedish source “allabolag.se”:
allabolag.se/befattningshavare/Muhammad%252C_Karen_Ann_Lisa_Personprofil/c9eda0c02fc5299dc54663069d225be8
– – – – – – – – – –
She also held a position in ENWIRE OPERATIONS LIMITED (Changed 13 Jan 2014 to OKC CONSULTANTS LIMITED), along with Graham Peter Cull.
NOLINK://www.companiesintheuk.co.uk/ltd/okc-consultants
That’s the trouble. There’s too many people and company names involved here. I only tried to establish whether those Trig investors were external ones or part of the same group.
Here’s one example for how shares can be used as partial payment for recruitment. It can be used in recruitment campaigns or to keep members active.
“Active members” is probably about a minimum monthly investment.
“Get three new frontlines activated” is most likely about recruitment of new investors.
“Production offers to leaders / members” is probably meant as an incentive to invest more money.
Some more details …
The internal investors were attracted by a “professional report” from EGR Broking, predicting that TrigMoney (cash back) would grow to a size similar to Groupon, 50.8 million users 9 months after launch (average 5.64 million new users per month), based on appr. 75% conversion rate “leads → new users” (a normal conversion rate in network marketing is 1-2%).
The report is professional enough if we see it as “plain marketing BS”. It’s clearly believable for a greedy mind. 🙂
I have found a copy of PWC’s report to allabolag.se (Bolagsverken) in Swedish, and not possible to auto-translate). It looks like realtid.se has been interested too.
realtid.se/ArticlePages/201504/20/20150420150021_Realtid754/Trig_PWC_150417.pdf
PWC resigned for several reasons …
1. Trig Social Media AB (“Trig”) has repeatedly claimed to have 3+ million users in several quarterly reports. That wasn’t possible to verify, the database appeared to simply be a collection of email addresses.
1b. Trig has a very low number of “active members” that generates any income for the company.
2. Trig has claimed to have signed marketing agreements with big international companies (so called “affiliates”), agreements that were estimated to add 20 million new members plus 6 million members from a different source. That couldn’t be verified.
3. Trig claims to have signed agreement that would lead to 75 million downloads of the TrigMoney App (in 6 months, from August 2014). That agreement couldn’t be verified.
4. Point #1 – #3 means that PWC can’t exclude illegal activities (e.g. deceptive information to investors) from the company’s management.
5. PWC found questionable transactions between Trig and companies in close relation to Trig during the audit.
Dated August 17 2015. Copy to Trig Social Media AB.
So basically PWC abandoned ship due to suspected fraud on Trig’s behalf.
How not surprising!
The report had some more details, but I identified the main points.
Here’s the article from realtid.se (in Swedish), if you like to read it yourself. “Mega bubble on Frankfurt Stock Exchange. PWC: Trig hoax members“.
realtid.se/ArticlePages/201504/20/20150420150021_Realtid754/20150420150021_Realtid754.dbp.asp
Here’s more from realtid.se (in Swedish).
“Trig’s unbelievable stock exchange journey”, a chronological presentation of the story, with links to more than 15 related articles.
realtid.se/ArticlePages/201504/22/20150422143019_Realtid959/20150422143019_Realtid959.dbp.asp
“Norman leaves Viral Angels” (new).
realtid.se/ArticlePages/201505/05/20150505121603_Realtid759/20150505121603_Realtid759.dbp.asp
One additional source if people are looking for information can of course be Viral Angels’ own website, e.g. viralangels.com/news.
It mostly has “internal information designed for members”, mostly marketing of different internal investment offers (“empty companies”, but publicly listed or about to be publicly listed).
MAIN SOURCES, SUMMARY
Viral Angels → News
I have only looked at a few samples, but the information is organized like this:
Viral Angels → Videos
vimeo.com/viralangelstv/videos (mentioned in post #11)
– – – – –
Trig Social Media AB (public)
I gave a summary for what to find there in posts #18, #19, #21.
LINK: tsm.trig.com/2015/04/
Frankfurt Stock Exchange → Trig Social Media AB
LINK: boerse-frankfurt.de/en/equities/trig+social+media+ab+SE0006027546/news
– – – – –
Swedish source Realtid.se
Mentioned in post #31. It contains a summary of the whole story from 2013 till now. The story there is currently at this stage (April 22 2015):
The Swedish source translates relatively well into English.
Interesting information
Than you for the info very interesting keep up the good work.
Michael
“Trig Social Media AB in free fall”
The share price dropped from €3.39 (top, 2015-03-11), down to €2.49 (2015-04-29), down to €1.10 (bottom, 2015-06-24). It has been stabilized there between €1.05-€1.20 for 3 days.
The true value is close to zero.
Chart:
boerse-frankfurt.de/en/equities/trig+social+media+ab+SE0006027546/charts
The “free fall” was probably caused by the publishing of the “2014 Annual Report”. I haven’t read that report, I only had a quick look at it.
Some of the numbers:
They have managed to stabilize the price around 1 euro (current €1.030).
Chart 1 year:
boerse-frankfurt.de/en/equities/trig+social+media+ab+SE0006027546/charts
Trig’s function in Viral Angels is that it is one of the “investment objects” the participants can invest in. It’s also used to pump up an imaginary value in related investment objects, e.g. Real Point Investment AB. So it has an important function.
PASSIVE INVESTORS
Note that in schemes like this it will usually be the passive investors that will lose money. It doesn’t really matter which “value” the investment has. The only realistic way to make money is to sell investments to people in a downline.
Viral Angels is the wrong type of idea for passive investors. That’s WHY they were recruited in the first place, “because they truly believe in certain ideas”.
A well organized company can be worth something, even if the current revenue and profit is extremely low. Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and others had value long before they started to make any profit. Viral Angels’ “investment objects” are not of the same type. 🙂
Most recent price is €0.941, i.e. TRIG is relatively stable within the range €0.80 – €1.00 (based on trade primarily by Viral Angels investors).
The ones being cheated here are most likely the passive investors, those who truly believed in some “insider information from experienced ones” (those who didn’t really use their brains).
Currently there’s nothing happening here. The next report from Trig Social Media AB is scheduled published on August 31 2015 — “6 months report”.
Current price is around €0.50 per share, a fall during the day or during the last 2 days.
boerse-frankfurt.de/en/equities/trig+social+media+ab+SE0006027546/charts
Normally it would indicate that the Viral Angels investors are not too happy with the situation, but it can also be a “controlled adjustment” of the price, e.g. to make it easier to sell / less costly to defend the price.
Viral Angels itself seems to be “half dead”, e.g. no new uploaded videos, few blog updates, webinars delayed one week, many other signs of a scheme that has lost all momentum.
The new CEO of Viral Angels (after Anthony Norman) is Dominic P. Berger, UK.
Best source:
companycheck.co.uk/director/913397973
Alternative source:
companydirectorcheck.com/dominic-berger-2
He has a long list of failed companies behind him. The investment object “RiderCam” is worth -£69,000 GBP, according to the first source.
June 16 2013: Market regulator CMVM warns against people investing with Viral Angels
Current price per share Trig Social Media AB = €0.12 = it has continued to fall down towards its true value of zero.
boerse-frankfurt.de/en/equities/trig+social+media+ab+SE0006027546/charts
The story in chronological order:
The stock price should normally continue to go down. The company itself is worthless (other than as a fraudulent investment object).
The other Viral Angels investments have exactly the same problem. They are mostly worthless, empty shell companies, although some of them may have SOME substance. But they are clearly not worth much as investments.
That’s why they need Viral Angels’ “low hanging fruits” investors. Those investors have already accepted the idea that they can profit from “insider knowledge”, i.e. they clearly don’t have enough knowledge to stay away from “questionable investments” (unregulated, internal stock exchange, empty companies, etc.).
[Trig Social Media AB]
The price seems to have been stabilized between €0.10 – €0.20 per share, for the last 4 weeks or so (I don’t follow it on a daily basis). Current price per share is €0.08 = close to its real value of zero.
I found the information about Viral angels confusing and inconclusive, also the info about Tony Norman and Philip cook.
I was a member of viral angels for a few months, and I was ripped off by them and there elaborate trading scams, which just makes false promises and false claims that members can make money investing in the shares via VA.
Can anyone let me know how I can find out more about the CEOs of VA and there current activities and the latest situation and dealings of Viral Angels.
Some of it was based on information from another thread, some were based on information from Norwegian and Swedish sources (rather old ones).
Michael Bott (posts #5 and #7) asked a very vague question. He didn’t really specify what type of info he could be interested in, so I had to “try” many different sources.
From my point of view, the most relevant info is the one from realtid.se (Swedish financial news) in post #30 and post #31 — if you’re looking for “background information”.
The current CEO of VA is Dominic P. Berger, according to the information in post #39. But Anthony Norman and Phillip Cook are the main organizers.
Viral Angels is a network marketing company based on fraudulent investments. It means that you will not make any profit as a long term passive investor. The only way to make a profit is to recruit new members and earn commissions from their investments.
I used the term “fraudulent” as a general description there. I haven’t tried to identify any laws.
Most of the posts should be seen as “researching a company for the first time, trying to identify WHAT to find and WHERE to find it”, e.g. so I won’t need to spend a lot of time later on some sources.
The case is ongoing, so you can’t expect conclusive answers. But you may get better answers if you fill in some information yourself.
The scope of this website is “MLM news, blog, commentary and reviews”, a platform where people can share relevant information. It’s not an investor-forum or promotional website — most opportunities are being reviewed from a critical point of view.
I have watched most of the Viral Angels videos, e.g. presentation meetings in Portugal and Sweden. So I have some idea about how it’s being marketed to the investors. I also browsed quickly through some of the “News” or “Ongoing Campaigns” in post #21 and #28.
I don’t know anything about details.
“How it worked”
I’m not an experienced investor, but the business ideas looked rather thin in those videos I watched — not very believable for anyone with business experience.
So people have probably decided to accept them because of other reasons, e.g. that they have accepted “the whole package” that “private equity club is a good idea”, and that “Anthony Norman & Co. are qualified and trustworthy investment advisors” — so they didn’t feel it was necessary to question the details.
What I tried to say there was that I only have some vague ideas about WHY and HOW people accepted the different investments — how they were tricked to believe in rather vague and thin business ideas.
I’m a former sales man. I know a lot about people and how they make decisions, but some of that knowledge is based on theory rather than experience. I simply didn’t use certain sales methods.
1. They first had to find you. Network marketing will typically tell people to focus on friends and family first, because it’s easier to get “yes” from someone we know personally.
2. Then they had to make you interested in the basic idea, interested enough to say “yes” to have the whole concept presented by a “leader” (or at a presentation meeting).
I’m missing some details in point 2. I don’t need those details now, but I may need them later (e.g. that type of information may be relevant to communicate to others).
3. The videos showed investors when they already had accepted some basic ideas and didn’t question any details.
Anders Lennart Sjölin is the one with network marketing experience. He talked about some “business builder training” in one of the videos, but I didn’t find any material like that.
He’s the one who knows where to find people and how to make them become interested enough to say “yes” to a full presentation. I will probably need some of his knowledge or your knowledge (as the one who accepted some “sales methods”).
Here’s “Viral Angels Presentation April 2013”, the part about using shares as currency. 9:30 into the video.
It wouldn’t have been any problem if he had sold shares to a group of professional investors for ownership in a holding company — a company primarily designed to own real valuable companies with real profitable business activities.
But he’s using “business partners” to create empty shell companies with no significant business activity, and then he’s printing worthless shares, plus a relatively small amount of cash, to buy those worthless companies from himself / from his “business partners”.
VIRAL ANGELS
Participants will need to invest some money in worthless shares, but at an inflated price, on a monthly basis.
They can make a profit if they recruit other investors doing the same — buy worthless shares at an inflated price on a monthly basis.
That’s the whole point. They can’t simply passively buy shares each month, they must also sell those shares to other investors if they want to make any profit.
* Buy the shares at an inflated price. Generate rewards to upline and to the organizer. Don’t believe in any long term value of the investment, i.e. don’t accumulate shares you can’t sell
* Recruit new investors buying shares from you and earn rewards yourself. Make sure that THEY believe in some long term value of the investment, but don’t believe in it yourself.
That’s the liquidity here. You must recruit investors yourself — people willing to exchange their hard earned monies with your worthless shares — in order to make a profit. You can’t make a profit on being a passive investor.
* Teach the investors you have recruited how to recruit additional investors into your own downline so you can earn multiple levels of rewards.
Collapsed or reorganized during the summer?
Viral Angels collapsed or reorganized in July 2015, according to realtid.se.
I believe it’s about the company Viral Angels AB in Sweden, not the network of investors. Members have been offered to join Angel Business Club in Luxembourgh.
– – – –
2015-09-30
Trig daughter company in bankruptcy
It’s about Trig Entertainment AB. I didn’t check any details.
Swedish source:
realtid.se/ArticlePages/201509/30/20150930162816_Realtid991/20150930162816_Realtid991.dbp.asp
– – – –
TRIG RAZZIA IN STOCKHOLM
Google translated
Viral Angels seems to have closed, evidence have been deleted etc.
Angel Business Club popped up as a reload scam, with some of the same key people, with the same investment objects — but registered (as a company) in Luxembourgh instead of Sweden.
Viral Angels?
WHOIS angelbusinessclub.com
I tried to find out more about that one. I only found a few Swedish sources — “suspected market manipulation”.
va.se/nyheter/2015/11/13/misstankt-marknadsmanipulation-trig/
It’s a preliminary investigation with many suspects, according to Claudia Krauth, public prosecutor’s office, Hessen, Germany.
The Swedish Economic Crime Authority (“Ekobrottsmyndigheten”) has its own investigation, probably a preliminary one.
– – – –
That same source (va.se) has some additional stories related to Trig and the situation when PWC resigned as auditors. They have a focus on market manipulation and violation of “free-float” stock exchange rules.
Swedish sources.
2015-04-30
Interview with Anthony Norman
va.se/nyheter/2015/04/30/trigs-ordforande-det-ar-en-ganska-tight-agarbild/
– – – – – –
2015-04-22
Interview with Phillip Cook / Zeller & Seyfert lawfirm (Germany)
va.se/nyheter/2015/04/22/var-aktie-ar-en-valdigt-billig-aktie/
– – – – – –
2015-04-21
“Who controls the truth in investment prospectus?”
va.se/nyheter/2015/04/21/vem-kontrollerar-sanningshalten-i-borsprospekt/
– – – – – –
2015-04-20
“Suspected economic crime in Swedish multi billion company”
va.se/nyheter/2015/04/20/misstankar-om-ekobrott/
I have already covered the same thing — that Trig actually is an empty company with no real activity or assets, organized by a group of “sharks or fraudsters”. Those news stories only add some additional details to it.
I checked Phillip Cook, based on some of the information in this article. He has been involved in 60 or 62 companies in the UK alone since early 2000s. Almost all companies have been dissolved (active ones have generally been inactive for many years).
Her’s the list of companies.
That was in UK alone, most of them between 2003 and 2006.
Unwins was a 2,300 employees / 384 stores liquor store chain established in 1834, bought by Merchant Group International / Devereux Montagu in the early 2000s when it had some financial trouble — closed down as “completely empty” company less than a year after the takeover.
Status November 2015:
Viral Angels has been officially closed down. It happened in June 2015, shortly after the collapse of Trig as an investment / warnings from financial authorities in Spain.
But the core network — the local leaders in a few European countries — have restarted under the new name “Angel Business Club”, and the network is currently in “stealthy prelaunch mode” with very little online activity.
ANGEL BUSINESS CLUB, status
Vimeo PRO:
1 short presentation
1 “Weekly webinar” 2015-10-14 44:24 383 Plays
vimeo.com/channels/abcweeklywebinars
– – – –
Youtube:
Some presentations in French, Portuguese, English. I haven’t looked at the presentations, I only looked at search results.
– – – –
Kickoff meeting:
January 31 2016
eventbrite.co.uk/e/angel-business-club-event-tickets-18823136508
– – – –
Identifiable business entities, UK:
Identifiable business entities, Luxembourg:
EBR European Business Registries required login + account, so I didn’t try to check any details about entities in Luxembourg.
One problem is that the term “Business Angel” has been commonly used since the 1990-ies by many groups of investors. Online search results may not give meaningful answers.
MY IMPRESSION
Dominic Berger seems to be more of a “front figure” than an organizer. He has a very limited know-how compared to Anthony Norman and Phillip Cook.
* The “Weekly webinar” sounded like he was reading from a script he had produced himself — like someone had told him how to present the investments and that he followed some general instructions from others — like it was a type of “training webinar”.
* He simply doesn’t “have it” when it comes to communication skills or organizing skills. The people in Sweden had organized the webinar for him, and it sounded like he was partially “supervised”.
Anthony Norman and Phillip Cook are no longer visible parts of the network, at least not visible online. They don’t hold any official positions in any of the entities related to the network itself.
Anders Sjølin still holds a position as a director in one of the entities — Angel Equity Club International Limited — along with Joao De Saldanha.
Philip Joseph Reid is one of Phillip Cook’s old “business partners”, IIRC.
A few other people were listed in post #49.
ANGEL BUSINESS CLUB, as a network marketing opportunity:
It isn’t very “attractive”.
The idea is too specialized and too vague to be able to attract many people. The old version was clearer, e.g. it had the investment in Trig as a “magnet” and a “proof”. The remaining investments are generally “vague stories” with very little substance.
The other investment objects …
I have focused primarily on Trig Social Media AB (publ), since it was a “primary object”. I only looked briefly at the other ones, they were generally “vague investment objects” with very little substance when I initially tried to check them.
ATHABASCA
Athabasca seems to be a sound-alike of a real Canadian oil company Athabasca Oil Corporation (atha.com), founded in Canada in 2006, going public in 2010, traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_Oil_Corporation
The sound-alike is probably organized by people locally in Sweden / other countries.
VASA MINERAL
Vasa Minerals seems to be a sound-alike of a real Ghanesian gold refinery ASAP VASA. The fake one seems to have been organized by Pierre Durant & others.
General Energy
Organized by Pierre Durant & others.
Granitporten AB
It seems to have been involved in some unprofitable projects of relatively small sizes, as a “junk bin” for the other companies in the same group (they can dump junk-companies there).
Organized by Pierre Durant & others (Thony Norelli, Anders Jörgen Mossberg)
RiderCam
RiderCam seems to be a copy of existing companies. There may be many different companies producing similar solutions, e.g. I found Motocomm RiderCam on Youtube in a video from 2012.
youtube.com/watch?v=swsHrHjFGSY
Ridercam – Dominic Berger
ridercamsystems.co/team/
* Bo Thony Norelli
* Anders Jörgen Mossberg
* Pierre Durant
MYCAB
MyCab seems to be a sound-alike of an existing system “My Cab”.
CONCLUSION
Most of the investment objects in Viral Angels and Angel Business Club seem to be fake sound-alikes organized by a small group of people — projects that can easily be organized, presented to investors, be disposed off or be recycled and presented to a new group of investors.
Some of them may have some insignificant substance, e.g. Granitporten AB had some ownership in real estate for a short period of time.
ACCEPTED A MAIN IDEA FIRST?
As stand alone investment objects, none of the projects would have managed to attract money from investors. TRIG was primarily sold to the members themselves — to people who truly believed that Phillip Cook and Anthony Norman were real, experienced investors with a proven system for how to make a profit from investments in “upcoming companies”.
As stand alone investment objects, people would most likely have asked some critical questions and done some due diligence.
TRIG was fined SEK 300,000 by the Swedish authority Finans Inspektionen in January 2016.
Swedish source realtid.se has a few more details:
realtid.se/inlindad-kritik-mot-frankfurtborsen#conversion-1302417596
Guess that’s that then. Thanks for staying on top of things.
RIP.
so what do you think about the business angel club? is it a scam?
Couldn’t find a company with that exact name.
sorry i meant Angel business club angelbusinessclub.com
i think its the same company as viral angel under a new name
i plan to invest in this new club but i am not sure if its a scam or real
M_Norway has done quite a bit of research it into it in the comments here (#48 onwards).
I’ll add it to the review list and do a writeup if I can source a comp plan in English.
ANGEL BUSINESS CLUB and now laughing Britania’s Gold a nice golden fish to create new dream……. unfortunately it seems that already more than 700 people invest on it…..
Fake or not fake ??
As far as I can tell Britannia’s Gold isn’t an MLM opportunity.