Be Review: Melius rebooted as subscription pyramid
Be marketing began in late May, early June 2020. The company is a reboot of Melius.
Melius launched in late 2018, on the idiotic premise of giving out $50,000 real money trading accounts for $3000.
The company was publicly headed up by CEO and co-founder Jeremy Prasetyo.
Initially Melius’ other co-founders weren’t publicly acknowledged on the company’s website.
The main reason for that is because Melius’ other co-founders were Monir and Moyn Islam.
The Islam brothers made a name for themselves scamming people out of millions in OneCoin.
Originally from the UK, most of the Islam brother’s victims were ethnic minorities. As OneCoin began to collapse the brothers fled to Dubai.
Although not an outwardly obvious Ponzi scheme like OneCoin, Melius shared the scheme’s securities fraud roots.
Melius appears to have begun collapsing in late December 2019.
Be’s website domain (“befactor.com”) was acquired on March 26th, 2020. Promotion of Be began in mid to late May.
Melius’ website and social media profiles have since been deleted.
Be’s website cites Moyn Islam (President and CEO), Monir Islam (CVO) and Ehsaan B. Islam (CTO) as co-founders of the company.
Read on for a full review of Be’s MLM opportunity.
Be’s Products
Be markets two subscription services, which are also bundled together as “Elite”.
Live
Live your dream lifestyle with our exciting, exclusive membership club.
A Live subscription provides access to a travel discount portal, call/chat app, rideshare app, payment platform and business building app.
- Bronze Live – $199 and then $99 a month
- Silver Live – $499 and then $99 a month
- Gold Live – $799 and then $99 a month
Learn
Explore new skills, deepen existing passions.
A Learn subscription provides access to a trading app, “access to online learning resources”, a streaming platform and something called “Sense”.
Sense apparently connects “people, knowledge, and actions around the world”. Seriously, that’s all the info on Sense that Be provides.
- Bronze Learn – $199 and then $149 a month
- Silver Learn – $499 and then $149 a month
- Gold Learn – $799 and then $149 a month
Elite
Elite subscriptions combine Live and Learn services.
- Bronze Elite – $399 and then $149 a month
- Silver Elite – $950 and then $149 a month
- Gold Elite – $1499 and then $149 a month
Be’s Compensation Plan
Be’s compensation plan pays on the sale of subscriptions to retail customers and recruited affiliates.
Be Affiliate Ranks
There are eleven affiliate ranks within Be’s compensation plan.
Along with their respective qualification criteria, they are as follows:
- Star – recruit two affiliates who purchase a subscription
- Consultant – generate 1200 BV on both sides of the binary team during a residual commission cycle
- Sapphire – generate 4000 BV on both sides of the binary team during a residual commission cycle
- Ruby – generate 14,000 BV on both sides of the binary team during a residual commission cycle
- Emerald – generate 29,500 BV on both sides of the binary team during a residual commission cycle
- Diamond – generate 90,000 BV on both sides of the binary team during a residual commission cycle
- Presidential Diamond – generate 180,000 BV on both sides of the binary team during a commission cycle
- Royal Diamond – generate 120,000 BV on both sides of the binary team during a commission cycle
- Ambassador – not disclosed
- Royal Ambassador – not disclosed
- Crown Ambassador – not disclosed
BV stands for “Business Volume and is sales volume generated by subscription purchases by retail customers and recruited affiliates.
A residual commission cycle is four weeks.
Fast Start Bonus
The Fast Start Bonus serves both as a retail and recruitment commission, paying 10% to 20% on new subscription sales.
- Bronze and Silver tier subscription affiliates earn a 10% Fast Start Bonus
- Gold tier subscription affiliates earn a 20% Fast Start Bonus
Customer Saving Bonus
The Customer Saving Bonus is essentially cash back on “Quest Dollars” used by referred customers.
Customers use Quest Dollars in Be’s travel portal. Affiliates earn a 20% commission if Quest Dollars are used by the customer.
Residual Commissions
To qualify for residual commissions, a Be affiliate must recruit two affiliates who purchase a subscription.
Be pays residual commissions via a binary compensation structure.
A binary compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a binary team, split into two sides (left and right):
The first level of the binary team houses two positions. The second level of the binary team is generated by splitting these first two positions into another two positions each (4 positions).
Subsequent levels of the binary team are generated as required, with each new level housing twice as many positions as the previous level.
Positions in the binary team are filled via direct and indirect recruitment of affiliates. Note there is no limit to how deep a binary team can grow.
Sales volume (BV) is generated on both sides of the binary team via subscription sales.
BV is calculated at roughly 60% of fees paid by both retail and affiliate subscribers.
Residual commissions are paid based on “cycles”. A cycle is a four-week period.
Residual commissions are paid out based on total BV generated on both sides of the binary team during a cycle.
Owing to Be failing to provide a publicly available copy of their compensation plan, I can’t provide complete residual commission rates.
Residual commission rate examples provided in Be’s official compensation marketing video are as follows:
- Star – earn $100 per cycle
- Consultants – earn $500 per cycle
- Sapphire – earn $1500 per cycle
- Ruby – earn $4000 per cycle
- Emerald – earn $8500 per cycle
- Diamond – earn $30,000 per cycle
- Presidential Diamond – earn $60,000 per cycle
- Royal Diamond – earn $120,000 per cycle
- Ambassador – not disclosed
- Royal Ambassador – not disclosed
- Crown Ambassador – earn $1,200,000 per cycle
Matching Bonus
Gold subscription affiliates who are ranked Consultant through Ruby, earn a 10% matching bonus on earnings by personally recruited Consultants and higher ranked affiliates.
From Emerald rank, the Matching Bonus turns in a generational match paid through 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 recruit new affiliates, 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.
paying on up to four Emerald and higher ranked affiliate generations per unilevel team leg.
Generations within the unilevel team are defined when an Emerald or higher ranked affiliate is found in a leg.
This ranked affiliate caps off the first generation for that leg, with the second beginning immediately after.
If a second Emerald or higher ranked affiliate is found deeper in the leg, they cap off the second generation and the third begins after them.
If no such affiliate exists, the second generation extends down the full depth of the leg.
Using this generational structure, Emerald and higher ranked Be affiliates earn a match on up to four generations per unilevel leg.
Specific match percentages and generation qualification criteria are not provided.
Lifestyle Rewards
Lifestyle Rewards are rank achievement bonuses, rewarded from Ruby rank:
- qualify at Ruby for three consecutive cycles and receive an “annual company retreat” invitation
- qualify at Emerald for three consecutive cycles and receive an “Emerald retreat” invitation “to enjoy three days with the Be founders and company corporate leadership team”
- qualify at Diamond or higher for three consecutive cycles and receive a “Diamond Club exclusive leadership” invitation (“5 star all-paid”)
Note that any additional costs pertaining to claiming Lifestyle Rewards (travel, accommodation etc.) are not disclosed.
Joining Be
Be affiliate membership appears to be free.
If there are any associated costs, they are not disclosed on Be’s website.
Conclusion
What Be comes down to is whether there’s more retail customers with subscriptions than affiliates.
Be’s website boasts the company has “15,000 customers” (most of whom will have been ported over from Melius). It doesn’t differentiate between retail and affiliate customers.
To gauge some idea of the retail viability of Be’s subscriptions, let’s look at the offered services:
- Quest – another travel discount portal… launched in the middle of a global pandemic to boot
- Triva – a communication phone app, seriously?
- iRide – a rideshare app run by an undisclosed third-party
- Latent Pay – payment cards carried over from failed Melius opp (likely obtained through a shell merchant given the fraudulent nature of Melius’ business model)
- Quantum – “build your business on the go”. Yeah alright, what does that even mean?
- Shift – trading app carried over from failed Melius opp
- Mind Hub – education platform with no details disclosed
- Wow – “LiVe ChAt In ReAlTiMe!”, welcome to 1999.
Given a bunch of Be’s offered services have been carried over from Melius, which collapsed, we already know they’re not retail viable.
As for the rest, who is paying hundreds of dollars upfront and then $99 to $149 to access them?
Practically all of the offered services have free widespread and readily available equivalents.
To dig deeper I’m going to single out Triva, Be’s mobile communication app.
Triva has a website over at “trivacall.com”. From that website can see the service can be signed up for at no cost for three months.
After which Triva costs 19.99 AED a month. AED stands for the “United Arab Emirates dirham.
Curiously there is no company information provided on Triva’s website. Most of the navigation links on the website don’t work.
Forget about free trial, why would I pay some company in the UAE run by persons unknown for basic cell phone functionality?!
And so it is with the rest of Be’s offerings. You can get the same thing or better for free elsewhere.
The one exception I’ll make is the travel portal. When a Be affiliate signs up, they’re given $80,000 in “Quester Dollars”.
These are supposed to be handed out as a marketing incentive, providing a raw dollar discount on quoted travel service prices.
In addition to counting towards purchased travel services, Quester Dollars are also commissionable.
My question is: who is footing the bill?
$80,000 in pre-paid travel portal discounts per Be affiliate who signs up is nothing to sneeze at. If those are genuine savings, again, who is paying for this?
I’m reminded of Melius’ bullshit $50,000 real money trading account for $3000 nonsense, which prompted a similar question.
Non-retail viable services leaves us with the majority of Be’s subscriptions being taken out by affiliates.
Your first red flag there is Be charging subscription tiers (Bronze/Silver/Gold), which don’t appear to affect the provided services.
What these tiers do affect is commission rates, making Be’s subscription tiers “pay to play”.
Pay to play in MLM is a strong indicator of a pyramid scheme, which Be most definitely is if the majority of subscription holders are affiliates.
Why would a retail customer switch between Bronze, Silver and Gold? They are locked out of the comp plan and, at least based on information provided by Be on their website, there’s no other difference between the subscription tiers.
Taking that into consideration, Be’s trajectory will mirror that of Melius’.
Things will stay afloat until recruitment dips, after which it’s a spiral towards collapse.
Will we see a third Melius reboot in a few months time? Stay tuned!
A lot of Scammers get arrested in Dubai at the moment. The Islam Brothers will be next!
Which projects in dubai? Many are hiding now in dubai.
@Paul – can you post any sources for this? That would be awesome!
I want to know how do they manage to trade and teach people to do it and, supposedly to get profit every day? I guess there are some profesional traders sharing some operations to bring more people and hiding the truth.
I was scammed by these people Out of my hard earned money last year when the company was fairly new.
They sell a supposed life style and make it seem like they will teach you to trade, so I was under the impression that I was going to lean by professionals.
Although the only thing they are professionals in is manipulating you into joining a Pyramid scheme. I pray no one else falls for this.
Keep an eye out for how they have changed there brand to try and get away from this!
Hello, I need help. The person who registered me has not given me my information.
What help were you looking for? The person you has collected their recruitment commission and dipped. That’s how Be works.
First things first, what a review. Hannah if you need any help I can help you. Being with BE has been amazing for me. I can’t speak for others.
Yes, we have affiliates and we have customers. As with most companies, some are happy and some aren’t. It’s just how it goes.
This industry isn’t for everyone but it doesn’t mean it’s a scam. It’s reviews like this that give a bad name to companies.
BE (previous melius) yes have rebranded but for the better. We are pretty transparent so you should be able to get more accurate information. ♀️♀️
Our Educators and educational platform is actually one of the best. Unlike other trading companies I was with in the past I lost so much in the past. Now with BE I have profit weekly with our trading platforms Shift and Orakle.
We have some of the best traders who do live classes and actually teach you how to profit while learning. They answer all your questions and take the time out of their busy day but they do to help us all succeed.
Some lose money cause they don’t want to follow the rules of trading and some make a crap load of money cause they follow the rules of trading.
Trading carries risk and if you can accept that risk then ♀️♀️♀️. If not then trading isn’t for you.
I have friends who have actually used the Quest Discount dollars and the savings are way better than other 3rd party sites. I haven’t personally used Quest Dollars cause I haven’t gotten the guts to travel just yet.
I saw compensation was missing for Ambassador and Royal Ambassador. The comp for Ambassador is $280,000 monthly plus Lambo Car Program and Royal Ambassador is $600,000 monthly plus Dream Home Program. These levels have been reached in Dubai and Latin America. And we have 1 here in the U.S.A.
The Quantum App is great cause I can upload my business contacts and reach out if they are interested. Everything is pre-set so I can just send information to clients and team members with a click of a button.
Sense App is great for communicating with others in the company and trading world. Mindhub is great for educating yourself on the basics of trading. W.O.W. (World of Wisdom) is a live educational platform where you can interact with your educator and they will answer your questions. Also, pre-recorded sessions where you can watch on your time.
Lastly, the leaders are different and really help one on one. But if you are in BE and come across this page and your leader isn’t up to your standards reach out to someone. Or the many group chats we have.
We literally ALL help each other. I have never seen or heard of a leader not helping. We don’t want anyone to feel like they don’t have our support.
That’s all I have to say about that. Thx
Indeed. And it should be noted in your marketing pitch you failed to answer one question raised in its conclusion.
Seeing as you’re all about transparency and helping others, what’s your recruited affiliate/retail customer spread?
Please no marketing, just a raw figure: I”ve recruited x affiliates and I have x active retail customers paying fees right now.
Also why did Melius collapse? Rhetorical I know it was because Melius was a pyramid scheme with no retail run by serial scammers, the real question is whether you’ll admit it.
And we’re supposed to just take your word for it, given that you never mentioned them again?
My apologies that this reply is sooooo late. I’m usually busy educating others on financial literacy and how to trade in a 7.3 million dollar Forex Market.
All I did was share my opinion on one of the companies that I’m affiliated with. I’m pretty sure I have that right and you have the right to have a rebuttal of my opinions.
We have over 60,000+ consumers and affiliate marketers. I’m more focused on customers and providing them products and services. The business part comes only if they want it. Nothing is forced.
As for Melius the reason for the name change was to share with people that they can “BE.” #BEamazing #BEgrateful #BEfinanciallyfree so on and so forth
Not every business is for everyone. And that’s cool! But (Ozedit: recruitment spam removed)
The fact remains you have failed to answer one question asked in the review.
You also dodged this:
Posting stupid hashtags instead of actually engaging in a conversation makes you come off as a slimy marketer. Trying to slip in recruitment spam also doesn’t do you any favors.
Reader beware.
hi. are there some news about BE?
Nope. Still a pyramid scheme.
Haha, the Islam brother scammers have written their own “article” in ED Times Brand Voice, how they were infact victims of OneCoin. And how “an individual from one big media agency in the UK wrote a biased and misinformed news story about their exit from the infamous company.” 😀
Poor Monir and Moyn Islam, victims of Onecoin! 😀
But now they are helping people avoid being scammed! How gracious they are!
in.news.yahoo.com/founders-monir-moyn-islam-helping-065915944.html
etc.etc. bullshit.
I’ve seen that content farm article spammed on a few sites over the past few days. Surprised it hasn’t popped up on BFH yet.
Bottom line is net-winners in Ponzi schemes aren’t victims. Not withstanding having to flee the UK to avoid those you scammed.
Here’s a longer one. The “honest businessmen” Monir and Moyn were victims of OneCoin, totally wrong understood, but of course THE HATERS keep telling lies about them.. 😀
influencive.com/monir-and-moyn-islam-the-young-entrepreneurs-redefined-life-challenges/
My fav:
That’s a funny Ponzi scammer backstory.
Monir or Moyn never paid back the OneCoin investors they stole from. The end.
is anyone doing something out there? I have a friend working there, receiving commissions and it’s supposed to be earning on trading, it’s actually annoying. I´ve never said her nothing because it would be to lose time on it.
So I am currently subscribed to BE as a bronze elite. I’m not about to give a sales pitch, just my take and opinion on what I’ve experienced so far.
A friend of mine got me interested in forex and was subscribed with be. I honestly don’t think his intention was recruiting, but he got me interested solely based on forex trading.
The main strategy is shift, which has “pro” traders post their positions and all the necessary details to copy their moves cause, since they are pros who know the market, then their strategies should be solid… you would think.
So the subscription gives you access to their programs of which you’ve mentioned, the broker they use is prosperityfx. I’m still new to the market so I’m unsure if this broker is better than others or not, but I was most interested in orakle, I believe to be an ai trading bot. I say believe cause I have yet to gain access to this and believe it’s cause it doesn’t exist.
So shift and the number of videos they provide to learn about it and all their other software, as well as forex, crypto, and other trading opportunities. I found that especially recently, half the strategies result in negative profit.
My friend went broke following them and I only did with a test account. Once my money was on the line I felt I’d be stupid for not learning the market to develop my own, and no that is not an easy risk free feat.in 2 weeks, from knowing nothing about the market, I’m about at the same win/loss ratio.
I won’t say one way or another what that implies but, I keep feeling like I’m simply paying for the broker, and don’t really care about the rest of the nonsense.
The travel portal however does seem appealing as I test out the deals to see if the rates are the best like they claim, and that’s held true so far, I just haven’t used it yet.
The travel portal is through quest so I’m curious if its easy to get rates thru then separate from be.
All in all im not disappointed with it but at the same time, I feel like its a hefty price for whats provided, and although there’s a chat group through telegram that connects everyone in the region, it seems its just a hype farm meant to subliminally make people feel supported and I genuinely think that the people aren’t deliberately scamming people, they actually think they are doing good for others and eachother.
Can’t say the same about the Islam brothers though, simply don’t know.
Thats my story, for better and worse, I simply wanted to give my account on my experience and I hope that gives some insight to the situation.
Hahahaha So funny that Oz simply got so silent after your review D.
I liked your very honest opinion about everything.
No I’m not a part of Melius/Be, have been thinking of becoming a part for the lowest price just to try out their trading signals to see if they are bullshitting or not.
Because you OZ can have all your opinion’s about it come with reasons to WHY this is a pyramid scheme, but if you haven’t really been inside the company to see if there really is something to the trading part then I honestly don’t give a damn, and neither should other people.
I’m not saying Melius/Be isn’t a scam, it may very well (BE) lol.
BUT I have to see it with my own eyes, or see a friend making money of the trading, if not and all the money comes from recruiting then its shit, if there is a working product and you simply pay a monthly fee for that then its more likely to be legit.
To be fair some of it is fishy, then again I’m pretty shure its very hard to get the whole full true story for an article like this..
Maybe its scam maybe its not lets see..
Nothing D published addressed the Islam brothers being serial scammers or Be being a pyramid scheme. Why would I reply?
He critiqued the company’s bundled products and services, which is fair enough. Doesn’t change what Be is though.
You don’t need to join a pyramid scheme to recognize one. If you don’t recognize that then maybe due-diligence is not for you.
In other words you’re a “if I make money I don’t care if it’s a scam” schmuck. Just be honest.