Paradise Payments Review: $2-$1000 matrix-based gifting

There is no information on the Paradise Payments website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Paradise Payments website domain (“paradisepayments.com”) was registered on the 3rd of June 2014 and lists an “Optimus Dale” as the owner. An address in the US state of Arkansas is also provided.

A BehindMLM review of MagneticBuilder reveals that “Optimus Dale” is a pseudonym used by Sherm Mason (right).

Magnetic Builder launched in late 2012 and saw affiliates pay $29.95 to qualify to earn commissions when they recruited affiliates who did the same.

I’ve listed a slew of other opportunities Sherm launched in the Magnetic Builder review, all similarly themed.

Is Paradise Payments any different, or is this just another recruitment-driven pyramid scheme from Sherm Mason?

Read on for a full review of the Paradise Payments MLM business opportunity.

The Paradise Payments Product Line

Paradise Payments has no retailable products or services, with affiliates only able to market affiliate membership with the company itself.

Once signed up, Paradise Payments affiliates can then purchase $2 positions in the company’s compensation plan.

The Paradise Payments Compensation Plan

The Paradise Payments compensation plan sees affiliates sign up and then purchase matrix positions.

Three tiers of matrices are offered:

Tier 1 Matrix Commissions

Tier 1 sees affiliates purchase $2 positions in a 4×3 matrix.

A 4×3 matrix places an affiliate at the top of a matrix, with four positions directly under them (level 1):

These initial four positions in turn branch out into another four positions, making up level 2 of the matrix. Level 2 positions again branch out into another four positions each, making up the third and final level of the matrix.

Positions in the matrix represent other affiliates who have purchased $2 positions. These affiliates can be directly recruited or indirectly recruited via the efforts of an affiliate’s upline and downline.

Commissions are paid as positions in the matrix are filled as follows:

• level 1 (4 positions, $2 entry) – $2 per position
• level 2 (16 positions, $5 entry) – $5 per position
• level 3 (64 positions, $10 entry) – $10 per position

The total commissions paid out via the Tier 1 matrix is $711

Tier 2 Matrix Commissions

Tier 2 in Paradise Payments uses 4×4 matrix.

This is the same as the 4×3 matrix in Tier 1, but with an additional fourth level (256 positions).

Commissions in this tier are also paid out as positions in the matrix are filled, however this time around commissions are split between an affiliate and their upline.

• level 1 (4 positions, $20 entry) – $20 to the affiliate and $20 to their upline
• level 2 (16 positions, $40 entry) – $320 to the affiliate and $320 to their upline
• level 3 (64 positions, $80 entry) – $2560 to the affiliate and $2560 to their upline
• level 4 (256 positions, $200 entry) – $25,600 to the affiliate and $25,600 to their upline

Tier 3 Matrix Commissions

Tier 3 in Paradise Payments uses a 10×3 matrix.

This once again is the same idea as the Tier 1 matrix, however this time there are ten positions on each level.

Commissions paid out in Tier 3 are once again split between an affiliate and their upline:

• level 1 (10 positions, $300 entry) – $1500 to the affiliate and $1500 to their upline
• level 2 (100 positions, $600 entry) – $30,000 to the affiliate and $30,000 to their upline
• level 3 (1000 positions, $1000 entry) – $500,000 to the affiliate and $500,000 to their upline

Joining Paradise Payments

Affiliate membership with Paradise Payments is free. However if affiliates wish to participate in the company’s compensation plan, the purchase of at least one matrix position is required.

As such, the defacto minimum affiliate cost of joining Paradise Payments is $2. The purchase of additional matrix positions will result in additional costs.

Conclusion

Sherm Mason appears to have moved on from pyramid schemes and is now actively engaged in the cash gifting arena.

Paradise Payments sees affiliates sign up and then pay a qualification fee to the affiliate who recruited them.

This fee then qualifies the affiliate to receive payments from those they recruit (including indirectly recruited affiliates in tiers 2 and 3).

In their “no refunds” refund policy, Paradise Payments themselves make it very clear that they themselves do not touch money entering the system:

Can I get a refund?

NO. We never even touch the money as this is strictly member-to-member payments.

“Member-to-member payments” is of course MLM underbelly code for cash gifting.

Basically you sign up for $2, recruit a bunch of people who pay you $2 and then the idea is that you use those funds to upgrade into the higher levels of the matrix you’re on.

Once you break out of that matrix, you then use funds you’ve received from people below you to buy your way into the higher matrix tiers.

Other people fund your gifting payments and matrix progression, and in turn they require others to join the scheme to fund their gifting payments and progression.

As with all gifting schemes, once those at the bottom find there’s nobody left to sucker into the scheme, they wind up stalling on the bottom rungs of the available matrices.

With no new gifting payments being made, all three tiers of Paradise Payments matrices will stall. At this point the scheme collapses and Sherm Mason makes off with whatever funds are still trapped in the system.

This is of course in addition what he’s received through however many positions he pre-loaded into the top of the system before Paradise Payments launched.

Anybody with funds still trapped in the system of course loses out.

$2 might not sound like much to lose, but have a look at the amount of people required to gift $2 payments to progress through the matrices.

What price do you put on your reputation and credibility?