Plus5 Club Review: App-based pyramid scheme
Plus5 Club fails to provide ownership or executive information on its website.
Plus5 Club’s website domain (“plus5.co.za”), was privately registered on June 21st, 2023.
Despite seeming to have ties to South Africa, for February 2024 SimilarWeb tracked ~319 monthly visits to Plus5 Club’s website. 100% of that traffic is reported to have originated from Japan.
In any event, up until very recently Plus5 Club represented it was based out of South Africa.
The above is from a recently deleted “Privacy Policy” page on Plus5 Club’s website.
Further research reveals official marketing citing Patrick Moon as Plus5 Club’s CEO.
On LinkedIn Moon (full name: Patrick Michael Moon), cites his location as Durban, South Africa.
Corporate records reveal Moon in fact registered Plus5 Club as a company in South Africa in July 2023. Why this is now being covered up is unclear.
Along with Daniel Jack McBride and two other admins, Moon was also behind Power8Biz.
Power8Biz seems to have launched circa 2021. It appears to be a fraudulent investment scheme that pitched investors on daily passive returns:
As always, if an MLM company is not openly upfront about who is running or owns it, think long and hard about joining and/or handing over any money.
Plus5 Club’s Products
Plus5 Club has no retailable products or services.
Affiliates are only able to market Plus5 Club affiliate membership itself.
Plus5 Club’s Compensation Plan
Plus5 Club affiliates pay 180 ZAR and then 50 ZAR a month.
Commissions are paid on recruited Plus5 Club affiliates who pay the same.
Plus5 Club pays recruitment commissions out via a five-level deep 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.
Commissions paid out across Plus5 Club’s restricted five-level deep unilevel team are:
- 2 ZAR on level 1 (personally recruited affiliates)
- 4 ZAR on level 2
- 10 ZAR on level 3
- 11 ZAR on level 4 and
- 7 ZAR on level 5
Plus5 Club specify recruitment commissions are paid monthly recurring, provided recruited affiliates continue to pay 50 ZAR a month.
Joining Plus5 Club
Plus5 Club affiliate membership is 150 ZAR and then 50 ZAR a month.
Plus5 Club Conclusion
Plus5 Club is a simple pyramid scheme. Participants pay a monthly fee, which qualifies them to earn commissions on subsequently recruited participants.
Nothing is marketed or sold to retail customers in the process, confirming Plus5 Club’s pyramid scheme business model.
As with all MLM pyramid schemes, once recruitment dries up so too will commissions.
This will see those at the bottom of Plus5 Club’s company-wide unilevel team stop paying monthly fees.
Those above these affiliates will stop getting paid, eventually leading to ceasing of their monthly fee payments.
Once enough Plus5 Club affiliates stop paying fees, an irreversible collapse is triggered.
Math guarantees that when a pyramid scheme collapses, the majority of participants lose money.
As a final sidenote, I believe SimilarWeb’s Japan traffic reporting is based on Plus5 Club’s website appearing to be hacked.
Whether Plus5 Club participant details have been compromised is unclear.
Hacked? Haha that’s pretty wild
This is strangely outdated, with the joining fee being reported as R180 in one place in your article, and as R150 in two other places.
No mention is being made of the coupon-access that is the backbone of the Club, offering users major savings on a range of items available at 3 major South African retailers.
I”m sure we all appreciate the work you do, just please do it a bit better, so you don’t, incorrectly, hamper me building my business?
Ta
Dave
How so?
Thanks. It’s 180/50. My brain went dyslexic and took the “5” from 50 to get 150.
Why would there be? It’s not a retailable product or service and doesn’t change Plus5 Club being a pyramid scheme.
BehindMLM isn’t here to help you build your pyramid scheme.
The coupons come free or massively discounted in other ways without anybody having to pay to join anything.