The Future Trade provides no verifiable information on its website about who owns or runs the business.

Supposedly The Future Trade is headed up by Meril Rid;

Rid however is quite obviously played by an actor. Outside of The Future Trade’s The Office style marketing video, Meril Rid doesn’t exist.

Just a note on the video linked above, the guy Ryan who sells Rid the doll both at the start of the video and at [4:37], also appears as a seated extra at [2:29].

The Future Trade’s marketing video is your typical rented office with actors affair, albeit with a higher production script.

In an attempt to appear legitimate, The Future Trade provides shell company incorporation documents for The Marshall Islands, Singapore and Seychelles on its website.

For the purpose of MLM due-diligence, these documents are meaningless.

For example, the Singapore incorporation of Future Trade INT PTE LTD, lists Meril Rid down as being British with a UK address.

Fun Fact: Ryan’s driver at [4:37] in the previously linked video is driving a right-hand side car. Lin’s US accent aside, the UK drives on the left.

Wherever The Future Trade’s marketing video was shot, it wasn’t in the UK.

Scams typically create shell companies with bogus information through local agents. Things get even more questionable when shell companies are incorporated in scam friendly jurisdictions like the Marshall Islands and Seychelles.

The Future Trade’s website domain (“thefuturetrade.com”), was initially registered in July 2018. The private registration was last updated on October 24th, 2020.

 

Update 8th March 2022 – There appears to be some renewed interest in The Future Trade.

I had a review request which prompted me to take another look. I noted above in the September update that investors in Turkey were being targeted.

Having gotten rid of their cheesy “Meril Rid” marketing video, The Future Trade uploaded a bunch of “actors sitting around a rented office” photos to their website:

If you scroll down a bit you’ll come to one photo showing a lanyard for “Jared Ryan”:

The brand of the lanyard is “Brauberg”, a Russian office supplies store:

From this we can confirm Russian scammers are behind The Future Trade.

Meanwhile The Future Trade recruitment in Turkey appears to be in decline:

In comment #9 below, dated September 2021, I noted Turkey made up 67% of visits to The Future Trade’s website.

As of March 2022, that has dropped to just 20%. Unless new victims are found, looks like that might be it for The Futures Trade. /end update

 

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.

The Future Trade’s Products

The Future Trade has no retailable products or services, with affiliates only able to market The Future Trade affiliate membership itself.

The Future Trade’s Compensation Plan

The Future Trade affiliates invest funds on the promise of an advertised return:

  • Basic 1 – invest $50 to $1000 and receive 5% a week for 40 weeks (200%)
  • Basic 2 – invest $1001 to $10,000 and receive 6% a week for 40 weeks (240%)
  • Moderate 1 – invest $10,001 to $25,000 and receive 8% a week for 30 weeks (240%)
  • Moderate 2 – invest $25,001 to $50,000 and receive 9% a week for 30 weeks (270%)
  • Classic 1 – invest $50,001 to $100,000 and receive 10% a week for 25 weeks (250)
  • Classic 2 – invest $100,001 or more and receive 12% a week for 23 weeks (276%)

Note that The Future Trade charges a 6% withdrawal fee.

Referral Commissions

The Future Trade pays a 7% referral commission on funds invested by personally recruited affiliates.

Residual Commissions

The Future Trade 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.

At the end of the pay period, The Future Trade tallies up new investment volume on both sides of the binary team.

Affiliates are paid 9% of funds invested on their weaker binary team side, capped per pay period based on how much they’ve invested:

  • Basic 1 tier affiliates are capped at $500
  • Basic 2 tier affiliates are capped at $1000
  • Moderate 1 tier affiliates are capped at $2000
  • Moderate 2 tier affiliates are capped at $3000
  • Classic 1 tier affiliates are capped at $5000
  • Classic 2 tier affiliates are capped at $7500

Note that The Future Trade don’t specify the duration of a pay period. Typically however it is either daily or weekly.

Joining The Future Trade

The Future Trade affiliate membership is free.

Full participation in the attached income opportunity however requires a minimum $50 initial investment.

Conclusion

Corny or otherwise, there’s no doubt The Future Trade has put out the highest effort marketing video we’ve seen from scammers yet.

If there was an awards show for this sort of thing, they’d win – no question.

The bad news is The Future Trade is otherwise a cookie-cutter MLM Ponzi scheme.

The Future Trade claims to generate external revenue through “forex and crypto trading”.

No evidence of trading is provided, nor is there any evidence of The Future Trade using external revenue of any kind to pay advertised returns.

Being a passive investment opportunity, The Future Trade’s MLM opportunity constitutes a securities offering.

The Future Trade is not registered to offer securities in any jurisdiction. The shell company documents provided are not a substitute for registration with financial regulators.

This means that, at a minimum, The Future Trade is committing securities fraud the world over.

The company marketing no risk returns is also a red flag;

Will I be exposed to any losses?

No, we offer safety and security to our customers by positioning them in an impervious zone and keeping them away from all sorts of risks possible.

As with all MLM Ponzi schemes, once affiliate recruitment runs dry so too will new investment.

This will starve The Future Trade of ROI revenue, eventually prompting a collapse.

The math behind Ponzi schemes guarantees that when they collapse, the majority of participants lose money.

 

Update 30th September 2021 – As at the time of this update The Future Trade has removed its “Meril Rid” marketing video from YouTube.

I did have the video linked but have had to disable the link as a result.

 

Update 3rd August 2022 – BehindMLM revisited The Future Trade for an updated review in June 2022.