viconcept-logoFollowing the collapse of the GetEasy Ponzi scheme, one of the main contenders to emerge as a reload scheme has been VIConcept (Valuable Idea Concept).

Launched by António Loios, the scheme pretty much mirrors GetEasy’s business model. A Ponzi front-end is paired with a residual binary backend, through which affiliates are paid for investing and recruiting others to do the same.

Even the shell company created to offer legitimacy to the scheme, TachoEASY Middle East FZC, is reminiscent of GetEasy’s fictional “TachoEasy AG”.

antonio-loios-owner-viconceptHardly surprising when you consider Loios (right) was behind that company too.

In any event, looking to capitalize on the collapse of GetEasy and rope in as many investors who lost money in the scheme, Loios was quick to announce the launch of VIConcept once it was clear GetEasy was finished.

Pending a complete lack of action from Portuguese regulators, GetEasy’s owners, management and insiders (such as Loios) have made off with untold millions in stolen investor funds.

For a background on Loios prior to his involvement in Ponzi schemes, we turn to BehindMLM reader “Restelo’s Old Man“:

António Loios himself is a career politician from PSD (Social Democrats) and Computer Engineer.

During the 2000s he had a biz selling truck lubricants, managing to get familiar with the truckers and, despite complete lack of relationship with the business besides lube selling, was chosen by them to represent truckers from Associação Nacional das Transportadoras Portuguesas with the government, during the violent protests of 2008 (source for this info is a news piece in “Diário Económico” dated from 2008).

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

The VIConcept Product Line

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

The VIConcept Compensation Plan

The VIConcept compensation plan sees affiliates spend between €360 to €12,000 EUR on their membership and then recruiting others who do the same.

Note that VIConcept do not provide a copy of their compensation plan to the general public. As such, the following analysis is based on recent affiliate presentations which feature a copy of the Portuguese-language version of the plan.

Recruitment Commissions

VIConcept affiliates are directly paid to recruit new affiliates into the business.

How much of a commission is paid out is determined by how much a newly recruited affiliate spends on their membership:

  • Pack 1 (€360) – €18
  • Pack 2 (€720) – €36
  • Pack 3 (€1200) – €60
  • Pack 4 (€3600) – €180
  • Pack 5 (€6000) – €300
  • Pack 6 (€12,000) – €600

Monthly ROIs

Upon investment of between €360 to €12,000 EUR, VIConcept affiliates are promised a fixed monthly ROI.

This ROI is paid out for either 12 or 24 months, depending on how long an affiliate wishes to invest their money.

12 Month Investment

  • Pack 1 (€360) – €60 (total ROI €720)
  • Pack 2 (€720) – €120 (total ROI €1440)
  • Pack 3 (€1200) – €200 (total ROI €2400)
  • Pack 4 (€3600) – €600 (total ROI €7200)
  • Pack 5 (€6000) – €1000 (total ROI €12,000)
  • Pack 6 (€12,000) – €2000 (total ROI €24,000)

24 Month Investment

  • Pack 1 (€360) – €45 a month for the first year and €30 a month for the second (total ROI €900)
  • Pack 2 (€720) – €90 a month for the first year and €60 a month for the second (total ROI €1800)
  • Pack 3 (€1200) – €150 a month for the first year and €100 a month for the second (total ROI €3000)
  • Pack 4 (€3600) – €450 a month for the first year and €300 a month for the second (total ROI €9000)
  • Pack 5 (€6000) – €750 a month for the first year and €500 a month for the second (total ROI €15,000)
  • Pack 6 (€12,000) – €1500 a month for the first year and €1000 a month for the second (total ROI €30,000)

Residual Commissions

Residual commissions in VIConcept are paid out using a binary compensation structure.

A binary compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of two binary teams, left and right.

binary-MLM-compensation-plan

Sales volume is tracked within these two teams via points, with points generated via affiliate recruitment:

  • Pack 1 (€360) – 60 points
  • Pack 2 (€720) – 120 points
  • Pack 3 (€1200) – 200 points
  • Pack 4 (€3600) – 600 points
  • Pack 5 (€6000 – 1000 points
  • Pack 6 (€12,000) – 2000 points

At the end of each day, VIConcept pay out 50% of the points generated by an affiliate’s weaker binary team (the team that generated the lesser amount of points for that month).

Payout wise, 1 point is equal to €1 EUR.

Note that VIConcept cap daily binary earnings, subject to how much money their downlines have invested.

This is tracked via a VIConcept affiliate’s own recruitment efforts via the binary:

  • initial daily withdrawal cap is €1000 EUR
  • generate 8000 binary points and personally recruit at least 2 affiliates = daily withdrawal cap of €3000 EUR
  • generate 16,000 binary points and personally recruit at least 3 affiliates = daily withdrawal cap of €3500 EUR
  • generate 32,000 binary points and personally recruit at least 4 affiliates = daily withdrawal cap of €4000 EUR
  • generate 160,000 binary points and personally recruit at least 5 affiliates = daily withdrawal cap of €5000 EUR
  • generate 800,000 binary points and maintain at least 5 personally recruited affiliates = daily withdrawal cap of €17,500 EUR
  • generate 2,500,000 binary points and maintain at least 5 personally recruited affiliates = daily withdrawal cap of €30,000 EUR
  • generate 16,000,000 binary points and maintain at least 5 personally recruited affiliates = daily withdrawal cap of €50,000 EUR

Note that various travel related performance bonuses are also available at the higher of these ranks.

Bonus Pools

VIConcept affiliates who generate 2,500,000 (President) and 16,000,000 (Chairman) binary points qualify for a share in two bonus pools.

The President pool is made up of 0.5% of the total amount of funds invested in VIConcept company-wide.

In addition to having generated 2,500,000 binary points, in order to qualify for a share an affiliate must also have personally recruited at least five affiliates who have each generated at least 800,000 binary points.

The Chairman pool is made up of 1% of the total amount of funds invested in VIConcept company-wide.

In addition to having generated 16,000,000 binary points, in order to qualify for a share an affiliate must also have personally recruited at least five affiliates who have each generated at least 2,500,000 binary points.

Joining VIConcept

Affiliate membership with VIConcept is tied to investment in one of the six packs available:

  • Pack 1 – €360
  • Pack 2 – €720
  • Pack 3 – €1200
  • Pack 4 – €3600
  • Pack 5 – €6000
  • Pack 6 – €12,000

The primary difference between these packs is income potential through VIConcept’s compensation plan.

Conclusion

Borrowing heavily from GetEasy’s business model, the ruse behind VIConcept’s blatant Ponzi scheme is the supposed selling of “geo-locators” (trackers).

Affiliates invest their funds under the pretense of VIConcept then using these funds to purchase geo-locators that they then rent to customers.

Affiliates never have any contact with these customers, with their only interaction with VIConcept being the investment of funds and collection of either a 12 or 24 month ROI.

Oh and naturally they’re compensated for recruiting new investors and getting them to invest too.

One thing I’ll mention is the 24 month ROIs, which make little sense. Mathematically it’s more profitable to just invest an re-invest every 12 months.

Unless I’m missing something obvious, the 24 month ROI plans make little sense.

As with GetEasy, in the real world VIConcept’s rental model makes no sense. Geo-locators are hardly expensive, and if VIConcept truly had a retail customer base they’d have no need to solicit affiliate investment.

Furthermore, it’s ridiculous to claim that retail sales activity is linear enough to keep up with VIConcept affiliate investment indefinitely.

Yet that’s exactly what VIConcept do.

No matter how much you invest or how much is invested globally, the company, through offering fixed monthly ROIs, assures investors they have an infinite supply of renting customers to keep up.

The reality? This is all Ponzi smoke and mirrors.

All VIConcept do, as GetEasy did before them, is shuffle newly invested affiliate funds to pay off existing investors.

The whole geo-tracker thing is a ruse, with whatever token amount of renting activity that may or may not take place providing a fraction of a percentage of the revenue (if that) of the ROIs and recruitment commissions VIConcept pay out.

Whereas GetEasy ran into financial regulatory problems in Portugal, this time around Loios is claiming to be running things from the UAE.

TachoEASY Middle East FZC is a Company that conducts business in the geolocation industry and has it’s Headquarters in the Hamryah Free Zone of Sharjah (United Arab Emirates).

As per the GetEasy business model, it’s likely that the VIConcept scheme is still being run out of Portugal, with VIConcept existing in the UAE in name only.

Whatever operations might exist in the UAE that are connected to VIConcept, exist solely to facilitate the laundering of investor funds to jurisdictions unknown.

Advertised as handling invested funds for VIConcept on their website is an ewallet company called 2Pay4You.

Naturally there’s no information about who owns 2Pay4You on their website, however the ewallet’s domain is registered to someone called “Klaus Schaedler” who is purportedly operating out of Thailand (surprise surprise).

Owing no doubt to VIConcept being 2Pay4You’s biggest client, Alexa estimates that Portugal currently makes up for 26% of the traffic to the 2Pay4You website.

Spain isn’t too far behind, clocking in at 17.2% (Spain was also a big GetEasy recruiting ground).

From Thailand, to where VIConcept launder invested affiliate funds to isn’t clear, but you can be sure it’s some hidey-hole Loios can withdraw from once the inevitable Ponzi collapse hits.

Certainly António Loios isn’t going to go down the same route GetEasy did and have his European banking channels shut down once regulators cotton on.

Perhaps the most alarming thing about VIConcept is it’s blatant and systematic targeting of GetEasy investors who lost money.

A notice on the VIConcept website currently touts a promotion, directly enticing GetEasy victims to recoup their losses in VIConcept.

All members of the “previous company”… (are) able to recover the value of their packs previously purchased, but for this they have to “activate”.

Activation of course involves investing in VIConcept, or recruiting at least two new investors who go on to invest.

And if you’re wondering how on Earth VIConcept are verifying the amounts that might be claimed by ex-GetEasy affiliates, it appears to be via raiding of the GetEasy database.

Access by the backoffice is progressing every day, the company and some leaders work hard to ensure the October database to December.

If you registered after September 30th, we recall that o be on the network must send its data and if this is already done, so patience to those who do not have it yet, you will receive your password.

Once can assume António Loios, in his capacity as a GetEasy insider, either personally obtained or obtained through someone else access to the GetEasy investor database last December.

They’re slowly piecing together records and manually verifying any amounts claimed by ex-GetEasy affiliates.

This then becomes a recruitment tool, with VIConnect promising these investors the ROIs they were owned, provided they of course bring new funds into the new scheme.

Left unsaid is the further dent this offer places in the whole “we rent trackers to actual retail customers” cover-story.

Mathematically, assuming the amount the recruited affiliates invest through the offer, the hope is likely that this is more than the amount being claimed by the ex-GetEasy affiliate.

Otherwise I suppose VIConcept are simply willing to write off the difference as a liability, in the hope that the ex-GetEasy affiliate will at some point invest real funds themselves and participate.

As per the VIConcept website, they advise that this offer expires on April 15th.

Right now we’re in the honeymoon phase of VIConcept. Loios and his buddies have funded their accounts, with the scheme then being opened to the general public.

Due to the 12 to 24 nature of the ROIs paid out, the inevitable collapse is probably a ways off yet – pending of course regulatory intervention.

Unfortunately that’s again going to have to come from Portugal (the UAE and Thailand merely host shell operations), who currently seem unable to cope with the massive Ponzi schemes the country has played host to of late.

In any event, as with GetEasy, the second there’s a hiccup with the payouts, one can safely assume new investor funds have dried up and are running out.

At that point we only need to look at the mess GetEasy created to get a sense of what VIConnect affiliates have in store for them.