Back in October 2024 someone registered the domain “behindmlmreviews.com”.

In or around late November, a poor attempt at cloning BehindMLM’s website was attached to the domain.

Now scammers behind the site are charging $500 for fake BehindMLM reviews – and neither the domain registrar or hosting company are doing anything about it.

The BehindMLMReviews website is set up to impersonate BehindMLM, publishing mostly AI-plagiaraized content stolen from BusinessForHome.

The underlying goal behind the site is to get unsuspecting MLM companies to pay scammers for (presumably AI generated) “reviews”:

BehindMLM has never and will never charge for reviews. Editorial integrity aside, paid for reviews aren’t reviews – they’re advertisements.

The BehindMLMReviews scam site popped up on my radar around January 18th. On January 19th I sent an email to the domain registrar and web host, Ascio and FirstHost respectively.

This isn’t the first time scammers have tried to impersonate BehindMLM. As impersonation is a type of fraud and considered illegal, typically domain registrars and/or web hosting companies are quick to act.

A week went by though and I didn’t hear a reply back from either Ascio or FirstHost. This prompted me to send a second email on January 24th;

Hi,

I am Oz, owner of the website BehindMLM. Having not received a response to my previous email on January 19th, I am again writing to report impersonation fraud.

On information and belief the website domain “behindmlmreviews.com” was registered with Ascio on October 29th, 2024.

On information and belief the contents of the website on “behindmlmreviews.com” is being hosted with FirstHost.

BehindMLM was founded in 2009 and researches and reports on the MLM industry. A visit to the “BehindMLMReviews” website reveals a clear attempt to impersonate BehindMLM’s branding and website design.

The reason for this impersonation can be found here:

(BehindMLMReviews contact us link)

The owner of BehindMLMReviews is charging $500 for fake BehindMLM reviews. 

BehindMLM does not charge for reviews. Furthermore, Business Impersonation is illegal.

Section 6.1 of Ascio’s registration agreement states:

6.1. In addition to any specific warranties required by applicable Registries, when applying for a domain name, Registrant represents and warrants that:

(i) statements made in the application are complete and accurate;

(ii) to the best of Registrant’s knowledge and belief, neither the registration of the domain name nor the manner in which it is directly or indirectly used infringes the legal rights of any third party;

(iii) Registrant will not knowingly use the domain name in violation of any applicable laws or regulations;

(iv) it will comply with Registrar’s AUP (v) that Registrant is not registering the domain name for an unlawful purpose.

A copy of Ascio’s registration agreement can be found here: ascio.com/policies/ascio-registration-agreement/

FirstHost’s “Agreement on the provision of services” states:

CLIENT agrees not to use the Services for any semi-authorised or illegal purpose;

CLIENT agrees not to use the Services in violation of third party rights (including without limitation third party intellectual property rights and confidentiality).

 When using the hosting service, the CLIENT is prohibited from:

Post a product or service advertisement of a knowingly false nature;

A copy of FirstHost’s Agreement on the provision of services can be found here: firsthost.lv/en/agreement

I am requesting for a second time that action be taken against the domain “behindmlmreviews.com” and its attached hosting in order to prevent possible harm to consumers.

If I again receive no response by Monday, January 27th, I will be filing a complaint with US authorities and documenting Ascio’s and FirstHost’s inaction on reported impersonation fraud on BehindMLM.

Thank you for your cooperation on this matter,

-Oz

Another week has gone by and neither Ascio or FirstHost have responded.

I don’t think anyone is stupid enough to fall for buying a fake BehindMLM review on a low-effort clone site but you never know.

I’m making this public so there’s a record of Ascio and FirstHost aiding and abetting scammers through failure to act on reported blatant TOS violations.

Earlier today I also filed a report with our contacts in US law enforcement regarding the matter.

Impersonation of BehindMLM has come up in past regulatory enforcement actions. The SEC cited specific examples in fraud charges filed against OnPassive and owner Ash Mufareh;

To counter negative reviews of Mufareh and ONPASSIVE on existing MLM review websites, Mufareh and ONPASSIVE furtively created websites mimicking the names of the existing sites and on which ONPASSIVE personnel, at Mufareh’s direction, then posted internally-generated positive reviews of Mufareh and ONPASSIVE, falsely passing them off as objective, third-party reviews.

The Defendants initially responded to the negative reviews by telling participants to “ignore the haters.”

When the negative reviews persisted, however, Mufareh approved in November 2019 the creation of counterfeit and intentionally misleading websites mimicking the names and appearances of the abovementioned existing websites and the writing and posting on the counterfeit websites of positive reviews of ONPASSIVE and Mufareh.

ONPASSIVE personnel specifically proposed to Mufareh―and he agreed to the proposal―that they would “us[e] these two [counterfeit] sites as 3rd party site,” “write … exclusive review[s] on our own brand (just like a 3rd persons writing),” and use both counterfeit websites “to influence the people,” with the “first target assigned [being] to knock down those [review sites] from the search results.”

The names of the two counterfeit sites purposely tracked the names of existing MLM review websites in their web URL addresses with slightly altered domain names.

BehindMLMReviews doesn’t appear to be aligned with any specific MLM company but who knows.

Stay safe out there people. Desperate scammers are targeting everything for a quick buck.