When I think stem cells I envisage dark and mysterious research labs slaving away to perfect cloning techniques so that we can grow our own body parts from existing body cells.

Ultimately the goal appears to be to develop rejuvenating cells that can be grown to replace failing organs. For more information, we turn to Wikipedia;

Stem cells are biological cells found in all multicellular organisms, that can divide (through mitosis) and differentiate into diverse specialized cell types and can self-renew to produce more stem cells.

In adult organisms, stem cells and progenitor cells act as a repair system for the body, replenishing adult tissues.

Pluripotent adult stem cells are rare and generally small in number but can be found in a number of tissues including umbilical cord blood.

Bone marrow has been found to be one of the rich sources of adult stem cells which have been used in treating several conditions including Spinal cord injury, Liver Cirrhosis, Chronic Limb Ischemia and Endstage heart failure.

Now I’m not a doctor but, being cells of the body I’d have thought stem cells would replenish themselves within the usual nutritional avenues made available to the rest of the body’s cells.

Turns out that whilst that might be true, there’s one company who believes there’s still room for improvement. Enter Stemtech International with their patented brand of ‘one-of-a-kind stem cell nutrition products’.

Read on for a full review of the Stemtech MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

Lifestyles International was founded in 1989 and operates as an MLM company within the health niche.

Lifestyles was founded by Chairman and CEO David DeBora. Having started Lifesyles well before the internet age as we know it today, details of DeBora’s history prior to Lifestyles come from the company itself:

David has enjoyed successful careers in real estate and construction, working long hours to build family homes.

(David) was introduced to Network Marketing by a friend. Within a year after he began to work in Network Marketing, David was the company’s number one Distributor in Canada.

David soon realized the extraordinary power of Network Marketing, and his focus turned to building a Network Marketing company of his own.

In 1989, David founded Lifestyles International.

Not strictly business but money related nonetheless, it seems Debora (photo right, looking slightly creepy) holds the distinguished record for having been ordered to pay out ‘the largest legal awards in Canadian divorce history‘.

Mr. Debora, who failed to fully disclose his assets to former wife Miriam Graham, was ordered to pay her $2.55 million to cover her legal and forensic accounting expenses.

Together with the matrimonial property award, the amount is close to $12 million.

(Debora) failed to make financial disclosure, which persisted to the end of the trial. He was deliberately untruthful both on discovery and at trial,” Judge Backhouse noted.

12 million? Ouch! One would hope Debora doesn’t run Lifestyles in the same way he ran his 9 year long divorce proceedings.

Aside from divorce proceedings, Lifestyles International (under ‘Lifestyles Canada’) themselves as a company were convicted in 2001 for ‘failure to disclose important information to the participants in their recruitment efforts in 1999-2000‘.

This conviction resulted in Lifestyles being

fined $95,000 after pleading guilty, in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, to four criminal charges under the Competition Act‘s multi-level marketing plan provisions.

From what I can gather, the conviction (scroll down to the middle of the page for court documents) primarily revolves around Lifestyles and its members making “unfair and unreasonable” representations of the company’s compensation plan and a Lifestyle member’s income potential.

Legal dramas aside, after initially selling high-fibre cookies and based out of Canada, over the next twenty two years Lifestyles expanded their product range and available markets, primarily into Asia, and slowly evolved and developed into the company as it’s known today.

Read on for a full review of the Lifestyles International MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the Wealth Creation Alliance website indicating who runs or owns the company.

The company domain (‘wcarev.com’) was registered on the 19th August, 2012, however the domain registration information is set to private.

The server Wealth Creation Alliance is hosted on appears to be private and is also home to a number of other MLM business opportunities.

• Mega 2×2 – a recruitment driven 2×2 matrix opportunity, launched February 2010
• Prosperity 3×2 – a recruitment driven 3×2 matrix opportunity, launched May 2010
• Mega Money Maker 3 – a $60 signup and $20 a month recruitment driven scheme paying out commissions with membership fees, launched in mid 2010 (now defunct)
• Leverage 2 Prosperity – $10 recruitment driven 2×2 matrix opportunity, launched February 2011
• Straight Line Autobuilder – $30 recruitment driven opportunity, launched July 2011
• Super 2×2 – $10 a month recruitment driven opportunity , launched December 2011
• Leverage 2 Prosperity 2 – $50 recruitment driven 2×2 matrix opportunity, launched December 2011

Out of the above companies, Mega 2×2, Prosperity 3×2 ownership is credited to Rob Nunes and Paul Skulitz. Leverage to Prosperity, Straight Line Autobuilder and Super 2×2 ownership is solely credited to Skulitz.

Given the above, there’s a strong indication that Paul Skulitz is running and owns Wealth Creation Alliance. Whether Rob Nunes is involved is unclear but given past partnerships between Nunes and Skulitz, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was also involved in some way.

Update 8th September, 2012 – In a comment left on this article, Skulitz has confirmed his ownership of Wealth Creation Alliance along with three unnamed “very good partners” (further information has been requested).

Skulitz also confirmed that Nunes ‘is not part of this (WCA) and will not be part of it‘. /end update

One other Skulitz-owned MLM opportunity, previously reviewed on BehindMLM, is Biz Power Extreme, a $29.95-$39.95 recruitment driven opporunity launched in Jaunuary 2012.

Why Skulitz does not disclose ownership of Wealth Creation Alliance on the company website is a mystery.

Read on for a full review of the Wealth Creation Alliance MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the Asian Affiliation website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The domain ‘asianaffiliation.com’ was registered on the 7th July 2012 however the domain registration information is set to private.

Despite the company website domain having only been registered two months ago, Asian Affiliation claim to have been founded in 2006:

Founded in 2006, Asian Affiliation is headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

As always, if a 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. [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the Cloud 2×2 website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Cloud 2×2 company domain (‘cloud2x2.com’) was registered on the 7th June, 2012 with the domain registration information set to private.

In Cloud 2×2 training videos however, Todd Hirsch is named as a co-owner and co-creator of the company. No other co-owners or co-creators are named.

Todd Hirsch was a member of the recently stopped $600 million Ponzi scheme Zeek Rewards and is also a self-described “top earner” member of Bidify. Hirsch currently claims to be the “#4 top earning” affiliate in Bidify.

Bidify, a penny auction (Bidsson) attached to an MLM business opportunity had a similar Ponzi points compensation plan to Zeek, which was immediately changed following SEC action against Zeek Rewards.

Hirsch (photo right) recently claimed in a video that he was involved in promoting Zeek Rewards and recruiting new investors knowing full well it was a Ponzi scheme.

Hirsch also recently claimed on Troy Dooly’s MLMHelpdesk that he is a member of the suspected Ponzi investment scheme, ‘Banners Broker’.

Describing himself as a “program jumper” on his blog, Hirsch claims he’s

in about seven different programs at this time and (that he’s) joined and been apart of maybe over 50+ programs since (he) started in online marketing in early 2010.

In non-official company marketing material, I came across Cloud 2×2 members mentioning ‘Mike Lavoie’ as being the other co-founder and owner of the company.

Back in 2010 Lavoie previously launched “Revolutionary Matrix”, a now defunct 2×2 matrix recruitment dependent MLM opportunity.

In 2011 Lavoie launched a similar and also now defunct matrix opportunity called “Social Power Network” (the Social Power Network domain now redirects to something called “ricishares”).

Averaging the launch of one matrix based opportunity a year, Cloud 2×2 appears to be Lavoie’s 2012 MLM matrix company attempt.

Read on for a full review of the Cloud 2×2 MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]

When BidXcel first popped up on my radar not much information was out about the upcoming penny auction opportunity.

From information available at the time though, it seemed as BidXcel was going to be a continuation/relaunch of the failed outdoor niche orientated ‘Win The Hunt’ penny auction, but this time with an attached MLM compensation plan.

That was a few weeks ago now and since then Win The Hunt has been completely shut down and BidXcel compensation plan details have been released. Read on for a full review of the BidXcel MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]

When I first visited the Vitel website, the system demanded I enter in an existing members details or be randomly assigned to a ‘Platinum Executive Business Owners’ before proceeding.

Clicking the “randomly assign me please” button, I was then kicked over to a website where I could do one of two things:

1. Watch a video inciting me to join Vitel (without revealing any specifics about the company) or

2. Sign up and join Vitel

If I wanted any further information on the company before signing up, there was none. In order to find out more information about Vitel Wireless I actually had to close the Vitel website and hit up Google.

Not good enough guys. [Continue reading…]

All our critics (are) self-appointed with no standing in the professional community (and are) behaving unprofessionally by acting on false information.

-Gregory Caldwell, “Acting” COO of Zeek Rewards on August 4th, 2012

Whilst much is still currently unclear regarding the specifics of Zeek Rewards CEO Paul Burks’ dealings with the SEC in the lead up to Zeek being shut down, bits and pieces are finally (albeit slowly) starting to trickle out into the public sphere.

With many of Zeek Reward’s executive management holding affiliate accounts to participate in the company’s Ponzi scheme, one of the most pressing queries has been the question of how aware of the SEC investigation were Zeek Rewards corporate executives, if at all.

Knowing full-well that Zeek Rewards was a Ponzi scheme and being aware of the SEC investigation and a resulting shutdown is vastly important, as such knowledge (and the suppression of it) put Zeek’s management in a conflictingly advantageous position as investors.

Whilst regular affiliates continued to re-invest the bulk of their daily ROIs and encourage new investors to come on board, continuing on unawares right until the precise moment Zeek Rewards was shut down, Zeek’s executive management, aware of the SEC situation and what was occurring, could have easily been quietly cashing out as much as possible from their personal affiliate accounts.

Indeed, if you look at the actions of some of Zeek Rewards’ more prominent executive management in the last few months of Zeek Rewards, a distinct pattern emerges.

Former COO Dawn Wright-Olivares all but vanished from the public eye after informing affiliates Zeek Rewards would not be able to pay them unless they “deposited more money” into Zeek’s e-wallet accounts (June 26th).

A week later Zeek Rewards Sales Director Darryle Douglas disappeared off the face of the planet for “personal matters” on July 30th. Such “personal matters” were never elaborated on by the company and following the official announcement, Douglas was never publicly heard from again.

Although not Zeek Rewards corporate, it’s worth noting that around the same time as Wright-Olivares’ and Douglas’ departures into obscurity, Keith Laggos, a paid consultant of Zeek Rewards, claimed that the FTC were going to shut down Zeek Rewards. He also began to promote Lyoness to his Zeek Rewards affiliate downline as a ‘Plan B’.

For his efforts, Laggos was terminated as a paid Zeek Rewards consultant on or around July 24th. To date it remains unclear whether or not Laggos also lost his “$40,000 a month” Zeek Rewards affiliate account.

Three of Zeek Rewards’ previously prominent top public figures went underground within the space of a month. And just under three weeks later, the SEC shut the company down for being a Ponzi scheme.

Hindsight analysis would indicate the witnessing of a typical Ponzi scheme pre-planned exit strategy. With everyone involved appearing to have lawyered up and refuse to make any public statements though, it appears we’re going to have to wait to get any further clarification on the matter.

In the meantime, a recently leaked email from Greg Caldwell certainly suggests that Zeek’s executive management had at least some idea of what was happening. [Continue reading…]

In the wake of the Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme being shut down by the SEC, rival penny auction Bidify almost immediately shut down their own similar Ponzi points compensation plan announcing that they’d be bringing out a more “traditional” MLM focused plan shortly.

A few days later Bidify relaunched with what I’m calling v2.0 of their compensation plan. In a nutshell, the Ponzi points were gone and in its place a stock standard unilevel commissions structure which paid out residual commissions on the sale of bids.

Other than some cruises, there was little else to it. With the SEC having shed light on suspicions that the former largest MLM penny auction in the world was unable to attract significant retail customers, Bidify was probably not going to fare too well down the track.

Indeed, just a few days ago I wrote:

I’d strongly suggest any change in Bidify’s compensation over the next few weeks would be an indication that a MLM penny auction relying on the sale of bids to customers isn’t really viable.

Three days later and here we are with the Bidify compensation plan v3.0.

So what’s changed? [Continue reading…]

Foreword: On the 28th of August Bidify made some additional changes to their compensation plan. In order to catalogue the changes, the original Bidify compensation plan shall be referred to as v1.0, the changes in this article reflect v2.0 and the new changes v3.0.

Following the SEC take down of Zeek Rewards for running a $600 million Ponzi scheme, Bidify immediately announced they were reducing the initial investment amount US-based members could make, from 25,000 Euros down to 5,000.

Largely seen as an irrelevant cosmetic change, which appears to be somewhat of a recurring theme over at Bidify, less than 24 hours later after this announcement the company announced they were shutting down Bidify altogether to remodel their compensation plan.

With Bidify being Zeek Rewards’ biggest competitor and roughly half way into their penny auction points 120 day run (after which a true test of their viability would have taken place), this was largely seen as confirmation that, as many suspected, a MLM penny auction pegged to a points based compensation plan was not sustainable without mostly paying newly invested affiliate money.

Zeek Rewards had been doing exactly this for nearly two years to the tune of 98% of the daily ROI paid out consisting of newly invested affiliate money.

In any case, shortly after taking Bidify offline to work on a new “more traditional” compensation plan for their affiliates, Bidify popped back online yesterday.

Read on for a review of the new Bidify compensation plan. [Continue reading…]