Back in January 2011 Zeek Rewards launched what was to be the first combination of a MLM investment based hybrid compensation plan with a penny auction front-end.

The amount of revenue generated as affiliates flocked to the company and threw money at it didn’t go unnoticed in the industry and roughly one year later in February 2012 Bidify was launched.

Although a few international players have set up localised versions of the investment compensation hybrid + penny auction model thus far it’s generally agreed the two main contenders in this emerging niche are Zeek Rewards and Bidify.

Zeek Rewards morphed from guaranteeing a 125% ROI to affiliates to paying out a variable 90 day ROI in its current state, whereas Bidify pay out a 120 day ROI and force members to re-invest 20% of their returns.

Similar in nature both Bidify’s and Zeek Rewards’ compensation plans differ enough however to warrant their shared existence in the MLM industry. As for which model prevails, with Bidify having fired up their Bidsson penny auctions barely a week or so ago and Zeek Rewards’ recent plague of payment problems, I’d say the dust is far from settling on that issue.

While we wait for that to happen, it appears that similar business models and the use of penny auctions are not all these two companies share. Turns out that Bidify’s Chief Creative Officer is also an active affiliate in Zeek Rewards. [Continue reading…]

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

The domain ‘mobpoint.net’ however was registered on the 9th March 2012 and lists a ‘Saroukhan Minasyan’ as the domain owner, operating out of the state of Arizona in the US.

Earlier this year in January, using the same email address to register the MobPoint domain, Minasyan published a wanted ad, requesting someone write a blog for him to promote Clickbank products he was trying to sell as an affiliate:

Ultimately nobody took up the position and it expired. [Continue reading…]

Despite a dubious looking business model and mountain of ongoing concerns and dramas engulfing MLM penny auction sites Zeek Rewards and Zeekler, one thing that can’t be denied is the schemes ability to attract members willing to pump money into it.

Something that obviously hasn’t gone unnoticed if you take a look at the recent penny auction MLM startups launched globally over the last few months.

With Bidify having just launched their competing penny auctions with a similar “revenue-sharing” compensation plan out of Seychelles, BidsBr tackling the Portugese speaking South American market and regulators around the world asleep at the wheel, today we look at the ongoing trend of emerging penny auction MLM companies with a Hong Kong based new startup, AwardsW. [Continue reading…]

An e-wallet, as the name suggests, is an electronic wallet that you fund with real money.

After funding your account you’re then able to electronically send money all over the world to people or companies, with the idea being that after the money is sent, the receiving party is able to withdraw the money out.

When this withdrawal occurs, typically the e-wallet provider takes their cut – either via a flat rate fee and/or charging a percentage of the withdrawn amount.

As far as MLM companies and paying commissions out via an e-wallet goes, with a leadtime of anywhere up to a month the company knows exactly how much is being requested by their members.

Subsequently they have ample time to make sure they’ve funded their e-wallet account with enough money so that when they send the e-wallet company instructions on who to pay out and how much, things run smoothly.

Whether the MLM company is using one e-wallet provider or twenty, the process is the same.

Despite this reality, according to Zeek Rewards’ COO Dawn Wright-Olivares this is not how e-wallet payment solutions work.

She insists that unless company members deposit money into an e-wallet account first, then the company is entirely unable to pay out commissions using that e-wallet provider. [Continue reading…]

Back in 2006 United First Financial (UFirst) launched in Utah and offered members the ability to market a debt consolidation application called the ‘Money Merge Account’.

Then in 2011 UFirst stopped handling the sales side of their business (leaving their then affiliates in somewhat of a lurch) and instead outsourced it for the better part of a year.

With that seemingly not working out as planned for the company, UFirst have rebranded the Money Merge Account as the ‘Worth Account’, hired a new CEO, made some changes to their compensation plan and are now set to relaunch themselves under the new name ‘Worth Unlimited’.

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

Foreword: Following the SEC shut down of Zeek Rewards in August 2012, Bidify abolished the compensation plan detailed below and relaunched with a more “traditional” MLM compensation model.

You can read BehindMLM’s analysis and review of the new Bidify compensation plan here (version 2.0).

A third Bidify compensation plan was released on August 28th introducing some further additions, documented as v3.0.

In the interests of preserving the company’s history, I’ve left the information below on Bidify’s original compensation plan intact, but please be aware that they are no longer using this plan. /end foreword

I first looked at Bidify back in February 2012 to compare it to fellow penny auction MLM company Zeek Rewards.

Back then Bidify’s penny auction site, called Bidsson, hadn’t launched yet and effectively affiliates of Bidify were just recruiting new affiliates and earning recruitment commissions ranging from 5 to 25 Euros ($6.75 – $33.50 USD), depending on which membership a new affiliate purchased.

I’d previously held off updating my previous Bidify launch since without a penny auction site you pretty much had a pyramid scheme (recruit new affiliates = get paid).

After months of delays, earlier this week Bidsson finally launched and with it the greater part of the Bidify compensation plan has kicked in. With Bidsson’s auctions now live and supposedly generating revenue for Bidify, read on for a full review of the Bidify MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]

Yesterday North Carolina’s Channel 2 WMFY News ran both a printed and video segment on penny auctions, citing local company Zeekler as an example.

The print article, titled “Popular Penny Auction Website Based in the Piedmont”, was a general rundown of how penny auctions work and, using Zeekler as an example, attempted to break down the auctions and associated costs to bidders.

Reporter Liz Crawford wrote the piece and as part of her research for the story contacted the North Carolina Attorney General’s office, noting that

The North Carolina Attorney General’s office told News 2 they have received a handful of complaints when it comes to Zeekler and their sister site, Zeek Rewards.

A court has not yet ruled whether this operation is legal or illegal.

On the accompanying video broadcast however, the filming of which Zeek Rewards described on a promotional press release  as “a reporter from Channel 2 popp(ing) by home office”, Crawford threw in a somewhat of an ambigious line towards the end of the broadcast:

I did get in touch with the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office, just to do some fact checking.

They told me they have received a handful of complaints when it comes to Zeekler, as well as their sister site Zeek Rewards – however Frank, it is legal.

Out of context, it does appear as if Crawford is stating that the Attorney General’s Office has certified that Zeek Rewards is legal, but given the report was about penny auctions and the use of the singular “it” (in reference to “penny auctions”) rather than “they” (in reference to Zeekler and Zeek Rewards), I maintained the AG’s Office were solely referring to penny auctions:

The report was about penny auctions citing Zeekler as a local example. It wasn’t about Zeek Rewards and the MLM business model.

Here’s the opening paragraph:

“Lexington, NC– What if you could use a penny to buy an iPad? Turns out, you can, if you use an online penny auction. However, placing your bid will cost you more than pennies.”

And the video segment opens with the anchor referring to a “penny auction craze”.

Penny auctions are currently legal in the US. Maybe they’ll do a followup in more detail specifically going over Zeekler/Zeek Rewards maybe not.

Furthermore “it” is singular, referring to penny auctions, not two separate companies and/or the MLM business models. Also there’s a segment at the end about addiction and gambling, again reaffirming the story was on penny auctions.

Nonetheless, seeking further clarification I sent off an email to the NC Attorney General’s Office seeking explicit clarification on the matter. To date I haven’t heard anything back but Patrick Petty over at PP Blog did, and the response he got from the AG’s office makes for some interesting reading. [Continue reading…]

Ever since Zeek Rewards hired a bunch of lawyers to pursuit ensuring compliance within the company, much blame has been directed by the company at its members.

Troy Dooly over at MLM Helpdesk and credited at the last Zeek Rewards “Red Carpet” event last week as a”training consultant” even went so far as to state a few weeks back that  it wasn’t Zeek Rewards or their business model that would make or break the company, but rather its members.

This was in response to Zeek Rewards members running around singing the praises of the daily returns they were earning on their investments with the company.

Aside from an investment scheme being the simplest way to explain how affiliates earn money with Zeek Rewards, today we go one step further and analyse where this initial concept came from.

It’s well-known that Zeek Rewards initially launched guaranteeing a 125% ROI on all money invested into the company by members (or customers they convinced to purchase bids), with members having to do nothing more than submit a daily classified ad.

Following changes to this model in mid-2011, Zeek Rewards systematically began eliminating all evidence of this initial business model and these days not much is left showcasing the origins of the Zeek Rewards business opportunity or how it was marketed.

I’ve touched on this topic briefly in the past but never before have I had anything that portrays in such detail how Zeek Rewards initially marketed themselves prior to their 2011 launch. [Continue reading…]

With various courts being on holidays and what not it’s been pretty quiet on the ongoing legal battles surrounding Speak Asia.

As it stands now

• the Supreme Court had set a date of August 8th to settle the issue of payment to the 115 petitioners of writ 383
• the defamation case against Multiscreen Media is back in court on the 18th June (Speak Asia added SMS Satellite (Singapore) Pte Ltd. as defendant #6 on the 7th May)
• the defamation case against Star News seems to have been quietly dropped (unless I’m missing something?)
• Speak Asia trying to stop police investigations in the districts of Raigad and Thane are set for a decision on the 26th June
• The Andhra Pradesh court continues to give Tarak Bajpai’s case to quash a FIR against Speak Asia a low priority, with the latest hearing having been continuously pushed back for around two weeks now
• Speak Asia trying to stop the CID from investigating them in the Supreme Court is next due back in court on the 5th of July

and of course finally there’s the All India SpeakAsia Panelist Association’s (AISPA) writ 3611, which seeks to ultimately prohibit Mumbai’s EOW from investigating Speak Asia and its defacto management over at AISPA. [Continue reading…]

One of the more dubious aspects of Zeek Rewards is the ability of affiliates to purchase Zeekler auction customers to dump VIP bids onto in order to increase their VIP point balance. This in turn increases their effective VIP point ROI over 90 days.

Prior to March 2012 Zeek Rewards directly sold customers to its members via a company ‘5cc co-op’. Abruptly citing  FTC regulations coming into effect on the 1st March 2012, the company then ceased this practice. Well, sort of.

After March 2012 affiliates were still able to purchase the same customers they’d been buying prior to March 2012, they just had to do so from the lead generation company Zeek Rewards had been using directly, Peak USA LLC.

Operating through ‘zcustomers.com’ Peak USA LLC continue to sell Zeekler auction customers to Zeek Rewards affiliates in the same manner they did before Zeek Rewards stopped selling the customers directly.

Yesterday, BehindMLM reader (and Zeek Rewards affiliate) ‘MB’ published his customer buying experience through ZCustomers:

As an experiment, I bought 200 customer leads from Z Customers at $2 each for $400. I theorized it would be a waste of money. I was correct.

Over a month later not one of these potential customers ever bought a single bid. Zero. In addition I have another 20 plus “retail customers” in the sponsorship report that have not purchased a single bid on Zeekler.

When I contacted ZCustomers and questioned the suspicious usernames, a representative explained that Zeekler creates the usernames and sends the customer an email with information on how to sign in and use the free bids they have requested.

That last paragraph in particular caught my eye and is confirmed in the ZCustomers FAQ:

How do these Customers find out about Zeekler and use their bids?

They will receive an email message directly from Zeekler.com (with you as their sponsor) with information about how to use their free bids.

On their website, ZCustomers claim that they are ‘not affiliated with ZeekRewards or Zeekler‘:

If true, then how are Peak USA LLC through ZCustomers getting Zeek Rewards to create affiliate accounts for them and send out emails to leads they’ve supposedly generated?

If I called up Zeekler as a third-party company who had no affiliation with Zeekler, Zeek Rewards or Rex Ventures do you think they’d generate some customers for me too? (provided I gave them some email addresses of course).

Don’t think so.

Furthermore, when you consider that ZCustomers also advertise that they ‘are the same company that provided customer prospects (affiliates) received in (the) ZR 5cc company co-op’, the lack of some sort of arrangement and/or relationship between the two companies is even more unlikely.

Prompted by MB’s account of his or her experience, I decided to do some further poking around and well, turns out there is in fact a link between ZCustomers (Peak USA LLC) and Zeek Rewards. [Continue reading…]