One Penny More is a penny auction MLM business opportunity that was launched in July 2012 and operates out of the US state of Nevada.

One Penny More is separated into two divisions, a penny auction site (onepennymore.com, registered in May 2012) and attached MLM business opportunity (onepennymore.biz, registered in July 2012). Both domains have their domain registration information set to private.

Whilst the One Penny More penny auction website merely credits who’s behind One Penny More as ‘the Staff of OnePennyMore.com‘, the MLM business opportunity website credits ‘Joseph Zyskowski’ (also known as ‘Joe Zyskowski’, photo right) as being the founder of One Penny More, claiming that Zyskowski has been involved in the ‘network marketing industry since 1989‘.

On his Facebook page, Zyskowski writes:

I graduated from WMU in 1989 with a Bachelors of Science degree in Education, certified to teach K-8.

Unable to find a teaching position immediately out of college I was recruited into one fo the greatest network marketing organizations of all time … A.L. Williams.

After A.L. Williams I taught third grade for 2 years, then started a comic book publishing company with my brother, Steve, after which I became a real estate agent in Las Vegas.

When the real estate market changed I had to change with it and remembered back to my first experience with network marketing. I believed in the network marketing model but wanted a younger company that offered more opportunity due to timing.

After three years of getting my teeth kicked in working for network marketing companies that changed their compensation plans, changed their products, or went out of business owing me commission I had it, and decided to start my own network marketing company.

Zyskowski goes on to reveal that network marketing company was “5 Dollar Money Bomb“, a recruitment driven scheme which paid out 100% of its commissions from membership fees. 5 Dollar Money Bomb “bombed” shortly after launch and is no longer operating.

Curiously, the domain ‘5dollarmoneybomb.com’ is currently redirected at something called ‘Get Paid to Learn 101’, which appears to be some sort of $15 a year training scheme that also pays out commissions solely from membership fees.

Despite making no mention on his Facebook profile of launching any companies prior to 5 Dollar Money Bomb, in 2011 Zyskowski launched two schemes, Silver1up and Silver2up.

Both schemes revolved around members signing up and paying monthly membership fees with no products or services sold other than company membership.

Both schemes required members as part of their qualification to gift 100% of their membership fee commission (one sale with Silver1up and two with Silver2up) to their upline before they could earn money (by signing new members up).

Also launched in 2011 by Zyskowski was a “gold/silver penny auction site” called “One Penny Gold”.

Today, all three businesses are no longer operational.

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

Early yesterday morning a Zeek Rewards affiliate reported their downline had been contacted by the North Carolina State Employee’s Credit Union (NCSECU):

I had one of my downline call me yesterday and tell me that the (NC) State Credit Union called his wife and told her (since she got her money order there) that they were giving her a call because it had come to their attention that Rex Venture Group, LLC was fraudulent.

His wife went on to tell the bank employee why Zeekrewards is not fraudulent! Yearly 1099, Compliance Testing, can not be a pyramid in the way it works. And the bank employee said she had no idea how Zeekrewards truly worked.

Then tonight another downline called me worried because (NC) State Credit Union had apparently gotten a letter stating Rex Venture Group, LLC is fraudulent and they wanted to pass that on to their customers.

The report came hot on the heels of ex-Zeek Rewards paid consultant Keith Laggos, warning the FTC has ‘put out letters to the top big four banks asking them not to open up accounts for penny auctions‘,

The reported message was published on Zeek Rewards’ Facebook page on Thursday but has since been deleted by the company.

NCSECU operate out of North Carolina (where Zeek Rewards is based) and state they are a ‘not-for-profit financial cooperative owned by its members, founded June 4, 1937 with 17 members and $437 in assets’.

As of March 2012, SECU serves 1.7 million members with just under $25 billion in assets through 242 branches, 1,100+ ATMs, six Contact Centers.

Naturally when an official banking institution starts calling up and warning their customers that a company is fraudulent, twice no less, people take notice and want to investigate for themselves. [Continue reading…]

One of the most enduring pyramid schemes over the last decade or so has been that of TVI Express. Originating in India, TVI Express has slowly spread like a virus from continent to continent, sucking in new members to fund commissions paid out to existing members.

Using a reverse matrix compensation model, the commissions structure relies on a constant influx of new members being fed into a series of matrices so that a single member at the top can cycle out. Once this happens, the member at the top receives a commission and the process starts again.

One of the more prominent markets of late TVI Express have been targeting is that of Africa, with authorities in Namibia, Lesotho and South Africa leading the charge against the scheme.

Whilst the current status of investigations and action against TVI is unclear in Lesotho and Namibia, the South African Reserve Bank been making steady progress in their investigation, with some interesting developments recently coming to light. [Continue reading…]

As for the asinine comment on Dr. Laggos… Yes he is a paid consultant. However, with a little due diligence, it is easy to see his reputation as an expert in his field is second to none.

–Troy Dooly, MLM Helpdesk

Keith Laggos credits himself as a ‘marketing and management consultant‘ and claims to have worked with ‘dozens of direct sales companies as well as to  other sales and distribution companies outside of the (MLM) industry‘.

Laggos joined Zeek Rewards as a paid consultant around June 2011 and shortly after the company switched from guaranteeing a 125% ROI on every bid purchased, to paying out a variable ROI over 90 days.

Laggos largely credits himself for instigating such changes, claiming on a recent promotional call for MLM company Lyoness that he’s ‘been able to help them (Zeek Rewards) change the comp plan to keep within the pyramid scheme and Ponzi scheme laws‘.

With Zeek Rewards still refusing to divulge whether or not the daily ROI they pay out to affiliates contains mostly affiliate money (this is “proprietary information”), Laggos’ claims of being within pyramid scheme and Ponzi laws are naturally still questionable.

That said, Laggos appears to believe that as far as being a Ponzi or Pyramid scheme, that Zeek Rewards are in the clear and has since shifted his focus to the penny auction side of the business.

This shift in focus ultimately resulted in the abrupt and completely unexpected parting of ways between Laggos and Zeek Rewards last week.

So just what happened between Keith Laggos and Zeek? [Continue reading…]

Solavei (which is supposed to mean “sun in your veins” strangely enough), is a telecommunications MLM company, operating out of Bellevue in the US state of Washington.

Solavei was founded by Ryan Wuerch in late 2011, with Wuerch also serving as the company’s CEO.

Wuerch (photo right) was the Senior Vice President of ShapeRite (a nutritional supplement company) between 1995 to 1998. In 1998 Wuerch joined education software company ‘Learning 2000’, serving as President until 2001.

2001 saw Wuerch launch his own wireless company, Motricity. Weurch served as the CEO and Chairman of Motricity, with the company going public at $10 a share in 2010.

Just over a year later Weurch was terminated by Motricity in August 2011 after the Motricity share price plunged from $30.74 down to $2.28.  In the wake of the aftermath, eight law firms announced plans to and/or initiated shareholder lawsuits against the company.

Today Motricity shares are trading at 54 cents a share.

Taking some time off to rethink his next career move, Weurch decided to build on what he’d learnt at Motricity and after raising 4 million dollars in startup financing, announced plans to launch Solavei. To the best of my knowledge, this is Weurch’s first MLM venture.

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

Phase 4 Global launched in early July 2012 and is based out of the state of Alabama in the US.

The company lists its CEO and founder as a ‘Doc Lett’, however the company’s website domain (‘phase4global.com’) lists a ‘Ken Lett’ (also known as ‘Kenneth Lett’).

According to this highschool football article they appear to be one and the same person, with “Doc” being an old football nickname:

Ken “Doc” Lett quarterbacked Jacksonville State University out of football mediocrity when he led the 1970 team to a 10-0-0 record and a victory over Florida A&M before 35,000 fans in the Orange Blossom Classic in Miami, Florida.

He graduated from Glencoe High School in Glencoe, Alabama.

Ken Lett (also known as ‘Kenneth Lett’, ‘Ken E Lett’ and ‘Kenneth Eugene Lett’) has some experience running a MLM company, having launched ‘Freeway to Success’ back in 2009.

Freeway to Success has no retailable products, with members instead only able to sell company memberships. These memberships have a monthly fee, with Freeway to Success members earning a monthly commission on when paid. The more people they sign up to pay monthly membership, the larger their commissions earnt.

Two years after the launch of Freeway to Success, Lett has decided to launch a new MLM opportunity, ‘Phase 4 Global’. Read on for a full review. [Continue reading…]

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

The domain ‘bampaid.com’ was registered on the 9th May, 2012 however the domain registration information is set to private.

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…]

A few months ago I took a look at a business that allowed members to join, invest money and offered a fixed ROI that increased the longer they left their money in the system.

With no products being sold to customers and all revenues generated coming from member investments, this was a clear-cut case of Ponzi.

That business was Reality Profit, and whereas most Ponzi schemes seem to have a shelf life of roughly two years or so before they naturally collapse, Reality Profit seems to have run into troubles just two months out. At least if the launch of 11 Daily Doubler is anything to go by.

They’re baaaaaaaaaaack… [Continue reading…]

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

The domain ‘adgoggle.com’ was registered on the 17th October 2011, however the domain registration information is set to private.

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…]

If you were running a business and were looking at advertising options, how much would you consider paying someone to publish unsolicited and untargeted ads on ‘free to publish’ classified ads on the internet?

10 cents an ad? 5 cents… even less?

If TelexFree are to be taken seriously, they believe that advertisers are willing to pay you $2.85 per ad you publish.

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