One of the long-standing criticisms of Speak Asia since the Indian regulators clamped down on the pyramid scheme back in May has been the lack of an ‘exit option’ for panelists.

Once signed up the company, members thus far have been unable to leave the company, much the less request a refund seeing as how Speak Asia have stopped sending out surveys or paying recruitment bonuses meaning people are unable to generate any income.

Last week Speak Asia Global CEO Harendar Kaur put out a press release assuring panelists that they ‘should expect some respite by the 10th September 2011’. Announced on the 10th September deadline itself, the Speak Asia exit policy seeks to remedy this ongoing thorn in the company’s side.

Unfortunately for Speak Asia’s members, the policy, which allows members to effectively sever all ties with the company (well, those who fall within a specific set criteria we’ll discuss later), at this stage is paper-thin and nothing more than superficial posturing.

With no authorisation to actually carry out the promised ‘exit option’, panelists can sign up for it… but in the interim they’re no better off for doing so.

Strangely enough, there’s also seemingly a large number of Speak Asia members who are heralding the exit option as proof undeniable that Speak Asia has ‘put to rest all doubts about its genuineness’. [Continue reading…]

Although not strictly a MLM company, a BehindMLM reader approached me to look into the MoneySwim business opportunity.

Offering commissions based on the enrolment of others to the company, I decided MoneySwim loosely fell within the scope of the businesses I review on BehindMLM and agreed to review the business opportunity for them.

Here’s what I found. [Continue reading…]

The benefits of video in marketing and communication over the internet are unquestionably valuable. Perhaps not appropriate in every situation, most people will still find that watching or engaging something or someone with video offers a far more satisfying end user experience.

With this comes a host of business opportunities and in an ever expanding and geographically increasing marketplace, the demand and integration of video into our lives has never been greater.

Coupled with some stiff retail competition, an increasing penetration into the world of video conferencing and emails from free social networks and a matrix compensation plan, iWowWe combine a MLM business model with a premium video offering.

Read on for a detailed analysis and review of the iWowWe business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

Within days of Brett Robinson and Scott Chandler cut and running from AutoXTen, the duo announced they would soon be launching a new MLM startup.

Fast forward a few weeks later and yesterday saw the launch of their latest venture, Fast Profits Daily.With the memory of AutoXTen still fresh in mind and the knowledge that Fast Profits Daily was going to be yet another matrix driven MLM, the big question was ‘how was Fast Profits Daily going to be any different to AutoXTen’?

Robinson and Chandler have remained silent on why they left AutoXTen, but with the announcement of Fast Profits Daily, it appears they didn’t seem to wholly agree with AutoXTen’s business model.

With no retail sales and a recruitment based compensation plan, there’s no doubt AutoXTen is just a membership game… have Chandler and Scott learnt their lesson and brought something new to the table, or are we merely looking at yet another recruitment based matrix opportunity?

Let’s find out. [Continue reading…]

Shortly after Speak Asia global CEO Harendar Kaur siphoned off over one hundred million US dollars of panelist’s money to Singapore, she and fellow Indian CEO Manoj Kumar went into hiding.

Rumoured to be hiding out in Dubai, the last we heard from either of them was when Kumar put out a video following the arrest of Chief Operating Officer, Tark Bajpai.

The video was released in late July and in it Kumar promised Speak Asia’s panelists that he would be ‘back in Mumbai soon‘.

That never happened.

Instead, as investigations and legal developments against Speak Asia continued in India, Kaur and Kumar remained in hiding overseas. With both CEOs unwilling to face the Indian authorities and regulators, instead they opted to pull the strings from the safety of international borders.

International borders which finally, if the news reports are to believed, might finally come crumbling down around them.

Could this be the end of the silly cat and mouse nonsense Speak Asia’s management have been playing with the Indian authorities for some months now? [Continue reading…]

1.8 million displaced members is nothing to sneeze at and with Speak Asia’s recent legal troubles with the Indian regulators, it’s no secret that there’s a lot of people in India looking for a new business opportunity.

Coming from Speak Asia, they’re familiar with a recruitment based compensation plan, filling out pointless surveys and an urgent need to get money rolling in again.

Enter companies like ‘Voice of the People’. [Continue reading…]

After launching in May 2010, in just under a year Speak Asia Online had amassed a membership base of 1.8 million (or 2.2 million, depending on who you talk to) members.

Make no mistake, this in itself is a majorly impressive feat that a lot of MLM companies can only dream about. Let that sink in for just a second, 1.8 million members in twelve months is some astronomical growth any way you look at it.

So what spurred Speak Asia on to grow so rapidly in such a short amount of time?

Was it their product line?

Was it their sales model?

Was it their company leadership…?

The answer is of course ‘no’.

Speak Asia is a company that uses a compensation plan that directly rewards members for recruiting new members financially. This and this alone is what contributed to their massive success in expanding their memberbase most likely beyond their wildest dreams.

Unfortunately for Speak Asia, it’s also why it means little if they win their ongoing court battles.

One way or another, Speak Asia is simply not going to survive. [Continue reading…]

Lesotho is

a landlocked country and enclave, surrounded by the Republic of South Africa.

It is just over 30,000 km2 (11,583 sq mi) in size with a population of approximately 2,067,000.

Or to put it another way, Lesotho is probably too small to rate on most people’s radars (myself included). Admittedly I’d never even heard of the country today, when the Central Bank of Lesotho outlawed TVI Express labelling it a ‘pyramid scheme‘. [Continue reading…]

Ever since I first looked at Javita back in May, I’ve been actively following the company with a particular interest in how Javita choose to market themselves.

With a product as readily retailable as instant coffee sachets, I believed there was no excuse for Javita to go down the recruitment path. If the Javita product was strong enough, business success would naturally take care of itself and in the long term foster organic growth on the basis of demand.

Looking back at how Javita have chosen to market themselves however, and the incentives and training they have offered their members through their marketing arm, Javanomics – I think it’s pretty clear now that a focus on their coffee product and retail sales has well and truly taken a backdoor to focusing on recruitment incentives. [Continue reading…]

I’m not entirely sure who’s behind the All India SpeakAsia Panelist Association (AISPA) save to say that the website domain aispa.co.in is owned by some guy called Atul Kulkarni of Karnanisoft Technologies.

Nonetheless, AISPA spokesperson Ashok Bahirwani has been publicly covering recent legal developments between Speak Asia and the various regulators investigating the company.

Till today, much of a big deal has been made about a PIL filed by Speak Asia in the Andhra Pradesh High Court.

This PIL requested that

all matters related to the Speak Asia case be transferred under one single investigating agency for investigation.

The investigation, be ordered to be completed in a set time frame, and pending such investigation, no further arrests of anybody connected to Speak Asia be allowed.

Today this PIL was heard by the Andhra Pradesh High Court and subsequently was rejected. Now, not surprisingly, Bahirwani and the rest of AISPA are furious. [Continue reading…]