One of the sticking points in discussions of the legality of the Zeek Rewards opportunity has always been whether or not the company actually generated actual users to give bid points away to, or if they just create dummy accounts.

The former would lend large amounts of credibility to the company and quash the commonly held suspicion that Zeek Rewards is merely an investment scheme. With actual customers being generated by the company to give the bids it receives from its members away to, it’d be hard to argue that the money being invested by Zeek Rewards members was what the daily profit share was based on.

As it stands though Zeek Rewards pay out a ROI without any certification that a member’s bids have actually been given away to real customers. Furthermore oftentimes member’s bids are put into a queue (as Zeek Rewards claim to not have enough customers to give the bids away to) but ROIs are still paid out regardless.

Zeek Rewards do not disclose what the current point balance is they’ve accumulated or whether or not they are giving points away faster than they are receiving them.

Because of this noted disconnect between VIP bids and points being given away by the company, rather than profits being generated by the spending of bid points, the profit share is a mere re-distribution of real money invested by Zeek Rewards members on a day-to-day basis.

As of late the daily profit share has started to decrease and with this decrease has come a series of delays in payouts. One user sent an email asking about the delays and here’s the reply received from Zeek Rewards support: [Continue reading…]

Wealth Engine provide no information on the company website about who is running the opportunity or who owns it.

The domain ‘wealth-engine.com’ was registered on the 27th November 2011 and the registration information is set to private.

With a bit of poking around however, it is revealed that there are several banners for something called ‘Social Cycler’ present in the images area of the Wealth Engine website:

Social Cycler was a recruitment scam launched in 2010 and appears to have been owned by a one Mr. Jack Louis.

With no less than seven Social Cycler banners appearing in the backend of the Wealth Engine website, this is a strong indication that Jack Louis is behind the Wealth Engine opportunity. [Continue reading…]

Investment schemes in MLM seem to be all the rage and today we’re going to look at yet another one that has launched in the last week.

Calling itself Crazy4ads, this company doesn’t even bother to tell you what the ROI is… read on for a full review. [Continue reading…]

Last Monday saw the continuation of the Solomon James writ 383 case that is currently playing out in the Supreme Court of India.

Last we checked in the Union of India had been given two weeks to file a response to the Lahoti Mediation Report.

Unfortunately the contents of this reply were not made public with the judge’s attention instead turned towards ensuring that Speak Asia can indeed meet the financial commitments it has towards its members.

Financial commitments the company has filed an affidavit stating it can meet, but when you look at the staggering amount owed – begs the question as to just where exactly is Speak Asia going to get the funds from? [Continue reading…]

With a company name like Xxxteme Exposure, I was a bit hesitant to browse over to their website when the company popped up on my radar.

Had somebody finally decided to start selling pornography using a MLM compensation structure? I know companies are out there pushing toys… but actual pornography?

Well no, at least not for now. Turns out Xxxtreme Exposure is just another recently launched investment scheme. Read on for a full review. [Continue reading…]

There’s been a lot of investment scheme MLMs popping up lately and most of them either bundle some product or service with your investments, or make you complete some rudimentary task believing that this separates them from a Ponzi scheme.

Unfortunately it doesn’t because at its core, if you’re paying out existing members a return on their investments with new money injected into the system, regardless of what products are bundled with the investments or what meaningless tasks you have your members doing, you’ve still got yourself a scam.

Read on for a full review of the Get Paid Magic MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]

“The Common Man” is a character created by R.K. Laxman that features in the cartoon series ‘You Said It’. Laxman was born in 1921 and considered to be India’s greatest ever cartoonist.

For over a half of a century, the Common Man has represented the hopes, aspirations, troubles and perhaps even foibles of the average Indian, through a daily cartoon strip.

‘R K Laxman Ki Dunya’ is a sitcom created by Hats Off Productions based on Laxman’s The Common Man cartoon series.

On the 25th, 26th and 27th of January 2012, three episodes of R K Laxman Ki Dunya were based around a fictional company ‘Silent Asia’.

In keeping with the general humourous theme of the show, the Silent Asia episodes parodied the current events surrounding the Speak Asia scam. [Continue reading…]

Way back in October of last year, Speak Asia COO Tarak Bajpai and his buddy Rajiv Mehotra (business partner of Speak Asia CEO Manoj Kumar, on the management team of Seven Rings International, listed as a director of Tulsient Technologies (Kumar’s private business) and “assistant for daily portal operations and incharge of regular pop-ups” guy who was running the Speak Asia website), had applied for anticipatory bail in connection with a First Information Report (30 of 2011, dated 21-06-2011 and lodged in Hyderabad).

Upon hearing the applications in court and the public prosecutors case against the two men, a judge denied the request.

Hoping to try their luck again, even though nothing had changed in the case against Speak Asia and their involvement in the company, on the 30th of December 2011 Bajpai and Mehrotra filed for anticipatory bail in connection with the same FIR.

Specifically, [Continue reading…]

Over the past few weeks there’s been a lot of speculation as to what Zeek Rewards plans for compliance are.

Along with announcing that they were going to force all members to undergo a compliance course (at cost to their members), Zeek also made a big deal about the partnerships they’d gotten into with a bunch of lawyers – presumably in an attempt to assure their members that they were serious about the business addressing its compliance issues.

The latest news is that Zeek Rewards have banned any and all promotional material not authored by the company themselves, with the company threatening to terminate the accounts of any members who break this rule.

That and under the name ‘Zeek Squad’, the company is actively enrolling its own members to police the internet and report Zeek Rewards members they find breaking Zeek’s new compliance rules.

One thing you’ll notice is that, despite Zeek Rewards’ business model essentially operating as an investment scheme, rather than address why this is by going over their own business model, Zeek instead have cracked down on its members.

Members who, upon joining the company and working within the business model Zeek use, are simply advertising the Zeek Rewards business opportunity for what it is.

I’m no lawyer with a fancy degree, nor am I member of Zeek Rewards (you don’t have to be to understand any analyze the business model), but it strikes me that with a few simple changes, Zeek Rewards could not only ensure complete and total compliance from its members – but simultaneously put to rest the main problems critics have with the business model. [Continue reading…]

Much has been made of the links between the two scams Mister Colibri and Speak Asia.

Mister Colibri is a recruitment scam currently operating in Brazil that was founded by Seven Rings International, funded by founders Manoj Kumar and Elia de Prisco (named as primary investors and co-founders by Mister Colibri members).

Manoj Kumar today serves as the CEO of Speak Asia, currently being investigated in India for running the “largest MLM fraud in Indian history”, as per the Economic Offenses Wing, who are just one of the many government agencies investigating the company.

Meanwhile Elia de Prisco is pretty much the public face of Mister Colibri in Brazil and appears to be running things over there.

Both men serve on the management team over at Seven Rings International, but despite these strong links, Manoj Kumar insists on denying that he has any involvement in Mister Colibri, through parent company Seven Rings International or otherwise. [Continue reading…]