From what I gather many people have been trying to get in touch with former Justice Lahoti due to the fact that details about the process have been kept secret by all involved.

When you’re dealing with 1.2 million members, the largest ponzi scheme to ever hit india and hundreds of millions of dollars, tensions often run high and there’s a lot at stake.

After allegedly voicing his disapproval at being contacted by Speak Asia panelists, the company’s senior panelists and AISPA demanded Speak Asia’s members cease all attempts at contacting Lahoti.

Subsequently since the November 28th four-hour long sitting of the committee, little has been revealed about what actually went down.

Due to his standing as the person who filed the first First Incident Report (FIR) which subsequently prompted a whole host of government agencies to launch investigations into Speak Asia, Navniit Kkhosla was able to recently speak to Lahoti on the phone and clarify a few things.

Kkhosla was also gracious enough to share what he and Lahoti discussed with us. The following is Kkhosla’s own transcript of what he and Lahoti discussed over the phone (in green), along with my own commentary and analysis. [Continue reading…]

MLM flavor of the month definitely appears to be the internatl advertising network + matrix based compensation plan. There’s been a flurry of these shallow opportunities released over the past 6 months or so and today we’re going to take a look at yet another one.

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

Unfortunately, most matrix based MLM opportunities I look at are nothing more than shallow ‘get people to join the company and we’ll pay you a commission but we promise you this is not a scam!’ type affairs.

Rare is it that I see a matrix opportunity that actually relies on retail sales and rarer still one that does away with membership fees altogether.

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

I’ve always been suspicious about the Speak Asia Marketing “official’ Blogspot blog. I mean, here is a company engaging supposedly ‘the best lawyers in India‘ to defend them, and with over a hundred million netted from Indians over the scam, they need to rely on a free blogspot blog (that anyone can set up) to put out updates?

To date, the only suggestion that it’s not an outright fraud was when AISPA Secretary Ashok Bahirwani stated that it was official a few months ago.

Not having any reason to believe the website was a fraud, we took Bahirwani at his word.

Yesterday, after almost a month of silence a press release was once again put out over at the Speak Asia Marketing blog (speakasiaonlinemarketing.blogspot.com).

A quick analysis of the latest press release severely draws into question the authenticity of an update – and further analysis all but squashes the possibility that Speak Asia themselves are putting out these press releases.

At least not in any official capacity. [Continue reading…]

Speak Asia’s Indian CEO, Manoj Kumar was last seen in a video published to Youtube by an anonymous account on October 11th, 2011. In the video Kumar made a bunch of promises but to date none of them have been followed through.

Despite Speak Asia facing battles across multiple legal fronts to prove it isn’t a ponzi scheme and fighting for its very existence in India, Manoj Kumar (photo right)has remained in hiding overseas.

Having fled India shortly after the RBI announced they would be investigating the company, despite a re-assurance he would be back in India by the end of May, Kumar instead chose to hide.

A few days ago a BehindMLM reader contacted me asking me to review a company for them. The company in question was called ‘Mister Colibri’, which is Portuguese for ‘Mister Hummingbird’. [Continue reading…]

For as long as I can remember, I’ve maintained that in the face of any criminal investigation or pending subsequent legal action against Speak Asia, any civil action in an attempt to recover money owed to panelists is a waste of time.

Common sense dictates that if someone owes you money and they’re under criminal investigation and/or facing criminal legal action – any attempts you make to recover your money will take a back seat and not go anywhere until the criminal matter is resolved.

Such is the case with Speak Asia.

Courts aside, in order to pay panelists the money has to go through banking channels. The problem here is that currently it is common belief that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cautionary circulated to banks in India is to blame for this.

The general implication put forth is that if the RBI retract this cautionary, that the banks will play ball with Speak Asia and payments will start rolling out.

This of course makes no sense whatsoever because in the cautionary, the RBI never actually ordered any of the banks in India to not do business with Speak Asia. This was asserted by the RBI in a previous ‘right to information’ (RTI) document sent to Speak Asia panelist Swapnil Kumar back in October.

Ergo, the banks are acting entirely of their own volition. [Continue reading…]

Year after year, if you plan on earning a living in this world, most people have to worry about paying tax on their income.

But for many of us, that’s only really the tip of the iceberg as far as tax goes, and things get more complicated still if we run a business.

For many, even those with seemingly simple accounting requirements, this means a trip down to the local accountant, some patience and then a phonecall letting you know everything has been taken care of.

At a cost of course.

Seeking to capitalise on the accounting industry, Prepay CPA seek to provide their members with a prepaid alternative to the traditional model of the accounting industry.

Oh, and did I mention they’ve decided to combine it with a MLM compensation plan too? Read on for a full review of the PrePayCPA business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

At 4pm on Monday the 28th November retired Chief Justice Ramesh Lahoti, acting as mediator, and advocates from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Speak Asia and Mr. Rajiv, representing panelists sat down for the first closed-door meeting of the Lahoti Committee.

The meeting lasted roughly four hours and had one simple purpose, to facilitate an amicable resolution to the deadlock between Speak Asia and its members over the refund of membership fees paid to the company.

Nearly two days after the Committee meeting however, Speak Asia has deliberately kept its  members in the dark as to what exactly happened on the evening  of the 28th. To date, none of the advocates present have announced exactly what was discussed and what the future of the Lahoti Committee will be.

Given that the Lahoti Committee was set up with the sole purpose of helping Speak Asia’s members, this lack of communication seems entirely strange. So today we ask, “why?” [Continue reading…]

Roughly a year and a half ago in May 2010, the Australian Competitive and Consumer Commission (ACCC) was succesful in obtaining a court order prohibiting

 Laulhati “Teddi” Jutsen, Tina Brownlee and David Scanlon from promoting the scheme, accepting payments from new “members” or paying other participants.

Identified as major players in TVI Express’ Australian operations, the effective order that Brownlee, Jutsen and Scanlon (left to right respectively in the photo right) cease of promotion of TVI has meant that over the past eighteen months, TVI Express has been promoted in Australia by others whilst a court battle raged over the legitimacy of the company itself.

Yesterday that court battle came to a climax and resulted in Justice John Nicholas making his final ruling:  TVI Express is pyramid scheme. [Continue reading…]

Usually when a company has a low entry point they like to promise big returns. These days with the popularity of recruitment based matrix compensation plans it’s not all that uncommon to see multiple opportunities being launched on this promise.

These plans almost universally have a joining fee of under $20 and usually promise massive commissions of $10,000 plus – of course only after you’ve been through several matrices and have had thousand(s) of new members join under you.

Today we’re going to look at an opportunity that bucks this trend. Put in $5, get out $5… sounds simple enough right?

Read on for a full review of the Many5 MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]