Today on April 10th, 2023, BehindMLM turned thirteen.

For too many years I’ve been wanting to put out an annual post discussing where the MLM industry is at.

I last did this in 2015 but since then one thing or another has come up around this time of year. Typically, if there’s no news to cover I look at my review list and have decided to focus on that instead.

This year there’s about three companies on my shorter review list. I tend to get through these before tackling larger reviews.

I can’t remember every year but, due to the explosion of MLM crypto fraud, typically my shorter review list has had anywhere between fifteen to thirty companies to review.

No matter how quickly I got through reviews though, there was always more companies being added.

The reason things are different this year is simple: following the Terra/Luna collapse in May 2022, crypto is general has nosedived. [Continue reading…]

ProTradex fails to provide ownership or executive information on its website.

In fact as I write this, attempts to bring up ProTradex’s website returns a blank page.

ProTradex’s MLM opportunity runs off the subdomain “dapp.protradex.finance”, which unlike the main website is operational.

ProTradex’s website domain was privately registered on February 7th, 2023.

As of March 2023, SimilarWeb tracked top sources of traffic to ProTradex’s website as Taiwan (46%), China (24%) and the US (18%).

This tracks with the majority of ProTradex marketing I came across being directed as Chinese speakers.

It is highly likely whoever is running ProTradex has ties to either Taiwan or China.

As always, if an 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…]

Validus has received a second securities fraud warning from New Zealand.

The warning follows the Financial Markets Authority ordering Validus to cease operations nationwide back in February. [Continue reading…]

Snap Delivered has added and ERC scheme and Vidgo streaming to its MLM opportunity.

Both are a departure from the food delivery service Snap Delivered started with. [Continue reading…]

Eight former distributors have sued Financial Education Services for wrongful termination and unpaid commissions.

Plaintiffs Michelle Cofer, Keedic Cofer, Cortez Jenkins, Tameisha Jenkins, Geraldine Andre, Djivenino Andre, Marlon Hester Sr. and Monika Griffin filed a proposed class-action in Michigan on November 14th, 2022. [Continue reading…]

Lance Green operates in the cryptocurrency MLM niche.

The company’s origins date back to Lance Certo Group, launched in Brazil on or around February 2020.

In addition to owning and running “O Lance”, a pub in Sao Paulo, Lance Certo Group also runs Lance Certo as a stand-alone income opportunity.

Lance Certo pitches a passive return via AI powered sports betting.

Get the inputs that our artificial intelligence performs at every moment.

Our AI analyzes match data from decades ago, considers odds during every moment of the game and decides the best entry.
Attached to this was a monthly subscription, on which pyramid recruitment commissions were paid.

Lance Certo went nowhere and collapsed. It website was literally dead traffic-wise until February 2023.

Lance Certo Group launched the cryptocurrency LanceCoin (LCE) in April 2021.

It’s time to create a truly reliable and stable cryptocurrency that will become a solid bridge between the traditional and digital sports and leisure industries. That’s why we created LCE.

It took a few months but eventually LCE pumped and dumped in late 2021.

LCE has been mostly dead since then, sitting at -82% from its brief $19.16 pump in 2021.

For all intents and purposes, Lance Certo Group was dead until Lance Green’s launch in early 2023.

For reference, here are the known Lance Certo Group associated website domains:

• Lance Certo Group – lancecertogroup.com, privately registered in February 2021
• Lance Certo – lancecerto.com, first registered in 2019, private registration last updated September 2021
• Lance Coin – lcecoin.com, privately registered in February 2021
• Lance Certo Bet – lancecerto.bet, privately registered in September 2021
• Lance Green – lancegreen.space, registered to “Yijung Cho” through a Korean address on December 19th, 2022
• Lance Certo – lgreen.ai, privately registered on May 10th, 2023

Heading Lance Certo Group and its associated companies is CEO Anderson Salgado (aka Anderson Salgado Salgadinho).

As per Lance Green’s marketing material above, Salgado is cited as having “more than 7 years experience as a sports trader”.

I was unable to verify that. What I could verify was back in late 2018, Salgado headed up SpeedCash as CEO.

SpeedCash was an MLM crypto Ponzi scheme that pitched a 300% ROI, paid out at up to 3.5% a day.

SpeedCash’s Ponzi ruse was cryptocurrency, oil and grain trading.

Presented as a company from Dubai targeting Brazil…

…SpeedCash collapsed sometime in 2019.

Putting all of this together, we have:

• Anderson Salgado scamming a bunch of people through his SpeedCash Ponzi scheme in 2019;
• Salgado launched Lance Certo Group as a reboot Ponzi in early 2020;
• Salgado using some of the money he stole through SpeedCash to launch O Lance bar in or around November 2020;
• Lance Green’s marketing suggesting Salgado also fed SpeedCash funds into Lance Certo branded gas stations in Brazil; and
• Lance Certo Group’s original Ponzi running its course and being rebooted again as Lance Green in early 2023

Read on for a full review of Lance Green’s MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]

Back in May 2019 a federal jury awarded $925 million in statutory damages against Visalus.

The award pertained to alleged violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TPCA). Visalus was accused of illegally making almost 2 million robocalls to consumers.

The $925 million amount was calculated based on Visalus making 1,850,440 calls, and the minimum awardable damages per call under TCPA being $500.

Visalus has been fighting the company-ending award since it was granted – mostly unsuccessfully.

In October 2022 however, Visalus was thrown a life raft from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. [Continue reading…]

Youngevity’s renewed legal action against Dave and Barb Pitcock has come to an end.

As per a March 22nd order, the Pitcocks and defendants Innov8tive Nutrition, LaCore Enterprises, LaCore Nutraceuticals and LaCore Labs prevailed on a motion to dismiss. [Continue reading…]

After covering Poland’s July 2022 pyramid scheme warning a few days ago, my interest was piqued when inCruises’ response popped up in my news feed.

Upon clicking through, I was surprised to see inCruises response was dated March 22nd.

A cursory poke around left me unable to definitively establish that inCruises backdated their press-release, presumably to intentionally appear to have been published prior to BehindMLM’s coverage.

What it comes down to is whether Globe News Wire allows companies to backdate published press-releases.

BehindMLM’s coverage of UOKiK’s warning went live on April 3rd. ~24 hours later a March 2023 response from inCruises pops up in my news feed?

Just so we’re clear, this isn’t a feed that regurgitates old news. It’s one of many daily alerts I’ve set up to help me keep track of the MLM industry.

You can put whatever published date you want on an article, if Google’s bot discovers it over the past 24 hours and it fits my set criteria, it’ll show up in the feed.

In any event absent SEO issues, it’d be incredibly odd for Google’s bot to take fourteen days to discover a published press-release.

Even if you take the March 2023 publication date at face value, seems kinda odd inCruises would out-of-the-blue respond to a pyramid scheme warning issued eight months prior.

But I digress; Whether there’s any publication date shenanigans going on or not, that’s not why inCruises is finessing Poland’s warning.

inCruises’ press-release itself is choc-full of mental gymnastics – none of which addresses the company likely operating as a pyramid scheme. [Continue reading…]

OXO Global (not to be confused with OXO Worldwide), fails to provide ownership or executive information on its website.

Further research reveals Enes Olgun citing himself as founder of OXO Global.

As per his LinkedIn profile…

…Olgun was in Jeunesse up until September 2022.

BehindMLM reviewed Jeunesse in 2015, identifying it as an autoship recruitment scheme. In MLM autoship recruitment lends itself to a pyramid scheme business model.

As far as I know Jeunesse didn’t make any significant changes to their compensation plan, with the pyramid scheme finally drying up towards late 2022.

In January 2023, it was revealed Jeunesse had been sold to LaCore Enterprises. A BehindMLM revisit of Jeunesse remains pending (I’m giving LaCore Enterprises a few months to move past the transition phase).

Olgun (right) separately popped up on BehindMLM radar in 2018. At the time Holton Buggs was beginning his journey down the MLM crypto fraud rabbithole.

At the time Buggs was pitching was pitching Ormeus Global’s IQ Chain spinoff in Turkey.

To his credit, Olgun gatecrashed the event and began asking Buggs some very pointed questions about IQ Chain.

Buggs initially tried to defend the Ponzi scheme but eventually demanded Olgun leave. That prompted this final exchange (Olgun to Buggs);

[20:45] You are saying, “I am the consultant of the company”.

But you are now in Turkey, you are working like you are the leader of the company.

This is not a consultant(‘s role).

So if you want people to respect you, you need to be honest.

If you are the leader of the company, you can be very open (about it).

The Organo Gold. If you are the owner of Organo Gold, you can say very open, “Hey guys, I started this company. I am working with this company… and I am going everywhere and taking the people.”

But you shouldn’t be like, “I am the consultant but secretly I am making the meetings”.

That’s why I don’t respect you, and now I am leaving.

Sorry Holton Buggs but you are doing a HUGE MISTAKE.

You will destroy all the industry and your name with this crypto shit scam.

Ormeus Global founder John Barksdale was indicted in 2021. Holton Buggs remains at large.

Both Olgun and OXO Global are based out of Turkey. A corporate address in Istanbul is provided on OXO Global’s website.

Read on for a full review of OXO Global’s MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]