NewAge filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on August 30th.

The filing affects subsidiary MLM companies Noni by NewAge and Ariix. [Continue reading…]

QNet has received a pyramid scheme fraud warning from Bhutan.

As per the Office of Consumer Protection’s August 26th warning; [Continue reading…]

Two civilians have managed to get Lyoness’ bank accounts in South Africa frozen.

As reported by MoneyWeb on September 1st; [Continue reading…]

Zenith formulator Vietal Nutrition has provided Awakend with a prepared statement explaining the origins of the supplement.

The move follows Awakend failing to be transparent about the origins of Zenith supplement, leading to ongoing uncertainty. [Continue reading…]

The Mag Markets Ponzi scheme has collapsed.

On August 28th Mag Markets Support informed investors it was wiping their accounts. A reboot was also revealed. [Continue reading…]

MetaForce, Vladimir “Lado” Okhotnikov’s latest Forsage reboot, has collapsed.

Investor funds are “frozen” and Okhotnikov is stalling for time. [Continue reading…]

The SEC has secured Certificate of Default against John and Jonatina Barksdale.

Following personal service on John Barksdale on June 20th and service via email on Jonatina on June 30th, response deadlines kicked in for July 11th and July 21st respectively. [Continue reading…]

Joshua David Nicholas has settled with the civil EmpiresX class-action.

Nicholas’ settlement follows “money of arms-length mediation” between the parties. [Continue reading…]

Dubai’s crime community has welcomed a new fugitive into the fold; John Barksdale.

Barksdale recently celebrated his birthday at a local karaoke bar.

Vitaliy Dubinin was in attendance, and shared footage of the event on FaceBook. [Continue reading…]

Mayo Trade provides no credible information about who owns or runs the company.

Supposedly Mayo Trade is headed up by founder and CEO “Jess Hamilton”.

Naturally Hamilton doesn’t exist outside of Mayo Trade. There has been an attempt to create an artificial digital footprint for Hamilton, including a website set up at “jeffhamilton.me”.

That domain was privately registered on May 19th, 2022.

In their official presentation, Mayo Trade trots out a supporting cast of executives.

Like Hamilton, none of these people exist outside of Mayo Trade either.

“Caryn Shroeder” and “Eric Layhee” appear in a Mayo Trade marketing video uploaded to Instagram:

The video, which misspells Shroeder’s presented surname,  reveals the actors speak Spanish.

I’m not an expert on geolocating Spanish speakers but I’m getting strong Central or South American vibes.

Other rented office videos are available on Mayo Trade’s official FaceBook page. Here’s “Jeff Hamilton” very obviously reading off a script.

BehindMLM refers to actor executives as “Boris CEOs”. Boris CEO companies are typically the work of eastern European scammers.

SimilarWeb currently ranks top sources of traffic to Mayo Trade’s website as the UAE (84%) and Vietnam (12%).

While Dubai is the MLM crime capital of the world, it’s rare for MLM companies to be promoted locally to Dubai residents.

One explanation is Mayo Trade itself being run from Dubai, as evidenced by their official FaceBook page:

BehindMLM’s guidelines for Dubai are:

1. If someone lives in Dubai and approaches you about an MLM opportunity, they’re trying to scam you.
2. If an MLM company is based out of or represents it has ties to Dubai, it’s a scam.

In a somewhat laughable attempt to appear legitimate, Mayo Trade provides incorporation certificates for shell companies in no less than six jurisdictions.

For the purpose of MLM due-diligence, shell company incorporation anywhere is meaningless. This is due to the easy with which scammers can set up shell companies with bogus information.

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…]