Upistic provides no information on their website about who owns or runs the company.

Upistic’s website domain (“upistic.com”) was privately registered on August 3rd, 2021.

A corporate address in Estonia is provided on Upistic’s website. This address doesn’t appear to have anything to do with Uptistic.

Alexa currently ranks top sources of traffic to Upistic’s website as Australia (22%), the US (19%) and Canada (19%).

If you click through to the “webinars” section of Upistic’s website, the most recent October 19th webinar was held in Vietnamese.

The three earlier available webinars, held on October 7th, September 9th and 16th respectively, are all in Chinese.

Although promotion of Upistic is now predominant in western countries, this strongly suggests Upistic has roots in south-east Asia.

Less definitive then Chinese webinars but supportive of Upistic being run from a non-English speaking country, is this grammar mistake on the webinar page:

This is likely why there’s no English voice work on any of Upistic’s marketing videos.

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…]

Ghana’s youth are sick of QNet scammers targeting them for recruitment.

Pulse reports earlier this week a group of “angry youth”, armed with machetes, stick and clubs, attacked a local QNet office. [Continue reading…]

As part of its Ponzi scheme ruse, Profit Connect claimed to “proprietary Ai and Machine Learning Algorithms”.

None of that existed.

Profit Connect also represented to investors that it mined cryptocurrency. As part of those efforts, Profit Connect told investors it had “been mining for years and were very successful”.

Turns out Profit Connect only started mining on or around June 2021, about a week before the SEC shut it down. [Continue reading…]

As part of efforts to protect consumers, Montana requires MLM companies to register with the state.

On November 9th Montana state authorities announced they were offering unregistered MLM companies an amnesty period.

Companies that don’t register risk being prosecuted and fined. [Continue reading…]

Indian authorities have arrested three scammers behind the FomoEX Ponzi scheme.

What appears to be proactive regulation at first, might be tied to the collapse eOracle Ponzi scheme. [Continue reading…]

DigiCoin Markets provides no information about who owns or runs the company on its website.

DigiCoin Markets’ website domain (“digicoinmarkets.com”), was privately registered on August 18th, 2021.

In an attempt to appear legitimate, DigiCoin Markets provides a UK incorporation certificate for “DigiCoinMarkets LTD”.

An MLM company operating or claiming to operate out of the UK is a red flag.

UK incorporation is dirt cheap and effectively unregulated. On top of that the FCA, the UK’s top financial regulator, do not actively regulate MLM related securities fraud.

As a result the UK is a favored jurisdiction for scammers looking to incorporate, operate and promote fraudulent companies.

For the purpose of MLM due-diligence, incorporation in the UK or registration with the FCA is meaningless.

In addition to UK incorporation details, DigiCoin Markets puzzlingly provides an incomplete corporate address in Norway on its website.

On October 21st the Philippine SEC issued a DigiCoin Markets securities fraud warning.

As part of the SEC’s investigation, the regulator uncovered DigiCoin Markets

investments shall be deposited/credited to the respective Gcash accounts and Union Bank accounts of Mr. JIM MARK DELOS SANTOS and Mr. RAMIR TULISANA.

These appear to be Philippine nationals, suggesting that, as opposed to the UK or Norway, DigiCoin Markets is being run from the Philippines.

Despite the SEC’s warning and threats of fines and prison time, as of November 2021 Ramir Tulisana is still promoting DigiCoin Markets:

Jim Mark Delos Santos appears to have gone underground.

Despite only existing as of a few months ago, DigiCoin Markets falsely represents it launched in February 2020.

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…]

ABA Marketing provides no information about who owns or runs the company on its website.

ABA Marketing’s website domain (“aba.marketing”) was first registered in November 2014.

The private registration was last updated on June 23rd, 2021.

The country code provided on ABA Marketing’s domain registration is Saint Kitts and Nevis.

This corresponds with a corporate address provided in Saint Kitts and Nevis on ABA Marketing’s website.

ABA Marketing also provide a Saint Kitts and Nevis incorporation certificate for ABA Marketing Group Inc.

Saint Kitts and Nevis is a scam-friendly jurisdiction with no active MLM regulation.

Scammers typically set up shell companies in dodgy jurisdictions like Saint Kitts and Nevis, to launder money through and avoid regulation.

For the purpose of due-diligence, basic incorporation anywhere is meaningless.

Oddly enough of the four social media platform links provided on ABA Marketing’s website, only vKontakte is active.

vKontakte is a Russian social media platform, which brings us to where ABA Marketing is actually being operated from.

ABA Marketing’s website source-code contains Bulgarian:

Marketing documents cited in researching this review were also written in Bulgarian.

The two offered languages on ABA Marketing’s website are English and Russian.

Finally, Alexa pegs Russia as providing 95% of traffic to ABA Marketing’s website.

This suggests whoever is running ABA Marketing has ties to Russia and/or Bulgaria.

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…]

Nominex operates in the cryptocurrency MLM niche.

Nominex’s website domain (“nominex.io”), was first registered in November 2017.

The private registration, revealing only Russia as the address of the owner, was last updated on July 4th, 2021.

In an attempt to appear legitimate, Nominex provides a Seychelles incorporation certificate on its website.

For the purpose of due-diligence, basic incorporation in any jurisdiction is meaningless.

Emphasizing this is the corporate address in Seychelles that Nominex provides.

This address is used by multiple companies, suggesting Nominex only exists in Seychelles as a shell company.

Heading up Nominex is CEO Pavel Shkitin (right).

According to his Facebook profile, Shkitin is based out of Saratov, Russia.

Thus it is confirmed Nominex is a Russian company pretending to be based out of Seychelles.

Prior to reinventing himself as a crypto bro and heading up Nominex, Shitikin had a programming and sales background.

At the time of publication Alexa ranks top sources of traffic to Nominex’s website as Argentina (16%), Russia (15%) and Costa Rica (11%).

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

Viral Compensation fails to provide any credible ownership information on its website.

Supposedly the company is run by “Ron Williams”, represented by a badly photoshopped profile avatar.

The same avatar appears on Fiverr account “videospurchaser”, who represents they are based out of Canada.

This corresponds with the North American accent narrated Viral Compensation’s marketing videos (the ones that aren’t obvious Fivver gigs).

Viral Compensation’s website domain (“viralcompensation.com”) was registered on July 31st, 2021.

The owner is listed as Mission Prosperity LLC, through an address in Quebec, Canada.

Mission Prosperity LLC is a long defunct Nevada corporation, owned by Ron Williams.

This rabbit-hole eventually led me to William’s Facebook profile, on which he confirms he’s based out of Montreal, Quebec.

William’s Facebook page is full of Ponzi and pyramid scheme promotion:

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

My Blockchain Life launched in early 2020.

The original business model saw My Blockchain Life commit securities fraud through crypto mining investment packages.

When that ran its course in a few months, My Blockchain Life pivoted to automated trading bot returns. [Continue reading…]