Ncrease launched in late 2020. The company is based out of Texas and operates in the personal care and education MLM niches.

Heading up Ncrease are co-founders Karen and Peter Hirsch. For some reason only Karen Hirsch is credited on Ncrease’s website.

Karen Hirsch serves as Ncrease’s CEO. Peter Hirsch is the company’s Chief Visionary Officer.

Right up until they launched Ncrease on or around November 2020, the Hirschs were iBuumerang distributors.

In July 2020 BusinessForHome reported the couple had earned $1 million over 15 months at iBuumerang.

I wasn’t able to ascertain why the Hirsch’s abandoned their top position within iBuumerang.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Karen Hirsch has MLM executive experience through Traverus Global.

Traverus Global owns Xstream Travel, who offer travel services through Paycation (defunct) and iBuumerang.

Peter Hirsch markets himself as a social entrepreneur. In addition to being an iBuumerang top earner, he also held an executive division at the company’s charitable Buum Foundation.

In 1999 Hirsch was a named defendant in an FTC lawsuit against 2Xtreme and its successor USAsurance Group/Akahi.

The FTC described the companies as “a vast pyramid scheme (that) claims to have recruited more than 60,000 consumers”.

An $80 million dollar final judgment was entered into against Hirsch on January 29th, 2001.

Hirsch appears to have kept his nose out of regulatory trouble since then.

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

CryptoBestFX247 provides no information about who owns or runs the company on its website.

CryptoBestFX247’s website domain (“cryptobestfx247.com”) as privately registered on September 16th, 2020.

Despite not existing until late 2020, on its website CryptoBestFX247 falsely claims to have launched in 2010.

In an attempt to appear legitimate, CryptoBestFX247 represents it is incorporated in the UK as CryptoBestFX247 LTD.

UK incorporation is dirt cheap and effectively unregulated. It is a favored jurisdiction for scammers looking to incorporate dodgy companies.

For the purpose of performing MLM due-diligence, UK incorporation is meaningless.

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…]

The TelexFree class-action plaintiffs are seeking a preliminary injunction against Dustin Sparman and Vantage Payments.

The TelexFree class-action plaintiffs allege Sparman and Vantage Payments ‘played an instrumental role’ in the operation of TelexFree. [Continue reading…]

A proposed $22.5 million dollar settlement with Fidelity Bank has been approved.

As part of a class-action against multiple defendants, plaintiffs reached a settlement agreement with Fidelity in July 2020. [Continue reading…]

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

The company operates in the CBD MLM niche and represents it is based out of Colorado. Not however that the corporate address provided on Hulsa’s website belongs to a UPS store.

To suss out who’s running Hulsa we have to turn to an August 2020 press-release;

Hülsa’s founding team includes Josh Ginsberg, co-founder of Native Roots … and Julian Michalowski, co-founder of California-based cannabis dispensary chain Coastal Dispensary.

Other key leadership includes Jeff Rogers, founding (former) CEO of Kannaway; and David Berck, a top 500 distributor who serves as Hülsa’s President.

Why this information isn’t just presented on Hulsa’s website is unclear.

As far as I can tell Josh Ginsberg doesn’t have any MLM experience. His company, Native Roots, pitches itself as “Colorado’s premier medical and recreational cannabis dispensaries”.

Native Roots has a

173,000 SQFT, this facility enables us to cultivate world-class cannabis, develop concentrated raw goods through CO2 and BHO extraction, and manufacture a variety of finished goods for our customers.

Presumably this ties into Hulsa’s CBD products.

Julian Michalowski again doesn’t appear to have any MLM experience. His company, Coastal Dispensary, is a Californian company offering “high quality, locally-sourced product(s)”.

Jeff Rogers (right) is where we get some MLM experience. Rodgers popped up on BehindMLM’s radar in early 2014, as founder and CEO of Kannaway.

Rogers left Kannaway in 2016 to join Sanki Global as President of its US operations.

I believe that was Rogers’ last MLM executive position until Hulsa.

Interestingly enough I came across a February 24th press-release, announcing Rogers was consulting for Nass Valley Gateway.

Nass Valley Gateway LTD. (a) distributor of top quality, broad and full spectrum CBD products, is pleased to announce it has retained Jeff Rogers as a lead consultant to rollout “Nass Valley Direct,” which is Nass Valley Gateway’s direct sales platform launching in early Q2 2021.

Rogers will design its compensation plan along with its editorial and training content to help NVG sell its new menu of 30 CBD products for humans and pets.

Given this is the same MLM niche Hulsa operates in, sounds like a potential conflict of interest to me.

Prior to signing on as Hulsa’s President, David Berck seems to have made a name for himself in MonaVie.

MonaVie was sold off to Jeunesse in 2015. I wasn’t able to establish what Berck was up to after MonaVie and before mid 2020.

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

BixoTrade operates in the cryptocurrency MLM niche.

On its website BixoTrade claims its headed up by CEO Benjamin Gimson.

This wasn’t always the case though. On its official YouTube channel, a video uploaded on January 23rd reveals BixoTrade’s original CEO was James Bernard.

As above, Bernard is played by an actor with an American accent. Bernard’s promo video is shot in the usual rental setting.

That said, BixoTrade did go above the usual effort and decked out a complete storefront.

Unfortunately though whoever put up the BixoTrade decorations wasn’t very good at it.

This is from a second marketing video also uploaded on January 23rd.

This video reveals that, apparently within 24 hours, BixoTrade had hired a new CEO, Benjamin Gimson.

A full sit through of the second linked video above should make it abundantly clear these are actors in staged videos.

As to where the video was shot, at around [1:11] in this video a Lynx branded bus drives past.

Lynx is a US public transport company operating out Florida. The company run bus routes across Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties.

On its website BixoTrade provides three corporate addresses, one each in the UK, the US (Arizona) and Hong Kong.

In its Terms and Conditions BixoTrade states it’s

officially registered in Bixo FinTech Ltd. Company number 11994515 based in the United Kingdom.

Considering the company represents its entire corporate staff are operating out of an office in Florida, this appears to be baloney.

Furthermore UK incorporation is dirt cheap and effectively unregulated. It is a favored jurisdiction for scammers looking to incorporate dodgy companies.

For the purpose of performing MLM due-diligence, UK incorporation is meaningless.

Alexa currently ranks top sources of traffic to BixoTrade’s website as the US (62%), Japan (12%) and Canada (2.5%).

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…]

SHA-256 provides no information on its website about who owns or runs the company.

SHA-256’s website domain (“sha-256.io”) was privately registered on October 5th, 2020.

SHA-256’s official Facebook page is being managed from Bangladesh and the Philippines.

Not sure about the Philippines but on SHA-256’s official YouTube channel, the first videos uploaded are testimonials from guys with strong Indian accents.

Seeing as Bangladesh neighbors India, the accent is likely from the same region.

This strongly suggests that whoever is running SHA-256 operates out of Bangladesh.

In an attempt to appear legitimate, SHA-256 provides incorporation details for SHA 256 LTD.

SHA 256 LTD is a shell company incorporated in the Marshall Islands. The Marshall Islands is a scam-friendly jurisdiction with little to no active regulation of corporate fraud.

For the purpose of MLM due-diligence, Marshall Islands shell incorporation should be ignored.

Based on Alexa website traffic analysis, SHA-256 is currently being promoted in Angola (30%), Russia (10%) and Venezuela (8%).

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…]

Twin TurboTRX provides no information on its website about who owns or runs the company.

Twin TurboTRX’s website domain (“turbotrx.com”) was privately registered on January 12th, 2021.

In the source-code of Turbo TRX’s website the author of the page is credited as “hustydesigns.com”:

A visit to Husty Designs’ website reveals the company targeting clients who are “looking to start a Forsage like MLM/Matrix project”.

Forsage is a collapsed matrix-based smart contract gifting scheme.

Given all that’s behind a smart-contract scam is coding for a matrix, it appears Husty Designs are selling smart contract matrix scripts.

Husty Designs’ website provides no information about who owns or runs the company.

Husty Designs’ official Facebook page is managed from India.

This suggests whoever is behind the scam script company is based out of India.

Whether Husty Designs is behind Twin TurboTRX or they’ve set it up for a scamming client is unclear.

What we do know is the official Twin TurboTRX compensation document, provided by the company on their website, was authored by Ann Marie Osorio.

On Facebook Osorio goes by Ann Marie Corral-Osorio.

According to her profile she’s based out of California and is currently soliciting investment into Twin TurboTRX:

Osorio also hosts marketing videos on Twin TurboTRX’s official YouTube channel:

At the time of publication Alexa ranks the top sources of traffic to Husty Designs’ website as Venezuela (20%), the US (16%) and Argentina (11%).

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…]

WorldVentures has secured a preliminary injunction against former executive Kenneth E. Head (aka Eddie Head).

As alleged by WorldVentures, upon leaving the company Eddie Head essentially began replicating its travel opportunity at Seacret Direct.

The granted preliminary injunction prohibits Head, who was recently appointed President of Seacret Direct, from having any involvement in Seacret’s newly launched travel platform. [Continue reading…]

Ben Quigley’s Telegram-based gifting scheme seems to have run its course, prompting him to relaunch as Gifting Communities.

Why the “kevlar” from Kevlar Gifting Communities was dropped is unclear.

In contrast to Kevlar Gifting Communities, which was marketed behind closed doors, Gifting Communities has its own website and publicly available marketing videos. [Continue reading…]