Beurax has received a securities fraud warning from South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority. [Continue reading…]

In the wake of Wiseling’s collapse, Ghana’s SEC has issued a securities fraud warning.

As per the SEC’s February 23rd notice; [Continue reading…]

As Wiseling’s admins attempt to placate angry investors on social media, it has been revealed that the actor playing CEO Matias Lappo has fled. [Continue reading…]

Griddy Pro is the MLM arm of Griddy, a wholesale electricity retailer.

One the concerns raised in our Griddy Pro review late last year was having to keep track of fluctuating rates.

If a Griddy customer wasn’t paying attention, they could easily rack up huge bills due to price spikes.

One historical example was a customer being charged $350 over eight days.

With Texas’ Winter Storm Uri this year, turns out that was just the tip of the iceberg. [Continue reading…]

WorldVentures has filed a lawsuit against Eddie Head.

As revealed in the lawsuit, the on again off again Seacret merger is officially dead. [Continue reading…]

In the wake of Wiseling’s collapse Finnish authorities have issued two fresh regulatory warnings.

On February 22nd the Financial Supervisory Authority advised it had [Continue reading…]

On February 15th Wiseling stopped honoring affiliate withdrawal requests.

Rather than immediately report on Wiseling’s collapse, I thought I’l let this one play out for a bit. [Continue reading…]

Lyoness is based out of Austria. The company was founded by Hubert Freidl all the way back in 2003.

BehindMLM first reviewed Lyoness in 2012. An updated review of Lyconet was published in 2014.

In between reviews and since then, we’ve been following significant developments. And there’s been quite a few.

To keep thing simple I’ll restrict covering Lyoness’ history to the last few years.

2015

• the ACCC stuffed up a pyramid scheme case brought against Lyoness in Australia
• Lyoness and Hubert Friedl (right) were cleared of criminal charges in Austria
• the Philippines took a look into Lyoness, found there wasn’t much retail going on but left it at that

2016

• Lyoness was found guilty of deceptive business practices in Austria
• Swedish police dropped a pyramid scheme investigation into Lyoness because it was too hard
• a Vienna court found Lyoness’ affiliate terms and conditions to be illegal
• the Portuguese Consumer Protection Association issued a warning against Lyoness
• a Swiss Court ruled Lyoness was a Ponzi scheme, invalidating affiliate contracts in the process
• new criminal charges were filed against Lyoness and Friedl in Austria

2017

• Norway reopened its pyramid scheme investigation into Lyoness
• Poland groups Lyoness with a bunch of notorious Ponzis and issues a warning

2018

• Norway finds Lyoness to be an “illegal pyramid scheme” and bans the company
• Lyoness responds to Norwegian finding by changing its name to myWorld, ushering in confusing Lyoness/Lyconet/myWorld/Cashback World era
• Lyoness announces plans to jump on cryptocurrency bandwagon, ultimately leads nowhere

2019

• Italy finds Lyoness to be a pyramid scheme, issues 3.2 million EUR fine
• criminal case opened up against Lyoness in Norway

2020

• Poland’s Office of Competition and Consumer Protection finds Lyoness to be a pyramid scheme
• Norwegian police abandon criminal case due to lack of resources

2021

• Lyoness resurrected in Italy, again found to be a pyramid scheme and fined another 3 million EUR

Despite all of that and numerous cases, some of which are still playing out, Austrian authorities seem unable to shut Lyoness down.

Every few months I’ll read updates on what’s going on in Austria, yet none of it seems to stick.

Note that in the spirit of keeping up with Lyoness’ attempts to evade regulation, this review will focus on the MLM business opportunity as myWorld.

Lyoness and Lyconet are still operational, and the cashback shopping portal operates as Cashback World.

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

Youngevity filed suit against Bulavita for trademark infringement late last year.

We’ve been tracking the case and so far there haven’t been any significant updates.

On January 25th Youngevity was directed to inform the court of the case status, failing which it would be dismissed.

On January 26th Youngevity filed its response. [Continue reading…]

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

Exove Investment’s website domain (“exoveinvestment.com”) was privately registered on November 6th, 2020.

In an attempt to appear legitimate, Exove Investment provides a UK incorporation link for Exove Limited.

Exove Limited was incorporated on June 2012. It is unlikely to have anything to do with Exove Investment.

In any event 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…]