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…]

A Singapore Police Force report is doing the rounds, suggesting Torque Trading is preemptively hoping to undermine victim complaints. [Continue reading…]

VRDa1 provides no information on its website about who owns or runs the company.

The only names attached to the company are a group VRDa1 refers to as its “league of legends”; Waqas Suhail, Mahfooz Elahi, Saikat Kumar, Hussain Al Lawati, Mohammad Othman and M. Faisal Suhail.

These individual’s specific roles within VRDa1 is not disclosed on the company’s website.

They are however involved in running the company.

Mohammad Othman, for example, is featured in VRDa1’s official compensation videos. I was able to ascertain the remaining executive roles by cross-referencing social media profiles.

I ran an MLM related search on each of VRDa1’s “legends”. Here’s what I found:

Waqas Suhail is from Pakistan and hiding out in Dubai. He is VRDa1’s founder and CEO.

Prior to VRDa1 Suhail worked as the LEO’s General Manager for the Dubai region.

LEO was a Ponzi scheme run by Dan Andersson that primarily targeted Pakistan and neighboring countries.

Mahfooz Elahi is from Pakistan and hosts VRDa1 promotional events. Elahi is also a former LEO Ponzi promoter.

Saikat Kumar is from India and lives in Dubai. He is a Director of VRDa1.

I wasn’t able to ascertain Kumar’s MLM history. His involvement in VRDa1 seems to be through his Skycap Investment Management company.

Hussain Al Lawati is a Director of VRDa1. I wasn’t able to ascertain anything further.

Mohammad Othman shouts at people as a presenter of VRDa1 video presentations. I wasn’t able to ascertain anything further.

Nothing comes up for M. Faisal Suhail outside of VRDa1. I’m assuming this is because of the intentional name obfuscation (possible relation to Waqas Suhail).

In any event, VRDa1 came about in late 2019, following the collapse of LEO.

Waqas Suhail’s Facebook post reveals he left Humanitas Meritus FZ LLC in October 2019.

Humanitas Meritus FZ LLC was one of the many shell companies used to steal LEO investor funds through.

A few months after acknowledging leaving Humanitas Meritus (which collapsed earlier in 2020), Suhail announced VRDa1.

In a nutshell, VRDa1 is a bunch of LEO Ponzi scammers from the UAE, Pakistan and India, banding together to run their own scheme.

Read on for a full review of VRDa1’s MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]

It’s important to note that until authorities get involved, take anything coming from Ponzi admins in the midst of a collapse with a grain of salt.

That said until Singaporean authorities make a move, we’ll do our best to cover Torque Trading’s exit-scam developments.

The latest from the Torque Trading camp has seen CFO Zee Wu blamed for the collapse.

Conveniently, Wu has purportedly disappeared. [Continue reading…]

On January 28th, attorneys from the law firm Krantz & Berman LLP put in a notice of appearance for Gilbert Armenta.

Armenta is a defendant in the OneCoin victim class-action.

On February 16th,  just shy of three weeks into representing Armenta, the Krantz & Berman LLP attorneys have withdrawn. [Continue reading…]

A technicality ruling by the Fourth Circuit will see Roman Balanko and VictoriaBank keep $13.1 million in stolen Zeek Rewards victim funds. [Continue reading…]