Jobadiah “Joby” Weeks has plead guilty to two counts of BitClub Network related fraud.

As per the terms of a plea agreement reached with the DOJ, Joby Weeks has pled guilty to conspiring to offer and sell unregistered securities and tax evasion. [Continue reading…]

The Future Trade provides no verifiable information on its website about who owns or runs the business.

Supposedly The Future Trade is headed up by Meril Rid;

Rid however is quite obviously played by an actor. Outside of The Future Trade’s The Office style marketing video, Meril Rid doesn’t exist.

Just a note on the video linked above, the guy Ryan who sells Rid the doll both at the start of the video and at [4:37], also appears as a seated extra at [2:29].

The Future Trade’s marketing video is your typical rented office with actors affair, albeit with a higher production script.

In an attempt to appear legitimate, The Future Trade provides shell company incorporation documents for The Marshall Islands, Singapore and Seychelles on its website.

For the purpose of MLM due-diligence, these documents are meaningless.

For example, the Singapore incorporation of Future Trade INT PTE LTD, lists Meril Rid down as being British with a UK address.

Fun Fact: Ryan’s driver at [4:37] in the previously linked video is driving a right-hand side car. Lin’s US accent aside, the UK drives on the left.

Wherever The Future Trade’s marketing video was shot, it wasn’t in the UK.

Scams typically create shell companies with bogus information through local agents. Things get even more questionable when shell companies are incorporated in scam friendly jurisdictions like the Marshall Islands and Seychelles.

The Future Trade’s website domain (“thefuturetrade.com”), was initially registered in July 2018. The private registration was last updated on October 24th, 2020.

Update 8th March 2022 – There appears to be some renewed interest in The Future Trade.

I had a review request which prompted me to take another look. I noted above in the September update that investors in Turkey were being targeted.

Having gotten rid of their cheesy “Meril Rid” marketing video, The Future Trade uploaded a bunch of “actors sitting around a rented office” photos to their website:

If you scroll down a bit you’ll come to one photo showing a lanyard for “Jared Ryan”:

The brand of the lanyard is “Brauberg”, a Russian office supplies store:

From this we can confirm Russian scammers are behind The Future Trade.

Meanwhile The Future Trade recruitment in Turkey appears to be in decline:

In comment #9 below, dated September 2021, I noted Turkey made up 67% of visits to The Future Trade’s website.

As of March 2022, that has dropped to just 20%. Unless new victims are found, looks like that might be it for The Futures Trade. /end update

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 latest round of regulatory incompetence in the UK has seen OmegaPro register a shell company with the FCA.

On its website OMP Money markets itself as; [Continue reading…]

I held off reporting on the Payza case outcome as I wanted to go off the official case files.

Pacer hasn’t updated yet but, courtesy of the Montreal Gazette, we know how the November 10th sentencing hearing went down. [Continue reading…]

Hungry Bark operates in the pet supplies MLM niche. The company is based out of Florida in the US.

Hungry Bark was founded on or around mid 2019 by CEO Nick Molina.

So the story goes, after Molina’s personal experience with a certified nutritionist;

Being a deeply devoted dog owner, it got me thinking. If humans have individual nutrition needs, my 2 rescue dogs must too.

I started researching and consulting with pet nutritionists and vets.

Armed with a wealth of knowledge and a team of animal nutrition experts, I embarked on starting Hungry Bark and providing dogs with custom nutrition plans made specifically for them.

As far as I can tell Hungry Bark is Molina’s first MLM venture.

In addition to Hungry Bark, Molina is also

• a member of the Board of Directors of Support Pets, “an online technology platform connecting pet owners with medical professionals to facilitate Emotional Support Animal certifications”; and
• founder of Endangered Investments, who claim to be made up of “smart money investors”.

Prior to that, Molina worked in the telecommunications and vaping industries.

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

As reported in our article earlier today, WorldVentures has just laid off more than 50% of its remaining staff.

Clause 2a. in the separation and release agreements, as provided to laid off WorldVentures employees, appears to confirm WorldVentures is in the process of being acquired by Seacret Direct. [Continue reading…]

With international travel at a stand-still in many countries, it figures the MLM travel niche has taken a battering.

Rumored to already be in financial trouble, WorldVentures appears to be on its last legs. [Continue reading…]

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

Tronex World’s website domain (“tronex.world”) was privately registered on October 8th, 2020.

We recently came across Tronex in our ETH-X smart-contract Ponzi review.

ETH-X’s website source-code referenced “tronex.net”, which currently displays the following message:

Tronex’s original incarnation appears to have collapsed, prompting Tronex World’s launch as a reboot.

It is highly likely the same admin is running all three schemes.

At the time of publication Alexa ranks Russia (18%), the US (12%) and India (10%), as the top three sources of traffic to Tronex World’s website.

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…]

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

PetronPay’s website domain (“petronpay.com”) was first registered in December 2019. The private registration was last updated on September 17th, 2020.

Marketing videos on PetronPay’s official YouTube channel feature actors with distinctly eastern-European accents.

The earliest videos date back to May 2020. Since then PetronPay has honed in on Africa, which is reflected both in their marketing and website traffic statistics.

Alexa currently ranks Cameroon (22%), Liberia (13%) and Cote d’Ivoire (12%), as the top three sources of traffic to PetronPay’s website.

Further research lead me to PetronPay marketing videos on unofficial channels. These videos cite “Johnny Grant” as CEO of the company.

As with PetronPay’s other videos, Grant is played by an actor with a distinct eastern European accent.

In an attempt to appear legitimate, PetronPay provides a corporate address in Switzerland on its website.

This has already caught the attention of Swiss authorities, who issued a securities fraud warning against PetronPay earlier this year.

One other oddity I noticed it the use of random French words in what is supposed to be PetronPay’s English compensation material. Currency decimals are also represented by commas, as is common across Europe.

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 admin of the Tron3X smart-contract Ponzi has done a runner.

But not before they transferred out $130,000 worth of tron still left in the kitty. [Continue reading…]