Due to several outstanding issues, the Zeek Rewards Receivership has been extended through to 2021. [Continue reading…]

Shaklee as we know it today began as Shaklee Corporation back in 1956.

The company’s founder, Forrest C. Shaklee, is credited with manufacturing the first vitamin manufactured and sold in the US.

This dates back to 1915 with “Shaklee’s Vitalized Minerals”.

Shaklee (right), originally from Iowa, founded Shaklee Corporation in California. The company is still headquartered in Pleasanton, California.

Forrest C. Shaklee was a Professor of Chiropractic, Doctor of Naturopathy and Doctor of Divinity. He passed away in 1985 at the age of 91.

Today Shaklee is headed up by Chairman and CEO Roger Barnett.

Barnett (right) assumed his role at Shaklee in 2004, following acquisition of the company by Activated Holdings.

At the time of the acquisition Barnett was a managing partner with Activated Holdings.

Barnett has a history in finance and ecommerce. As far as I can tell, Shaklee was his first MLM executive appointment.

On the regulatory front Shaklee has had a pretty clean run.

Way back in 1970s Shaklee was pulled up by the FTC twice. Once in 1974 for false advertising and again in 1976 for retail price rigging. There hasn’t been any regulatory run-ins since.

More of a point of interest as opposed to a reflection of Shaklee’s MLM operations, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention long-time Shaklee distributor John Cranney’s eleven-year Ponzi scheme.

We’ve covered that separately in an article published earlier this week.

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

Neora’s bid to dismiss the FTC’s pyramid scheme case against it has been rejected.

The company did however manage to get the case moved to Texas. [Continue reading…]

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has approved an individual linked to OneCoin’s money laundering network, for the role of “Money Laundering Reporting Officer”.

On the absurdity scale, this isn’t far off appointing someone who worked directly under Bernie Madoff as head of the SEC. [Continue reading…]

Elysium Capital has announced the name of its third-party broker.

Trouble is, whether the broker name is known or not, Elysium Capital is still committing securities fraud. [Continue reading…]

John William Cranney, aka Jack Cranney, joined Shaklee back in 1967.

He remained with the company until 2012. That same year Cranney was charged with running a $10.4 million dollar Ponzi scheme. [Continue reading…]

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

BitRobot’s website domain (“bit-robot.io”) was privately registered on March 11th, 2020.

In an attempt to appear legitimate, Bit Robot provides a UK incorporation number on its website.

The number corresponds with Robots Solutions Limited, incorporated on July 27th.

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

At the time of publication Alexa ranks BitRobot’s top three sources of website traffic as Bangladesh (15%), Russia (10%) and Iran (7%).

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…]

As of a few hours ago, Forrise has collapsed. The company’s website has been pulled offline although social media channels are still up.

Instead of admitting Forrise was a Ponzi scheme that ran out of money, the scheme’s owners have come up with a “DDOS hacked” exit-scam. [Continue reading…]

Fareha Qadri joined BizzTrade last September.

She quickly rose within the company and within a month was in marketing videos on BizzTrade’s official YouTube channel (BizzTrek).

On 30th May Qadri boasted of being promoted to Executive Director.

She stopped promoting BizzTrade shortly after that.

In a video uploaded to Facebook about a week ago, Qadri now claims she has been “fucked over” by BizzTrade and its executives. [Continue reading…]

The Comision Nacional del Mercadeo de Valores (CMNV) has issued a securities fraud warning against Omega Pro. [Continue reading…]