Torque Trading Systems provides no information on its website about who owns or runs the business.

Torque Trading Systems’ website domain (“torque.asia”) was registered on July 25th, 2019.

Torque Group Holdings is listed as the owner, through an incomplete address in the British Virgin Islands.

The British Virgin Islands is a scam friendly jurisdiction with little to no regulation. There is no reason for a legitimate MLM company to incorporate itself there.

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…]

On November 26th the Tenth Circuit dismissed Charles Scoville’s second filed Traffic Monsoon appeal. [Continue reading…]

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

ArbiSmart’s website domain (“arbismart.com”) was first registered in July 2018.

The domain registration was last updated in June 2019 and lists “ArbiSmart OU” as the owner. No further details are provided.

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…]

Recruitment over at S Block has started to cool, prompting the Ponzi scheme to launch a new Plan Flash investment spinoff. [Continue reading…]

Rather than comply with an order directing him to follow several monetary and asset surrender orders, Jacques Poujade has filed an appeal.

Poujade is appealing an October 29th order, which imposes monetary fines running into tens of thousands for non-compliance. [Continue reading…]

OneCoin’s website has gone offline.

DNS records show that while the company still owns the website domain, it is now under investigation. [Continue reading…]

Viiva operates in the weight loss and travel MLM niches and are based out of Utah in the US.

Viiva’s website fails to provide management details, however a linked press-release identifies Joe Zhou as its founder.

Zhou appears to have bought into Viiva about a year ago, which is when the company changed its name from Tavala.

Tavala launched back in January 2017 and was headed up by CEO Kent Wood. Viiva’s October press-release identifies Wood as Viiva’s ‘chairman and one of the company’s co-founders.’

Steinway Huang was recently appointed CEO of Viiva, after previously serving as Chief Security Officer.

Joe Zhou appears to have his MLM roots in NuSkin China. Viiva distributors “Dave and Joy” claim Zhou was

the top distributor for NuSkin in China during the time China represented 30-32% of NuSkin’s revenues and 80% of that came from Joe’s downline.

Nu Skin would later come under fire in China for operating as a pyramid scheme.

Dave and Joy claim Zhou (right) then

moved to an executive position with another company and set up a direct sales network team that grew a feminine hygiene product to over 1 Billion in sales.

Oddly enough, the company name is not disclosed.

In 2009 Zhou launched JM, which would later go on to merge with Ocean Avenue in 2014.

By 2015 the merger had devolved into a corporate disaster.

BehindMLM reviewed what was left of JM Ocean Avenue a year later in 2016.

Based on its business model, we concluded JM Ocean Avenue was a pay to play autoship recruitment scheme.

Although its completely dead in the US, JM continues to operate elsewhere in the world. Whether Joe Zhou is still involved is unclear.

Analysis of Tavala’s old website properties suggest nothing much was going on prior to the Viiva reboot.

According to Viiva’s website, the company is active in the US, Canada, the Bahamas, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Thailand.

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

The BitConnect class-action isn’t going to well, following dismissal of the second amended complaint and several defendants. [Continue reading…]

The Norwegian Lottery Authority has revealed it has an active investigation into Crowd1. [Continue reading…]

Wantage One claims it has filed appeal against a decision by Austria’s Financial Market Authority. [Continue reading…]