Reward Table provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the business.

The Reward Table website domain (“rewardtable.com”) was privately registered on November 22nd, 2017.

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 class-action lawsuit that alleges WorldVentures is an illegal pyramid scheme was filed earlier this year.

This one slipped under the radar, so you’ll have to forgive the late coverage as I only found about the lawsuit yesterday. [Continue reading…]

Unknown to me as I was researching Viridian for our recently published review, the company was gearing up to completely abandon its MLM business. [Continue reading…]

As expected, the reboot of the Laser Online Ponzi scheme has collapsed a few weeks after launch.

Disgruntled investors also appear to have uncovered the true identity of Laser Online’s CEO, “Antonio Garley”. [Continue reading…]

Amid rumours Kari Wahlroos had, despite keeping up appearances, effectively left OneCoin, today the company announced he’s been demoted. [Continue reading…]

Viridian operate in the travel and utility MLM niches.

The company is based out of Connecticut in the US and was founded by Michael Fallquist.

Fallquist is the former COO of Commerce Energy and founded Viridian in 2009.

Today Fallquist is CEO of Crius Energy, cited as a “strategic partner” of Viridian. Viridian itself is headed up by CEO Paul Booth (right).

According to Booth’s Viridian corporate bio, he has

over 30 years of network marketing experience as both a successful distributor and key executive in multiple network marketing startups.

In addition to his Viridian position, Booth is also founder and CEO of Data Paradigm Inc.

(DPI is) a nationally renowned network marketing advisor and compensation plan designer.

DPI’s systems currently support multiple companies with hundreds of thousands of distributors and gross sales well over $1 billion annually.

Amid some positive experiences from DPI staff, I noted some GlassDoor reviews of DPI explicitly suggested problems with Booth’s style of management.

• “Had potential… just CEO is a type A monster”
• “As long as you don’t ever disagree with the CEO, you’ll do great!”
• “Great talent, very poor leadership”

In 2012 the state of Maryland fined Viridian $60,000 for “false and deceptive marketing practices.”

In 2015 Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory authority announced it was reviewing Viridian’s contracts, contract renewal, customer notification and enrollment procedures.

Also in Maryland, a class-action lawsuit was filed against Viridian and it’s parent company, Crius Energy.

The suit claims Viridian uses a “fraudulent and deceptive bait-and-switch sales model” and that Viridian associates “form a retail pyramid” that yielded the company a 30 percent profit margin in 2014, to the tune of $33.7 million.

As of December 2017, that lawsuit is ongoing. A Status Conference report filed October 18th, 2017, reveals settlement negotiations between the parties are ongoing.

Truth In Advertising reference a February 2017 Consolidated Class Action Complaint, which accuses Viridian Energy of

deceptively advertis(ing) low initial rates for energy followed by variable rate plans that are tied to the market rate when, according to plaintiffs, customers end up paying four, five, or six times more for their energy.

This is a combination of three separate class-action lawsuits, which were combined into the Maryland class-action referenced above.

Read on for a full review of the Viridian MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]

On November 4th Youngevity filed a fourth amended complaint against Wakaya Perfection.

The complaint is the latest in the long-running feud between Youngevity and Wakaya, dating back to March, 2016.

Youngevity’s latest complaint accuses Wakaya Perfection of violations of the Lanham Act, specifically misleading product and marketing claims and misappropriation of trade secrets. [Continue reading…]

Pandex provide no credible information on their website about who owns or runs the business.

The Pandex website domain (“pandex.org”) was first registered on January 4th, 2016. The registration was recently updated on June 19th, suggesting this is when the current owner(s) took possession of it.

Sharleen Lewis is listed as the domain owner, with what appears to be a bogus address in Kingstown, Saint Vincent (post office, no street address).

No information on Lewis outside of the domain registration ties her to Pandex, strongly suggesting this is also a bogus identity.

As far as porky pies go, the “about company” section of the Pandex website is one of the best I’ve seen to date.

Pandex was created as a subsidiary company in 2001 as a result of a merger between Osaka and Kyoto Stock Exchanges and started its activity on the leading Japanese stock, commodity and financial markets.

Mr Minoru Mori, a Japanese billionaire, became the new owner.

As the company’s capital was predominantly private with the controlling stake remaining with Mr Mori, the company continued to be a closed joint-stock company with only few being able to access its services.

The company had successfully been handling all its functions for the following seven years working within the mentioned business focus.

Due to the mortgage crisis in the US in 2008 resulting in the bigger international one, Pandex managed to take the vacant places in the exchange business globally.

With regards to the unique business strategy and trading technology, Pandex has significantly increased its sphere of interests and number of big trading partners.

This allowed the company to reach the financial turnover of 3 billion 840 million USD between 2008-2009, which is why Pandex has confidently gained a seat among the biggest exchange players in the world.

Naturally there’s no third-party sources of information to verify any of this.

Someone has a put a bit of effort into Pandex’s fictional backstory though, as Minoru Mori was actually a Japanese billionaire.

Obviously with Pandex coming about long after Mori’s death in 2012, there’s no mention of it on Mori’s Wikipedia entry.

Today Pandex claims its run by Marko Milosevic, who’s purportedly backed by Hiroshi Mikitani, another Japanese billionaire.

Marko Milosevic is the name of the son of former Serbian President Soloban Milosevic.

Hiroshi Mikitani is the founder, CEO and Chairman of Rakuten, the largest e-commerce site in Japan.

Obviously neither have anything to do with Pandex. The provided history of Pandex is a complete work of fiction.

A marketing video titled “Pandex Conference” was uploaded to the official Pandex YouTube channel on November 22nd, 2017.

The man conducting the presentation identifies himself as “Mark” (“Marko”) and claims to be the President of Pandex.

I have entertained the idea that Marko Milosevic is this man’s real name, but given Pandex’s flagrant use of other well-known indivudal’s names, have concluded it unlikely.

It’s far more likely that whoever this guy is he’s only fronting Pandex for its real owner(s).

The whole conference appears to be scripted (lots of awkward pauses), including prepared questions from actors in the audience (you can see some of them reading their questions).

According to Alexa Russia is the top European source of traffic to the Pandex website, so that’s probably a good place to start.

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…]

Storm Paid HYIP provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the business.

The Storm Paid HYIP website domain (“stormpaidhyip.com”) was privately registered on October 8th, 2017.

The company claims it is “officially listed in Hong Kong”, however no evidence of this claim is 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…]

BitCoins Wealth Club isn’t an MLM opportunity in and of itself per se. Rather it’s a funnel for a plethora of MLM bitcoin Ponzi scams.

BitCoins Wealth Club was founded by Vitaliy Dubinin, who is based out of Karmiel, Israel.

As per a personal bio used to promote My Lead System Pro (a recruitment based pyramid scheme), Dubinin (right) claims he was “introduced to network marketing industry in 2006” [sic].

I failed miserably in several MLM companies.

In 2010 I was doing my best to make it happen online but for many months I made $0.

My daughter Lital was born in 2009 and I had to support my new family, I couldn’t go on for long without any income.

My mom insisted all the time that I need to get a degree in the University and then get a job.

After studying for a finance and management degree, Dubinin signed up with My Lead System Pro in 2014.

And so began the career of what appears to be a serial scammer. Since My Lead System Pro Dubinin has recruited anyone who will follow him into any number of dubious opportunities.

He gets his cut, and then it’s onto the next recruitment scam.

In early 2017 Dubinin published a guide containing “5 steps to easily recruit 30+ new members per month”.

In the guide Dubinin claimed;

Over the last year in 2016 I’ve been blessed to earn over $236,000 online and recruit over 449 people into several affiliate programs.

This year 2017 I’m prepared to earn over $1,000,000 online.

As with the rest of the MLM underbelly, in 2017 Dubinin primarily switched to cryptocurrency scams.

That saw him launch Bitcoins Wealth Club, which today boasts 78,879 affiliates. [Continue reading…]