Continuing their pursuit of professionals who enabled the $3 billion dollar Ponzi scheme TelexFree, the SEC today announced it has banned Joseph Craft from appearing before them as an accountant. [Continue reading…]

With criminal proceedings against TelexFree’s James Merrill completed, the SEC filed for a lift on the stay that froze their civil case back in 2014.

That motion was granted on September 12th, which will see the SEC resume proceedings against TelexFree, Carlos Wanzeler, Santiago De La Rosa, Randy Crosby and Faith Sloan. [Continue reading…]

I’m not a fan of KulaBrands’ business model. I see it as crowdfunding manipulation where theoretical ROIs are emphasized over the actual viability of sponsored projects.

Typically crowdfunding backers have an interest in the project (be it a product or service). This spurs genuine demand, with enough people sharing that demand seeing the project funded.

In KulaBrands that’s still possible but polluted by a financial incentive.

To their credit, KulaBrands saw moderate growth throughout 2016 till about August this year. Alexa estimate traffic to the KulaBrands website has since gone into decline.

With the MLM business opportunity alone failing to sustain itself, KulaBrands filed a Form C Offering Statement on June 9th. [Continue reading…]

The OneCoin affiliate investor pool is currently divided into two camps.

The first group of investors are those who believe the points in their backoffice are actual money.

Since inception, all OneCoin affiliates have been able to do with their points is transfer them to other affiliates.

Under the guise of trade with third-party merchants, in reality this is how OneCoin’s DealShaker platform works.

The second group of investors realize they’ve been had but don’t have an out.

OneCoin is a shady enterprise run by individuals who spend most of their time in hiding.

OneCoin support don’t honor refund requests because they know the backoffice points are worthless.

In Italy, where OneCoin has been banned for being a pyramid scheme and fined, consumer protection organizations are working to provide Italian victims of OneCoin with a solution. [Continue reading…]

BTChamp2 appears to be a reboot of BTChamp, launched earlier this year in January.

BTChamp2 is linked directly from the BTChamp website through the referral ID: “BTCHAMP ADMIN”.

The original BTChamp was a six-tier gifting scheme run by Kasa Navakantha Rao (right).

Alexa statistics for the BTChamp website suggest the scheme went into decline around May.

With constant recruitment crucial required to sustain a gifting scheme, the decline of BTChamp has likely prompted the launch of BTChamp2.

Read on for a full review of the BTChamp2 MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]

Priority Investment provide no specific information about who owns or runs the company on their website.

On the “About Company” section of the website, Priority Investment cites “Delta-Alpha Group Ltd” as its “management company”.

Delta-Alpha Group Ltd was incorporated in the UK on April 19th, 2017.

The London address used to incorporate Delta-Alpha Group Ltd is used by over thirty companies, suggesting it is a virtual forwarding address.

Delta-Alpha Group Ltd’s sole listed Director Arasakumar Jayaraman cites his country of residence as India, further supporting Delta-Alpha Group Ltd (and by proxy Priority Association) exists in the UK in name only.

The company appears to be wholly operated out of India.

Other than previously incorporating a few generic sounding investment companies, Jayaraman doesn’t appear to have any prior MLM executive experience.

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…]

Following an investigation into the illegal trafficking of essential oils, earlier today the FTC announced it was fining Young Living $500,000.

The company is also required to pay $135,000 in restitution and $125,000 as a “community service payment”. [Continue reading…]

The granting of Final Judgment against outstanding Zeek Rewards net-winners last month seems to have hastened settlement agreements.

Last we checked in a few hundred net-winners had settled as of May, 2017.

As per a Motion to Approve Settlement Agreements filed on August 25th, that number has since ballooned out to 1,792. [Continue reading…]

Despite representing affiliates who invested in Visalus’ “Founders Equity Incentive Plan” were accepted and qualified for two years, the company recently sough to back-pedal on its representations and agreements.

The dirty move appears to be a direct response to a round of document subpoenas, served on Visalus and a top affiliate by the Colorado Securities Division.

The securities investigation was instigated by a complaint filed by Caprece Byrd, a current Visalus affiliate.

In a separate lawsuit filed approximately two weeks later, Byrd alleges she and over a thousand other Visalus affiliates were lured by Visalus corporate into a fraudulent investment scheme. [Continue reading…]

Power Mining Pool operate in the cryptocurrency MLM niche and are headed up by Andrew and Mike Conti.

The Power Mining Pool website is hosted in France. At the time of publication Alexa estimates the UK is the largest source of traffic to the Power Mining Pool website (54%).

Other than representing Andrew and Mike Conti are brothers based out of Europe, no specifics are provided.

On the Power Mining Pool website, the Conti brothers are represented by cartoon avatars. I had a poke around for their MLM histories and turned up nothing, which I’m flagging as highly suspicious.

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…]