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…]

Initially scheduled to take place on December 1st, the hearing on Principe’s harassment injunction motion has been delayed.

On November 16th a joint stipulation was filed requesting the December 1st hearing be continued to December 22nd.

The parties do not enter into this stipulation for the purposes of delay but instead do so because they reasonably believe that, if the hearing is continued, they may be able to resolve the issues presented in the motion without requiring the Court to issue a ruling on the motion.

The parties’ respective counsel have discussed this matter and reasonably believe they may be able reach a stipulation concerning a compromise on the relief sought in Plaintiff’s motion, thus potentially allowing Plaintiff to withdraw parts of or the entire motion.

Details of the negotiations between the two parties have not been made public as at the time of this update. [Continue reading…]

My BitbyBit Empire provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the company.

The My BitbyBit Empire website domain (“mybitbybitempire.com”) was privately registered on June 8th, 2017.

Further research reveals the initial My BitbyBit Empire FAQ tied the company to 4 Corners Alliance Group: [Continue reading…]

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

In the Coinastrix Terms of Service the company refers to itself as “CMVV Ventures, Mexico”, with an address in Mexico City also provided.

The Coinastrix website domain (“coinastrix.com”) was privately registered on July 9th, 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…]

The FDA has warned Mannatech of witnessed manufacturing and labeling violations.

In a November 14th letter addressed to CEO and President Alfredo Bala, the FDA reveals it inspected Mannatech’s manufacturing facility for roughly a fortnight beginning December 28th, 2016.

The regulator also reviewed the labeling of Mannatech products in May, 2017. [Continue reading…]

Coin Place provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the business.

A corporate address in the ACT, Australia is provided. This corresponds with an office block, however there’s no evidence of Coin Place operating from the location.

The Coin Place website domain (“coinplace.trade”) was privately registered on September 27th, 2017.

Alexa estimate that Japan (38%) and Russia (13%) are currently the two largest sources of traffic to the Coin Place website.

These percentages are high enough to suggest that whoever is running Coin Place is likely based out of one of these countries.

Of the two I’d go with Russia. Supporting this is the Coin Place website defaulting to Russian and presence of an active VKontakte social media profile, again in Russian.

Perusal of the official Coin Place Facebook group (which has no listed admins), also reveals most members have Russian names.

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…]

Strike7 provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the business.

Not sure what the story is, but the Strike7 “About Us” website page appears to be copy and pasted from multiple sources.

After claiming to have “been providing quality finance-related services to legal entities and individuals since 1996”, a UK incorporation number for “SpiderCoin Limited” is provided.

No explanation as to what SpiderCoin has to do with Strike7 is provided.

Furthermore if you look up the provided UK incorporation number, it corresponds not to SpiderCoin Limited but to Profit-I-Need Limited.

Profit-I-Need Limited was incorporated on October 17th, 2017.

The address used to incorporate Profit-I-Need belongs to a coffee shop in Manchester, which as far as I can tell has nothing to do with Strike7, SpiderCoin or Profit-I-Need.

“Todd Russell” is listed as the sole Director of Profit-I-Need. Given the generic nature of the name and lack of information tying Russell to Strike7, it’s a safe bet the whole incorporation is bogus.

UK incorporation is trivial and cheap to set up. There’s little to no verification of submitted details making them a favorite for scammers (particularly those operating out of Europe and India).

The Strike7 website domain (“strike7.io”) was only registered a few weeks ago on November 11th, 2017.

Put all of this together and it’s clear Strike7 hasn’t been around since 1996. The company is being operated by person(s) unknown from who knows where.

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 TelexFree Trustee has filed a response to the net-winner class’ objections to the claim resolution process.

Filed on November 14th, TelexFree’s net-winner class objected to

• not being given a chance to review or object to claims
• not having a chance to respond to claim objections in individual proceedings
• not having their claims decided through individual damages proceedings

The class also argued that their claims were “not suitable” for determination through the electronic claims process.

In his November 27th response, the Trustee argues that [Continue reading…]