I last reviewed Skinny Body Care late last year. One of the key-concerns identified was ‘the pushing of products onto affiliates as a commission qualifier.‘

After signing up, a Skinny Body Care affiliate are strongly encouraged to purchase products to qualify for commissions.

While there is nothing inherently problematic about affiliates purchasing products, to do so to qualify for commissions encourages chain-recruitment.

That is you sign up as a new Skinny Body Care affiliate, purchase products to qualify for commissions and get paid when you recruit new affiliates who do the same.

In this scenario the products become irrelevant and the income opportunity itself becomes what is actually being marketed and sold.

One Skinny Body Care affiliate even went so far as to claim most affiliates are on autoship to “protect their income“.

In light of the recent Vemma and Herbalife busts, which identified affiliate purchases as a primary source of revenue indicative of pyramid fraud, one would think MLM companies across the board would be doing everything they can to encourage retail sales.

Not Skinny Body Care. They’ve doubled down on their affiliate autoship recruitment model and introduced a “Legacy Matrix”. [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the 2by2 Matrix Club website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The 2by2 Matrix Club website domain (“2by2matrix.club”) was privately registered on January 30th, 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…]

Rather than argue a fruitless case in court and lose anyway, today William Apostelos plead guilty to mail and wire fraud.

Apostelos was indicted back in October of 2015 on thirteen counts of wire fraud. Part of Apostelos’ $75 million dollar Ponzi empire included Genesis Acquisitions, reviewed by BehindMLM in October, 2014. [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the Cycle BTC website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Cycle BTC website domain (“cyclebtc.com”) was privately registered on November 8th, 2016.

Alexa estimate that Nigeria (28%), Pakistan (23%) and the Philippines (17%) are currently the largest sources of traffic to the Cycle BTC website.

It is highly likely that whoever is running Cycle BTC is based out of one or more of these three countries.

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 their website, Excallit claims to be a Delaware corporation established in July of 2012.

This is questionable, as the Excallit website domain was only registered in May of 2014.

A Delaware address is listed on the Excallit website domain registration. The address however belongs to Delaware Registry LTD, who provide Delaware incorporation services.

As far as I can tell Excallit has no physical presence in the United States.

The Excallit website identifies Michael Juul (right) as CEO of the company.

In 2001 Juul co-founded the GII Corp pyramid scheme. The same scammers behind GII Corp seem to have morphed into a gaming platform (T6 Poker) at some point.

To what extent, if any, Juul was involved in T6 Poker is unclear.

As per his Facebook profile, Juul is from Denmark but currently lives in Singapore. This is presumably from where Excallit is actually being operated from.

Excallit marketing material suggests the company is primarily pitched to a Chinese audience. A secondary market appears to be emerging in Romania.

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

Last year the CFTC filed a lawsuit against Changes Trading and co-owners Timothy Baggett and Kimball Parker.

Negotiations between Parker and the CFTC are ongoing but Baggett has thus far failed to make an appearance in the case.

In November the CFTC filed for an entry of default against Changes Trading and Baggett. This was granted in December.

On February 1st the CFTC filed a Motion for Default Judgement, which was granted the same day. [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the Centurion Network website indicating who owns or runs the business. The website currently displays a timer, presumably counting down to the Centurion Network launch.

The Centurion Network website domain (“centurionlab.org”) was privately registered on November 16th, 2016.

Further research reveals an associated Centurion Network charity named Centurion Foundation.

The “staff” page of the website appears to list people involved in Centurion Network, some of which have ties to the MLM underbelly.

The first person listed is “Gustavo Artusio”.

This is a screenshot of Claudio Gustavo Artusio speaking at a My Advertising Pays event. The image is part of a profile image for a YouTube account bearing the name “Claudio e Claudia Artusio”:

Claudio Artusio (right) is from Italy and was an affiliate in the My Advertising Pays Ponzi scheme. My Advertising Pays collapsed late last year and has since been rebooted as The Advertising Platform.

Other individuals listed on the Centurion Foundation have a history in network marketing:

• Sunitkumar Patel (FGXpress)
• Pascal Federle (Sisel)
• Vincent Piscitello (Organo Gold)
• Gianvito Ricciardone (Sisel)
• Benedetto Cancemi (no specific company but lots of marketing coaching on his Facebook page)
• Fabrizio Di Silvio (Sisel)
• Nicole Ganier (Sisel, FGXpress)

The exact nature of professional relationship between those listed on the Centurion Foundation website with Centurion Network is unclear.

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…]

BehindMLM first reviewed Swiss Gold Global mid last year.

We concluded that there was a good chance the majority of affiliates were self qualifying for commissions, effectively making Swiss Gold Global a pyramid scheme.

That business model is unsustainable, so it wasn’t entirely surprising to learn the company has since made changes to its offering and compensation plan.

Today we take a look at those changes with an updated Swiss Gold Global review. [Continue reading…]

On January 18th Wakaya Perfection filed their answer to Youngevity’s lawsuit.

For the most part the company denies the claims laid out against it.

Individuals identified herein and other distributors of Wakaya’s products neither are agents of Wakaya nor speak for or on behalf of Wakaya, that Wakaya’s compensation plan speaks for itself, and that the statements selectively quoted herein have been taken out of context and given a self-serving characterization by Youngevity.

That much was expected. What’s particularly interesting though are the allegations that follow in Wakaya’s counterclaim. [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the Claritta website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Claritta website domain (“claritta.net”) was registered on January 30th, 2017. Emmanuel Nnani (below right) is listed as the owner, with an address in Lagos, Nigeria also provided.

Claritta is the only MLM opportunity that appears on Nnani’s Facebook profile. Whether he has participated in other MLM companies is unclear.

At the time of publication, Alexa estimate that 96% of traffic to the Claritta website originates out of Nigeria.

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