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…]

Although a bit late to the game, yesterday Portugal’s top financial regulator issued a OneCoin investment warning. [Continue reading…]

Carlos Wanzeler, one of the masterminds behind the $3 billion TelexFree Ponzi scheme, remains a fugitive at large.

A hasty flight to Canada and then Brazil saw Wanzeler leave behind a significant number of assets, which were promptly seized by the DOJ.

These assets are currently in storage, where they ‘are incurring storage costs and depreciating in value.‘

In an attempt to maximize the monetary value derived from Wanzeler’s seized assets, the DOJ has asked for permission to sell them off. [Continue reading…]

It appears former Divvee management struggle with the concept of simplicity.

First the company offered access to discounts. Then it became a promotional platform. Then they were going to offer Ryze AI ROIs. Then they merged with Hodo Global into Nui. Then Nui announced it wasn’t partnering with Ryze AI. Then they were going to merge with Wealth Generators. Then they weren’t.

Now Nui are preparing to launch their Kala cryptocurrency, through yet another company; Symatri. [Continue reading…]

PM International aren’t happy with TV2’s Health Control report into their MLM opportunity.

The company has filed a lawsuit against the Norwegian broadcaster for breaching the Damages Act.

Health Control’s report aired on November 2nd and, among other things, claimed PM International was operating as a pyramid scheme. [Continue reading…]

The Zhunrize Recevier’s clawback lawsuit against Vodaware is a bit unusual.

Zhunrize was a $100 million dollar Ponzi scheme shut down by the SEC in 2014.

Upon being appointed, the Zhunrize Receiver

retained employees from Vodaware, the company that created Zhunrize’s website, to assist in pulling electronic data for use in the claims analysis.

The Receiver, his accountants, and his counsel worked with Vodaware, Zhunrize’s service provider, to recover victim investment data and reconcile the data to other third party victim
data, such as Zhunrize bank statements,and data obtained from Zhunrize’s commission payment records.

Inadvertently, Vodaware’s cooperation with the Receiver might have led to the Receivership uncovering almost $3 million transferred to Vodaware and its principals.

On August 18th the Zhunrize Receiver filed a clawback lawsuit, demanding Vodaware return $2.8 in stolen Ponzi funds. [Continue reading…]

Divvee’s original launch in mid 2016 saw the company charge $9.95 a month for access to discounts.

When that business model flopped Divvee introduced “Rank & Share” in late 2016, a platform that combined promotion and recruitment commissions.

Rank & Share was a key component of Divvee’s MLM opportunity until a few months ago.

In July, 2017 it appeared Divvee was poised to offer forex ROIs through the Ryze AI trading bot.

Another MLM company, Hodo Global, had also been promoting Ryze a few months prior. [Continue reading…]