BullionVault is owned by Galmarley Limited, who in turn are a subsidiary of BullionVault LTD.

All three are UK corporations with a physical address in London, UK.

BullionVault was founded in 2005 and is headed up by Chairman Paul Tustain (right).

As per Tustain’s BullionVault corporate bio reveals he was working in the banking sector before getting into gold.

Sensing that more people would soon be looking to buy gold (Tustain) started planning BullionVault in 2002.

Development of BullionVault, which he funded, started in late 2003, and the BullionVault service was launched in spring 2005 supported by investment from 30 friends, family and business angels.

He was CEO from launch until 2016, during which time the business grew to become the world’s biggest online investment bullion service.

In addition to running BullionVault, Tustain also co-founded WhiskyInvestDirect in 2015.

WhiskyInvestDirect is a non-MLM company that offers a whisky investment service. Of the two companies, BullionVault definitely appears to be the stronger.

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

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

The Pacific Ads website domain (“pacads.com”) was privately registered on April 4th, 2017.

The official Pacific Ads Facebook group has one admin, Shakeel Babar.

On his personal Facebook page, Babar has been promoting the Pacific Ads admin account referral link.

Shakeel Babar is based out of Malaysia and initially appears to have envisioned his company as another MLM altcoin pump and dump scam:

Why Babar scrapped his plans for PCoin is unclear.

Babar began promoting Pacific Ads back in April. Prior to that he was promoting The Ads Team, 10 Ads Pay, Ads Crypto, Elite Earner’s Club, BTC Quake, Adz Firm, My Ads Family, RevCoin, Creative Adz Group, Ad Crump, Green Day Pay, Ultimate Revshare, BeOnPush, and Traffic Hubb Ponzi schemes.

Babar was also an affiliate in the Bit Wins, Crypto 24×7, Passive Crypto, Viral Crypto, Crypto Orbis, Adz Firm, 2×4 Club, Crypto Adz, Paid Rocket bitcoin gifting schemes.

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

OneCoin’s days in Norway appear to be numbered, following a request to the company’s Norwegian lawyer for information on local affiliates. [Continue reading…]

PawTree launched in early 2014 and operate in the pet care MLM niche.

The company is based out of the US state of Texas and headed up by founder and CEO, Roger Morgan.

So the story goes;

After nearly a decade as a CEO in the pet industry, our founder, Roger Morgan, discovered something so exciting and revolutionary that he left his job and began a journey to create a company committed to making a difference in the lives of pets and people.

On the professional side of things,

Roger served as President and CEO of The Retail Products Group (RPG) manufacturing and selling pet products to retailers from 2005 to 2012.

He served as the Chairman of the American Pet Products Association (APPA) from 2011 to 2013 and is currently on the board of APPA.

He has formerly served on the boards of directors of PetSmart Charities and the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council (PIJAC).

I wasn’t able to find an MLM history for Morgan, suggesting PawTree is his first MLM venture.

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

Charles Scoville is currently at the center of regulatory action against the Traffic Monsoon Ponzi scheme.

After the granting of a preliminary injunction against Traffic Monsoon, based on the likelihood of the SEC winning at trial, Scoville filed an appeal.

The appeal is still playing out in court, with a decision expected to be many months off yet.

In the meantime, a month or so ago Scoville announced he was gearing up to launch a new business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

Starbit International has one of the worst designed websites of an MLM company I’ve ever seen.

The homepage has just under 20 megabytes of images and on average takes twenty to thirty seconds to load.

For visitors who don’t get annoyed and click away while it’s loading (the page has to load in full before you can see anything), they’re then presented with a site that has no information about who owns or runs the company.

The Starbit International website domain (“starbit.com”) was first registered in 2012. The registration was recently updated on April 13th, 2017, suggesting this is when the current owner took possession.

Iliah Kokh is listed as the domain owner, with an address in Dubai also provided. The address is a building with no street or suite number, suggesting it might be virtual (or non-existent).

The email Kokh used to register the Starbit International domain points to another domain, on which the following message is published:

CRYPTONETWORK EVOLVES

Cryptonetwork’s months of activity have produced a series of market information and findings that fully focused on the preliminary phase goals.

From May 2017, the initiative enters directly in the new operational phase, managed at an international level, with an even wider structure.

All agreemeents [sic] in place remains valid until regular deadline.

A link to the Starbit International website is also provided.

The domain in question, “cnt.network”, was used to promote Centurion Network prior to the message above being displayed.

Centurion Network was headed up by Sunitkumar Patel, Pascal Federle, Vincent Piscitello, Gianvito Ricciardone, Benedetto Cancemi, Fabrizio Di Silvio and Nicole Ganier, all members of the “Centurion Foundation”.

Centurion Network was a cryptocurrency MLM opportunity that revolved around Centurion Coin.

Centurion Coin is your typical pump and dump MLM altcoin.

Initially launched as Ponzi points, Centurion Coin launched with a publicly traded value of 6.5 cents in March.

Today the value is 3.8 cents and now that Centurion Coin is no more, likely to collapse even further.

Other than Luana Sicari serving as Chief Sales Officer, Starbit International has not made its executive structure or information about who owns the company public.

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…]

While I’ve come to accept it’s pretty much “anything goes” in the MLM underbelly, even after almost a decade I still come across stories I find perplexing.

Zhang Jian’s latest escapades in Malaysia are one such instance. [Continue reading…]

Subash George Manuel owns and operates Bee-One, a UK corporation.

In addition to Bee-One Manuel operates Bee International, an immigration company specializing in immigration to Canada.

Manuel is also active in the Indian cryptocurrency scene through the website Crypto Carbon.

On June 3rd, 2017, BehindMLM received a DMCA take-down notice from Bee-One UK, sent on behalf of Manuel. [Continue reading…]

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

The Raging Bitcoin website domain (“ragingbitcoin.com”) was registered on May 19th, 2017. Robert Reel is listed as the owner, with a residential address in the US state of Indiana also provided.

According to Reel’s LinkedIn profile, where he goes by “Robb Reel”, he’s actually based out of Texas. This is presumably where Raging Bitcoin is being operated from.

In between posting an endless parade of motivational and American flag memes on Facebook, last year Reel was promoting United Games Marketing.

United Games Marketing launched with big promises and hype, but ultimately didn’t seem to go anywhere.

Alexa traffic estimates for the United Games Marketing website show a steady decline in interest throughout 2017.

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

Royal Dragon Traders provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the business.

The Royal Dragon Traders website domain (“royaldragontraders.com”) was privately registered on April 20th, 2017.

The Royal Dragon Traders Terms and Conditions states the company is “operated by MaGABEL” from Dubai. I was unable to find anything further on this company.

There is a Magabel Services that operates out of Belgium, however it doesn’t appear to have anything to do with Royal Dragon Traders.

Further research reveals Royal Dragon Traders affiliates naming Bjorn Hauge and Gary Granello as co-founders of the company, with Johnny Dalini as CEO.

Note that I wasn’t able to independently verify this information.

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…]