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

The FirstCoin Club website domain (“firstcoin.club”) was privately registered on July 15th, 2016.

The FirstCoin Club website cites “Dynamic Global Marketing Ltd” but provides no information about the relationship between the two companies.

An address in Dubai is provided, however further research reveals this address belongs to Freemont Group.

Freemont Group provide business formation services in Dubai, suggesting FirstCoin Club (and Dynamic Global Marketing LTD) exist in Dubai in name only.

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…]

Reeling from the realization among affiliates that OneCoin currently doesn’t have blockchain, newly appointed CEO Pierre Arens has rushed out a press-release.

The May 10th publication seeks to reassure affiliates that he is “wholly satisfied” with OneCoin’s current SQL database “blockchain”. [Continue reading…]

Efforts to recover funds stolen by Indian OneCoin affiliates have hit a roadblock, following the revelation that 75 crore ($11.6 million USD) has been withdrawn from bank accounts used to accept invested funds. [Continue reading…]

Following regulatory bans in Germany and India, the latest country to confirm an investigation into OneCoin is now Slovenia. [Continue reading…]

Worldwide Solutionz was a Ponzi scheme that popped up BehindMLM’s radar back in 2014.

Under the guise of helping the poor, Worldwide Solutionz affiliates invested $25 on the promise of a $40 ROI. This ROI was funded by subsequent affiliate investment.

With a $15 liability generated per $25 investment made, in early 2015 the scheme began experiences cashflow problems. In April, 2015 Worldwide Solutionz collapsed, which founder Marelize Van Niekerk-Venter blamed on a “lack of support” from affiliates.

In early 2016 Van Niekerk-Venter suggested a Worldwide Solutionz reboot was on the cards, however to date this failed to materialize.

Now authorities in South Africa have revealed a criminal investigation is under way. [Continue reading…]

One of the more pervasive Ponzi schemes that refuses to die is MMM Global.

Founded by Sergey Mavrodi and with origins dating as far back as 1994, MMM Global collapsed last year.

Due to the scheme using bitcoin and Mavrodi walking away scott free, total investor losses were never quantified.

The aftermath of MMM Global’s collapse saw a host of “provide help, get help” scams launch. Most of these have since also collapsed, but a few latecomers are still afloat.

One such example is MMM Ghana, who yesterday attracted the attention of the Bank of Ghana. [Continue reading…]

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

The company claims to be ‘a business group located in UAE with representation offices in various countries‘.

The AlpCoin website domain (“alpcoin.com”) was registered on August 30th, 2016. Patrick Ruegsegger is listed as the owner, with an address in Basel, Switzerland also provided.

Further research reveals the address belongs to WorldWideLinks, who describe themselves as ‘a global working procurement and consulting company with a trading platform.‘

German appears to be the language of choice for AlpCoin. The AlpCoin website itself is hosted in Germany and German is also the first selectable language.

AlpCoin features on the WorldWideLinks website, however whether there is any common ownership is unknown.

An AlpCoin marketing video cites Ruegsegger as CEO of the company:

In the video, Ruegsegger claims to be based out of Dubai and have a history in finance and IT.

Prior to launching AlpCoin in 2016, Ruegsegger was a Dubli affiliate.

Why none of this information is provided on the AlpCoin website 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…]

For the past couple of month, practically anything of interest in Daniel Filho’s criminal trial has been filed under seal.

Filho founded and ran the DFRF Enterprises Ponzi scheme. He was arrested back in July, 2015 but has yet to stand trial.

The only information I’ve been able to glean thus far is that Filho is apparently suffering from mental health issues. This lead to him being declared legally incompetent last month.

A new filing on May 3rd now reveals Filho intends to plead insanity. [Continue reading…]

Known throughout the MLM underbelly for it’s prohibition of Ponzi and pyramid schemes, PayPal nonetheless still pops up as a payment processor for various schemes.

The problem with PayPal’s current fraud detection mechanisms is that, by the time it’s detected, the damage has already been done or PayPal quietly freeze the account.

No information is communicated to victims of the scheme and often the fate of the seized funds remains a mystery.

When PayPal froze Traffic Monsoon’s investor fund account in January, 2016, approximately $61 million of invested funds were frozen.

Despite appearing to freeze the account on suspicion of fraud, PayPal continued to allow affiliate investment transfers into the account for another 30 days.

PayPal purportedly represented to Traffic Monsoon’s owner, Charles Scoville, that the freeze would remain in place until August, 2016.

Scoville promptly reassured Traffic Monsoon affiliates that nothing was amiss and to sit tight and wait it out.

As revealed by the SEC, PayPal prematurely released the funds on July 11th.

Scoville quietly began withdrawing $26.1 million dollars into private bank accounts he controlled. PayPal were fully aware of these transactions and despite earlier suspicions of fraud, had no problems authorizing them.

Two Canadian Traffic Monsoon investors have taken a stand, and through a class-action lawsuit now seek to hold PayPal accountable. [Continue reading…]

On May 6th, Xango announced it had been acquired by Zija International.

Xango market mangosteen juice and Zija a range of moringa-based supplements.

As per a press-release issued on the Xango website; [Continue reading…]