Relationships between scammers are fickle at best. Throw in a bit of Ponzi greed, potentially millions of dollars and a list of people who’ve bought into math-breaking ROI lie, and all bets are off.

As a result of the SEC lawsuit against Traffic Monsoon last year, owner Charles Scoville had his assets frozen. Rather than get an honest job to support himself in the meantime, Scoville sought out donations to fund his legal defense. [Continue reading…]

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

The CryptoMaxx website domain (“cryptomaxx.com”) was privately registered on February 10th, 2017.

The CryptoMaxx website domain currently uses name-servers hosted on the Crypto Mafia server. This requires admin permissions, meaning CryptoMaxx is being run by the same people behind Crypto Mafia:

This is further confirmed by a visit to the Crypto Mafia website, which now redirects to CryptoMaxx.

Crypto Mafia was a bitcoin gifting scheme launched in early January. Facebook postings connected it to “Millionaire Mafia”, a company owned by Ben Oberg (right).

Oberg was still personally promoting Crypto Mafia up until early February, at which point it was relaunched as CryptoMaxx.

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

Bitqyck operate in the cryptocurrency MLM niche and are based out of Texas in the US.

The Bitqyck website identifies Sam Mendez as co-founder of the company. The other QyckBit co-founder(s) is/are not disclosed.

Mendez first popped up on BehindMLM’s radar as a co-founder of My Shopping Genie back in 2011.

Following a six-month period during which My Shopping Genie failed to pay affiliates, the company collapsed in mid 2012.

In 2014 Mendez reemerged as the co-founder of 15 Winks, a subscription-based mobile dating app.

In 2016 Mendez launched Calorchi, a cryptocurrency based e-commerce platform.

Alexa traffic statistics for the Calorchi website suggest the company collapsed in the second half of 2016.

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

SaladMaster was founded all the way back in 1946 by Harry Lemmons.

So the story goes,

In 1946, the Saladmaster brand began in the home of Mr. Harry Lemmons.

During that first year, Mr. Lemmons’ sales force grew from just three people to more than 100.

Regal Ware Inc. purchased SaladMaster in 1979 and continue to run it to this day.

The SaladMaster website provides no information on the company’s management structure.

Further research reveals Keith Peterson credited as President of SaladMaster. Why this information is not provided on the SaladMaster website is unclear.

Peterson’s LinkedIn profile cites his time at SaladMaster only as “current”. I wasn’t able to pin down when Peterson joined SaladMaster. Nor was I able to put together an MLM history.

As one of the oldest MLM companies in the industry, this seemed highly out of place.

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

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

The Bitcoin Builder website domain (“bitcoinbuilder.club”) was privately registered on February 9th, 2017.

According to statistics provided on the Bitcoin Builder website (which admittedly may not be accurate), the US, India and Nigeria are primary sources of revenue for the company.

It is highly likely that whoever is running Bitcoin Builder 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…]

Amid concerns OneCoin was a “deceitful Ponzi scheme”, last December the Italian Antitrust and Consumer Protection Authority (AGCM) ordered affiliates in Italy to stop promoting the company.

A preliminary injunction concluded a few weeks later, resulting in an interim injunction banning promotion of OneCoin in Italy.

Citing legal opinions the company had paid for, OneCoin dismissed the AGCM’s preliminary findings.

On February 27th the AGCM announced they’d concluded their investigation into OneCoin. [Continue reading…]

In 1994 the Zhejian Higher People’s Court in China convicted Chen Man of murder. He was initially given a suspended death sentence, later commuted to life imprisonment.

Questions about the legitimacy of Chen’s trial have always lingered.

The fairness of Chen’s trial was questioned at the time, with his lawyer identifying 18 contradictions in his testimony.

Wang said Chen was tortured into confessing. “He was strangled until he almost suffocated and his joints were beaten with sticks and steel rods,” she said.

In 2015 Chen

filed a petition with the top prosecutors’ office in Beijing last year, which then lodged a protest with the Supreme People’s Court.

The court ordered a retrial and assigned the Zhejiang high court to hear it.

At the retrial last year, both the prosecutors and defence lawyers asked for Chen to be exonerated.

After twenty-three years behind bars, on Monday February 1st, 2016, Chen (right) was exonerated and set free.

In a prison courtroom, Hainan’s top judge, Fu Qin, bowed to Chen in apology on behalf of the court, which issued the death sentence 21 years ago, said Chen’s lawyer, Wang Wanqiong.

“He said he was sorry for all those years Chen spent in jail, and Chen replied: ‘It’s OK.’” Wang said.

“I think Chen also meant that the one who apologised was not in charge when the case took place. He’s a very kind person and felt nothing but joy today.”

The authorities have yet to announce an investigation into the judges, prosecutors and police officers involved in the original verdict.

“Chen said those people should be held responsible, but he had no hatred towards them and believed it should be left to the law to decide,” Wang said.

As part of his exoneration, Chen was awarded 2.75 million yuan in compensation ($400,209 USD).

Less than a year after his release, Chen found himself in a room being pitched on OneCoin. [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the Global Pay Funds website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Global Pay Funds website domain was privately registered on February 2nd, 2017.

If you visit the Global Pay Funds website without an affiliate referral link, the site advises you your upline referrer is the “Global Pay Funds Advertising Administrator”.

If you then click the “join” button, the name “sasa puncer smeh” appears as the referring affiliate. This is locked and confirms Smeh is the owner of the site.

Smeh appears to be from Austria and was credited as a Star ranked affiliate of Synergy Worldwide back in 2013. Whether he’s still with the company is unclear.

Possibly due to language-barriers, I was unable to find any other information on Smeh’s MLM history.

Of note is the Global Pay Funds terms and conditions appear to be copy and pasted from Earn Earn Earn:

Earn Earn Earn was a 4×4 matrix gifting scheme launched in 2013. It appears to have collapsed in 2014.

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…]

When it launched mid last year, THW Global touted $25 an hour for watching videos.

Trouble is they used Adsense to power these commissions. Adsense strictly prohibit any incentivization to view or click on ads by publishers.

After rolling out their platform, it wasn’t long before Adsense cottoned on and banned THW Global’s account.

As stated in our program policies, AdSense publishers are not permitted to place Google ads on sites with content related to programs offering incentives to click links or ads, read emails, or surf other websites.

Adsense is the biggest advertising publisher network and has been for over a decade. Priority one is maintaining the integrity of the network, so anything that remotely resembles a financial incentive to view or click on ads is banned pretty quick.

This has been the case pretty much since inception, with Adsense getting better at detecting fraud over the years.

Despite this, THW Global seem to think they’re entitled the revenue they generated.

During the period from August 1, 2016 through October 13, 2016 THWGlobal served over 150,000,000 (150 million) video views which consumed over 1,273 terabytes of data transfer from dozens of servers around the globe.

During the same period THWGlobal also served approximately 1,900,569,000 (1.9 Billion) impressions resulting in millions of dollars of display and video ad revenues, which was to be shared with our IV’s.

The final calculation would have potentially resulted in an average hourly rate of nearly $19 per hour for those IV that viewed and commented on the videos.

While at first glance this might look like Adsense withholding the money for themselves, have a think about it.

Where does the money come from? Advertisers.

Had THW Global not incentivized affiliates with income claims of up to $25 an hour, would they have generated anywhere near the views and impressions above?

No.

So why should advertisers pay THW Global “millions of dollars” for traffic that weren’t even the slightest bit genuinely interested in what they were advertising?

After sorting through THW Global’s bogus traffic and adjusting for genuine interest, THW Global were eventually paid

less than 2% of what was expected and the amount ultimately paid was less than 5% of the direct expenses associated with serving the videos.

I believe this was over August and September, with Adsense finally banning the account in October.

With legitimate advertising revenue not even covering operating expenses, let alone enough to pay affiliates “$25 an hour”, THW Global’s admin(s) did a runner.

THWGlobal is left with no alternative but to cease the operations of the video platform and close the company.

THWGlobal will pursue additional legal remedies in this mater however, the time frame and outcome of such is unknown and unquantifiable at this time. We wish all IVs the best in their future endeavors.

Suing Adsense for clearly breaking the Terms and Conditions (that THW Global agreed to when they signed up)? Yeah, good luck with that.

And why did it take THW Global four months after Adsense banned them to inform affiliates they were closing up shop?

Looking forward, a message on the THW Global website advises the affiliate-base has been sold to 888 Travel For Less.

They will take over the software as is, with the full 1.6 million person downline intact as it has been built from day one.

We hope that all IV’s are able to take advantage of the 888TravelForLess opportunity and can move forward with the downlines you have each built.

Effectively THW Global affiliates, whether they consent or not, have been bait and switched for the second time (the first was pyramid recruitment).

Read on for a full review of the 888 Travel For Less MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]

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

The BTC Advantage website domain (“btcadvantage.com”) was registered on February 9th, 2017. Lauro Alan Neves de Moraes is listed as the owner, with an address in Santa Caterina, Brazil also provided.

Possibly due to language barriers, I was unable to put together an MLM history on Moraes.

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…]