Last July the SEC shut down Traffic Monsoon on the basis it was a Ponzi scheme.

Rather than admit he’d stolen millions of dollars through Ponzi fraud and settle, Scoville vowed to defend the case. This saw all manner of nonsensical defenses raised.

With the TRO set to expire, in November a preliminary injunction hearing was held.

It’s been a long five month wait, but Judge Parrish today confirmed Traffic Monsoon was a Ponzi scheme and granted the SEC’s preliminary injunction. [Continue reading…]

2×5 Global Help provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the business.

The 2×5 Global Help website domain (“2x5globalhelp.com”) was privately registered on December 20th, 2016.

The 2×5 Global Help website currently uses name-servers hosted on the “cjbux.com” domain.

Further research reveals CJ Bux was a “get paid to click” scheme launched in mid 2016. Today the CJ Bux website is non-responsive.

Whoever was behind CJ Bux however now appears to be behind 2×5 Global Help.

Alexa estimates that India (14%) and Nigeria (11%) are currently the largest sources of traffic to the 2×5 Global Help website.

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…]

Just over a year ago Le-Vel filed a million dollar plus defamation suit against the Lazy Man and Money blog.

Among other things, Le-Vel alleged Lazy Man and Money employed the

business model of using the name of a well-known network marketing company next to the word “scam” in order to drive internet traffic.

(Lazy Man and Money) published and republished numerous written statements to the public on the internet, asserting as fact that Le-Vel: incentivizes its Promoters to make misrepresentations; is violating FTC guidelines and regulations; is illegally violating FDA marketing restrictions; is an illegal pyramid scheme; is a scam; is not a legitimate business; supports Promoters who do not perform any function other than pyramid scheme recruiting; sets up its Promoters for failure as “a [m]athematical [c]ertainty”; is a “Pay to Play scheme”; is overcharging people by fifty times, for hundreds of dollars per year; sells snake oil; sells THRIVE patches that are placebos with no ingredients; sells THRIVE M supplements that are incomplete multivitamins; has never conducted any research to verify that THRIVE works; and has never studied its products in trials using a patch delivery system.

(Lazy Man and Money’s) statements were defamatory per se because they injured (Le-Vel) in (Le-Vel’s) business reputation. Defamation per se entitles (Le-Vel) to a presumption of general damages.

In addition to answering the compliant, Lazy Man and Money cited the Texas Citizens Participation Act and filed a motion to dismiss.

Under the TCPA, “a court shall dismiss a legal action against the moving party if the moving party shows by a preponderance of the evidence that the legal action is based on, relates to, or is in response to the party’s exercise of:

(1) the right of free speech;

(2) the right to petition; or

(3) the right of association.”

A trial court denied the motion in May, 2016. In addition to awarding costs to Le-Vel, the trial court claimed the motion to dismiss was “frivolous or solely intended for delay”.

Lazy Man and Money filed an interlocutory appeal, which was granted by Justices Lang, Brown and Whitehill on March 23rd. [Continue reading…]

Bee-One are based out of the UK and operate in the cashback e-commerce MLM niche.

The company is headed up by Subash George Manuel, who serves as Bee-One’s Director and CEO.

A corporate address in London is provided on the Bee-One website. Further research however reveals this to be a virtual address actually owned by Regus.

In addition to Bee-One, Manuel (right) also runs Bee International. Bee International is an immigration company specializing in immigration to Canada. Manuel is also active in the Indian cryptocurrency scene through the website Crypto Carbon.

As far as I can tell Bee-One is Manuel’s first venture as an MLM executive.

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

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

The Bit Donar website domain (“bitdonar.com”) was privately registered on February 24th, 2017.

Alexa currently estimate that 96% of traffic to the Bit Donar website originates out of India. This strongly suggests that Bit Donar is being run out of India itself.

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…]

BTC Money System provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the business.

The BTC Money System website domain (“btcmoneysystem.com”) was privately registered on December 21st, 2016.

There are five listed admins of the official BTC Money System Facebook group; Rajeev Yadav, Gio Dante, Tyler Grindler Styles, Kitt Biz and Gio Dilon.

It is unclear which of these Facebook group admins owns BTC Money System.

At the time of publication Alexa rank India (21%) and Nigeria (9%) as the top two sources of traffic to the BTC Money System website.

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…]

Peach are based out of Massachusetts in the US and operate in the women’s clothing niche.

Heading up the company are co-founders Janet Kraus (CEO) and Derek Ohly (COO).

Janet Kraus (right with Ohly) does have some corporate experience (she founded Circles in 1997 and Spire in 2007), however Peach appears to be her first MLM venture.

Derek Ohly founded Zyrra back in 2004. Zyrra marketed bras and lingerie and was the precursor to Peach.

As per an interview with Xconomy back in 2010, Ohly appears to be pretty savvy when it comes to bra fitting.

I didn’t expect to end up in the world of bras, and here I am,” says Ohly, a graduate of Babson College’s MBA program (a likely story).

“I have designed them, sewn them, fit them, and sourced them. As I like to put it, I have a PhD in bras.”

I wasn’t able to pinpoint precisely when Zyrra became peach, but it appears to have taken place around mid 2015.

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

With pretty much every court update filed under seal, I don’t have much concrete information to report on Daniel Filho’s criminal trial.

It emerged Filho was wanted by the FBI in July, 2015. He was arrested later that month and faces criminal charges for running the DFRF Enterprises Ponzi scheme.

Last we checked in a second competency evaluation was ordered back in February. This took place and a sealed report was filed on March 15th.

Of note is Filho’s attorney withdrawing himself from the case on February 14th. As of yet no replacement has entered an appearance. [Continue reading…]

Bitcoin Instant Payment System provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the business.

The Bitcoin Instant Payment System website domain (“bitcoininstantpayment.com”) was privately registered on March 11th, 2017.

Further research reveals there are two admins in the official Bitcoin Instant Payment System Facebook group; Sükür Hassan and Andie Vincze.

The Sükür Hassan account appears to be bogus and has no content (indicative of a purchased Facebook account). Andi Vincze does appear to be a real person, with marketing for multiple MLM underbelly scams appearing on her Facebook timeline.

Vincze appears to be an affiliate rather than admin however, so it’s doubtful she is running Bitcoin Instant Payment System.

It’s worth noting that the website template for Bitcoin Instant Payment System is the same as Global Bitcoin Profits, a recently launched bitcoin gifting scam.

Whether the same admin(s) is/are running both companies 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…]

Cryp Trade Capital provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the business.

The Cryp Trade Capital website domain (“cryp.trade”) was privately registered on August 1st, 2016.

The company does provide an incorporation document dated December 20th, 2016, purportedly showing incorporation for “Cryp Trade Capital Holding SL” through Spain’s Agencia Tributaria. The documents do not reveal who owns Cryp Trade Capital.

There doesn’t appear to be a search function on the Agencia Tributaria website, so whether the documents are genuine or not is unclear.

In any event providing meaningless documents is typically a tactic deployed by scams, as opposed to just providing information about company ownership.

This appears to be the case with Cryp Trade Capital.

At the time of publication Alexa estimate that Germany is the largest source of traffic to the Cryp Trade Capital website (29%). Spain comes in at fifth, making up just over five percent.

Also supporting that Cryp Trade Capital is being by someone from Germany is the “Rubin” affiliate rank. “Rubin” is German for “Ruby”.

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…]