In addition to the $200 million dollar fine Herbalife copped for running a pyramid scheme last year, the company was given ten months to introduce a new compensation plan.

Among other things, Herbalife’s new plan must accurately track genuine retail sales activity and cease paying affiliates solely on recruitment of new affiliates who purchase Herbalife products.

The settlement order was signed on July 15th, 2016. Ten months onward was a week ago on May 15th. [Continue reading…]

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

According to the company’s Polish Wikipedia page, FM World is a Polish company that began as “FM Group”.

FM Group was founded in 2004 by Artura Trawińskiego (Artur Trawinski).

Trawinski (right) is the listed owner of the FM World website domain (“fmworld.com”), first registered in December, 2002.

Why this information is not provided on the FM World website is unclear.

Possibly due to language-barriers (most of the literature available on Trawinskiego is in Polish), I was unable to ascertain Trawinskiego’s MLM history prior to founding FM Group.

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

Last December the My Advertising Pays sued payment processor VX Gateway for $59.6 million dollars.

The Ponzi scheme alleged VX Gateway was wrongfully withholding investor funds and sought recovery.

VX Gateway opposed legal action in Texas and sought to the have the lawsuit dismissed in favor of arbitration in Panama.

A decision was made on the dismissal  motion on May 15th, with ruling made in favor of VX Gateway. [Continue reading…]

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

The BitPayProfits website domain (“bitpayprofits.com”) was registered on February 1st, 2017. Byron McCorriston is listed as the owner, with a residential address in the US state of Hawaii also provided.

Recently McCorriston (right) was promoting the Billion Coin Ponzi scheme (non-MLM). Late last year McCorriston was promoting the Easy 1up gifting scheme and in 2015 he was an affiliate of the TVC Matrix pyramid scheme.

Whether McCorriston still owns BitPayProfits is unclear. The domain registration hasn’t been updated since it was created in February.

Less than a week ago, serial MLM underbelly admin Johnny Ganoza was trying to sell BitPayProfits:

Ganoza has launched and been attached to a number of suspect schemes over the years, the latest of which BehindMLM reviewed was Hustle With Us.

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

Nine years after it launched in 2009, Malaysia’s top financial regulator has finally taken action against MBI International.

Bank Negara Malaysia is pretty much Malaysia’s SEC equivalent and regulates the country’s financial sector.

On May 22nd, the bank added MBI International and M Face International to its consumer alert list. [Continue reading…]

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

The TriumphFX website domain (“tfxi.com”) was first registered on January 12th, 2008. The domain registration details were last updated on April 24th, 2016.

Unfortunately the TriumphFX domain registration is private and provides no information about company ownership.

Alexa currently estimate that 76% of traffic to the TriumphFX website originates out of Malaysia. In addition to revealing where the company is primarily marketed, this also suggests whoever is running TriumphFX is also based out of Malaysia.

A Vanuatu Financial Services Commission certificate is provided on the TriumphFX website, however this appears to be irrelevant as TriumphFX has no operations in Vanuatu.

Update 23rd July 2021 – Scattered breadcrumbs have tied TriumphFX operation and ownership to Leong Koon Wah (right).

Wah, who also goes by Hermes Leong, is a Singaporean scammer.

He was arrested in 2018 on charges related to the Singliworld pyramid scheme. /end update

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…]

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

The EmpowerCoin website domain (“empowercoin.com”) was privately registered on April 19th, 2017.

A number of marketing websites are hosted on the private server that hosts the EmpowerCoin website. These websites are all in German, suggesting whoever owns the server is either based in Germany, speaks German or both.

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…]

7 Rings of Wealth provide no information on their website about who owns or runs the business.

The 7 Rings of Wealth website domain (“7ringsofwealth.com”) was privately registered on February 15th, 2017.

Copy on The 7 Rings of Wealth website references “the Nation”;

To begin earning Patronage Refunds in the 7 Rings of Wealth Crowdfunding project for “The Nation”, simply click on the Signup button and get started today.

The footer of the website also cites “CollaborateUSA, LLC”.

Collaborate USA has a website up over at “collaboratenation.com”. There it’s explained what “the Nation” is;

We choose to govern as a Collaborative Commonwealth, a league, or confederacy of independent persons and businesses (Members), where each individual Member has one voice and one vote, is sovereign and may opt-out without duress or recourse should the Collaborative Commonwealth cease to align with their individual rights and ideals.

That all Members of the Nation shall be Members of Collaborate CoOp, a cooperative association.

That those Members who voluntarily choose to may purchase ownership in Collaborate CoOp by paying a one-time Share Fee of $240 (called a Share Member), and may vote for a Board of Directors of Collaborate CoOp who shall represent the Members in contract and governance.

The Board of Directors shall rotate annually as per the Bylaws of the cooperative association.

Sovereign citizen nuttery. Gotta love it.

Who’s running this particular chapter of sovereign citizens is unclear, but 7 Rings of Wealth is cited as ‘the latest innovation of the popular Collaborative CoOp Community known as “#The Nation.”‘

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 Company 360 (TC 360) launched in late 2016 and operate in the automotive additive MLM niche.

The company is based out of California in the US and headed up by Founder and CEO, Robert Aguilar (below right).

Aguilar’s TC 360 corporate bio credits him with being ‘in the MLM space for over 25 years‘. Despite this I was unable to definitively put together Aguilar’s MLM history (there are a few Robert Aguilar’s in the MLM industry).

Aguilar’s TC 360 bio provides no information as to the company’s he’s previously been involved in.

Read on for a full review of the TC 360 MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]

1000 Expert name Marinete Luiza Oro as President of the company.

Among other things, official 1000 Expert marketing material credits Oro with an LLM in International Law and claims she is a “guidelines deputy chairman of the organization to combat laundering money (American Bar Association)”.

I’d never heard of the organization, so out of curiosity I punched in Oro’s money deputy chairman title into Google. Nothing came up.

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

According to the 1000 Expert marketing material I did find;

Dr. Marinete Luiza Oro, together with Dr. Elcio Gomes, pioneers in the gold mining market in South America, decided o [sic] expand to other continents.

Thus forming the United States Gold Corporation.

The document claims United States Gold Corporation has been around since 2010,

in accordance with the laws of the United States of America.

With a request to be a publicly-held company with the SEC, dedicated to mining, mainly for gold and diamonds.

A search of the SEC’s Edgar database meanwhile turns up nothing for “United States Gold Corporation”, “USG Gold” or “United Gold Corporation” (all three are referenced in 1000 Expert marketing material).

There is an entry for “USG Corp”, however this is an unrelated Delaware corporation that manufactures “concrete gypsum plaster products”.

A United States Gold Corp website exists and seems to corroborate the Oro and Gomes partnership story 1000 Expert is pushing.

A residential address in Florida is provided as a corporate address for United States Gold Corp provided on its website.

The United States Gold Corp website (“unitedstatesgoldcorp.com”) was registered on the 17th of December, 2013.

Bruno Knopik is listed as the owner, with an address in Paran, Brazil also provided.

Who Bruno Knopic is in relation to United States Gold Corp and/or 1000 Expert is unclear.

The 1000 Expert website itself (“1000expert.com”) was only recently anonymously registered on February 15th, 2017.

Alexa currently estimate that 90% of traffic to the 1000 Expert website originates out of Japan.

Read on for a full review of the 1000 Expert MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]