If you’ve been paying any attention to the rumblings of the MLM underbelly, hours after Donald Trump is sworn in on January 20th Ponzi and pyramid schemes will be declared legal and a new golden era of scamming will be upon us.

Until then, February is shaping up to be quite the win for US regulatory and law enforcement agencies. [Continue reading…]

Angel Business Club surfaced around the time Viral Angels collapsed in mid 2015.

When it first launched, a “risk warning” page on the Angel Business Club website directly referenced Viral Angels.

Angel Business Club cite their parent company as Angel Equity International, a company registered in the UK.

Angel Equity International was incorporated in May of 2015, again around the time Viral Angels collapsed.

Dominic Berger and Philip Reid are listed as Company Directors of Angel Equity International, both through an address in London.

The Angel Business Club website cites Reid as Chairman and Berger as CEO of the company.

Both Reid and Berger were members of Trig’s Board of Directors.

Viral Angel’s CEO Anthony Norman was also the CEO of Trig (for a more detailed history refer to BehindMLM’s Viral Angels review).

Trig was tied to Viral Angels via the offering of virtual shares in Trig to Viral Angels affiliates.

Although Norman is not publicly fronting Angel Business Club, for all intents and purposes it appears to be a reboot of Viral Angels.

Viral Angels was primarily operated out of Sweden, with this likely also the actual base of operations for Angel Business Club.

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

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

The Adz Firm website domain (“adzfirm.com”) was privately registered on December 25th, 2016.

The Adz Firm website is hosted on a private server, which also hosts the website for My Ads Family:

My Ads Family is a Ponzi scheme launched a few weeks ago. A recent affiliate newsletter claimed My Ads Family is a ‘sister site of ViralCrypto Team‘.

Viral Crypto is a cash gifting scheme launched a few months ago. Alexa traffic statistics suggest it began to collapse in early December.

My Ads Family doesn’t appear to have taken off, likely prompting the launch of Adz Firm.

Apex Adz is also hosted on the same private server and advertises a $3.75 ROI off a $2 investment.

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…]

Following the expiry of a December 31st deadline for Zeek Rewards claimants to file OFAC certification, the Receiver has announced a third distribution payment.

Funds had been reserved for OFAC deficient claims, but with the deadline now passed those funds will be distributed to Zeek victims with valid claims. [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the Global Platinum Services website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The corporations MB Holidays LTD (UK) and PC Platinum Travel Inc. (US) appear in the Global Platinum Services website footer.

MB Holidays is actually “Xstream MB Holidays”. Jeremy Monte is listed as the sole Director of the company.

PC Platinum Travel is a registered corporation in Nevada, however I was unable to find any information as to its corporate structure.

Jeremy Monte (right), Xstream MB Holidays and PC Platinum Travel were all named defendants in a lawsuit recently filed by Paycation.

Paycation owner David Manning claims Monte and his companies have been raiding Paycation to build Global Platinum Services.

Monte himself is a former Paycation affiliate. On his LinkedIn profile he cites himself as CEO of Montbriar Inc. (I believe MB Holidays is an abbreviation for Montbriar Holidays).

Why Monte doesn’t list himself as an owner of Global Platinum Services on the company website is unclear.

Paycation had requested a Temporary Restraining Order against Global Platinum Services, however that doesn’t appear to have been granted.

Pending access to the case files, the current status of the Paycation lawsuit is unknown.

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

The OxyHelper website identifies Minga Garcia as owner of the company. Garcia purportedly is from the US.

A Facebook profile bearing the name Minga Garcia was created on two days ago on January 8th. Numerous photos of a woman have been batch uploaded, but otherwise there is no content on the profile.

The “about us” page of the OxyHelper website contains a message purportedly written by Garcia:

The word “stokvel” stood out because there are no stokvels in the US, it’s an African concept. I ran a search on the copy and discovered it was copy and pasted from ZarFund:

ZarFund is a bitcoin cash gifting scheme launched last August. Whether ZarFund is directly connected to OxyHelper is unclear.

What is clear however is that “Minga Garcia”, as represented on the OxyHelper website, probably doesn’t exist.

Other members of OxyHelper’s management contain stolen profile photos.

The most obvious is Steven L. Lowe, who is credited as a member of OxyHelper’s Support Team. The photo used to represent Lowe is actually that of musician David Gilmour.

A marketing video on the OxyHelper website is hosted on a YouTube account bearing the name “Oxy Helper”.

The account has three OxyHelper marketing videos uploaded to it, in Russian, Urdu and Hindi.

This strongly suggests whoever is running OxyHelper is of Russian or Indian origin.

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…]

In a public notice published yesterday, the Nigerian SEC has issued a warning against cryptocurrencies and pyramid schemes.

OneCoin, SwissCoin and Bitcoin are specifically singled out, with the SEC extending the warning to “such other virtual or digital currencies”. [Continue reading…]

The AdvClix website identifies a “Mr. Duffy” as CEO of the company.

Duffy is represented by an accounting themed stock cartoon image. His corporate bio meanwhile reads like it was written by someone who learnt English as a second language:

His devotion to his field of interest brings world’s all time greatest platform to change your life, to make it better, more luxurious and more comfortable, by doing very smart and easy work.

There’s a high probability that “Mr. Duffy” doesn’t actually exist.

The AdvClix website domain (“advclix.com”) was privately registered on June 30th, 2016.

With the exception of India, Alexa estimate four of the top five sources of traffic to the AdvClix website are in Africa.

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…]

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

The BitLuna website domain (“bitluna.org”) was privately registered on November 14th, 2016.

The anonymous owners of BitLuna also operate LunaWallet and MiteFX. LunaWallet is used to store LunaCoins mined through BitLuna and MiteFX is an internal exchange.

The LunaWallet and MiteFX domain registrations are both set to private.

A voiceover on the BitLuna website claims the company is registered in the UK.

The Terms and Conditions of LunaWallet state:

LunaWallet is an online payment processor, registered and domiciled in the country of Seychelles, and are bound by the legal requirements of Seychelles.

It is extremely likely these are both shell company registrations.

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…]

Mid last year victims of William Apostelos’ Ponzi scheme filed a lawsuit against PNC Bank.

By processing Ponzi payments, victims claim PNC Bank ‘played an “indispensable role” in the success of’ Apostelos’ scheme.

The Aposteloses “deposited virtually all of the money” that they raised into one primary PNC business account (referred to as the “8143 Account”) and paid “monthly interest payments” to investors from that account.

Throughout the life of his Ponzi scheme, Apostelos opened eight accounts with PNC Bank.

His victims argue that PNC Bank should have cottoned on to Apostelos’ fraud and are therefore liable for $30 million in damages. [Continue reading…]