Despite not officially operating in the US, on July 13th OneCoin US affiliates held a recruitment event in Miami Florida.

In attendance were Joshua Unseth and Chris DeRose, two Bitcoin enthusiasts who run a South Florida Bitcoin meetup group every week.

DeRose and Unseth recorded their attendance at the event, which revealed Carl Wilt and other affiliates promoting OneCoin as an investment opportunity.

A few hours ago DeRose and Unseth released an audio recording from the event. The recording, which is hard to make out at times, showcases OneCoin affiliates unable to respond to claims OneCoin is a Ponzi scheme. [Continue reading…]

In light of OneCoin not being registered with a securities regulator anywhere in the world, the company has started insisting it’s not an investment opportunity.

In a compliance email sent out on July 13th, OneCoin advised affiliates anyone caught promoting OneCoin as an investment opportunity ‘will have their account frozen‘. [Continue reading…]

On July 15th OneCoin held a recruitment event in Tokyo, Japan. Speaking at the event was top OneCoin affiliate Igor Alberts.

Addressing a crowd of potential affiliates infront a whiteboard, Alberts, through a translator, shared how he built his OneCoin business. [Continue reading…]

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

The Bitaxles Financial website domain (“bitaxles.com”) was registered on the 27th of June 2016, however the domain registration is set to private.

Source code in the Bitaxles Financial website reveals social network details for Power Hashing:

Power Hashing is a recently launched 25 month ROI Ponzi scheme.

Power Hashing was co-founded by Amit Jaiswal (right), who is based out of Delhi, India.

Alexa currently estimate that 61.1% of all traffic to the Bitaxles Financial website originates out of India.

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

There is no information on the I-CON website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The I-CON website domain (“i-congroup.com”) was registered on the 28th of May 2016, however the domain registration is set to private.

At the bottom of the I-CON Group website the following contact details are provided:

Unit 1542 – 15th Floor – North Tower
Concordia Plaza
1 Science Museum Road
Tsim Sha Tsui – East Kowloon
Hong Kong

Further research reveals a number of real-estate brokers offering leased units in Concordia Plaza. The exact nature of I-CON’s presence there is unknown.

The I-CON website links to a YouTube channel named “aikonbit”. A video titled “Aikon” on the channel suggests the original name of I-CON was Aikon.

Why the company changed names shortly after launch is unclear.

At the time of publication Alexa estimate that 28% of traffic to the I-CON website originates out of Spain.

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…]

On their website, Pool Miners claim ‘PoolMiners, SL is based in Spain (EU)‘.

Spain’s Registro Mercantil Central charge a fee to conduct business name searches, so I was unable to verify this claim independently.

Other than the mention of PoolMiners SL, there is no information on the Pool Miners website disclosing who owns or runs the business.

The Pool Miners website domain (“poolminers.com”) was registered on the 28th of October 2015, however the domain registration is set to private.

Further research reveals Pool Miners promotional videos citing Ruben Arcas as co-founder of the company. Why this information is not provided on the Pool Miners website itself is unclear.

Arcas is mentioned in Pool Miners newsletters, however he is not credited as co-founder of the company.

Arcas Twitter profile reveals he is involved in the website Krypto Commerce.

Krypto Commerce International is a company pioneer in innovation, development of applications and projects based on blockchain technology.

To what extent Krypto Commerce may have inspired or been involved in the formation of Pool Miners is unclear.

On the MLM side of things, Ruben Arcas was part of the Global Coin Reserve leadership team:

Global Coin Reserve was a matrix-based recruitment scheme launched in 2014.

In 2015 it was renamed Global Currency Reserve and solicited thousands of dollars for GCR Coin mining packages.

GCR Coin ultimately proved to be practically worthless, with Global Currency Reserve closing its doors in January, 2016.

When Ruben Arcas left GCR is unclear.

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

riiabRIIAB, otherwise known as Residual Income In A Box is a downline feeder belonging to Randy Garrard.

BehindMLM reviewed the original RIIAB MLM opportunity in mid 2015 and found it to be a cash gifting scheme.

A few weeks ago RIIAB was relaunched as version 2.0. Today we take a look at the new opportunity and see if anything’s changed. [Continue reading…]

Accompanying the FTC’s settlement announcement with Herbalife today was a press-conference held by Chairwoman Edith Ramirez.

Ramirez opened the press-conference by reading from a prepared statement for about seven minutes.

Despite clearly describing Herbalife’s business model as that of a pyramid scheme, the actual words “pyramid scheme” were noticeably absent from Ramirez’s statement.

After Ramirez’s statement she took questions from the media. Not surprisingly, clarification on whether Herbalife was a pyramid scheme was the first question asked. [Continue reading…]

Since the FTC’s announcement earlier today confirming Herbalife was operating as a pyramid scheme, I’ve seen a lot of mis-reporting and distortion of the facts.

I suspect much of this arises from most people not having the time to read through the FTC’s 42 page long complaint against Herbalife. Either that or the complaint was simply to complicated in it’s original format for a significant number of people to comprehend.

In an attempt to remedy this, I’ve broken down the complaint into what is hopefully an easier to read format below.

I’ve refrained from publishing anything not in the complaint in all but one instance, in the hope that facts as opposed to interpretations based on flawed analysis might be put to rest. [Continue reading…]

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

The Elemental Ads website domain (“elementalads.com”) was registered on the June 14th 2016, however the domain registration is set to private.

In the Elemental Ads FAQ, the company claims to be ‘located in Canada‘.

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…]