Herbalife FTC settlement announcement by end of the week?
An end to the Herbalife investigation to the FTC might finally be in sight, following a report that a settlement might be announced tomorrow.
Citing an unnamed source “close to the matter”, the New York Post are reporting
an announcement of a deal could come as soon as Wednesday, although the agreement is not final and could still fall apart.
“I do not believe the FTC is requiring a substantial change in the business model,” a source close to the matter said.
Herbalife has, though, agreed to pay a hefty fine, the source said.
Details of the settlement “could not be learned”. [Continue reading…]
Bonofa owners arrested in Germany
Following “months of investigation”, on May 19th 126 search warrants were issued on locations across the German states Saarland and Saxony.
Additionally arrest warrants for violations of the German Banking Act were issued for four individuals in particular, believed to be the owners of Bonofa.
Following a massive operation involving 1200 agents, Detlef Tilgenkamp (63) from Saarbrücken, Thomas Kulla (54) from Riegelsberg, Gernot Fuhr (60) from Wallerfangen and Martin Böhm (38, CEO of Bonofa) were arrested. [Continue reading…]
The Perfect Circle Review: $70-$799 recruitment scheme
There is no information on The Perfect Circle website indicating who owns or runs the business.
The Perfect Circle website domain (“globalprelaunch.com”) was registered on the 26th of April 2016, with James Platzer listed as the owner. An address in Leobersdorf, Austria is also provided.
Despite this, The Perfect Circle website states that an “official kick off” will be held on ‘1st of July 2016 (in) New Delhi, India‘.
Things get even more suspicious when you consider The Perfect Circle identify themselves as a Singaporean company in their website footer:
All Rights Reserved By The Perfect Circle PLC Singapore.
Back in Europe, Alexa currently estimate that 61% of all traffic to The Perfect Circle website originates out of the Czech Republic.
Promotional videos on the official Perfect Circle website are available in English, Hindi and Czech.
Austria, India, Singapore or the Czech Republic. Take your pick.
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…]
OneCoin hire Symbol Media Group for Ponzi promotion
The elephant in the room regarding OneCoin’s upcoming “CoinRush” event, is the yet to be announced venue.
Despite not knowing where in London the CoinRush will be held, OneCoin are charging affiliates up to €200 EUR for tickets.
Unconfirmed word on the grapevine is that top OneCoin downline group, “One Dream Team”, were first to announce the venue as Wembley Arena;
Wembley Arena is a 12,500 capacity indoor stadium in northwest London.
One Dream Team’s announcement was premature, with OneCoin top investors later claiming the venue had yet to be chosen.
Whether this means OneCoin approached Wembley Arena management and were later turned down is unclear. OneCoin corporate have maintained radio silence on the issue.
What we do know is One Dream Team house some of the highest earning investors in the scheme. They have access to OneCoin management so it’s strange they’d rush to announce incorrect information.
As the CoinRush event draws closer, OneCoin yesterday announced the launch of a “CoinRush London” website.
Aimed at providing OneCoin investors with information about the upcoming event, the “location” section of the website is marked “to be announced”.
The footer of the website reveals the site was designed by DotSlave, a “web design and development” company.
The CoinRush London website domain however is registered to Yuliana Nakova of “Simbol Media Grup” (English name: Symbol Media Group).
Symbol Media Group are a Bulgarian-based public relations firm, of which DotSlave is a component of.
Interesting… [Continue reading…]
The Rush Opportunity Review: All In One Profits feeder
There is no information on the Rush Opportunity website specifically identifying who owns or operates the business.
The company simply states on its website that it is being run by “The Dream Chasers” ‘in conjunction with All In One Profits‘.
The Rush Opportunity website domain (“therushopportunity.com”) was registered on the 23rd of December 2015, with Amos Brazan listed as the owner. An address in the US state of Tennessee is also provided.
On his Facebook page, Brazan (right) claims he ‘started working (as) Co Founder of The Dream Chasers Inc.‘ also in December of 2015.
Prior to launching The Rush Opportunity, Brazan was an affiliate with World Team Builder.
World Team Builder was a downline builder for anonymous admins to feed affiliates into shady MLM underbelly schemes.
Launched in June of 2015, World Team Builder collapsed a few months later in September.
Given The Rush Opportunity funnels participants into All In One Profits, it appears Brazan was heavily influenced by his time in World Team Builder.
Read on for a full review of The Rush Opportunity [Continue reading…]
OneCoin literally a relaunch of the BigCoin Ponzi scheme
A few weeks ago we ran a story examining the murky origins of OneCoin.
Billed as a new MLM cryptocurrency lead by Ruja Ignatova, who claims she has no MLM past, we published an abundance of evidence suggesting otherwise.
Through further research and the investigative efforts of BehindMLM reader OzDelphi, we can now provide you absolute confirmation that OneCoin was a simple relaunch of the BigCoin Ponzi scheme before it. [Continue reading…]
Youngevity file for injunction, Wakaya file own lawsuit
The spat between Youngevity and Wakaya Perfection continues.
Since our initial article covering Youngevity’s lawsuit, Wakaya has sought to strike various counts in Youngevity’s complaint. Youngevity has hit back by filing for a permanent injunction.
Separately, we learned that Wakaya Perfection has filed its own lawsuit against Youngevity. They actually got in first, filing six days before the Youngevity complaint.
In their lawsuit Wakaya Perfection had sought a temporary restraining order against Youngevity, but the motion has since been withdrawn. [Continue reading…]
Anahera Review: 10 EUR a month chain-recruitment
There is no information on the Anahera website indicating who owns or runs the business.
The Anahera website domain (“anahera.info”) was registered on the 30th of November 2015, with Daniele Penna listed as the owner. An address in Sihanoukville, Cambodia is also provided.
Daniele Penna is also the listed owner for the defunct domain “danielepenna.com”. The domain registration for this second domain attached Penna to an address in Ciampino, a province of Rome, Lazio, Italy.
Anahera appears to exist in Cambodia in name only, with Italy far more likely where the company is being operated out of.
This coincides with Italian and English presented as the only language options on the Anahera website, as well as Alexa estimating that 84.4% of all traffic to the Anahera website domain originates out of Italy.
On his Facebook page, Daniele Penna describes himself as ‘a researcher, writer, trainer and traveler.‘
The earliest involvement of Penna in the MLM industry I was able to find, is a forum post dated May, 1997. In it, Penna claims to be the President of the Italian Network Marketing Association.
I tried to obtain recent information about this association but it doesn’t appear to exist anymore.
On his YouTube channel, Penna markets Anahera as a “community game”.
Penna’s YouTube channel is fairly active, containing a mixture of internet marketing and lifestyle videos.
No video other than a few on Anahera ties Penna to any particular MLM opportunity (the channel goes back four years).
Penna’s LinkedIn profile goes back as far as 2010, citing him as the author of the book Sveglia (“Wake Up”) in 2010. He is also credited as the CEO of something called the “Quantum Jump Free Knowledge Project”.
Despite mentioning his involvement in “the field of Network Marketing for several years”, I was unable to verify Penna’s joining or running of an MLM company.
It should be noted that, despite my best efforts, this might be due to language-barriers (Italian).
Read on for a full review of the Anahera MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]
OneCoin legal opinion lawyer was a company Director
To date OneCoin have had a tough time independently verifying their legitimacy.
The company, through Ponzi points, uses newly invested funds to pay off existing investors. Thus far this has proven to be a hard-sell to anyone they haven’t paid off.
Paid advertorials are of course the videos OneCoin uploads to their YouTube channel, as well as paid advertising in Forbes BrandVoice and Financial IT.
One last bastion of purported independent coverage is a “legal opinion”, published by the German law firm Breidenbach Rechtsanwalte back in 2014.
Now, new information suggests that even this document might have been financially motivated. [Continue reading…]
Woman murdered, stuffed in suitcase & torched over MLM debt
Kavita Badala, a twenty-seven year old woman from Mumbai, had not been seen or heard from since May 15th after she left for work.
On Monday May 16th, her father received a ransom call demanding Rs 3,000,000 ($44,494 USD) and 3 kg of gold.
He reported the matter to Arnala police, who tracked down the suspects after they traced the ransom call.
With the cooperation of Badala’s father, Kishanlal Kothari, Arnala police set up a sting meeting between the two parties and apprehended four suspects.
As Mohitkumar Bhagat, Shiv Sharma, Ramavtar Sharma and Unnika Sarvanandan were being questioned, Vangoan police received a report
about a body stuffed in a suitcase and set on fire at Sakra Ghat around 5am the same day.
When pressed by Arnala police, Mohitkumar Baghat confessed they had
set Kavita on fire and her body was dumped in a suitcase near a Dahanu jungle.
A woman has been brutally murdered, four suspects arrested and a father left to grieve the loss of a daughter.
What on Earth happened? [Continue reading…]