When a top affiliate of an MLM company departs after nineteen years, you expect some fallout.

What you don’t expect though is systematical sabotage from within, an orchestrated campaign to run a company into the ground if you will – all in the name of launching a new venture.

So alleges a March 23rd lawsuit, filed by Youngevity against former top-earner Todd Smith and Wakaya Perfection, a recently launched rival startup. [Continue reading…]

In early March OneCoin announced a “Grand Ceremony” in Harbin, China.

OneCoin Founder and co-owner Ruja Ignatova was to attend the April 23rd event.

Since the initial March 8th promotional announcement, neither OneCoin or its management has made any reference to the Harbin event.

April 23rd has come and gone, with there being no record of the planned Grand Ceremony taking place.

About a week before the event, information from BehindMLM reader Leo Wang suggested authorities had something to do with the Harbin event being cancelled.

BehindMLM can now confirm Chinese authorities are indeed investigating OneCoin.

Several investors have been arrested, over $30 million USD has been seized and police are warning the public against investing in the scheme. [Continue reading…]

Wakaya is ‘a 2,200-acre island in the Fiji archipelago’. It was purchased by David Gilmour (of Fiji Water fame) in 1973.

So the story goes,

David realized that keeping Wakaya pure in perpetuity would require a self sustaining economy that could support the local Fijian residents and curtail any pressure to “urbanize” the island.

Wakaya Perfection was founded to bring the islands unique healing treasures to the world and to provide Wakaya with the ongoing resources to preserve its pristine environment.

That lead to the formation of Wakaya Perfection late last year, co-founded by Gilmour and Todd Smith.

Smith is credited as a ‘successful entrepreneur and 20-year veteran of direct selling‘. From the looks of it, Gilmour is providing financial backing and Smith the MLM side of the business.

Smith’s MLM career began in 1996 when he joined Youngevity under the “Total Nutrition Team” moniker.

Public promotion of Total Nutrition Team appears to have been abandoned on or around November, 2015, which brings us to the launch of Wakaya Perfection.

Unfortunately for Smith, Wakaya Perfection’s launch has been dogged by controversy.

Wakaya Perfection, Todd Smith and Total Nutrition Team are all named defendants in a lawsuit filed by Youngevity.

For at least the past year, the Defendants have conspired and acted in concert to interfere with Youngevity business operations, Youngevity contractual relations, and Youngevity distributor relations in order to convert business opportunities meant for Youngevity to their own competing multi-level marketing startup.

Filed on March 23rd, Youngevity’s lawsuit accuses Smith and Wakaya Perfection of

intentional interference with business relations, inducement of breach of contract, civil conspiracy, breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition, breach of fiduciary duty, and misrepresentation.

According to Youngevity, Todd Smith

served as a trusted, top-level distributor in Youngevity, and had ownership interests in entities that distributed Youngevity products.

While a top-level distributor for Youngevity, yet acting as an undisclosed agent for Wakaya, and serving the interests of Wakaya, Smith intentionally converted Youngevity business opportunities through misrepresentation, subterfuge, and deceit.

Youngevity claim ‘all of (Wakaya Perfection’s) promoters … were affiliated with Youngevity as officers, employees or distributors‘.

The company alleges Smith

facilitated, aided, or abetted the violation of Youngevity contractual agreements in an effort to induce Youngevity distributors to breach their contracts with Youngevity and to cause business opportunities meant for Youngevity to be diverted to Wakaya.

Smith who, once loyal to the company, came to resent Youngevity as the growth of the company brought in more distributors with status equal to his own and income exceeding his.

Smith grew dissatisfied with Youngevity management, his dissatisfaction reaching a pinnacle when he received corporate reprimands for unlawfully entering the international market of Mexico without Youngevity authorization or Mexican legal approvals, and engaging in unlawful sales of product in Mexico, exposing the company to potential liability for foreign advertising claims and sales.

Smith translated his dissatisfaction with those reprimands and his increasing immersion in a sea of up and coming new Youngevity leaders into a design to induce Youngevity distributors to defect from the company, to divert business opportunities intended for the company, and to redirect resources of the company to facilitate the creation of a competing direct sales company: Wakaya.

Youngevity are seeking damages and a permanent injunction which, if granted, would effectively shut down Wakaya Perfection.

As per the case docket, on April 15th Youngevity were ordered to show cause as to why the lawsuit should not be dismissed.

The problem appears to be Youngevity’s invocation of diversity jurisdiction.

Diversity jurisdiction does not exist in the absence of complete diversity between all plaintiffs and all defendants—no plaintiff may be a citizen of the same state as any defendant.

Plaintiff (Youngevity) alleges that it is a corporation existing under the law of Delaware with its principal place of business in California.

Thus, Plaintiff is allegedly a citizen of Delaware and California

In their filing, Youngevity failed to mention the citizenship status of Wakaya Perfection, Smith and the other named defendants.

Accordingly, Plaintiff (Youngevity) does not allege the requisite complete diversity of citizenship.

Youngevity filed a response on April 21st, alleging

here, no plaintiff is a citizen of the same state as any defendant.

Youngevity is a corporation existing under the laws of Delaware with its principal place of business in California.

Wakaya Perfection is a Limited Liability Corporation existing under the laws of Utah with its principal place of business in Utah.

Wakaya was founded by defendant Todd Smith, a citizen of Utah.

According to public documents filed by Wakaya Perfection with the Utah Secretary of State, Mr. Smith is Wakaya’s sole owner/member

This is interesting, as it throws the legal status of David Gilmour as a co-founder of Wakaya Perfection into question.

In any event, Smith and Wakaya Perfection have yet to file a response. Subject to the outcome of the case, the future of Wakaya Perfection remains in question.

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

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

The HashRevShare website domain (“hashrevshare.com”) was registered on the 14th of April 2016, with Ruby Hoffman listed as the owner. A residential address in South Yorkshire, England is also provided.

The HashRevShare Facebook group lists two admins, Hoffman and John Tadiosa.

Hoffman’s linked Facebook profile is pretty suspicious, with Hoffman’s location listed as Barcelona, Spain. Content wise Hoffman’s profile contains a profile photo update in August 2010, and then nothing until a few days ago – what appears to be a launch announcement for HashRevShare.

Due to the generic nature of “Ruby Hoffman”, nothing definitive comes up for an MLM history search – and of course none is provided by HasRevShare.

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 RevShare Works website identifying owns or runs the company.

The only clue as to company ownership is buried in the RevShare Works Terms and Conditions:

RevShareWorks is a web property and business activity owned and operated by METALEVEL CONSULTING INC, an S-Corporation.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration,

An S corporation (sometimes referred to as an S Corp) is a special type of corporation created through an IRS tax election.

An eligible domestic corporation can avoid double taxation (once to the corporation and again to the shareholders) by electing to be treated as an S corporation.

MetaLevel Consulting Inc is a domestic profit corporation registered in the US state of Georgia in February, 2016.

Terrence Brannon is listed as the sole agent of the company. Brannon is also listed as the owner of the RevShare Works website domain (registered on December 11th, 2015).

Of note is the RevShare Works domain registration lists an address in Ohio. Why MetaLevel Consulting and RevShare Works have addresses in different states is unclear.

Terrence Brannon meanwhile appears to have a long history of participation in Ponzi schemes:

Under the affiliate account “princepawn”, Brannon was an investor in Zeek Rewards, Just Been Paid and Banners Broker.

Brannon was also an affiliate with MPB Today, a pyramid scheme shut down in late 2012.

On his blog “I want you to prosper”, Brannon is currently promoting

• MMM Global (cash gifting Ponzi scheme that recently collapsed)
• Match Rate Plus (merchant account leads)
• Lyoness (AU investment scheme)
• Wealth Builders Network (recruitment cycler)
• Traffic Monsoon (adcredit HYIP Ponzi)
• Adsactly (recruitment scheme that recently launched a Ponzi)
• Ambit Energy (utility MLM)
• Infinii (dropshipping)
• My Advertising Pays (adcredit Ponzi scheme)
• HQ Revshare (HYIP Ponzi)
• Mobrabus (adpack Ponzi scheme)
• My Paying Ads (HYIP Ponzi)
• Vizionary (recruitment scheme) and
• OneCoin (Ponzi points)

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

The Gold Miners website domain was registered on the 15th of January 2016, however the domain registration is set to private.

According to Panamanian registration documents provided on the Gold Miners Facebook page, the company is owned by David Aleman, Henry Aquiles Fonseca and Pedro Lara (President).

A PO Box address in Panama is provided on the Gold Miners website, suggesting the company exists there in name only.

I wasn’t able to find any additional information on Fonseca or Aleman, but Pedro Lara does have an active Facebook account. In it, he claims to be currently living in Panama City, Panama.

Here’s the thing though, Lara’s Facebook page was only created on or around April 6th, 2016. The only content published by the account is marketing material for Gold Miners.

What I also found was that pretty much all of the available promotional material about Gold Miners on the internet is in Russian.

This corresponds with traffic to the Gold Miners website, which Alexa currently estimates 53% of which originates out of Russia.

Much of the content on the Gold Miners website is in Spanish, so there’s probably also at least one link to a Spanish-speaking country in there somewhere too.

In any event, the combination of

• two admins no information is available on
• a suspicious newly-created Facebook profile for a third admin
• Russian marketing and traffic and
• company registration in a tax-haven with lax regulation

strongly suggests Gold Miners is likely being run out of Russia itself by person(s) unknown.

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 InstantAdBuzz website indicating who owns or runs the business.

InstantAdBuzz is owned by Instant Advert Buzz Limited and is the sole owner of the program.

The InstantAdBuzz website domain (“instantadbuzz.com”) was registered on the 11th of September 2015, however the domain registration is set to private.

According to the InstantAdBuzz website, the company is registered in the UK:

InstantAdBuzz is owned by a fully registered company in UK since 2015 in the name Instant Advert Buzz Limited with Registration number 0980140.

A search for that registration number returns an entry for “Instant Advert Buzz Limited“, incorporated in September 2015. Andrea is cited as CEO of Instant Advert Buzz Limited.

A UK company registration requires payment of a £20 GBP or so fee and a UK-based address.

At the time of publication over thirty businesses use the address cited in the Instant Advert Buzz Limited registration, suggesting it is little more than a mail forwarding address.

A UK registration with mail forwarding address in MLM is typically a calling card of scammers.

The InstantAdBuzz Facebook page has one admin, Brkanic Andrea. Andrea’s Facebook page only became active earlier this year, with it mostly used to promote InstantAdBuzz.

Of note is Andrea claims to be a co-admin of InstantAdBuzz on her Facebook timeline, however no other admins are referenced.

InstantAdBuzz affiliates are claiming someone called “Jaime Oscar” is the other co-admin, however I was unable to independently verify this information.

Given the otherwise lack of information available on Brkanic Andrea and Jaime Oscar, I’m flagging them both are likely bogus profiles.

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 Adsactly Hits website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Adsactly Hits website domain (“adsactlyhits.com”) was registered on the 28th of November 2012, with Micah Wallace listed as the owner. An address in Ontario, Canada is also provided.

Micah Wallace is one of the co-founders of Adsactly, a recruitment-driven adcredit scheme launched in early 2012. Randy Howard was the other known co-owner of the company.

Update 8th April 2017 – Randy Howard advises he gave his

share of Adsactly over to Micah in the beginning of 2012 and stepped away from Adsactly.

What Micah has done with the site and business has nothing to do with me. I have not had anything to do with Adsactly since left.

/end update

Today the Adsactly website redirects to “adsactlycrypto.com”, suggesting the scheme has collapsed.

The AdsactlyCrypto website appears to be tracking a fund for investment into “AdsactlyKing”. At the time of publication, the fund’s value is listed as $58,348.

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

There is no information on the 5000 Families website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The 5000 Families website domain (“5000families.com”) was registered on the 2nd of April 2016, however the domain registration is set to private.

A few days ago BehindMLM reader “Me” left a comment suggesting Faith Sloan was behind the opportunity.

FYI Faith Hijacked that program with her tech skills. She is running it herself. ELC and 100k aka 5000families is in faith’s hands alone.

In an attempt to verify this information, my first port of call was the 100K Race website.

For those unfamiliar with the scheme, 100K Race was a cash gifting scheme launched by Elite Legacy Creators last month.

As at the time of publication, the 100K Race website was offline.

On YouTube, Sloan can be observed promoting 5000 Families, with one video in particular referencing it as “presented by 100K Race”:

Of note is Sloan’s provided link to 5000 Families in the description of her YouTube video does not contain a referral link.

This is typical of an admin promoting an opportunity, as they capture new recruits who sign up without a referral link by default.

Sloan also appeared on an official 5000 Families webinar yesterday, in which she repeatedly refers to the opportunity in the possessive.

That said this isn’t definitive proof Sloan is running 5000 Families. Pending further information being made available however, for now it certainly seems so.

Read on for a full review of the 5000 Families MLM opportunity. [Continue reading…]

On April 18th all parties involved in the SEC vs. Achieve Community civil case filed a joint motion to vacate the scheduled December 5th trial date.

Citing judicial efficiency, the motion requested the

court vacate the current trial date of December 5, 2016 in light of the ongoing criminal proceedings against Defendants Barnes and Johnson, which are expected to proceed to trial sometime in late 2016.

On April 20th Judge Blackburn granted the motion, ordering that the SEC’s civil action be administratively closed. [Continue reading…]