To date the Zeek Receivership has paid out on claims to over 100,000 Zeek Rewards victims. This includes victims both in and out of the United States.

As defined in the court-approved distribution plan, victims distribution payments have been made via check.

Unfortunately for some non-US victims, they have been unable ‘to locate a financial institution willing to accept such checks‘. This is likely due to Receiver issued checks ‘written in U.S. dollars and drawn on a U.S. bank‘.

As such payments to these victims remain pending.

Seeking to address the issue, the Zeek Receiver has approached the court with a proposal. [Continue reading…]

In a lawsuit filed by Jeunesse on January 8th, the company accused former executive Darren Jensen of raiding.

Jeunesse also accused Jensen of using

Jeunesse’s product formulas, pricing strategies, cost of goods sold, marketing plans, suppliers, vendors and manufacturers, to develop a new product for LifeVantage.

Jensen was President of Jeunesse until he terminated his employment in May last year. Shortly thereafter, Jensen assumed the role of CEO at LifeVantage.

The lawsuit between the two parties has been playing out over the last few months, with a focal point being Jeunesse’s attempt to remand the case to state court. [Continue reading…]

Last we checked in on the long-running dispute between BTG180 and Robert Craddock, Judge Koppe had ordered BTG180 and defendant Theodore Zentner to file a joint status report by March 14th.

Having not participated in proceedings for over a year, Robert Craddock was ordered to show cause as to why he shouldn’t be slapped with default judgement by the same date.

Not surprisingly, March 14th came and went and Craddock failed to comply. To say Judge Koppe was none to pleased is an understatement. [Continue reading…]

As part of the preliminary injunction granted against Vemma last year, the company is required to file quarterly reports.

The takeaway?

Vemma lost $3.8 million dollars in the first quarter of 2016. [Continue reading…]

Can you file an April Fool’s motion with a United States court?

As far back as I can remember, defendants in Ponzi scheme litigation have always had to prove seized and/or frozen funds were not related to financial fraud.

TelexFree investor Daniil Shoyfer provides the latest example of this. In a filing January 2016 filing, Shoyfer argued that recently frozen funds and assets belonging to him were not related to the $3 billion dollar Ponzi scheme.

Specifically, Shoyfer argued that

none of the money (he) ever made from TelexFree was ever used to purchase any of the investment properties (he) own(s).

To support the claim, Shoyfer filed evidence as attached exhibits to his filing.

Now comes Faith Sloan, demanding that $30,800 in frozen funds be released. [Continue reading…]

Prime Ad Club is purportedly run by Nathan Gordon, ‘a person who has 8 years experience in the industy (sic), contacts and someone who provides great service.‘

On his Facebook profile, Gordon lists his location as Basingstoke in the UK. This is presumably where Prime Ad Club is being run out of.

What “industry” Gordon (right) has 8 years experience in is unclear, but advertising for My Advertising Pays and Traffic Goals recently appeared on his Facebook feed.

Both My Advertising Pays and Traffic Goals (non-MLM) are ad-credit based Ponzi schemes.

Read on for a full review of the Prime Ad Club MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the MMM Team Red Dragon website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The MMM Team Red Dragon website domain (“teamreddragon.info”) was registered on October 24th 2012, however the domain registration is set to private.

On their website, MMM Team Red Dragon claim to be

the only independent structure, appreciated by Honorable Sergey Mavrodi.

Sergey Mavrodi is the owner of MMM Global, a bitcoin-based cash Ponzi scheme.

According to MMM Team Red Dragon, their scheme was launched following the collapse of MMM2011, a precursor Ponzi to MMM Global.

Team Red Dragon is basically an Independent Structure which is based on the idea of MMM.

It is existing from the times of MMM2011 and earlier it was just an education system. It is in-fact a successful team of leaders in MMM2011.

Even in the times of calm mode in MMM2011, Team Red Dragon was working at its best.

Later in June 2012, our ideal honorable Sergey P. Mavrodi, officially declared MMM2011 as collapsed.

The reason for this was mass panic and the less inflow of new Mavro Buyers in the system.

He also closed the branches who were not growing the idea of MMM even being paid for continuous months. But it was too late.

Later, In the same month of June, 2012. Honorable Sergey P. Mavrodi announced the launch of new MMM2012.

He explained that MMM2012 will pay the debts of MMM2011. But Team Red Dragon didn’t had any single Debt and neither Team Red Dragon wanted to pay the debts of upper or the parallel MMM branches.

Team Red Dragon was growing rapidly in the way it has been explained by the Father of MMM. All the existing members were also not willing to close the successful running structure and that is why Team Red Dragon did not entered into the new MMM2012.

Not wanting to deal with the fallout of participating in a Ponzi scheme (confronting the victims you stole from), MMM Team Red Dragon chose instead to start their own.

Alexa currently estimate that India and Pakistan make up 66% of traffic to the MMM Team Red Dragon website. This strongly suggests those running the scheme are based out of one or both countries.

Owing to MMM Global and Sergey Mavrodi’s connections to Russia however, there is somebody from Russia placed at or close to the top of the scheme.

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 Burj Rewards website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Burj Rewards website domain (“burjrewards.com”) was registered on March 9th 2015, however the domain registration is set to private.

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 Zewang website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Zewang website domain (“zewang.help”) was registered on the 19th of January 2016, with “Zewang Help” listed as the owner. A fake address in the US state of Alabama is also provided.

The email address used to register the Zewang domain was also used to register “qbajar.com”.

Q Bajar appears to be some sort of dormant business opportunity.

Bank details provided on the Q Bajar website are for the Vadapalani branch of Axis Bank. Vadapalani is a neighbourhood in the city of Chennai in Tamil Nadu, India.

The currency used on the Q Bajar website is also denoted as the Indian Rupee (INR). The Zewang website used a combination of INR and USD.

At the time of publication, Alexa estimate that India is the top source of traffic to the Zewang website (34%).

Given all of this, it is extremely likely that the admin(s) of Zewang are based out of India.

Based on launch updates on the Zewang Facebook page, the company is specifically targeting Africa and South East Asia. Local support numbers at the top of the Zewang website represent the Philippines, South Africa, Indonesia, Kenya, India, China and Vietnam.

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 MyAdStory website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The MyAdStory website domain (“myadstory.com”) was registered on October 13th 2015, however the domain registration is set to private.

A closed Facebook group for MyAdStory lists ten admins;  Becem Cherif, Matt Webster, Nords Swaby, Muhammad Tariq, Luis Castillo, Sahar Jalouni, Gaétane Charron, Laetitia Lechuga, Imen Tounsi and Mahmoud Cherif.

On March 26th Luis Castillo named Mahmoud Cherif as owner of MyAdStory (right).

Cherif is based out of Canada, which matches up with MyAdStory’s Twitter profile location.

I wasn’t able to establish whether or not he’s an investor, but a fair bit of MyAdvertisingPays marketing material appeared on Cherif’s Facebook profile in early 2015.

MLM opportunities Cherif has been involved in as an affiliate include OwnMatrix (MLM underbelly scheme feeder), GetEasy (multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme), Global Mobile Network (Cherif describes it as the “best investment I did in my life”) and Visalus (weight loss).

Cherif’s descent into the MLM underbelly appears to have begun around mid 2014. MyAdStory appears to be Cherif’s first MLM company as an admin.

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