In October of 2015, the blog LazyMan And Money published a Le-Vel review titled “Is Le-vel Thrive a Scam?”

At the time of publication, Lazy Man’s review is the top listing on Google for the search “le-vel review”.

The review delves into Le-Vel’s Thrive patch product, raising potential issues with the FTC and a lack of clinical trials.

Analysis of Le-Vel’s other offered products include cost analysis, value for money, the lack of disclosure Le-Vel’s “proprietary blends” have.

A number of sources are cited in Lazy Man’s review, including excerpts from the FTC and consumer-advocate publications.

Based on the pricing of Le-Vel’s products being “banana pants crazy”, Lazy Man asserts the requirement that Le-Vel affiliates ‘buy product yourself or sell enough of it each month‘ will mean affiliates ‘are typically going to be left paying for‘ products themselves, ‘which makes (Le-Vel) look like a Pay to Play scheme‘.

The compensation plan clearly focuses the rewards on people with the most volume in their downline, not sales to outside people.

According to these FTC guidelines, that focus would appear to make Thrive a pyramid scheme.

Social media marketing by Le-Vel affiliates also comes under fire, with Lazy Man exhibiting a coordinated Facebook marketing campaign directed to “Le-Vel leaders”.

The nature of the “planned post campaign” is naturally not disclosed to the general public, with it supposed to look like an organic marketing effort.

Rounding out the review, Lazy Man concludes:

Between the extremely expensive products, dubious marketing, and what appears to be a pyramid scheme (see aforementioned FTC guidelines), I think it is clear that Le-vel Thrive is a scam.

Le-Vel evidently aren’t too happy about the exposure Lazy Man’s review has been getting, with a cease and desist sent to the blog on January 18th. [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the Global eCom Systems website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Global eCom Systems website domain (“fortunemaker333.com”) was registered on the 23rd of March 2015, however the domain registration is set to private.

Despite only registering their domain last year, on their website Global eCom Systems claim they were “established in 2012”.

Other domains I found associated with Global eCom Systems include “myecomlife.com” (registered January, 2016) and “gecs188.com” (registered January, 2013). The company appears regularly to create new domains to market the opportunity.

Promotional material on the Global eCom Systems website reveals the company appears to mostly target Asia. Thus is follows that Global eCom Systems is likely being run out of Asia too.

A “company address” in the US state of California is provided on the Global eCom Systems website. This appears to be a unit in a run-down area of Garden Grove.

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, Software University in Bulgaria describe themselves as an ‘educational center that creates real professionals in the world of programming.‘

Recently, Software University listed an upcoming lecture by Ivan Kashukeev (Иван Кашукеев), titled “ONE COIN – revolutionary cryptocurrency”.

The listed description of the lecture suspiciously reads like OneCoin marketing PR:

Project OneCoin is a new kind of cryptocurrency generated by the success of Bitcoin.

This is not previously obtained currency. Members of the project will create market will dig coins and get profit.

OneCoin will be traded on a public exchange and design could help you achieve high yield through a simple and fair  Compensation Plan. OneCoin will become the next successful cryptocurrency on the market!

The description goes on to list a number of points, in support of “Why ONECOIN is better than BITCOIN”.

What OneCoin, a Ponzi points MLM business opportunity, has to do with programming I have no idea. And I’m not the only one, with at least one student questioning the nature of the scheduled lecture.

Rather than engage their student body and address lectures promoting Ponzi schemes though, Software University instead silenced them. [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the Fast Money Matrix website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Fast Money Matrix website domain (“fastmoneymatrix.com”) was registered on the 20th of January 2016, 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…]

The issue of mandatory auto-ship continues to be a hot-button topic in MLM.

On one hand you have those that believe affiliates buying products does not equal getting paid to recruit. People like me argue that it is, because it comes at the cost of retail. Affiliates being the only purchaser of products is indicative of a product-based pyramid scheme.

It stems from the outdated thinking that attaching products to affiliate recruitment somehow legitimizes it. In the US the concept is widely known as “pay to play”, with regulators slowly making inroads towards stamping the practice out.

Elsewhere in the world, particularly in Asia, the practice of pay to play remains rife within the MLM industry.

Today we take a look at once such scheme, recently collapsed in Vietnam. [Continue reading…]

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

Recyclix provide the address of an accounting firm in the UK as their “headquarters billing address”, suggesting the company exists there in name only.

Sales and support are provided out of Poland, with this likely being where the owners of Recyclix are located.

Russia is another possibility, with Alexa estimating it and the Ukraine provide 32% of all traffic to the Recyclix website.

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…]

Chew The Fat Off launched in late 2015 and are based out of California in the US.

Heading up the company is Stuart Finger, who is credited as Chew The Fat Off’s Founder and President. Finger’s brother, Steve Finger serves as CEO.

As per Stuart Finger’s Chew The Fat Off corporate bio;

Stuart Finger, Founder of CTFO, has been a successful network marketer and company owner since 1989.

He achieved a high ranking position in his first company and the top position in his second company, building teams of many thousands of people.

He then owned and operated his own successful company for 18 years with tens of thousands of distributors and hundreds of thousands of customers.

Finger (right) first popped up on BehindMLM’s radar as the CEO of GBG, otherwise known as “Guided By God”.

The company has origins dating back to 1996, with Alexa statistics for the GBG website domain suggesting the business has been in decline for some time.

Curiously, it looks like GBG might have been sold off. As per the company’s Facebook page, in late 2015 they were advising affiliates of a “transition” to something called “Novus Era”.

You all now have a position and back office in Novus Era.

You will also receive a new ID number with Novus Era, but don’t worry, your downline and your current auto ship will remain untouched.

Starting 10/22/15 you will start to see Novus Era on your bank transactions instead of Novus DBA GBG.

The Novus Era website domain is owned by “Globus Holdings, LLC”, a Nevada corporation.

At the time of publication, Stuart Finger does not appear on the “corporate team” page of the GBG website.

Read on for a full review of the Chew The Fat Off MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

In addition to enriching himself with stolen Ponzi funds, WCM777 owner Phil Ming Xu also splashed out on his family.

Through Xu’s efforts at investment fraud, his sister Sue Wang and mother Xiao Mei Deng received $2.5 million dollars.

Some of that money went to buying Xu’s mother a house and some of it to fund his sister’s business ideas. The rest of it was put towards existing mortgages and general expenses.

Having learned of Xu enriching his family, the Receiver approached Wang and Deng about returning the stolen money.

$1.1 million dollars has since been recovered, with $1.4 million in cash and assets unaccounted for.

Wang and Deng initially failed to respond to the Receiver’s attempts to recover the funds, prompting the filing of a lawsuit in March, 2015.

Continuing their “ignore it and it will go away” strategy, Wang and Deng mostly ignored the proceedings against them. They did however attempt to circumvent the proceedings by transferring the title of the properties they bought to individuals located in China.

Nonetheless, due to an overall lack of participation in the proceedings, default judgement was entered against Wang and Deng on January 4th, 2016.

Forced to reckon with the legal proceedings against them, Wang and Deng then finally entered into settlement negotiations with the Receiver.

Those negotiations have borne fruit, with Wang and Deng agreeing to return $1.17 million dollars. [Continue reading…]

In their own words, Financial IT are

a cutting edge financial technology magazine.

The publication provides a unique and valuable forum for people involved in the change process to learn and exchange ideas and knowledge – as technology cements its pivotal role in supporting the financial markets.

The magazine was first published in 2012, is printed four times a year and has a circulation of ‘over 2,000 print and digital copies‘.

Advertising features heavily in the publication, with Financial IT pitching the magazine as the ‘perfect media vehicle to extend global reach of your print advertisement and brand awareness campaigns‘.

We help FinTech companies to generate genuine leads and to improve their SEO rankings.

We provide an online platform, video production, content marketing, listings, reviews and rankings.

According to their media-kit, “full editorial coverage” in Financial IT will set you back £1999 or £2999 a year. Basic coverage via a “long-form editorial article” is £999 a year.

So, what does any of this have to do with OneCoin you ask? Well, yesterday OneCoin Founder and CEO Ruja Ignatova announced that she would be gracing ‘the cover of the winter issue of Financial IT‘:

The announcement was originally made on Ignatova’s personal “CryptoQueen” Facebook account. It was then republished on the OneCoin corporate Facebook account.

The photo of Ignatova super-imposed on the Financial IT cover is from her corporate sponsorship gig at the EU-Southeast Europe Summit late last year:

Accompanying the Facebook announcement was a PR video, directing viewers to “get your magazines today”.

Here’s the thing though… a few hours ago Financial IT unveiled the actual cover of their 2016 edition.

See if you can spot the difference:

Unless Ignatova recently underwent radical surgery and changed her name to Gareth Richardson, we don’t know where she is either. [Continue reading…]

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

The Elegant Matrix website domain (“elegantmatrix.com”) was registered on the 8th of February 2016, however the domain registration is set to private.

A few days ago one BehindMLM reader claimed that Dale Payne-Sizer is behind Elegant Matrix. Further research reveals Elegant Matrix affiliates claiming the same:

Dale Payne-Sizer recently featured on BehindMLM as the admin of Infinity Profit System, a $25 to $100 a month cash gifting scheme.

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