The Practical Financial Investment Group website presents James Brown as owner of the company.

The Practical Financial Investment Group website credits Brown with working for “20 plus years (as an) entrepreneur from home” and earning a “five figure monthly residual”.

James now mentors and trains others on how to earn a yearly residual income monthly by investing in PFIG and or working a few hours per week.

On the CareerBuilder website, James Brown (right) is advertising Licensed Insurance Agent positions for Summit Alliance Advantage.

Income:

•Qualify for monthly bonus programs in addition to commissions

•First year potential to earn $130k – $275k with much higher long term growth attainable

•Management opportunities with no territory restrictions are currently available

•Managers with multiple years experience can make $250k-$500k first year

A Google search on “Summit Alliance Advantage” reveals Brown advertising the same positions on a number of employment-related websites.

Practical Financial Investment Group does is not named on any of Brown’s Summit Alliance Advantage classifieds.

Brown lists his location in the ads as Dallas, Texas, which is presumably where Practical Financial Investment Group is being operated from.

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

Providing further evidence that FX United are not engaged in legitimate investment activity, news today that the New Zealand Companies Office has deregistered the company as a Financial Services Provider. [Continue reading…]

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

The StepCoin website domain (“stepcoin.net”) was registered on the 24th of March 2016, however the domain registration is set to private.

The StepCoin Partner Agreement mentions “Jannim Trading LLP” as “the company” behind StepCoin.

Jannim Trading LLP (hereinafter the “Company”) proposes any individual person to attain a status of a “Partner” of the Company, participate in the Programmes of the Company under the conditions of the present Partnership Agreement (hereinafter “Agreement”).

To become a Partner of Jannim Trading LLP and participate in Programmes of the Company, you should be familiarized with and confirm acceptance of the Agreement.

Jannim Trading LLP appears to be a shell company registered in the UK.

Incorporated in January 2015, Jannim Trading LLP’s listed officers are Kanado Investments Limited and Tioma Management Limited.

Up until March 24th 2016, around the time StepCoin launched, Jannim Trading LLP’s listed officers were Tamian Systems LTD and Folleren Services INC.

Kanado Investments and Tioma Management are incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, Tamian Systems and Folleren Services in Belize.

There’s no legitimate reason for an MLM company to be operated through a shell company that in turn is operated through two more shell companies, incorporated in known tax-havens.

This is alone is highly suspect and indicative of the lengths StepCoin owners and management have gone to hide themselves from the general public.

Of note is the StepCoin website language defaults to Russian and the StepCoin website domain was registered through a Russian registrar.

The StepCoin Partner Agreement states:

The present Agreement is made in the Russian and English languages.

In case of variation between the Russian language version and the English language version, the Russian language version of the present Agreement shall prevail.

Alexa also currently estimate that 67.1% of all traffic to the StepCoin website originates out of Russia.

This strongly suggests whoever is running StepCoin is based out of Russia.

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…]

Yesterday I was contacted Huron Consulting Group, Financial Advisor to the TelexFree Trustee, requesting assistance in getting word out about the victim claims process.

In addition to covering the claim portal going live last week, here’s a copy of the official Notice of Deadline For Filing Electronic Proofs of Claim and Claims Procedures. [Continue reading…]

The Exitus Elite website lists Paul Stevenson as the sole owner and operator of the company.

On his Facebook profile, Stevenson lists his location as Brighton in the UK. This is presumably where Exitus Elite is being operated from.

As per Stevenson’s Exitus Elite corporate bio;

Paul has spent over 25 years in the Sales and Home-Based Business arena and is considered to be an expert in the field of making money online. He has worked at both a corporate level and as a distributor/affiliate.

Having decided that “High Ticket” was the fastest way to make serious income, Paul left the MLM industry behind and looked for the best opportunity he could find.

There were NOT that many. He actually joined most of them and made good money, but realized that all of them still had something lacking.

In the summer of 2014, while living in Florida, the idea of Exitus was formed. Today, it is one of the most dynamic “high-income” opportunities available online.

The Exitus Eite website domain was registered on February 26th, which contradicts the claim it was “formed” in 2014.

The reason for that is Exitus Elite began life as Exitus Network.

Exitus Network was a $500 to $12,000 cash gifting scheme. Today it no longer exists, with the Exitus Network doman redirecting to “exituslifestyle.com”.

There’s nothing on Exitus Lifestyle domain domain except an affiliate login form.

Prior to launching Exitus Network, Stevenson was co-owner of Prosperity Cash Machine.

Prosperity Cash Machine saw affiliates $175 for matrix positions, with commissions paid when they recruited others who do the same.

It seems Exitus Network collapsed sometime after its 2014 launch, with Stevenson now relaunching it as Exitus Elite.

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

uFun Club was an MLM cryptocurrency scheme launched around 2012.

Under the pretense of offering the uToken cryptocurrency, uFun Club adopted the Ponzi points model pioneered by Zeek Rewards.

In April of 2015 Thai authorities shut the company down and began arresting uFun Club investors.

In an effort to salvage the scheme, uFun Club management fled to Malaysia and rebranded as Unascos.

Starved of new investment, Unascos didn’t go anywhere and promptly collapsed.

Now, it appears uFun Club investors are being targeted in a third reincarnation of the scheme. [Continue reading…]

Following the creation of an English OneCoin Wikipedia entry back in March, no less than one hundred and eight edits have been made.

A large number of these have been broad revisions to the original article, which remove information critical of OneCoin and replace it with uncited marketing material.

Since May 20th twenty-eight edits have been made. The revision history for the OneCoin Wikipedia article reveals most of these are censorship attempts and their corresponding reverts.

This hasn’t gone unnoticed by Wikipedia staff, who today banned OneCoin affiliates from further vandalizing the page. [Continue reading…]

Earlier this year BehindMLM reported on the closure of bank accounts identified with MMM Global investor activity.

Now, in an interview with South African media, details of the scope of the freeze have emerged.

Speaking with Fin24, Capitec Bank CEO Gerrie Fourie revealed the bank froze over 2000 accounts. [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the GrandRevShare website specifically identifying who owns or runs the business.

On their website GrandRevShare claim the company is “owned by grandclickers.com”, however there’s no ownership information on that website either.

Both the GrandRevShare and GrandClickers website domains however are owned by Mihkel Einaste. An address in Valencia, Spain is also provided.

The GrandClickers website contains links to three paid-to-click (PTC) opportunities, all of which Alexa estimate are on the decline traffic wise.

The collapse of his previous schemes has likely prompted Einaste to launch GrandRevShare.

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

Back in April Vemma’s insurer, Hanover Insurance, refused to fund Vemma’s legal defense against the FTC.

Hanover Insurance acknowledged that Vemma had a $5 million liability police with them, but argued the FTC action wasn’t covered because pyramid scheme allegations had been made dating back to 2012.

According to Hanover, the ‘policy applies only to claims first made against the insured during the policy period‘.

The matter is currently playing out in court, with Hanover seeking a court ruling stipulating they don’t have to cover Vemma’s legal fees.

On May 15th, Vemma filed their response to Hanover’s lawsuit. In it, Vemma not surprisingly mostly deny Hanover’s claims.

On the same day they filed their response, Vemma also went on the offensive and filed a counterclaim. [Continue reading…]