Dramatic scenes unfolded overnight at an iFreeX event held in the Brazilian state of São Paulo.

Speaking at the event was Sann Rodrigues, who has fled the US following regulatory action initiated against TelexFree. [Continue reading…]

Ahead of a status conference in the TelexFree bankruptcy proceedings to be held tomorrow, comes a status report filed by the court-appointed Trustee, Stephen Darr.

In the report, among other things, it’s revealed that the extent of fraud that took place within TelexFree far exceeded any previous estimates.

(TelexFree) purported to be operating a multi-level marketing company engaged in the sale of voice over internet protocol services, but they were, in actuality, perpetrating a pyramid scheme involving as many as a million or more participants.

(TelexFree) and an affiliated company located in Brazil, known as Ympactus Comercial Ltda. (“Ympactus”), together obtained as much as $1,800,000,000 from individuals located throughout the world over a period of approximately two years.

$1.8 billion dollars?! Bloody hell. [Continue reading…]

Now that we have our Forum up, it is up to all of you to create the communication you want to have there.

Help each other with questions please, and if there are comments you don’t like don’t answer them, it isn’t necessary for anyone to be bothered by our members opinions.

The Forum is a place for everyone to have their say.

-Kristi Johnson, Achieve Community owner (December 15th, 2014)

Despite the above assurance from Kristi Johnson, it seems there are some things the company doesn’t want to address.

These likely include questions such as “where is my money?” and “can I get a refund?” [Continue reading…]

Putting together an accurate picture uFun Club opportunity presents somewhat of a challenge.

The company operates a website at the domain “ufunclub.com”, but you’d be hard-pressed figuring out there’s an attached MLM business opportunity.

In addition to hiding the business opportunity, there’s no information on the website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The uFun Club website domain itself was registered on the 7th of December 2012, however the domain registration is set to private.

The only thing to be gleaned from the uFun Club website is that purportedly, the company is being run out of Asia. To that end a number of Asian office addresses are listed on the company’s website.

Credited as the “inventor of the system” uFun Club uses is a man referred to as “Mr. Huang”:

Huang is supposedly based out of Singapore and is referred to by uFun Club affiliates as “a Chinese mathematician”.

Where Huang’s name is mentioned in connection to uFun Club, the usual fluff about “spending years to develop” the uFun Club system follows.

There is little to no information out there as to Huang’s experience in the MLM industry. Hell, I had trouble even with the basics, such as Huang’s first name.

This is likely by design. Also unavailable is information regarding whether Huang is directly involved in uFun Club and to what extent.

Another face that consistently popped up in uFun Club promotion was that of Athiwat Soonpan:

Soonpan is credited as a Thai defense force advisor and, as above, regularly appears in military garb for uFun Club photo ops.

His MLM history or how he came to be the International President of uFun Club? No idea.

Soonpan struck me as little more than a posterboy for the company, someone to dress up and be the face of the uFun Club.

As one uFun Club affiliate claimed in a marketing video, Soonpan lending his name to uFun Club ‘establishes instant credibility here in the east‘.

Working in their favor when it comes to marketing uFun Club, is that English-speaking people aren’t really going to be 100% sure what they’re looking at.

I saw a mountain of claims made in uFun Club presentations I watched. Photos and screenshots of articles purportedly backing up the claims would pop up on the screen for a few seconds, however at no point were hard facts presented.

Definitely be wary of most of the claims made surrounding the promotion of uFun Club. If you set out to do your own research, here’s just one example of the suspect claims you can expect to find:

Talks and Agreements are also being held between the Chinese Governrment (sic) and UFUN Management to Officially Upgrade Utokens as China’s Recognized Digital Currency​.

If you can’t even get a straight story regarding the company’s founder, believing anything else at face-value is too much of an ask.

With all of that in mind, read on for a full review of the uFun Club MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

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

The Wikaniko website domain “wikaniko.com” was registered on the 13th of February 2008. Paul Hughes is credited as the domain owner, with an address provided in Newcastle, England.

Google Maps shows that the address provided is in the middle of a residential area.

In addition to Hughes, the names Trevor and Karen Blake feature on Wikaniko promotional material. In the material, the Blakes are credited as “The Wikaniko Team”.

Information on Hughes and the Blakes are sketchy, with most of the information on Wikaniko available online being affiliate marketing material.

Update 3rd February 2015 – Trevor Blake informs me that his name does indeed appear on the Wikaniko website contact page. I verified this myself and found Karen and Trevor Blake, Kate and Andrew Mitchell and George Hawley listed as Wikaniko’s Directors.

No further information about any of the above individuals is provided. And there’s also no mention of Paul Hughes or his role within the company. /end update

One particular thread over at the forum Downsizer caught my attention, shedding some light on those running the company:

It would seem that the Wikaniko MLM scheme was set up just over a year ago by a couple called Trevor and Karen Blake, who have already done very nicely on the proceeds of a similar MLM operation, Telecom Plus (run by a canny fellow called Charles Wigoder, who is 612st on the Sunday Times ‘Rich List’ as a result), and by a chap called Paul Hughes.

Telecom Plus (Utility Warehouse) is a utilities-based MLM company in the UK, and are still in business today.

From the looks of it Hughes and the Blakes do have some MLM experience as affiliates, but Wikaniko appears to be their first venture on the management side of things.

Why there’s no information about Trevor and Karen Blake or Paul Hughes on the Wikaniko website is a mystery.

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

Possibly setting a record for longest-running MLM Ponzi criminal investigation ever, news today from Indian regulators in the ongoing Speak Asia case.

On the 31st of January, six new arrests were made by the Economic Offenses Wing (EOW) in Mumbai. [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the Crowd2Funding website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Crowd2Funding website domain (“crowd2funding.com”) was registered on the 2nd of August 2014, however the domain registration is set to private.

In the Crowd2Funding Terms and Conditions, the following address is provided for refunds:

Crowd2Funding.com
c/o The Whale Club, LLC
7900 International Drive, Suite 300
Bloomington, MN 55425
United States

Putting aside that this is a virtual office address provided by OffiCenters, the mention of “The Whale Club LLC” would appear to correspond to the website “thewhaleclub.com”:

As above, the club appears to have previously launched several business opportunities.

The Whale Club vision is to build a Billion Dollar Company by enriching Millions of Affiliates Worldwide to attract Millions of Customers via our word of mouth team attraction Network Marketing model.

This simply is done by combining three of the largest online industries in the World; Home Based Business/Network Marketing, Online Casinos and Rewards Programs (Penny saved, is a Penny earned).

All recession proof economy building Globally accepted markets.

They also apparently sell $4995 travel memberships:

After none of those ideas or the selling of ridiculously priced travel memberships went anywhere, now The Whale Club has launched Crowd2Funding.

As to company ownership, The Whale Club LLC website advises that it is based out of the US state of Minnesota and founded by Mark Enderson:

In his Whale Club bio, Enderson claims to have ‘21 years total Network Marketing Experience‘, however no specific examples are provided.

I did try to research Enderson’s MLM history on my own, but outside of failed Whale Club ventures didn’t find anything.

Why Mark Enderson’s name doesn’t appear anywhere on the Crowd2Funding website is a mystery.

Read on for a full review of the Crowd2Funding MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

Thanks to the diligent efforts of Don@ASDUpdates to catalog the vast swath of legal documents pertaining to Zeek Rewards litigation, much of what is discussed in the Receiver’s 4th quarter Status Report has already been covered.

In going over the 16 page report, filed on January 30th, there is however some new information that the Receivership shares. [Continue reading…]

Maxim Chukharev was one of the seven individuals indicted in connection to the Liberty Reserve payment processor.

A hotbed of MLM underbelly fraud, among other things, Liberty Reserve was shut down for money laundering mid last year. [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the Trinity Lines indicating who owns or runs the business.

The company does have an “about us” section on their website with the company claiming that Trinity Lines is ‘an innovative team based in the UK and Ireland’.

The Trinity Lines website domain (“trinitylines.com”) was registered on the 5th of December 2014, however the domain registration is set to private.

One possible clue as to who owns Trinity Lines ownership can be found over at the website domain “mytestplace.info”:

This appears to be a test domain, hosting a 1:1 clone of the Trinity Lines website in its current state. It’s likely it was used to test Trinity Lines before it went live on its current domain.

The “mytestplace.info” website domain is registered to Dean Heading (through the trade name “Huba Gold Kft”), who resides in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) in Australia.

Other than his domain hosting a clone of the Trinity Lines website, I was unable to find any further connection between Heading and the company.

The explicit nature of the relationship between Heading and Trinity Lines is unclear. Ditto why, when Huba Gold Kft provide an address in Hungary and Heading in Australia, why Trinity Lines claims to be operated out of the UK and Ireland.

Further research reveals Trinity Lines affiliates claiming that

The owner is an offline business owner,who funded the start of the business, and he asked Dominic Butler and James Hart to run the program, so technically, Dominic and James are the admins.

I’ve also seen some Trinity Lines affiliates referring to Butler as “Dominic J. Purcell”. Not sure what the story is there.

Dominic Butler would appear to be running the show, with his name appearing on payment receipts issued to Trinity Lines affiliates:

Videos hosted on a YouTube channel owned by Butler (right) also appear on the Trinity Lines website.

Other MLM videos appearing on Butler’s YouTube channel include promotional material for Crowd4x (a forex-based Ponzi launched by the notorious Wealth4AllTeam scammers) and Strategic Wealth Alliance.

Strategic Wealth Alliance charged affiliates $25 a month to participate and offered them a 280% 90-day ROI on investments made with the company.

Strategic Wealth Alliance collapsed shortly after it launched back in mid 2014.

For all intents and purposes, it appears Dominic Butler is the admin behind Trinity Lines. Why this is not disclosed on the Trinity Lines website however is a mystery.

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