The specific details surrounding the collapse of GetEasy late last year are still murky.

And against a backdrop of inaction from Portuguese regulators, sifting through what information is known is no easy task.

Portuguese police began investigating GetEasy back in October 2014. This marks the beginning of the GetEasy’s decline, with the investigation followed up by a directive from the Bank of Portugal in November.

This directive, as I understand it, crippled GetEasy’s EU banking channels. And what with most of their affiliate investors based out of Portugal, meant the bulk of the scheme’s investors were no longer getting paid.

Enter Michael Herzog (right), who GetEasy management turned to in an effort to circumvent their regulatory issues.

Whether Herzog was involved prior to 2015 is unclear, but under his guidance the scheme announced plans to run itself as an investment bank.

Under continued pressure from investors who continued to experience non-payment, this is around the time cracks in GetEasy management began to appear.

Unable to continue using the GetEasy name, Herzog and his crackpot team devised a name-change to iGetMania. By simply changing the name of the scheme, Herzog and friends hoped they would be once-again free to conduct business in Portugal and the rest of Europe.

Cue promises of a new era in banking, announcements about bogus trusts being set up and a general lack of activity, by mid February GetEasy had well and truly collapsed.

CEO Tiago Fontoura blamed the collapse on Michael Herzog. Herzog in turned blamed Gildevan Ribiero, a GetEasy insider, claiming he had blocked access to and made off with the GetEasy investor database.

And that’s where we left off.

Tiago Fontoura and Michael Herzog disappeared into the night, and to this day GetEasy investors have remained in the dark.

My personal take on the situation is that either Fontoura and friends or Herzog and friends made off with however many millions remained in GetEasy’s bank accounts.

That’s what fuelled the management rift and further prevented the scheme from moving forward (with non-EU banking channels).

The lack of action from Portuguese regulators confirms this, as surely they’d have moved to freeze any available funds had they of pulled the trigger on the scheme.

Not to mention GetEasy’s management and insiders, every last one of them, remain free to continue to scam people in their native Portugal.

Aware of the value of the GetEasy investor database, the race to further milk those that lost funds in the scheme is now on.

In any event, fast forward to today and Michael Herzog hasn’t been seen or heard from in public since GetEasy’s collapse.

Tiago Fontoura and GetEasy insiders Pedro Godinho, Fernando Aragao and Edgar Fontoura however, are gearing up to launch a new scheme, Go2Up.

Read on for a full review of the Go2Up MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

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

The MegaCyclerClub website domain (“megacycler.club”) was registered on the 28th of January 2015 and lists a “Tom Taylor” as the owner. An address in the Philippines is also provided.

Tom Taylor is the CEO of Wealth4Life, which is the brand he uses to recruit people into various opportunities.

Under the Wealth4Life brand, Taylor also launched UltimateAdClub earlier this year.

A recruitment-based opportunity that saw affiliates purchase matrix position for between $5 and $50, UltimateAdClub appears to have stalled shortly after launch.

The collapse of the short-lived scheme has likely prompted Taylor to release MegaCyclerClub.

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

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

The TlintAdCash website domain (“tlintadcash.com”) was registered on the 16th of February 2015, however the domain registration is set to private.

Further research reveals affiliates touting a group titled “TouchingLivesINT” as an official TlintAdCash Facebook presence.

An individual named “Charles Aladesiun” is the sole admin of the group.

If a visitor clicks the “forum” link off the TlintAdCash website, they are redirected to a forum hosted on the domain “moneytalkpalace.com”.

This domain was also registered on the 16th of February 2015, with Aladesiun listed as the owner.

An address in Lagos, Nigeria is also provided, which is likely where Aladesiun is running TlintAdCash from.

Charles Aladesiun (right) runs something he calls “Touching Lives International”. Through this brand, prior to TlintAdCash Aladesiun launched TlintCashClub in late 2014.

TlintCashClub saw affiliates pay $7.50 to participate in a matrix-based recruitment scheme.

Under the Touching Lives International brand, Aladesiun was advertising a number of matrix-based schemes throughout mid to late 2014.

Prior to that Aladesiun was involved in Helping Hands International, a $40 a pop matrix cycler.

Putting all of this together, once Helping Hands International collapsed Aladesiun then got involved in a number of low-key pyramid schemes. As they collapsed one after another he then launched his own scheme in late 2014.

That too collapsed and now he’s trying again with TlintAdCash.

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

Narc That Car, AdSurfDaily, Zeek Rewards and OfferHub.

Other than being scams, what do these MLM opportunities all share in common?

They all solicited the promotional services of marketing firm USHBB.

Owned and operated out of Indiana by James Moore, Oscar Brown and Robert Mecham, USHBB provided marketing services to the MLM underbelly.

Now for their efforts in assisting the promotion of some of the most prolific MLM scams to date, the Zeek Receiver has taken USHBB and its operators to court. [Continue reading…]

A ticker on the ByXpress website indicates that the company plan to launch sometime in May 2015. Håvard Michelsen is identified as ByXpress’ CEO.

The ByXpress website domain was registered on the 22nd of May 2014, with “Adonxpress Limited” listed as the domain owner. An address in Gibraltar is also provided.

Further research reveals this address belongs to Fiduciary Group, who offer “establishment of Gibraltar companies” as a service.

As such ByXpress appears to exist in Gibraltar in name only.

ByXpress marketing material also identifies Michelsen as the CEO of AdonExpress Limited, who as per the ByXpress domain registration appears to the be a parent company.

Four shell company registration addresses appear in the marketing material; one in Gibraltar (differing to ByXpress’ domain registration), one in the UK, one in Hong Kong and one in Turkey.

Michelsen (right) hails from Norway but, as per his Facebook profile, is currently living in Spain. This is in all likelihood where ByXpress is actually being run out of.

As far as I can tell, AdonXpress was launched in mid 2014 as an e-commerce portal. The company signed up with a bunch of third-party merchants and promised to pay users 50% of any commissions the merchants paid them.

Today the former AdonXpress website is defunct, with Michelsen looking to reboot the concept as an MLM opportunity under the ByXpress brand.

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

Genesis Global Network was initially announced for launch in the first quarter of 2014. The scheme was modeled on the AdWallet Ponzi scheme, which itself was modelled on the $850 million dollar Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme.

Genesis Global Network’s original business model saw affiliates invest in points, with ROIs paid out of subsequently invested affiliate funds.

Not surprisingly, towards the end of 2014 Genesis Global Network began to collapse.

After a period of multiple changes to the compensation plan, which aimed to make it more difficult for affiliates to withdraw funds, around November 2014 the original Ponzi points model was scrapped.

What followed over the next few months were numerous compensation plan modifications and rewrites, as Donald Bernardin attempted to figure out what he wanted to do with the company.

Those plans appear to have been recently finalized, and so BehindMLM brings you a v2.0 review of the Global Genesis Network MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

Socialx20 initially launched in mid-2014 as a $25 a pop matrix cycler.

The scheme quickly collapsed upon launch, and that was that.

Now, some six months after the first collapse the Socialx20 admin seeks to resurrect the scheme.

Who this admin is remains a mystery, as there is no information about who owns or runs Socialx20 on the company’s website.

Additionally the Socialx20 website domain was first registered on the 7th of March 2014, 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…]

Mula Matrix in its current format was first announced mid-last year. Prior to that there was a launch announcement that had something to do with ClickBank in late 2013.

Citing “brute force attacks”, the scheme had still not launched as of December 2014.

In January 2015 a March 21st launch date was set.

At the time of publication, a countdown timer on the Mula Matrix website advises that a new launch date has been set for March 28th.

Admin communications from Mula Matrix are signed off on by a “Robert Arnold”.

Other than an individual with the same name credited with running Reserved Position (a recruitment-driven scheme), I was unable to find any further information on this person.

Alexa are currently estimating that some 50.5% of traffic to the Mula Matrix domain is originating out of Italy, so there’s a good chance that’s where the business is being run out of.

Meanwhile the Mula Matrix website domain (“mulamatrix.com”), was registered on the 11th of June 2013 but the domain registration is set to private.

Flagging this one as highly suspicious…

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 sorry saga that is the Worldwide Solutionz Ponzi collapse continues to play out…

For those unfamiliar with the scheme, Worldwide Solutionz saw affiliates invest $25 on the promise of a 90-day $40 ROI.

When the 90 days is over, the original $25 pops back up in your account balance. Did you notice what just happened?

Your $25 became $40 while you were working on … Oh that’s right, you don’t have to do anything at all to earn this or make it happen.

Just purchase, relax, enjoy, rinse and repeat.

These investments were referred to as “life jackets”.

In attempt to mask the blatant Ponzi fraud taking place, owner Marelize van Niekerk-Venter added a layer of charity to the scheme. The ruse being that investors were helping locals start businesses and then being paid ongoing returns from said business activities.

To the best of my knowledge, the only business activity that came of Worldwide Solutionz was a restaurant van Niekerk-Venter bought for one of her sons.

In any event, Worldwide Solutionz began to collapse late last year. Van Niekerk-Venter has continued to deny regulatory intervention, but more and more that’s looking to be the case.

As it stands, thousands of dollars in invested funds remain unaccounted for, van Niekerk-Venter has suspended all business operations and investor communications are being screened by her lawyer.

The latest communication from van Niekerk-Venter was sent out within the last twenty-four hours. In it, van Niekerk-Venter comes the closest to admitting she was running a Ponzi scheme yet.

Alarmingly, the tone of the communication also suggests she’s preparing to do a runner with everyone’s money. [Continue reading…]

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

The Lot Flow website domain (“lotflow.com”) was registered on the 16th of October 2014, listing “Zhuhai Yingxun Keji Limited” as the owner. An address in Guangdong, China is also provided.

Further research reveals Zhuhai Yingxun Keji Limited as the owners of thousands of web domains, with the sample that come up in Google search being somewhat questionable (porn, pharmaceutical, knock-off goods, “fake banks” etc.).

Far more probable is that the owner(s) of Lot Flow are based on Russia. This is based on available languages on the site being Russian and English, and the company having a page on VK, the largest Russian social network site.

Marketing videos that feature on the Lot Flow website are also in Russian, as are the tweets made by the official Lot Flow Twitter account.

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…]