News today from Chuck King, who has been going after Rick Maike and Global1Entertainment for some time now.

As of yesterday morning (Wednesday) at 1:15, sometime in the AM, the FBI contacted Rick Maike and (his) G1E company.

Oh my… [Continue reading…]

Identified as the founders of FiveDollarFunnel in the company’s terms and conditions are Tom Cellie and Bill Ebert.

No corporate address is provided, however the US state of Missouri is mentioned.

On his Facebook profile, Tom Cellie (below, with Ebert) lists his current living location as Kansas City in Missouri, so this is likely where FiveDollarFunnel is being operated out of.

On the MLM history front, Cellie was involved in the Ponzi scheme Bidify:

Bidify was modelled on Zeek Rewards, an $850M Ponzi scheme. Bidify saw investors invest in penny auction bids on the implied promise of a ROI, funded by subsequent affiliate investment.

Cellie also runs a website where he offers MLM software and “web services”.

Bill Ebert on the other hand appears to be involved in a marketing co-op named “Unlimited Profits”. This company is tied to Gano Excel training (ganoderma coffee), but whether or not Ebert himself is a Gano Excel affiliate is unclear.

I also found some Gano Excel training calls featuring Cellie. Again not sure if he is/was an affiliate with the company but Gano does serve as a link between FiveDollarFunnel’s two founders.

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

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

The AdReverts website domain was registered on December 6th 2014, however the domain registration is set to private.

Further research reveals AdReverts affiliates naming an “Enrico Villanueva” as the owner of the company. Note that I wasn’t able to verify this information independently though.

It’s worth noting that the same name was used to promote Ads Davao, a $2 micro Ponzi scheme launched back in 2013.

As always, if a 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…]

In response to clawback litigation being filed against them, several of Zeek’s top net-winner investors filed counter-claims against the Receiver.

In total around a million dollars was requested, mostly by way of unpaid Ponzi ROI earnings. This was done via claiming that Zeek Rewards had contracts with the net-winners, and that unpaid ROI earnings should be paid out. Funds seized from Zeek’s payment processors were also requested.

And as ridiculously trollish as it all sounds, I kid you not that’s what was filed.

Not surprisingly, an order issued on the 14th of January has seen every one of these counter-claims rejected. [Continue reading…]

As per the Worldwide Solutionz website, the company appears to have shut down on or around January 15th:

Kindly note that WorldWide SolutionZ will no longer be conducting business, effective immediately. Please refer to the email sent to all members on January 15, 2015.

The email sent to affiliates offers up some more information, suggesting that the company has shut itself down in the face of a regulatory investigation: [Continue reading…]

Sometime in the last twenty four hours North American Power announced that they are terminating their MLM business opportunity.

Effective immediately, Independent Representatives will be unable to refer new customers or representatives to Thrive or North American Power.

All referral sites have been disabled.

Additional information has been provided to North American Power affiliates via email: [Continue reading…]

PIE, which stands for “Personal Independent Earnings”, launched in 2011 and refer to themselves as “The First Totally Complete Entrepreneurial Business Academy”.

Heading up PIE is founder David T. Rosen.

In a marketing video on the PIE website, Rosen explains;

Back in 1987 I discovered network marketing and when I first saw it, I thought “This is the answer”.

However, I quickly also discovered that it really wasn’t working. It didn’t work for everybody, and that was a problem.

So I decided to do something about it.

On his LinkedIn profile, Rosen (right) credits himself with having worked at “PIE Business” since 2002. The PIE 24/7 website domain however (“pie247.com”), was only registered in January 2011.

PIE in one form or another appears to have been around since 2002, with PIE 24/7 likely to be its latest incarnation.

I did try to track down what opportunities Rosen was involved in prior to launching PIE, but didn’t find anything concrete.

One last thing I’ll flag is that while Rosen lists his own location on LinkedIn as Ontario in Canada, there is no corporate address provided on the PIE 24/7 website.

The PIE 24/7 website domain registration is private, again failing to provide this important contact information.

Why PIE 24/7 do not disclose where they are operating out of is not clear.

Read on for a full review of the PIE 24/7 MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

That paid video email is all but redundant in this day and age should go without saying, yet it’s the service iWowwe continue to base their MLM opportunity around.

2014 was a bit of a quiet year for the company, at least externally. According to a report from former top iWowwe income-earner Attila Juhasz however, much has been going on inside the company. [Continue reading…]

You’d think some two and a half years after Zeek Rewards was shut down and revealed to be an $850 million dollar scam, that the issue of whether or not it was a Ponzi scheme would have been wholly settled.

Unfortunately that’s not the case.

In their latest ploy to avoid paying back those they stole from, Zeek’s top US investors will now elect a “rebuttal expert” to argue their case.

And wasting even more time isn’t the half of it. Through the Receivership, Zeek’s victims are going to partially foot the expert’s fees. [Continue reading…]

Last February the Norwegian Gaming Board found World Ventures to be an illegal pyramid scheme.

This was met with an appeal, in which World Ventures declared:

WorldVentures considers both a number of the factual and legal aspects of the Gaming Board report as unfounded and associated with failure.

Through filing their appeal, World Ventures was able to continue business operations in Norway. This ceased when a decision was made on the appeal, denying it in full.

A few days later World Ventures formally ceased business operations in Norway, announcing simultaneously that they were going to sue the Norwegian government (Gaming Board) in a Trial Court.

A case appealing the Gaming Board’s decision was filed and heard on the 2nd of January, with a decision on the matter published late last week. [Continue reading…]