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

The company does have an “About Us’ section on their website, but clicking through reveals multiple vague marketing spiels linking to a “corporate brochure”.

This brochure contains no information about Aspire Worldwide’s management and ownership. The document does little more than advertise the purported benefits of Aspire Worldwide affiliate membership.

The company’s “Contact Us” page lists an address in Oxon in the United Kingdom, which is presumably where Aspire Worldwide is being run out of.

Earlier this month it was revealed that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) are investigating Aspire Worldwide. A report covering the investigation names Andy Hansen as one of the co-founders of the company.

Why this information, along with Hansen’s fellow co-founders, is not presented on the Aspire Worldwide website is a mystery.

Prior to founding Aspire Worldwide in 2013, Hansen was heavily involved with Lyoness.

The ACCC are currently suing Lyoness after alleging it to be a pyramid scheme. In their Statement of Claim the ACCC write

From about September 2011 until about April 2012 the Lyoness Loyalty Program was promoted to people in Australia by Andy Hansen, Wendy Hansen, Phil Watts and Sally Watts operating under the collective name “Global Go Getters”.

Andy Hansen was evidently instrumental in the establishing of Lyoness in Australia.

One BehindMLM reader  who wrote in describes Hansen (right) as being “responsible for the pre-launch of Lyoness in Australia”. One Lyoness affiliate contacted by News.com.au

said she paid $3000 to be part of that scheme back in 2011 after watching Mr Hansen’s training videos. She said watching an Aspire webinar was like déjà vu.

“It’s disgusting, it’s absolutely disgusting,” she said. “I had to turn it off. I couldn’t watch. It’s the same story all over again, it makes me sick.

I listened to his Lyoness webinars promising the earth, three times a week — Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday — for months and months. We thought it was legitimate.”

Property developer Kevin Taylor, 64, told news.com.au he lost $6000 all up in the Lyoness program — $3000 paid to Mr Hansen, and a further $3000 to join the Australian Lyoness operation.

“He’s like a cobra — he puts his head up, bites someone, and once he’s bitten them he looks for the next one to bite,” Mr Taylor said.

Whether Hansen was involved in the MLM industry prior to joining Lyoness is unclear. He seems to have quit Lyoness shortly prior to the founding of Aspire Worldwide.

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

The Viral Franchise launched in 2013 and credits Frederick Spears as the company owner.

Spears runs The Viral Franchise as part of his other company, “I Wanna Be Rich”. The domain registration for I Wanna Be Rich lists Spears as the owner. An address in Ontario Canada is also provided.

I wasn’t able to peg any other opportunities to Spears or I Wanna Be Rich, so The Viral Franchise appears to be the first opportunity Spears has launched under the brand.

Read on for a full review of The Viral Franchise MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

Back in August we reported that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) had filed a lawsuit against Lyoness.

As with our own Lyoness review, a press-release from the ACCC indicated that they had taken issue with Lyoness’ accounting unit investment scheme.

Today we take a closer look at particulars of the ACCC’s case. [Continue reading…]

Genesis Pure launched in late 2009 and combined a health and nutrition product line with a questionable revenue-sharing compensation plan.

Heading up Genesis Pure is Robert Lindsey Duncan, whom the company credits as a Doctor [ND, SD] (Naturopathic Doctor and Doctor of Science):

Our Chairman & CEO Dr. Lindsey Duncan ND, CN recently shared with us some amazing news! Genesis PURE has partnered with Lifemax, a respected network marketing company who is the creator of a top-notch Chia product, Mila.

Turns out however that the degrees Duncan claims to have earned are from a “non-accredited American distance-learning health college”.

The college, the Clayton College of Natural Health, is based in Alabama and is ‘specifically named on a list posted by the Higher Education Coordination Board of “Institutions Whose Degrees Are Illegal To Use in Texas”‘.

Clayton College of Natural Health was not accredited in any state during its existence and is now closed.

Despite this, Duncan continued to use his alleged qualification to make a name for himself through Genesis Pure and on national TV.

He now finds himself the subject of a lawsuit filed by Greg Abbott, the Texas Attorney-General. [Continue reading…]

True Value Savings operate in the e-commerce MLM niche and are based out of Florida in the US.

Heading up True Value Savings are owners Teresa Mongar and Debbie Miles.

We have each participated in multiple network marketing companies in the past. We are well versed in what “doesn’t work”.

At the same time, our previous experiences have helped us put together a company that we truly feel will change the way MLM network marketing companies are doing business.

On the MLM history side of things, in 2011 Teresa Mongar was heavily promoting That Free Thing on Twitter.

The URL she used would suggest that That Free Thing was “better than” Groupon. That Free Thing as it was known in 2011 does not exist today.

That same year Mongar was also promoting AutoXTen:

Dependent on the recruitment of new affiliates to pay commissions, AutoXTen collapsed shortly after launch.

Mongar was also an affiliate of Zeek Rewards, an $850 million dollar Ponzi scheme. Her name appears on a list of net-winners published by the Zeek Rewards Receiver:

All those on the list stole at least $1000 from Zeek Rewards victims. The total amount Mongar made in Zeek is unclear.

Debbie Miles’ past MLM adventures include affiliate membership with LifeVantage (dietary supplements), Scent-Sations (candles) and Amega Global (magic wands).

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

There is no information on the Global Earnings Group website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Global Earnings Group website domain was registered on April 28th 2014 and lists a Randy Green as the owner.

Randy Green’s name does not appear anywhere on the Global Earnings Group website.

Research reveals Green has a history of launching questionable business opportunities. His latest scheme prior to Global Earnings Group was called “Viral Fives”.

Viral Fives launched in late 2013 and saw participants gifting eachother $5 sums. The site was shutdown by its host a few weeks after launch.

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

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

The Staged website domain (“staged.com”) was registered on the 6th of March 2000 and lists “Staged Media INC” as the owner. An address in British Columbia, Canada is also provided.

Further research revealed “Haydn Stevenson” identifying himself as the CEO and co-owner of Staged on Twitter.

Why this information is not openly provided on the Staged website is a mystery.

On the MLM history side of things, Stevenson appears to have been involved in the MLM industry for some time – both on the corporate and affiliate end.

A September 2012 marketing pitch from “Suzanna” provides some insight into Stevenson’s MLM activity prior to Staged:

I have been looking something for members to replace Zeek that is legal but still captures the excitement of penny auctions.

Zeek was a pioneer in this field, and as happens to many pioneers, they made some serious mistakes which I won’t enumerate here.

Bidify tried to improve on the Zeek model and did well.

But, they still had a system that ‘smelled’ like an investment especially to a zealous regulator. So, Bidify changed its way of doing business. It was an after thought and we hope they do well with the new changes.
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Well, I think I have found something that has a lot of potential and may fill the void for people wanting to continue to profit from the Penny Auction world.

This is the brain child of Kevin deBellefeuille, Haydn Stevenson, and Scott Walker all of whom have extensive experience in the world of internet marketing.

Haydn has been on my list for about 10 years and lives in Japan too. He is in Lyoness with me and we talk regularly. Today, I got a long chat with him on how this new company is expected to roll out.

They have a knack for creating systems that make money and that persist over the long haul. And they are not inclined to launch anything unless it has a high prospect for success in the marketplace and extensive research of the Penny Auction RETAIL market was done before launching this.

The company referred to above is Funky Shark.

Funky Shark went into prelaunch in September 2012 and operated as a pyramid scheme. Founders were charged $1000 and paid $500 per founder they in turn recruited.

Despite Suzanna’s claims above, a month later in October Funky Shark was voluntarily shut down and refunds were issued to all Founder investors.

At the time, Funky Shark claimed they’d ‘recently discovered that the way we executed our Founder program may violate certain securities laws in the United States.‘

Two months later in December it was revealed that Funky Shark had been fined $40,000 by the Securities Commissioner of Montana for “illegally selling investment opportunities.”

The other company mentioned in Suzanna’s pitch is Lyoness.

Under their accounting unit scheme, Lyoness solicit investments from affiliates on the promise of fixed advertised ROIs. ROIs are paid out once enough new investments have been made at the particular accounting unit level invested at.

Whether or not Haydn Stevenson is still involved in Lyoness is not clear. Also not clear is whether or not Kevin deBellefeuille and Scott Walker are the other co-owners of Staged.

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

Hidden Hunger International launched late last year and operated in the MLM charity niche,

Utilizing a unilevel compensation plan, the company paid affiliates when those they’d recruited purchased micro-nutrient pack monthly subscriptions.

The more pack subscriptions an affiliate bought and the more their downline bought, the higher the commissions earnt.

Ruel Morton of former “‘the #1 Top Money Earner in FHTM” fame founded Hidden Hunger International, and operated it out of the US state of Texas.

In the first quarter of this year, and for reasons I haven’t been able to ascertain, Morton changed the name of the company to Hidden Hunger Global.

In doing so, Morton also removed his name from the Hidden Hunger Global website. Offsite however Morton is still credited as founder of the company and hosts affiliate training calls:

Credited as CEO of Hidden Hunger Global on the company website is Duncan Dodds.

Dodds Hidden Hunger Global corporate bio reveals a lack of experience in the MLM industry, either at an affiliate or corporate level. Dodds does however have some marketing experience as the ‘Founder and Managing Partner with Big Visions Advisors, LLC, a marketing and growth strategy firm.‘

Today we explore whether anything changed on the MLM side of things after Hidden Hunger International became Hidden Hunger Global.

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

This popped up on my radar in conjunction with Herbalife, but I soon discovered it wasn’t a once off.

The article in question was published as a part of a series Aljazeera America are publishing this week, titled “An in-depth look at multilevel marketing”.

It’s a four-part series, with the first three articles published over Tuesday and Wednesday. At the time of publication, a fourth article “Your Company Loves You” has yet to be published.

Below you’ll find a brief break down of the three thus far published articles: [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the Xtreme Green website indicating who owns or operates the company.

Xtreme Green does have an “our story” section on their website, but only a vague marketing spiel is provided:

We have been working in the lubrication field, developing and marketing our patented state-of-the-art lubrication to the industry for a very long time.

The Xtreme Green website domain (“xgopportunity.com”) was registered in April 2013. A “Peter Corel” is listed as the domain owner. In his LinkedIn profile, Corel credits himself as the Director of Operations and Information and Communication Technology Services (two roles) since 2011.

Credited as CEO of Xtreme Green in a compensation plan presentation is Stuart Graves:

Research reveals Graves credited as the Director of Operations for New Vision International, after which he went on to launch his own company, Pure Health International.

New Vision International was the predecessor of Vemma. The two companies ran simultaneously after the launch of Vemma in 1994, but New Vision was ultimately merged into the Vemma brand.

There is a surprising lack of information regarding Graves’ subsequent company Pure Health International. I’m going to assume it didn’t last long.

I also noticed a “Elton Alderman” credited as the original Xtreme Green Founder and CEO in affiliate marketing presentations (Graves was initially credited as President).

I’m not sure what happened there but I was unable to find any information explaining why Alderman stood down. Ditto on whether or not he still owns the company.

In any event, why no formal corporate management information exists on the Xtreme Green website is a mystery.

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