It’s game over for Phil Ming Xu, with court documents uploaded to the WCM777 Receivership website sometime over the last few days revealing his sentence in the WCM777 Ponzi case.

Neither confirming or denying the SEC’s allegations (which is code for “if I fight this I will lose” in Ponzi litigation), Xu has been “permanently restrained and enjoined from violating, directly or indirectly” various sections of the Securities Exchange Act. [Continue reading…]

GBG seems to have origins dating back to 1996, with its latest incarnation launching around 2007 and seeing the company market dietary supplements.

The Founder of GBG is Stuart Finger. For reasons unknown however Finger doesn’t run GBG, but instead is listed on the company website as a master distributor.

Heading up GBG as CEO is Michael Kahn. Not that I have anything against Kahn, but I did think it somewhat odd to have the founder of an MLM company only on board as a Master Distributor.

Research indicates that at one time Finger (right) was serving as GBG CEO, but I wasn’t able to find any information revealing why he stepped down.

I also couldn’t help but notice the other two Master Distributors listed had the same “Finger” surname – indicating that some of Stuart Finger’s family are on board as affiliates only (again slightly odd).

Nowhere is this better highlighted than in the GBG marketing video used to introduce the company, which features Stuart Finger talking about launching GBG. He repeatedly refers to it as “his” company, yet he’s not running it.

In the marketing video, titled “Stu’s message”, Finger claims to have started GBG after being successful in other MLM opportunities but having a downline that failed to duplicate his success. He states he created the GBG compensation plan to specifically address this issue.

As per Finger’s “Master Distributor” GBG corporate bio,

Stuart has been a successful network marketer for more than 20 years but was frustrated with other network marketing companies’ degree of difficulty. He could never help enough other people achieve the level of success he enjoyed.

Finally, in 1996, he started his own network marketing company designed for everyone to experience true financial independence.

Under Stuart’s watch, the original GBG grew from a small telecommunications business to a thriving network marketing company that has benefited tens of thousands of independent, successful GBG representatives across the United States.

Prior to GBG, the company was called International Teamworks Inc (ITI) and from what I’ve been able to gather, resold telecommunications services provided by “TTI National”. 

This account dated August 1999 (in protest of ITI affiliate marketing tactics) clarifies the origins of Finger’s company:

“Phenomenal Growth” and “Superior Compensation;” that’s the ITI “story,” but it’s time to get the TRUTH out to the public.

ITI is a small marketing company out of Vacaville, California. It was founded by Steve & Stuart Finger, former Excel Reps.

ITI has no products or services of their own. They often claim that they market services for MCI WorldCom. The TRUTH of the matter is that they market LD services for a small reseller called TTI National.

The company Excel mentioned above refers to Excel Communications, another player in the MLM telecommunication niche at the time. I’m guessing that’s the company Finger refers to in GBG marketing videos that his downline was unable to earn in.

Today the GBG website domain is registered to “Globus Holdings, LLC”, this would appear to be a parent company of GBG itself (registered in Nevada). But how it’s been around for I can’t say.

As for Michael Kahn, he would appear to be an “in-house” success story:

Michael joined GBG in 1998, having never done network marketing before. GBG is his one and only networking “home.” As one of GBG’s most successful Team Leaders, Michael has experienced tremendous success and has also helped thousands of others to do the same.

Over the years GBG has awarded him “MVP”, “Top Gun”, “National Corporate Trainer”, “#1 Income Earner”, “#1 Team Recruiter”, “#1 Personal Recruiter”, and many more awards.

Kudos to GBG for training and promoting one of their own. That’s something we should be seeing more of in the industry at large.

Oh and finally, if you’re curious – GBG stands for “Guided By God”.

There’s no mention of this anywhere on the GBG website, which is thankfully doesn’t rely on this religious connection to market the company. But the name does result in affiliate marketing spiels like this:

Christian Business Opportunity

GBG – GUIDED BY GOD!

Yes! GBG is a Christian Business Opportunity and the GBG Family Team is a team of people dedicated to your success in this business.

As a Christian, I was delighted to find out that the Founder and CEO of GBG, Stuart Finger was a Christian and that GBG stood for GUIDED BY GOD.

Some people upon finding this out, ask, “what God?” Stuart Finger, a believer in Jesus Christ as his Saviour, called the company Guided By God because as he says, “GBG is not ‘Guided By Stu Finger’, it’s ‘Guided By God!’”

I’ve personally don’t have anything against religion, but I do think it’s inappropriate to market business opportunities on the premise of legitimacy by religious association (be it Christianity or another faith).

That said, religious marketing doesn’t seem to be a core focal point of the company itself. At least not publicly, as evidenced by the GBG website.

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

Further seeking to watertight their criminal case against James Merrill and Carlos Wanzeler, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked the Massachusetts District Court to order a stay on discovery in the SEC’s civil trial.

The primary reason behind the request is the belief that Merrill and Wanzeler will use the discovery process in the civil trial to undermine due process and legal procedures in the DOJ’s criminal case. [Continue reading…]

There are two ways to analyse Lyoness.

You can either look at the giftcard and cashback of the business, totally ignore the Accounting Unit investment scheme and thus conclude Lyoness is about shopping…

Or you can follow the flow of money through the company, and realize that most of the commissions paid out are a result of deposits being made directly with Lyoness on the expectation of an eventual >100% ROI.

Guess which approach Lithuania adopted? [Continue reading…]

I can’t even begin to imagine the toll of running a billion dollar global Ponzi scheme must take on the mind. Sleepless nights, the constant looking over your shoulder, having to spew endless excuses on camera to appease your investors and so on.

And when things go kaput, as they did with TelexFree earlier this year, sooner or later things are bound to catch up with you.

Over time, high levels of stress can lead to emotional, psychological, and physical problems, including heart disease, high blood pressure, chest pains, or irregular heartbeats. (WebMD)

For Carlos Costa, one of the three men behind TelexFree, this catching up might have manifested itself by way of an unexpected heart attack. [Continue reading…]

Human Evolution Tech launched earlier this year and are headed up by CEO Ruben Trejo.

An address in the US state of Texas for “Human Evolution Tech, LLC” appears on the company website, indicating that this is where it is being run out of.

As per Trejo’s Human Evolution Tech coporate bio,

Ruben is a Latino entrepreneur, professional and experienced in developing profitable opportunities.

He has a broad vision to reach a global market where many other entrepreneurs can achieve success through a real opportunity.

Possibly due to language barriers, I wasn’t able to pinpoint any opportunities Trejo has been involved in. His name did pop up in a BusinessForHome fluff-piece on a Lucrazon Global affiliate (credited as a mentor), however whether Trejo himself was involved in Lucrazon is unclear.

Regardless, Trejo seems to have been involved in the industry for some time. One particular YouTube video Trejo features in dates back to September 2012, and has him delivering a “training” talk to affiliates about something called “Prosperity Vision” (translated from “Vision Prosperidad”):

That said, unless there’s a whole lot of information in Spanish somewhere that I’m not seeing, Human Evolution Tech would appear to be Trejo’s first MLM venture as an executive.

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

Banners Viewer launched in early 2014. Fronted by Edward A. Cocchiola, the MLM opportunity saw affiliates invest between $150 to $21,250 on the expectation of an advertised $25 to $1250 weekly ROI.

Cocchiola himself appeared to have no executive MLM experience but if he was working with others, their details were kept from the public eye.

Nonetheless shortly after BehindMLM published a review on Banners Viewer the company decided to change their name to “Y-Banners”.

Around that time Banners Viewer began to exeperience downtime problems with their website. Amid ongoing problems with downtime, the Y-Banners website was taken offline and replaced with an “under maintenance” splash page.

This was then followed by the filing of a voluntary dissolution with the Florida Department of State on June 16th: [Continue reading…]

Gold Crowdfunding launched in mid 2014 and is headed up by President and Founder, James C. Hill.

No corporate address is provided on the Gold Crowdfunding website, however the company’s website domain provides an address in the US state of Utah.

Listed as the owner of the Gold Crowdfunding domain is Lynford Theobald of AutoTelNET, Inc.

The exact nature of the relationship between Theobald and Gold Crowdfunding is not clarified anywhere on the company website. Theobald’s name only appears as the creator of a “project” on the site, requesting members give him $150,000 to purportedly put towards gold mining operations in Tanzania (Africa).

As for James C. Hill (right), according to his Gold Crowdfunding corporate bio,

When he joined the workforce, he started in the psychiatric department with a hospital and worked directly with doctors and nurses in a new field research called “behavior modification”.

In the early 2000s he created an e-commerce program that was very popular in the United States. This was during the very early stages of the Internet. Since then he has created five e-commerce Internet-based marketing programs which have been widely accepted worldwide.

JC learned how to work with teams of developers and programmers and website designers around the world to expedite the development of e-commerce systems.

One of the “e-commerce programs” Hill refers to above is OneX. Under the pseudonym “J.C.”, Hill regularly hosted OneX affiliate calls during which he claimed to be part of a group of OneX admins.

OneX itself was a $5 entry recruitment-driven matrix-based scheme that paid affiliates to recruit new affiliates into the scheme. OneX acted as a cheaper feeder program for the shady investment scheme QLXchange.

One of OneX affiliates was notorious AdSurfDaily Ponzi kingpin Andy Bowdoin. Following the shutdown of AdSurfDaily, Bowdoin sought to recommend his investors join OneX under him in order to raise funds for his legal defense.

Public prosecutors quickly put a stop to that, with Hill named as one of the “principals” of OneX in a 2012 court filing:

In what is believed to be the first public filing that includes specific details about OneX, prosecutors produced an exhibit that identified one of the principals of OneX as James C. Hill, who allegedly also is known by the initials J.C.

The introduction of the document ends one of the long-standing OneX mysteries: the identity of “J.C.,” who once assured conference-call listeners that “God” was aboard the OneX train.

In mid 2012 Andy Bowdoin was sentenced to a maximum 78 month prison term. James C. Hill escaped prosecution.

Hill remained at large but appears to have been relatively quiet in the MLM arena these past few years… until now.

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

When we last visited WakeUpNow’s financials, it was revealed that the company had blown through almost $8 million dollars over two years.

Numbers wise WakeUpNow looked to be in dire straits and unless things picked up in 2014, the future wasn’t looking all that bright.

About a week ago WakeUpNow published a consolidated quarterly report for the first six months of 2014.

Looking at the raw numbers the company appears to be on the up and up, but is everything as it seems? [Continue reading…]

Back in March the SEC shut down WCM777 and it wasn’t long thereafter that a court appointed Receivership took over.

Tasked with securing funds that will eventually be returned to investors who lost money in the scheme, little has since emerged as to the status of the Receivership’s efforts.

In contrast to the Receivership circuses of TelexFree and Zeek Rewards, the WCM777 Receivership has been deceptively quiet.

In the Receivership’s Second Interim Report however, details of what exactly they’ve been up to are finally revealed. [Continue reading…]