Last month I was contacted by ISN Coins founder and CEO Matt Barkes:

My name is Matt Barkes. I’m one of the founders of ISN. I apprecite (sic) you taking the time to evaluation ISN, however almost everything you have written is out dated.

After hiring Kevin Thompson as our MLM attorney we’ve made many changes to better the company for our members.

This being the case I respectfully request that you either modify the information to to (sic) reflect ISN currently or remove the blog.

I first reviewed ISN Coins back in 2012, so it wasn’t surprising to learn that the business might have changed since then.

Today we take a look at ISN Coins as it stands in 2014, read on for the review. [Continue reading…]

ACN (an abbreviation for “American Communications Network”) launched all the way back in 1993, initially operating as ‘a marketing arm for a long-distance reseller called LCI Communications‘.

That relationship ended in 1998 until LCI was sold off, at which point ACN broadened their product and service offering. Today ACN are involved in a number of MLM niches, including utilities, communications, home entertainment and security “and more”.

Based out of the US state of North Carolina, ACN was co-founded by four individuals who, to their credit, have retained their executive positions within the company.

Greg Provenzano (second above) serves as President, Robert Stevanovski (fourth) as Chairman and Mike (third) and Tony (first) Cupisz (twins) as Vice-Presidents.

Chip Barker (right) was brought on as CEO in 2007. Prior to his CEO appointment, Barker served as ACN’s Chief Operating Officer of European Operations.

Due to the age of the company and a lack of information provided in their ACN corporate bios, what each of the four ACN co-founders did specifically before launching the company is a bit of a mystery.

Taken from Greg Provenzano’s personal website (“gregprovenzano.com”):

Greg is a born entrepreneur who had a very successful career in the network marketing industry that began in 1984. He spent nearly a decade examining the industry before founding his own direct sales company

A biography for Robert Stevanovski on an ACN marketing site reads:

After entering the network marketing arena in the late 1980s, Robert held senior positions with two highly successful marketing companies.

ACN Founder Robert Stevanovski These experiences positioned him as one of the driving forces behind the formulation of ACN.

The biography also credits Stevanovski with having ‘managed several businesses throughout the 1980s, directly influencing growth and expansion‘.

In his ACN corporate bio that appears on replicated ACN affiliate websites (which differs from the main corporate bio), Mike Cupisz is credited with having ‘built several successful companies prior to founding ACN.‘ Tony Cupisz bio claims he ‘has worked in direct marketing since 1986‘.

I wasn’t able to find any information on what Chip Barker was up to prior to ACN.

On the regulatory front, ACN has run into problems with the Montana Commissioner of Securities and the Bureau of Consumer Services in Pennsylvania.

In August, 2010 the Montana Commissioner of Securities and Insurance Monica Lindeen announced the issuance of a Cease and Desist Order and Notice of Proposed Agency Action against ACN, Inc. and several of its founders for allegedly operating a “pyramid scheme.”

In September, 2010 the Commissioner moved to vacate the Cease and Desist Order in full settlement of the case.

In the course of the Commissioner’s investigation, the Commissioner determined that the actions giving rise to the initial concerns were not part of the ACN business model, but instead were isolated instances taking place by certain ACN’s independent representatives in Montana.

The Commissioner and ACN agreed that ACN would implement additional training with its independent representatives.

On June 13, 2002, ACN settled a case with the Bureau of Consumer Services in Pennsylvania wherein it was alleged that a small number of IBOs were “slamming”, or switching consumer services without authorization.

ACN disputed the allegations and the exact details of the settlement are under court seal.

Nothing too serious, although the settlement under seal indicates a likely “we’ll pay the fines but don’t admit to anything” resolution. The Montana cease and desist appears to be related to marketing efforts by the company’s affiliates.

ACN haven’t been pinged since for this, so hopefully that indicates the company and it’s affiliates have cleaned up their act.

For additional information, a read of ACN’s Wikipedia entry is recommended. Otherwise, read on for a full review of the ACN MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

Identified as the “the people behind” OneBiz on the company website are Heiko Häusler, Thomas M. Duda and Tobias Knoof.

As per their supplied corporate bios, all three have internet marketing experience, however any MLM credentials are noticeably absent.

The OneBiz HangOuts are broadcast out of Germany, indicating that this is where Häusler is operating the company out of.

Contact details provided on the OneBiz website clash with this, and instead point to an address in St. Gallen, Switzerland.

Possibly due to language-barrier issues (I believe all three owners are German), I was unable to independently track down an MLM history for any of the company’s owners.

In any event, read on for a full review of the OneBiz MLM business opportunity.

[Continue reading…]

Talk Fusion launched in 2007 and operate in the digital communication MLM niche.

The company is based out of Florida and headed up by Founder and CEO, Bob Reina (right).

According to Reina’s corporate bio, the idea behind Talk Fusion came from

a simple desire to put video in an email.

America Online said “that’s impossible!” but Talk Fusion Founder & CEO Bob Reina didn’t believe that for a second. Enlisting an expert IT mastermind, Bob set out to prove AOL wrong.

He did. Impossible achieved; video email sent! That was just the beginning of Talk Fusion’s legendary story.

Prior to Talk Fusion Reina launched Travel Reaction (2001) and Cash Card Worldwide (~2005).

Travel Reaction are still in business and operate in the travel MLM niche. The company charges affiliates $249 to access third-party travel discounts, and pays out commissions when those who have purchased membership book travel.

Cash Card Worldwide was a similar venture, providing affiliates access to third-party travel discounts for $499.

Taken from a Cash Card International affiliate presentation:

You will receive up to a 50% commission split on every cruise, vacation package, hotel accommodation, car rental, airline ticket and travel insurance policy that you refer to us, and in which Cash Card Worldwide receives a commission.

You’ll also receive commissions every time you refer a friend or business colleague that also enrolls in the program and purchases our independent travel agent program.

When exactly Cash Card International shutdown I’m not sure, but today the company is no longer in business.

On the legal front, Talk Fusion sued some iWowWe affiliates back in 2011. The complaint against J.J. Ulrich and Joe Read alleged that they had left Talk Fusion and were using trade secrets to encourage Talk Fusion affiliates to join iWowWe.

iWowWe also operate in the online communication MLM niche.

Talk Fusion won a requested injunction against Ulrich and Read, which prohibited them from raiding Talk Fusion’s affiliate-base.

The company also went after popular Russian social network VKontakte in March of 2013.

Seeking $290,980 in damages, Talk Fusion claimed

that some posts on the VKontakte site are untrue and damaging to Talk Fusion’s business reputation.

According to Talk Fusion, certain posts on the VKontakte site refer to it as a “covert financial pyramid” and say that any information promoting it on the social network will be blocked.

The case was dismissed in June of the same year after one of the defendants alleged his VKontakte account ‘was hacked and damaging information was placed on it by unidentified individuals‘.

As for VKontakte themselves,

a representative of VKontakte told the court in May that they did not publish any defamatory information regarding Talk Fusion, but only replied to users who asked why Talk Fusion ads were blocked.

During the June 4 hearing, a VKontakte representative said these technical letters pointed to “elements of a financial pyramid” in the operations of Talk Fusion, but did not describe it as a Ponzi scheme.

That was apparently enough to get Talk Fusion’s complaint against them dismissed too.

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

There is no information on the BrandOnline365 website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The company does have an “about” section on their website, however it only provides a short marketing spiel. No information about the company itself or its management is provided.

The company’s website domain, over at “brandonline360.com” was registered on the 30th of January 2014, however the domain registration is set to private.

Further research reveals that in the BrandOnline365 compensation plan video embedded into the company website, J. Joshua Beistle introduces himself as the President of the company.

Why Beistle’s name does not appear anywhere on the BrandOnline365 website is unclear.

Long-time readers of BehindMLM will immediately recognize Beistle as the (former?) CEO of JubiRev. JubiRev launched in launched in early 2013 as a Zeek Rewards Ponzi reload scheme.

The idea behind JubiRev was to meld Zeek’s Ponzi points business model together with a mishmash range of cheaply produced products under the brand “JubiMax”.

The company launched in March but, as most reload scams do, failed to attract the momentum of the company it was modeled on. By June 2013 JubiMax had all but run out of funds to pay investors with, and consequently announced they were abandoning their passive revenue-sharing model.

A new compensation was launched shortly after that, however the attempt to push a retail customer focused business model onto an affiliate-base who were initially attracted to passive investment failed.

The details of how JubiRev collapsed remain sketchy, with J. Joshua Beistle going into hiding shortly after the compensation plan change. I myself don’t recall ever seeing any clarification on the status of the company in the months that followed their comp plan change.

Today the JubiMax website is still live, however if one tries to visit JubiRev the account comes up suspended:

As I understand it, affiliates who invested in JubiRev were simply left in limbo.

Prior to JubiRev, Beistle launched Dream Style Vacations Club with Randal Williams in 2009. Providing access to third-party travel discounts, Dream Style Vacations was a recruitment driven scheme that paid affiliates based on how many new members they brought into the scheme.

Beistle also markets lead generation services through his company MyPhoneRoom, which he launched in 2009 (non-MLM).

Read on for a full review of the BrandOnline365 MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

Despite Plastic Cash International’s objection and concerns their litigation might delay payments, Judge Mullen has come through and ordered that the first payments to Zeek victims will go out on September 30th.

Plastic Cash International’s claim wasn’t ignored, with Mullen observing [Continue reading…]

As the Zeek Rewards Receivership continues to pursue financial settlements with insiders who should have known better, news broke today that those at the top have already settled.

In his status report for the second quarter of 2014, Receiver Kenneth Bell has revealed that

By the filing date of this report, the Receiver had reached settlement agreements with Paul Burks, Dawn Wright-Olivares, and Daniel Olivares, pending Court approval.

Each of these defendants agreed to a consent judgment of $600 million to be satisfied with substantially all of their assets.

How the $600M figure will be paid back, in particular who is paying what amount, is unclear. Ditto how much of the judgement will be distributed to the scheme’s victims by the Receivership.

What is clear though is that it appears to be a lump sum, and after it’s paid – those primarily responsible for the creation and operation of the Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme will have absolutely nothing left to show for it.

As someone who was actively covering Zeek Rewards during the height of the Ponzi insanity that gripped so many within the MLM industry, this latest judgement is a far cry from the hype and cheerleading that went on during Zeek’s heyday. [Continue reading…]

uThriv launched in late May and operate in the nutrition and personal development MLM niches.

The company is based out of the US state of Georgia and headed up by President and co-founder, Joe Tessin.

According to his uThriv corporate bio,

Joe Tessin has spent his adult life building organizations, leading teams, and coaching individuals as well as consulting with executive management teams.

Most recently Joe has worked as VP of Sales for a network marketing company and that role rekindled his passion for the industry and ultimately caused the spark that is known as uTHRiV. Joe built several network marketing teams over the last decade and was a top income earner in two companies.

No specific company name are mentioned, however further research reveals that Tessin (right) has been involved in VizConnect.

VizConnect marketed a $50 QR code + video hosting package. Launched in late 2013, the company appears to have gone into decline shortly thereafter. An overly complicated compensation plan no doubt hampered growth efforts.

In September of 2013 Tessin was credited in a VizConnect press-release as an Executive-Director of the company. By January 2014 Tessin had joined VizConnect’s management team.

A press-release issued on January 13th reads

VizConnect has announced the appointment of Joe Tessin to the VizConnect leadership team beginning in 2014.

Tessin is a multi-level marketing veteran having served as CEO and coach for Better Days Group, a company specializing in personal one-on-one coaching, group coaching, personal development workshops and team development for various organizations.

Tessin has been working as a consultant and Executive Director for VizConnect’s sales team members since early 2013.

Tessin outlined his vision for the VizConnect sales force in 2014.

“We are going to improve communication internally amongst our leadership team and externally with our members,” he said.

“We are going to enhance our products with a focus on building our business, and I will continue to be actively engaged in the field to build our business.”

What happened there I have no idea, but a month later Tessin was up and running with uThriv.

Whether or not Tessin is still with VizConnect is unclear. It is noted though that his uThriv co-founder and Vice-President, Brian Dee, is credited as VizConnect’s “Secretary and Chief Sales Officer”.

Regardless of whether Tessin is still involved with VizConnect, through Brian Dee or otherwise the two companies appear to be maintaining close relations.

Another recent VizConnect press-release (which for some reason does not appear on the VizConnect website itself), dated June 3rd 2014, announced a “partnership” with uThriv:

VizConnect has announced a partnership with UThriv to provide white label mobile marketing platforms for both internal and external outreach.

Through a white label partnership with UThriv, VizConnect will provide access to its innovative suite of mobile video marketing products.

“After working with the VizConnect platform for over a year I am pleased to enter into this strategic partnership between our two companies,” said Joe Tessin, President of UThriv.

The “Better Days Group” company, mentioned in the second press release above, is a non-MLM personal development coaching company owned and operated by Tessin.

Better Days Group exists to help individuals and organizations have better days EVERY day! We believe that we are all here for a reason, and we are only able to feel truly fulfilled when we are living for that purpose.

We want to help you discover your unique design and develop strategies to make that design come to life.

Prior to VizConnect Tessin was involved in the MLM company ProVisionRx, marketing third-party discounts. In June 2012 Tessin was acknowledged by ProVisionRX for reaching the Executive Training Director affiliate rank.

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

On their own the combination of Infinity 2 Global’s recruitment commissions and revenue-sharing opens up the strong probability that new affiliates money will just be recycled amongst existing I2G affiliates.

Throw in the addition of global gambling revenue and a US presence?

Yeah, this probably isn’t going to end well…

–BehindMLM Infinity2Global Review (September 2013)

The Achilles heel of all revenue-sharing programs is the necessity to have new affiliates buying into the scheme, so that the company has new funds to pay off existing affiliates with.

No explicit promises are made regarding the revenue-sharing payout (amount of ROI or frequency), but affiliates nonetheless dump thousands of dollars into the scheme on the promise (implied or otherwise) of an eventually >100% ROI.

Typically a customer option is attached to the scheme, but in practice this fails to deliver any significant revenue – with the company instead just shuffling new affiliate money around to pay out affiliates.

A Ponzi scheme by any other name.

And just like a Ponzi scheme, when these revenue-sharing opportunities run out of money they either collapse or, as is the case with I2G, change their name and attempt a relaunch.

Introducing Global1Entertainment. [Continue reading…]

LifePharm Global launched in 2011, with the company naming LifePharm Inc. as its parent.

LifePharm Global Network is a subsidiary of LifePharm, Inc., its parent company.

LifePharm, Inc. began back in 2001, focused on the business of developing, marketing and distributing premium, natural supplements in the retail sector across six countries.

LifePharm, Inc. was one of the first supplement companies in Asia to use popular celebrities to promote, endorse and build brand awareness.

With substantial businesses experience behind us as LifePharm, Inc. – plus an incredibly strong start and continued success with our direct marketing LifePharm Global Network company – we are poised to change the DNA of the industry.

LifePharm Global have a corporate office in the US state of California, but owing to their Asian heritage as part of LifePharm Inc., also maintain offices in Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Heading up LifePharm Global is CEO is Wicky Suyanto (right).

Born in Indonesia but educated in the United States at Pepperdine University, Wicky Suyanto always had a keen eye for opportunity.

Following many successful retail ventures in Asia and winning several awards for branding and advertising, Wicky and his family moved to the US together to further their children’s education.

About the time his twin sons, Wickson and Winston, graduated from UCLA, Wicky was presented with studies on Fibroblast Growth Factor (FGF) and knew it was an opportunity to develop a revolutionary product.

With a strong desire to give people an opportunity to create wealth and be in control of their own success, Wicky chose the channel of direct sales for the revolutionary product we know as Laminine.

Wicky, Wickson and, Winston opened LifePharm Global Network in 2011.

Prior to LifePharm Global, Suyanto appears to have been involved in Pendura Life Visions.

In 2010, a year prior to LifePharm Global starting up, Dr James Siripanich, a co-founder of Pendura wrote

Since the network marketing industry took off 50 years ago, companies have promised that the MLM is a business opportunity partnership, so I know what I mentioned so far to you is nothing new.

I had to ask myself, “Other companies have told people to simply believe in a partnership, how can Pendura make this tangible since the very beginning?”

This is when my friend and Pendura co-founder Wicky Suyanto approached me with the revolutionary idea of letting our distributors own company shares.

Pendura still has a website operational over at “penduralifevisions.com”, but the opportunity appears to be defunct.

Corporation Wiki shows a link between the two companies by way of Bernard Sjauta, who is credited as serving as President of both Pendura and LifePharm Global:

Sjauta is credited with being the CEO of LifePharm Global as late as December of 2012. In official LifePharm Global newsletters (dated as late as January 2013), Sjauta is also credited as a co-founder of the company:

I couldn’t find any updates following that newsletter, indicating that Sjauta possibly left the company in 2013. Why is a mystery as there’s no mention of it anywhere on the LifePharm Global website.

Sjauta’s absence from the LifePharm website and a lack of explanation of what led to Wicky Suyanto taking over as CEO is somewhat conspicuous.

In any event, read on for a full review of the LifePharm Global MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]