Despite the Speak Asia scam fleecing hundreds of millions of dollars from over a million email address accounts, to date only a dozen or so First Information Report complaints have been filed against the company.

One of the main reasons for this has been the constant quelling of the scheme’s participants, under the promise of refunds initiated by the company, by Speak Asia’s top recruiters and investors.

It’s no secret that should Indian authorities decide to drop the case against the Ponzi scheme (as laughable as this sounds it’s what many of them believe will happen through the courts), that the money these top recruiter investors stand to gain is substantial. [Continue reading…]

When the Mumbai High Court ordered that the Economic Offences Wing file a chargesheet against Speak Asia by December 16th, the general consensus amongst the scheme’s supporters was that the police were going to come up blank.

Two and a half years had passed since Speak Asia had been shut down, surely if the EOW had anything they would filed a chargesheet by now?

As the December 16th deadline loomed closer, what happened on Tuesday no doubt surprised the Speak Asia faithful.

It certainly wasn’t something I was expecting… [Continue reading…]

Following on from yesterday’s post about DS Domination and dropshipping,

Looking forward I guess there’s little left to do but adopt a wait and see approach. As far as Amazon goes, short of policing eBay themselves and trying to connect listings to Amazon accounts (which I don’t realistically see them doing), it would seem the ball is entirely in eBay’s court.

I sent an email to eBay to try to get to the bottom of whether or not they are officially fine with sellers, members of DS Domination or otherwise, selling Amazon products on their site.

I was kind of expecting a “refer to our terms and conditions” type vague reply but to my surprise, I was contacted by an eBay Customer Service rep who was quite clear on the issue. [Continue reading…]

The Total Takeover launched in November 2013 and is headed up by admin Matthew McMills.

McMills has a YouTube account, with videos uploaded over the past year revealing affiliate membership to TVC Matrix, a $9.95 or $19.95 a month recruitment scheme.

About a year ago, McMills also appears to have launched something called Internet Guru University (evidently from inside his car).

The Internet Guru University website is still up over at “internetguruuniversity.com”, however the site advises that the program is “sold out”. Going off the content posted on the site, it appears to be some sort of membership-based training platform.

With the launch of The Total Takeover, whether McMills is still involved in TVC Matrix as an affiliate is unclear.

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

Following on from yesterday’s discussion over whether or not eBay suspended the seller account of a DS Domination member or not, I started to ponder the incident a bit deeper.

What is currently known is that a DS Domination member had their eBay account suspended because eBay were

not comfortable with (the member’s) selling practices or business model, and (felt) they don’t help to promote a positive buying and selling environment.

DS Domination member’s and the company itself maintain that the suspension was not a result of DS Domination membership, but rather due to a failure to follow the company’s dropshipping training and advice.

If DS Domination are indeed warning affiliates that not explicitly following their training and advice, all of it, will result in an eBay account suspension, then that I can accept.

It got me thinking though, what exactly did eBay object to then? Was it the way items were listed, the types of items listed? What exactly was going on here?

We know eBay, by their own admission, have no problem with dropshipping and, as DS Domination members are prompt to point out, plenty of people dropship items to eBay buyers every day without issue.

Hell you can even contact eBay yourself and verify they have no problems with dropshipping, so it’s obviously not that.

…or is it? [Continue reading…]

There is no information on the Coastal Vacations website indicating who owns or runs the business. The “who we are” section of the Coastal Vacations website only offers up the following vague marketing copy:

Coastal Vacations is an association of entrepreneurs, professionals and home-based business owners.

Over eight years ago a Board of Directors committed themselves to researching and building business relationships with travel companies that possess a proven track record of customer satisfaction and industry credibility.

The Coastal Vacations website domain (“coastaltravelpackage.com”) was registered on in July 2002, listing a “COA Network” as the domain owner. A suite address in the US state of New Jersey is also provided.

The name “COA Network” does not appear anywhere on the Coastal Vacations website, however the company does have its own website domain over at “coanetwork.com”.

On the COA Network website the company advises

COA Network was established in 1992 as the leading provider of voicemail services to businesses and individuals throughout North America. Starting with the vision of CEO and Founder, Paul Champaneria.

At the bottom of the Coastal Vacations website, a message informs visitors that the site is ‘Powered by FocalPoint’.

FocalPoint (“focalpointsystem.com”) is a “replicated site and automated marketing system”, created and owned by COA Network.

Given this it is unclear whether or not COA Network actually own Coastal Vacations or whether they’ve just set up the website (and in doing so listed themselves as the owner of the company’s website domain).

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…]

May 2011 saw India’s Economic Offenses Wing (EOW) shut down Speak Asia, the biggest Ponzi / pyramid hybrid scheme in Indian history at the time.

Come December 16th, two and a half years after Speak Asia was shut down, the Mumbai High Court has ordered the EOW finally file a chargesheet against the company.

One might get the sense that over the past thirty months Indian regulators have been sitting on their hands, but the truth of the matter is far from it.

The longevity of the Speak Asia case is unfortunately a symptom of India’s regulatory and legal systems being unable to cope with the scope and magnitude of today’s online scams. [Continue reading…]

DS Domination’s bundling of “how to copy Amazon product descriptions into eBay auctions, markup the price and dropship” was bound to raise concerns at some point.

At the entry-level, which the company uses to demonstrate the concept of drop-shipping to new and potential members, it was always going to be a question of who would get fed up first – eBay or Amazon?

Firing what appears to be the first bullet at DS Domination members is eBay, specifically calling out a DS Domination member’s “selling practices and business model”. [Continue reading…]

10FreeMoney launched in November 2013 and is headed up by an admin who signs off as “D&K Collins” (taken from the 10FreeMoney FAQ).

Further research reveals D&K Collins identifying themselves as David Collins, admin of Alert2Pay:

I AM The Administrator D.Collins former owner of Alert2Pay, now co-owner of 10freemoney. I am one of the most trusted admins in the world of hyip and money back guarantee.

Alert2Pay launched in August 2012, accepting $50 investments from affiliates and guaranteeing a 7% daily ROIs for 30 days.

By September 2012 (just short of two months) Alert2Pay had run out of new affiliate money, with Collins pulling the familiar “we got hacked!” excuse:

Hello Valued Members! (Please read this entire email)

It is with a heavy heart that I have no choice but to report that Alert2Pay is closing today.

First and foremost – I will do my UTMOST to ensure that NO members will be left out of pocket!!

I am refunding all deposits to those who did not earn anything on their investments! The refunds will be processed today and I will try to cover every member who did not get a chance to earn with Alert2Pay!

We cannot pay commissions however, nor can we pay monies back to those who are already in profit.

Now, for the explanation…BE WARNED!!

Alert2Pay was being attacked by one of the world’s biggest hackers who goes by many names, One of the names is Wealthy Rick, or the most recent Alex, who is the current owner of wealthadz.com and many other websites.

This hacker has been hacking into members accounts, stealing their money, changing their username, passwords, and payment emails while withdrawing it into his own account.

He also stole more than $60,000 from Alert2Pay by hacking into our server, uploading a API agent and retrieving our API details which is used to make mass payments to members.

This hacker has stolen our entire database and is uploading it to his websites and selling the leads as package deals to the members of his sites. So with that being said, you will need to change your username and passwords to all your programs.

This hacker is following people around , logging into their most recent programs (using their previous username and password) and stealing their money.

With that being said, we are holding onto our last bit of dollars and we will use this to pay our major investors back first, then we will work on the smaller payments last.

This is the only way that I, the owner of Alert2Pay can close down this program. I would not be able to live with myself knowing that somebody lost 5 to 10,000 dollars when there are families out there starving and homeless.

I cannot promise that every investor who did not earn with us will get their money back, because at some point, what we do have left will run out. I am deeply sorry and I apologize that you had to go through this torment!

As you may or may not know, ProfitAdz is one of the other sites that has been a victim of this same person. The Admin, Thomas Sullivan is a well respected honest Admin, and has his hands full too, trying to recover.

The hacker somehow redirected this mans site to his newest site, set up to scam members out of their money. Sounds familiar don’t it? Remember when we were alert2pay.com, yes, he stole that from us too.

In closing, I want you all to know that despite the actions of this hacker, I did everything in my power to keep Alert2pay going.

I spent countless hours, quite a few bucks, and sleepless nights trying to keep the hacker at bay, because the members are top priority, but in the end, the hacker had to win…before he hacked more members accounts!!

I want you all to know that my Partner Cathy Evans, has done her best to help, but this has been out of her hands as well. She is a wonderful woman and she made my job as the admin here a heck of lot easier!

Please do not blame her, she was our support admin and had nothing to do with payments whatsoever! I want to thank Cathy for everything that she\’s done to make A2P one of the greatest sites to hit the net.

I’m closing this update now and the refunding process will begin. I will be posting more information about the hacker on the front page of Alert2Pay and I will expose as much as I can! The website will stay up for this purpose only.

Please be aware of this guy because he is hacking everything and everybody! Also please get protection for your computer and run a complete scan everyday.

I found tracking cookies and a trojan on my computer and I strongly believe this is what he’s using to gather your personal information. Please stay safe and farewell.

The Alert2Pay program has ended.

Despite the promises of investor refunds above made by Collins, postings on social media by Alert2Pay affiliates indicate that the vast majority of refund requests were not honored.

Now, a year later, Collins is back with 10FreeMoney.

Read on for a full review of the 10FreeMoney MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

Vertical Legacy operate in the blog network MLM niche and for all intents and purposes, appear to be an offshoot of Wealth Masters International.

Vertical Legacy is a natural extension of the vision that first began, when in 2005 Kip (Herriage) and partner Karl Bessey founded industry leader Wealth Masters International.

Taken from the Vertical Legacy’s “company” page,

Vertical Legacy is a company built on the strongest of foundations and by combining your aspirations coupled with this talented team’s strengths, the sky’s the limit for you and for those you care for the most. And as we move forward, please never forget…

Vertical Legacy… Where Building Your Legacy… Is Our Legacy.

The page then goes on to list eight “leadership team” members, each of which is in some way associated with Wealth Masters:

• Kip Herriage – co-founder and CEO of Wealth Masters International
• Karl Bessey – co-founder and President of Wealth Masters International
• John Jackson – Senior Vice-President of Leadership Development
• Per Gunnar Hoem – top Norwegian Wealth Masters affiliate prior to WMI getting banned in Norway for being a pyramid scheme
• Cathy Werking – Wealth Masters affiliate
• Ryan Nelson – Wealth Masters affiliate
• Wayne Allyn Root – speaker at Wealth Masters events
• Peter Bileagus – speaker at Wealth Master events

Wealth Masters International launched in the MLM personal development boom of the mid to late 2000s. Trouble first began in 2010 when WMI ran into regulatory issues in Norway. Later that year the Norwegian Gaming Board declared Wealth Masters to be an illegal pyramid scheme, and things have been in a downward spiral ever since.

In 2011 WMI announced it was planning an Initial Public Offering (IPO), which never eventuated.

After lengthy delays, WMI launched the subsidiary “Pure” in 2012. The Pure website is still online today (“purenow.com”), however the company failed to go anywhere after launch. For all intents and purposes it appears to be an abandoned project today.

Wealth Masters was the subject of two major investigations in 2011, one from the SEC (possible securities violations) and the other from the New Zealand Commerce Commission (pyramid scheme suspicions).

By 2013 Wealth Masters appeared to be all but dead in the water, with the company even referring to itself as “gutted” in a lawsuit filed against previous consultants and ex-affiliates.

Two of the ex-affiliates Wealth Masters sued, Aaron and Sophia Rashkin, filed a countersuit against WMI, alleging it to be a pyramid scheme.

WMI’s business model is complex on paper yet simple to articulate: Pay up to $20,000 for token products and services in exchange for the right to earn commissions from recruited participants that do the same.

Less than one-half of 1% of WMI’s gross revenue can be attributed to legitimate retail sales; thus, proving the point that the products have no legitimate without the recruitment mechanism.

Those outcome of both lawsuits is still pending, but in the meantime Vertical Leverage would appear to be WMI’s latest attempt as re-inventing itself.

Other than it being referred to as an “extension”, there’s currently no explanation as to how Vertical Legacy will fit into the existing Wealth Masters business opportunity, or whether it’s intended to replace the Wealth Masters brand entirely.

At the time of publication the Wealth Masters International website (“wmitoday.com”) is fully operational.

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