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

Launched in late 2013, the Paymony website domain was registered on the 28th of November 2013 however the domain registration is set to private.

Paymony does have an “About Us’ section on their website, but only the following vague marketing copy is provided:

The Paymony is a company of Andpry Inc Group focused on developing products and technology services, partners in Silicon Valley (Silicon Valley – California – USA) having a differential ease of usage.

All marketing is done electronically, where we enjoy the Relationship Marketing as main channel, generating a distribution fair and equitable.

Formed by experts of wide experience in the areas of technology, marketing, knowledge management, information architecture, usability and web solutions.

Right.

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…]

When we last checked in with SiteTalk, they’d ditched the Unaico name and reinvented themselves as “The Opportunity Network”. Both The Opportunity Network (OPN) and SiteTalk are still chugging along today, with news from the company last month indicating a new push into the US market.

If you’re wondering why SiteTalk had previously abstained from the US market, CEO Frank Ricketts explained the situation earlier this year at a SiteTalk event. Ricketts revealed that three years ago he ‘blocked the USA market for the OPN business opportunity:

We are a scam, we are illegal, we are running a pyramid system everywhere around the world. You can read that in Google.

So if we are a scam, we’re a pyramid, we’re illegal – what’s the problem with not being in North America? Why not do this in North America as well?

The reason is because one aspect of our business, that our legal adviser said that the authorities would probably say it’s 70% ok, but 30% maybe not.

And in the most important market in the planet, we decided that that risk was too high.

When I reviewed The Opportunity Network in late 2013, I identified a complete lack of retail activity within the business. It’s likely that 100% of the commissions being paid out of affiliate money is the root problem of the “30%” Rickett’s mentions above.

Another potential red-flag is the virtual stock exchange SiteTalk ran under their Unaico brand. Early investors were promised shares in a SiteTalk IPO, which eventually manifested itself as a listing on the Cyprus Stock Exchange’s “Emerging Companies Market”.

SiteTalk is listed under the stock code “STC” and company name “Global Digital Systems PLC”, with a current share price of €0.248 EUR per share.

In any case SiteTalk has persisted and appear to have gained a significant following in China of all places. At the time of publication Alexa estimate that 37% of SiteTalk traffic originates from China, and ranks SiteTalk as the 648th most visited site in the country.

Evidently though being popular in China hasn’t reaped the economic rewards SiteTalk’s owners might have previously thought it would.

A “statement of comprehensive income” filed on March 31st 2014 reveals SiteTalk generated €723,553 EUR in revenue. That sounds alright until you consider “sales” and “other expenses” during the same period set SiteTalk back €3,816,365 EUR.

The end-result is a 19th December 2012 to 30th September 2013 net loss of  €3,092,812 EUR.

Obviously not looking for a repeat performance this year, this is likely to the be primary reason for SiteTalk’s recent push to enter the US market. Currently the percentage of US traffic visiting SiteTalk is so insignificantly low that Alexa do not track it. The smallest recorded percentage by country is Venezuela, who account for 0.5% of SiteTalk’s global traffic.

Nonetheless earlier this year, via a series of press-releases, SiteTalk announced to the world its plans for the US. [Continue reading…]

No doubt as a result of the TelexFree narrative taking on a life of its own these last few weeks, ironically due to a complete lack of communication by the company itself, yesterday saw the release of two official TelexFree corporate marketing videos.

Featuring Steve Labriola, TelexFree’s “Director of Business Development”, the two videos revealed little new information, but there were two interesting tidbits that I felt were worth going over. [Continue reading…]

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

The Golden Today website domain (“goldentoday.com”) was registered on the 23rd of December 2013, however the domain registration is set to private.

The company has two YouTube videos embedded on their website, with both being uploaded to an account named “Michael Smith”.

Michael Smith sounds a bit generically suspicious, so I kept on digging for information. Not long thereafter I found reference to two “localized domains” being launched on Golden Today’s Facebook page:

That second domain, “goldentoday.es” lists a “Kevin Ka” as the domain owner (right).

Who Kevin Ka is, whether that’s a complete name and/or his involvement in any previous MLM business opportunities is unclear. If I have to choose between “Michael Smith” and “Kevin Ka” owning Golden Today though, I’m going to go with Ka.

For starters all three Golden Today websites (English, Spanish and Japanese) are hosted out of Hong Kong. Then there’s the Golden Today “403 forbidden” error page, which is in Korean:

All of that aside, I wasn’t able to find any further information on Ka, so I’m still going to flag the name as suspect. Why Golden Today do not provide any information on their website to clear up ownership of the company is a mystery.

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…]

There is no information on the Wiscup page indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Wicup website domain (“wiscup.com”) was registered on the 5th of April 2008, however the domain registration is set to private.

Printed in the footer of every page on the Wiscup website is the following message:

Wiscup, a fundraising program of the GCA.

If you click on “GCA”, you are redirected to the website of the “Global Chance Alliance”. The Global Change Alliance state on their website that they are a “political organization”.

On their website, the organization claims to want to implement:

• a new debt-free financial system
• a new taxation system
• basic living standards for all
• alternative energy
• demilitirization and
• individual freedom

There is no information as to who owns or runs the Global Change Alliance, with their domain (“global-change-alliance.org”) also set to private.

Both the Wiscup and Global Change Alliance websites are hosted on the same private server, with additional websites also hosted on the server including:

• Euredo (“euredo.org”) – a “political initiative for immediate change of the present wrong direction of Europe” with a €10,000 EUR “joining fee”
• 2Profits (“2profits.com”) – redirects to Wiscup website
• Sunis (“sunis.org”) – defunct domain
• GCShares (“gcshares.com”) – defunct comain (presumably “GC” stands for “Global Change”)
• GC (“gc.tm”) – defunct domain

As all of these domains appear to be related in either content or their naming, one can assume single ownership of all the hosted domains.

The GC domain (“gc.tm”) lists a “Roy Caral” from Seychelles as the owner. The GC domain uses the name-servers of “gc-a.org”, which is a domain that redirects to the Global Change Alliance website.

I wasn’t able to connect Caral to any other MLM opportunities on the executive side, so other than GCShares and 2Proftis (both of which sound very HYIP’ish), I don’t believe Caral has any prior experience running an MLM company.

Why Caral’s name does not appear on the Wiscup or Global Change Alliance websites is a mystery.

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

Blessing4All launched in February 2014 and is headed up by “admin” Edwin Ramos.

On the Blessing4All website, Ramos is credited with having been ‘involved in online programs for more than 5 years in which he acquire the needed skills and knowledge on how to operate an online business’.

Blessing4All and Ramos (right) are based out of the Philippines, with a “certificate of business name registration” from the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry provided on the company website.

Note however that,

Blessing4all Enterprise is 100% online business for now but as we grow and the need arises we will set up a base office for this program.

On the MLM history side of things, Ramos’ YouTube account reveals a plethora of uploaded videos marketing “Ads2Freedom”. Further research reveals Ramos to be the owner of the opportunity, which used a series of matrices to pay affiliates commissions on the recruitment of new Ads2Freedom affiliates.

Despite Ramos claiming to have involvement in online programs for five years, I was unable to find anything specific other than Ads2Freedom.

In December 2013 Ramos advised on the company website that Ads2Freedom had their hosting account suspended by HostGator. Ramos claimed this was due to HostGator’s policy against “matrix or MLM program(s)”.

Ramos claimed the HostGator backups of Ads2Freedom were “useless because they are corrupt”, and did not restart the scheme elsewhere. At least not under the Ads2Freedom name.

Read on for a full review of the Blessing4All MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

In Zeek Rewards, affiliates invested real money which the company then exchanged into “VIP Points”. VIP Points were an inhouse virtual currency that was used to manage affiliate ROIs and re-investment.

1 VIP Point was claimed to equal $1, until the SEC stepped in and shut Zeek Rewards down for being a $600+ Ponzi scheme.

One of ultimate wake-up calls for Zeek Rewards investors who remained in denial about the value of their points, was a statement the court-appointed Receivership issued in March of 2013:

The receiver has determined that because the VIP points aspect of the multi level marketing program did nothing more than redistribute funds between affiliates in Ponzi-scheme fashion, points generated by/or accumulated by affiliates will not be an includable part of an affiliate’s claim for purposes of receiving a distribution from the Receivership Estate.

And just like that, the millions of points Zeek investors had generated via re-investment of their issued points and hoarded away, were reduced in value to $0.

Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Whether they’re using the Zeek Rewards business model as an instruction manual or not I can’t say, but guess who just started issuing their affiliates “TelexCredits”? [Continue reading…]

M & G Home Business launched as an MLM company in February 2014 and is headed up by “admin” Michael Flores.

Note that Flores’ name does not appear anywhere on the M & G Home Business website, but does appear on affiliate emails and the company’s domain registration.

Flores (right) lists himself as the owner of “mandghomebusiness.com” through Begin Marketing. A corporate address in the US state of Pennsylvania is also provided.

Begin Marketing state on their website that they offer “the best email marketing leads and PLR products”. Attached to the business is a single-level affiliate deal, which is attached to a $9.95 a month “Premium Membership”. Lead subscriptions are also available, “starting at $29.95 a month”.

Glenn Manger is named as Flores’ partner on several M & G Home Business affiliate sites, which is presumably what the “G” in the company name stands for.

Often credited as “marketers”, neither appear to have any experience running an MLM business opportunity. Working together though, both seem have a number of years experience generating MLM email leads (the Begin Marketing website was registered in 2000).

Read on for a full review of the M & G Home Business MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

Live Life 360 launched in early 2014 and are headed up by co-founders Jesse Riddle (CEO), David Wood (President), Sam Robinson (Executive Vice-President of Operations) and Dr. Christina Beer (Executive Vice-President of Science and Research).

In his Live Life 360 corporate bio, Riddle is credited with ‘more than 25 years of business management experience and 10 years of industry experience‘.

A lawyer by trade, Riddle (right) was general counsel for Agel (nutrients) and around 2008 was involved in a number of cross-recruiting lawsuits filed against former Agel affiliates and Monavie’s Randy Schroeder.

Agel filed a lawsuit against Randy and Tara Schroeder alleging that they had violated various state and federal laws.

In the TRO hearing, the Court ruled that Agel had established that there was a substantial likelihood of success on the merits that Randy Schroeder may have used email addresses and names protected by Agel’s agreement.

The Court also found that there is irreparable harm to Agel if Randy Schroeder is permitted to continue the use of that confidential information.

The TRO will preclude the defendant from using any Web site that has Agel in it. And, further, he will be prohibited from any agreement with Yahoo, Google or any other search engine from using—from allowing or requiring them to direct traffic to his Web site or sites when someone types in the word Agel in the search engine.

This week, Agel filed numerous lawsuits against other former distributors alleging that they are improperly using Agel’s confidential information relating to cross-recruiting.

Over the next few weeks, Agel expects numerous and additional lawsuits to be filed. Agel will also request that the court enter Temporary Restraining Orders against each one of these defendants.

According to a statement released by Agel’s General Counsel, Jesse L. Riddle, “If a distributor violates their contract and cross-recruits, they will be sued.”

Riddle has also been unofficially credited with advising Go Fun Rewards to cease their US operations. Go Fun Rewards of course being one of the many reload scams that popped up after the Ponzi scheme Zeek Rewards was busted by the SEC.

When Riddle left Agel I’m not entirely clear on but I believe Live Life 360 is his first run on the executive side of things.

Read on for a full review of the Live Life 360 MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

Yesterday saw dramatic scenes unfold at TelexFree’s Massachusetts’ head office, culminating in police being called to the scene to remove the company’s affiliates from the building.

What we weren’t sure on at the time was who called the police.

Luckily local Boston media were on location, with Wicked Local’s Daily News Staff reporting it was Steve Labriola himself who called the police on the affiliates.

Labriola said he called the police to intervene Tuesday when the crowd began to grow outside the company’s offices.

When asked if he might help affiliates get some answers by requesting management talk to affiliates, a Boston police officer who responded to Labriola’s call for help later told affiliates:

None of them are gunna come out man, they’re staying in there. They see this many people, they’re scared.

Affiliates gathered at TelexFree office to demand why the company, literally overnight, had made changes to their AdCentral investment positions.

Previously affiliates had been told there would be no change to their existing positions, with many expecting to be paid out their weekly $20 a week ROI per position for the remainder of the maturity period (52 weeks).

Short of trying to re-invent themselves as a “customer acquisition company”, TelexFree have thus far failed to explain the reason behind the changes. [Continue reading…]