Despite the uncertainty over TelexFree’s ever-changing new compensation plan, those that had previously invested funds before March were reassured their weekly ROIs would continue to be paid out.

This made little sense considering the company was under SEC investigation, but was largely seen as a way to keep their existing investors happy.

I haven’t seen any official numbers, but TelexFree affiliates number in the thousands and there are purportedly over four million existing AdCentral investment positions active.

All was well until yesterday, citing “regulatory requirements”, TelexFree decided to renege on their earlier promises. [Continue reading…]

Paycation appear to have launched in early 2014 and are based out of the US state of Texas.

The company claims on its website that it

works with Xstream Travel to provide members professional training to become a Referral Travel Consultant or a Certified Travel Consultant. Xstream Travel is a 12 year old licensed and bonded travel agency.

Listed as CEO of Paycation on their website is David Manning. Manning (right) first popped up on BehindMLM’s radar as the CEO of Xstream Travel and Traverus.

Traverus have a reputation for supplying travel services to a number of recruitment driven MLM schemes, with The Vacation Network being the one that first brought Manning to our attention.

Launched by former Traverus executive Richard Vincenti and marketed as ‘a one time investment of $150.00 and $12.00 per month to qualify you to earn commissions‘, sometime between now and March 2012 the Vacation Network seems to have collapsed.

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

When Phil Ming Xu became aware that the SEC was investigating his WCM777 Ponzi empire, he began to divert deposits made by investors to Hong Kong.

As noted by the SEC in their complaint against Xu,

Around October 2013, at the same time that state regulators began investigating the WCM777 offering, (WCM777) stopped depositing investor funds into their United States bank accounts, although the WCM777 offering continued.

Since October 2013, Defendants have raised more than $37 million from investors which has been deposited into their Hong Kong bank account.

Whether or not the appointed Receivership in the case will be able to recover the funds from Hong Kong is unclear, but that hasn’t stopped affiliates in Global Unity from proclaiming their opportunity is safe from US regulation. [Continue reading…]

Earlier this month, Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin’s office revealed that they were

investigating a Marlborough-based telephone marketing company that has already been banned in Brazil for running a pyramid scheme.

The inquiry stemmed from the office’s investigation into a similar company that was accused of targeting Brazilian immigrants in Massachusetts with a multi-marketing scam, said Brian McNiff, a spokesman for Galvin.

The “telephone marketing company” they were investigating was of course none other than TelexFree, with the company later confirming they were indeed under SEC investigation.

Meanwhile the “similar company” mentioned above is WCM777. Shutdown yesterday by the SEC after it was revealed to be a $65 million dollar Ponzi scheme. In taking down WCM777, the SEC filed a 24 page complaint with a Californian District Court.

Given the “similarities” between TelexFree and WCM777 and the former also being under SEC investigation, I thought it’d be worthwhile to go through the SEC complaint and see how TelexFree stacks up. [Continue reading…]

As part of their twenty-four page Ponzi lawsuit issued against WCM777, the SEC claim that the company

facilitated a “secondary market” in the points they award to investors, and Defendants estimate that $890 million of the points have traded on this market.

(WCM777) claim(s) that more than $890 million of points have been traded in the secondary market platform operated by Defendants.
40.

The points acquired by investors provide the investor with the right to receive stock, or convert the points to stock, in any of the companies that Defendants represent they are bringing to the market.

In a nutshell, WCM777 affiliate investors converted real money on the company’s Kingdom Trade market for virtual points. The $890 million figure doesn’t represent real money (WCM777 only took in $65 million), but monopoly money being continuously compounded through the company’s  Ponzi investment scheme.

Whereas WCM777 had the means to track real money being converted into “Kingdom Points”, it appears the planned method to permit investors to withdraw “Kingdom Coins” into real money was never put in place.

Xu had initially contracted EuroWallet to provide e-wallet services to his Kingdom Trade exchange under the branding “Kingdom Coin”, however as the regulatory noose around Xu’s neck tightened he then left the payment processor high and dry. [Continue reading…]

That Phil Ming Xu would go down for his part in running the WCM777 Ponzi scheme was certain, and for the last few months or so it’s simply been a matter of when.

Last I heard Phil Ming Xu was had fired his previous legal team after they failed to negotiate a fine penalty with the SEC on Xu’s behalf. Having hired a new legal team, as I understand it the negotiations and investigation into Xu’s criminal activities had been ongoing.

Over the past few weeks bits and pieces of information filtered down the grapevine, culminating yesterday with the SEC filing a civil lawsuit, summons and proposed temporary restraining order against Xu and his WCM777 Ponzi empire. [Continue reading…]

My OPI stands for “My Online Passive Income” and was launched in early March 2014.

According to the My OPI terms and conditions,

My-OPI.com is owned by Julie Wilson (Jules) and Bradley Wells.

Wilson has a long history of running Ponzi schemes, having first popped up on the BehindMLM radar with Prosperity Cash Machine. Prosperity Cash Machine was a matrix-based recruitment scheme, charging affiliates $175 to participate. The company launched in late 2013 and went into decline shortly after.

Bradley Wells I’m not too sure about, as I couldn’t find anything specific within the context of MLM.

Regardless, with Prosperity Cash Machine going into decline it appears Wilson is ready with another opportunity to tempt punters with.

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

Vizinova launched a few days ago and after some initial speculation, finally uploaded some information about the opportunity to their website.

ViziNova is a High-tech international E-Commerce firm that uses the power of the Personal Relationship Network Marketing model to share with a global community the latest and most exclusive mobile Apps for Telecommunication, Gaming and Personal Growth, plus Online Digital Marketing and Online E-Commerce Retail sales.

Credited as the founder and President of the company on Vizinova website is a one Mr. Alejandro Rodriguez Alvidrez. Alvidrez is credited with having ‘25 years of successful leadership in Advertising and Network Marketing‘ experience and being ‘one (of) Latin Americas’s most influential marketing leaders‘.

Exactly what network marketing Alivdrez has is unclear, with his LinkedIn profile only crediting him with being the CEO and Founder of Alquimia, which appears to be a marketing and advertising agency.

Things get interesting when you consider that Alvidrez lists himself as being based out of Mexico, but Vizinova state on their website that they ‘are located in Dubai, USA‘.

Assuming that the above is a typo and Vizinova aren’t asserting that there’s a Dubai in the US, it begs the question as to why Alvidrez would found a company based in two countries he’s not living in. And Dubai? That’s not even a stone’s throw away from the US.

The Vizinova website domain (“vizinova.com”) was registered on the 17th of January 2014, however the domain registration is set to private.

That’s odd. Vizinova provide ownership information about their company, so why would they bother to set their domain registration to private?

The Vizinova website domain has its own name-servers, with one eagle-eyed BehindMLM reader observing that the domains “vizinova.org”, “vizinova.biz” and “vizinova.net” also use these same name-servers, indicating they belong to the same owner (note that whilst the domains are registered, none of them are currently in use).

Whereas the Vizinova primary domain registration is set to private though, these secondary domains are not . Vizinova.net for example is registered to “ViziNova Incorporation”, with a supplied address in Dubai.

Dubai? Now we’re getting somewhere.

If one punches the email address used to register the vizinova.net domain into Google, this is what comes up:

WCM777? But that’s the Phil Ming Xu Ponzi scheme that is currently being investigated by the SEC…

Some Vizinova affiliates were claiming Phil Ming Xu owned Vizinova, but that has since been denied by a BehindMLM reader who claims to “work with corporate people”.

So who owns “renatoenterprises@gmail.com” then?

That’d be one Renato Rodriguez:

The above screenshot is from a YouTube video by Rodriguez, in which he’s presented as an “international leader” of Kingdom777. Kingdom777 of course being the failed second incarnation of Ming Xu’s WCM777 Ponzi scheme.

That’s Rodriguez above, pimping WCM777 to prospective affiliate investors in Spanish. Most of the information on Rodriguez online is in Spanish, as this is the demographic Rodriguez targets. All of it is related to Ming Xu’s WCM777, Kindgom777 and later Global-Unity Ponzi scheme empire.

I don’t know what the connection is between Alejandro Rodriguez Alvidrez and Renato Rodriguez is, but it’s clear through domain-ownership records that Rodriguez is pulling the strings behind Vizinova.

Still not convinced?

Here’s Rodriguez’s Facebook profile:

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

Confusion surrounding TelexFree’s new compensation plan is still abundant, but general consensus among the company’s top affiliates seems to be the adoption of either a three or five position approach.

Affiliates purchase three or five positions within the company (a minimum of one primary plus two secondary positions is required for commission qualification).

Provided enough new positions continue to be purchased by other affiliates (money coming in), TelexFree then pays out $100 a week on the primary position.

The five position approach is near identical, but layers a second primary position under the first, requiring participating affiliates to make a greater initial deposit.

In response to the wider affiliate-base still unable to make heads or tails of the recent changes, TelexFree yesterday published a video titled “A perfect strategy for TelexFree’s marketing plan by Carlos Costa”.

In the video Costa, one of the three owners of TelexFree, sits down with pen and paper and walks them through the aforementioned three-position approach. [Continue reading…]

There’s been a lot of talk over the last few weeks over the R$500,000 the state of Acre has been ordered to pay up in the TelexFree case.

General consensus is that it’s a legal strategy with TelexFree hoping that the case will be dismissed because Acre, one of Brazil’s poorest states, won’t foot the bill.

Commenting on the issue and fully aware of the recent floods that have left many in Acre homeless, TelexFree owner Carlos Costa remarked

I do not believe the governor (of Acre) will authorize this payment, because he will be making the people of Acre pay for a private company to make a case against another private company.

TelexFree have thus far been unable to get anywhere legally (twenty something defeats in court to date and multiple fines for acting in bad faith), so hitting the government’s hip-pocket appears to be their new ploy. [Continue reading…]