As part of my daily blogging routine for BehindMLM I digest, research and analyse a ton of information within the MLM sphere on a daily basis.

Earlier this morning I was conducting my usual MLM news and research rounds when I stumbled across the following curious pop-up over at the BBB website:

Dubbed a “routine literature request”, for reasons not clarified it appears the BBB are requesting consumers to send in examples of TelexFree’s marketing.

BBB routinely randomly checks on businesses literature/advertising to consumers.

Please email or send via postal mail a copy of the literature/advertising you received from this business.

Google cache reveals the information request pop-up was triggered as early as August 24th, however the exact date the BBB began their research is unknown.

Despite the claim that the BBB’s information request is “routinely random”, I’m not entirely convinced. [Continue reading…]

It’s no secret that I’m a staunch supporter of retail activity within the MLM industry. Indeed, if one were to look at the reviews I write here on BehindMLM it’s easy to see that the presence or lack thereof of retail activity is one of the strongest focal points of any MLM company review I publish.

Ideally when talking about retail volume generation within an MLM company, you want the sales to stem out of a genuine perception of value amongst those retail customers purchasing said product. This organic validation not only cements the value of the product in the retail marketplace, but demonstrates sustainability of an MLM opportunity.

Like I said, ideally the above is how you want to be generating retail volume within your MLM company. What happens when this just doesn’t happen though?

Well, if you’re WakeUpNow you abruptly tell your affiliates that in a few short months, unless they maintain at least seven retail customer subscriptions, they’re no longer going to get paid. [Continue reading…]

Over the past few years two schemes have risen to the top of the Ponzi scheme cesspool currently ravaging the Brazilian MLM industry.

TelexFree hid behind the supposed sale of VOIP software whereas BBOM pretended they were selling GPS tracker units. Both companies claim to sell products to retail customers that simply don’t exist.

TelexFree charged affiliates an annual fee and promised to pay out a weekly guaranteed $20 ROI. BBOM charged affiliates between $300 and $1500 and promised to pay out a weekly guaranteed $80-$400 ROI.

Both schemes merely took new and re-invested money from affiliates and, after shuffling it through their respective facades, paid it back out to existing investors as guaranteed.

Not surprisingly when Brazilian regulators moved in on TelexFree and froze the company’s assets, it wasn’t long before BBOM was also targeted.

That the two companies share a pretty much identical “take new affiliate money and use it to pay off existing affiliates” core mechanic was already widely known, now however it appears that ties between TelexFree and BBOM extend far beyond the mere sharing of a Ponzi investment business model. [Continue reading…]

The ListZap website domain was registered on the 4th of May 2011, however the domain registration is set to private.

There is no information on the ListZap website indicating who owns or runs the business, other than the signing off  of “MandJnet” on the ListZap “Terms and Conditions” page.

Further research reveals that this alias is associated with the domain “markandjames.net”, on which ListZap is currently being advertised:

Referred to as the “Mark and James Advertising Network”,

the company appears to be run by Mark Dosier and James Cole. Worth noting is that the above “Mark and James” banner has been stolen from another website, marketing something called the “Forex MegaDroid”:

In an email sent out to prospective affiliates last week, Dosier wrote:

I am Mark Dosier and would like to invite You to our latest Program; ListZap.

This program will be managed by myself and James Cole. James and I have been working together for about 5 year now.

We are currently privately inviting all the TOP marketers that we know and You are one of them!

We are only looking for 9 Top Marketers to help us filling the level 3 of the matrix so to grant them the maximum results with a small promotional effort.

We are only looking for people who can REFER at LEAST 15

Upgraded members to the site and we know that You are one of them ;o)

We will fill the 3rd Level in purchasing order so….Hurry Up!!!

Dosier and Cole’s latest MLM venture prior to ListZap was “ClickAdProfits”, launched in late July 2013. Here’s an excerpt from an email sent out by a ClickAdProfits affiliate marketing the scheme:

RevShare from Mark & James, trusted and experienced Admins & owners of The feeder, PIF43, NitroList, CashInSolos and many more successful programs, they have projected this program to be sustainable for the long-term!!!

ClickAdProfits claim on their website that they are a “legal revenue share”, charging affiliates $25.53 for an hourly share of revenue generated by other affiliates purchasing shares (until a share has generated a $30 ROI).

ClickAdProfits affiliates must click ten ads a day to qualify for their daily ROI, with the company providing advertising credits with each affiliate investment made.

Just over two weeks after launch, around August 6th payments to affiliates in ClickAdProfits began to stall.

On August 8th, Mark and James sent out the following email to affiliates explaining what had happened:

This is to explain what is currently happening and to explain what we are going to do.

Some Payza members have decided to open unmotivated disputes; We have not broken any terms and the content of their messages to Payza is clearly demonstrating it.

What is important for us is the decision of Payza about this.
As you can understand we cannot run a business like this if, even without breaking any term, some “hysterical” members can win a dispute.

We share 100% of our revenue everyday..so, to make a clear example, if today we share 10 and in the next days this 10 is taken away by unmotivated disputes, how can we run the site?

For the above reasons, Payza is not accepted anymore until their decision and all the Payza transactions in and out are temporarily suspended.

We have decided to keep separated the transactions of Payza that are negatively affecting the site and go ahead with the rest.

We should finish to “clear” the sharing pool from Payza by tomorrow morning and by that time we should be able to re-start the sharing system without any “external” influence.

Payments through other processors resumed for a short period of time before stalling again.

On August 26th, Payza was apparently reopened however the company advised that new investment was ‘dropping down day by day‘. In response to this, ClickAdProfits announced it was ‘going to (we must) modify the system’ and that it would let affiliates ‘know soon how and when‘.

At the time of publication ClickAdProfit affiliate support has been suspended, with the company promising to re-open on September 9th.

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

Brilliant Carbon attempt to merge the purchasing of carbon credits with MLM. The Brilliant Carbon website names Nigel Allan (below right) and Haakon Grunnan as the co-founders of the company, with Allan also serving as company President.

The formation of Brilliant Carbon, as provided on their website,  is certainly an interesting read. It begins with the launch of a similar carbon credits based MLM opportunity, Ausante.

In early 2011 Nigel was approached by Tahir Ali and Mark Chadwick to set up a new MLM company called Ausante, along with Carl Mallinson, of Ceejay Commodities Ltd from Zambia, who was going to be planting trees to back up the environmental sales.

This seemed like a noble cause and Nigel agreed to become an equal shareholder and Director of the company.

Nigel, along with Haakon Grunnan, proceeded to build a large worldwide sales network of people offsetting their carbon footprint….or so he believed.

After Tahir Ali forced Carl Mallinson out of the company in October 2011, and did not pay him for the trees he had planted, Ausante no longer had a ‘product’ backing up the sales they were making.

It became clear that the only way to become legal and transparent about what people were buying was to purchase and retire real carbon credits in customers’ names.

Unfortunately Nigel was deceived by the other directors and no carbon credits were ever purchased and retired by Ausante in the name of Ausante customers (easily provable by searching the public registries), even after millions of dollars in sales of ‘nonexistent’ credits had already been made.

Not wishing to be part of a worldwide fraud, Nigel resigned from the company in June 2012.

Nigel and Haakon then spent the next twelve months putting together the business and systems known as BrilliantCarbon.

It’s worth noting that before Allan left Ausante in June, Ali had already begun launching Ausante spinoffs. CO2 Rewards was one such spinoff, reviewed here on BehindMLM in March of 2012.

CO2 Rewards offer their members the ability to acquire customers through the company itself (whether or not they charge for this service is unclear), effectively it’s entirely possible to use CO2 Rewards as an investment program.

You purchase units, give them away to customers the company supposedly provides you and then earn a return on the money you fed into the company.

Today the Ausante website is still online, with Ali’s partner Mark Chadwick listed as CEO. CO2 Rewards on the other hand no longer exists.

On the Brilliant Carbon website Allan claims Brilliant Carbon was created because he was ‘determined to learn from Ausante’s mistakes‘.

As for where Brilliant Carbon are based out of, a “Brilliant Carbon Support” address is provided in London along with a UK-based contact number for Nigel Allan, however whether the actual business is based out of the UK is not clear.

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

Around the seventh or eighth appeal, the TelexFree legitimacy horse was bruised, bloodied and bashed to a pulp. Now after the twelfth appeal, the carcass has long since decomposed and all that’s left are some bones and entrails. And still TelexFree management rattle the debris and kick at the dirt.

Adamant that paying affiliates a guaranteed $20 a week ROI using new affiliate investor money isn’t a Ponzi scheme, TelexFree continued their crusade of appeals in the Brazilian courts with the filing of an appeal in the Superior Court.

After being denied their final interlocutory appeal in the Civil Court of Acre, the eleventh such appeal filed in relation to the business halting injunction issued against TelexFree back in June, Carlos Costa and his band of merry lawyers took their fight to the Superior Court by way of a new appeal.

…and you can probably guess how that turned out. [Continue reading…]

Amate Life operate in the health and wellness MLM niche and operate out of the US state of Maryland.

On the management side of things, Amate Life is headed up by CEO and co-founder, Kester Albo.

Prior to Amate Life I wasn’t able to find any information linking Albo the MLM industry. Back in October 2011 Albo (below right) filed a trademark for the name “Amate Life”, which was granted in June 2012.

Meanwhile on her LinkedIn profile, Kester Albo’s wife, Mileddi Albo (Amate Life’s other co-founder and President), lists involvement with Amate Life dating back to February 2011.

The lack of information available on the Albos in relation to the MLM industry would indicate that Amate Life is their first venture on the executive side of things.

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

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

The LifeProductSolutions website was registered on the 6th of August 2013, however the domain registration is set to private.

Social media marketing for LifeProductSolutions appears to be an in-house job, performed by a “Matt Woodhouse”, who identifies himself as the Founder of the company.

Finally although no mention of where LifeProductSolutions is based out is mentioned on the company website, the online storefront does use pounds, indicating that the company is operating out of the UK.

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

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

The PayOfRewards website domain (“payofrewards.com”) was registered on the 21st of May 2013, however the domain registration is set to private.

On the PayOfRewards website a Twitter and Facebook button can be seen and while the Facebook button goes nowehere, the Twitter button links to an account under the name of “Albert Midwall”.

No tweets have been made by the account though and Albert Midwall’s name does not appear on the internet outside of the PayOfRewards opportunity, indicating that it’s most likely not a real person.

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…]

There is no information on the 1ClickDay website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The 1ClickDay website domain (“1clickday.com”) was registered on the 9th of September 2012, however the domain registration is set to private.

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…]