The Power Lead System went into pre-launch in late July and is set to officially launch in late September 2013. The company’s website domain (“plsfunnel.com”) was registered on the 9th of June 2013 and provides a company address in the US state of Washington.

On a marketing video featured on the Power Lead System Website, it is revealed that the Power Lead System was created by Neil Guess. The video goes on to state that the Power Lead System “runs through” the Priceless Possibilities Marketing Platform, which was founded by Michael Price.

Both Price and Guess appear to be co-founders of the Power Lead System MLM income opportunity.

Simply described in a Power Lead System marketing video as being ‘men with integrity who love god’, both Guess and Price have experience within the MLM industry.

Neil Guess’ MLM experience appears to be limited to the front-end of things, primarily as an affiliate over at Solavei (mobile communications):

Michael Price (right) on the otherhand has been running his Priceless Possibilities business since 1996.

Hello, my name is Michael Price the owner of Priceless Possibilities. My company has invested over 2 Million Dollars since 1996 to create a VERY Powerful Recruiting & Training System that we can Customize to Truly Transform Your Business.

I have also invested approximately $200,000 to learn from people who are the best in their fields such as Tony Robbins, Les Brown, Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar, and many top Internet Marketing Experts by purchasing their Live Seminars, Books, CDs, and joining Mastermind Groups with the world’s top marketers.

As per the Priceless Possibilities customer testimonial below, at some point Neil Guess was a customer of Price’s business:

Putting two and two together, I’d suggest Guess has come up with the compensation plan behind Power Lead System with Price providing the service backend through Priceless Possibilities.

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

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

The KalosLife website domain (“kaloslife.com”) was registered on the 6th of March 2013, naming a “Tim Wooten” as the domain owner with a supplied PO Box address in the US state of Alabama.

Further research on social media networks reveals KalosLife affiliates naming Wooten as the founder of the company. Upon learning this I did notice Wooten appearing on an image depicting the packaging of KalosLife’s product, however this information was too small to read and not included on the company’s “About Us” page.

I found claims of Wooten having run several previous MLM opportunities in the past by KalosLife affiliates, however I was only able to find information on Market One Inc.

Market One Inc. appears to have launched in the late 1990s and cobbled together a range of household and automotive products using a unilevel based compensation plan.

Today Market One Inc. no longer exists as an MLM opportunity and, due to a lack of information on the company online, I’m not sure which year specifically it closed.

Other than Market One Inc., I was unable to find Wooten’s involvement in any other MLM companies.

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

Another week, another TelexFree appeal rejected by the courts of Brazil.

Shortly after TelexFree’s twelfth appeal was denied in the Acre Superior Court in late August, TelexFree rushed off to the Supreme Court to file for a Preventative Action preliminary injunction against the existing Acre Public Prosecutor’s injunction against the company.

Having initially failed to convince a single Judge in Brazil that they weren’t a Ponzi scheme, of late TelexFree has attempted to have the injunction lifted on legal technicalities. An effort that has proved as in effective as arguing their case on the merits of the TelexFree business model.

Their latest attempt, filed in the Supreme Court somewhere between the 28th and 30th of August, saw the company demand the Acre injunction be lifted on the grounds that the company “would never be succesful” obtaining an appeal from the lower courts.

With no legal precedent or basis to argue their appeal on, not surprisingly the Judge hearing the case was quick to deny it. [Continue reading…]

As Federal Prosecutors in Brazil contemplate whether or not they’re going to arrest and charge TelexFree’s top net winners with ‘counts of embezzlement and money laundering’, the US side of the company is now reeling from ‘rampant global credit card fraud’ and the effect it has had on their US banking channels.

On September 5th, the company sent out the following update to its affiliates:

NEWS – 05/09/2013 16:27

Dear Client,

Due to the recent amount of fraud attempts over the last two weeks, for the next 15 days our bank has limited daily payments allowed by credit card.

On a TelexFree affiliate investor call held sometime within the last 24 hours, affiliates spent nearly forty minutes discussing how to get around TelexFree’s recent credit card problems. [Continue reading…]

New Earth officially launched in September 2013 and operates in the health and wellness niche. Despite the new name, New Earth is actually a relaunch of a relaunch with the company initially starting out as Cell Tech back in 1982.

Founded by Daryl Kollman and Marta Cartman (married at the time, divorced in 2002), Cell Tech and its various incarnations have quite a colorful history.

In 1982, Kollman founded a business that harvested, processed, and sold blue-green algae as a nutritional supplement. Kollman designed harvesting equipment and was the business’s inspirational leader, while Carpenter ran day-to-day operations.

In 1990, Kollman and Carpenter became the sole owners of the business, using the trade name Cell Tech. The business operated through two subchapter S corporations, The New Earth Co. and The New Algae Co., which were each half-owned by Kollman and Carpenter.

In the mid 1990s disaster struck for the company, after the

Oregon Department of Agriculture banned the sale of algae products for human consumption that contain one part per million of microcystin.

It was later revealed in a 2010 tax case against the company that this banning had a devastatingly negative impact on Cell Tech’s sales revenue.

The microcystin regulation was an immediate public relations disaster for Cell Tech. Sales fell as customers worried that Cell Tech’s food supplements were unsafe.

In 1990, Cell Tech had sales of about $10 million. From 1990 to 1996 Cell Tech grew rapidly through its network of individual distributors selling directly to customers.

By 1996, Cell Tech’s gross receipts were more than $193,000,000. Cell Tech’s products were sold across the United States and Canada through 350,000 individual distributors.

Cell Tech then suffered what Kollman’s attorney calls a “perfect storm” of troubles: “In 1997 Cell Tech found itself with millions of dollars of worthless inventory, plummeting sales, harvesting capabilities that far exceeded the new lower demand, and state and federal tax liabilities that greatly exceeded the [company’s] dwindling income or cash reserves.

In 1997, Cell Tech’s gross receipts were about $113 million, down more than $80 million from 1996. In 1998, gross receipts were about $69 million; in 1999, $52 million; and in 2000, $37 million.

In August 1999, as part of an attempt to save the business, Cell Tech became a publicly traded corporation, Cell Tech International, Inc. After the reverse merger in August 1999, Kollman no longer had a role in managing the business. Carpenter became president and CEO of Cell Tech International.

In October 1999, Cell Tech International entered into a financing agreement with a private investor. (Kollman and Carpenter) then each owned more than 40% of the shares of Cell Tech International.

As the company continued its downward spiral, by late 2004 the terms of the financing agreement granted the private investor ownership of more than 90% of the company. (Kollman and Carpenter’s) ownership share correspondingly dwindled to about 3% each.

In 2002, Kollman brought a lawsuit in state court against Carpenter, Cell Tech International, the private investor, and other defendants. After a jury trial, the state court issued a judgment awarding Kollman $40 million in damages against Carpenter and another defendant.

The damages were based on the jury’s verdict that Carpenter breached a fiduciary duty to Kollman by entering into the financing agreement that diluted the value of Kollman’s stock in Cell Tech International.

Kollman also apparently ‘went to prison for tax evasion‘ in connection with the above case.

While all that was happening, Cell Tech was also sued in 2001 by “Teachers for Truth in Advertising”.

In their California filed complaint, the organisation listed 30 claims they objected to on the grounds that they were ‘false, misleading or deceptive’.

Such claims included

• that the general American food supply was nutrient deficient
• Cell Tech’s algae products provided increased physical energy, shiny hair, sound sleep, extra vitality, enhanced brain activity, intestinal cleaning, improved absorption of nutrients, elimination of digestive disturbances, a reversal of the ageing process and the elimination of headaches
• that use of Cell Tech’s algae products resulted in a decrease in cholesterol levels of up to 75%
• that use of Cell Tech’s algae products would result in the improvement of conditions caused by chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, hypertension, attention deficit disorder, ear infection (in children, mostly), depression, viral infections, including HIV and irritable bowel syndrome

In 2003 a Californian judge ruled that all of the sourced marketing statements from Cell Tech and its affiliates were “deceptive”, banned the use of Cell Tech’s products in the state and ‘ordered Cell Tech to refund the full purchase price to California consumers who purchased its algae products between October 1997 and September 2002‘.

For more information on the judge’s order and a complete list of misleading statements cited in the Teachers for Truth in Advertising lawsuit, see MLM Watch.

In April 2005 the family of ex-Cell Teach employee Melissa Blake filed a lawsuit against Cell Tech after Blake died in 2003 from liver and kidney failure.

In the lawsuit, Blake’s family alleged

the company supplied her with algae products that contained toxic levels of microcystins.

Blake worked for the company as a receptionist. The suit papers state that

(a) the autopsy report showed liver and kidney damage suggestive of exposure to toxins that occur with Blue Green Algae called microcystins, and

(b) tests on Cell Tech products found in Blake’s home found high amounts of microcystins.

Ruling that the family’s expert testimony was inadmissible, a judge ruled against Blake’s family. The decision was appealed twice in 2009, however in both appeals the original ruling was upheld.

These lawsuits are largely credited with the renaming of Cell Tech to Simplexity Health in 2006. Ocean Malandra over at eHow even goes as far to claim

Cell Tech Super Blue Green Algae is an algae from Klamath Lake in Oregon that was marketed aggressively by pyramid type network marketers for years.

Cell Tech changed its name to Simplexity in 2006 and stopped marketing the blue green algae under that name following several lawsuits.

On the now defunct Simplexity Health website, the company cited ‘Zubair Kazi, owner of Kazi Management‘ as ‘the company’s majority shareholder‘ and Bob Underwood as CEO.

With the launch of New Earth there’s no mention of Zubair Kazi or Bob Underwood on the company website. No idea what happened to Underwood but he seems to have been replaced by Bilal Ruknuddeen as CEO of New Earth.

Ruknuddeen (full name “Mohammed Bilal Ruknuddeen”) comes over from Simplexity Health, where he served as Managing Director.

I’m not entirely sure when he joined Simplexity (seems to be around 2009), but on their now defunct website the company credited him as a member of Simplexity’s Board of Directors, responsible for

expanding (Simplexity) internationally with accomplishments in opening offices in United Arab Emirates and United Kingdom.

No mention of Ruknuddeen’s past appointment in Simplexity Health is made on the New Earth website, possibly indicating that the company is trying to once again distance itself from a previous brand name.

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

Following the business crippling injunction won against TelexFree, Public Prosecutors in Acre have followed up with a civil lawsuit filed against the company.

Alleging that TelexFree is a Ponzi scheme, the case was filed in the 2nd Civil Court of Rio Branco and is being heard by Judge Thais Borges. As is required when all public civil action cases are filed in Brazil for the benefit of consumer-awareness, Judge Borges published the notice last Monday. [Continue reading…]

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…]