Bonofa appears to have gone into prelaunch earlier this year. The company website does feature an “about us” page, however it is nothing more than a marketing pitch page for the Bonofa income opportunity.

An address provided in the Bonofa “General Terms and Conditions of Business” indicates that the company is based out of Liechtenstein in Europe.

Further research via Google reveals a page that, as far as I can see, is not linked to internally on the Bonofa website, but exists nonetheless on the Bonofa domain, naming a “Martin Bohm” (right) as CEO of the company.

Bonofa appears to be Bohm’s first MLM venture, with his corporate bio stating

Martin Böhm has wide-ranging sales experience to depend on:

In 2002 he became sales representative of a large German financial services company at the age of 24. In 2005 he became a financial specialist, making the best use of his experiences he had gained over the last previous years, resulting in a rapid rise within the company.

However, this was not enough for ambitious Martin Böhm. His vision was greater… He immediately recognized the rapidly growing opportunities obtainable by the World Wide Web and began to test his own ideas in the area of Online Trading and Marketing.

In 2009 he set up his very first import and trading business for commodities, focusing on the growing markets in Asia. Through his excellent contacts worldwide, especially in Asia and the US, he has since successfully built up a thriving international network of partners.

Based on all this, the next step for Martin Böhm is therefore clear: to create a digital interconnected network of new and existing contacts in order to form a global web-based network of partners.

Since 2011, he has begun to turn his visions into reality. With the founding of BONOFA AG, Martin Böhm can once again put all his energy and strategic experience into building one of the most powerful international partnership networks worldwide.

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

Following the failure of plans to take WMI public in late 2011, possibly halted following the revelation of an SEC investigation into the company, it’s no secret that Wealth Masters International has all but descended into the annals of MLM obscurity.

Launched amidst a boom of personal development MLM opportunities, each offering its personal brand of guru training and enrichment, today Wealth Masters still appears to be operational, but by all accounts has stalled.

In a lawsuit filed by the company earlier this year, Wealth Masters even went so far as to claim the company had been “gutted” by the actions of past consultants and affiliates.

Filed in Houston Division of the Southern District Court of Texas, Wealth Masters International accuse

• Jason “Jay” Kubassek, Jay Kubassek, Inc. individually and d/b/a CarbonCopyPro a/k/a Carbon Copy Pro
• Aaron Parkinson, Omni Industries, LLC d/b/a CarbonCopyPro a/k/a Carbon Copy Pro (“CCP”) and Pro U (“Pro U”)
• Andrew Cass
• Jeffrey Lerner
• Aaron and Sophia Rashkin and
• Michael Force

of

• (breaching their) agreement to exclusively market WMI’s financial education and consulting products
• (the) breach of consulting contracts with WMI concerning conflicts of interest and solicitation of other consultants
• (the) breach of and/or participating in the breach of fiduciary duties to WMI
• (the) misappropriation of WMI’s trade secrets
• (the) breach of employment agreements not to disclose confidential information, not to solicit employees, and not to compete with WMI while employed and/or contracted by WMI (and thereafter)
• (the) wrongful interference with WMI’s employment agreements with its employees and consulting agreements with its consultants
• slander
• libel
• business disparagement
• unjust enrichment and
• conspiracy

The 34 page amended complaint, filed on the 29th of July, largely focuses on the abrupt separation of Carbon Copy Pro (CCP) from Wealth Masters and partnership between Pro U, CCP and Automatic Millionaire. [Continue reading…]

Summit77 launched in mid 2013 and are based out of the British Virgin Islands, a known tax-haven.

The company states on its website that it is headed up by CEO Will Williams and Director of Operations, Flynn McCarthy.

In his Summit77 executive bio, Williams (right) is credited as being

highly successful in all his business ventures, several of which include building homes, real estate and network marketing.

Will has won many awards with some of top companies as their top producer and enroller, but more importantly, established himself with the right people in the business.

Will has founded two internet opportunities, one is a penny auction company the other is an educational opportunity that shows people how to earn money from home. Both are still running today and are highly successful.

The educational opportunity appears to be On Fire Miracle, which appears to be a matrix based opportunity, requiring affiliates to fill several matrices with newly recruited affiliates (either directly or indirectly). Once a matrix is filled, On Fire Miracle pays out an affiliate between $60 to $6000, depending on what level matrix is filled.

Travel packages are made available to affiliates (membership is $10 a month), however this appears to be a secondary component of the business.

As for the penny auction business, why that is being described as successful I’m not sure.

Two years ago Williams was spruiking an upcoming penny auction called “Go Bid Online” on Youtube:

And here’s what the Go Bid Online website looks like today:

Unless I’m missing something obvious, how having Go Bid Online  “coming soon” for two years makes qualify it as an opportunity that is “still running today” and “highly successful” is a mystery.

Prior to On Fire Miracle and the never launched yet highly successful Go Bid Online, Williams was an affiliate of “2 Plus 7” (2009):

For $27 a month, 2 Plus 7 (now defunct) paid affiliates commissions on the recruitment of new affiliates. Affiliates were given access to various third-party discounts and coupon deals once they’d signed up.

Curiously the Summit77 website domain is registered to a “Ryan Churchill”, who appears to be a (master?) affiliate of the company:

The only further information I was able to find was an affiliate account for a Ryan Churchill over at TVI Express (“wonderful1”):

TVI Express being of course one of the longest running pyramid schemes the MLM industry has ever seen. I also found several instances of Churchill spam commenting what appears to be a side business he was running, allowing TVI Express members to trade (worthless) travel certificates between eachother (MLM Helpdesk and Corporate Frauds Watch).

Note at the time of publication I wasn’t able to bring up Churchill’s TVI affiliate website (or Google cache), hence the search results listing above.

No mention of Churchill is made anywhere on the Summit77 website, so other than his ownership of the company’s website domain and owning an affiliate account, what Churchill’s role is within the company is not clear.

Read on for a full review of the Summit77 MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

Unicity International officially launched as Unicity Network in 2001, following the merger of Rexall Showcase (launched in the late 1980s) and Enrich International (launched in 1972).

Prior to the merge, both companies were acquired by Royal Numico, a food-based (baby food and nutrition) subsidiary of Groupe Danone.

After unsuccessfully trying to sell off Unicity two years later in 2003 to Activated Holdings, the parent company of Shaklee, Numico eventually sold Unicity to two of the company’s executive management members. Following the sale, management renamed Unicity Network to Unicity International.

Heading up the company as CEO is Stewart Hughes (right), who was appointed the role after working Rexall Showcase as a distributor for a number of years before the company was bought out by Numico.

Prior to being acquired by Numico, Rexall Showcase had a few run ins with US regulators, which appear to have started back in 1994.

Piecing together exactly what happened has proved to be a challenge given the date range I’ve had to dig back over.

That said, here’s what I’ve managed to put together:

In 1994,

a racketeering (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, RICO) complaint was filed against Rexall/Sundown and RSI in the Federal Court, Southern District of Florida, Miami (case # 93-6534).

A Florida newspaper described this complaint as “…– a 180-page civil racketeering complaint that is replete with anti-Semitic, invective and even a death threat…” (Daily Business Review, March 3, 1995).

One of the top sales persons of RSI with almost $100 million in annual sales in his downline (sales organization within RSI), was censored and permanently barred from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE Docket/Case # 91-101). He had previously been connected to a drug money laundering operation.

In 2006, Matthais Rath, who credits himself as the “developer” of Rexall Showcase’s products, filed a complaint with the US and Florida Attorney-Generals requesting an investigation into Rexall’s business practices.

Rexall weren’t too happy about all of this and tried to silence Rath by filing for an injunction that would prohibit him from stating why he left the company.

In response to Dr. Rath communicating his reasons to separate from RSI, this company now tries to silence the scientist by seeking a temporary injunction preventing him to communicate his reasons.

RSI already lost the first such attempt in the Superior Court of California, San Mateo County on August 23, 1996. Now RSI is undertaking another effort to silence Dr. Rath. This time in the Circuit Court of the 15th Judicial Circuit in Palm Beach County Florida.

The hearing will be in the Palm Beach Courthouse in West Palm Beach, Courtroom 11D, September 18, 1996 at 5 p.m.

Dr. Rath: “I believe the aim of RSI and Rexall is to put my company out of business while still continuing to make huge profits from selling the products we developed and continuing to use my name and reputation.

I am now calling on the Federal and State authorities to share this responsibility and to immediately start an investigation of the business practices of RSI.”

Nothing much seems to have happened then until 2000, when the Florida Attorney General’s Office opened up an investigation into Rexall.

The Florida state attorney general’s office is pursuing an investigation of vitamin and healthcare products manufacturer Rexall Sundown Inc., Boca Raton, FL, for what it alleges are questionable business practices in relation to the company’s direct marketing sales and distribution operations.

Heading up the investigation is David Aronberg, an assistant attorney general based in Fort Lauderdale, who says his office has subpoenaed documents from the company’s distributors, as well as from its Rexall Showcase International office.

According to Aronberg, the state of Florida is pursuing tips that some of the company’s operating units may have violated state laws by participating in pyramid scams that create revenue through fraud and deception rather than actual sales of products.

The Florida attorney general’s office has also requested that the Internal Revenue Service make available tax records for two of Rexall’s distributors, according to published reports.

Stewart Hughes attracted the attention of Florida’s AG investigators, who

(wanted) IRS 1099 tax forms for two big distributors, Stewart Hughes and Randy Schroeder. The company has said Schroeder, of Salt Lake City, is the top moneymaker, taking in $250,000 a month.

Two months later Rexall was sold to Numico and I haven’t been able to work out what exactly happened after that (other than Numico merging Rexall with Enrich International and rebranding the company as Unicity).

Meanwhile while all of the above was going on, in 1999 ‘several class action complaints alleging violations of the Federal securities laws were filed against’ Rexall and in 2000 the FTC filed suit, accusing Rexall of

engaging in deceptive acts or practices and false advertising in connection with the advertising, marketing and sale of a purported cellulite treatment product called “Cellasene,” in violation of Sections 5(a) and 12 of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 45(a), 52.

How much of this rubs off on Stewart Hughes as a top earner of Rexall International has unfortunately been lost in time. That said, to the best of my knowledge neither Hughes or Unicity International has been subject to any regulatory action or further investigations since Unicity was formed.

I’ve included the above information as a matter of due diligence, with the aim of shedding light on the origins of Unicity International and how the company came about.

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

With TelexFree Brazil in crisis mode and hundreds of thousands of affiliate investors money frozen in company accounts by court order, the company has begun to focus on new markets, hoping to lure new investors from the US and Canada to keep the scheme going.

Over the recent July 26th and 27th weekend, TelexFree held a “super weekend” in NewPort Beach, California, where the company went to great efforts to reassure investors that, despite the company’s bank accounts being frozen and all recruiting and ROI payments being suspended in their largest affiliate market, that this would have no bearing on their US operations.

Today we focus in on one of the more recognisable speakers at the TelexFree event, US MLM attorney Gerald Nehra. [Continue reading…]

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

The Fantaz website domain (“fantaz.com”) was registered in December 2004 and lists Brett Kelly as the administrative contact. On Kelly’s LinkedIn profile, he credits himself as the CEO and President of Fantaz Holdings LLC (registered in Delaware), dating back to 2008:

Fantaz was supposed to officially launch in late 2010 but doesn’t seem to have effectively launched until mid 2011. Fantaz is registered out of the US state of Nevada, however it appears management are primarily based in California:

FantaZ is a business that was started by four friends: Brett Kelly, Terry McEwen, Glenn Cadrez, and Brian Weiner.

Fanta-Z Holdings LLC, is a Delaware LLC. They have an office in Las Vegas, but most of them live (and work) in Southern California.

In addition to the names above, SEC filings also name Robert Crager, Warren Stout, Jen Kusar and David Micale as “Managers” of the company. 37 anonymous investors are also cited as having bought shares in the company.

I wasn’t able to find an executive MLM history for Brett Kelly, indicating that Fantaz is his first MLM venture.

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

It’s been a while since I wrote on the ongoing Speak Asia case. Long time readers of BehindMLM will know the saga began with our initial review of Speak Asia back in March of 2011.

Speak Asia, credited with being the largest Ponzi scheme in Indian history, was shut down in late May of that same year, with the ongoing investigation into the company continuing to this day.

A major contributing factor to the delays has been the ongoing legal action filed by Speak Asia management and it’s affiliates. Largely aimed at stalling and thwarting investigations into the company and its management, these actions are funded by Speak Asia’s CEO, Manoj Kumar from abroad.

Kumar fled India when Speak Asia was shut down and, despite promising affiliates he would return in mid 2011,  hasn’t set foot back into the country since.

Over the years the Economic Offences Wing have made several arrests and, despite being challenged at every corner by the Speak Asia’s ringleaders locally, have progressively worked their way up the management chain.

Yesterday marked a particular milestone for the EOW, with not only the anticipatory bail of ringleader Aman Azad being denied, but also in that the Mumbai High Court ordered the arrest of Vivek Sharma. [Continue reading…]

Global Mobile Network (also known as World Global Mobile Network, World GMN and Wor(l)d Global Mobile Network) launched in late 2010 and is headed up by CEO and President Fabio Galdi.

The company appears to be headquartered in Singapore, although Global Mobile Network also provides addresses in Italy (marketing and logistics) and China (product design and manufacture).

Prior to the launch of Global Mobile Network, Galdi (right) states on his LinkedIn profile that he was a “business partner” of Telme Network Pte Ltd between April 2006 and March 2010.

Telme Network doesn’t exist today, but seems to have been some sort of telecommunications based MLM company. Despite not being stated on his LinkedIn profile, I found affiliates crediting Galdi as the founder of Telme Network on various social media platforms.

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

There is no information on the Revenue Times website indicating who owns or runs the business. The company website does have a “who we are” section but, other than a PO Box in the British Virgin Islands (a known tax-haven), fails to provide any further information.

The Revenue Times website domain was registered on the 9th of April 2012, but only lists “Revenue Times LTD” as the domain owner.

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…]

On the eve of Empower Network’s Denver affiliate conference, an interesting feud has been brewing between Empower Network and some of its affiliates.

Firing the first shot on the 12th of July, Empower Network published the following ‘important announcement from Empower Network Compliance‘ on their website:

Empower Network Compliance is in the process of investigating Project A.W.O.L. and empowerville.com and its affiliated Empowerville Facebook page for violation of our Terms of Service and Affiliate Policies and Procedures.

It is very important for all affiliates and customers to understand that Empower Network is in NO WAY affiliated with either system or offer.

Empower Network does not endorse, sanction or otherwise condone this type of activity. Nor does Empower Network make any guarantees for income or success.

So you’re not affiliated with either “system or offer”, got it. But what exactly did Project A.W.O.L. and Empowerville do? [Continue reading…]