There is no information on the Digital Experts Academy website indicating who owns or runs the business.

On Digital Experts Academy’s “about” page, the company simply states:

Founded by a group of young Internet entrepreneurs who have been cashing in on the Digital Gold Rush over the last five years, DEA’s ultimate goal is to help its members become financially self sufficient as digital entrepreneurs in the new economy.

Meanwhile Digital Experts Academy’s website domain was registered on the 13th of August 2012, however the domain registration information is set to private.

If you click “promote” on the Digital Experts Academy website, the company redirects you to join something called “The Six Figure Mentors”:

In what appears to be a similar vein to Digital Experts Academy,

The SFM provides a state-of-the-art comprehensive direct marketing solution complete with the tools, training, coaching and community required to launch and grow a successful business.

Unlike Digital Experts Academy however, The Six Figure Mentors’ “About Us” page is a little more forthcoming with information on who’s running things:

In 2010 Internet entrepreneur Stuart Ross started the concept of forming an online community and training organisation to leverage the exact business model that enabled him to quit his job and build a multiple six figure income business his very first year online.

This community and training company is now known as The Six Figure Mentors (The SFM) and focuses on helping people generate more income, improve lifestyle and create more freedom by tapping into the power of the Internet.

The Six Figure Mentors is a membership site that sells membership for $297 upfront and $97 a month thereafter.

On a marketing video on The Six Figure Mentor website Stuart Ross refers to himself as a co-founder of both The Six Figure Mentors and Digital Experts Academy.

I couldn’t see any information about the other co-founder(s) anywhere else on The Six Figure Mentors website. The “SFM Team” page on The Six Figure Mentors website simply has a picture displaying “coming soon” on it:

Why this information is not openly disclosed on the Digital Experts Academy website is not known.

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

A bit of light news today with a report on Amway China’s recent sending of affiliates from China to Taiwan on “incentive trips”. Since March 12th, Amway has rewarded around 2000 of its affiliates (or “employees” as the Taipei Times report refers to them).

Straight out of the “weird files” though, things haven’t exactly gone to plan… [Continue reading…]

To claim that the aftermath of India’s Speak Asia scam has been long and arduous would be an understatement.

Back in mid 2011 the company had their primary bank accounts frozen and was effectively shut down. It was later revealed however that, amidst multiple investigations into the company, Speak Asia convinced a judge to unfreeze some of these accounts thus allowing Speak Asia to transfer over a hundred million dollars offshore to Singapore.

A few weeks India’s Crime Investigation Department (CID) managed to get the decision reversed and the accounts frozen again, but by then it was too late. The money was gone.

After much grandstanding between Speak Asia, Indian authorities and die-hard supporters of the company (mostly early investors who made lots of money or those who couldn’t afford to lose what they did and feel they have no choice but to continue to support Speak Asia in the hope the company will pay them back) in India’s legal system, today much of the focus is on the local management of the company, operating under the guise of organising and running panelist’s associations.

With a lack of updates on the status of a chargesheet being filed by the Economic Offenses Wing (despite promising to file a “watertight” case a year and a half ago now), observers and panelists both have been left to wonder what has become of the EOW’s investigation. [Continue reading…]

Lyoness was initially launched in 2003 in Austria by CEO Hubert Freidl. Despite now operating on a global scale and trading as “Lyoness International”, Austria remains the initial country that Lyoness launched out of and is naturally one of its most developed markets.

A decade later however and things don’t seem to be going all that well for Lyoness in their home country. Hundreds of investors have filed lawsuits against the company demanding refunds and Austrian authorities have launched a criminal investigation. [Continue reading…]

Harmless old small-town magician or devious mastermind behind the $600M Ponzi scheme that has devastated the MLM industry’s reputation?

Despite a the secret recording of a detailed discussion with initial investors laying out in detail the history of the Zeek Rewards’ Ponzi scheme, the debate surrounding the extent of Burks personal involvement and awareness he was running a Ponzi scheme has almost been as hotly debated as the opportunity being a Ponzi scheme itself.

Breaking his silence to the Associated Press for the first time since the SEC fined him and shut down Zeek Rewards, Burks had little to say to those that invested in Zeek.

Remorse and an apology?

Oh hell no. Fuck all y’all and the horses you rode in on! [Continue reading…]

One of the key factors in the perpetuation of the $600M Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme was the company’s affiliates being able to deceptively advertise their accumulated Ponzi points as actual revenue.

Despite the rhetoric about retail customers, publishing spam on the internet counting as “work”, the mythical success of the Zeekler penny auction and what not, at the end of the day Zeek Rewards affiliates pumped money into the scheme and were paid new investor money – based directly on how much money they put in themselves.

How?

For each dollar an affiliate invested, they were given a “VIP point” (after dumping some auction bids on fake customer accounts and publishing spam ads for the company). Each VIP point paid out a share of newly invested money daily, for a total of 90 days before expiring.

The problem lay with affiliates re-investing their daily ROI back into new points and simultaneously claiming that the money was actually paid to them first, before they re-invested it into the scheme.

The reality is that this money never existed. All that happened was a virtual transaction and the creation of new Ponzi points.

Analysis of Zeek Reward’s financials following the SEC bust revealed affiliates had generated roughly 3 billion VIP points through initial and continued re-investment.

If affiliates set their cash out at 100% and Zeek Rewards paid enough to ensure that no affiliates lost money over 90 days on their investment, this equated to a daily payout of $45 million.

How much money did Zeek Rewards have in their accounts?

$225 million dollars.

Taking in on average $5 million dollars a day for the month of July 2012 (the month before the SEC stepped in), it’s easy to see just how fragile the daily ROI house of cards was. And with ever-growing VIP point balances affiliates were generating, how ultimately it was destined to collapse under its own weight.

Despite all the points Zeek’s affiliates were generating, the money just wasn’t there to back it.

That of course didn’t stop affiliates from marketing their imaginary returns as actual earnings, despite never actually seeing the money (because it didn’t exist).

It’s sort of catch-22 if you think about it. Affiliates didn’t need to see the money because they believed they were re-investing it. This worked for Zeek Rewards because they didn’t have the money and played into re-investment to generate ever-increasing returns being a key component in the scheme.

Now, almost a year after the closure of the scheme and amidst a battle between initial investors who withdrew actual money and claim there were “no victims” in the scheme, those who invested later and lost their money and those who believe they lost money because the scheme was shutdown, despite the fact Zeek Rewards didn’t have the money to pay them, Receiver Kenneth Bell announced yesterday that affiliates will not be able to claim imaginary earnings or claim VIP point balances as actual money.

Why? [Continue reading…]

Undoubtedly if one was to credit a single source for the current rash of Ponzi scheme “daily revenue share” companies infecting the MLM industry, it would have to be Zeek Rewards.

Under the guise of a penny auction, Zeek Rewards let its members invest in the company and paid out a daily ROI over 90 days. The business model hinged on affiliates receiving >100% than the money they invested over the 90 day maturity period.

Zeek Rewards ran from January 2011 till it was shut down by the SEC in August 2012 for being a $600M Ponzi scheme. Following the SEC’s investigation it was revealed that at best, Zeek Rewards only had enough invested funds in reserve to continue paying out affiliates for 5 days ($45 million USD a day).

Since Zeek Rewards was shut down, those of us observing the industry has seen an explosion of Ponzi schemes popping up. Most, if not all of these companies seek to recapture the inherent addictiveness of affiliates investing money and then watching virtual earnings grow via a daily paid ROI.

The problem is that fundamentally, every single one of these opportunities still boils down to affiliates investing their own money into the company which is then used to pay out existing affiliates who invested earlier.

One of the closest imitators of the Zeek Rewards “daily revenue share” Ponzi scheme I’ve seen thus far has been AddWallet. The company has gone to great lengths to replicate the design, look and feel of the Zeek Rewards backend and is heavily marketed towards ex-Zeek Rewards affiliates.

With a business model and compensation plan that simply exchanged penny auction bids with advertising credits, naturally questions have arisen from prospective investors curious as to why, once the scheme grows big enough, the SEC won’t just simply shut down AddWallet too.

Seeking to address those concerns, AddWallet held a conference call a few days ago. The gist of the explanation being not that AddWallet is any different to business model and compensation wise to Zeek Rewards, but rather that being based offshore, AddWallet are confident the they are safe from the SEC. [Continue reading…]

Level One Network went into prelaunch in late February 2013 and is headed up by CEO Dan Miller.

No contact details for Level One Network are provided on their website, however the company’s domain registration provides a Minnesota based address in the US.

On official Level One webinars, in which he claims to have been ‘involved in online marketing for over a decade‘, Miller also credits himself as being the CEO of “Click Marketing Inc”:

Click Marketing Inc. appears to Miller’s parent company from which he launches other companies from.

Prior to Level One Network Miller launched Lead Net Pro in October of 2010, with the opportunity still being active today.

Lead Net Pro is a $300 “harvesting and extraction” tool that scrapes the internet for “names, addresses, emails, phone numbers 365 days a year, 24 hour a day”.

Once this information is scraped, Lead Net Pro then allows affiliates to mass mail owners of the harvested information.

A “phone broadcasting service” is also included, allowing Lead Net Pro affiliates to harass call up owners of the harvested information and market to them.

Affiliates in Lead Net Pro are paid 100% ($300) commissions upon recruitment of new affiliates into the company.

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

CeraCoat Direct is the network marketing arm for CeraCoat’s product line. Launched in 2009, CeraCoat Direct appear to based in the UK and provide a London based address on their website.

Both CeraCoat and CeraCoat Direct were founded by Elio Keller (photo right), with CeraCoat based in Switzerland and founded in 1998.

I’m not entirely sure what the relationship between the two companies is, but on the CeraCoat Direct page another company, “Success One Ltd”, is listed as the ‘exclusive Direct Sales Distributor for Ceracoat products‘.

Success One Ltd appears to be the parent company of CeraCoat Direct, with Keller (photo right) serving as the President of Success One Ltd. Whether Keller personally owns Success One or not isn’t clear.

Prior to CeraCoat Direct and Success One Ltd., Keller doesn’t appear to have any experience within the MLM industry.

The CeraCoat website does however credit Keller as having ‘worked for companies like CocaCola, Bahslen, Villiger and Buhler‘.

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

There is no information on the Mobile Blog Pro website indicating who owns or runs the business.

The Mobile Blog Pro website domain (“mobileblogpro.com”) was registered on the 29th of January 2013, however the domain registration is set to private.

Further research into Mobile Blog Pro reveals affiliates of the company naming Rune Fjortoft as the owner of the company, with Fjortoft offering unofficial tech support on various MLM income opportunity forums.

Fjortoft (photo right) has a history of involvement as an affiliate with several dubious affiliate programs and MLM companies, including Traffic Buddha, Just Been Paid and FastCashLevels.

Fjortoft’s last MLM venture, Instant Cash Matrix, was launched in November 2011 and paid affiliates roughly $2.33 per new affiliate recruited each month.

Just over two months later, the scheme collapsed with Fjortoft sending out the following update to the company’s affiliates:

Hi, I am really sorry to tell you all, but the site is gone forever.

Something happened at the hosting company I was using
resulting in me loosing (sic) the website and all backups were compromised as well.

A bit of an ironi (sic) as one of my arguments when promoting the site was it’s quality hosting and my professionalism.

Well, life is funny sometimes. It never pays of to be high strung.

My humble appologies (sic) to all.

Rune F

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