Launched in 2010, Wealth4AllTeam was an investment opportunity that offered members 193%-250% ROIs over 60 or 120 days (depending on how much was invested).

With no retail arm and ROIs paid out to members solely from new investment money coming in from members, in late August/early October the Wealth4AllTeam Ponzi scheme finally collapsed.

Rather than just cut and run with everyone’s money though when the scheme collapsed, Danny Cianciulli (photo right) and the rest of Wealth4AllTeam’s management announced a new venture in the works, “Primus Hub”.

Proportionate withdrawals were offered to members (around 10% of their claimed earnings), but these were soon stopped.

Upon announcing their new venture and with many Wealth4AllTeam affiliates still having thousands of dollars tied up in the collapsed Wealth4AllTeam investment scheme, management immediately began to offer $25 “shares” in their new venture to existing Wealth4AllTeam members.

Each share was supposed to pay out a dividend pegged to the success of their new venture, Primus Hub, however management stated that nothing would be paid out until the company had paid its “expenses, taxes and (executive) salaries”.

Or in other words, nobody was getting a cent till those running the scheme had handsomely paid themselves.

Primus Hub has been billed as a combination of income opportunities, revolving around advertising (Primus Marketing), penny auctions (Primus Auction), a shopping portal (Primus Mall) and a social network platform (Primus Social).

As the weeks dragged on following the initial announcement of Primus Hub, recently the compensation plan for Primus Social was made public and provides an insight into the direction the Wealth4AllTeam management are heading.

Read on for a full review of the Primus Social MLM income opportunity. [Continue reading…]

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

The company’s domain (“magneticbuilder.com”) was registered on the 27th September 2012 however and lists an “Optimus Dale” as the administrative owner of the website, sharing the same Arkansas address as the listed domain owner (listed as the company website itself).

On the guaranteed certainty offchance that “Optimus Dale” was a madeup name, further research revealed that it is a “stage name” used by “Sherm Mason” (right).

Taken from a “Magic Dolla” affiliate’s recruitment page:

Optimus Dale is the owner of Magic Dolla. He is the financial arm behind its creation.

Optimus Dale is a stage name as he wishes to remain anonymous due to a little “scorn” he has witnessed by some, directed at Sherm Mason.

Scorn you say, I wonder why…

“Magic Dolla” is a $1 recruitment based pyramid scheme. That’s one possible reason.

Other websites hosted on the same private server as MagneticBuilder could also serve as other reasons behind scorn directed at Mason.

• “Downline IPO” appears to be some sort of recruitment based lead generation co-op, dealing exclusively with prelaunch opportunities the admin (Mason) has enrolled himself in
• “2×2 Evolution” is a 2×2 matrix based pyramid scheme
• “It’s 10 bucks” is a $10 matrix-based entry pyramid scheme
• “Lol2bank” appears to be some sort of $25 replicated capture page site
• “Fortune 200x” (now defunct and offline) was a 2×10 matrix-based pyramid scheme
• “36kin10weeks” promises visitors the chance to “earn $36,000 within 10 weeks of joining”, however fails to disclose any information unless they sign up (recruit, recruit, recruit!)
• “Flip 20” is a 2×1 matrix-based $10 pyramid scheme

The above schemes of course are just the tip of the iceberg, with Google delivering up many, many more possible reasons for scorn to be directed at Mason.

Is MagneticBuilder just another reason to throw onto the pile? Read on for a full review. [Continue reading…]

Amidst the tidal wave of penny auction prelaunches announced over the past few months, I decided mid last month that I’d sit down early this month and put together a snapshot of where we were with each of them.

After spending some time and researching the status of a few companies, I realised things weren’t, from a sustainability and long-term viability perspective, weren’t looking good.

Sitting back and thinking about the rest of the companies on my list that I hadn’t researched yet (but most I had still been keeping tabs on), I quickly came to the conclusion that it wasn’t going to be a very kind reflection on the current state of the MLM penny auction niche.

“Why?”,  I asked myself. Surely with the sheer number of penny auction companies in the works there were bound to be a few who were going to be succesful and carve out a long-term place for themselves in the MLM industry?

After thinking about it some more, here’s why you need to avoid every currently announced MLM penny auction prelaunch. [Continue reading…]

Power Results Academy launched mid 2012, is based in the US state of Texas (appearing to operate out of a virtual office there)  and is headed up by company President, Robert Phillips.

On his Power Results Academy Executive bio, the company claims that Phillips has ‘over 12 years experience in the area of Network Marketing and 6 highly successful years in Internet Marketing’ and that as Power Results Academy President, he ‘oversees the company’s direction and partnerships while still focusing on MAXIMIZING user benefits‘.

MLM history wise Phillips has been a distributor of “Chews4Health International”, marketing chewable health products. Following that Phillips appears to have been involved in various affiliate-based MLM marketing and training opportunities.

On his LinkedIn profile, Phillips (photo right) claims

I struggled for YEARS trying to figure out how to succeed in the MLM/Network Marketing Industry. I was chasing friends and family, cold-calling strangers, buying leads, and getting rejected EVERY DAY, and it finally took it’s toll on me.

So, one day, I just gave up and stopped trying. I was a complete failure and didn’t have a clue as to what went wrong.

But I decided to pick it back up because I really believed in the potential of the MLM/Netowrk (sic) Marketing Industry, even though I didn’t exactly know what I was doing wrong.

That’s when the light came on for me, and I finally realized what my REAL problem was: I wasn’t “marketing” the business!

LOL. Once I figured out the REAL problem, my business turned around almost overnight.

In his profile Phillips claims to have run the website mlmdownlinesecrets.com since June 2008 and the company “Global Success Marketing” since June 2005. With both of these companies being based in the MLM training and marketing niche, they appear to be the precursor to the launch of his latest venture.

Update 10th November, 2012 – Power Results Academy’s Chief Operating Officer, Jason Rose informs me that he is the owner of the company.

Rose is credited on his Power Results Academy executive bio as being ‘a highly motivated and successful entrepreneur‘, and comes from the chiropractic sector of the health and wellness niche. /end update

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

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

The company’s domain (yournewearnings.com) was registered on the 11th of August 2012, however the domain registration information is set to private.

I did note that at the bottom of the YourNewEarnings website the following message appears:

Created By C. Jansson

But I was unable to find any further information on this person and confirm whether or not they owned YourNewEarnings or merely designed the website (or both).

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…]

Three days ago Bidsson’s recently appointed CEO quit the company and announced the newly revamped Bidsson 2.0 auctions would be going live ‘in the next few days‘ (which hasn’t happened yet).

No explanation as to why Liske abruptly ditched Bidsson was provided and within twenty four hours of the announcement going live on the official Bidsson blog, Bidify had removed Liske’s resignation announcement altogether.

An additional three days later on November 4th, Bidify finally acknowledged Liske had left the company and in a blog post put out by “Bidify Corporate” the company wrote:

As you may be aware, our Former CEO has Broadcast a newsletter announcing his resignation.

This Newsletter has come as a surprise to us and we will release a formal announcement in the coming days.

Whether or not this “announcement” will clarify why the much hyped addition to the Bidsson corporate team quit after just a month at his post remains to be seen.

With that story still unfolding and Bidify’s affiliate’s earnings continuing to plummet, new announcements have now emerged indicating that Bidify are possibly looking at a “new” direction to take the company in. [Continue reading…]

When I first visited the Strong Future International Marketing Group (SFI) website, instead of an informative website where I could learn about the company, its MLM business opportunity and view their compensation plan, instead I was told that because I wasn’t recruited by someone, I wouldn’t be able to proceed any further:

Immediately setting off a red flag alert, I hunted around for an affiliate link and after findin one, found out I wasn’t in much of a better position than I had been without an affiliate referral link.

With a bajillion menu options it wasn’t until I’d wasted ten minutes or so of stuffind around (even with an affiliate link, most of the SFI website still doesn’t work unless you sign up as a member and “log in”), that I finally found some information about the company (tucked away under a “getting started” menu).

This page revealed that

SFI Marketing Group was launched in 1998. Starting with just one product, sold only in the United States, SFI has now grown to more than 56000 products and services (and growing daily) sold in more than 190 countries around the world.

Additionally the company claims to be based in the US state of Nebraska and is headed up by company founder “Gery Carson”.

Carson (photo right) is also the President (and presumably owner) of Carson Services, who are in turn the parent company of SFI.

Why I can’t access this informationn as a prospective member without going through a referral link first, I have no idea. In any case, read on for a full review of the SFI MLM business opportunity. [Continue reading…]

When you’re knee-deep in network marketing analysis and reporting day in day out, week after week sometime it feels like you’re covering a niche somewhat detached from the rest of the world.

Other than the odd critical article that appears in the mainstream media, a paid advertisement a company or one of their affiliates might run to try to generate some buzz, or the implosion of giant scams, it’s rare for MLM and the rest of the world to intersect.

Today, something a little different… [Continue reading…]

Just under two months ago Bidify made the announcement on September 5th that they’d hired Albert Liske as the new CEO and Christopher Robinson as the new VP of Bidify’s Bidsson penny auctions.

In a press release announcing the hiring, Bidify heralded the decision to hire Liske and Robinson as proof that Bidify’s ‘commitment to a more transparent and sustainable future is stronger than ever‘.

Our long-term goals are ambitious and present challenges that are substantial, complex and systemic. Simply put, they will demand cutting edge technology and stream lined shipping and support.

We strongly believe that with the addition of Liske and Robinson to our executive team we will be well equipped when confronting these challenges.

In a press release put out last night however by Liske, he announced the sudden resignation of both Chris Robinson and himself.

No explanation as to why the CEO and VP quit Bidsson was provided. [Continue reading…]

One of the hot topics that has been discussed ever since Zeek Rewards merged a penny auction with a MLM compensation plan has been the viability of the penny auctons themselves.

Despite Zeek Rewards (the largest MLM penny auction company to date) claiming that their auctions were wildly profitable and able to support a MLM compensation plan, an SEC investigation revealed a whopping 98% of the money coming into the company was from its own affiliates.

Coupled with a daily return on investment (ROI) paid out, this meant that effectively Zeek Rewards was by and large just shuffling its members own money around, with how much a member received as a ROI pegged to how much money they themselves had invested and/or convinced others to invest.

In the aftermath of the Zeek Rewards Ponzi apocalypse though, despite the facts and figures many still believe that penny auctions with a MLM style compensation plan are viable.

Thus far the only other business we can look at is Bidify, who had a similar “Ponzi points” style compensation plan to Zeek Rewards, but scrambled to change their compensation plan to focus on the sale of bids to actual customers shortly after the Zeek went down.

I don’t particularly like to cite Alexa rankings as they don’t paint a concrete picture, however it appears since making the changes both Bidify and their penny auction Bidsson have been in steady decline:

Zeek Rewards went down mid August and since then both websites’ traffic reports indicate the new compensation plan hasn’t worked out too well.

Additionally affiliates based in the US are now complaining about having issues getting their money out from Towah, who Bidify use as a payment processor:

I can’t transfer my Towah funds to my card due to “errors” from their end.

Payments made to Bidify’s affiliates seem to reflect the drop in traffic and subsequent activity surrounding Bidsson’s penny auction:

Well…. I am making .60 or .49 daily.

Everybody that was above or under me left so I am own my own… Just barely making what it needs to be made to pay the monthly fees.

Looking forward the future doesn’t appear to be too promising, with some affiliates even going so far as to announce a “recruitment strike“.

I bring this up not to have a go at Bidify in any way, but rather to make a point as, following Zeek Rewards’ collapse, Bidsson was marketed in a manner that focused on the penny auction and giving the strong indication it was a “MLM penny auction done right”.

But what if the penny auctions simply aren’t enough? [Continue reading…]