April 13, 2011 04:18 PM
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Moneylife Digital Team
Tag: India MLM News
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Why MLM Scam happens, because we let it happen
Gandhian Anna Hazare, was on fast for 4 days, he did something, which most questioned, as it looked impossible, government agreed to go on a draft on Lokpal bill with public and by now you must be aware what Lokpal bill is? Every news channel in India has been flashing updates about Anna Hazare’s protest at Jantar Mantar and how he made government bend. Let me tell you more, Anna Hazare is a modern day Gandhian follower. 78 years old man is leading the mission, where youngsters are his followers. You must be thinking, what is the relevance of MLM with the protest of Anna Hazare at Jantar Mantar.
Our country is bleeding with corruption and scams, right from top to bottom, from a peon to a minister, we are being hackled for minor things, and corruption is rampant, so in MLM. Here in Network Marketing, scams are coming in disguise. MLM Scams are just changing faces from time to time, and the one, who understands, just remains mum, reason, he does not want to focus on something which is negative and when finally an MLM scam is exposed. He is first one to give speech to people that he knew it, that it was a scam. His wisdom words could have saved a poor man’s hard earned money, if had politely shared his views earlier.
“If knowledge is shared, it leads to value”
I’m not saying that you should defame an MLM company, just because you think so, before you express you thoughts, do your research on the company, and come up with points, that why such a business concept would fail in no time.
Network marketing is a wonderful industry only if we do it ethically and we also know that whenever we share our business opportunity with public, in their mind, they think it is going to be the next MLM scam. And they just look at you, but knowingly they are not even listening to you. People have lost faith and confidence on us.
Let us take a stand, whenever we come across any such information where people could be benefited. We will share it with others, now a wonderful medium is also available to us, social networking through internet like, Facebook, Orkut and many other countless sites.
The very first day MLMNewsBlog.com was started the main aim was to inform and make people aware at the earliest, so that many could be saved from scams. Network marketing is a business of helping each other not looting each other. We have regular subscribers to our website, which gets regular feed updates. If you get any news on MLM, good bad or ugly, do share with us. If we find it to be authentic and true after our research, then we will publish it our blog news section. Just email us at [email protected]
Let us take a stand together.
To Your Success in Business & Health in Life,
Ak Sharma Editor,You can reach me at [email protected] or connect with me on Facebook -
Speak Asia – An Online Scam That Could Affect a Million People in India
Imagine if there were an online business where you could earn a very handsome and recurring income simply by spending 10-15 minutes per week. To qualify, all you need is a computer with an Internet connection and some basic knowledge of the English language.The exact plan is something like this. You give me $200 as an enrollment fee and in return, I will pay you $40 per month for the next 12 months. You make a neat profit of $280 with no effort but there’s something more. If you can convince some of your friends to join the program, you get a commission on their earnings as well and so on.
Any informed reader of this blog would immediately dump this scheme as “fraud” or “scam” but you’ll be very surprised to know that hundreds of thousands of people all across India – that includes housewives, salaried professionals and even unemployed youth – have invested their hard-earned money in one such MLM scheme and they continue to do so.
Speak Asia Online
The company in question is Speak Asia Online – they’re running an online survey business In India on a similar model and have been massively successful in their mission so far.
I have received emails in the past from Speak Asia Online representatives asking me to join their “survey” business but mostly ignored them. It was only last week, after talking to some people, did I realize how popular they have become among households in India mostly through word-of-marketing.
One of Speak Asia’s franchisee suggested on phone that they have more than a million members in India, that’s 1% of India’s total Internet population, and the above Google Trends chart kind of confirms their rising popularity.
The company has franchisees in almost all cities here and they’re spending millions promoting the scheme through national TV in India. Here’s a recording of the TV program, it’s actually an advertisement, that recently aired on the reputed Imagine TV.
Is Speak Asia Legit or a Scam?
So is Speak Asia Online a legit business? Common sense says no and there are reasons to support that:
#1. The company’s website – speakasiaonline.com – suggests that they are based in Singapore and the contact address listed on the website seems to match with the Whois information of their website domain. They claim to have a certificate from ACRA (Singapore’s compliance authority) but a quick search suggests the company is no longer eligible for receiving the “Certificate of Compliance.”
The records, publicly available at acra.gov.sg, also suggest that the company “SPEAKASIA ONLINE PTE. LTD.” was previously known as “HAREN TECHNOLOGY PTE. LTD.” and “PAN AUTOMOTIVES PTE. LTD.” but little do we know about their past operations.
#2. The company says their revenues will exceed $115m this year but if you Google the names of their top executives – Harendar Kaur (CEO) and Tarak Bajpai (India head) – there’s absolutely no information. That’s very surprising especially when these people are handling a successful and global business of this scale.
#3. In order to become a member of Speak Asia Online, all you need is a bank account and the company will directly transfer monthly revenues to your bank account from United Overseas Bank (UOB) Singapore. They require no documentation or proofs even when we have such strict banking rules in India around foreign transactions.
#4. The USD:INR currency exchange rate fluctuates around the INR 45 mark but Speak Asia makes all payments at INR 50. That’s 10% above the market price and no sensible for-profit company in the world would be willing to lose money like that.
#5. Speak Asia reps told me over phone that they are distributing millions of dollars every week to their Indian subscribers. This is when the company has no office in India, there’s no support center to assist customers and above all, Speak Asia Online is not even a registered business in India.
#6. Speak Asia mentions their Singapore contact address as “10 Ubi Crescent, #07-68, Ubi Techpark, Singapore 408564.” A quick search on Google suggests that several companies in Singapore are sharing that office space. As Divya Manian notes, this likely means that the address is used by a third party to register companies to, and no real business operates there.
Speak Asia Online – What next?
Speak Asia Online has been around in India for about an year now and it looks like the company has been regularly paying members the promised commissions and thus more people are getting lured into the system. Some existing members are even re-investing their own profits back into the system to increase the size of their paycheck.
Remember the rice and chessboard story? Speak Asia Online is working on adding new users at a similar rate – one new member will invite two more who in turn will bring another four new members to the system and thus the subscriber base will grow as quickly as? the number of rice grains on that chess board.
Once enough people join their unsustainable and unbelievable business, the company will simply vanish into thin air. There’s no ‘easy money’ on the Internet and the ease and scale at which this company is operating in India has simply baffled me. Please stay clear!
To Your Success in Business & Health in Life,
Ak Sharma Editor,You can reach me at [email protected] or connect with me on Facebook -
RBI Notification on Forex Trading
This is the press release from Reserve Bank Of India, in this press release RBI has warned people who are involved in Overseas and domestic Forex Trading. RBI has stated that under Foreign Exchange Management Act, FEMA, 1999 do not permit residents of India to trade in foreign exchange in domestic/overseas markets. (more…)
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Police bust MLM racket in Bangladesh
Police bust MLM racket
The Jakarta Post | Wed, 03/30/2011 9:53 AM |Balikpapan Police in East Kalimantan have arrested a woman for fraud after she allegedly tricked members of the public into investing money in a multilevel marketing (MLM) business, promising huge profits.
The get-rich-quick scheme left at least 47 Balikpapan residents of pocket after they invested a total of Rp 35 billion.Police began investigating the case “after receiving reports from victims,” Balikpapan Police chief Sr. Adj. Comr. A Rafik said Wednesday, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.
The alleged fraudster, Ade Farida, proposed victims invest in the MLM scheme selling Milo energy drink, he said.
“[By investing] Rp 8.4 million, they were promised profits of Rp 1 million in 10 days,” Ade said.
One of the victims, Dwi, said the scheme had run smoothly for almost a year. But victims had stopped receiving profits since January this year.
Police said the number of victims could grow since the alleged fraud had been going on for almost a year.
“Anyone who has fallen a victim [to this fraud] can report to Balikpapan Police,” Rafik said.
Ade has denied the police accusations of fraud, and said she was just another victim of the main actor, Nadir, who she said had fled to Situbondo, East Java.
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News update on Stock Guru India Scam
निवेश के नाम पर करोड़ों रुपये लेकर फरार
पश्चिमी दिल्ली, जागरण संवाददाता : निवेश करने पर भारी मुनाफे का लालच देकर सैकड़ों लोगों से करोड़ों रुपये लेकर कंपनी संचालक फरार हो गया। पीडि़तों का कहना है कि गुरु स्टॉक कंपनी के संचालक लोकेश्वर देव जैन की बातों से प्रभावित होकर उन्होंने अपनी गाढ़ी कमाई निवेश की थी। तीन दिन पहले वह मोती नगर स्थित कंपनी कार्यालय में ताला जड़ दिया और फरार हो गया। इसका पता चलने पर बृहस्पतिवार की सुबह सैकड़ों लोगों ने मोतीनगर थाने में कंपनी मालिक के खिलाफ शिकायत दर्ज कराई। पुलिस ने मामला दर्जकर छानबीन शुरू कर दी है। (more…) -
Beware! Shady chit funds strike in new guise
Saibal Sen, TNN, Apr 5, 2011, 03.16am IST
KOLKATA: Illegal chit funds, a scourge in West Bengal, are back in a sneaky new disguise. Multi-level marketing firms are now luring unsuspecting depositors with promises of mammoth returns in the form of “products”. The booty, according to central and state authorities, runs into crores. What’s worse, the victims have no recourse. Even police give them no hope.
The few cases registered in South 24-Parganas and Nadia which have since been “referred” to CID have startling implications. Ninety depositors together lost close to `3 crore through one such scam, says a case being investigated by Sonarpur (South 24-Parganas) police (FIR No 87/2011). A similar case is being probed by Kalyani police (FIR No. 176/2011). In both cases, former government employees seemed to be the target. They invested their entire retirement benefits hoping for bonanza returns.
Huge as the scam already seems, it is only the tip of the iceberg, say sources.
Take the example of Sukumar Mahapatra, a former joint secretary (education). Running from pillar to post to get a complaint lodged and then get police act on it Mahapatra is exasperated. “I know there is little chance of getting back the `25 lakh I lost. At least police should try to put an end to this menace,” he said. “Moreover, if the victims are spread over the entire state, it does not make sense for local police to investigate. It should be probed by CID. But they are simply sitting over the complaints, emboldening the fraudsters,” he said.
Mahapatra’s son Sagnik who runs a web-development company in Jadavpur first fell into the trap. Investing in such a firm, he got his returns in the first few months. This spurred Sagnik’s mother an entrepreneur herself to invest in it. It was only sometime later that they realised the fraud. The first cheque of their returns bounced. They lodged a complaint.
Not everyone has gone to the police, though. A Krishnagar court upper-division clerk, who refused to be named, has lost `15 lakh his entire retirement benefits to the same MLM firm as Mahapatra’s kin. “There are 90 such victims, but not all are willing to come forward. In some cases, there is no basis on which the complaint can be lodged. The deal was done on the basis of mutual trust. They’ve always paid in cash and have not retained receipts for the payments made,” Mahapatra said.
The modus operandi of these MLM firms is simple. The RBI, in an advisory sent to banks, says that the depositors usually make small cash deposits in accounts opened in several banks across the country. These funds, “running into crores” according to RBI, “were being pooled at the “principal accounts” of the MLM firms and the funds were eventually flowing out of the principal accounts for purposes apparently illegal or highly risky”.
RBI was first alerted to this modus operandi by the Orissa Crime Branch CID in 2009. The RBI says these firms managed to get a large number of bank cheque books by way of opening accounts. The MLM firms in turn issue post-dated cheques for small amounts to depositors. “People were depositing the money in the accounts of MLMs in places far away from where the accounts were actually opened. This was facilitated by the Core Banking Solution ( CBS) offered by the banks.
These go bust invariably. “The operations of these firms are essentially deposit-taking activities involving unusually high returns, the ongoing repayments of interest and deposit amounts in respect of existing deposits would depend on continuous and uninterrupted flow of fresh deposits with increasing volumes. Therefore, at some stage, the flow of deposits is bound to slow down and post-dated cheques tendered thereafter would bounce, due to inadequate funds available in the accounts,” RBI wrote to all banks on September 16, 2009.
The income tax department had also stumbled upon a similar MLM firm in January, 2011, run by three individuals based in Asansol. The I-T raids led to the seizure of cash, bank drafts and fixed deposits to the tune of
12.57 crore and detection of unaccounted income to the tune of150 crore. The IT disclosure also revealed another aspect these firms had appointed agents who enroll poor villagers in West Bengal, Orissa and adjoining areas for these schemes, promising returns between 12-15%. “In our case, one so-called agent, Saibal Ghosh, has himself lost several lakhs,” said Mahapatra.On December 23, 2009, the state assembly unanimously passed the West Bengal Protection of Interest of Depositors in Financial Institutions Bill, 2009, which now awaits Presidential assent to be a law. The Bill envisages a life-term for all convicts.
To Your Success in Business & Health in Life,
Ak Sharma Editor,You can reach me at [email protected] or connect with me on Facebook -
Stock Guru India Scam Exposed
New Delhi,
Check this video, how a news channel exposed Stock Guru India Scam.
It has left thousands of people in the lurch.
The Delhi office is locked.
Angry people are asking for hard earned money.
Company say’s that they are under Income Tax department radar.
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Speak Asia given court notice at Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh
Gorakhpur: Online Survey Company Speak Asia online has sought delay from city magistrate on Thursday. City magistrates on Thursday arrived in the office of Regional Manager Anurag Corporation to meet him. Meanwhile, City Magistrate has served them with another notice with ten points and instructed to give their answer by Friday. (more…)
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How to avoid scam in MLM
Know you company in Network marketing (MLM)
Banking sector in India has initiated ‘KNOW YOU COUSTOMER FIRST’, why can’t we do the same in Multi-Level Marketing (MLM). I have come across many networkers who are interested only in companies, who are doing ethical business, for some it does not really matters; they are interested only in quick money. Some in Network Marketing business question, the whole concept of ethics in MLM.Do ethics still exist in today’s competitive market? Where everyone is in the league of cut throat business. I would say yes, it is not for how long that company remained in the market, keeping ethics forefront and collapsed after some time.
Question is, when an MLM company collapses, the people who joined at the bottom, feels cheated. Mostly the reason, why an MLM company collapsed is due to these reasons:-
- Distributing more money to associates than actually collecting.
- Business plans sound very lucrative, but for longer run, it cannot sustain.
- New joining rate is very slow; companies with sound business plan needs a minimum joining rate in a month to sustain.
- Are they following ethics and business conduct in case of fraud done by an associate?
- Check their registration, whether they are registered in your country.
- Are they registered with DSA & DSAI; it’s always better, but not mandatory.
- Know the intentions of people who are running the company.
- If you find anything suspicious, get it verified independently, rather by your uplines.
- Check it on Google, like type your company name and scam eg, (company + scam)
- Talk to top achievers, figure out what they are upto.
Everyone in this business has good potential, but every time after some time joining a new mlm company and then creating a team is a daunting talk, be careful about your company. It’s better to be a slow learner, but take your steps wisely.
Share about your MLM company in the comment section.
To Your Success in Business & Health in Life,
Ak Sharma Editor,You can reach me at [email protected] or connect with me on Facebook