Thursday, December 2, 2010

How to Detect Fake MLM Companies

How to Identify Fake MLM Companies

1) ADDRESS: Physical address is the first thing that you should find out about an MLM Company. The company must have a physical address, phone number and email id. The office address must be real and not just a virtual address. Many fraud companies post office address on their websites that cannot be verified especially the foreign ones. Some fraud Indian companies also run using foreign addresses. For example, www.wealthcare.mx posed as a Canadian company of 1972 but was later found out. Some company shifts their address frequently. This is a bad sign. MAHADEV ORGANISATION, a so-called NGO whose business was nothing short of a pyramid scheme shifted their office twice in 6 months before their owners absconded

Bad Sign: If a company has no physical address, their phone lines are dead for many days, do not exist, if they don’t reply to your email, then something is not right.

2) Companys Registration: This not really significant keeping in mind the fact that even registered companies disappear but not having a licence is worse. Not only this, many foreign companies have members in India but no branch office in the country; that is understandable. However, if there is a branch office in India then having the required licence is must. If they don’t, then run away from such companies. Unipay2U has all the documents and licences required to do business in India. There is also an office in Guwahati.

There was this news that QuantumFundsOnline would open a branch in Mumbai in April 2010 but when I searched on the MCA website, I didn’t find any such address. They certainly don’t have the required licence to do business in India. Today there are two websites for QuantumFundsOnline, one ending in .com and the other in .us; each claiming that the other is fraud.

3) Pyramid Scheme: Check before joining an MLM company whether they have products or not. Any MLM company without products are known as a Pyramid Scheme (also called Ponzi Scheme). In a Pyramid scheme, a member earns money only when he introduces a new member. If a member doesn’t introduce any member, then earning stops and finally the company disappears. Who suffers? The new members of course! It is said that 2/3rd of the members suffer in such schemes. Companies like Amway, Oriflame, Unipay2U, etc. are not Pyramid/Ponzi Schemes; they have products. In other words, even if you don’t introduce any new member, you can still earn money by selling their products. Unipay2U’s product is GOLD which can be resold. In order to buy gold from Unipay2U, you don’t have to re-register again until you cross a certain limit. This is done in order to stop money laundering. Many MLM companies give gifts at the time of registration but please bear in mind that those gifts are not products. You can sell your gifts but in order to buy another ‘gift’ and resell again, you have to re-register AGAIN.

Some cheap MLM companies sell products which are of poor quality. If this is the case, then it is a bad sign too.

When I was in Manipur, I joined one such scheme 7-8 years ago. I have forgotten the name of the company. They didn’t have any product. Earnings merely depended on new registrations. Well, it didn’t last long; it disappeared in a few months after my joining. I even registered with one Mahadev Organisation in Guwahati in order to please a friend of mine. Moreover, the registration fee was only Rs 150. It was a complete case of Pyramid scheme. In their own brochure, it was clearly mentioned that withdrawal of earnings depended on number of registrations. Well, after someone months and after shifting their office twice, the owners absconded with the loot.

4) Legal Advisor: This is not really significant but if a company has a legal advisor then it is good. At least the administration knows where to go if they need some legal advice.

5) Your Upline: Please make sure that whatever your upline says about the company, especially about earning a lot of money, is true. Again, if the company is giving too many incentives for introducing new members, then that is also not a good sign. Many uplines just exaggerate about earnings; some of them even hide some facts about the company.

I was told that www.quantumfundsonline.com (QFO) is a website for Indians. When I asked about the main website of the company, then the reply I received was that he didn’t know and that his upline told him that the above mentioned site was for Indians only. See! How hollow it sounds! Run baby run! A leader of this company in Guwahati even showed me a ‘dossier’ on George Soros, who they claimed, is a billionaire and the owner of the company. It is a fact that Mr. Soros is indeed a billionaire, but he is certainly not the owner of QFO. There is nothing on QFO website to indicate that he is indeed the owner.

Are you sure that your Upline is not fooling you?

6) Website: Website is a place to look for information, right? Now, there are some MLM companies whose websites look so unprofessional. More importantly, the English they use is of poor quality. If you find such sites where there are full of spelling and grammatical mistakes, RUN! Another thing, if you visit a website and find no information but you see two slots to enter your login id and your password, RUN AGAIN!

Support2Win is one example I can give of. The site is down now and investors have lost money. The site has no information about their business but just two fields to enter login id and password.


So before joining any MLM company, please make sure that the company meets all the conditions mentioned above.

If I find more conditions, I will add later. Till then..........

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