Scam Detector

PM-International was founded in 1993 in Germany by Rolf Sorg. According to the company's website it's one of Europe’s largest direct marketing companies in the areas of health, wellness and beauty. Rolf Sorg, the founder. What's the deal with those freaking hand signs and MLM nowadays? "L" for losers? The company markets nutritional supplements (the FitLine series) and skin care (the FitLine skin series). All in all PM-International runs a very typical MLM business selling overpriced products and having an army of independent sales representatives doing all the dirty work for the company. This way the operation of the company itself is legal and everything goes by the books... or should we rather say in the gray area of empty bookshelves. PM-International has been operating also here in Finland for several years. It has a highly profitable business which sold about 15 million euros worth of products profiting about 1.8 million euros in 2018 alone. A...

Zinzino - a scam or a scheme?

Zinzino itself appears to be somewhat legitimate firm offering overpriced products via MLM. However the business relies heavily on the pyramid scheme structure built by Zinzino's partners. The business has been running in Finland since about 2010 - probably a year or two before that but after 2010 it started sort of booming. They went nuts recruiting people with false promises of easy and massive incomes. The top of the Finnish pyramid made its best to give the impression that anyone could achieve those passive incomes with Zinzino. However after years have passed it has become clear that Zinzino is not a way to a glamorous life. It turns out that the independent partners are struggling to make any money at all with this scheme. Let's have a look at some statistics: Zinzino's 2014 annual report reveals that in 2014 there was 1.701 new partners recruited. In the previous year (2013) 1.661 new partners were recruited. That sums up to 3.362 partners in just two ye...

Putin's Russia is a scam

I never thought that I would be writing about something like this on my blog. I mean I blog about scams – pyramid scams, ponzi scams and their hybrids known as ponzi pyramid scams. However, Putin has scammed entire nation to invade another country, killing innocent people including women and children in the process so I think that certainly needs to be talked about. In a way this might be the biggest scam ever. It's not news that his actions have been criticized in the western world for quite some time, running his regime like a dictator and accused of having opposing politics silenced or even killed, thus making sure there isn't much opposition threatening his throne. Meanwhile in the western world there hasn't been much except harsh words against Putin's actions. Russia is Russia. However, a week ago everything changed – and I mean everything. On February 24 Russia commenced a full-scale military attack on Ukraine. Russia had already build up a lot of tension by surr...

OneCoin was trying to recruit a blockchain specialist last year

I bumped into an interesting piece of information last night while reading comments posted under a blog post about OneCoin . A Norwegian Bitcoin Blockchain Specialist commented that at some point last year OneCoin had tried recruiting him to create a blockchain for the company. After reading the comment I contacted Bjorn Bjercke to find out what had happened. Bjorn let me know that last year he was approached by a Japan based recruiting agency ASENSHIA with this message: "We are currently working on a C Level search that may interest you. Can you suggest when you may be free for a call and the best number to reach you on?" "C Level" refers to a top position in a company. The conversation between Bjorn and the agency continued via phone. He was then introduced the idea of becoming a blockchain creator for a company. Bjorn Bjercke: "We spoke on the phone, where he laid out all the details but held back that it was OneCoin to the end." He was ...

Recyclix scam preparing relaunch as Replastics?

Recyclix was a scam company who claimed returning sizeable profits from recycling plastic waste. The company was luring people to invest money through "crowd funding", which was actually just a pyramid scheme to rapidly grow the number of investors. As many of the scams nowadays, Recyclix was a combination of a ponzi and a pyramid scam. The ponzi part of the scam was the mere fact that the company wasn't even doing any plastic recycling. According to Polish media Recyclix didn't even own any recycling plants . Albeit the company had no recycling business going on, it managed to fool a large number of victims all over the world to invest to the ponzi via a pyramid scheme. To fool its investors Recyclix went as far as participating recycling related fairs having its booth quite regularly appearing among real recycling companies. In fact this was a genius way to increase the credibility of this scam in a low cost way. The scam participating a fai...

Onecoin - there is a lesson to be learned

In the beginning the message was: OneCoin sells education not coins. This message is still the selling point they offer. Strangely enough OneCoin's Finnish Country Manager Tommi Vuorinen has several times admitted in public that selling education is only to avoid problems with financial supervisory authorities. However despite selling education was so important to OneCoin they made some additions to their product line by the end of 2015 adding educational packages with no education. There was Festival package for 18.000 euros and I think the 100.000 € Elite Trader package emerged during the end of 2015. Those packages include no education what so ever. Neither does the 25.000 € Infinity Trader package which came to replace the Festival package in the beginning of 2016. Looks like they care even less about authorities nowadays than before. It must be due the surpise that the ponzi is still running. This is what you get for 25.000 euros. I guess they ran out of bullshit to co...

Ruja Ignatova was part of BigCoin scam before OneCoin

Here's a video proof that Ruja Ignatova was participating BigCoin scam before OneCoin: This certainly conflicts with Ruja's statement that OneCoin was the first time she was messing with MLM pyramid structure. Apparently BigCoin was not a great success because it's hard to find much information about it on the internet. Looks like Ruja would be more than happy to forget this venturing into cryptocurrency business prior to scamming with OneCoin. Here is Sebastian Greenwood at the same event: Another video where Ruja can be seen handed some award from ponzi business (update: unfortunately the video has been removed): It had been buzzed about on the Internet that Ruja (as well as Sebastian Greenwood) were linked to BigCoin. However as far as I know there was only a little evidence supporting that Ruja had a role in it. Looks like OneCoin was not the first "centralized cryptocurrency" after all. They just stole the idea from BigCoin and c...

OneCoin's DealShaker would be better called DealShitter

16th of February was the day OneCoin finally launched the highly anticipated DealShaker platform. A platform for individuals and business owners to sell their products and services using onecoins and optional euros for transactions. During the first two weeks her dictatorship only charged 25 % of the cash part of any deal made. - Wow, so much generosity! After March 1st 50 % of all cash goes directly to Ruja's purse. This is only fair, because it's a ponzi. The terms and Conditions of DealShaker state: "Regular Advertising Fee is calculated based on the Cash Value of the Promotional Deal Offering Price. Until March 1, 2017 the adv. Fee will equal 25% of the cash value. Featured Deals Advertising Fee is calculated based on the Cash Value of the Pormotional Deal Offering Price and will equal 50% of the cash value of the redeemed Deal Coupon Price. Featured Deals Advertising Fee will require that the Cash Value of Promotional Deal Offering Coupon Price constitutes a...

Bunny Token scam

I was watching YouTube a couple of days ago when an ad video promoting BunnyToken emerged before the actual video started. The content of the ad video was so scammy that I had to dig out more information about the scheme. I was also baffled if this actually was a scam advertising itself boldly on YouTube. What is Bunny Token Bunny Token is marketing itself as the mainstream payment system of the future for adult entertainment industry, providing anonymous and low cost transactions. Considering the somewhat direct approach to the subject, they strangely seem to have forgotten to put the word "adult" before "entertainment industry" on their website. Bunny Token is based on Ethereum blockchain technology. The Initial Sale of Bunny Tokens launched on the 13th of March, 2018. The sale will continue until the 25th of May, 2018. There is going to be 1 billion tokens issued. According to bunnytoken.com the company behind Bunny Token is Bunny Software...

OneCoin was trying to recruit a blockchain specialist last year

I bumped into an interesting piece of information last night while reading comments posted under a blog post about OneCoin . A Norwegian Bitcoin Blockchain Specialist commented that at some point last year OneCoin had tried recruiting him to create a blockchain for the company. After reading the comment I contacted Bjorn Bjercke to find out what had happened. Bjorn let me know that last year he was approached by a Japan based recruiting agency ASENSHIA with this message: "We are currently working on a C Level search that may interest you. Can you suggest when you may be free for a call and the best number to reach you on?" "C Level" refers to a top position in a company. The conversation between Bjorn and the agency continued via phone. He was then introduced the idea of becoming a blockchain creator for a company. Bjorn Bjercke: "We spoke on the phone, where he laid out all the details but held back that it was OneCoin to the end." He was ...